Day 26 - June 17, 2024

ADA Lally resumes Trooper Joseph Paul's direct examination from the prior Friday, first clarifying that his vehicle testing occurred after Crime Services processed the Lexus. Lally elicits general testimony about contact damage, induced damage, and paint transfer in vehicle collisions, then connects the two EDR events at odometer mile 12,629 to specific locations — the three-point turn on Cedarcrest Road and the 24.2 mph reverse on Fairview Road. Paul delivers his ultimate conclusion: Karen Read's Lexus was traveling in reverse at approximately 24 mph over 62 feet when the right rear struck pedestrian John O'Keefe, projecting him forward onto the lawn of 34 Fairview Road. The vehicle continued in reverse and left the scene. Paul found no mechanical defects or environmental factors contributing to the crash. His testimony about an 'attentive and reasonable operator' is struck after defense objection.

Alan Jackson conducts an extensive cross-examination of MSP Trooper Joseph Paul, the collision reconstruction analyst. Jackson establishes that Paul holds no degrees in physics, mathematics, biomechanics, engineering, or kinematics — only an associate's degree — and cannot define basic concepts in the fields underlying his analysis. Jackson challenges Paul's determination of the area of impact by introducing a previously unaccounted-for piece of taillight debris near a fire hydrant, forcing Paul to concede he cannot identify a definitive point of impact. Jackson questions how O'Keefe could have retained a glass cup and cell phone while being 'projected' 30 feet, highlights that Paul's body-position measurements relied on Lieutenant Gallagher pointing at the ground without photographs, and demonstrates that Paul never performed the physics calculations he told the grand jury he would complete. Jackson also walks through key cycle analysis suggesting additional ignition events between the triggering events and Paul's testing, potentially placing the triggers during law enforcement custody rather than the alleged collision.

Ian Whiffin, a Cellebrite decoding product manager and former police digital forensics examiner, testified about his analysis of Jennifer McCabe's phone extraction. He examined multiple databases — history.db, BrowserState.db, the Mobile Safari plist, and KnowledgeC — to determine when the search 'how long to die in cold' was actually conducted. Whiffin concluded the 2:27:40 a.m. timestamp reflected when the browser tab took focus, not when the search occurred, and that corroborating evidence from the plist and KnowledgeC placed the actual searches at 6:23:51 and 6:24:18 a.m. He further testified that the deleted BrowserState record could not have been user-deleted, and demonstrated the tab-focus timestamp behavior live for the jury using his ARTX forensic tool.

Trooper Nicholas Guarino, a digital forensics specialist with the Norfolk DA's office, testified about his extensive but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to extract data from Karen Read's Lexus infotainment system using Berla technology and a chip-off process. He rebutted defense expert Richard Green's claims that Jennifer McCabe deleted Google searches and phone calls, explaining that the flagged items came from WAL (Write-Ahead Log) files that are automatically purged by the iOS operating system, not user-deleted. Guarino described extracting data from four phones — Read's, O'Keefe's, McCabe's, and Roberts' — and finding no evidence of data deletion from any device. The prosecution then used Guarino to read extensive text messages between Read and O'Keefe from January 28-29, 2022, depicting an escalating argument about their relationship, with O'Keefe repeatedly asking Read to stop calling and Read pressing him about whether he was still interested in the relationship. The final messages shown include Read texting 'I'm going home' at 12:55 a.m. on January 29th, followed by 'your kids are alone' and 'the kids are home alone.'