Opening Statement — Commonwealth

MR. BRENNAN: Thank you, Your Honor. At 6:04 a.m. on January 29, 2022, the alarm bell sounded in the Canton Fire Department. Firefighter Paramedic Timothy Nuttall knew what that meant. His heart skipped a beat. He raced to his equipment and he picked up his back, which was meticulous. There was a sign and a signal, and there was a voice commanding that there was a cardiac arrest, the most serious of calls for a firefighter paramedic. That means that a person's heart was stopped. He didn't know who it was. He didn't know where it was. He took his bag, and he juts out of the station and he rushed to the ambulance. He was one of the most senior paramedics that morning. Another paramedic, Anthony Flummatti, will be running this mission. He jumped in the back of the ambulance, the door shut, and they headed off to 34 Fairview Road. As they drove, Firefighter Nuttall could not see anything. He couldn't hear anything, other than the engine of the fire -- of the ambulance.

He could feel it sliding across the road. It was near blizzard conditions. He calmed himself; he steadied himself. This is what the firefighters and paramedics are trained to do: focus. And he focused on his task. He looked around the back of the ambulance to make sure all the tools were in place. The ambulance was meticulous as well. This was Anthony Flummatti's ambulance, and it was well-stocked. He calmed himself and he thought about what was going to happen: What should he be looking for? What is his next steps? He played the scenarios through his mind, an eerie calmness about him. As the car pulled up to 34 Fairview, the ambulance, he stood at the back door and the door's opened, and he stepped out into bedlam. He could hear a woman screaming and shrieking, the cold hard air slapping on his face, and the wind, blizzard conditions, swirling around him.

You will hear him tell how he trudged towards those screams in the darkness of the snow, and when he got there, he saw three women surrounding a man lying, not moving, on the ground. He walked up to the man and he reached down and he tried to find any signs of life - a pulse, anything - and he found nothing. And he got up and he walked over to the women and he walked over to defendant, Karen Read, and he told her that he thinks that that man was gone. And then he heard the yell from Anthony Flummatti, the chief, and he said, "Come back. Let's go." Because you'll learn that in the cold, even if somebody's heart stops, even if they're presumed to have passed, sometimes you can still save a life. So you'll see on a dash cam video, and you'll hear from testimony, he went back to that man who was John O'Keefe. He went back to him and that crew, a coordinated effort, they did everything they could to save his life. They got on their knees.

They began CPR, and Firefighter Nuttall will explain as he kneeled over John O'Keefe, he looked up and the defendant approached him. And you'll see it on the video. Now, he wanted any information because when you're trying to save someone you want to know, are they on drugs, medication, do they have a heart condition. And he looked up at Ms. Read, and he said, "What happened?" And you'll hear her words through Firefighter Nuttall, she said, "I hit him. I hit him. I hit him." And it was at that time, through the words of the defendant, that she admitted what she had done that night, that she hit John O'Keefe. Now, those words didn't mean anything to Firefighter Nuttall. They weren't in context. They didn't reconcile with the injuries. They didn't help him with his treatment so he ignored it. Now, Firefighter Nuttall is not a police officer. He is not an investigator. He is not a detective. He is a first responder.

And so he takes that information, it was useless to him, and he continues to work on John O'Keefe trying to save his life. You will see the team put him on a stretcher, and when they lift him from the ground, even though there is snow accumulating, underneath John O'Keefe is simply grass, hard ground frozen. Underneath his body lay his cell phone. They bring him to the ambulance. And when they bring him to ambulance, you'll see on the videos that other first responders speak to the defendant. One first responder, Mr. Flummatti, she will say, "I hit him. I hit him. Oh, my God. I hit him." And then she was interviewed or asked questions for background information, not a criminal investigation, just background to try to help John. And

MR. BRENNAN: she was asked questions about his background. During that conversation, you won't hear it but you'll see, the defendant with a person by the name of Jen McCabe and Firefighter McLaughlin, and she tells Firefighter McLaughlin, the third first responder, "I hit him." They bring Mr. O'Keefe to Good Samaritan Hospital and his body is cold. The doctors work feverishly. They treat him trying to save him. They try to warm his core, and unfortunately, Firefighter Nuttall's first instinct is accurate. John O'Keefe passes. So why are we here today? We are here today because John O'Keefe was killed by the actions and conduct of that defendant, Karen Read. You will learn through this case facts, through facts, science, and data, you will learn that on January 29, 2022, when the defendant and Mr. O'Keefe were in front of 34 Fairview Road, all the way to the left side in a dark corner near a flagpole, you will learn that Mr. O'Keefe got out of the car.

He got out, and he stood by the side of the road after an argument with the defendant. That argument and that anger fueled by heavy intoxication, you will learn from the science and data as he stood by the side of the road, the defendant in her SUV drove away. She drove at least 35 feet away. The argument was over. It had ended. But then she stopped. She stopped. She put the Lexus into neutral, and she waited two minutes. And the facts and the science and data will tell you that despite the fact the argument was over, she then put the Lexus into reverse, put her foot on the gas pedal, and began to press not 25 percent, not 50 percent, up to 75 percent acceleration. There was a light dusting of the snow. The Lexus tires spun backwards. She went backwards at least 70 feet. She clipped John O'Keefe. He fell backwards, hit his head, broke his skull, and there he lay at the corner of Fairview Road on the ground lying on top of his cell phone alone.

And then the defendant will later tell that when she left, he didn't look mortally wounded, yet he was, and she simply drove away. Now, before I tell you about the data and the facts and the science and I walk you through that, I'd like to tell you a little bit about John O'Keefe. John O'Keefe was a young man, a local kid. Very well- liked. Well, John O'Keefe is the son of Peggy O'Keefe, John O'Keefe, Senior, and the brother Paul O'Keefe. He grew up in Canton, worked hard. He became a police officer. But what you're going to learn the fact that he worked for the Boston police officer -- as a Boston police officer was just a fraction of his life. It was a small, really unimportant part, because the biggest part of John O'Keefe is he was a family man. Not in the traditional sense. You see, John O'Keefe never had biological children. John O'Keefe was never married.

But John O'Keefe had a sister and she had two children, and when the children were six and three years old, his sister, unfortunately, died. And shortly after, the sister's husband died. Now, John O'Keefe was at home. He didn't sit by. He saw these two recently orphaned children, and he stepped in and he said he was going to raise them. So he put aside his career, and he put aside his job, and he moved in with the children and he raised them like they were his own. They were his passion, his love. He was a new parent. There's successes, failures, like all parents, and he raised the children with help of people in the community, with the help of his brother, with the help of his family. And they lead a good life. Enter Karen Read. Around COVID, the defendant and Mr. O'Keefe reacquainted, and they started a relationship. And you'll hear that even though the defendant had her own home, she was staying with Mr.

O'Keefe a lot - four, five, six times a week, and to most of the world, it was a pretty good relationship. They spent time together. They did activities with the children together. She helped with driving the children, feeding the children. It was a steady relationship until about the beginning of 2022, and then things began to unravel. There was tension. There was arguments. In fact, just a few days before this incident, you will hear that Mr. O'Keefe asked her to leave, but she wouldn't. You are going to be able to read text messages of their conversations on January 28, 2022, and you will see the tension and the unraveling of the relationship. You will read about the discord between the defendant and Mr. O'Keefe. You will see that when he would ignore her calls,

MR. BRENNAN: they would become incessant. When he would try to push away, she would come closer. You will read those text messages, and you will realize that this was the beginning of the end of this relationship. That night, they decided they would go out together. And I want to tell you something about data and science before we get into that night. I mentioned that underneath John's body was a cell phone. A cell phone is an amazing piece of technology. It is like a computer. It carries extraordinary data, and when they found the cell phone, the only thing companion with John O'Keefe that night, they studied the cell phone, and there will be some remarkable data that you will use in this case to find the truth. I want to mention three different things you will find in the cell phone that are critical to this case. And the first is called location data. Waze we've all heard of, Google maps, well, at some point that night, John put his Waze on. And Waze is like a breadcrumb.

It'll show you exactly where the phone goes second by second. It is the strongest, most accurate location data that you can have, and that night John was using Waze. It also will have healthcare data. Healthcare data will show when somebody is moving. Sometimes it's qualified as steps, but it doesn't necessarily mean someone is stepping. They can be moving their arms, walking, turning. It doesn't show what direction or how far, but it shows movement of a person. Health data. And the third thing, remarkably there will be an expert in this case who found a data file in the phone and it tracks the temperature of the cell phone battery. That will be critical to your analysis of this case, the temperature of the cell phone battery. And so with that, I want to take you back to the timeline of that night. After the discord, both the defendant and Mr. O'Keefe decided they would meet at a bar called McCarthy's. Now, McCarthy's is a local bar.

A blizzard is pending and people are getting together in a celebratory mood. They go to my McCarthy's, and you'll see a video of McCarthy's, and you will watch Mr. O'Keefe, friends, and the defendant drinking alcohol, and you will count eight vodka drinks that the defendant drank. They arrived at 8:50. They stayed until 9:45. She consumed at least seven of those drinks in less than two hours. The last drink you'll see where they leave the bar, she puts it under her jacket, and they walk out as they go to another bar and meet other friends called the Waterfall. They reach the Waterfall sometime around 10:00 p.m., and when they go into the Waterfall, you will see a video. And when I said celebratory mood, you will see a group of friends of John O'Keefe, many who were friends with Karen and John, and you'll see them clapping and happy and, joyous. You'll see many hugs between John O'Keefe and his friends and the defendant and many of the people there.

And they spend some time together, there's drinking, and they all do a shot. That will be at least the eight drink within three hours that she consumed. You will see from the data, not just the cell phone data, but there's some other very important data and the other piece of data that goes hand in glove with the cell phone is information on the defendant's Lexus vehicle chips. You might've heard a black box in an airplane when there's some type of event, it captures a small amount of time, well, that was captured in the defendant's Lexus. That black box of information with the cell phone data will tell you everything you need to know in this case. It will bring us step-by-step through the entire night to the death of John O'Keefe.

And so they leave the Waterfall bar at 12:12, and you will see that the ignition goes on to the defendant's Lexus, and both John O'Keefe and the defendant in the car, and they decide that they're going to go back to 34 Fairview Road, where we talked about earlier. They're going to go there for a get together for one of the homeowner's sons who's having a birthday party. And so as they drive back, you will be able to follow them through this location data. When they go back to Fairview, they don't know exactly where it is and they get lost. And so John O'Keefe makes a phone call, and the phone call is with one of his friends, Jen McCabe. And during that phone call, which the defendant listens to because she recounts it, in trying to get directions, Jen McCabe tells John O'Keefe, "It's near (c) 's mom's house." You'll learn

MR. BRENNAN: that (c) or her mom was somebody that John had dated before Ms. Read. And so as they make their way to Fairview, you will see that there's a road that comes back, a loop and that leads to Fairview. They take a wrong turn in the loop, and then they do three point turn in the driveway. You will see the exact, precise driveway they turn into because some type of acceleration will then trigger that black box in the Lexus. And that's important because it's seven minutes before the collision. And you'll see from the Waze exactly where the car was. You'll see from the black box the event of the three point turn in the driveway, and then they turn down to Fairview. But before they get there at 12:23, a truck was coming the other way. And the witnesses in that truck will say they blinked the lights. One of them saw a man and woman in the car, John and the defendant, and then they followed the Lexus because they were going to the same house.

The truck stopped at the driveway and the Lexus, the defendant's car you will hear, because of the Waze, would be counting second to second, never stops, it rolls very slowly all the way to the end of the yard in the corner where there's a tree line and a flagpole, and they reach that location at 12:34:33, and they're in the car and they stay there. The truck waits. They speak to somebody in the house who comes out. The person goes back in the house and they're there for about five minutes. We're now down to two minutes before the collision. The truck leaves, and now it's just that defendant and John. And while they're waiting outside at 12:27, John gets a text from Jen McCabe. "Park behind us in the driveway." 12:29 she texts again, "Are you coming in?" You'll hear that Jen McCabe and others looked out the window and see the defendant's Lexus in front of the flagpole at the far end. It's snowy, it's dark, it's windy, they're waiting.

You will know that John O'Keefe was in that car, that Lexus and didn't leave because his healthcare data is not moving. It's not moving until 12:31:56. At 12:31:56 he begins to move. He will have 20 seconds before he falls. Twenty seconds. He gets out of the car, the Lexus, and in that 20 seconds, you'll hear that user initiated, he looks at the phone, at the text message from Jen McCabe. It is now 12:32:09. He closes the phone for the last time last time. It will be the last time he uses that phone. From the Waterfall Bar, you'll see that he keeps it in his back pocket. And at that time 12:32:09, the last user, he has seven more seconds, he will move before he lies dormant for the rest of the night. You'll also have the information from the defendant's Lexus the black box. Now, the clocks run differently. There's a 30 second variance, but it's right in the heart of that time.

And you will see through the data at that time when he makes his last moments with his phone is when her car leaves 34 feet at least stops in neutral, and then shoots into reverse with the tires spinning right towards him right where he got out. You'll know they're arguing because the next morning she tells the firefighter, "I'm sad because our last moments were fighting." She drives away. As I said, she's made later statements that when she left he didn't look mortally wounded. He lied on the ground on top of his phone, light dusting of snow. The snow now picking up, and he's just there. It's 12:37 at that point. When he's in the car before he gets to Fairview, the battery temperature of that phone is 77 degrees, 77 degrees in the warm car. Now that he's been outside the car for five minutes, it drops to seventy-two degrees. She drives to his house. She makes a phone call at 12:33 after she left Fairview. She calls again at 12:36:33 and leaves a message and you'll hear it.

And you will hear the anger and rage in her voice. She leaves a message, "John, I fucking hate you." Pardon my language. You will hear the simmering. And as she leaves that message, he lies on the side the road. He gets another text message that's unanswered from Jen McCabe, "Where are you?" 12:45, battery temperature is 61 degrees. It's snowing. He gets almost 40 calls from the defendant that night and his phone rings, but it never answers. You'll hear from an expert that the light never initiates healthcare data, it never moves. It is John alone with his only companion, his phone. At 12:53, his cell phone drops to almost 60 degrees. 12:59, the defendant leaves another

MR. BRENNAN: message on John's phone. Now, she hasn't spoken to anybody and nobody has spoken at her, but her message was telling. You'll learn the message says, "John, nobody knows where you are." And this is where the plot and the cover-up begins. The evidence will make clear that she knew he was there, but she did not call 911. She did not go back to him. She did not leave an anonymous email. She left him. The night wears on. It's now 1:07. The battery temperature 55 degrees. 1:14, she calls her mother. No answer. 1:14:53, battery temperature 50 degrees. The defendant had healthcare data on her phone as well, and you'll hear that it stops around that time, and you'll later learn that she admits to falling asleep or passing out, but then she wakes. It's five o'clock. She is frantic. She wakes up John's niece, and she is unintelligible. She is yelling. She's screaming. She asks for the niece to call Jen McCabe.

She calls Jen McCabe, and you'll hear Jen McCabe recount out of a deep sleep she wakes up and she hears, "Jen, Jen, Jen," screaming Jen's name. "John's dead." Hangs up the phone. Jen McCabe calls back, and then she's what's going on. And she's told, "Well, I left him at the Waterfall." That's the beginning of the cover-up. She tells Jen McCabe, "I left him at the Waterfall," and Jen calls back and says, "We saw you out front. You didn't leave him at the Waterfall." She hangs up. She, then, minutes later, calls another person, Kerry Roberts, a friend of John O'Keefe. Someone who is not friends with the defendant, but they know him because they helped raise the kids and they interacted. She had nothing to do with the night before. She wasn't at the bar. She was at home with her family. She calls her and says, "I think John got hit by a plow. I think he's dead." Now Kerry, with that information, calls 911. She calls hospitals. You can hear her voice. She's concerned about him.

And then she gets another call from the defendant, and she tells the defendant come to my house, and I will help you look for him. And the defendant says, "I was so drunk last night, I don't remember anything." Waiting for her to arrive, she learns she doesn't arrive. Instead, the defendant goes to Jen McCabe's house. Kerry Roberts, the other friend, then goes to Jen McCabe's house, pulls behind the car, and when she does, she's on Bluetooth, and she can hear the defendant saying, "My taillight's broken. My taillight's broken." And she looks and there's snow packed on the right taillight and she can see a piece of the taillight missing. The defendant desperately wants to go to 34 Fairview Road. Kerry Roberts takes over and says and says, "We're going to go back to John's house. Maybe he's in the house and you didn't see him." So both cars are driven by Kerry Roberts and then Jen McCabe, with the defendant, go back to John O'Keefe's house.

You'll see a Ring video where you'll see them go in the house and they look around. You'll hear about the women, Jen and Kerry, enlisted into this task look for John O'Keefe. They cannot find him, and then when Kerry Roberts comes into a room she sees, rather than looking the defendant simply standing there staring at the wall. At that point, the defendant insists they've got to go back to Fairview Road. They decide they'll take one car. Kerry Roberts is taking charge. She's going to drive. They leave Ms. Read's Lexus in John O'Keefe's driveway, and they drive back towards 34 Fairview Road. You'll hear there were blizzard like conditions. It is dark. They can barely see a ting. And when they get close to the edge of 34 Fairview, you'll hear the defendant started to scream, "There he is." Both women look and they can't see anything. She starts kicking the door. The defendant is kicking the door, "Let me out."

So Kerry Roberts stops the car and lets her out, and she sees the defendant run exactly to where John O'Keefe is in the darkness just where she left him. Kerry gets out of the car, starts to walk towards where the defendant is and she sees the defendant lying on a body. She can't tell who it is because the face is still covered with snow, and she comes over and looks and she wipes off the snow from John O'Keefe's face. She realizes it's one of her best friends in the world - it's John O'Keefe. And she starts to try to do first aid. It starts movement. And coincidentally, at 6:06 when they start to move him, the cold air hits that cell phone battery and drops from 50 to 43 degrees. And they try. Jen McCabe

MR. BRENNAN: calls 911. And that's when a police officer arrives, Firefighter Nuttall and his crew. And when they lift him, that cell phone battery that shot down to 37 degrees, Kerry Roberts picks up, puts it in her pocket, and it immediately starts to warm as she moves, the health data showing movement starts again. At that point, nobody knows what happened. The Canton Police Department come. You can see their police cars and their cruisers. They're not sure so they look in the area where John's body is, and they find a glass from the bar near his body. They find blood spots. They try to put the blood spots in plastic containers. They don't know what they're looking for at this point. There's no information. They don't believe or know that there's a crime. They just know that John O'Keefe's somehow ended up here with the broken glass and the blood.

And so that morning, you can see the work of the Canton Police Department try to uncover a little bit around his body to see what they could find, which was very little. And then, Kerry Roberts goes and picks up Peg O'Keefe, tells her the news, and they go to the hospital. They go to the Good Samaritan Hospital and Kerry Roberts is walking, and Peggy O'Keefe is going to go see her son with her husband, and she walks down the hall, Karen Read is also in the hospital. See, there was some reports that maybe she was upset or suicidal, so they sectioned her. They put her in for evaluation to make sure she was safe. And you'll hear from Peg O'Keefe tell as she walked down the hall to go see her son, the defendant was screaming, "Is he dead? Is he dead?" And she walked by Karen, I believe she stopped and she said, "Karen, what happened?" And you'll hear that Karen who was excitedly yelling, "Is he dead?" stops her excitement, becomes stoic and doesn't say a word.

Peggy pays respects to her son, and then she has to go back home because she has to tell the children. Now, while she's out the Canton Police Department would send an officer to the house to make sure the children were safe because they're alone if they're home. And when the officer pulls in, he doesn't notice anything, but you'll see on the dash cam video, his dash cam video notices something, the taillight has a big missing piece to it. They can't find the children. Ultimately, Peggy comes home. A friend had taken them, and they bring his nephew home and he is distraught. And then Peggy hears a knock at the door. It is the defendant and her father. They want to come in. They come in. No condolences to Peggy, and they ask, "Can we go upstairs to John's room?" and she's busy consoling her grandson. They go upstairs. They're upstairs for about 15 minutes. They come down, and quickly they leave.

Now, they got there from I think the defendant's brother drove his wife and the father to that house. But when they leave, they take two cars. They take the Lexus with the broken taillight with them back to the defendant's father's house. And you will learn that when police start getting some of the information, they learn about the broken taillight, they learned information that she had told people that she had hit him, they went down to see her. And on the way down, they decided they would get a warrant to take the Lexus. When they get down to Dighton where the car is, you'll hear from Trooper Bukhenik, he took a look and he could see the missing piece of the taillight. They went in and spoke briefly to the defendant. They took the car. They brought it back to Canton.

And so what you'll learn from the forensic evidence that will help with the science and data is that not only was a cell phone left behind, but also around that area, broken taillight was littered around John O'Keefe's body, littered around that area. When they got to the hospital, they noticed there was a shoe missing. As time went by, snow melted. They found, in the investigation, they found the shoe on a little berm on the road between the street and the grass. You'll learn days later when they did a planned excavation, the found his hat frozen to the ground. Ultimately, they would find over the course of ten days as the snow melted almost all, every piece of that broken taillight in that area - the hat, the sneaker, and the glass. Where the defendant left Mr. O'Keefe behind, she took with her something of Mr. O'Keefe. It's called trace evidence. You'll learn on the back of her Lexus around the taillight area was John's DNA had stuck to the side

MR. BRENNAN: grasping one last piece of John O'Keefe's hair. Now, John O'Keefe fell backward and hit his head after he was clipped by the car. And you're going to hear from a very renowned doctor, a neurosurgeon, who has treated thousands and thousands of head injuries, and the wound on the back of the head when he fell backwards not only cracked his skull, called a basal fracture, it created an injury called contrecoup back when he was clipped by a car and fell backwards and hit his head on that hard rock ground. Remember, there's no snow. Just a dusting at this point. The back of his brain hits the back of his skull, bounces up, and when it bounces up, it leaves marks showing that impact. And this neurosurgeon will tell you, he's treated thousands of patients, that this injury to a reasonable degree of medical certainty is contrecoup caused by falling backwards and hitting your head. When the medical examiner for the state looked at it, they generally said blunt force trauma.

They had it as undetermined, so we brought it to a renowned surgeon who does exactly this. You're going to also hear from an accident reconstructionist whose name is John Welcher. He does not work for the state police or local police. He was hired to take a look at this case and the data, and he will come in and explain to you exactly what I talked about - how the data from that black box coincides with the cell phone and the movements of the car the moments before, during, and after the defendant struck John O'Keefe with her car. Now, just a few more things I want to share with you. There are three charges against the defendant in this case. The first one is second degree murder. When most people hear murder, they instantly think shooting somebody, stabbing somebody, planning to kill, deliberate premeditation. Her Honor will instruct you on the law.

I'm not going to trample on that area, but I can tell you clearly we are not going to try to prove that Karen Read tried to kill John O'Keefe. We're not going to try to prove to you that she intended or wanted him dead. That's not second-degree murder. What we will prove to you is she engaged in intentional act, driving back at him at that speed in a storm, in the dark, knowing that he had just gotten out of her Lexus. She intended that act which would cause a plain and strong likelihood of death. That's what we will prove to you with second-degree murder. Also, operating under the influence of alcohol/manslaughter. We will prove to you that she drove her Lexus recklessly. She hit John O'Keefe and she because she hit him, he fell back. She caused his death. The third charge is leaving the scene after knowingly causing death. Again, she hit Mr. O'Keefe with a car. She knew he was injured. She left him behind, and he died. That's what we'll prove.

This case will come down to the science and the data. Science and the data the cell phone, it is the best of historians. It doesn't suffer from intoxication. It doesn't suffer from memory loss. It does suffer from emotion and pride or prejudice. It is facts; it is data. And that facts and data will lead you to the truth in this case. But after Ms. Read was charged, she began what you'll learn is a campaign. A campaign to make public statements - "20/20," "Nightline," "Fox 25," a documentary. And we've had an opportunity to get many of those statements and the footage and we're going to show much of it to you. And her statements to you will confirm what you already know from the science and the data, what you will already conclude from the facts independent about what she did that night. Her word is simply confirmed that your judgment is sound, and you're going to hear from her own lips as many of her statements, her admissions to extraordinary intoxications, her admissions to driving the Lexus, her admissions to being angry at John that night. And I daresay, her admissions that she told that she had hit him. I'd like to play for you clip one, and you're going to hear the first of the statements that she made after she was charged.

MR. BRENNAN: Ladies and gentlemen, I simply ask you to follow the evidence, follow the science, follow the data, ignore speculation, surmise, conjecture. Stay true to the evidence. It will lead you to the truth that on January 29, 2022, a very intoxicated defendant was angry and arguing about the relationship with John O'Keefe, and after the fight was over, she left, but she brought the fight back to him in the form of her SUV. She clipped him. He fell backwards. He broke his head. And then this man, who helped, a lifetime of help, was left at the corner of that yard left to die with no help. The facts, the data, and the evidence will bring you the truth, and the defendant's own words will confirm everything you've already concluded.