Day 20 - May 21, 2025

Day 20 opens with prosecution neurosurgeon Dr. Aizik L. Wolf, called out of order, who testifies that O'Keefe's fatal injuries — a linear basilar skull fracture with coup-contrecoup brain trauma — are consistent with a backwards fall onto a hard surface. Asked about a bat or hammer, Wolf says a focal hit would more likely than not cause a depressed skull fracture and notes that O'Keefe had none. He says raccoon's eyes usually develop in 24 to 48 hours but can appear in one to three hours; none of his comparable patients died within five hours. His opinion was that death was not immediate. On cross, Robert Alessi elicits that direct local force to O'Keefe's right upper-eyelid laceration was possible; Wolf does not answer whether it was probable and agrees the injury was unrelated to the backwards-fall mechanism he described. Christina Hanley's direct examination then resumes with instrumental analysis showing plastic debris recovered from O'Keefe's clothing was consistent with sampled plastic from the defendant's tail light housing, while qualifying that it could have come from another source with the same characteristics. She also testifies that six of nine scene glass pieces physically match the broken drinking cup. Jackson's cross uses a demonstrative chart to organize the glass evidence: two bumper pieces used for physical-match comparison had no physical match to the cup or compared road items, while bumper piece E was consistent in physical and instrumental properties with item 7-14. Hanley does not establish who physically recovered the scene items. On redirect, Hanley confirms that the chart omitted the tail light housing and clothing-debris items; after a brief recross, Hanley is excused and the jury is released a day early for the long weekend.