March 26, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, sits down with Linda Kenney Baden, a former prosecutor and private defense attorney to dissect the legal intricacies, discrepancies, and various ethical issues surrounding the trial of Karen Read. They cover the problems with evidence collection, the lead investigator's conduct, and the lack of a clear cause of death. Sheryl and Linda also discuss the role of experts in the retrial, what could be expected during the new trial, and the emotional toll on both Read and O'Keefe's families.
On January 29, 2022, Karen Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, with her SUV during a snow storm. Read's second trial is now set to begin with jury selection on April 1, 2025 after months of additional pretrial hearings following the mistrial.
Guest Bio and Links:
Linda Kenney Baden is a former prosecutor and seasoned criminal defense attorney known for her work on high-profile cases such as Phil Spector, Casey Anthony, and Aaron Hernandez. She is a contributor to Law & Crime and the Huffington Post, and co-hosts coverage on Justice Served TV. She brings decades of legal expertise to the public discourse on justice and ethics in the courtroom.
Listeners can learn more about Linda Kenney Baden at her website, on X @KenneyBaden
Show Notes:
- (0:00) Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
- (1:15) Sheryl welcomes guest, and former prosecutor Kinda Kenney Baden to Zone 7
- (2:00) Discussion on case coverage and high-profile trials
- (3:30) Analyzing the evidence and prosecution's strategy
- (6:30) Ethical concerns and prosecution tactics
- (13:15) “ I looked at what they did in the first trial, but I was stunned by what they didn't do.” - Sheryl McCollum
- (13:45) Glass evidence and shards that don’t match
- (15:00) Crime scene failures and inconsistencies
- (18:30) ”As somebody that's been in this business for 42 years, I have never in my life seen a homicide case with a lead detective that didn't go to the scene, doesn't have chain of custody, has a confession that nobody bothered to write down, has glass they can't explain, has an injury they can't explain, has a tail light busted they can't explain.” - Sheryl McCollum
- (19:00) Ethics of prosecutors
- (23:00) Battle of the experts
- (23:30) The Sandra Birchmore case
- (27:00) The Proctor factor - bias and controversy
- (30:30) Hypotheticals and jury considerations
- (36:00) Trial two predictions and new expert strategy
- (40:00) Trial round two - what to expect
- (44:30) ”40% of homicides go unsolved. You know, that's not a very good record. And also, 95% of convictions come from plea bargains, which is often coerced. It's like we have the worst of both worlds. We don't convict the guilty enough and we coerce the innocent too much.” -Bill Maher
- Thanks for listening to another episode! If you’re loving the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to Itunes and leave a rating and review!
---
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Col
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Karen Reid, Karen Reid, Karen Reid, y'all, this case right here,
y'all know it. She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston
Police officer John O'Keefe.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
With her SUV.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It was January the twenty ninth, twenty twenty two. She
left ing to die in the snow in a blizzard. Now,
that's what the prosecution is saying now. That first trial,
I predicted she was walking out of there. I did
not hear one thing that came out of that first
(00:42):
trial that led me to believe there was a murder.
We have an expert tonight to help us because, as
y'all know, she's being tried for a second time, which
I incorrectly predicted would not happen after the first trial.
I thought, there ain't no way they're gonna do this again.
(01:05):
They've lost the lead investigator. He wasn't fired yet, but
we all knew that was coming.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Y'all.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
This case has got drinking, a taillight, a dog bite,
cell phones, chain of custody, text messages, search warrants, a blizzard,
more text messages. Our guest tonight is a former prosecutor,
a private defense attorney. Somebody that you know, host on
Law and Crime contributes to the Huffington Post. They have
(01:35):
worked sex crimes, murder, death penalty cases, forensic issues, civil
rights issues, employment issues, and if that ain't diverse enough,
gender harassment issues. This person is one half of a
power couple. Honey tonight. I am so honored to have
(01:56):
Linda Kenny Biden, miss thing. It's Jersey Girl, Welcome to
Zone seven.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Can I come back like every day? I kind of
need that. That's like fabulous, Thank you so much, Cheryl. Yeah,
this is this case we've been covering. My stream partner,
I Michael Bryant, who has an Emmy. You know, God
forbid I should cover anything on a streaming channel because
I'm a lawyer, right, I mean I know about streaming,
but I do know a little bit about trying cases,
(02:27):
and we've been covering on Justice Serve TV. I mean,
I never thought i'd see a case that I probably
knew as well as any of the cases I've ever tried. Because,
as you know, Cheryl, we're all into it, as is
the whole world apparently the world.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And that's the thing you have been first chair with
Phil Spector, Casey, Anthony, Aaron Hernandez, just to.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Name of couple.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
But this case, I've never seen anything like it, especially
the way people are so rabbit about it.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, and you know, I'm probably one of the few
commentators that have ever tried a case against Alan Jackson. Right,
I had the hung jury in the first Specter case
against him. We have a great mutual respect for each other.
As a matter of fact, I think he was caught
outside the courthouse saying he loves Lidgetti Botten. But we
(03:22):
spent six months in a courtroom battling, you know, and
I had the hung jury. He is a terrific attorney
and he knows also how to get attention to cases.
He's had a number of high profile cases since he
left the practice of being a prosecutor a DA and
turned to a criminal defense attorney. And those skills transfer,
(03:43):
especially when you're as good as Alan Jackson is. But
I think it's everything in this case. Right, it has everything.
But what doesn't it have. It doesn't have a matter
of death. As a matter of fact, it has a
cause of death, but the cause of death can't be
attributed to exactly how it happened. Right, you have the
(04:04):
state's medical examiners, two of them, who say that the
manner of death is undecided, but what they do know
is that it's consistent. It could be consistent and be
armed with dog bites, but it's not consistent with being
hit by an suv. So how do you get around that?
As a prosecutor, Cheryl, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I don't know either, because I'm gonna tell you if
I could go back in time to twenty twenty one
and me and you could go to the plaza and
have a glass of wine, and I say to you, hey,
I've got a question for you as a former prosecutor.
If I've got a homicide and the lead detective never
went to the crime scene, and I don't have a
(04:46):
manner of death, and I don't have motive, and the
chain of custody is nothing. And the biggest statement that
was made that might be a confession nobody bothered to
write down.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Can you take that to trial? You'd laugh in my face.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Absolutely, absolutely, there'd be no doubt about that. And you know,
you just recited a litany of things that are wrong
with this case in terms of.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Why you're trying it.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
And there's a lot more because, as I say to people,
it's not whether you think she did it. It's not
whether you like her, it's not whether you hate Proctor.
The question is whether the state, the DA, the Commonwealth
can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed a crime.
I think let's start with the murder charge. No matter
(05:38):
what you think of this case, I think that's overcharged.
If I were the prosecutor, I'd say drop that charge.
Now drop it, because what are they going to try
to do, And it's clear they're still going to try
to do it? Say, well, she was mad at him,
he wanted to break up with her, you know, and
therefore she decided. Where there's all these people, one life
(05:59):
of everyone having a good time drinking, and boy did
they all drink, right, they all drunk. They all drank,
and they all a lot of them drank and drove
like it's like it's the thing up there, and uh,
you know, really murder, Come on, come.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
On, there's nothing, there's nothing that would lead you to murder,
not one shred.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And here's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I don't even know how it's ethical that you would
bring that back after the first trial.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
And that's a real issue that we're having in prosecutions
one of the things I want to do when I think, uh,
this would be a good roundtable for Cheryl, for you
and I to put together. It has to also do
with the ACEP Rocky case. The ethical decisions that are
made when you have a terrible witness. Okay, a witness.
So for instance, an ACEP Rocky admitted to perjury. All right,
(06:52):
that was a relly, right, And how do you how
do you without having an ethics review or ethics council
review on these cases, bring these cases forward or bring
these cases back to a trial. I think it's something
that has to be addressed because I think it's a
lot more serious than people know about. They just see
(07:12):
the case and they say, well, you know, the prosecutor
wouldn't bring in unless they had a case. Well, you
know that prosecutors bring cases sometimes they shouldn't be brought,
and defense attorneys sometimes win cases they shouldn't win.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
You know, it goes both ways.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
But the ethical duty always stays with the prosecutor on
whether or not the prosecution is ethical. And I think
here we have some issues with the in my opinion,
with bringing the special prosecutor Hank brettan who's a very
good attorney, despite what people say, who's a very good attorney,
and how he's trying the second case, I really have
(07:50):
some problems with it.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I do too, and I'll tell you I'm one of
those people. I rarely, you know, use words like accused
or you know, he might have or he could have possibly.
I tend to talk like the person did it, because
I would not push a case, I would not turn
(08:15):
something over to the DA that I wasn't one hundred
percent confident. So to me, you know, when I look
at the first trial, and I watched as much as
anybody probably watched, I was stunned that there was a
murder charge.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I was stunned.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yeah, and the lead investigator, we called him Undersice save TV,
the Procter Factor.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Okay, yep, those texts were terrible.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
But he decided, without having an autopsy, yet, without ever
going to the scene, without interviewing anybody, he decided sixteen
hours later that this was a murder and that she
hadn't done it.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
She done did it?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
So to speak right, without anything, without anything, uh and
all and uh.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It just it.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
It boggles my mind that, uh the Commonwealth who by
the way, I had great respect for when I was
in Hernandez. I actually tried Hernandez in Suffolk County, which
is right next to Norfolk County, uh and all, and
the prosecutors there were extremely uh ethical. They they tried
a case. You know, we could banter with them after
(09:27):
the trial at the court. And it was a serious case.
You know, Aaron was accused of a double homicide after
he'd already been convicted of a murder and we ended
up with not guilty. So and so the prosecutors, I
would say, had an edge up, but they had an
edge up ethically. And then the jury just looked at
the facts and said, no, you didn't prove the case
(09:48):
beyond a reasonable doubt. Here in Norfolk County, they're out
to get her. They've been out to get her, uh
and and you know, it's it's really the whole thing.
And that that's why I think there's this free Karen
Reid movement. And then you have I called the side show.
But in all these cases, the side show contributes to
(10:10):
what's going on, and that is there is a journalist, blogger,
Aidan Carney who gets a lot of people's ire up
is he's not shy about using words that maybe you
and I wouldn't use. But they're now going after him
for intimidation of witnesses. And one of them is like,
(10:33):
somebody testified and said tell the truth and that was
considered that's an intimidation charge.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I kid you not, Okay.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
So now they're trying to say that Karen Reid and
he had some type of collusion because they were talking
she was his source as a journalist, and trying to
bring that in for some kind of state of mind.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
But state of mind for what I mean.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
If you think you're being incorrectly charged, if you think
you're innocent and they're going after you, you're going to
use everything you can to try to get a not
guilty and including any help you can get from people.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Again, I know the word allegedly should be used, I
get it, But sometimes if you are confident, like with
OJ Simpson, I don't think I ever used the word
allegedly when I was talking about the double murder he
was charged with.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I spoke as though he did it.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Karen Reid. I've never done that because again, where is it?
Where is any evidence?
Speaker 4 (11:34):
And both of us, look, I call it as I
see it. People are stunned a lot of times because
I was a prosecutor. There's done when I say, oh,
no issue that person is, I mean, I have no issue.
I have no problem with that.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Okay, but on.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
This one we should all be having a problem. And
now you know, we see in the second trial that
the Commonwealth has hired the special prosecutor attorney named Haak Brennan,
who represented what he Bolger, you know, not not such
an innocent guy obviously, and and they're going after h
(12:08):
like like yesterday, not yesterday, but all week in court.
There's been in the past two weeks has been motion
hearings and the prosecutor has been bringing in is going
to bring in a former police officer who retired and
went into dog training as an expert in pattern recognition
for dog bites. Uh, they're good. You know, they're trying
to do a forensic odentology on a dog Chloe, and
(12:31):
Chloe is the German shepherd that was had bitten two people,
sent people to the hospital and was rehomed right after
the John O'Keefe was found deceased in the owner's yard.
And they're trying to do like forensic odentology on a
dog and match that. Now, Cheryl, you know that forensic
(12:51):
identology for those who don't know, it's a fancy word
for dentists, all right, And and it's about whether or
not there's bitemark matching. And it's been the subject of
a lot of convictions that have been reversed, in a
lot of discussion about whether it's junk science or not.
But that's in human bites. Can you imagine in a
dog bite?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, not at all. I looked at what they did
in the first trial, but I was stunned by what
they didn't do. For example, the glass shards, the pieces
of broken tail light, they did not line them up
(13:33):
with the injuries. And they didn't do that because I
don't think they can. If you look at the injuries
to his arm, you have several parallel lines parallel that
are going in different directions. There's not one piece of
glass that has two pronged out pieces of glass that
(13:54):
could make that incision. There's just not, especially not in
different directions at the same time, all parallel.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Right, you're absolutely right, and you know he was holding
a glass. And then you have the polycarbonate red tail light,
which now has a I think is a last count
with forty six pieces, forty seven pieces and forty eight pieces.
I've lost track. We actually adjusted to their TV, bought
that tail light and to break it you had to
like hammer.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Hammer it all right.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
And plus you know what got me.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I started looking at this case and we started discussing
this case when I was still hosting it Law in Crime,
And the first day I was on there was there
was about evidence collection in red solo cups and a
leaf blower, I mean, talk about blowing any evidence away.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
That's right, that's right, yep.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
And that's the thing when you're putting a case up,
you want to put your very best there. Well, again,
we have a lead detective that never went to the
scene off the back, never secured the home, didn't take
cell phones, didn't take witness statements for many of the
people inside the house.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
They have yet to.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Be able to explain to me or anybody else how
you have a police officer and a friend dead on
your front yard and you don't come outside.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Right And they never secured the scene either. And when
the scene was first was first looked at, there was
no polycarbonate anything from the tail light. And the only
time that later on they start appearing like for weeks
after the car had been taken into the sally Port
when one officer said that the taillight only had a
(15:40):
small crack with a little pinty piece out, which would
be consistent with her hitting the other car when she
backed into John oald Keef's car when she was at home.
Interestingly enough, the Commonwealth does not have that officer on
its witness list going to the second trial.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
He testified in the first trial.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
The defence now has him on the witness list because
they try to show that, you know, the scene was
made better for the state afterwards. But how you dom cases?
How do you not secure a scene they said it's windy,
Well then you put cop cars around.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It, right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
How do you not get a warrant.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
When somebody is dead on someone's front yard to say
from a judge, to say it's in the house right here.
It's very small. If he'd ever've been there, it's very tiny.
It's it's not a large area. When you look at it,
it's you know, it's like regular houses on a regular street.
How are you not going to warrant to go in
to look at what's inside the house when there's a
(16:38):
dead person on there. And you know, I say to people, look,
the state could try this case with this theory. You
know that maybe she calls him to fall he was drunk,
she never looked back, she never called. Maybe they could
try it on that theory, kind of like a negligent
manslaughter of sorts. But also so the defense could try
(17:01):
it on that theory too, that you know, he was
really drunk, right, and he fell backwards being drunk, hit
his head because he was so drunk. And then you know,
the people in the house who were supposed to were
waiting for him, they don't come out and look for him.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, that's crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
And after all the other first responders show up, they
still don't come outside. I don't know how that's possible.
I still will never be able to rationalize in my
head how you have a friend of yours dead in
the front yard of your home and you're not out there.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah. I agree, I agree with you. I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
And they were cops. They were all cops, you know,
or former cops. I should say cops are former cops
or related to cops. I mean, it's kind of incestuous.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It is, But you know you have a unique talent
on this case is that you can look at it
from both sides. You can look at it as a
prosecutor and a defensive So when you say there are holes,
when you say there are problems, when you're saying this
ain't adding up, people really need to listen to you, because, again, y'all,
(18:11):
I am not team Karen or team John. I'm just
telling you as somebody that's been in this business for
forty two years, I have never in my life seen
a homicide case with a lead detective that didn't go
to the scene, doesn't have chain of custody, has a
(18:33):
confession that nobody bothered to write down, has glass they
can't explain, has an injury they can't explain, has a
tail like busted they can't explain. I mean, the list
goes on and on, and for everybody walking around out there,
it ought to scare you a little bit that this
has not just gone to trial one time, but twice.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Yeah, and it's definitely going to trial. And you know,
and we talk about the ethics of prosecutors, and a
lot of people like to talk about the ethics of
defense attorneys.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
The ethics apply to both sides. And what we have
here too.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
As I said, you have two of the state's medical
examiners who said they can't say the matter of death
was homicide. They just can't, Okay, they can't even say
that the injuries are consistent with the SUV colliding into
John O'Keefe. All right, So that's like two strikes right there.
And then the Feds in an investigation. We really don't
know what the investigation was about. Everyone can speculate it
(19:28):
was about Karen Read, it was about the Canton police.
It could have been about something totally different, you know,
you know, it couldn't be anything relating to anyone in
the Canton Police Department or not. And they hired independent
biomechanical engineers who case the conclusion there's no way the
car had hit John O'Keefe. And now, you know, the
(19:51):
judge for some reason has severe concerns because after the
Feds had hired people, and you and I know how
the FEDS work. They don't share during their investigation with anybody,
and they don't tell you what's going on. They you know,
you you can give them stuff, but they ain't giving
you anything. I remember as a prosecutor when I had
(20:13):
to get something from uh, you know, the FEDS, and
they were like, no, no, I'm sorry, we have more custody.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
We're not letting you know when they're coming out there,
and I.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Assume they were being used as snitches. They just don't
give you anything, you know, all so so fine. So
when the investigation ends, they give they Then they do
give the defense the access to two reports that say
that are consistent with what the medical examiner said. Right,
the car can't be the SUV can't be considered the
cause of death. They don't have enough evidence, they don't
(20:44):
have a manner of death as homicide. And now the
prosecution after the judge said she had severe concerns because
there was a bill that was sent subsequent to the
trial in July, and the defense paid it, and I'd
pay it too, because at that point, you know, even
though they didn't paid by the government, they had testified
(21:05):
for the defense. You're going to need them in the
second trial. So there's no discovery at that point to
turn over, right, there's nothing. You're not in a trial
at that point, you're not going to go running and say, hey,
I got a bill from them. You know it came
after the trial, blah blah blah, and they're using it
to try to instead say well, there's unethical defense attorneys here,
(21:27):
and there's unethical experts in these ARCA people who were
hired by the Feds because they're trying to make they
knew they were trying to build. The judge seems to
have brought into it without ever hearing from the experts
to say, hey, no, that's not you know, you know
how businesses run. If I'm a business and I ain't
(21:50):
being paid by somebody anymore and I had to go testify, yeah,
of course I'm setting a bill right for my time
to whoever's still around, because that's how businesses make.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
A living and get paid.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So but they've imputed this wrongdoing, which I think is
really incorrect.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I think is really wrong.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
And now in order to get around all those issues,
the state has hired a neurosurgeon to get around the
manner of death by talking about the mechanics of the injury.
Is a way around the manner of death?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Now? Is that ethical?
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Okay, Well we can have that discussion, because maybe that's
maybe the judge would have great concerns about that. The
trying to get around their own people who hired by
the state, hired by the FEDS, with somebody who shouldn't
be calling a manner of death, and quite frankly, as
you and I know, legally would never be able to
say a manner of death on a death certificate.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
You know, you make me think of what's coming, and
what's coming is a battle of the experts. Now you
are married to doctor Michael Baden. Everybody as who that is.
I can only imagine the discussion y'all have at dinner,
and they are next level.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I'm just gonna say, because both.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Of y'all are at the height of your game.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I mean, that's all there.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Is to it.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Well, dinner parties are interesting, but you know, we keep
Michael's very close upd about his cases, which I try
to explain to people generally unless say these opens is
speaking about them, and I tell the funny story because
it's related to read in a way. There's a town
called Stoughton, and there was a young woman who was
killed several years ago, who died several years ago named
(23:37):
Sandra Birchmore. It turns out that the medical examiner and
one of the detectives in the Karen Reid case that's
name has come up. Lieutenant Fanning was in charge of
an investigation into Miss Birchmore's death and concluded it was
a suicide, that she was pregnant with the child of
(23:59):
another office served from one of the police departments, not
can but another police department. I believe it was in Stoughton,
if I recall. But this was has ended up being
a big deal because it turns out Michael had been
hired by the civil Attorneys to review the case and
he concluded, susy, guys, this ain't no suicide, baby, Okay,
(24:22):
this is a homicide. I never knew anything about it.
One day, we're at our cabin upstate and it's small,
but my office is downstairs. His office is upstairs, and
I hear the phone start going, going, going, And it
turns out that the defense of the Civil Attorneys had
released his report apparently to the Feds and all that
(24:43):
said this was a homicide, and the Feds had gotten
involved and hired their own forensic pathologists and confirmed that
it was a homicide. And as a result, there's been
an officer who's been arrested by the federal government because
none of the state prosecutors, none of the state's attorneys
the person or even concluded it was homocide. And so
(25:04):
you know, I never knew about it, and I never
know he's in the case. I never heard about the
case because he doesn't talk about them to me. And
people find that funny. Once they're in the news and
he's free to talk, he can talk. But if he's
hired by somebody, I don't.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Hear a word. You know.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Well, there's your ethical lesson for the day, y'all. But again,
if the two of y'all just hear about a case,
y'all can both speak to it at a level most
people cannot. And whether you're involved in the case or not,
I'm saying, when I think of this case, when I
watch the first trial, you want to.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Talk about being out gunned.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The state was nowhere near the level that the defense
was as far as.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Experts, just even as far as how you presented it,
how you cross examined. So I wonder, I wonder. You know,
the States said that they were going to present everything upfront.
They presented the medical examiner all up front, which is,
you know, a good way to do it if you
don't have a cause and manner of death that is
properly attributable, or if you have a cause of death,
(26:12):
but you know, the cause of death can't be a
tribute to the to the the vehicle, to the suv,
to the car in any way. So they decided, and
I thought, well, that's pretty you know that mister Lowley
is pretty ethical on that, on that, and then he's
stuck with Proctor, right, He's stuck with Proctor at that point.
(26:33):
But you know, you know, Procter was like, oh, I'm
so sorry. These texts were terrible. These were texts were awful. Yeah,
the fact that you know, I talked about her digestive issues,
which were serious. She apparently had like ten surgeries in
a very demeaning way, and oh yeah, it was very unprofessional.
But he presented him because I guess they thought it'd
(26:57):
be fine to present him with that in law. But
now I think they got so embarrassed that they didn't
take any action against him. And some of the people
on the witness list were on these horrible texts. No
one took any action against him until after this trial,
or you know, maybe at the end of the trial,
after he testified. So my question is, is the state
(27:21):
going to try to try this next case without using
Michael Proctor.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Right, Well, here's the thing. The defense is gonna call him.
So he's got to come back one way or the other,
because there's no way they're going to let that go.
Because those text messages alone. Forget how he treated the
crime scene in the case. Forget that he had his
mind made up within a less than a day. Forget
all that. Forget that the medical examiner told him it
(27:50):
looks like the guy's been in a fight. He went
somewhere else with it. Forget all that. Just in the
text messages to me when he talks about her help
that he hope he finds nudes, that he calls her
derogatory names, says she's crazy, and then talks about hope
she commits suicide.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
There is no way.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Those twelve people are not affected by one of those things.
Somebody in their friends or family group has committed suicide.
Somebody has mental health issues. Somebody's had somebody send a
nude of them to somebody they should not have, just
to embarrass or intimidate or humiliate them.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Somebody's got help issues. So forget HIPPA.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Forget you're violating that just as a human being, he,
I believe, is going to have every single one of
those juror members angry at him for it's over with.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I think the defense can get those text messages in. Well,
they're gonna first of all, they're going to call Proctor,
I mean, and he'll be he'll be hostile. He'll be
easy to declare a hostile witness. But even if he's not,
they get them in did you send this? Did you
send that? And I guess what the state's going to
do is try to say that no one who received
(29:11):
those messages were affected by them, and how they proceeded
with their investigation.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
How can you not be how can you have any
not be? You know? Yeah, and you're right.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
You brought up a point that the medical examiner said,
look like he's in a fight.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
It looks like these injuries.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Were caused by a fight, not by a motor vehicle impact.
So you know, she wasn't in a physical fight with him,
that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
So who was?
Speaker 4 (29:37):
If those were the injuries, if that's what they were
caused by, who was?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
And he can't take some people off the list because
he didn't interview him, He didn't look at their fists.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
He didn't look at their knuckles.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
Right, And I think there was some testimony that one
of the members inside the house had some bruising or
some type of infirmity to the knuckles, the knuckles.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Ye, I mean, it's just maddening when you think about it.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
I mean, they got rid of the dog, they got
rid of carpet, they got rid of flooring, and then
they just moved.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
House, right, I mean, come on, you're from New Jersey,
you know, you know that there are stories where you
hear this person did this and this and this and
a cover up, and it is so outlandish that it's laughable.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Here. It almost sounds.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Like this is a bad made for TV movie, right right,
And you.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Know, and you know, you look at it and you say, hey,
look what if this wor just an accident?
Speaker 3 (30:38):
What he felt?
Speaker 4 (30:39):
He was drunk and he fell, he tried to get
up and he fell again, you know, yeah, and A
and he hit his head and then they come out
at two o'clock and find him dead somehow they're looking
for him.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
What if they did do that.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
I'm making this up, but A as a hypothetical, hypothetically,
and they find their dead friend, A cop on their lawn.
There could just be a cap were up without even
being you know, been responsible for it, because hey, I'm
going to get blamed for a murder here. He's dead
on our long Hence, you know, how so long does
it take for someone to die in the snow? Type
(31:13):
google right question, so you know you can you have
hypotheticals that and I'm sure the jury probably went through
a lot of those hypotheticals.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
You know, they're in there saying what.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
The heck right? Right?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
And they made it clear the person they trusted the
most was the man in the street sweeping, right. They
kind of questioned the police officers on both sides, They
questioned witnesses on both sides, and family members. This was
the most honest person they thought in the whole thing.
And he said he wasn't there.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
And the defense found him the street sweeper, and he
apparently isn't on the prosecution's witness list this time now,
and he's on the defence witness list.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
And the funny thing about that.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Is that there was in the first trial and this
is not going to be allowed on this trial because
it's been agreed to actually buy the Comwealth investigator Proctor,
the lead investigator who's now been terminated by the Massachusetts
State Police, found guilty of two charges for specifications. One
of them, by the way, is that he brought disrepute
(32:25):
on the name of the Massachusetts State Police.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
That one doesn't do.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Anything for me, quite frankly, because that's like a cover
your ass one, right, you know, to me. But apparently
mister Yannetti, who's a well known defense attorney up there
and very well liked, met the street sweep and met
up with him so they could go to the scene
at a school parking lot. Right at the edge of
(32:50):
the school parking lot. It happened to be where somebody's
relative was related to one of the Alberts I believe
in the house. Therefore, therefore, Proctor had said that he
hates Yanetti because he thought that somehow Yanetti was trying
to intimidate his family by going to the place where
(33:11):
his family member worked. The witnesses the family member worked,
his friend's family member worked. He never went into the
mister never went into the school, never talked to anybody school.
All he was doing was meeting up with the parking
lot to meet the street sweepers. They could go take
him on the route that the street sweeper went that night,
which is something quite frankly, the prosecution should have found and.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Done right exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And you know, let's talk about Proctor being fired finally,
because I think this took a little bit of time.
It should not have taken this long, because his own
testimony should have been enough to terminating.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
I agree with you, and I think too, you know,
and I say this as a lawyer, I'm assuming, I'm
assuming that this just didn't all come about right at
the testimony, that this something was brewing, all right, because
he's also was a name in the Birchmore case tangentially,
I don't know how it was connected, but tangentially because
(34:14):
it was from a different police department, and you know,
you have that federal investigation that he did testify. Apparently
he didn't take the fifth on. So I'm assuming that
there was something brewing. And if there was something brewing
in terms of taking action against him, and defense wasn't
told at that time, that could have been Brady material
(34:34):
that was not disclosed. So I'm sure that defense would
be on this time now that we have this trial
board finding of you know that led to his termination.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
You know, and you know you think about it too.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
How silly you gave up your whole career, you gave
your pension, and now you've hurt your family have come
out to support you for what?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
For what?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yep? Because here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
If she was responsible in any way for his dad,
they could have got there, but they would have gotten
there with the proper charge. And if she's not responsible,
then we need to accept that and move on. If
it was a horrible accident, that's what it was.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
If it's a horrible accident that you think rises to
the level of manslaughter under the wall, then charge it
as that.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
You know, she called him John O'Keeffe.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
And you know, when I say this, I should remind
everybody just because we're saying, Karen Reid, it can't be
proven that she did anything.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
That does not mean.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
That both of us or anyone who talks about this
does not want justice from mister O'Keeffe. We want to
know what really happened to him. Was it just an
accident that he fall in his head?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Was he beaten up?
Speaker 4 (35:54):
You know, did somehow she caused his death in the
motor vehicle? We want to know what happened. But the
problem is this has been handled so poorly. I don't
think anyone's ever gonna know. But that doesn't mean we
don't feel for the family of Officer O'Keefe. We don't
feel for the fact that for his death there are
(36:14):
two separate things. There's this whole idea that because you're
saying somebody should not be found guilty, that you're not
then seeking justice for the decedent. That's simply not true.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Amen, And thank you for saying it that way, because
especially for the O'Keefe family, this is why to me,
what they're doing is horrible because I think they're gonna
lose again. I think they're gonna get kicked in the
gut again. And y'all, even if she's found guilty of something,
there's gonna be appeals. This thing is not over for them.
(36:49):
I'm telling you it's not gonna be over because now
that Proctor has been fired. In that report they said
that he's showed bias. Well, now is this whole second
prosecution just because somebody was embarrassed because they didn't get
something through the you know, to the goal line.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
It looks bad to me. From Jump Street. This is bad,
right right.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
It looks bad to me, and and you know they
try to make Karen read it looks bad with all
the phone calls she made after he didn't come home,
and she's looking for you, like, because she's pissed off
that she's you know that she you know, she's been
taking care of his kids and he's you know, out
running around. But it's clear from those phone calls, no
matter how uh, you know, emotionally charged, she sounds that
(37:38):
she didn't think he's dead because she's yelling at him
to come home and why are you doing?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
You know, and you know she's you wouldn't have made
you know.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I don't know, fifty phone call, whatever it was, it
was an inordinate amount of you know, this is not
like the one phone call you find where the you know,
the husband who has killed his wife. And I'm going
to just use that because I've seen so many cases
like that and called his own honey, honey, how are
you you know what's happening. I'll be home a little later.
(38:07):
You know that that phone call you know, you know,
you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
No, that's a brilliant point because she knows this is
potentially something law enforcement's going to want to look at.
And I mean she's cussing at him, she's you know,
she's going in and that is and if you look
at their pattern from what friends and family have said.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
That is how they do.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
They have huge fights, they love each other really fiercely,
then they have more fights than they love each other fiercely.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
That's their pattern.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
And you know, she was taking care of his children
and all of a sudden everyone in the family hates him,
including the kids. But at that time, I think there
was some early evidence that said everybody had loved her.
Everyone thought that she you know, she was helping, she
was doing a great job, she was terrific. And you know, yes,
the relationships start to go sour apparently in a Ruba,
(39:03):
although it was a long time before he died that
she sold that he was maybe with somebody else. Yeah,
it started to go sour, but lots of relationships go sour.
That doesn't mean in the snowstorm, you're driving your SGV
backwards to kill the person you know and then leave
them there to die. And it just doesn't it's the
two don't connect to a murder. And you know, we
(39:24):
also have the issue of the jurors coming out and saying, hey,
we found her not guilty on the first and the
third count, but the judge never told us we can
come back and tell anybody. And because the judge never
then brought the jurors in to question them or told
them that she suffers the effect of that. And that's
why I think the defense has gone to the federal courts,
(39:46):
which they're going to lose. By the way, they're going
to lose this motion to try to get the second
trial stopped for double jeopardy.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
What do you think is going to happen in the
second trial as far as experts.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
Go, Well, there are a lot of new experts we
have not heard. So let's start with the fact this
trial is going to take a lot longer. And with
Hank Brennan Esquire, who we've seen talk, he's more of
a defense attorney. He is going to cross examine a
lot longer, and a lot I won't say efficiently, but
(40:18):
a lot longer, a lot more like a defense attorney
in this case. And the defense has something like a
lot of new experts. They have one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven new experts like nineteen new witnesses and seven new experts,
including a digital forensic expert, a former FBI agent who's
(40:39):
going to talk about how bad the investigation is, another
video forensic because we have the issue of these cameras,
remember the Sally Port cameras. One of them was inverted,
the footage was missing, and then it wasn't missing, and
then it got transferred to another server. The defense had
(41:02):
been told about, but it got transferred by dragging and dropping,
so it ended up not being a really good forensic transfer,
and then it was found in the file of mister Procter,
the Proctor factor. They've also hired Elizabeth la Posada an
then the forensic pathologist from Rhode Island, Garrett Wing, a
(41:23):
K nine officer. They have a couple other other new experts.
That's just the defense and the prosecution also has new experts.
They have a new dog bite expert. They have a
new expert dealing with, as I said, neurosurgery and trying
(41:43):
to get around the fact that the manner of death
was not homicide by the forensic pathologists. So I think
that this trial is going to take a little bit
more different of a different look. You're going to see
as you point out the battle of the experts, but
you're also still going to see the fact that the
(42:04):
Commonwealth is not going to be able to explain how
that car looks like it's coming into the sally Port
with no tail light, completely fractured out into forty eight pieces,
and then how those pieces end up getting to the
crime scene when the crime scene had been looked at
(42:25):
at least initially, and there was none of those pieces
found at the time at the crime scene. And then
after mister Proctor who goes to the sally Port and
sees the car, and all of a sudden, those pieces
are now available at the crime scene. And I think
the defense is going to really lean into Proctor with that,
and I think that the prosecution and defense are going
(42:47):
to really lean into their experts a lot more in
this case.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Oo.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Well, y'all just heard it. I'm telling you. I told
y'all we needed her.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
And if that don't take something, Look, I just went
to a fabulous law enforcement training. It was only two hours,
but it was on how to present evidence to a judge.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
It was very specific.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
That don't make me ready to face Linda Kenny Boden,
You understand.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Me, Why are you as my expert? What are you
talking about? You and I'm doing a case and trying
a case and whether.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
You know, Oh no, we would have a great time.
But I'm saying two hours of training don't get you ready.
So I'm just saying, watch these experts and listen to
what their background is.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
It's going to blow your mind.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Yeah, yeah, we'll be we'll be covering it at in
addition to my day job of being a lawyer, which
he has on a full time law practice.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Uh, we'll be covering it a Justice Serve TV. We'll
try to cover it.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
And Cheryl would love you to come on and talk about,
you know, crime scene preservation and all because you're you're
the top.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
You know, you know how to do it. You teach
you how to.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Do you know, you know what when you see it,
that's the problem. Must get you really pissed off to
see a crime scene being treated in this manner.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
It's maddening.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Absolutely, I would love to and definitely we're gonna want
you to come back when this thing is said and
done so you can explain how everything went down. I
adore you, I admire you. I just think the world
of you. On every level, not just as an attorney,
but as a friend, as a wife.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
You're just you're a remarkable human being.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Oh, thank you so much. That's a sweeteess.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I really appreciate it, y'all.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do with a quote, forty percent of homicides go unsolved.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
You know that's not a very good record.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
And also ninety five percent of convictions come from plea bargains,
which is often coerced.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
It's like we have the worst of both worlds.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
We don't convict the guilty enough and we coerce the
innocent too much. Bill Maher, I'm Cheryl McCollum and this
is z Own seven.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
Mm hmm
Karen Reid, Karen Reid, Karen Reid, y'all, this case right here,
y'all know it. She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston
Police officer John O'Keefe.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
With her SUV.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It was January the twenty ninth, twenty twenty two. She
left ing to die in the snow in a blizzard. Now,
that's what the prosecution is saying now. That first trial,
I predicted she was walking out of there. I did
not hear one thing that came out of that first
(00:42):
trial that led me to believe there was a murder.
We have an expert tonight to help us because, as
y'all know, she's being tried for a second time, which
I incorrectly predicted would not happen after the first trial.
I thought, there ain't no way they're gonna do this again.
(01:05):
They've lost the lead investigator. He wasn't fired yet, but
we all knew that was coming.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Y'all.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
This case has got drinking, a taillight, a dog bite,
cell phones, chain of custody, text messages, search warrants, a blizzard,
more text messages. Our guest tonight is a former prosecutor,
a private defense attorney. Somebody that you know, host on
Law and Crime contributes to the Huffington Post. They have
(01:35):
worked sex crimes, murder, death penalty cases, forensic issues, civil
rights issues, employment issues, and if that ain't diverse enough,
gender harassment issues. This person is one half of a
power couple. Honey tonight. I am so honored to have
(01:56):
Linda Kenny Biden, miss thing. It's Jersey Girl, Welcome to
Zone seven.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Can I come back like every day? I kind of
need that. That's like fabulous, Thank you so much, Cheryl. Yeah,
this is this case we've been covering. My stream partner,
I Michael Bryant, who has an Emmy. You know, God
forbid I should cover anything on a streaming channel because
I'm a lawyer, right, I mean I know about streaming,
but I do know a little bit about trying cases,
(02:27):
and we've been covering on Justice Serve TV. I mean,
I never thought i'd see a case that I probably
knew as well as any of the cases I've ever tried. Because,
as you know, Cheryl, we're all into it, as is
the whole world apparently the world.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And that's the thing you have been first chair with
Phil Spector, Casey, Anthony, Aaron Hernandez, just to.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Name of couple.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
But this case, I've never seen anything like it, especially
the way people are so rabbit about it.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, and you know, I'm probably one of the few
commentators that have ever tried a case against Alan Jackson. Right,
I had the hung jury in the first Specter case
against him. We have a great mutual respect for each other.
As a matter of fact, I think he was caught
outside the courthouse saying he loves Lidgetti Botten. But we
(03:22):
spent six months in a courtroom battling, you know, and
I had the hung jury. He is a terrific attorney
and he knows also how to get attention to cases.
He's had a number of high profile cases since he
left the practice of being a prosecutor a DA and
turned to a criminal defense attorney. And those skills transfer,
(03:43):
especially when you're as good as Alan Jackson is. But
I think it's everything in this case. Right, it has everything.
But what doesn't it have. It doesn't have a matter
of death. As a matter of fact, it has a
cause of death, but the cause of death can't be
attributed to exactly how it happened. Right, you have the
(04:04):
state's medical examiners, two of them, who say that the
manner of death is undecided, but what they do know
is that it's consistent. It could be consistent and be
armed with dog bites, but it's not consistent with being
hit by an suv. So how do you get around that?
As a prosecutor, Cheryl, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I don't know either, because I'm gonna tell you if
I could go back in time to twenty twenty one
and me and you could go to the plaza and
have a glass of wine, and I say to you, hey,
I've got a question for you as a former prosecutor.
If I've got a homicide and the lead detective never
went to the crime scene, and I don't have a
(04:46):
manner of death, and I don't have motive, and the
chain of custody is nothing. And the biggest statement that
was made that might be a confession nobody bothered to
write down.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Can you take that to trial? You'd laugh in my face.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Absolutely, absolutely, there'd be no doubt about that. And you know,
you just recited a litany of things that are wrong
with this case in terms of.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Why you're trying it.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
And there's a lot more because, as I say to people,
it's not whether you think she did it. It's not
whether you like her, it's not whether you hate Proctor.
The question is whether the state, the DA, the Commonwealth
can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed a crime.
I think let's start with the murder charge. No matter
(05:38):
what you think of this case, I think that's overcharged.
If I were the prosecutor, I'd say drop that charge.
Now drop it, because what are they going to try
to do, And it's clear they're still going to try
to do it? Say, well, she was mad at him,
he wanted to break up with her, you know, and
therefore she decided. Where there's all these people, one life
(05:59):
of everyone having a good time drinking, and boy did
they all drink, right, they all drunk. They all drank,
and they all a lot of them drank and drove
like it's like it's the thing up there, and uh,
you know, really murder, Come on, come.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
On, there's nothing, there's nothing that would lead you to murder,
not one shred.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And here's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I don't even know how it's ethical that you would
bring that back after the first trial.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
And that's a real issue that we're having in prosecutions
one of the things I want to do when I think, uh,
this would be a good roundtable for Cheryl, for you
and I to put together. It has to also do
with the ACEP Rocky case. The ethical decisions that are
made when you have a terrible witness. Okay, a witness.
So for instance, an ACEP Rocky admitted to perjury. All right,
(06:52):
that was a relly, right, And how do you how
do you without having an ethics review or ethics council
review on these cases, bring these cases forward or bring
these cases back to a trial. I think it's something
that has to be addressed because I think it's a
lot more serious than people know about. They just see
(07:12):
the case and they say, well, you know, the prosecutor
wouldn't bring in unless they had a case. Well, you
know that prosecutors bring cases sometimes they shouldn't be brought,
and defense attorneys sometimes win cases they shouldn't win.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
You know, it goes both ways.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
But the ethical duty always stays with the prosecutor on
whether or not the prosecution is ethical. And I think
here we have some issues with the in my opinion,
with bringing the special prosecutor Hank brettan who's a very
good attorney, despite what people say, who's a very good attorney,
and how he's trying the second case, I really have
(07:50):
some problems with it.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I do too, and I'll tell you I'm one of
those people. I rarely, you know, use words like accused
or you know, he might have or he could have possibly.
I tend to talk like the person did it, because
I would not push a case, I would not turn
(08:15):
something over to the DA that I wasn't one hundred
percent confident. So to me, you know, when I look
at the first trial, and I watched as much as
anybody probably watched, I was stunned that there was a
murder charge.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I was stunned.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yeah, and the lead investigator, we called him Undersice save TV,
the Procter Factor.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Okay, yep, those texts were terrible.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
But he decided, without having an autopsy, yet, without ever
going to the scene, without interviewing anybody, he decided sixteen
hours later that this was a murder and that she
hadn't done it.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
She done did it?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
So to speak right, without anything, without anything, uh and
all and uh.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It just it.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
It boggles my mind that, uh the Commonwealth who by
the way, I had great respect for when I was
in Hernandez. I actually tried Hernandez in Suffolk County, which
is right next to Norfolk County, uh and all, and
the prosecutors there were extremely uh ethical. They they tried
a case. You know, we could banter with them after
(09:27):
the trial at the court. And it was a serious case.
You know, Aaron was accused of a double homicide after
he'd already been convicted of a murder and we ended
up with not guilty. So and so the prosecutors, I
would say, had an edge up, but they had an
edge up ethically. And then the jury just looked at
the facts and said, no, you didn't prove the case
(09:48):
beyond a reasonable doubt. Here in Norfolk County, they're out
to get her. They've been out to get her, uh
and and you know, it's it's really the whole thing.
And that that's why I think there's this free Karen
Reid movement. And then you have I called the side show.
But in all these cases, the side show contributes to
(10:10):
what's going on, and that is there is a journalist, blogger,
Aidan Carney who gets a lot of people's ire up
is he's not shy about using words that maybe you
and I wouldn't use. But they're now going after him
for intimidation of witnesses. And one of them is like,
(10:33):
somebody testified and said tell the truth and that was
considered that's an intimidation charge.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I kid you not, Okay.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
So now they're trying to say that Karen Reid and
he had some type of collusion because they were talking
she was his source as a journalist, and trying to
bring that in for some kind of state of mind.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
But state of mind for what I mean.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
If you think you're being incorrectly charged, if you think
you're innocent and they're going after you, you're going to
use everything you can to try to get a not
guilty and including any help you can get from people.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Again, I know the word allegedly should be used, I
get it, But sometimes if you are confident, like with
OJ Simpson, I don't think I ever used the word
allegedly when I was talking about the double murder he
was charged with.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I spoke as though he did it.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Karen Reid. I've never done that because again, where is it?
Where is any evidence?
Speaker 4 (11:34):
And both of us, look, I call it as I
see it. People are stunned a lot of times because
I was a prosecutor. There's done when I say, oh,
no issue that person is, I mean, I have no issue.
I have no problem with that.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Okay, but on.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
This one we should all be having a problem. And
now you know, we see in the second trial that
the Commonwealth has hired the special prosecutor attorney named Haak Brennan,
who represented what he Bolger, you know, not not such
an innocent guy obviously, and and they're going after h
(12:08):
like like yesterday, not yesterday, but all week in court.
There's been in the past two weeks has been motion
hearings and the prosecutor has been bringing in is going
to bring in a former police officer who retired and
went into dog training as an expert in pattern recognition
for dog bites. Uh, they're good. You know, they're trying
to do a forensic odentology on a dog Chloe, and
(12:31):
Chloe is the German shepherd that was had bitten two people,
sent people to the hospital and was rehomed right after
the John O'Keefe was found deceased in the owner's yard.
And they're trying to do like forensic odentology on a
dog and match that. Now, Cheryl, you know that forensic
(12:51):
identology for those who don't know, it's a fancy word
for dentists, all right, And and it's about whether or
not there's bitemark matching. And it's been the subject of
a lot of convictions that have been reversed, in a
lot of discussion about whether it's junk science or not.
But that's in human bites. Can you imagine in a
dog bite?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, not at all. I looked at what they did
in the first trial, but I was stunned by what
they didn't do. For example, the glass shards, the pieces
of broken tail light, they did not line them up
(13:33):
with the injuries. And they didn't do that because I
don't think they can. If you look at the injuries
to his arm, you have several parallel lines parallel that
are going in different directions. There's not one piece of
glass that has two pronged out pieces of glass that
(13:54):
could make that incision. There's just not, especially not in
different directions at the same time, all parallel.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Right, you're absolutely right, and you know he was holding
a glass. And then you have the polycarbonate red tail light,
which now has a I think is a last count
with forty six pieces, forty seven pieces and forty eight pieces.
I've lost track. We actually adjusted to their TV, bought
that tail light and to break it you had to
like hammer.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Hammer it all right.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
And plus you know what got me.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I started looking at this case and we started discussing
this case when I was still hosting it Law in Crime,
And the first day I was on there was there
was about evidence collection in red solo cups and a
leaf blower, I mean, talk about blowing any evidence away.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
That's right, that's right, yep.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
And that's the thing when you're putting a case up,
you want to put your very best there. Well, again,
we have a lead detective that never went to the
scene off the back, never secured the home, didn't take
cell phones, didn't take witness statements for many of the
people inside the house.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
They have yet to.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Be able to explain to me or anybody else how
you have a police officer and a friend dead on
your front yard and you don't come outside.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Right And they never secured the scene either. And when
the scene was first was first looked at, there was
no polycarbonate anything from the tail light. And the only
time that later on they start appearing like for weeks
after the car had been taken into the sally Port
when one officer said that the taillight only had a
(15:40):
small crack with a little pinty piece out, which would
be consistent with her hitting the other car when she
backed into John oald Keef's car when she was at home.
Interestingly enough, the Commonwealth does not have that officer on
its witness list going to the second trial.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
He testified in the first trial.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
The defence now has him on the witness list because
they try to show that, you know, the scene was
made better for the state afterwards. But how you dom cases?
How do you not secure a scene they said it's windy,
Well then you put cop cars around.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It, right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
How do you not get a warrant.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
When somebody is dead on someone's front yard to say
from a judge, to say it's in the house right here.
It's very small. If he'd ever've been there, it's very tiny.
It's it's not a large area. When you look at it,
it's you know, it's like regular houses on a regular street.
How are you not going to warrant to go in
to look at what's inside the house when there's a
(16:38):
dead person on there. And you know, I say to people, look,
the state could try this case with this theory. You
know that maybe she calls him to fall he was drunk,
she never looked back, she never called. Maybe they could
try it on that theory, kind of like a negligent
manslaughter of sorts. But also so the defense could try
(17:01):
it on that theory too, that you know, he was
really drunk, right, and he fell backwards being drunk, hit
his head because he was so drunk. And then you know,
the people in the house who were supposed to were
waiting for him, they don't come out and look for him.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, that's crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
And after all the other first responders show up, they
still don't come outside. I don't know how that's possible.
I still will never be able to rationalize in my
head how you have a friend of yours dead in
the front yard of your home and you're not out there.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah. I agree, I agree with you. I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
And they were cops. They were all cops, you know,
or former cops. I should say cops are former cops
or related to cops. I mean, it's kind of incestuous.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It is, But you know you have a unique talent
on this case is that you can look at it
from both sides. You can look at it as a
prosecutor and a defensive So when you say there are holes,
when you say there are problems, when you're saying this
ain't adding up, people really need to listen to you, because, again, y'all,
(18:11):
I am not team Karen or team John. I'm just
telling you as somebody that's been in this business for
forty two years, I have never in my life seen
a homicide case with a lead detective that didn't go
to the scene, doesn't have chain of custody, has a
(18:33):
confession that nobody bothered to write down, has glass they
can't explain, has an injury they can't explain, has a
tail like busted they can't explain. I mean, the list
goes on and on, and for everybody walking around out there,
it ought to scare you a little bit that this
has not just gone to trial one time, but twice.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Yeah, and it's definitely going to trial. And you know,
and we talk about the ethics of prosecutors, and a
lot of people like to talk about the ethics of
defense attorneys.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
The ethics apply to both sides. And what we have
here too.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
As I said, you have two of the state's medical
examiners who said they can't say the matter of death
was homicide. They just can't, Okay, they can't even say
that the injuries are consistent with the SUV colliding into
John O'Keefe. All right, So that's like two strikes right there.
And then the Feds in an investigation. We really don't
know what the investigation was about. Everyone can speculate it
(19:28):
was about Karen Read, it was about the Canton police.
It could have been about something totally different, you know,
you know, it couldn't be anything relating to anyone in
the Canton Police Department or not. And they hired independent
biomechanical engineers who case the conclusion there's no way the
car had hit John O'Keefe. And now, you know, the
(19:51):
judge for some reason has severe concerns because after the
Feds had hired people, and you and I know how
the FEDS work. They don't share during their investigation with anybody,
and they don't tell you what's going on. They you know,
you you can give them stuff, but they ain't giving
you anything. I remember as a prosecutor when I had
(20:13):
to get something from uh, you know, the FEDS, and
they were like, no, no, I'm sorry, we have more custody.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
We're not letting you know when they're coming out there,
and I.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Assume they were being used as snitches. They just don't
give you anything, you know, all so so fine. So
when the investigation ends, they give they Then they do
give the defense the access to two reports that say
that are consistent with what the medical examiner said. Right,
the car can't be the SUV can't be considered the
cause of death. They don't have enough evidence, they don't
(20:44):
have a manner of death as homicide. And now the
prosecution after the judge said she had severe concerns because
there was a bill that was sent subsequent to the
trial in July, and the defense paid it, and I'd
pay it too, because at that point, you know, even
though they didn't paid by the government, they had testified
(21:05):
for the defense. You're going to need them in the
second trial. So there's no discovery at that point to
turn over, right, there's nothing. You're not in a trial
at that point, you're not going to go running and say, hey,
I got a bill from them. You know it came
after the trial, blah blah blah, and they're using it
to try to instead say well, there's unethical defense attorneys here,
(21:27):
and there's unethical experts in these ARCA people who were
hired by the Feds because they're trying to make they
knew they were trying to build. The judge seems to
have brought into it without ever hearing from the experts
to say, hey, no, that's not you know, you know
how businesses run. If I'm a business and I ain't
(21:50):
being paid by somebody anymore and I had to go testify, yeah,
of course I'm setting a bill right for my time
to whoever's still around, because that's how businesses make.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
A living and get paid.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So but they've imputed this wrongdoing, which I think is
really incorrect.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I think is really wrong.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
And now in order to get around all those issues,
the state has hired a neurosurgeon to get around the
manner of death by talking about the mechanics of the injury.
Is a way around the manner of death?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Now? Is that ethical?
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Okay, Well we can have that discussion, because maybe that's
maybe the judge would have great concerns about that. The
trying to get around their own people who hired by
the state, hired by the FEDS, with somebody who shouldn't
be calling a manner of death, and quite frankly, as
you and I know, legally would never be able to
say a manner of death on a death certificate.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
You know, you make me think of what's coming, and
what's coming is a battle of the experts. Now you
are married to doctor Michael Baden. Everybody as who that is.
I can only imagine the discussion y'all have at dinner,
and they are next level.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I'm just gonna say, because both.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Of y'all are at the height of your game.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I mean, that's all there.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Is to it.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Well, dinner parties are interesting, but you know, we keep
Michael's very close upd about his cases, which I try
to explain to people generally unless say these opens is
speaking about them, and I tell the funny story because
it's related to read in a way. There's a town
called Stoughton, and there was a young woman who was
killed several years ago, who died several years ago named
(23:37):
Sandra Birchmore. It turns out that the medical examiner and
one of the detectives in the Karen Reid case that's
name has come up. Lieutenant Fanning was in charge of
an investigation into Miss Birchmore's death and concluded it was
a suicide, that she was pregnant with the child of
(23:59):
another office served from one of the police departments, not
can but another police department. I believe it was in Stoughton,
if I recall. But this was has ended up being
a big deal because it turns out Michael had been
hired by the civil Attorneys to review the case and
he concluded, susy, guys, this ain't no suicide, baby, Okay,
(24:22):
this is a homicide. I never knew anything about it.
One day, we're at our cabin upstate and it's small,
but my office is downstairs. His office is upstairs, and
I hear the phone start going, going, going, And it
turns out that the defense of the Civil Attorneys had
released his report apparently to the Feds and all that
(24:43):
said this was a homicide, and the Feds had gotten
involved and hired their own forensic pathologists and confirmed that
it was a homicide. And as a result, there's been
an officer who's been arrested by the federal government because
none of the state prosecutors, none of the state's attorneys
the person or even concluded it was homocide. And so
(25:04):
you know, I never knew about it, and I never
know he's in the case. I never heard about the
case because he doesn't talk about them to me. And
people find that funny. Once they're in the news and
he's free to talk, he can talk. But if he's
hired by somebody, I don't.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Hear a word. You know.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Well, there's your ethical lesson for the day, y'all. But again,
if the two of y'all just hear about a case,
y'all can both speak to it at a level most
people cannot. And whether you're involved in the case or not,
I'm saying, when I think of this case, when I
watch the first trial, you want to.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Talk about being out gunned.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The state was nowhere near the level that the defense
was as far as.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Experts, just even as far as how you presented it,
how you cross examined. So I wonder, I wonder. You know,
the States said that they were going to present everything upfront.
They presented the medical examiner all up front, which is,
you know, a good way to do it if you
don't have a cause and manner of death that is
properly attributable, or if you have a cause of death,
(26:12):
but you know, the cause of death can't be a
tribute to the to the the vehicle, to the suv,
to the car in any way. So they decided, and
I thought, well, that's pretty you know that mister Lowley
is pretty ethical on that, on that, and then he's
stuck with Proctor, right, He's stuck with Proctor at that point.
(26:33):
But you know, you know, Procter was like, oh, I'm
so sorry. These texts were terrible. These were texts were awful. Yeah,
the fact that you know, I talked about her digestive issues,
which were serious. She apparently had like ten surgeries in
a very demeaning way, and oh yeah, it was very unprofessional.
But he presented him because I guess they thought it'd
(26:57):
be fine to present him with that in law. But
now I think they got so embarrassed that they didn't
take any action against him. And some of the people
on the witness list were on these horrible texts. No
one took any action against him until after this trial,
or you know, maybe at the end of the trial,
after he testified. So my question is, is the state
(27:21):
going to try to try this next case without using
Michael Proctor.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Right, Well, here's the thing. The defense is gonna call him.
So he's got to come back one way or the other,
because there's no way they're going to let that go.
Because those text messages alone. Forget how he treated the
crime scene in the case. Forget that he had his
mind made up within a less than a day. Forget
all that. Forget that the medical examiner told him it
(27:50):
looks like the guy's been in a fight. He went
somewhere else with it. Forget all that. Just in the
text messages to me when he talks about her help
that he hope he finds nudes, that he calls her
derogatory names, says she's crazy, and then talks about hope
she commits suicide.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
There is no way.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Those twelve people are not affected by one of those things.
Somebody in their friends or family group has committed suicide.
Somebody has mental health issues. Somebody's had somebody send a
nude of them to somebody they should not have, just
to embarrass or intimidate or humiliate them.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Somebody's got help issues. So forget HIPPA.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Forget you're violating that just as a human being, he,
I believe, is going to have every single one of
those juror members angry at him for it's over with.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I think the defense can get those text messages in. Well,
they're gonna first of all, they're going to call Proctor,
I mean, and he'll be he'll be hostile. He'll be
easy to declare a hostile witness. But even if he's not,
they get them in did you send this? Did you
send that? And I guess what the state's going to
do is try to say that no one who received
(29:11):
those messages were affected by them, and how they proceeded
with their investigation.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
How can you not be how can you have any
not be? You know? Yeah, and you're right.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
You brought up a point that the medical examiner said,
look like he's in a fight.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
It looks like these injuries.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Were caused by a fight, not by a motor vehicle impact.
So you know, she wasn't in a physical fight with him,
that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
So who was?
Speaker 4 (29:37):
If those were the injuries, if that's what they were
caused by, who was?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
And he can't take some people off the list because
he didn't interview him, He didn't look at their fists.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
He didn't look at their knuckles.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
Right, And I think there was some testimony that one
of the members inside the house had some bruising or
some type of infirmity to the knuckles, the knuckles.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Ye, I mean, it's just maddening when you think about it.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
I mean, they got rid of the dog, they got
rid of carpet, they got rid of flooring, and then
they just moved.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
House, right, I mean, come on, you're from New Jersey,
you know, you know that there are stories where you
hear this person did this and this and this and
a cover up, and it is so outlandish that it's laughable.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Here. It almost sounds.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Like this is a bad made for TV movie, right right,
And you.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Know, and you know, you look at it and you say, hey,
look what if this wor just an accident?
Speaker 3 (30:38):
What he felt?
Speaker 4 (30:39):
He was drunk and he fell, he tried to get
up and he fell again, you know, yeah, and A
and he hit his head and then they come out
at two o'clock and find him dead somehow they're looking
for him.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
What if they did do that.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
I'm making this up, but A as a hypothetical, hypothetically,
and they find their dead friend, A cop on their lawn.
There could just be a cap were up without even
being you know, been responsible for it, because hey, I'm
going to get blamed for a murder here. He's dead
on our long Hence, you know, how so long does
it take for someone to die in the snow? Type
(31:13):
google right question, so you know you can you have
hypotheticals that and I'm sure the jury probably went through
a lot of those hypotheticals.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
You know, they're in there saying what.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
The heck right? Right?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
And they made it clear the person they trusted the
most was the man in the street sweeping, right. They
kind of questioned the police officers on both sides, They
questioned witnesses on both sides, and family members. This was
the most honest person they thought in the whole thing.
And he said he wasn't there.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
And the defense found him the street sweeper, and he
apparently isn't on the prosecution's witness list this time now,
and he's on the defence witness list.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
And the funny thing about that.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Is that there was in the first trial and this
is not going to be allowed on this trial because
it's been agreed to actually buy the Comwealth investigator Proctor,
the lead investigator who's now been terminated by the Massachusetts
State Police, found guilty of two charges for specifications. One
of them, by the way, is that he brought disrepute
(32:25):
on the name of the Massachusetts State Police.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
That one doesn't do.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Anything for me, quite frankly, because that's like a cover
your ass one, right, you know, to me. But apparently
mister Yannetti, who's a well known defense attorney up there
and very well liked, met the street sweep and met
up with him so they could go to the scene
at a school parking lot. Right at the edge of
(32:50):
the school parking lot. It happened to be where somebody's
relative was related to one of the Alberts I believe
in the house. Therefore, therefore, Proctor had said that he
hates Yanetti because he thought that somehow Yanetti was trying
to intimidate his family by going to the place where
(33:11):
his family member worked. The witnesses the family member worked,
his friend's family member worked. He never went into the
mister never went into the school, never talked to anybody school.
All he was doing was meeting up with the parking
lot to meet the street sweepers. They could go take
him on the route that the street sweeper went that night,
which is something quite frankly, the prosecution should have found and.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Done right exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And you know, let's talk about Proctor being fired finally,
because I think this took a little bit of time.
It should not have taken this long, because his own
testimony should have been enough to terminating.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
I agree with you, and I think too, you know,
and I say this as a lawyer, I'm assuming, I'm
assuming that this just didn't all come about right at
the testimony, that this something was brewing, all right, because
he's also was a name in the Birchmore case tangentially,
I don't know how it was connected, but tangentially because
(34:14):
it was from a different police department, and you know,
you have that federal investigation that he did testify. Apparently
he didn't take the fifth on. So I'm assuming that
there was something brewing. And if there was something brewing
in terms of taking action against him, and defense wasn't
told at that time, that could have been Brady material
(34:34):
that was not disclosed. So I'm sure that defense would
be on this time now that we have this trial
board finding of you know that led to his termination.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
You know, and you know you think about it too.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
How silly you gave up your whole career, you gave
your pension, and now you've hurt your family have come
out to support you for what?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
For what?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yep? Because here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
If she was responsible in any way for his dad,
they could have got there, but they would have gotten
there with the proper charge. And if she's not responsible,
then we need to accept that and move on. If
it was a horrible accident, that's what it was.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
If it's a horrible accident that you think rises to
the level of manslaughter under the wall, then charge it
as that.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
You know, she called him John O'Keeffe.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
And you know, when I say this, I should remind
everybody just because we're saying, Karen Reid, it can't be
proven that she did anything.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
That does not mean.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
That both of us or anyone who talks about this
does not want justice from mister O'Keeffe. We want to
know what really happened to him. Was it just an
accident that he fall in his head?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Was he beaten up?
Speaker 4 (35:54):
You know, did somehow she caused his death in the
motor vehicle? We want to know what happened. But the
problem is this has been handled so poorly. I don't
think anyone's ever gonna know. But that doesn't mean we
don't feel for the family of Officer O'Keefe. We don't
feel for the fact that for his death there are
(36:14):
two separate things. There's this whole idea that because you're
saying somebody should not be found guilty, that you're not
then seeking justice for the decedent. That's simply not true.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Amen, And thank you for saying it that way, because
especially for the O'Keefe family, this is why to me,
what they're doing is horrible because I think they're gonna
lose again. I think they're gonna get kicked in the
gut again. And y'all, even if she's found guilty of something,
there's gonna be appeals. This thing is not over for them.
(36:49):
I'm telling you it's not gonna be over because now
that Proctor has been fired. In that report they said
that he's showed bias. Well, now is this whole second
prosecution just because somebody was embarrassed because they didn't get
something through the you know, to the goal line.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
It looks bad to me. From Jump Street. This is bad,
right right.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
It looks bad to me, and and you know they
try to make Karen read it looks bad with all
the phone calls she made after he didn't come home,
and she's looking for you, like, because she's pissed off
that she's you know that she you know, she's been
taking care of his kids and he's you know, out
running around. But it's clear from those phone calls, no
matter how uh, you know, emotionally charged, she sounds that
(37:38):
she didn't think he's dead because she's yelling at him
to come home and why are you doing?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
You know, and you know she's you wouldn't have made
you know.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I don't know, fifty phone call, whatever it was, it
was an inordinate amount of you know, this is not
like the one phone call you find where the you know,
the husband who has killed his wife. And I'm going
to just use that because I've seen so many cases
like that and called his own honey, honey, how are
you you know what's happening. I'll be home a little later.
(38:07):
You know that that phone call you know, you know,
you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
No, that's a brilliant point because she knows this is
potentially something law enforcement's going to want to look at.
And I mean she's cussing at him, she's you know,
she's going in and that is and if you look
at their pattern from what friends and family have said.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
That is how they do.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
They have huge fights, they love each other really fiercely,
then they have more fights than they love each other fiercely.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
That's their pattern.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
And you know, she was taking care of his children
and all of a sudden everyone in the family hates him,
including the kids. But at that time, I think there
was some early evidence that said everybody had loved her.
Everyone thought that she you know, she was helping, she
was doing a great job, she was terrific. And you know, yes,
the relationships start to go sour apparently in a Ruba,
(39:03):
although it was a long time before he died that
she sold that he was maybe with somebody else. Yeah,
it started to go sour, but lots of relationships go sour.
That doesn't mean in the snowstorm, you're driving your SGV
backwards to kill the person you know and then leave
them there to die. And it just doesn't it's the
two don't connect to a murder. And you know, we
(39:24):
also have the issue of the jurors coming out and saying, hey,
we found her not guilty on the first and the
third count, but the judge never told us we can
come back and tell anybody. And because the judge never
then brought the jurors in to question them or told
them that she suffers the effect of that. And that's
why I think the defense has gone to the federal courts,
(39:46):
which they're going to lose. By the way, they're going
to lose this motion to try to get the second
trial stopped for double jeopardy.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
What do you think is going to happen in the
second trial as far as experts.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
Go, Well, there are a lot of new experts we
have not heard. So let's start with the fact this
trial is going to take a lot longer. And with
Hank Brennan Esquire, who we've seen talk, he's more of
a defense attorney. He is going to cross examine a
lot longer, and a lot I won't say efficiently, but
(40:18):
a lot longer, a lot more like a defense attorney
in this case. And the defense has something like a
lot of new experts. They have one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven new experts like nineteen new witnesses and seven new experts,
including a digital forensic expert, a former FBI agent who's
(40:39):
going to talk about how bad the investigation is, another
video forensic because we have the issue of these cameras,
remember the Sally Port cameras. One of them was inverted,
the footage was missing, and then it wasn't missing, and
then it got transferred to another server. The defense had
(41:02):
been told about, but it got transferred by dragging and dropping,
so it ended up not being a really good forensic transfer,
and then it was found in the file of mister Procter,
the Proctor factor. They've also hired Elizabeth la Posada an
then the forensic pathologist from Rhode Island, Garrett Wing, a
(41:23):
K nine officer. They have a couple other other new experts.
That's just the defense and the prosecution also has new experts.
They have a new dog bite expert. They have a
new expert dealing with, as I said, neurosurgery and trying
(41:43):
to get around the fact that the manner of death
was not homicide by the forensic pathologists. So I think
that this trial is going to take a little bit
more different of a different look. You're going to see
as you point out the battle of the experts, but
you're also still going to see the fact that the
(42:04):
Commonwealth is not going to be able to explain how
that car looks like it's coming into the sally Port
with no tail light, completely fractured out into forty eight pieces,
and then how those pieces end up getting to the
crime scene when the crime scene had been looked at
(42:25):
at least initially, and there was none of those pieces
found at the time at the crime scene. And then
after mister Proctor who goes to the sally Port and
sees the car, and all of a sudden, those pieces
are now available at the crime scene. And I think
the defense is going to really lean into Proctor with that,
and I think that the prosecution and defense are going
(42:47):
to really lean into their experts a lot more in
this case.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Oo.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Well, y'all just heard it. I'm telling you. I told
y'all we needed her.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
And if that don't take something, Look, I just went
to a fabulous law enforcement training. It was only two hours,
but it was on how to present evidence to a judge.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
It was very specific.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
That don't make me ready to face Linda Kenny Boden,
You understand.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Me, Why are you as my expert? What are you
talking about? You and I'm doing a case and trying
a case and whether.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
You know, Oh no, we would have a great time.
But I'm saying two hours of training don't get you ready.
So I'm just saying, watch these experts and listen to
what their background is.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
It's going to blow your mind.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Yeah, yeah, we'll be we'll be covering it at in
addition to my day job of being a lawyer, which
he has on a full time law practice.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Uh, we'll be covering it a Justice Serve TV. We'll
try to cover it.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
And Cheryl would love you to come on and talk about,
you know, crime scene preservation and all because you're you're
the top.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
You know, you know how to do it. You teach
you how to.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Do you know, you know what when you see it,
that's the problem. Must get you really pissed off to
see a crime scene being treated in this manner.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
It's maddening.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Absolutely, I would love to and definitely we're gonna want
you to come back when this thing is said and
done so you can explain how everything went down. I
adore you, I admire you. I just think the world
of you. On every level, not just as an attorney,
but as a friend, as a wife.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
You're just you're a remarkable human being.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Oh, thank you so much. That's a sweeteess.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I really appreciate it, y'all.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do with a quote, forty percent of homicides go unsolved.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
You know that's not a very good record.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
And also ninety five percent of convictions come from plea bargains,
which is often coerced.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
It's like we have the worst of both worlds.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
We don't convict the guilty enough and we coerce the
innocent too much. Bill Maher, I'm Cheryl McCollum and this
is z Own seven.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
Mm hmm
Host
Sheryl McCollum
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com