Sue Simpson
speaker
370 appearances
24 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 11 Jun
Sue Simpson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Well, Andrea, it was a really slow start on Tuesday. There was a long sidebar. And then the court got going eventually. But Karen's defense attorney, Robert Alessi, was speaking of this sidebar very passionately to the judge and the other attorneys there. You know, I couldn't hear his words, of course, but his voice and his demeanor were intense. And we know why.
The next witness would be asked the question at the very heart of this case. Did Karen Reed's Lexus strike John O'Keefe or not? Prosecutors put that witness, Dr. Judson Welcher, on the stand before his testimony started for a brief voir dire, and we should point out Welcher is a new expert. He did not testify at the first trial.
The defense objected to some parts of his testimony saying they were outside his area of expertise, and they also wanted to know if Dr. Welcher made changes to his presentation in the past two weeks after talking to prosecutors. In other words, did the prosecution exert last-minute influence on his testimony? there were some tense exchanges.
Well, he started out by explaining his background, which is in both accident reconstruction and also biomechanical engineering, explaining how accidents impact the body.
There was a lot there, Andrea. First, he gave a long list of things that he'd reviewed in the case. The police reports and witness statements, ring camera video from John O'Keefe's house, other surveillance video from the bars that John and Karen had been to that night. He looked at photos and videos from the scene, cell phone data, jams.
GPS data, weather reports, and the media interviews that Karen did, including her interview with Dateline. He also told jurors that he went to the front lawn. He lives in California, and he traveled to the front lawn in Canton, Massachusetts, where John O'Keefe's body was found. He took photographs there, and he made measurements, and he came up with a computer model.
He even bought the same type of SUV that Karen was driving that night to do some testing.
He did. He did. Really? He bought an SUV. Yes, indeed. You know, all of which is to say if the prosecution was hoping to show jurors that this guy did his homework, he did everything to persuade them that he deserved an A. Sue, much of his testimony was quite technical.
Yeah, he had a huge amount of data to get through and simplify for them. So he began to walk through the timeline he created of what happened that night. He showed a computer model he made using data he collected about how Karen Reid's car moved. He then tested the data with the car he bought that matched Karen's SUV, and he tried to explain why John O'Keefe might have had the injuries he had.
Welcher is himself a similar height and similar weight to O'Keefe. So he said that he acted as him in testing, and we could see videos of him actually standing in front of that SUV, doing some of the testing, wearing clothes similar to what John O'Keefe was wearing that night, right down to the same make of sneakers.
And he covered the taillight in paint, and then he kind of swiveled into it, trying to show where the injuries would be on John O'Keefe's arm. He had a driver back the car into a crash dummy later to show what might have happened, you know, if the car did hit John O'Keefe.
And, of course, he dealt separately with the lacerations at the back of John O'Keefe's head because the prosecution said that John O'Keefe fell over into hard ground. He did point out, of course, that it's really hard to exactly model what would have happened when O'Keefe was hit by the car. Ultimately, the prosecutor asked what all of the testing and reviewing of the data led Welcher to conclude.
He is. He is the prosecution's closer. So he is the witness that the prosecution wants the jury to remember the most. This is the man who's dealing with the heart of the whole case. Did that Lexus hit John O'Keefe? And so that's why, you know, he's so critically important.
So the defense was spirited when he was testifying and they were just as spirited when it came time for them to do their own cross-examination.
Well, Andrea, you know, I am sure they have a few surprises planned. Karen has said they're planning on calling more witnesses this time. And Karen says they also have a more robust case this time around than they did in the first trial.
And ultimately, I think, you know, this case is going to come down to the battle of the accident reconstructionists, you know, experts on both sides who offered their view of what happened that night. And it's going to come down to, of course, what argument the jury finds most compelling.
Is it possible he could have been in shock? Objection, speculation.
Did Alex tell you that he got hit in the head with the bat? Objection, your honor. Here's a prior ruling.
This is the man who's dealing with the heart of the whole case. Did that Lexus hit John O'Keefe?
Hello, Andrea. Hello.
Showing 81–100 of 370 · page 5 of 19
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