Serialously with Annie Elise
282: ARE YOU KIDDING?! Karen Read: The Defense Came Out Swinging!
Fri, 30 May 2025
This week in the Karen Read trial, the defense came out swinging. It was a full-on battle of the experts as both sides clashed over science, strategy, and credibility. But the real showstopper? The blue paint experiment heard round the world. From dramatic cross-examinations to explosive new claims, tensions are rising—and the stakes have never been higher. Buckle up, because this recap breaks down everything you missed in one of the most chaotic weeks yet. 🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks 🔎 Join The Club: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to EXTRA deep dive episodes every week on Apple! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164 Follow Annie on Socials 📸 🩷Instagram: @ _annieelise 💜TikTok: @_annieelise 🗞️ Substack: @annieelise 💙Facebook: @10tolife Shop Annie’s Closet & Must-Haves! 👗 Poshmark: https://posh.mk/Tdbki6Ae0Rb ShopMY: https://shopmy.us/annieelise Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/10tolife?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_aipsfshop_BKN1ZMCMEZHACVFQ2R75&language=en_US Disclaimer ‣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 🎙️ Follow the podcast for FREE on all podcast platforms! Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164 Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6HdheEH8WeMTHoe5da34qU All Other Platforms: https://audioboom.com/channels/5100770-serialously-with-annie-elise Get Involved or Recommend the Case 💬 About Annie: https://annieelise.com/ For Business Inquiries: [email protected] . *Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research.
Chapter 1: What happened in the Karen Read trial this week?
Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise, and we've got the Karen Reid trial recap. Now a lot has gone down this week. I'm sure that if you follow the trial, you've been seeing social media clips just popping up left and right because...
I mean, the true circus that is the trial, it's something like I've never seen before, truly. So let me backtrack a little bit. And Alayna is, of course, going to join again. And she's going to recap everything because she has a way of doing it in such a magical, seamless way to where it's understandable, digestible. She doesn't leave out any details.
So I don't have to worry about you guys coming for me like you did last week, where I'll well, you didn't even talk about how he changed the timeline. Like, I know, I thought that was implied. I'm sorry, I forgot. So, Elena will be joining us and breaking down this week, but some of the big highlights of the week definitely were with, like, Blue Man Group Smurf Guy.
This guy did this full-on reenactment of the alleged car crash between Karen Reid and John O'Keefe. And when I tell you I was not only laughing through it, and not in a disrespectful way as to whatever happened to John O'Keefe, but more in, like, the audacity, the nerve. Like, this makes no sense. And if you didn't see it, I highly encourage you to Google it.
But like I said, it's been popping up all over social media. But basically, this guy who identifies himself as an expert in accident reconstruction, in data, all of these things, he puts together this mock interview. version of the accident, the collision. And let me just say, this expert, he ends up saying that he got paid somewhere near like $400,000 for his participation in this.
He got like a free Lexus to use during this reenactment. And this reenactment was so... Unbelievable, because he didn't even reenact what the Commonwealth is accusing Karen of doing. They're accusing Karen of reversing at such a high speed of almost like 30 miles per hour to where then he she reverses and clips John and he then goes flying so many feet into the yard.
And that's what then hits the back of his head, incapacitates him. And then he, of course, as we know, doesn't live. And they have such egregious.
allegations and accusations against her so you would think okay great you're gonna get this expert in to do this reenactment you have the same vehicle that she was driving you're on the road all these things this guy even cosplayed as john o'keefe in such a freaking weirdo
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Chapter 2: What was the significance of the blue paint experiment?
crazy twist like and i get it he was trying to set the stage he was trying to like paint a picture but he dressed up as john o'keefe got the same lexus but then did not even reenact what they are accusing karen of doing instead the lexus in his reenactment
reverses at like two miles per hour or whatever it is he has blue paint that he has painted on the tail light her tail light that was then later smashed or smashed at the time whatever you believe and he positions his body in a way and if you're watching the video version of this i'm going to kind of just do the demonstration but if you're listening to the audio version of this hopefully i'm explaining it well enough to where you can visualize it
But he basically stands in a way behind the car with his arm kind of at this 90 degree angle, just perfectly bent. Then the Lexus starts reversing into him with the painted taillight, bright blue, royal blue paint. And he like bounces off the taillight, does a full pirouette spin, and then kind of is like, Aha, there you have it. See?
And he shows his arm and he shows that the paint transfer from the taillight goes onto his arm in the same location as where we have seen those lacerations on John O'Keefe's arm. Some believe they're scrapes. Some believe they're dog bites.
Whatever you believe them to be, he basically is illustrating, look, my impact with the car, then the transfer of the paint is in that exact same location as where the lacerations were on John O'Keefe's arm.
Which, okay, but first of all, that's because you were positioned in a very specific way and held your arm in a very specific way so that the taillight paint would transfer on that part of your arm. Also, the Lexus was only reversing at like one or two miles per hour when you're alleging that it was at, you know...
30, 20 times that, whatever the math would be, then also you're not the same height and build as John O'Keefe. You do this spin out, but you're saying he flew all the way to the flagpole. Like, nothing of it made any sense whatsoever. And it was comical to watch because it was like you're doing a finger painting project. And it's like, you're paying this guy $400,000
to do a reenactment to bolster your case, but he's not even reenacting what you're accusing her of doing? It just, it made absolutely no sense, and the demonstration itself truly was laughable. I get what they were trying to do, but it did not land, especially because It's just like, how do you know he was standing in that position? How do you know that that's where he was?
How do you know his arm was bent? And he's like, on the stand, he was like, well, we don't know. This is what we're calculating. This is what we're theorizing. And it's like, okay, well, I could theorize all the live long day then for my reenactment. I'll get a German shepherd off the street, say, hey, German shepherd, let me...
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Chapter 3: How did the expert testimonies impact the trial?
Hey Annie, great to see you again. Now, we finally started the sixth week of the retrial on Tuesday after that long five-day break. The prosecution called their 38th and final witness Dr. Judson Welcher. He's like the prosecution's grand finale, if you will. Now, like Shannon Burgess from last week, Welcher also works for the accident reconstruction firm Aperture.
Now, maybe after everything came out about Burgess's credentials, or lack thereof, should we say, people might be skeptical of anyone from Aperture, but it does seem to me that Welcher is actually qualified. You know, he has his PhD. It's in biomedical engineering from USC. And on direct examination, Dr. Welcher testified about three main topics.
The first had to do with data that he recovered from Karen's SUV. He said that the event data recorder, or what we might know as the black box, it didn't show any collision on the night of the incident. But he said that that doesn't actually mean that the car didn't hit John, because the black box generally only records collisions between two cars, not a car and a pedestrian.
Chapter 4: What were the key findings from Dr. Welcher's testimony?
He also testified to a specific trigger event on that car around 12.32 a.m. During this event, he determined that Karen's car went forward 34 feet and then accelerated as it backed up 53 feet. And at the end of that 10-second maneuver, he said the car was at 74% throttle and moving at at least 23 miles an hour.
Now, using the clock-syncing analysis done by Shannon Burgess, Dr. Welcher then calculated the time of this backup maneuver to be between 12.32 a.m. and four seconds and 12.32 a.m. and 12 seconds, which she says is within the window when John's phone was last used.
Now, I did find this area of Dr. Welcher's testimony to be credible, but it's also worth noting that a good part of his conclusions rely on that analysis from Burgess. So if you don't believe what Burgess said last week about syncing clocks, we might have a sort of snowball effect and we have to start questioning some of Welcher's conclusions.
Then Dr. Welcher's second main area of testimony takes us back to that ring camera video that shows Karen pulling out of John's driveway to look for him at around 5 a.m. on the morning of the incident. That's the video that shows her bumping John's car with her right taillight.
And of course, it's the defense's position that that's when she broke the taillight, not five hours earlier when allegedly crashing into John. But Dr. Welcher disagreed. He testified about the great lengths he went through to analyze that rain camera video, and that included tracking the cars frame by frame, enhancing the video, and using this like laser grid type system. It was a lot.
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Chapter 5: What arguments did the defense present against the prosecution's case?
And in the end, he said that while John's car and Karen's car did make contact, quote, that impact did not break or crack that taillight. About John's car, he said, quote, so sure, it knocked the snow off, but it wasn't sufficient to cause damage to his vehicle. And furthermore, he said that he saw nothing in the snow after Karen's car left the driveway.
And finally, Walter gave his opinion about how John's injuries were caused. And to do this, Welcher purchased a Lexus identical to Karen's, and he put himself quite literally in John's shoes. Now, Welcher is a similar height and weight to John, so he decided to play the role of John in this series of reenactments.
And to really drive home the point, he also tracked down copies of the same shirt, jeans, hoodie, hat, and sneakers that John was wearing on the night of his death. And I get that as a scientist, Walter wants to recreate that scene as closely as possible, but I think cosplaying as a dead man, a potential murder victim, I don't know, it was a little odd. Maybe that's just me.
Now, in this reenactment, Walter smeared some blue paint on the right taillight of his model Lexus and then allowed it to drive into his body at around two miles per hour. And he showed that if the car hits him at this particular angle, his body sort of spins out. I think he called it a pirouette. And Mattela ends up hitting his right arm right around where John had those cuts.
And he also testified that the Lexus bumper would line up with the scrape to John's knee and the rear spoiler would line up with the cut to John's right eye. Now, the obvious issue here is, well, you just said the car was going at 23 miles per hour, but you did your reenactment at two miles per hour. So how accurate could that really be?
Now, he did clarify and said that pedestrian injuries can be really difficult to model. So he said he wasn't trying to exactly replicate the accident and just show one possible way that the injuries could have occurred.
Then when asked if colliding with John's arm would produce enough force to break Karen's taillight, Welcher said that it would, as long as the car was moving at at least 8 miles an hour.
Welcher also showed videos of dropping a test dummy backwards to show how John's head could have hit the ground, and he testified that skull fractures can happen from heights as low as 40 inches, and John was much taller at about 73 inches.
Walter also went on to explain the difference between a regular head-on collision and a glancing or sideswipe type collision, where the body is actually struck at an angle.
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Chapter 6: How is the public perceiving Karen Read's guilt?
But after several sidebars and arguments from the lawyers, he was forced to change his position and say that the damage to the Lexus is consistent with hitting John, and that John's injuries are consistent with being hit by the Lexus. But he's not allowed to explicitly say that Karen hit John with her car.
Now, if everything Welcher said is true, you have to admit this is pretty damning evidence against Karen. But she seemed less than impressed with his testimony. She said, quote, he backed into himself at 2.2 or something miles per hour, so he tried to dress identically to John but didn't do anything else to mimic what the Commonwealth is accusing me of, end quote.
Now, after a direct examination, Cross started up on Wednesday the 28th. I've talked before about witnesses who are tough to watch on cross. Witnesses who just never want to give the other side an inch. Jen McCabe comes to mind, Yurid Yukonik is another one, but Dr. Welcher might just take the cake for most difficult cross.
He and Alessi were going in circles, he would snap at Alessi, at one point he refused to close his laptop during questioning, and he would respond in this kind of snotty, I'm better than you kind of way. It was a lot. Now, like I've said before, I don't necessarily think this means he's lying.
And in fact, if you lean towards more the prosecution side, you actually might think it's a good thing that the witnesses are really resistant to the defense. But my gosh, is it difficult to listen to.
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Chapter 7: What are the potential strategies for the defense moving forward?
And in my opinion, witnesses who are more willing to consider the other side's point of view, even if that means conceding some of their points, I think those witnesses come across as more forthcoming and trustworthy. I don't know if that's how the jury will see it, but that's my view. I think of Dr. Scordi Bello, Ian Whiffen to some extent, most people from the crime lab.
Those to me were prosecution witnesses who, yes, they stood by their findings, but they were willing to admit, you know, the areas of ambiguity or other possibilities, at least to some extent. And I personally found them more credible than Jen, than Yuri, and definitely than Dr. Welcher. So after all that, what actually happened on Cross?
Well, first, Alessi took issue with Welcher's claim that he, quote, doesn't have a dog in this fight because it turns out that his firm was paid almost $400,000 by the prosecution for this testimony. And that sounds like a pretty expensive dog to me. Alessi then asked Welcher to do some calculations to figure out how much force it would take to break or fracture a bone in John's hand.
Now, Alessi and Welcher, they went back and forth for a long time about this, again, almost painful. But in the end, Welcher admitted that if John's hand had hit a specific part of the car, like the exhaust pipe, the license plate cover, or even the corner of the taillight, he said that it's possible that enough force could be generated to fracture the hand.
Alessi and Welcher also argued if it were reasonable or possible for Karen's car to have either hit one of those parked cars at 34 Fairview or have driven up the lawn during this alleged backup maneuver. And again, after a lot of squabbling, Welcher eventually said it was possible, but he couldn't say for sure without knowing where the car started when doing that backup maneuver.
Then the questioning turned to John's arm injuries. Walter again said that his blue paint experiments were done at a much slower speed than the car was actually moving.
And he admitted that he doesn't know several variables that could be important, like the exact speed of the car at the time of the collision, John's exact position on the road, John's posture, and where John was relative to the car. Now, on the subject of John's position, Alessi did make a good point that I hadn't thought about until he brought it up.
Welcher said that John's body was found about seven feet into the yard at 34 Fairview, while Karen's car was obviously on the road. And the height difference between the road and the lawn, meaning, you know, the height of the curb that would separate the two, it's about four inches.
And Welcher didn't account for that when he did the injury reenactments because he was hit while he was still standing on the road flush with the car. Also, under Welcher's theory, John's arm would have to maintain some contact with the moving car for some time to create those big cuts. But he admitted that he doesn't have enough information to figure out exactly how long that contact would be.
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