Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Woman Accused of Killing Cop Boyfriend Claims Police Framed Her for Murder

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. The Commonwealth has fought the defense at every turn in our quest to get the phone records. They've persuaded this court that we were previously on a phishing expedition. To the extent the court once thought otherwise, it is clear this is no longer a phishing expedition. Attorneys for Karen Reed arguing for access to cell phone records for witnesses in the case against her for the death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. Reed's trial is beginning in just a matter of weeks.

Starting point is 00:00:39 Thanks for joining me for Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Karen Reed's trial is scheduled to begin April 16th. She faces several charges, including a second degree murder charge for the death of her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, back in January of 2022. Prosecutors say the case is simple, that Reid was drunk, the two had a fight, and she hit O'Keefe with her SUV outside of a house in Canton, Massachusetts, and then left him there to die. The pair had been out drinking at a couple of bars earlier that night and then planned to go to a friend's house. Hours later, Reed's SUV is seen leaving O'Keefe's home where she lived with him. She and two other women found O'Keefe unconscious in the snow. Reed has claimed she was framed as part of a massive

Starting point is 00:01:21 police cover-up. Even the feds are investigating, hearing testimony from grand jury witnesses. Reed says O'Keefe's friends, who are police officers, actually beat him up inside that house where she dropped him off and that he may have actually also been attacked by a dog. And then those officers threw him into the snow and left him to die. But recently in court, attorneys for some of those witnesses, who include law enforcement officers, said they've been told by the U.S. attorney that they are not targets of the federal investigation. Brian Higgins is not a target of the federal investigation. That has been confirmed by the United States Attorney's Office and confirmed to me that I could make that representation in court. The U.S. Attorney's Office has continuously confirmed throughout its investigation that Brian

Starting point is 00:02:10 Higgins is not a target of their investigation. But let's get back to John O'Keefe's injuries. Reid believes he was beaten and attacked by a dog, as I mentioned. But prosecutors have said in court documents that the autopsy showed that John O'Keefe died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head and that he had tiny skull fractures that caused bleeding in his head. O'Keefe had a really large gash to the back of his head. The medical examiner did not believe that O'Keefe had been in any type of fight, despite bruising that you can see on his knuckles and what appears to be black eyes. Now I'm telling you there are photos on the internet from O'Keefe's autopsy, but we are not going to show those to you. They're just simply too graphic. And what about the scratches on O'Keefe's arm? How did he get them? They're kind of like up and down scratches. I thought we should ask an expert to find out.

Starting point is 00:03:01 So joining me to discuss what we do know about the autopsy results for John O'Keefe is somebody who has performed many autopsies in her time. She is Dr. Michelle Dupree. She's a retired medical examiner. Dr. Dupree, thanks for coming on. We know that you haven't seen the autopsy report, but you've looked at some of these photographs that I found online and sent to you of John O'Keefe's injuries. And tell me, first of all, you know, we see that there is a big gash on the back of John O'Keefe's head. So tell me, what could that have been caused by, in your opinion? Well, that's a laceration, which means that he struck something hard. Maybe it was cement. maybe it was a rock or

Starting point is 00:03:46 something like that, but a hard object. And that could very easily cause multiple skull fractures. There's been a lot of talk online and we know that there was a suggestion by the defense team in this case that John O'Keefe was not hit by a vehicle, that he was possibly beaten up inside the house on Fairview Road, possibly attacked by a dog. That's what one of Karen Reid's supporters has said. I believe maybe her defense team said it as well, and then left in the snow to die. So let's talk a little bit about that possibility, because if you look at these autopsy photos, John O'Keefe does have swollen black eyes. It does almost look like he's been in some type of fight. The medical examiner, according to the prosecutors, said that she did

Starting point is 00:04:39 not believe he had been in any type of physical altercation that that swelling and that bleeding was caused by small fractures in the skull. Right. You know, there is some credibility, I think, from looking at the photos. And, you know, a little caveat here, they're not the best photos. So there's some margin of error. However, when we see black eyes, we call them raccoon eyes. And they can come from a skull fracture, but that skull fracture is a particular type of fracture known as a basilar skull fracture, which is what your brain actually sits on top of. And it's fracturing those very small, thin bones where your eyes are, and then there does cause the black eyes from the bleeding there. However, one of the things that I was puzzled by in reading the reports is there's a small laceration or cut above his right eye. That

Starting point is 00:05:31 typically comes from being struck. So if you're struck in the eye, say you're punched and getting a black eye, you may have a little cut of the skin right above that. So that leads some credibility to him possibly having been in a fight. I'm not sure how you would get a small cut like that from being struck by a car, not more facial injuries. When a car, of course, it's a large object, when it hits you, something else is going to be damaged on your face. So that does lead to some credibility. And there may have been more than one thing. He may have gotten into a fight and been struck by a car. You know, he has a lot of injuries on different parts of his body.

Starting point is 00:06:11 Why would the M.E., if he had possibly been into a fight, she's saying she didn't see any evidence of that. I mean, we see in some of the photos and you're right, they're not the best photos. I mean, we are not seeing the pristine images from the ME's office. We're seeing what's kind of been shown in court and then reposted online. There are some kind of bruises or some discoloration, I should say, to his hands and his knuckles. There is. And again, that's usually indicative of someone being in an altercation of some kind. He has bruises and contusions on the back of his hand. And as far as the ME not thinking that he had been in an altercation,

Starting point is 00:06:56 that's a matter of interpretation. You know, she obviously did not think that there was enough evidence to suggest that. I'm simply saying that I think there is a possibility that he may have actually been in a fight, given some of that evidence that we see. But also, there may have been some other, I guess, contributing factors. The scratches and the abrasions on his arm, there are several of them, and they're linear. Those are not typically what we see from being hit by a car. I can't say that they look like dog scratches necessarily, but it would be unusual to receive those from being hit by a car. We often see something called road rash, which is several scratches and abrasions, you know,

Starting point is 00:07:37 on the surface of the skin. That is not what these are. These are very different. So I don't think you can rule out that possibility. They are different. And it was January. There's a blizzard going on. So John O'Keefe, as we saw in the surveillance footage from the bar, was wearing long sleeves. So where those scratches would have come from is kind of curious to me. Whether or not they their dogs, I mean, dog scratches, dog bites, being attacked by a dog. I'm just not so sure because would a dog just go for arms? Wouldn't a dog maybe go for other parts of the body as well? I just don't know. Exactly. And, you know, it would be interesting to see the clothing that he was wearing and match up those injuries with that clothing, because obviously the clothing must have been torn in some way. Does it look like it was shredded by dog nails or whatever it may be?

Starting point is 00:08:35 But again, those are some of the, I guess, rather contradictory evidence findings in this case. There's also, I believe, evidence that he had been out drinking. So perhaps he even passed out and then sustained some of these injuries. Again, we don't really know that. There was some discussion to the Commonwealth sites in this opposition to their motion to dismiss. They lay out their case and they talk about the ME's findings. And the ME makes it sound like he was left there for some time. I mean, he had hypothermia. But when he was found, his death, hypothermia, it sounds like contributed to his death because of some discoloration in the pancreas and things

Starting point is 00:09:19 of that nature. Does hypothermia make bleeding and things of that nature, maybe pooling of blood, does it make it worse? Because you're cold, you're laying there for several hours, and therefore you're not moving and it allows blood to pool and settle? Well, two points, Anjanette, really. The hypothermia, I'm sure, probably did contribute to his death. It doesn't take that long. Your body temperature reaches a certain level for you to pass out, become unconscious, and then die from that. As far as the pooling of the blood, it would actually slow down. Your heart would begin to slow down. The pumping of the blood would begin to slow down. I don't think that would have a significant factor.

Starting point is 00:10:05 The factor is that the cold is going to decrease your body systems and therefore slow everything down. And eventually you will lose consciousness from being cold or hypothermic in addition to his other injuries, which also certainly played a major factor. Yeah, most definitely. I do find it interesting that one shoe was on and one was off. And you do see that in accidents or in incidents where somebody is hit by a vehicle and thrown, that sometimes they can be knocked out of their shoes. What did you make of that?

Starting point is 00:10:40 He has one shoe on, one shoe off. Yes, and you're absolutely right. When we see motor vehicle pedestrian collisions, we often see that. However, I don't think that's likely in this case because when we see that type of event happen, the person is struck by a vehicle. They're basically picked up off the ground and flown out of their shoes from usually a pretty high rate of impact. And I don't think that in this case, there was that significant high rate of impact to throw him out of his shoe. I think that maybe he was justice oriented. It just got knocked off or something of that nature. Interesting. There's no, I guess the cause of death has not, or I'm sorry, the manner of death, pardon me, the manner of death has been not determined. It's undetermined at this point. What do you make of that? Because the Commonwealth,

Starting point is 00:11:32 I would think, would want this or would want to convince a jury that this was indeed a homicide, but they're going to have to go in front of a jury and the ME is going to say the manner of death is undetermined, given all of the information she has. Yes. And, you know, every medical examiner office has undetermined cases, one, two, three percent, something like that. That's really not a bad thing. What it does is it leaves the investigation open so that when new evidence is found, then the case has not really been closed, per se. We classify something as undetermined when we simply don't know the answer. And in this case, this is a perfect example. We know that it was

Starting point is 00:12:12 blunt force trauma. We don't know if it was intentional. We don't know if it was accidental. We just simply don't know. It would be like, say, finding a skeleton at the bottom of a cliff. Did he jump? That would be suicide. Was he pushed? It would be homicide. Did he slip and fall? It would be accidental. So there's many, you know, many things that it could be. Interesting. So what do you see happening at this trial? Would you see this as being kind of a battle of the experts type situation? Because you're going to have the ME from the state testifying. I would assume that they'll have a reconstructionist too, a crime scene reconstruction type person to offer an opinion as to what had happened, along with the

Starting point is 00:12:53 ME offering an opinion of what possibly could have happened to John O'Keefe. And then the defense, I'm assuming, is going to have their own experts. I think you're absolutely right. I think this will be a battle of the experts. And I would think that both sides would have forensic pathologists or medical examiners. You know, you get two or three of us in a room and you're going to get two or three opinions. But it's a matter of interpretation, experience and education and training. And then again, looking at all of that evidence. And as you know, I'm a former law enforcement officer, and we have a saying that we look at that totality of circumstances. We don't just look at one particular thing.

Starting point is 00:13:28 And so in this case, I think that's what it's going to be. We need to look at the whole surrounding circumstances. We need to look at the evidence. You know, there was evidence that one of the people at the party Googled how long does it take to die from being out in the cold? Well, that's really weird, you know, and there are some other very odd things when you look at all of that evidence. And ultimately, of course, as you know, it will be up to the jury to decide. This will be a very interesting case. Yeah, it will certainly be up to the jury to decide. And we have differing opinions. We have

Starting point is 00:13:58 the state saying the how long, you know, how long does it take to die in the cold? That text message, they say it happened at 6.23, 24 in the morning. Defense says it was 2.23 or 24 in the morning. So that'll be another point of contention as well. Dr. Michelle Dupree, thanks as always for joining us. We appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. And that's it for this edition of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here next time. You can download Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here next time. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law and Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests.

Starting point is 00:14:49 And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.

Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Woman Accused of Killing Cop Boyfriend Claims Police Framed Her for Murder

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