GUYS. Today’s testimony was 💥💥.
Judson B. Welcher (Accident Reconstructionist and Biomechanics Engineer) was on the stand all day detailing what he referred to as the 3 Prongs of his analysis:
The data
The damage to the vehicle
The injuries
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, M.S. Biomedical Engineering, and a B.S. Mechanical Engineering. He’s written peer-reviewed articles, including one regarding sideswipe collisions. Here’s a more detailed summary of his accreditations, work history, etc.
DATA COLLECTING
Welcher personally examined, photographed, and measured Karen’s SUV, as well as John’s Traverse. Welcher also examined the scene where John and the vehicle’s taillight shards were located.
Welcher purchased the exact make and model vehicle of Karen’s SUV to conduct testing.
Welcher took hundreds of photos of the SUV, and made a 3D digital replica of the SUV.
TRAVERSE
Welcher ruled out the possibility that Karen’s SUV taillight broke when she slow reversed out of the garage and tapped into John’s Traverse. He used measurements and digital reconstruction to confirm. Karen’s bumper would be the only thing that could have physically touched the Traverse. A scrape on her bumper is noticeable at the exact location they would merge.
VEHICLE TIMELINE
The vehicle blackbox records time, but doesn’t record them as timestamps in hours and seconds. The expert has to manually compare and connect vehicle info to other known variables to line up the events properly.
Dr. Welcher matched up the vehicle’s mileage with Karen’s known travel locations the night of 1/28 and day of 1/29/22.
As discussed the other day by Shanon Burgess (Digital Forensic Expert), the Lexus records something called trigger events.
Welcher uses multiple data points to explain what occurred during the two trigger events (1162-1 and 1162-2) that Karen’s vehicle recorded between the time she left the Waterfall Bar & Grill to the time she drove away from the Albert property without John.
TRIGGER 1 (1162-1) matches up to Karen’s narrative of making a three-point turn on Cedarcrest Road with John in the vehicle. On their way to Fairview Road, they missed the turn, and had to flip around.
Other data points used to narrow down on this being the exact moment of this maneuver…
Steering wheel degree changes.
Reverse motion, distance, and then forward motion again.
John’s geolocation on his phone.
TRIGGER 2 (1162-2) occurs 8 min and 5 seconds after the 3 point turn.
The data shows Karen’s vehicle moved forward a bit, and then recorded her reversing 87 feet at 74.5% throttle. (Triggers don’t show the completion of an activity, so the full length could be longer). This is the moment that the expert asserts John was hit by her vehicle.
John’s phone registers his last steps just seconds after the vehicle began reversing.
DAMAGE AND INJURIES
Welcher is similar in height and weight to John O’Keefe, so he used himself to compare where the damage to the taillight would be level with the body. He held a cocktail glass and wore similar clothing to what the victim had on.
A general reenactment of the impact is tested, however there’s no way to know exactly how John was struck since the quantity of tiny details that would change a scenario are endless (ex. If he had one foot up as he walked when impacted by the SUV, etc.)
Welcher used a specific paint-like substance to the taillight area and recorded a video of where the transfer of paint was if the vehicle clipped him while he was holding a cocktail glass.
The paint shows up in the exact arm and forearm area where John’s abrasions were located.
Welcher used a crash dummy to perform a drop test to see how significant the impact would be on John’s head.
“Even at a 40 inch drop height, you have sufficient force when landing on a hard surface to cause skull fracture and a level three type skull fracture. So Mr. O'Keefe, again, is seventy three inches tall. His occiput is about 4.6 inches down from the top of his skull. That means it would fall a total of about 60 or 73 minus five would be sixty eight. So just under six feet.”
TRAVEL SPEED BACK TO JOHN’S HOUSE
Karen Read’s phone connects to John’s home WIFI at 12:36:39.
Trigger event when Karen reversed at John is somewhere between
12:32:09 - 12:32:12.
Several routes from the Albert property to John’s home is about 2.3 miles. Karen would only have to drive a speed of 37-39 MPH to make that drive in that exact timeframe.
The timing fits like a glove.
AFTER JURY LEFT FOR THE DAY
Court ended with Welcher still on direct examination.
After the jury left, the defense argued that Welcher should not be able to give his opinion that John was struck by a vehicle. Defense says that’s the jury’s ultimate decision to make.
Prosecution argued back that the defense claimed multiple times in their opening that there was ‘no collision’. The jury is deciding if the tragedy fits the mold of manslaughter and/or Murder 2.
Judge will decide tomorrow whether Dr. Welcher can assert his opinion (even though he technically already did).