DAY 25: Karen Read Retrial
Dogs have teeth, group chats have inappropriate banter, and the defense team is accused of threatening a witness.
ON THE STAND TODAY:
Jonathan Diamandis (Childhood Friend of Trooper Proctor)
Kelly Dever (Boston Police Officer/ Former CPD Officer)
Dr. Marie Russell (Retired ER Doctor)
Jonathan Diamandis (Childhood Friend of Trooper Proctor)
Defense called Diamandis to the stand to authenticate a group text message thread of friends who have known one another since their youth. The group text chat started years ago, and it includes himself and Trooper Proctor.
A specific timeframe of texts were presented to Diamandis, and he confirmed that Proctor is on the thread, and that the texts are his.
Defense Attorney David Yannetti ends direct questioning without asking Diamandis what the texts said.
(Opinion: I presume the defense wants those texts to come up later in trial. Likely in their closing argument for a dramatic effect. If that’s the case, they oddly didn’t anticipate the CW taking the bull by the horn on cross-examination and presenting them first.)
Diamandis did not actually engage in this particular text conversation that he was on the stand to authenticate, and he felt uncomfortable reading the derogatory words said in the thread aloud. Instead, Prosecutor Brennan read the harsh ones to the court while Diamandis confirmed them.
Several of the texts were from the late evening of 1/29/22, and the others read were from 2/2/22.
(NOTE: I quickly transcribed the text convo below, so there’s a chance they might not be 100% accurate. If anyone is able to double-check it for me, let me know! Otherwise, I will try and go back and confirm it when I get a chance.)
Kelly Dever (Boston Police Officer/ Former CPD Officer)
Officer Dever worked for the Canton Police Department on 1/29/22. She is currently working as a Boston Police Officer.
Dever was on shift the night the 911 call was made regarding a ‘man in the snow’, and she was requested to handle the dispatch position at the station.
In August of 2023 (over a year and a half after the day John passed away), Dever was questioned by federal agents about her shift on 1/29/22. She told them she recalls ATF Agent Brian Higgins and Sgt. Berkowitz entering the Sally Port garage where the SUV was stored for a ‘wildly long time’.
Officer Dever realized later that her memory was flawed because her shift had actually ended several hours before Karen Read’s vehicle arrived at the Canton Police Department on 1/29/22. It was physically impossible that her recollection was the day in question.
Dever stated that in April, she received a phone call with the defense team and she told them that her original recollection with the agents was incorrect once she realized she was not on shift at that time. She said the defense got very aggressive on the phone with her and threatened to charge her with perjury if that’s how she would testify. Dever says she reached out to the federal agents and reported this incident to them.
Defense Attorney Jackson suggests that Dever would be implicating two officers if she stuck her original statement. Dever denies his assertion, and says she has no one to protect. Her job requires her to be truthful on the stand.
Dr. Marie Russell (Retired ER Doctor)
Emergency Medicine Specialist in Los Angeles, CA and has over 36 years of experience in the medical field. She graduated from University of Massachusetts / Boston campus in 1987.
Dr. Russell has testified as a medical expert witness in other trials, but has never testified as a ‘dog bite expert’ before this trial.
Dr. Russell says the types of wounds she treated regarding police dogs were extensive. There would be ripping of the skin and tissue.
She estimates that she has treated over 500 dog bite injuries in her 36 years, as well as thousands of vehicle accident patients in the ER.
She says sometimes in the ER setting there are language barriers where she has to use pattern recognition skills to recognize the cause of the wound.
Dr. Russell states that when a dog bites, they usually don't bite with all of the teeth. Often, it's the anterior or the front teeth because a person who's getting bit will pull away.
Photo diagram of K9 teeth are presented (below), and the doctor tells the jury that this is a “side view” of a K9 skeleton “with no skin”.
(Opinion: The obvious information was overly-stated in her testimony, but her explanations of what the jury likely needed to understand about her analysis seemed a bit fuzzy.)
Dr. Russell explains:
“…canine teeth are so long compared to the others, um, they are the ones that seem to cause the, uh, large puncture wounds. And those are the ones that, uh, appear to get the grip on the on the, uh, person's skin.”
John’s wounds are mild abrasions, which means the top layer of the skin (epidermis) was injured, but there are zero lacerations or puncture wounds. Despite this, Dr. Russell believes that John’s wounds are consistent with a dog attack and that the dog just never latched on.
She points out the linear wounds and says that she sees ‘groupings’ of bites (multiple attempts in the same area) on John’s arm. She also says she can’t exactly tell the difference from the teeth marks and claw marks in areas.
She points out that John’s shirt shows holes with the threading coming loose, and that this is seen in dog attacks from the pulling of the tooth.
Dr. Russell came across this case when reading an article in the Boston Magazine last year after the first trial had already begun. She reached out to someone she knew in the Los Angeles DA’s office (where Attorney Alan Jackson is from) to offer her help. Alan Jackson got in contact with her after that.
On direct examination, the doctor says she was trying to see if she could help rule out the dog bite as the cause, however, on cross-examination she concedes that when she saw the photo of the wounds in the magazine she believed they were dog bites. Thus, calling the DA’s office to offer her expertise.
Prosecutor Brennan asks if she interjected herself because it was a high-profile case. Dr. Russell says no. She was “reluctant” to be part of it.
Brennan points out that she updated her marketing as a dog expert around the time of the first trial. Russell agrees.
Prosecutor Brennan begins comparing previous testimony statements that Dr. Russell made regarding her analysis of John’s wounds over the last year, however court ended for the day, so the cross-examination will resume tomorrow morning.
