The Timeline is Coming into Focus

As I’ve been saying for quite a while (and as Hank Brennan clearly agrees), the key to convicting Karen Read is presenting the jury with a very precise timeline of the incident, one that simply doesn’t leave enough room for anything other than a vehicular collision to have caused John O’Keefe’s death. After a few weeks of trial, it’s worth re-examining that timeline and focusing on what the prosecution has established to date vs. what they still have to prove. Here’s what we know so far:

12:24:18 Karen and John turn onto Fairview Road, just ahead of Ricky D’Antuono’s truck.

12:24:38 Karen’s SUV comes to a complete stop near the flagpole; the D’Antuono truck pulls up behind it.

One side note here. Though it wasn’t admitted as evidence, we know that Ryan Nagel sent a text to his sister, Julie Nagel, at 12:23 that said “here.” Some in FKR world suggest that this somehow proves that the prosecution’s timeline is wrong, that the D’Antuono truck must have already been parked outside 34 Fairview at 12:23. I think this is a bad reading of the evidence. The Waze/GPS data is very reliable and precise, so there’s no reason to question the timing of John/Karen’s arrival. But we know from testimony that D’Antuono waited at the intersection of Cedarcrest and Fairview for Karen’s SUV to turn first. She turned onto Fairview at 12:24:18. From that intersection, you can see 34 Fairview. I think it’s most likely that Ryan Nagel — anticipating their imminent arrival and having his hands free because he wasn’t driving — texted Julie around the time they pulled up to that intersection, which likely would have been just before 12:24 (e.g., something like 12:23:58). That would easily reconcile the 12:23 text with the Waze/GPS data.

12:30ish The D’Antuono truck pulls away; witnesses note that the dome light is on and see Karen behind the wheel. They do not see John in the vehicle but also do not see John exit the vehicle or walk toward the house.

12:31:56 John’s Apple Health records the beginning of event (36 steps, 25 meters). Based on the testimony and my understanding of how Apple Health data works, I think it’s possible that John could have been standing outside of the SUV for some amount of time before this event was triggered, so long as he wasn’t pacing around. But this represents the point where he began taking some steps.

12:32:04 John O’Keefe unlocks his phone with Face ID.

12:32:09 John locks his phone for the last time by clicking the side button.

12:32:16 John’s Apple Health data records the last movement of his phone from the 12:31:56 event; there is no further movement until 6:04 the next morning.

12:36:39 Karen’s phone joins the WiFi at 1 Meadows, indicating she is at least within 300 feet of the house. Various people have recreated this drive and shown that it can be done in less than four and a half minutes at this time of night (particularly if Karen took Cedarcrest to Dedham to Pleasant Street, which is the most likely route). So this arrival time is consistent with having left 34 Fairview right at the time John’s phone stopped moving.

So what’s missing from this timeline? What other data points are we likely to get before the prosecution rests? It seems likely that we’ve already seen all relevant data points that came from the analysis of John’s phone. The only two other potential sources of information (that I can think of) are Karen’s phone and the Lexus. Given that Guarino is done testifying, I’m not sure we’re going to see any further data from Karen’s phone. But we surely will see additional data presented from the Lexus.

From the Lexus data, there are two potential types of information we could see. The first is whether there is any data indicating when John left the vehicle. As noted above, the Apple Health data suggests this happened by 12:31:56, but there could potentially be additional Lexus data that sheds more light on this (e.g., data indicating when his seat belt unfastened, when the passenger door opened, when the dome light went on, or when his or Karen’s devices connected/disconnected from the Lexus’ Bluetooth). Brennan did not mention any of these things in his opening, however, so my guess is that they either didn’t obtain this kind of data or that whatever data they did obtain doesn’t add much to the timeline.

The most important remaining data point, however, is the timing of the “trigger event” associated with the rapid reversal of the vehicle. Brennan made an interesting statement about the timing of this event in his opening. He said:

"We also have the information from the defendant's Lexus black box. The clocks run differently, there's a 30 second variance, but it's right in the heart of that time. And you will see through the data, at that time, when he makes the last movements with the phone, is when her car leaves, 34 ft at least, stops, neutral, and then shoots into reverse..."

I read that is indicating that they were able to recover a timestamp associated with this trigger event, but that they have reason to believe the timestamp is “off” by about 30 seconds. Based on some of their recent cross-examination questions, it looks like the defense intends to latch on to this variance and argue that John’s phone data proves that he was still alive and using his phone after this event occurred. If Brennan believes the Lexus data is off by 30 seconds, he’ll need to offer some sort of explanation to the jury (likely through his crash reconstruction expert, Welcher).

This footnote, from one of the Welcher-related motions, suggests that the vehicle’s infotainment system does provide timestamps (perhaps associated with use of rearview camera?).

Given that the 5:07 event was also recorded on Ring cam footage, there may be a way to establish the magnitude of “time variance” by comparing that timestamp to the timestamps on the Ring footage.

From my perspective, if Brennan can show that the timing of the reversal event indicates that the collision likely happened between when John closed his phone at 12:32:09 and when his phone stopped moving at 12:32:16, that’s ballgame. There is simply no way that the confluence of those data events can be a coincidence.

In that case, the only conceivable argument that would be left for the defense is that John just happened to drop his phone within seconds of Karen rapidly reversing her vehicle (and that he never picked it up again). But we know that he couldn’t have done so outside, because the phone battery temperature would have dropped much more rapidly if it was simply sitting exposed on the grass for any meaningful period of time. So John would have to have dropped his phone somewhere less cold (like the garage) in a truly cosmic coincidence of timing, right as Karen reversed her car recklessly outside. And the phone would have to have remained in a “pocket state” all night long and somehow recorded no movement whenever it was later returned (along with John’s body) to the flagpole area.

From my perspective, that scenario does not even approach reasonable doubt.

So, for me at least, the key remaining piece of evidence is the timestamp associated with the reversal trigger event and how compellingly Brennan can align it with the rest of the known timeline.