The Karen Read murder trial resumed Friday in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts with more testimony from prosecution witnesses.
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By
Mike Toole,
Victoria D, Kristina Rex
Updated on: June 14, 2024 / 3:26 PM EDT / CBS Boston
Google search of how long to die in the cold
Jessica Hyde, a digital forensics examiner, was the first witness to take the stand Friday. She works for a company in upstate New York called
Hexordia, which specializes in digital forensics training.
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Hyde was asked by both the prosecution and the defense to look at time stamps and review Google searches made by Jennifer McCabe.
Earlier in the trial, McCabe, who was with Read while they searched for O'Keefe in the snowstorm, was questioned about a Google search she made that morning. She said Read asked her to look up how long it would take someone to die in the cold after they found O'Keefe's body.
The prosecution said the searches were done at 6:23 a.m. and 6:24 a.m. on January 29, 2022. The defense said the time stamp was actually 2:27 a.m., hours before O'Keefe was found.
Hyde told the court Friday that 2:27 a.m. could be the time the search tab was originally opened or moved. She said the last search in McCabe's phone was at 6:24 a.m.
"What's very special to know about this time stamp is that it's not necessarily the time of the search," she told the court. "I don't see evidence that the term was searched prior to that 6:24 time."
During a brief cross examination, Read's attorney David Yannetti asked Hyde if she could rule out that the owner of the phone conducted a Google search at 2:27 a.m. Hyde said she can't "rule out something that doesn't exist," adding it's the same as asking if there was a search for "pandas," which there is no evidence of.
Crash reconstructionist testifies
After Hyde finished her testimony, Massachusetts State Trooper Joe Paul took the stand.
He is a crash reconstructionist and described how the testing process works. He said two acceleration and deceleration tests were done on Read's SUV. He added there was no airbag deployment data, something Paul said isn't unusual in a pedestrian crash. From data gathered from the SUV, it shows it went in drive, then reverse, at the time the SUV was in front of 34 Fairview Road, according to Paul. During the trigger event taken down by the SUV's Toyota techstreams software, the SUV slowed down to zero and then up to 24.2 miles per hour.
"It starts off in drive, it's slowing down to zero, and it goes to zero, which is neutral, then it goes into reverse," described Paul. "So it's going straight, it stops, then gets placed in reverse and then it goes in reverse." Paul said the SUV was backing up in a straight line and going about 24.2 miles per hour.
"There's a point in there where it appears to be consistent with a pedestrian strike," said Paul, referring to the sudden change of speed. Paul added O'Keefe's injuries were also consistent with a pedestrian strike.
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