Karen Read’s defense revved up its attacks on unexpected new expert findings Tuesday, which contradict the timeline they say proves she didn’t hit boyfriend John O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV and leave him to die in a blizzard in 2022.
Shanon Burgess, an expert on vehicle and phone data from the digital forensics firm Aperture, returned to the stand for a second day of brutal cross-examination with defense attorney Robert Alessi at the wheel.
Alessi pointed out inconsistencies in Burgess’ resume and revealed he got the dates wrong on a timeline that was supposed to be accurate “to the second.” And nothing in Burgess’ findings directly indicated that a fatal crash happened.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan is shown during Karen Read’s murder trial on May 12, 2025. (Pat Greenhouse/Boston Globe via AP/Pool)
Burgess testified that he does not have a bachelor’s degree, despite his official Aperture bio and an old LinkedIn account, which appears to have been deactivated in the past few days, stating otherwise.
Brennan attempted to repair the damage by showing jurors two updated resumes, from last year and this year, that Burgess had submitted to the defense prior to trial, showing his credentials. Neither claimed that he has a bachelor’s degree.
“Did you ever hear of Bill Gates?” Brennan asked.
“Yes,” Burgess replied, referring to the billionaire Microsoft founder who famously dropped out of Harvard before graduation.
Burgess eventually said he would like to get his bachelor’s degree some day, but “work, family and life” keep getting in the way.
“As a personal objective, I would like to finish my bachelor’s,” Burgess testified. “But again, work and life gets in the way.”
After he left the witness stand, Brennan played three clips of Read discussing the timeline in her own words for a TV documentary. She said she believes O’Keefe died around 12:30 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022.
The next witness was Christina Hanley, an analyst at the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab who examined the broken glass found near O’Keefe’s remains at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, about 20 miles south of Boston.
Hanley is expected to return to the stand at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
