Crime
Dr. Marie Russell faced hours of questioning last month, laying out her credentials and restating her belief that John O’Keefe’s arm wounds appear to have come from a dog.
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Karen Read’s dog bite expert is back in the hot seat Tuesday as prosecutors aim to chip away at her credibility and keep her off the witness list.
Dr. Marie Russell sat through hours of questioning last month, laying out her credentials and restating her belief that John O’Keefe’s arm wounds appear to have come from a dog — the same testimony she offered during Read’s first trial.
“Those wounds were inflicted by a dog attack,” the retired emergency room physician and forensic pathologist opined during the Dec. 12 hearing.
But prosecutors say the blame for O’Keefe’s injuries falls squarely on Read. The 44-year-old is accused of drunkenly and intentionally backing her SUV into O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend, after a night of bar-hopping with friends in January 2022. Prosecutors allege Read left O’Keefe to die outside the home of another Boston officer who was hosting an afterparty.
Yet Read’s lawyers claim she was framed in a coverup, suggesting O’Keefe walked into the party and was assaulted, attacked by the family dog, and ultimately dumped outside in the snow.
During Read’s first trial, jurors heard testimony that the University of California, Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory Forensic Unit found no signs of canine DNA on swabs taken from O’Keefe’s shirt. But testifying last month, Russell said the testing didn’t sway her. She cited a lack of knowledge about how investigators collected the swabs, further noting the samples didn’t come directly from O’Keefe’s arm.
“Any test can have a false negative result,” Russell added. “So the absence of canine DNA does not mean that the canine DNA did not exist. It just means that they didn’t capture it.”
Again and again, she doubled down on the opinions she shared on the stand in June.
“I was convinced back then and I am still convinced right now that these [injuries] were caused by dog bites, and not only that, but [a] dog attack,” Russell said last month.
Read’s first trial ended with a hung jury in July, and her retrial is scheduled for later this year. Russell’s pre-trial questioning will help Judge Beverly Cannone decide whether the physician should be allowed to offer expert testimony the second time around.
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