Prosecutors rested their case in Karen Learn’s new homicide trial after greater than a month of testimony — and closed with a video of Learn expressing fears that she might have struck and killed her boyfriend John O’Keefe together with her automotive.
“What if I ran his foot over or what if I clipped him in the knee, and he passed out or went to care for himself and he threw up or passed out?” Learn stated in an interview clip performed for Massachusetts jurors Thursday.
“I thought, could I have run him over? Did he try to get me as I was leaving, and I didn’t know it?” she stated within the clip, which got here from an April 2024 documentary launched forward of her first trial, in accordance with WCVB.
“I always have the music blasting. It’s snowing. I had the wipers going, the heater blasting. Did he come and hit the back of my car, and I hit him in the knee, and he was drunk and passed out and [he] asphyxiated or something,” Learn stated within the video.
As soon as the clip ended — with Learn explaining that her lawyer, David Yannetti, stated she would have “some element of culpability” if all that had occurred — the video dramatically pale to black, and jurors have been left in silence as prosecutors closed.
Learn, 45, is accused of intentionally backing her Lexus SUV into 46-year-old O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, earlier than he died on an evening of drunken arguing in January 2022.
O’Keefe’s physique was discovered bloodied and battered within the snow exterior a pal’s home in Canton the morning after Learn drove him there to celebration with a few of his cop our bodies throughout a blizzard.
The couple reportedly had a rocky relationship earlier than the fateful evening.
Earlier within the week prosecutors referred to as accident reconstructionist Judson Welcher to the stand, who testified that knowledge from Learn’s Lexus indicated she had pushed ahead then stopped and accelerated in reverse at 74% throttle — about 23 mph — on the time that she was dropping O’Keefe off on the home.
And on Thursday, prosecutors pressed Welcher on whether or not or not the information may undergo from “confirmation bias” — which Welcher denied, saying the automotive introduced them with “objective information.”
With the prosecution’s case completed, the protection will start calling witnesses Friday, and is anticipated to kick issues off with their very own accident reconstructionist, in accordance with Boston.com.
Learn informed reporters it stays “TBD” whether or not she’s going to take the stand herself, which she didn’t throughout her first trial final 12 months.
The protection will probably take about two weeks to current its case, Learn added, earlier than calling the prosecution’s case in opposition to her “unjust.”
Learn’s first case led to a mistrial final summer season after jurors have been unable to achieve an settlement on her prices of second-degree homicide and manslaughter.
She pleaded not responsible, together with her protection arguing O’Keefe was crushed by his cop pals and dumped within the snow the place he was discovered — and that the friends then tried to border Learn.
The final trial dredged up responding officers’ questionable investigation ways — which included utilizing leaf-blowers to soften snow and storing O’Keefe’s frozen blood in Solo cups, together with vulgar texts officers exchanged about Learn — to help their claims.
