Will the judge allow testimony from a doctor who believes O'Keefe was attacked by a dog?

The murder trial of Karen Read will resume Thursday morning. Judge Beverly Cannone is expected to announce her decision on whether to allow testimony from defense experts. Those experts include a former emergency room doctor who believes John O’Keefe was the victim of an “attack by a large dog.”

Read, 44, of Mansfield, has pleaded not guilty to charges including first-degree murder of John O’Keefe, her boyfriend, a Boston police officer.

Prosecutors allege Read ran over O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV and left him for dead in a snowstorm outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton after a night of drinking in January 2022. The defense wants to prove O’Keefe was murdered by someone in the house and then thrown into the snow.

Because of the Juneteenth holiday, court was closed Wednesday, but Dr. Marie Russell and accident reconstruction analysts Dr. Daniel Wolfe and Dr. Andrew Rentschler were questioned without the jury present. Cannone said she will decide what, if anything, they can say to the jury.

Russell, a retired emergency room physician and forensic pathologist, was the first expert witness called to the stand by the defense during jury selection.

Russell told the court that she spent nearly three decades at Los Angeles General Medical Center and that her duties included determining the cause of injuries. Russell also spent part of her career in law enforcement, working as a police officer in Malden for seven years.

Russell said she reviewed hospital photographs of O’Keefe’s injuries, as well as his autopsy and toxicology reports, among other things.

Russell claimed the combination of cuts and scratches on O’Keefe’s arm was “consistent with an attack by a large dog,” not a car accident.

“These injuries to the arm are, in my opinion, the result of bites or scratches from animals,” Russell told Judge Beverly Cannone when asked for further elaboration. “Most likely a dog, a large dog.”

When Cannone asked her how sure she was of her opinion, Russell replied, “Very sure” to a “high degree of medical certainty.”

Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally then asked Cannone to exclude Russell from testifying, accusing her of trying to interfere in the case and saying the defense brought her in too late.

Cannone instructed Lally to find a counterwitness if she allowed Russell to testify. Lally agreed and said it could be done in a week.

Wolfe, an expert hired by federal investigators to reconstruct the accident in the Read case, said his firm concluded that O’Keefe’s injuries did not appear to have resulted from a car accident.

Wolfe said he and two of his colleagues reviewed the case, including police reports, crime scene and autopsy photos, and data on Read’s SUV.

Rentschler is an accident deconstructionist who specializes in biomechanical engineering.

Rentschler told the court that he had conducted “a series of crash and sled tests” and that his work in the Read case had focused on the biomechanical analysis of O’Keefe’s injuries.

Read pleaded not guilty to the charges, including O’Keefe’s death.

The prosecution is expected to complete its case by the end of this week, after which the defense will present its arguments.