Expert says that O'keefes fatal head injury has come to the back of the case

John O'keefe died because he fell back and hit his head on frozen soil, according to a Yale-trained brain surgeon, who testified on Wednesday in the murder process against Karen Read.

Read, 45, is accused of killing her friend at the time, the 46-year-old O'keefe, by beating him on January 29, 2022 with her 2021 Lexus-SUV and then letting him die in a blizzard in Canton, Massachusetts, about 20 miles south of Boston.

According to Dr. Aizik Wolf is not immediately killed, said Dr. Aizik Wolf, who testified that he treated many similar injuries in his career in Minneapolis.

“The only way to get this type of injury was to fall backwards, meet the back of the head, and then the resulting energy forces that go to his brain in the base of his skull,” he told the jury during the survey of special prosecutor Hank Brennan.

Karen read with the witness faced with a brutal cross -question about vehicle data

O'keefe suffered “a classic blunt trauma injury,” said Wolf.

O'keefe fell backwards and hit his head, said Wolf, and the power of the impact breeded his skull and later led to “raccoon eyes” that look like black eyes.

“This happens when soft tissue hits a solid floor,” he said.

According to Wolf, swelling in the victim's brain would have killed him under normal circumstances, usually within 24 to 48 hours. Some victims died in only one to three.

In January Nor'eaaster also fueled O'keefes body temperature. When the paramedics found him at 6 a.m., its temperature was only 80 degrees below the threshold for what doctors call “severe hypothermia”.

Karen Read, Right and Lawyer Elizabeth Little discuss the developments during the Murd process of Read on May 21, 2025. (Greg Derr/Patriot Ledger about AP/POOL)

Wolf said that at the beginning of his career he treated many patients with similar injuries when he worked in a Minneapolis trauma center. The city can be brutally cold in winter. Many of the wounds were fatal. Some were added to drunk patients who slipped on the ice. Other people involved who came up after a heart attack.

“This testimony of Dr. Wolf defines the argument of the Commonwealth for Count 2, the involuntary manslaughter clause,” said Grace Edwards, a defender of Massachusetts who pursues the case. “The Commonwealth will argue that the jury will argue that if they cannot find out that Karen Read John O'keefe's death deliberately, the number 1 and 3, caused their driving or her side ward and then caused him injured, was the willful and ruthless act that contributed to his death.

Expert in Karen read murder processes with “mistakes” that inflate his references

Karen Read and John O'keefe (Karen Read)

According to Wolf's biography in the Miami Neuroscience Center, he is a worldwide leading authority in his field and in the director of the clinic.

A short cross -interpretation by defender Robert Alessi discussed separate injuries that O'keefe suffered, which was not associated with the head trauma that killed him.

State Trooper points to a possible weapon in John O'keefe's death – and it's not Karen Read's car

“I thought lawyer Alessi did a good job, to redirect Dr. Wolf from the back of the head to the front of the head and trigger testimony that these injuries probably did not come from a fall,” Edwards told Fox News Digital. “This supports the defense theory that John O'keefe was not hit by a vehicle and suggests that it was something else because he was injured on his face and the injuries to the arm, and the examination did not pursue any other cages to determine how John O'keefe suffered these injuries.”

The state police technician Christina Hanley will discuss court proceedings in Karen Reads on May 21, 2025. (Greg Derr/Patriot Ledger about AP/POOL)

Wolf started the day at the stand. According to his testimony, Christina Hanley from Massachusett's State Police Crime Lab returned to witness stand. She is an expert in glass and plastic fragments that analyzed the broken cocktail glass outside the 34 Fairview Road and on the rear bumper of Reads Lexus SUV and on the fragments of the broken rear light.

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Her certificate had been interrupted in the early end of the day on Tuesday.

John O'keefe (Police authority in Boston)

On Wednesday afternoon, she said that some of the plastic deposits recovered from O'keef's clothing with the materials used in Reads Lexus were “consistent”, but can come from another source with similar properties.

During the crossing, she revealed that none of the rudder broken glass on Reads bumpers matched the broken cocktail glass in the courtyard near O'Keefe.

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Defender Alan Jackson explained her that the only thing that was a mood glass with a glass sample that was restored by the former soldier Michael Proctor, who was released in March after an internal probe for inappropriate text messages that he had sent during the examination.

At the beginning of the process, the defense played a video in which Proctor stood out of the camera near the vehicle while it was at the Canton police department.

Proctor claimed through his family that his investigation corresponds to the evidence and was carried out with integrity.

Read could have life in prison if he is convicted of murdered second degree. It is also accused of drunk driving, homicide and left the place of a fatal accident.

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Andrew Fone from Fox News contributed to this report.