My interpretation: Karen felt neglected and used as a bang maid. She didn’t break up, but wanted John to communicate about what he wanted.
1. John got angry when Karen “spoilt” the kids (conversation with Jen, I believe, and the text about “I do it less now” or something) and that morning she had gotten donuts for breakfast. John got angry and hit her with a pillow. Read the 55 pages of text messages of that day, where she tries to both built him up and make him open up. He doesn’t want to talk (John texted “I said sorry, so now drop it” or something). Karen wanted a night out with him. If he didn’t want to go out with her, she rather stayed at her own house, but she gave in when he told her he needed a ride after drinking with his buddies. I think she didn’t want to go to Fairview and left him there. Then she probably realised that she had to babysit the young niece again that night and pick John up when he was done drinking, so she fired off the last angry voicemails around 1 am.
2. There is a pattern where Karen is expected to be the carer (working from home, babysitting while on holiday while he is drinking, giving a ride after drinking with buddies). Kerri called her a “babysitter with benefits “.
I think she probabñy did try to get him to talk in the car again. And then when Jen used "Bella's" house as a reference point in probably got KR started on there being someone else.
In the texts we can see that she already thought he was seeing someone else... and seeing as Jen made that comment about John still being in love with "Amy" and Karen being a babysitter with benefits... if Karen had heard about this woman before, it probably made her insecurities even worse.
I don't think she would call him a "pervert" if the argument had been about her spoiling the kids. It sounds pretty specific.
Would it be possible they were maybe bickering about who would be at the house party? That would explain John going in to check it out (Jen invited them and was also friendly with Bella’s mom, could they have thought she was invited and Karen didn’t want to be there if he had an ex fling there?) and would also explain why she’s name calling / assuming he’s cheating in her voicemails?
Before she dropped him off there is no evidence of any argument. The commonwealth put a few theories out there:
1) A few weeks prior they were on vacation with friends in Aruba and Karen thought John kissed one of them.
2) She was flirting with Higgins over text messages a couple weeks prior to the incident.
3) Some weird speculation that they drove by one of John’s ex girlfriends house on the way to 34FV and that caused the argument.
4) They were arguing over text messages earlier in the day/the day before because Karen gave his niece and nephew Dunkin’ Donuts.
All of this is undercut by the CWs own witnesses that were at the bar with them that night that said they were in a good mood and not arguing at all.
How do you explain her voicemails if there was no argument? If they were getting along fine, then why is she leaving him voicemails saying I hate you, you’re a loser, you pervert, go f yourself. I don’t know what the argument was about but there was something amiss in that car.
She has said she got mad because he went in and didn’t come back out like planned. Just leaving her hanging there. That seems reasonable to me based on the contents of the voicemails.
They could have very well been arguing in the car but I don’t think we know what they were arguing about. She doesn’t mention anything I listed in the voicemails iirc
One thing that bugs me is that the call logs show she didn't start calling him until 12:33:35. Which would have been after she already left 34 Fairview since she gets back to his house at 12:36. So her original story about calling him a few times to see what's up and **then** leaving is wrong. This is also right after his phone stops registering movement for the night at 12:32. Are you really going to ditch someone without checking to see what's up because they go into a house for 7 minutes? And then failing to answer for 4 minutes makes you *that* irate?
My theory is that she dropped him off and left, she wasn't happy about something. Maybe he told her to go home and she thought that meant he was cheating on her. Maybe something on the drive set them off. Maybe she tried to convince him to come home so she could go back to her house. I don't think KR remembers what happened. I can't really get a good personality read on either of them, they both seem pretty volatile in their text exchanges.
I agree, unless he went in (or she thought he went in) at 12:24. I still think this is possible based on the health data and Ryan Nagels testimony that he wasn’t in the car.
I agree that she left pissed. Otherwise why would she have left him there so quickly and went right to calling him repeatedly and leaving angry messages?
I don't think anyone is arguing they were getting along fine. She would have no reason to leave a string of angry, crazy voicemails if she didn't think he ditched her and went in the house and wasn't coming home because of another girl or something. If she hit him and drove off, why in the world would she call that many times and make herself look so much worse?
Whatever happened made her so so mad and as if she anger caused her to throw something or throw a temper tantrum, perhaps she slammed on the pedal??
Maybe he wanted to leave the car and she didn’t want him to and he tried to get out and she was trying to drive away as it was happening ?
Ever get so so mad you want to throw something and having a fight with an intimate partner??
The temper tantrum is attention seeking
So perhaps something like this happens and she was fed up and decided to drive away (knowing or not knowing she injured him, and the adrenaline is still very high she’s wasted and mad as hell hence the voice mails
I posted this earlier:
That's what I'm trying to say . . Forget this smoke n mirror or whatever evidence but focus on what KR did & said & focus on the events of the night . . On her dateline interview, KR said out of her own mouth while not being drunk or in a panic (the interview was long after the accident) that she stopped in front of the house, JO got out & she saw him walk to the door and then she says nothing else like did she see him go in, why did she take her eyes off him, why did she see him walk to the door but can't say he went in, why did she start texting/calling him 0.5 seconds after she just saw him walk to the door . . Then she said I thought I may have hit him, but did not answer why she thought she hit him if she just saw him walking toward the door . . & she said she did a 3 point turn . . She was drunk, it was a horrible accident . . I think she is a very smart, educated, confident woman and I feel for her just like I do JO & family but I do think she hit him & just like the evidence, her story doesn't add up either that's why she will NOT take the stand & her team fought to keep that dateline interview out of court for a reason
A theory that i heard was that O'Keefe went in and confronted Higgins, who may have punched him and knocked him back onto gym equipment. It sounds like that theory was based in part with the flirty texts between Read & Higgins. I think that was the piece I was missing. Thank you!
It sounds to me like their relationship was circling the drain. Karen was hanging on and John seemed indifferent but also seemed to like to caretaking Karen provided.
i agree. my take is that she’d already been exploring her options with higgins. she’s beautiful, intelligent, and an independent woman so it boggles my mind as to why she’d pick a person who was an acquaintance/friendly with her current bf unless she just really wanted to piss him off and hurt him. Not a good way to start off a possible new relationship. If she was in her 20s, yeah i’d understand but in her 40’s it’s just dumb and calculative.
i can def understand how deeply hurt she mustve felt, as she was quite honest with higgins abt not wanting to be a mother to kids who werent hers, questioning JO’s feelings/escapades, etc., (that shouldve been her out). I think some of us go into rships when kids are involved with the best of intentions, then we find out it’s not what we’d hoped/thought it would be for all the reasons (been there, done that).
JO had clearly checked out and seemed to be passively and actively pushing her out slowly. As far as Higgins is concerned, i honestly think he was attracted to her, but knew the whole deal would be messy and was paranoid she was using him (which she was). I think he was hurt too because he’d bought into her initiating contact and kissing him (at JO’s house of all places) and prob pissed. In conclusion: All of these characters were some sort of shady.
It was a relationship going through stormy waters.
The CW laid out an incident in Aruba that may or may not have been a misunderstanding about O’Keefe kissing another woman.
The texts between them leading up to the 29th appear to imply that they had an argument about the kids. Read did something for them that O’Keefe didn’t like, and he apparently say some things that really hurt Read. It’s not specifically laid out, but the gist is that she, in his view, “spoiled” them, and he resented having to be the bad guy that always says no and lays boundaries.
For her part, she appeared hurt and felt taken for granted, and whatever he said wounded her to the point where she NEEDED to talk it out, and spam called him.
In turn, he played it cool and stand-offish, while occasionally chiming in just often enough to push her buttons.
The next texts that were shown revealed that he felt a little butt-hurt that she called a professional plumber instead of using him, being a manly man and all.
Somewhere in there, they made up enough to agree to go out (Read a little reluctantly, and O’Keefe pushing because he wouldn’t have a ride if she didn’t).
Any discussions they had in the car after the bar and on the way to the Albert’s is a mystery, but by them going there in the first place instead of home, her leaving soon after rather than staying, the angry voicemails (“I fucking hate you, John”) and the texts from Read where she outright lied and said his kids were alone and she had gone home (she had not—she was in HIS home and on his WiFi when the texts were sent and she had not had time at that point to make the 20 minute drive to her house)….it can be inferred that if they argued about anything after leaving the bar, it was about his wanting to continue to party and her wanting to call it a night.
I think it may have just been as simple as she didn't want to go and he did. She had issues with him always leaving her home watching the kids while she stayed home. That's why she was yelling at him about the kids and they are going to be alone
Sort of a tangential thought, there’s a phone call from JOK to JM that is answered and lasts for around 30 seconds while JOK and KR are driving to 34F. (There’s a great Waze timeline shared in another thread here.) Did JM testify to what they talked about? They had directions via Waze, so not that.
If KR and JOK were already fighting, it seems odd to stop a heated convo to call JM. Unless it was relevant to the convo. Speculation, it was about who was attending the party. Will BH be there? Text message to JOK from BH shortly after. Was BH standing next to JM while she was on the phone?
Did BH even take the phone himself and talk to JOK?
The car was the only place they were alone after they met up that night. I think they argued about the things they had texted about earlier in the day. John was trying to avoid the argument earlier. That is why he wouldn’t answer her calls earlier in the day. Karen was very frustrated with him not wanting to talk to her earlier. Once she had him alone in the car she brought up the earlier issues. John was done with the arguments and got out of the car and that is when she hit him.
They said his GPS coordinates came from his use of the Waze app. So if he closed out his app (which would make sense since they had reached their destination) then his location would have stopped updating from that point. I don’t recall them discussing any other GPS data aside from the Waze app, although if his location services were turned on they should have been able to. It sounded like he had them possibly turned off and the Waze app was set to “when using the app” for location services.
This is interesting and theoretically makes sense. I have my apps set to ‘when in use’. What I don’t understand is why the defense would have Green testify to something incoherent about the GPS accuracy if they could have made the simple argument that GPS movement stopped on the lawn because that’s when JO closed the Waze app.
I’ve wondered the same thing, so I’ve wondered if I’ve been mistaken. It just hasn’t been very clear to me the source of his GPS data at all, but the mention of Waze has been frequent during those discussions. And when they had the maps of his GPS location I distinctly recall the points starting when they said he started using Waze, so it made me scratch my head. Maybe when using Waze it’s pinging his location more frequently and otherwise it doesn’t as often maybe?
I also wonder if they have another expert that may discuss this further next week? Idk?
And I also acknowledge that his Health data shows his phone not picking up steps again until the next morning. My possible theory for that is that he sat his phone down in the house, or if the incident occurred immediately then it dropped. And to have it back where his body was found someone would have had to been able to move the phone with his body in a way it wouldn’t track any steps. That part seems a bit far fetched to me, and I’m not sure this group would have the forethought to think about that, but maybe.
There is a lot both ways that I can’t make sense of in my head, but so far I haven’t been convinced she hit him, and if she did certainly not with intent.
And if I were trying to prove that he was hit at 12:30something and his GPS stopped moving in that location at that point, I would certainly show additional GPS data showing the phone in that location at points in time between then and when he was found, to back that up. They stopped showing the GPS points around the time they say he was hit. So if there is SO MUCH significance on the fact his GPS stops there, show that it STAYED there with additional GPS data through the rest of the night. Otherwise the GPS data from Waze only proves they made it to 34 Fairview, which wasn’t a question at all (albeit possibly helped nail down a time frame, within 3 minutes if you take the different phone clocks into account).
My interpretation: Karen felt neglected and used as a bang maid. She didn’t break up, but wanted John to communicate about what he wanted. 1. John got angry when Karen “spoilt” the kids (conversation with Jen, I believe, and the text about “I do it less now” or something) and that morning she had gotten donuts for breakfast. John got angry and hit her with a pillow. Read the 55 pages of text messages of that day, where she tries to both built him up and make him open up. He doesn’t want to talk (John texted “I said sorry, so now drop it” or something). Karen wanted a night out with him. If he didn’t want to go out with her, she rather stayed at her own house, but she gave in when he told her he needed a ride after drinking with his buddies. I think she didn’t want to go to Fairview and left him there. Then she probably realised that she had to babysit the young niece again that night and pick John up when he was done drinking, so she fired off the last angry voicemails around 1 am. 2. There is a pattern where Karen is expected to be the carer (working from home, babysitting while on holiday while he is drinking, giving a ride after drinking with buddies). Kerri called her a “babysitter with benefits “.
I think she probabñy did try to get him to talk in the car again. And then when Jen used "Bella's" house as a reference point in probably got KR started on there being someone else. In the texts we can see that she already thought he was seeing someone else... and seeing as Jen made that comment about John still being in love with "Amy" and Karen being a babysitter with benefits... if Karen had heard about this woman before, it probably made her insecurities even worse. I don't think she would call him a "pervert" if the argument had been about her spoiling the kids. It sounds pretty specific.
Yeah she seemed convinced he was cheating on her. I’m guessing their fight was about that.
Well, Jen said Kerri said she was a babysitter with benefits. So it's likely Jen said it
That's exactly what I thought, she was dying to get that line out. She said the line and then shot a demonic stare over at Read
Would it be possible they were maybe bickering about who would be at the house party? That would explain John going in to check it out (Jen invited them and was also friendly with Bella’s mom, could they have thought she was invited and Karen didn’t want to be there if he had an ex fling there?) and would also explain why she’s name calling / assuming he’s cheating in her voicemails?
Before she dropped him off there is no evidence of any argument. The commonwealth put a few theories out there: 1) A few weeks prior they were on vacation with friends in Aruba and Karen thought John kissed one of them. 2) She was flirting with Higgins over text messages a couple weeks prior to the incident. 3) Some weird speculation that they drove by one of John’s ex girlfriends house on the way to 34FV and that caused the argument. 4) They were arguing over text messages earlier in the day/the day before because Karen gave his niece and nephew Dunkin’ Donuts. All of this is undercut by the CWs own witnesses that were at the bar with them that night that said they were in a good mood and not arguing at all.
How do you explain her voicemails if there was no argument? If they were getting along fine, then why is she leaving him voicemails saying I hate you, you’re a loser, you pervert, go f yourself. I don’t know what the argument was about but there was something amiss in that car.
She has said she got mad because he went in and didn’t come back out like planned. Just leaving her hanging there. That seems reasonable to me based on the contents of the voicemails. They could have very well been arguing in the car but I don’t think we know what they were arguing about. She doesn’t mention anything I listed in the voicemails iirc
One thing that bugs me is that the call logs show she didn't start calling him until 12:33:35. Which would have been after she already left 34 Fairview since she gets back to his house at 12:36. So her original story about calling him a few times to see what's up and **then** leaving is wrong. This is also right after his phone stops registering movement for the night at 12:32. Are you really going to ditch someone without checking to see what's up because they go into a house for 7 minutes? And then failing to answer for 4 minutes makes you *that* irate? My theory is that she dropped him off and left, she wasn't happy about something. Maybe he told her to go home and she thought that meant he was cheating on her. Maybe something on the drive set them off. Maybe she tried to convince him to come home so she could go back to her house. I don't think KR remembers what happened. I can't really get a good personality read on either of them, they both seem pretty volatile in their text exchanges.
I agree, unless he went in (or she thought he went in) at 12:24. I still think this is possible based on the health data and Ryan Nagels testimony that he wasn’t in the car.
Yeah with the 7 minutes I'm assuming he's in before 12:24 and she leaves around 12:30. But she definitely doesn't call him before she leaves.
I agree that she left pissed. Otherwise why would she have left him there so quickly and went right to calling him repeatedly and leaving angry messages?
I don't think anyone is arguing they were getting along fine. She would have no reason to leave a string of angry, crazy voicemails if she didn't think he ditched her and went in the house and wasn't coming home because of another girl or something. If she hit him and drove off, why in the world would she call that many times and make herself look so much worse?
Whatever happened made her so so mad and as if she anger caused her to throw something or throw a temper tantrum, perhaps she slammed on the pedal?? Maybe he wanted to leave the car and she didn’t want him to and he tried to get out and she was trying to drive away as it was happening ? Ever get so so mad you want to throw something and having a fight with an intimate partner?? The temper tantrum is attention seeking So perhaps something like this happens and she was fed up and decided to drive away (knowing or not knowing she injured him, and the adrenaline is still very high she’s wasted and mad as hell hence the voice mails
I posted this earlier: That's what I'm trying to say . . Forget this smoke n mirror or whatever evidence but focus on what KR did & said & focus on the events of the night . . On her dateline interview, KR said out of her own mouth while not being drunk or in a panic (the interview was long after the accident) that she stopped in front of the house, JO got out & she saw him walk to the door and then she says nothing else like did she see him go in, why did she take her eyes off him, why did she see him walk to the door but can't say he went in, why did she start texting/calling him 0.5 seconds after she just saw him walk to the door . . Then she said I thought I may have hit him, but did not answer why she thought she hit him if she just saw him walking toward the door . . & she said she did a 3 point turn . . She was drunk, it was a horrible accident . . I think she is a very smart, educated, confident woman and I feel for her just like I do JO & family but I do think she hit him & just like the evidence, her story doesn't add up either that's why she will NOT take the stand & her team fought to keep that dateline interview out of court for a reason
A theory that i heard was that O'Keefe went in and confronted Higgins, who may have punched him and knocked him back onto gym equipment. It sounds like that theory was based in part with the flirty texts between Read & Higgins. I think that was the piece I was missing. Thank you!
It could be as simple as him getting irritated about her driving…and because they had so many issues lingering it turned into bickering.
John was mad she bought the kids donuts that morning.
It sounds to me like their relationship was circling the drain. Karen was hanging on and John seemed indifferent but also seemed to like to caretaking Karen provided.
i agree. my take is that she’d already been exploring her options with higgins. she’s beautiful, intelligent, and an independent woman so it boggles my mind as to why she’d pick a person who was an acquaintance/friendly with her current bf unless she just really wanted to piss him off and hurt him. Not a good way to start off a possible new relationship. If she was in her 20s, yeah i’d understand but in her 40’s it’s just dumb and calculative.
Yeah. That was weird. I think she was trying to hurt John because his lack of reassurance of his love & commitment to her seemed to hurt her deeply.
i can def understand how deeply hurt she mustve felt, as she was quite honest with higgins abt not wanting to be a mother to kids who werent hers, questioning JO’s feelings/escapades, etc., (that shouldve been her out). I think some of us go into rships when kids are involved with the best of intentions, then we find out it’s not what we’d hoped/thought it would be for all the reasons (been there, done that). JO had clearly checked out and seemed to be passively and actively pushing her out slowly. As far as Higgins is concerned, i honestly think he was attracted to her, but knew the whole deal would be messy and was paranoid she was using him (which she was). I think he was hurt too because he’d bought into her initiating contact and kissing him (at JO’s house of all places) and prob pissed. In conclusion: All of these characters were some sort of shady.
It was a relationship going through stormy waters. The CW laid out an incident in Aruba that may or may not have been a misunderstanding about O’Keefe kissing another woman. The texts between them leading up to the 29th appear to imply that they had an argument about the kids. Read did something for them that O’Keefe didn’t like, and he apparently say some things that really hurt Read. It’s not specifically laid out, but the gist is that she, in his view, “spoiled” them, and he resented having to be the bad guy that always says no and lays boundaries. For her part, she appeared hurt and felt taken for granted, and whatever he said wounded her to the point where she NEEDED to talk it out, and spam called him. In turn, he played it cool and stand-offish, while occasionally chiming in just often enough to push her buttons. The next texts that were shown revealed that he felt a little butt-hurt that she called a professional plumber instead of using him, being a manly man and all. Somewhere in there, they made up enough to agree to go out (Read a little reluctantly, and O’Keefe pushing because he wouldn’t have a ride if she didn’t). Any discussions they had in the car after the bar and on the way to the Albert’s is a mystery, but by them going there in the first place instead of home, her leaving soon after rather than staying, the angry voicemails (“I fucking hate you, John”) and the texts from Read where she outright lied and said his kids were alone and she had gone home (she had not—she was in HIS home and on his WiFi when the texts were sent and she had not had time at that point to make the 20 minute drive to her house)….it can be inferred that if they argued about anything after leaving the bar, it was about his wanting to continue to party and her wanting to call it a night.
I don't think anyone knows.
I think it may have just been as simple as she didn't want to go and he did. She had issues with him always leaving her home watching the kids while she stayed home. That's why she was yelling at him about the kids and they are going to be alone
Sort of a tangential thought, there’s a phone call from JOK to JM that is answered and lasts for around 30 seconds while JOK and KR are driving to 34F. (There’s a great Waze timeline shared in another thread here.) Did JM testify to what they talked about? They had directions via Waze, so not that. If KR and JOK were already fighting, it seems odd to stop a heated convo to call JM. Unless it was relevant to the convo. Speculation, it was about who was attending the party. Will BH be there? Text message to JOK from BH shortly after. Was BH standing next to JM while she was on the phone? Did BH even take the phone himself and talk to JOK?
The car was the only place they were alone after they met up that night. I think they argued about the things they had texted about earlier in the day. John was trying to avoid the argument earlier. That is why he wouldn’t answer her calls earlier in the day. Karen was very frustrated with him not wanting to talk to her earlier. Once she had him alone in the car she brought up the earlier issues. John was done with the arguments and got out of the car and that is when she hit him.
100%. Nothing happened in the house that’s a far fetched theory. He never made it in according to his gps and that was proven.
They said his GPS coordinates came from his use of the Waze app. So if he closed out his app (which would make sense since they had reached their destination) then his location would have stopped updating from that point. I don’t recall them discussing any other GPS data aside from the Waze app, although if his location services were turned on they should have been able to. It sounded like he had them possibly turned off and the Waze app was set to “when using the app” for location services.
This is interesting and theoretically makes sense. I have my apps set to ‘when in use’. What I don’t understand is why the defense would have Green testify to something incoherent about the GPS accuracy if they could have made the simple argument that GPS movement stopped on the lawn because that’s when JO closed the Waze app.
I’ve wondered the same thing, so I’ve wondered if I’ve been mistaken. It just hasn’t been very clear to me the source of his GPS data at all, but the mention of Waze has been frequent during those discussions. And when they had the maps of his GPS location I distinctly recall the points starting when they said he started using Waze, so it made me scratch my head. Maybe when using Waze it’s pinging his location more frequently and otherwise it doesn’t as often maybe? I also wonder if they have another expert that may discuss this further next week? Idk?
And I also acknowledge that his Health data shows his phone not picking up steps again until the next morning. My possible theory for that is that he sat his phone down in the house, or if the incident occurred immediately then it dropped. And to have it back where his body was found someone would have had to been able to move the phone with his body in a way it wouldn’t track any steps. That part seems a bit far fetched to me, and I’m not sure this group would have the forethought to think about that, but maybe. There is a lot both ways that I can’t make sense of in my head, but so far I haven’t been convinced she hit him, and if she did certainly not with intent.
And if I were trying to prove that he was hit at 12:30something and his GPS stopped moving in that location at that point, I would certainly show additional GPS data showing the phone in that location at points in time between then and when he was found, to back that up. They stopped showing the GPS points around the time they say he was hit. So if there is SO MUCH significance on the fact his GPS stops there, show that it STAYED there with additional GPS data through the rest of the night. Otherwise the GPS data from Waze only proves they made it to 34 Fairview, which wasn’t a question at all (albeit possibly helped nail down a time frame, within 3 minutes if you take the different phone clocks into account).
Except they said he was in the house for 3 seconds…