Chicago news helicopter makes emergency landing on golf course
By Adam Harrington
A Chicago local news helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing on a golf course in Elgin Tuesday afternoon.
NBC 5 Chicago said a cockpit warning light came on in the station’s helicopter, indicating an engine problem. Elgin Fire Chief Rob Cagann said the engine problem specifically involved overheated oil temperature.
The pilot of the Sky 5 chopper made a precautionary landing at the Wing Park golf course.
“They were able to find Wing Park here to be able to put it down safely without any incident,” said Cagann.
No one on board or on the golf course was hurt.
Cagann noted that the emergency landing of the chopper was a very unusual incident, as there is no airport in Elgin.
The NBC helicopter was flying over Elgin along with others — including CBS Skywatch — as a car was pulled from the Fox River. The car belonged to Karen Schepers, who has been missing since 1983.
Karen Read trial recap: John O’Keefe’s head injury consistent with fall backwards
- Updated: Jun. 09, 2025, 4:22 p.m.
- |Published: Jun. 09, 2025, 5:55 a.m.
By
Karen Read‘s second trial in connection with the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, continued on Monday in Dedham’s Norfolk Superior Court before Judge Beverly Cannone.
On Friday, the jury heard lengthy testimony from an accident reconstruction expert first hired by the federal government, who is now retained by the defense, about the damage to Read’s SUV.
People to know:
- Special prosecutor Hank Brennan
- Defense attorney Alan Jackson
- Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, medical examiner and associate professor at Brown
- Daniel Wolfe, director of accident reconstruction at ARCCA
4:01 p.m. – Lawyers outline remaining schedule
With the jury out of the courtroom, Cannone asked the lawyers how much longer they think the case will go. She indicated the jury was “just about ready” to get the case. Earlier in the day, she said she could tell they were getting “fed up.”
Brennan and Jackson indicated Laposata’s testimony should conclude by the morning recess on Tuesday. Jackson confirmed the defense intends to rest its case after calling Andrew Rentschler, a biomechanical engineer at ARCCA. Rentschler’s direct examination could take three of four hours, Jackson said.
Wolfe, the other ARCCA expert, was on the stand for a day and a half. Brennan indicated his rebuttal case would only take a few hours.
Cannone said she now regretted giving a day off last week on Thursday. It appears closing arguments will be held this week.
3:39 p.m. – O’Keefe’s injuries consistent with fall backwards
Laposata said she saw evidence of blunt force trauma to the back of O’Keefe’s head. He sustained a laceration and several linear scrapes, she explained.
Jackson asked Laposata to describe a coup-contrecoup injury. That injury commonly happens in a fall backwards, basically when a person’s head is moving when it is injured instead of being stationary. A coup-contrecoup injury can cause bleeding in the eyelids.
O’Keefe’s injury “tells me he went backwards onto something,” Laposata said. She suggested he fell onto a ridge with some irregularity.
His injuries were “not consistent” with a fall on a flat surface, she explained.
The laceration above his eyelid was consistent with an object. Laposata said that included a fist.
“A fist is an object,” she said.
Jackson asked to be heard at sidebar after the answer, and Cannone sent the jury home. She told jurors to arrive half an hour later than usual on Tuesday.
3:13 p.m. – Laposata describes credentials
On direct examination from Jackson, Laposata explained her professional experience to the jury. She told the panel that as the chief medical examiner for Rhode Island she was responsible for investigating all unnatural, unexpected deaths or deaths involving violence.
She also discussed two mass disaster cases that occurred during the 12 years she worked as the chief medical examiner, including an Egypt Air plane crash in 1999 and the Station Nightclub fire.
Laposata has been qualified as an expert “several hundred times” in court across the country. She talked through many of her professional memberships and her role on the editorial board of the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology.
As a forensic pathologist, Laposta said, you are the “last doctor a person has.”
Forensic pathologists “figure out what happened to the body” to determine the cause and manner of a person’s death. There are five manners of death: suicide, homicide, natural, accident or undetermined.
An undetermined manner of death means more investigation or information is needed to determine how that person died, she explained. Laposata also explained the materials she reviewed in the Read case, including the medical examiner’s entire file and more than 100 autopsy photos.
2:47 p.m. – Private investigator describes measurements at Fairview Road
John Tedeman, a licensed private investigator hired by the defense, described various measurements he took at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, the scene of O’Keefe’s death.
Tedeman described measurements from the mailbox outside the home to each of the front doors. The distance ranged from 65 feet to about 80, he said.
On cross-examination from Brennan, he agreed the distance from the flagpole to the front door was more than 80 feet.
Tedeman concluded his testimony there.
2:33 p.m. – Judge blocks medical examiner from testifying on dog bites
After the lunch break, Cannone barred the defense’s medical examiner, Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, from testifying that O’Keefe’s wounds were consistent with dog bites. She pointed to the reliability of Laposta’s method.
Cannone also offered an explanation for why she allowed in the testimony of another expert witness, Dr. Marie Russell, but not Laposata, pointing specifically to Russell’s experience in the emergency room and the fact that she co-authored publications about dog bites.
Laposata’s opinion regarding motor vehicle strikes “exceeded her scope of expertise within some regard,” Cannone said. She outlined specific areas of the report that were allowed in and others that Laposata could not testify to.
Before jurors came in, Jackson objected to the timing of the prosecution’s objection to Laposata’s report. They filed their motion to exclude portions of her testimony last week, months after the deadline for motions in limine, he noted.
Brennan said the objection was a “foundational issue.”
1:21 p.m. – Medical examiner questioned away from jury
Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a former chief medical examiner in Rhode Island, was questioned by both Jackson and Brennan outside the presence of the jury. Cannone requested the voir dire to determine if Laposata was qualified to testify on dog bites and car crashes.
Laposata said she has performed thousands of autopsies and supervised thousands more. In the Read case, she confirmed she used pattern recognition and differential diagnosis to determine the cause of O’Keefe’s injuries.
She reviewed not just photos of his right arm, but of his entire body, she said. Laposata said she had been qualified to testify about wound pattern recognition as it relates to dog bites in a federal case. The case was a couple years ago, around the COVID-19 pandemic.
On direct examination from Jackson, she confirmed she was able to reach conclusions to a reasonable degree of scientific and medical certainty about O’Keefe’s injuries.
Under cross-examination from Brennan, Laposata said the issue of dog bites is so basic that it is part of board exams and comes up in regular review of literature.
Laposata said she reviewed the autopsy report, neuropathology report and toxicology report from the medical examiner’s office in the Read case. She also reviewed autopsy and neuropathology reports, as well as O’Keefe’s clothes and the Canton Police Department’s incident report.
Combined, that evidence gave her a “very good idea of what happened” to Mr. O’Keefe.
Cannone asked Laposta how many autopsies she had performed involving dog bites. She said about 125, and the last one was about two years ago.
With Laposta off the stand, Jackson described her as “eminently qualified.”
“She’s seen dog bites, she’s seen dog wounds,” he said. “She has … been the chief medical examiner for an entire state.”
“I can’t imagine someone more qualified” to speak to the issues of dog bites and vehicle-pedestrian collisions, Jackson added.
But Brennan argued she lacked the requisite experience and noted she couldn’t point to a specific course she had taken in the field of dog bites.
12:57 p.m. – Judge calls lunch break
John Tedeman, a licensed private investigator hired by the defense, was the next witness to be called Monday.
Tedeman testified he was asked to go to 34 Fairview Road, the scene of O’Keefe’s death, and take measurements and photographs. He went on June 3, he said.
Brennan objected to something during the questioning and asked to be heard at sidebar. After two sidebars, Cannone sent the jury out for lunch.
12:37 p.m. – Judge denies mistrial motion
After hearing from Brennan, who admitted he made a mistake, Cannone denied the motion for a mistrial.
She told the defense she would give an instruction to the jury, telling them to disregard the questions and answers and that they are not permitted to “draw any inference” from the holes.
When jurors re-entered the courtroom, Cannone told them the holes were made by Maureen Hartnett, a prosecution witness and criminalist at the Massachusetts State Police crime lab, during her sampling of the sweatshirt. Robert Alessi, a lawyer for Read, walked by jurors holding up the sweatshirt.
The jury did not have a visible reaction to the instruction.
12:08 p.m. – Defense moving for mistrial
For the second time in two weeks, defense attorney Robert Alessi moved for a mistrial with prejudice. Alessi told Cannone the mistrial was based on “intentional misconduct” during the questioning of Wolfe, specifically regarding O’Keefe’s hoodie.
Alessi pointed to Brennan’s questioning of Wolfe regarding the holes on the back of O’Keefe’s sweatshirt. He said Brennan never showed Jackson the hoodie before beginning his questioning.
The holes on the back were “clearly, unequivocally, without doubt” caused by the cutting of a Massachusetts State Police criminalist. “Those holes in the back of the sweatshirt [have] nothing to do with any type of event on or about Jan. 29, 2022.”
Alessi held up a photo of the back of the hoodie when it was collected, which he said did not show any holes.
During a break after Wolfe’s testimony, Jackson, Alessi and Brennan all donned evidence gloves to examine the hoodie, which the court clerk cut out of the plexiglass it had been stored in.
Alessi, often mild-mannered during direct and cross-examination, raised his voice as he argued that Read’s right to a fair trial had been denied.
“What could be more egregious, what could be more misleading than that?” he said. Alessi accused the prosecution of being desperate and attempting to create evidence.
“The commonwealth has no case. They have no collision,” he continued.
11:39 a.m. – Wolfe concludes testimony
Brennan’s lengthy re-cross examination ended with a series of questions about the damage to O’Keefe’s sweatshirt. Brennan, using O’Keefe’s actual sweatshirt, which is encased in plexiglass, asked Wolfe if there were any holes on the back of the hoodie.
With Brennan no more than feet away on the other side of the witness stand, Wolfe acknowledged there was damage to the back of the hoodie. But he said it was inconsistent with road rash.
“If you just fall and land on your back, you’re not going to be sliding to get those abrasions and tearing,” Wolfe said.
When Jackson resumed his questioning, Wolfe confirmed that the prosecution’s expert, Judson Welcher, used a crash dummy for his drop test.
Wolfe also testified that the only test that showed holes and abrasions to the sweatshirt was a “full-on hit” of the 200-pound dummy. In that test, the back of the car was “destroyed,” he said.
There were “no tests where [the] taillight caused any punctures or fraying,” he explained.
After a sidebar, Cannone allowed Brennan to ask follow-up questions. He returned to questioning about whether the taillight could have pushed O’Keefe’s arm. Wolfe said the light would have been pushed into the arm, and Brennan countered that the dummy, if it weren’t restrained, would have moved with the vehicle.
With the jury out of the room, Cannone told Jackson to avoid questioning of Dr. Elizabeth LaPosata, a medical examiner testifying for the defense, on the issue of dog bites until a voir dire on the subject.
10:49 a.m. – Brennan presses Wolfe on use of crash dummy
Brennan began his re-cross asking Wolfe about the weight he provided for O’Keefe’s arm.
“You can’t just make it up out of thin air, you have to find a resource, a reliable vetted resource, true?” Brennan asked, and Wolfe agreed.
The weight of O’Keefe’s arm was a major point of contention during Brennan’s cross-examination. Brennan repeatedly pressed Wolfe on whether he had any support for using an arm for testing that weighed less than O’Keefe’s.
Wolfe said he couldn’t name a specific paper because his testimony was not addressing the “forces and the injuries to the arm.”
He conceded that using a heavier arm for his testing would have generated more force, but pushed back on much of Brennan’s questioning.
“You’re getting confused between my role and Dr. Rentschler’s,” Wolfe said, referencing his ARCCA colleague, who will testify to the injuries O’Keefe sustained. “I was looking at what happened to the material.”
Brennan moved on to questions about the use of a sweatshirt similar to O’Keefe’s for the testing.
This case is the “first time ever you’ve done this type of analysis? he said.
Wolfe said it was the first time he had been asked to study the impact of a taillight on an arm. When Brennan moved to questions on a report Wolfe, Rentschler and another ARCCA employee authored, Jackson objected several times and asked to be heard at sidebar.
After the sidebar, Brennan’s questions moved to whether O’Keefe’s arm could have been “pushed” by the car and contacted the broken taillight. Wolfe said it could.
10:27 a.m. — Jackson concludes questioning
Jackson showed Wolfe a formula for kinetic energy and projected it in the courtroom.
The defense lawyer made several references to questions Brennan had asked last week about the differences in weight between a hybrid arm the crash reconstructionists used and a heavier one Brennan had asked about.
Last week, Brennan suggested O’Keefe’s arm would’ve weighed around 11.8 pounds, but Wolfe and his colleagues used a dummy arm that weighed 9.38 pounds.
After several questions from Jackson asking Wolfe to calculate the kinetic energy of the 9.38 pounds compared to the 11.8 hypothetical weight of O’Keefe’s arm, Wolfe found that there was more kinetic energy with the lighter arm.
Wolfe used a pen and notepad to make the calculations.
Jackson ended his questioning by asking if the damage to the taillight during the 29 mph was consistent with the damage to Read’s taillight.
“It was inconsistent,” Wolfe said.
10:12 a.m. — Wolfe returns to the stand
Dr. Daniel Wolfe returned to the stand, and Jackson showed him a photo of a test dummy after a 29 mph crash test.
Jackson asked about damage to the test dummy’s left arm, which Wolfe agreed was known as road rash.
“There were signs of road rash to the dummy itself on the face and the torso and the arms,” Wolfe said.
There was debris and material from the pavement “deposited” into the clothing of the test dummy, Wolfe said.
Jackson then showed more photographs of the test dummy on the ground after the 29 mph direct impact test.
It showed the road rash to the front of the body, Wolfe said.
“After the impact, the dummy was projected and sliding on the pavement surface,” Wolfe said.
Wolfe said the photographs of the test dummy were inconsistent with the condition of John O’Keefe’s shirt.
Another photograph of the full test dummy lying on the ground was shown. Jackson pointed to ripped portions of the test dummy shirt and jeans that Wolfe agreed were road rash.
Jackson pointed out the Nike shoes on the dummy, which were still being worn after the 29 mph impact.
The next photograph shown was of the Lexus replica that Wolfe and his colleagues used to back up into the test dummy, which was inconsistent with photographs of Read’s Lexus, according to Wolfe.
Wolfe said he never received any information about the weight of O’Keefe’s arm.
The lawyers went up for a sidebar discussion with the judge after Jackson sought to question Wolfe about testimony he gave during cross-examination by Brennan.
9:50 a.m. — Lengthy arguments before testimony resumes
The lawyers argued before the judge on several issues with the upcoming defense witness testimony.
Cannone called for a voir dire, a hearing away from jurors, for Dr. Elizabeth Laposata. She is a clinical associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown University. She researches death investigations and causes of death, among other subjects.
The judge will allow in parts of the Laposata’s report, but will limit her opinions she provided in a report that veered into accident reconstruction.
Lawyers are expected to quiz her about her upcoming testimony in a hearing away from jurors after the morning recess.
Next, lawyers argued about a set of photographs the defense wants to introduce into evidence from 34 Fairview Road, including the inside of the garage.
Defense attorney David Yannetti argued that their side is presenting the police investigation as incomplete and as only focusing on Read as a suspect. He argued the photographs were relevant to explain their theory of the case.
“It’s prone to an opportunity to mislead the jury,” Brennan said in opposition.
The judge ultimately allowed measurements from the flagpole to the house to be admitted into evidence, but did not allow the photographs to come into evidence.
Jackson said he anticipated spending another 20 minutes with Wolfe on the stand. The judge said she’d call the morning recess after that and follow that with a voir dire of Laposata.
Cannone also allowed prosecutors to call witnesses in rebuttal, including Judson Welcher, the government’s accident reconstruction expert.
Read, 45, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of O’Keefe, who was found outside the home of a fellow Boston police officer on Jan. 29, 2022.
Norfolk County prosecutors say Read struck O’Keefe with her SUV while driving intoxicated. Read’s attorneys say her car never struck O’Keefe and that others are to blame for his death.
