Latest / Parsing the Truth: One Byte at a Time / Karen Read 2024 Trial Series Introduction

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Karen Read 2024 Trial Series Introduction · Parsing the Truth: One Byte at a Time

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  Join former FBI Senior Forensic Examiner's Becky Passmore and
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  Stacey Eldridge as they dig into the world of digital forensics
• 0:08
  one bite at a time. Now leading their own consulting
• 0:11
  firms and educating the next generation of cyber sleuths,
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  these badass babes of digital forensics bring sharp insight,
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  real world case experience, and a dose of humor to the bits and
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  bites that filled today's investigations.
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  From deep dives into business e-mail compromise and ransomware
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  attacks, Becky's specialty to cracking the complexities of
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  iPhone forensics, Stacy's obsession, this podcast delivers
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  insider knowledge for professionals, students, and
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  true crime techies alike. If you've ever wondered what
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  really happens when the digital trail is all that's left, TuneIn
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  and start parsing the truth. Welcome back to Parsing the
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  truth one bite at a time. I'm Stacey Eldridge and with me,
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  as always, is my Co host, Becky Passmore.
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  We are the podcast that focuses on the digital forensics in
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  today's modern crimes. That means we're dealing in
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  facts and artifacts in this podcast.
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  Becky, what are we doing tonight?
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  We're. About to dive into our multi
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  part series on the first Karen Reed trial.
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  This is the 20, 2024 trial of the Commonwealth, the state of
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  Art Massachusetts versus Karen Reed for the murder of police
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  officer John O'Keefe. But before we dive into the
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  digital evidence and trial testimony, we wanted to share
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  our approach to these episodes. First and foremost, this is
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  meant to be a learning opportunity for all of us we're
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  not going through the testimony of the digital forensics experts
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  who testified in this case in order to play the blame game.
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  This show exists for one reason, to learn.
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  It's not to point fingers, assign blame, or re litigate
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  anything that wrong. But instead, we're here to dig
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  in the facts, examine the evidence, and understand The
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  Who, what, when, where, and why of all of the facts that ended
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  up making up the testimony in court.
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  Now every story we explore is an opportunity to think
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  differently, challenge our assumptions, and walk away with
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  something we can actually use in the next case.
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  We work because our goal was never to be right.
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  It was always to get better. That's right.
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  So this case has captured the attention of people across the
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  country and it's no secret that people have strong opinions
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  about this case. Yeah, for sure.
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  The care and retrial, the evidence presented and then
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  individuals involved have sparked conversations that are
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  hard to walk away from. But as digital forensic
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  examiners, we have to hold ourselves to a different
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  standard. We've said it before and we're
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  repeating it. We have to be dispassionate
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  scientists. As digital forensic examiners,
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  we have to set aside our biases. But we can't do that without
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  first being aware of them. Our role isn't to pick a side,
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  it's to look at the data, evaluate the methodology, and
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  ask the hard questions the evidence raises.
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  Also, regardless of where those answers lead you.
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  So whatever you've heard, whatever conclusions you may
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  have already drawn, we ask you to set those aside with us.
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  What we are here to do is examine the facts objectively,
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  follow the evidence honestly, and let the methodology speak
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  for itself. That's the commitment we bring
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  to every case we work, and this one is no different.
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  So what makes this case so fascinating from a forensic
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  standpoint? That's the big question, right?
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  Where do we even begin with this trial?
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  This is at the heart of something that I don't think
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  happens very often. You have the prosecution and the
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  defense experts looking at the same digital data and arriving
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  at different conclusions. That alone raises critical
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  questions about the methodology, the interpretation, and how the
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  digital evidence is even being examined and then presented.
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  And then, of course, with that and the differences opinion
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  comes challenges of those opinions in the courtroom.
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  For anyone in the forensic community, this situation is
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  impossible to ignore. There's the fact that this
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  wasn't just one trial, right? It was 2.
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  And between those two trials, the witness list shifted.
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  Different voices, different testimony, and all the other
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  narratives are being built around the same underlying
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  evidence. That kind of evolution between
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  proceedings gives us a unique window into how a case is
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  constructed, how strategies change, and how the story being
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  told in the courtroom can look very different depending on who
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  is on the stand. And beyond the digital
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  forensics, this case touches on something bigger.
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  It pulled back the curtain for a lot of people who aren't in the
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  industry about how digital evidence is handled, how expert
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  witnesses are vetted, and whether the systems we trust to
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  deliver justice are actually equipped to evaluate the
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  technology at the center of these modern investigations.
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  And people aren't just fascinated by the verdict.
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  Some people are outraged by the verdict, but they're fascinated
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  by the process, and perhaps equally outraged by the process
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  that unfolded in the courtroom. The same thing goes for the the
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  gaps. And people still have questions
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  that they feel were never fully answered in the.
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  Courtroom. That's right.
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  And then perhaps most of all, this case reminds us that data
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  doesn't interpret itself every piece of digital evidence has a
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  human behind the analysis, and that person brings methodology,
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  experience, bias, and judgment to the table.
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  This case put all of that on full display and that's exactly
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  why we are here to talk. About it.
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  And in digital forensics, testing and validation and
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  documentation aren't optional. They are the foundation to
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  credible work. Before any conclusion can be
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  presented as a finding, it has to be tested, validated,
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  reproduced and challenged. And that includes having the
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  examiner and even their peers do the do the challenging against
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  those conclusions that they've drawn.
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  Validation is what separates A forensic conclusion from an
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  opinion. That's right.
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  And documentation is what makes it all verifiable.
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  If you didn't write it down, it didn't happen.
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  And this and in this trial, we're going to be able to hear
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  some very detailed testimony regarding the testing and
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  validation that some of the examiners did.
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  And I don't think that happens enough.
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  We know it's happening in the back background, but we don't
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  get to hear a lot of the details about what went on back in the
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  lab for the testing and validation coming out in the
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  courtroom. So again, this is another great
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  opportunity for us to learn from this case.
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  What are people doing to test and validate there's?
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  No doubt. I think at this point we've set
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  everyone's expectations regarding our approach to these
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  episodes, but what will our content content focus on?
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  As usual, we are focusing on the digital evidence, and in this
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  case, on the digital evidence from iPhones belonging to Karen
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  Reed, Jennifer McCabe and John O'Keefe.
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  And we're going to present our episodes following the order of
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  the trial. Now our first episode is going
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  to feature a discussion regarding the Richard Green
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  affidavit. And this affidavit was filed
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  before the first trial even started, but it was leading up
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  to the trial. I think it's foundational to
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  some of the stuff that's going to happen in the trial.
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  So that's why we're going to talk about it.
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  But this affidavit really introduced the world to the
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  phrase house long to die in cold.
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  And this is important, this phrase, this affidavit, because
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  it ultimately results in the state bringing in two more
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  digital forensic experts to examine the evidence.
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  There's no way to know just how many people were searching for
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  the phrase House Long to die in cold once it gained traction in
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  the press, but we do know it was a hot topic.
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  For sure. It was once one of the most
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  talked about pieces of evidence in the entire case, and national
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  outlets like CBS and The Associated Press and of course
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  probably hundreds of podcasts gave it a lot of coverage.
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  It kind of reminds me of the 84, the number 84 in the Casey
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  Anthony trial. Like people get caught up on a
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  phrase, a number and then and then the media can explode it
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  into more to to where people are very interested in it.
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  And so then what's particularly interesting from a forensic
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  standpoint is that this created kind of ironic loop.
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  A Google search that was made once on one phone in January
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  2022, likely triggered millions of subsequent Google searches by
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  curious people trying to understand what it meant, what
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  the data showed, and who was telling the truth about when it
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  happened. That kind of public
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  amplification is extremely rare for for a single piece of
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  digital evidence. So we want to focus on the facts
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  so people understand the significance of the artifacts
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  related to House Long to Die in Cold.
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  And people are frustrated by the house long to die in cold
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  evidence. And it sort of boils down to a
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  same data, different answer problem, right?
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  Both sides agreed that Jennifer McCabe made this search.
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  Both sides used industry standard forensic tools and yet
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  they came up with different time stamps.
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  The 2:27 AM versus 6:23 AM. And so to the average person
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  watching at home, and let's think about the average person
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  sitting on the jury, it, it feels impossible.
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  How can these two sides have different conclusions, different
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  answers, different time stamps? How can the same data, the same
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  data set, how can it produce two different answers?
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  And so I think that contradiction alone is deeply
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  unsettling for a lot of people for a lot of reasons, right?
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  Absolutely. And so after the Richard Green
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  affidavit episode, you can expect our episode to follow the
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  order of the trial testimony. Remember the prosecution, the
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  state goes first. So the state calls in Jessica
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  Hyde from Hexadoria, Ian Wiffen from Celebrate, and Nicholas
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  Garano from the Massachusetts State Police.
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  After the state rests, the defense calls Richard Green.
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  We also break down the cross examinations, not just the
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  direct testimony ideally and hopefully you know that the
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  questions that you'll be asked to answer directly, although
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  that's not always the. Case right?
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  During cross. So when it comes to the cross,
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  you have no idea where it's going.
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  You can prep that the best you can, but until it's coming out
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  of the lawyer's mouth, you have no idea what's coming.
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  So the cross can undoubtedly be a little spicier and a little
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  more stressful for the person to not see.
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  And you and I have been there. Yeah, that's why we're chuckle
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  it a little bit as we're going through this because.
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  It brings love. Those memories, we flipped a
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  little bit of all of that. We, we, we prepped, we had the
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  good attorneys and we knew what was going to be coming.
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  Then the questions and it went pretty well down the line.
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  And then we've had the other cases where we prepped and then
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  got in the courtroom and it was a whole different situation on
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  this on the stand. And then, you know, there's the
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  cross and sometimes it goes pretty easy peasy, pretty
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  comfortable. And then there's some other
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  times where they're asking hard questions and that should be
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  expected, right? And so you're having to think on
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  your feet and dig through your notes.
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  And I don't know, I feel the pressure is always on when you
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  got to go back and dig through your notes to to find it.
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  Sure. And it's always great when you
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  testify and then the defense gets up and says, I have no
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  questions, Your honor. And then you're take a big deep
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  breath and sigh of relief. But it doesn't happen very
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  often. And so you like you said, you,
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  you got to be ready. You got to know your case inside
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  out. You got to know those details
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  over and over again because otherwise we're just not, you
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  know, you're not going to be able to, you know, make it
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  through it without stressing out, right?
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  So. Right, right.
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  After we get through our discussions on the trial
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  testimony, we're going to bring on a few guests to continue the
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  conversation. We always like to have our
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  guests come on and give us their perspective of what happened.
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  So ultimately, we'll conclude with the Lessons Learned
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  episode. And we're really going to take
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  our time and breakdown the significance of the testimony
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  and the artifacts and explain things along the way.
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  And we've done it on other episodes.
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  We're talking about the strategy.
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  So we're going to talk about some of that as we're going
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  through it all as well. In addition to, you know, what
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  the digital forensic examiners are saying and the evidence and
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  the artifacts and all that stuff.
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  So we're going to be doing a lot of breakdown of these cases when
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  we, you know, get to each of the different aspects that we're
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  discussing in our different episodes.
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  And we're also so going to include some insight of some of
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  the approaches that you can take to validate the evidence on your
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  own because this is some of what we did to make sure, like, you
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  know, they said this. Do I also agree?
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  Can I come to the same conclusion when I look at a
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  similar data set? Because again, we're doing this
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  to learn from this. I mean, it's all really cool and
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  interesting to listen to this because it is fascinating.
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  But at least for me, part of the purpose of doing this is so I
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  can be a better examiner. I'm not making mistakes.
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  I know how to dig into evidence and get to the facts and
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  represent those facts accurately and clearly and in a way that
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  the jury and the lawyers and the judge and ideally everybody in
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  the courtroom could understand. So we're, we're going to, I
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  really hope that you're going to be able to follow along with us
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  and really dig in and at least come and leave with some ideas
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  of how you can do that on your next case where you might have
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  to do some of this digging. Right.
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  And again, this is a learning platform, right?
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  We can all learn from other examiners whether they said
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  something that maybe you think I could say that better, but why?
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  Why worry about saying it better?
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  Why not just use your words to say what they said?
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  It's not necessarily better, it's just your words and their
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  words more comfortable, right? Just like we don't write each
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  others reports to be able to read each others reports because
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  we're the ones having to testify to those reports.
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  Even though this episode was a little more shorter than our
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  normal episodes, we just wanted to get this introduction out
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  there and we're very excited about this next series of
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  podcast episodes, right? Because we've joked that it was
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  going to be a 52 part episode, It's not going to be 52 episodes
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  where we're breaking it down much more shorter than that.
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  We're raining ourselves in yes. So it doesn't go on all year
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  long, but we're super excited and there's lots of stuff to dig
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  into. I think it's going to be a great
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  series. I think it has the potential to
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  be more eye opening in different ways than like even Casey
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  Anthony and BTK killer cases that we walked through and we're
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  like, wow, we didn't know any of this stuff that we uncovered for
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  some of that, even though they were both old cases, there was
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  new information to be uncovered and we.
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  Learned from those strategies from the courtroom, the
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  strategies of the defense expert, the defense attorneys
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  and the the strategies of the state, the prosecution, the
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  witnesses that the state calls. So as we always say, this is a
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  learning platform. We share the the real
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  information with you and break it down.
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  And we're super excited about this next series of Karen Reed
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  episodes. We look forward to having you
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  join us every week on Thursday as we continue to dive into
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  Karen Reeds trial. So until next time, stay safe,
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  stay sharp, and as always, keep parsing the truth one bite at a
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  time. If you enjoyed this episode,
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  make sure to follow us to get notified the next time a new
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  episode drops. If you can do Morehead on over
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  to parsingthetruth.com and donate by clicking on the donate
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  button. Parsing the Truth is a nonprofit
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  organization and we are raising money to send a new digital
• 17:51
  forensic examiner to I Asus training next year in Orlando.
• 17:56
  Thanks. OK, so what's going on?