Edit: ideal to read this with the FOIA drive open to access each ring video referenced as you go. Other recommended research/ reading: The Commonwealth's Statement of the Case June 2022 pg 14, and Evan Brent's trial 2 testimony.
I am now CERTAIN Karen broke her taillight pulling into John's garage when she arrived home from FV. Here's why:
The first time we see it broken (to my eye!) is in the FOIA Ring Doorbell cam - we see Karen backing out at 5:07am. As Boozey Beauty pointed out, the angle in which she's backing out is odd. The beginning of the FOIA footage shows the SUV backing out and if you move the banner showing the play/ pause buttons, I think you'll see it. Watch the first 3 seconds, if you haven't already. I watched in .25 speed and paused each second. FOIA file ID 1643450878000. The TL doesn’t look “right” as it passes the illuminated vertical frame of the garage door on the left of the screen. Look at shape, not color. It’s better on video, but here’s what I see:
There are a plethora of reasons I now believe she broke it 12:41 rather than 5:07. The things that got me here seem so obvious to me now, but sometimes my brain works in epiphanies. Come on this journey with me:
When I was watching the 1/30/22 Ring footage of DiCicco and Paul O’Keefe, I started thinking A LOT about the garage code pin pad between the 2 bay garage doors - the first we hear of it, it wasn’t working when Mike Camerano picked up John’s niece around 7am when his wife asked him to. But something didn’t feel right… it seemed odd to me. Karen hitting the right side of the garage wouldn’t have caused an electrical issue with the code box pin-pad thing that would have been wired down the middle (based on where it is installed.)
This led me to think about the damage to the back of the Lexus (the white paint, as Boozey calls it.) I zoomed in on a couple of photos from Trooper Paul’s report:
See above the white and to the right? There’s a little hole. It almost looks like a little screw went into it. (It’s clearer to look at Tpr Paul’s original photo in the report.)
I believe her hatch hit the ceiling of the garage while the garage door was up. Here’s an example of how my own garage looks with my white car in it. Below it, I’ve attached 2 closeups (how the frame looks at my passenger side and then a second photo of the metal strip about 1/4 of the way in near my license plate.)
Now, I’m no accident reconstructionist, but it seems plausible to me that a metal screw could have made the hole-shaped damage on the Lexus.
I think between the two events, the damage would have been to the garage door ITSELF - maybe the frame or the track. It wasn’t the pin pad code thingy that wasn’t working, it was the DOOR. This is why Mike Camerano had to use the manual rope to get it down - otherwise he probably would have used the garage door “opener” by the door into the mudroom. I’m sure John had one installed there... like literally everyone does. I do. I’ll bet Mike tried that avenue first, too, before going rope.
We know the garage door had been fine prior - not only would John not have allowed it to stay open or broken - but we have SOLID Ring evidence. ID 1643411142000 shows Mike Camerano and his daughter arriving at 6:05pm on 1/28. They start to go up the sidewalk but turn back - seems they hear the garage opening for them.
Get this. John’s Traverse hasn’t been moved to the corner yet, and we can SEE the garage door open up - in the reflection of his left passenger window and in the glass of the left side hatch. You can even see Mike reach top of the steps in there. He opens the door to the kitchen. It’s at least a glimpse into the inside of the garage!
Incidentally, I think this could be one of the reasons something doesn’t feel right for John’s dad - and might be part of the reason he’s said to be FKR adjacent. He knew the garage was fine on 1/28 - he used it twice, per FOIA ring cam.
We see Paul, Peg, Papa O’Keefe and Kerry coming back to John’s on 1/29 after they leave the hospital. Peg tries the garage code, then Paul - and then it sounds like he’s asking Papa “do you know the code?” Papa tries it. These are in 2 clips back-to-back. He says, “Won’t work.” Kerry says to Papa, “I wonder if YOUR electricity is out.”
Clips:
ID 1643470588000
ID 1643470651000
At the end of the second clip, Paul goes over to the far right of the closed garage (left on your screen) and stares at that spot for a few seconds. I know they were grieving and in shock, but for the record, no one, not even Kerry, is looking at the taillight.
(Aside: Kerry saying “your electricity” makes me think Papa was living there. He got the mail in one of the videos where we see him arrive at 1 Meadows during the day on 1/28. Kinda odd if it isn’t “your” house.)
So, the garage door is broken but CLOSED, because Mike Camerano has manually closed it at 7:04am using the rope. The Ring footage of him and John’s niece leaving together is intriguing, too:
ID 1643457846000 - Mike arrives. Aside: it’s 7am and you can see his shallow footprints on the driveway. Kinda like Emily See’s Insta.
ID 1643457916000 - He shovels to try to clear area at garage opening
ID 1643458005000 - John’s niece gets out of the car and goes into garage with Mike. Looking for rope or manual way to close, I assume.
ID 1643458090000 - John’s niece is looking at pin pad again. Mike manually closes garage and comes out through back yard door and gate to driveway. They leave.
After John’s death, the Doorbell Ring cam shows a ton of guests arriving through the front door that afternoon and the next day. Surely, Paul, Papa or someone would have tried to open the garage from the inside at some point. So, WHO saw the inside of the garage before it was fixed, and what did they see? Was there a piece of taillight (or 2) inside the garage? If so, where did it go?
This. Makes. Sense.
Karen came home presumably pretty drunk and definitely damn angry. I’ll bet she whipped that Lexus into the garage quickly and carelessly. We hear the beeping sounds at the beginning of her 12:42 voicemail to John - the SUV is close to something. I think she’s already hit the frame of the garage, backed out a little and is readjusting. We hear the ding of the car door. We hear the door close, and boot stomps. The voicemail recording we have is 40 seconds long. No intelligible words (faint if anything.)
Did she stomp around, then end the voicemail and see the damage? Did she open the hatch to grab an ice scraper/ snow brush to be able to see it better? Or for some other reason?
I wonder if the white paint theory is instead the lack of black paint - did the hatch opening and hitting the open garage door above it cause the paint to get scratched off and cause the other little scuffs?
I also wonder if she scraped the inside of the garage more than once when trying to back out slightly and then pulling back in with a readjustment. Have you noticed in Trooper Paul’s report there appears to be damage to the back passenger side? Just below the arrow and to the left of the words “broken taillight.” I had never noticed this or didn't give it any real thought. The first photo is as it appears with a screenshot on my phone. The second is enhanced from taking a pic of my laptop. The third picture is from Jud’s supplemental report.
She tells her dad something like, “I knew I’d struck something.”
I’m convinced this is what happened, and that it all happened just before, during, and/or right after that 12:42 voicemail.
Did Karen wake up remembering she’d jacked up her Lexus but not remember how?
Did she try to put the garage door down on her way into 1 Meadows at 12:42am? I would think she did try - and she wouldn't have been able to get to it close. Did she try to close it from her car at 5:07am? I don’t think she did, but it’s hard to see details of her as she’s backing out. Maybe she knew the taillight was cracked and the garage wouldn't close but wasn't thinking clearly enough to know what it all meant. Still drunk, on hardly any sleep and in a hungover haze - perhaps all she was thinking is that she knew she'd hit something and that John hadn't come home. And John would never just not come home.
So, I'm left to wonder - did she tap the Traverse because she came out of the garage at a weird angle, due to how she had parked/ readjusted? I think it’s possible. A huge coincidence. But there are many of those in this case. Or did she tap it to try to cover her tracks for some reason, thinking the worst was a possibility?
All of this has led me down another road. That will be a part 2 for you.
It revolves around: why was Karen SO mad?
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