Karen Read Trial: Full Commonwealth Closing Argument Recap + Commentary

Killer Queens: A True Crime Podcast

True Crime, Comedy

4.4 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this bonus episode, we’re breaking down Hank Brennan’s full closing argument in the Karen Read trial—and y’all, it’s a ride. From “she was drunk so she must’ve done it” to “she didn’t mean to hit him… but maybe she was enraged and wanted the last word,” Brennan makes some bold claims—and we’re analyzing every twist. We’ll walk through the key contradictions, the missing proof points, and the prosecutor’s surprising strategy that left many wondering if he accidentally made the defense’s case. We’re talking: Brennan’s boulder-off-a-bridge analogy 👀 The “I hit him” vs “Did I hit him?” statements Why Jen McCabe suddenly became the villain The taillight evidence he didn’t trust… but wants the jury to And a whole lot of “we don’t know” from the Commonwealth’s side Let’s be honest—did Hank Brennan just crash his own case? 🎧 Listen now and let us know what you think. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sitting quietly once you've made the house all shiny.
0:04.0	Down time can be just fine, playing bangers from the 90s.
0:08.0	Tea break.
0:09.0	Lunch break.
0:10.0	Maybe listen to the outbreak.
0:12.0	Sometimes it's not time for some tombola, right?
0:15.0	It's enjoying lasagna time, chilling with a book time, or time to visit your nan time go on play some other time put your phone down
0:23.8	tombole open for fun terms apply 18 plus gambleaware.org
0:29.3	Hey y'all welcome back to killer queens and today we are going to break down Hank Brennan's closing argument in the Karen Reed retrial. We are on verdict watch as well.
0:39.6	I'm trying to get this out as quickly as I can. So I broke down the defense's closing arguments
0:43.8	on Friday. Both of these closing arguments happened on Friday, June the 13th. Today is Monday,
0:48.6	June the 16th. And if you want to check that out, you can listen to the podcast or it is also up
0:54.1	on YouTube as well. And we're going to go through out, you can listen to the podcast or it is also up on YouTube as well.
0:55.8	And we're going to go through Hank Brennan's closing argument today. I will be honest with you.
1:02.9	There are parts that felt very contradictory. There are parts that felt like he was referring to a
1:09.3	completely separate trial than the one we're talking about. And there were parts where it felt like he was referring to a completely separate trial than the one we're talking
1:12.1	about. And there were parts where it felt like he kind of made the defense's point for them.
1:17.0	All right, grab a snack, grab a coffee, whatever you need to get through this. And let's get into it.
1:23.1	So Hank Brennan starts out his argument with his kind of main point, which is she was there, she was drunk and she hit him.
1:33.8	Are we going to get anything to back that up? I don't know. But he does kind of focus on and she left him to die.
1:39.5	Now, he does start out with what a good man, John O'Keefe was and how he was there to help people.
1:45.4	That was like his life's purpose.
	...

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