DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Jurors in the murder trial of Karen Read reached a verdict Wednesday in a divisive case about the death of a Boston police officer that lawyers have presented as either a tragic love story or a sinister cover-up.
Read, 45, is accused of fatally striking her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46, with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow outside a house party where other local police and a federal agent were closing out a night of drinking in 2022. She’s charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene. If convicted on the most serious charge, she faces life in prison.
Jurors began deliberating June 13 after weeks of often heated testimony from both sides.
Read’s defense said O’Keefe was beaten, bitten by a dog, then left outside a home in the Boston suburb of Canton in a conspiracy orchestrated by the police that included planting evidence. Prosecutors have described Read as a scorned lover who chose to leave O’Keefe dying in the snow after striking him with her SUV outside the house party.
It’s the state’s second attempt to convict Read. The first Read trial ended July 1 in a mistrial due to a hung jury.
The state’s case was led by special prosecutor Hank Brennan, who called fewer witnesses than prosecutor Adam Lally, who ran the first trial against Read.
Describing O’Keefe as a “good man” who “helped people,” Brennan told jurors during closing arguments that O’Keefe needed help that night and the only person who could provide it was Read. Instead, she drove away in her SUV.
“She was drunk. She hit him and she left him to die,” he said.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson rejected the idea that there was ever a collision at all. He and the defense called forward expert witnesses who agreed.
“There is no evidence that John was hit by a car. None. This case should be over right now, done, because there was no collision,” Jackson said during closing arguments.