Karen Read verdict watch: Jury heads home after third day of deliberations (2024)

The jury was dismissed Thursday shortly before 4 p.m. after its third day of deliberations in the Massachusetts trial of Karen Read who is accused of killing her police officer boyfriend.

Jurors have spent more than 14 hours deliberating if Read, 44, is guilty of murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death.

"We all appreciate how hard you've been working," Judge Beverly Cannone told the jury.

Read is on trial for murdering John O'Keefe on Jan. 29, 2022 with her car after he was found dead in a fellow police officer's driveway after a night out drinking.

On the second day of deliberations, the judge denied the jury's request to see a Special Emergency Response Team report. Judge Beverly Cannone denied the request since the report was not in the court filings.

Another issue was raised on Wednesday about the juror form. The defense argued it was confusing and did not offer a clear option to choose not guilty. Cannone disagreed but then later changed the jury's form.

Read, a financial analyst and college professor, had pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, and her legal team argued that she is the victim of a police conspiracy to frame her.

"There is no case against me," Read said after court on June 18. "It's smoke and mirrors, and it's going through my private life and trying to contrive a motive that was never there."

A Norfolk grand jury indicted Read in 2022 on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence and leaving the scene of a personal injury and death.

She pleaded not guilty in Norfolk Superior Court and was ordered held on $100,000 bail. She posted bail and has been out on release since.

Supporters of Read gathered near the courthouse in Dedham, Mass. for multiple days with flags, posters, T-shirts and even umbrellas that voiced their support for Read. Some held signs reading "Free Karen Read" along highways over the past few months.

Who is Karen Read?

Read was a Bentley University finance lecturer in Massachusetts. The school announced in 2022 that she would not be teaching and her Financial Markets and Investment course would be taught be the chair of the finance department instead.

"By now you may have seen or heard the news involving a member of our community and the death of a Boston police officer," said Donna Maria Blancero, Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs, in a statement at the time. "Karen Read is an adjunct lecturer at Bentley. The university cannot comment on an active investigation, but we are aware of the evolving situation and following it closely."

Blancero had announced that her "thoughts go out to Officer O'Keefe's family and loved ones."

On LinkedIn, Read still lists herself as a part of Bentley's faculty. Read had graduated from Bentley's Elkin B. McCallum Graduate School of Business in 2004 and she has a BS in Finance from the college as well. She wrote that she graduated from an accelerated studies program for her undergraduate in three years. Read also listed she was a "Presidential Scholar" in both 1999 and 2000.

Read's LinkedIn also shows her currently working at Fidelity Investments for equity research within the tech sector. Previously, she was a financial analyst at Sensata Technolgies, client account manager at Brown Brothers Harriman, and a trading room assistant at Hughey Center for Financial Services.

Who was John O'Keefe?

The Boston Police Department remembered O'Keefe, 46, as a "kind person, dedicated to his family," in a Facebook post in 2022.

He grew up in Braintree and graduated from Northeastern University. O'Keefe also earned a master's degree in criminal justice from UMass Lowell.

O'Keefe was a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department.

He lived in Canton, where he was raising his niece and nephew since his sister and brother-in-law's death.

What happened to John O'Keefe?

Read and O'Keefe along with a group of friends went to the Water Bar and Grill in Canton on Jan. 28, 2022. After a night of drinking, according to prosecutors, Read drove O'Keefe to Boston police officer Brian Albert's home.

The couple, who began dating in 2019, had a strained relationship, according to court documents. There were cheating allegations on both sides, as shown through text messages and voicemails.

"Things haven't been great between us for awhile," O'Keefe wrote at one point.

A forensic toxicologist estimated that Read's blood alcohol content would have been around 0.13 to 0.29 when she was driving O'Keefe around 12:45 a.m.

Around 1 a.m. on Jan. 29, Read allegedly left O'Keefe a voicemail that called him an "f---ing loser." Read allegedly told O'Keefe "John, I f---ing hate you."

Brian Loughran was driving his plow down Fairview Road on Jan. 29 and said he could see "the entire front lawn" around 2:45 a.m.

"I saw nothing," Loughran said, adding he did not see a body when asked by Read's lawyer David Yannetti.

Loughran said the only vehicle he saw on the street was a Ford Edge.

A few hours later at 4:23 a.m., O'Keefe's niece called Albert's sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe, telling him Read was "distraught" because O'Keefe did not come home and wasn't answering his cellphone.

State Police Dt. Lt. Brian Tully told the court that between 12:33 a.m. to 6:03 a.m. Read made 53 calls to O'Keefe.

Around 5 a.m., Read called another woman whose husband was friends with O'Keefe.

"What if he's dead? What if a plow hit him?" Read allegedly said, according to the prosecution. "I don't remember anything from last night, we drank so much I don't remember anything."

Read and two women went looking for O'Keefe shortly after 5 a.m.

Around 6 a.m., Read saw O'Keefe lying in the snow outside of Albert's home. An emergency responder said Read was hysterical and inconsolable and kept repeating "I hit him."

Police found a broken co*cktail glass and pieces of taillight at the scene.

A surveillance camera at O'Keefe's house shows Read's SUV coming "extremely close" to O'Keefe's SUV in the driveway. Prosecutors said no taillight pieces were found at O'Keefe's house.

Dr. Daniel Wolfe, a crash reconstructionist who was called to the stand, said the crime scene photos showed fragments of red and clear plastic as well as chrome and black plastic. There was also pieces of glass and a black drinking straw. Wolfe works with ARCCA, which was hired by the FBI to look into O'Keefe's crash.

Wolfe said Read's right taillight was disfigured, but the damage is isolated. Dr. Andrew Rentschler also testified that there would be additional contusions if O'Keefe was hit by a car.

Police witnesses had said O'Keefe was projected about 30-feet after the alleged impact.

Prosecutors said the medical examiner ruled O'Keefe's cause of death as hypothermia as well as blunt impact injuries to the head.

Defense attorneys Alan Jackson and Yannetti allege that O'Keefe was involved in a fight at Albert's home. They say O'Keefe was beaten and his body was later dumped outside.

There was a focus on wounds to O'Keefe's arms that could suggest Albert's dog attacked him during the fight.

"I believe that these injuries were sustained by an animal, possibly a large dog, because of the pattern of the injuries," Dr. Marie Russell, a retired emergency room physician in California, said on the stand. "Those were inflicted by either teeth or claw marks."

Dr. Frank Sheridan, a retired forensic pathologist who was called on by the defense on Monday, June 24, said O'Keefe's injuries were not consistent with being struck by a vehicle.

"If it's a significant impact at all, you're going to get bruising and we don't have any bruising here," Sheridan said. "We just have linear abrasions without any bruising. That does not look to me at all remotely like an impact from a motor vehicle."

The investigation

Massachusetts State Police said in March that they opened an internal investigation into a "potential violation of department policy" by Trooper Michael Proctor, who was the lead investigator in the case.

"We know who did it. We know. And we know who spearheaded this coverup. You all know," Read said when she spoke to the public for the first time. "I tried to save his life. I tried to save his life at 6 in the morning, I was covered in his blood. I was the only one trying to save his life."

State Police Trooper Michael Proctor was questioned for his conduct. Proctor is the case officer for Read's case, but Read's defense team accused him of having a role in framing Read for the murder of O'Keefe.

Proctor testified to making several insulting comments about Read over text during the beginning of the investigation into O'Keefe's death. He wrote that he hated one of Read's attorneys and joked about not finding nude photos when he was going through Read's phone. Messages include remarks on Read's medical condition, her "ass" and that he hoped Read "kills herself."

"She's a wack job," he wrote in texts according to court. "Yes, she's a babe. Weird Fall River accent, though. No ass."

Proctor testified his "juvenile" texts had "zero impact on the facts and the evidence and the integrity of this investigation."

Multiple witnesses denied erasing data or destroying evidence.

Albert, who owned the home in front of which O'Keefe died, testified that he had disposed of his cellphone the day before a court order was issued demanding it be preserved. He said he needed to upgrade his phone.

"That just happened to be the day that I got it," Albert testified.

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