Karen Read cleared of murder charges in officer boyfriend’s death, guilty of DUI

A Massachusetts jury found Karen Read (centre) not guilty of killing her boyfriend, John O’Keefe. Photo / Stuart Cahill, Boston Herald via Getty Images

A Massachusetts jury has found Karen Read not guilty of killing her police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe, acquitting her a year after a judge declared a mistrial on identical charges.

Prosecutors alleged Read, a former equity analyst and adjunct professor at Bentley College, fatally hit O’Keefe with her SUV during an argument after a night out drinking in 2022, while defence lawyers argued that law enforcement framed Read as part of a cover-up.

The dramatic and complex case became a tabloid and true-crime fixture, drawing outsized national attention and throngs of supporters for each side, who rallied daily outside the courthouse.

Read was found not guilty yesterday on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of personal injury and death. The jury found her guilty on the lesser charge of drunken driving, a charge for which she faces one year of probation.

Read was acquitted of murder charges but found guilty of drunken driving, receiving one year of probation. Photo / Stuart Cahill, Boston Herald via Getty Images

The jury delivered its verdict after 21 hours of deliberations. Read, dressed in a light blue suit, looked emotional as she hugged her legal team and her father as the verdict was read. An eruption of cheers from Read’s supporters outside could be heard in the courtroom.

Outside, Read’s pink-clad loyalists sang The Star-Spangled Banner and whooped in celebration. A short time later, Read appeared outside the courthouse to thank her supporters for their financial and emotional support over the past few years.

“The second thing I want to say is: No one has fought harder for justice for John O’Keefe than I have.”

Read and her legal team flashed the “I love you” hand sign that had been adopted as a gesture of solidarity among Read’s supporters.

Supporters cheer as Karen Read is cleared of most charges yesterday. Photo / Stuart Cahill, Boston Herald via Getty Images

The O’Keefe family did not publicly address reporters after the verdict. But several witnesses for the prosecution issued a statement saying that their “hearts are with John and the entire O’Keefe family”, who had “suffered through so much and deserved better from our justice system”.

The statement was signed by witnesses including Jennifer McCabe, who was with Read and O’Keefe the night he died, and Brian Albert, who owned the home where Read dropped off O’Keefe and last saw him alive.

“The result is a devastating miscarriage of justice,” the statement said.

Read’s first trial ended last July in a mistrial, with jurors deadlocked after more than 26 hours of deliberations.

The verdict puts an end to a retrial that began in April and that, like its predecessor, stretched into a months-long obsession for people in the Boston area and around the country.

For more than three years, trial watchers have remained transfixed by the dramatic story fuelled by duelling narratives: one of a stormy romance between Read, 45, and O’Keefe, 46, that ended in the police officer’s murder, or one of an innocent woman framed by her boyfriend’s conspiring colleagues.

At the retrial, both the prosecution and defence adopted a “less is more” strategy, moderating their approach based on what worked in the first trial, said Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University who has followed both of Read’s trials.

Both sides called fewer witnesses. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan tried the case for the state instead of Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally, and Read expanded her defence counsel to include a civil attorney who served as a juror in her first trial.

The prosecution and defence agreed on how the night of January 28, 2022, began: with O’Keefe and Read drinking at the Waterfall Bar in Canton, Massachusetts. There, they ran into Boston Police Sergeant Brian Albert, who invited them to a party at his Canton home.

Read drove O’Keefe in her black Lexus to Albert’s party without going inside. They also agree that Read found O’Keefe unresponsive outside Albert’s house the next morning. In between, the two sides have drastically different views on events. An autopsy determined that O’Keefe died of a combination of hypothermia and blunt-force trauma.

According to prosecutors, the couple had a turbulent relationship and were fighting the night Read dropped O’Keefe at the party. They alleged she fatally struck him while making a three-point turn in Albert’s driveway and sped off, citing her vehicle data.

Their evidence focused on a broken tail-light on Read’s SUV, bits of which were found at the scene, and testimony of a paramedic-firefighter who said she heard Read repeatedly cry “I hit him” after O’Keefe’s body was found the next morning.

The defence proposed a different theory: that the investigation into O’Keefe’s death was plagued by corruption and misconduct and that evidence was mishandled to implicate Read.

The defence said investigators failed to search Albert’s home and cited the behaviour of Michael Proctor, the case’s lead investigator, who was later fired by the Massachusetts State Police because of alleged misconduct that included crude and sexist text messages about Read.

Karen Read with her defence team as the jury began its first full day of deliberations in her murder retrial. Photo / Pat Greenhouse, The Boston Globe via Getty Images

As the prosecution put forth a “tighter, more precise” case with fewer unforced errors, the defence coalesced around a “reasonable doubt” theory that the state would not be able to meet its burden of proving that Read struck O’Keefe, Medwed said.

The defence leaned heavily into undermining the prosecution’s argument with crash reconstruction and forensic experts testifying about when Read’s tail-light was broken.

During the first trial, Medwed said the defence had relied more heavily on a theory of an alternative attacker, postulating that O’Keefe was attacked by Albert’s dog and beaten by members of local law enforcement at the party before he was tossed outside to die in an oncoming snowstorm.

Forensic experts for the defence said O’Keefe’s injuries were inconsistent with being struck at the speed at which the prosecutors claimed Read was driving, and said her tail-light damage was from striking another vehicle in the driveway.

Read did not take the stand in her trial.

Both Read’s and O’Keefe’s family members were regular fixtures at the trial, which drew so many demonstrators that Judge Beverly Cannone extended the buffer zone outside the courthouse. “Justice for John” sign holders faced off against Read’s supporters, who flashed the “I love you” hand sign each time she passed by.

Medwed said that, while cameras in court and live streams of trials had made it easier to follow high-profile cases, the trial also had unlikely characters – a telegenic woman accused of murder and a police officer victim whose death wasn’t in the line of duty – and the powerful pull of conspiracy theories.

“The case is a really spicy stew for public consumption. There were several ingredients that, unsurprisingly, captured a lot of attention.”