KAREN Read has been found not guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter in the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe.
Read, 45, wept as he heard the crowds outside the courtroom cheering and clapping when the verdict was announced following the trial that had garnered significant media attention.
Read, 45, was found not guilty of all charges except for operating a vehicle under the influence.
The jury deliberated for 21 hours and 17 minutes before coming to a verdict.
The jurors had an eventful time deliberating as they ran into several roadblocks.
Prior to the verdict being delivered, Judge Beverly Cannone informed the spectators on Wednesday that the jury had reached a decision, only to retract her statement moments later, indicating a lack of unanimous agreement.
An unopened envelope was then put into evidence. It’s unknown what’s in the envelope.
Yesterday, the jury asked Judge Beverly Cannone four questions on Tuesday, one of them suggesting jurors were split.
The jury sought clarification from the judge around 1:30 pm, asking whether being unable to reach a consensus on one charge meant a hung jury on all counts or just the particular unresolved charge.
THE MURDER CASE
O’Keefe, 46, was found dead in the snow outside a house party in January 2022 due to injuries to his head.
During the trial, prosecutors said Read fatally struck O’Keefe with her SUV and left him to die in a blizzard after partying.
Prosecutors pointed to damning texts from Read that she sent to O’Keefe as he lay dying that showed her anger with her boyfriend.
However, Read’s lawyers claimed she was the victim of a conspiracy that included planting evidence and framing her for her boyfriend’s death.
Defense attorneys suggested O’Keefe was beaten to death by the people at the party and that his body was moved outside.
Witness Brian Loughran, a snowplow driver, took the stand and testified he didn’t see O’Keefe lying dead in the snow when he drove by multiple times that night.
Read’s first trial ended in a mistrial last July due to a hung jury as jurors couldn’t agree on whether Read was guilty of second-degree murder.
Closing arguments on Read’s second trial, which began on April 3, began on Friday after weeks of testimony.
Each side got an hour and 15 minutes to argue their case, in the hopes of getting the jury to reach a unanimous verdict, which wasn’t the case in the first trial, even after four days of deliberation.
Like her first trial, Read didn’t take the stand this time around.
However, she appeared to consider it throughout the retrial, which saw prosecutors using clips from her media interviews to use her words against her by finding inconsistencies in her story.
The retrial centers on the events of January 28, 2022, when Read and O’Keefe went out with friends to two bars in Canton as the area was preparing for a major snowstorm.
The party eventually moved to an after-party at a house nearby, where witnesses say O’Keefe never entered after being dropped off by Read.
The prosecution claims that O’Keefe left the car and Read put the vehicle in reverse, pressing on the gas at about 75%.
Read was accused of hitting O’Keefe at 24 mph, shattering her taillight and sending the man to the ground, causing blunt force trauma injuries to his head, the prosecution claimed.
She then returned to the area the next morning with two other women and found O’Keefe lying in the snow near a flagpole.
When a paramedic responded to the scene and asked what happened, the prosecution claimed Read responded, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”
“And it was at that time, through the words of the defendant, that she admitted what she had done that night,” said special prosecutor Hank Brennan in his opening statement.
“That she hit John O’Keefe.”
However, the defense claimed that no collision happened with their experts testifying that O’Keefe’s injuries — cuts and scratches on his arms — were caused by a dog and that the damage done to Read’s taillight wasn’t consistent with hitting a person.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson said there was “mounting and overwhelming evidence that there was no collision and John O’Keefe’s body was moved onto that lawn” in his opening statement.
