After four days of deliberation, a Massachusetts jury found Karen Read not guilty of murdering her Boston police officer boyfriend in 2022, nearly one year after her first prosecution culminated in a mistrial.
Read pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, leaving a scene of personal injury and death, and manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence. The jury cleared Read on the most serious charges and found her guilty only of operating a vehicle under the influence. Read reportedly embraced her lawyers as “booming cheers” came from the crowd gathered outside the courthouse. According to CBS News, more than 1,000 people are surrounding the building.
“I just want to say two things. Number one is I could not be standing here without these amazing supporters who have supported me and my team financially, and more importantly, emotionally, for almost four years,” Read said while leaving the courthouse. “And the second thing I want to say is no one has fought harder for justice for John O’Keefe than I have.”
The verdict arrived after some chaos. After Wednesday’s lunch break, the jury indicated they had reached a verdict, yet just minutes later, they rescinded their statement. Judge Beverly Cannone then sent the jury back to continue their deliberation. However, after another few minutes, they once again declared they had officially reached a decision.
Since April 1, Read’s retrial has held court-watchers captive. Prosecutors argued that the equity analyst at Fidelity Investments and adjunct professor of finance at Bentley University had hit her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, with her car outside the Canton home of fellow police officer Brian Albert—and then left him to die there during a major blizzard in January 2022. Meanwhile, the defense mounted their case on law enforcement’s misogyny, manipulated evidence, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding O’Keefe’s final hours, claiming that O’Keefe could’ve been attacked inside the home—possibly by a dog—and put outside.
For the last three years, Read has railed against the accusations, claiming she had nothing to do with O’Keefe’s death, but was framed by members of local law enforcement, given that several off-duty officers were present the night O’Keefe died and key pieces of evidence offered conflicting stories about what could’ve happened.
After the case made headlines, it fueled fierce protests, dominated national media, and inspired a buzzy docuseries streaming on Investigation Discovery and HBO Max. Even the Supreme Court of the United States was involved at one point—kind of. Read’s team asked SCOTUS to intervene, but on April 28, the court declined to hear the case.
While several witnesses in the case issued a statement of dissent with the verdict, scores of reactions—relief, being the consensus—continue to dominate Twitter.
This is a developing story…
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