1 day Ago By Yahoo News
Karen Read will head to trial again on Tuesday for allegedly killing her boyfriend , a Boston police officer, in a drunken rage in January 2022. Prosecutors allege that Read, 45, backed her Lexus SUV into John O’Keefe after dropping him off at the home of a fellow officer after a night of drinking. The defense argues that Read has been framed and that O’Keefe was physically attacked, potentially by the homeowner’s German Shepherd, before his body was placed on the front lawn.
Read was charged with second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision that caused injury and death. Read’s first trial concluded in July 2024 with a mistrial , when, after deliberating for nearly a week, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision. Prosecutors were given until July 2025 to retry the case, per the Massachusetts Criminal Procedure , so the Norfolk County District Attorney’s office moved quickly to bring Read back to court on the same three charges.
If convicted of the most serious charge, motor vehicle homicide, Read faces a possible sentence of life in prison. Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone, who presided over the first trial, will oversee the jury selection process for the new trial starting on April 1. What is the case against Karen Read? Read dropped O’Keefe, her then-boyfriend, off at the home of a fellow Boston police officer, Brian Albert, after a night of bar-hopping on Jan.
28, 2022. The next morning, O’Keefe was found in the front yard of the officer’s home and later pronounced dead at a hospital, with his autopsy listing his cause of death as hypothermia and blunt force trauma. Read was arrested on Feb.
1, 2022, on charges of manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of a deadly crash, to which she pleaded not guilty. During her first trial, prosecutors argued that Read and O’Keefe had a rocky relationship and that the two had been fighting before O’Keefe went into Albert’s house. The prosecution claimed that, in anger, Read intentionally backed over O’Keefe with her car before driving away — pointing to her car’s vehicle data, a broken back taillight and and the fact that O’Keefe’s hair was found on the bumper as evidence to support this.
Prosecutors also called several first responders as witnesses who testified that they heard Read say, “I hit him. I hit him. Oh my God, I hit him,” at the scene where his body was found.
Attorneys for Read, however, presented a very different version of what they believe happened. They allege that O’Keefe was beaten up inside Albert’s house, perhaps attacked by Albert’s dog, based on some apparent teeth or claw marks found on his body, thrown outside and positioned to make it look as if he’d been hit by Read’s car. The defense said that Albert’s house was never properly searched for evidence of a fight and claimed that the investigation was biased against Read because the lead investigator in the case, Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, had used derogatory language to describe Read in messages with other officers and was close friends with Albert.
Latest developments ahead of the new trial The case against Read has received substantial public interest since the first trial. Read, who did not testify during the first trial, has recently spoken out about the case in a five-part Investigation Discovery docuseries that first aired on HBO last week. On March 25, Read appeared in court for a pretrial hearing, where a prosecutor requested records related to the documentary series, including all unedited video and audio recordings.
Prosecutors have also claimed that Read and Aidan Kearney, a local blogger known as “Turtleboy,” who strongly advocated for Read during her first trial, communicated extensively throughout 2023. Judge Cannone has agreed to allow data from Kearney’s cellphones to be introduced in the new trial as evidence, which prosecutors argue show Read’s “consciousness of guilt.” Prosecutors allege that Read colluded with Kearney, who has been accused of intimidating witnesses in the case.
While it has not been confirmed whether Read will testify during this retrial, she told Boston 25 News in February that she was “not afraid of taking the stand.” Read’s legal team will continue to be led by David Yannetti, as well as her other representative, Alan Jackson. The defense also welcomed a New York-based litigator, Robert Alessi.
Last week, Read added to her legal team an attorney, Victoria George, who served as an alternate juror during the first tria l. The defense team also plans to show the new jury-unseen footage from the Canton Police Department’s sallyport, where police brought Read’s vehicle for analysis the day after O’Keefe was found dead. The defense claims this footage supports its case that officers are trying to frame Read for O’Keefe’s murder, the Boston Globe reported .
The Norfolk district attorney’s office brought on Hank Brennan to serve as the new special prosecutor for the retrial. The prosecution has added Read’s father, William, and her brother, Nathan, to its new list of possible witnesses . The lead investigator in the case, Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, became the subject of an internal investigation over a potential violation of department policy after he acknowledged he had made some inappropriate comments about Read to other officers.
The day after the mistrial was declared, Proctor was suspended without pay for the duration of the investigation. He was ultimately terminated from his role with the Massachusetts State Police this March for “unsatisfactory performance” and a charge related to alcohol. Proctor is planning to appeal the termination.
Why was a mistrial declared? A mistrial can be declared for several reasons , including in cases where a jury is unable to reach a verdict or where a judge identifies procedural issues that prevent a defendant from obtaining a fair trial. After almost a week of deliberating at the end of the first trial, the jury wrote a letter to Judge Cannone, saying, “The divergence in our views are not rooted in a lack of understanding or effort but deeply held convictions that each of us carry, ultimately leading to a point where consensus is unattainable. We recognize the weight of this admission and the implications it holds.
” In the months since the first trial concluded, Read’s attorneys have claimed in court filings that a number of jurors have contacted the defense team to say that the only charge they could not agree on was the manslaughter charge, and that they were all in unanimous agreement that Read was not guilty of the other two charges: second-degree murder and leaving the scene of personal injury or death. Her attorneys have unsuccessfully sought to have those two charges dropped ahead of the new trial starting this week..
