The jury ended the second day of deliberations on Wednesday in the trial of a Massachusetts woman accused of killing her police officer boyfriend without reaching a verdict.
Karen Read, 44, 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. The jury, which has deliberated for more than eight hours between Tuesday and Wednesday, is expected to return to court Thursday morning at 9 a.m.
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 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, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, and her legal team has 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."
Read's defense attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing statement on Tuesday that the jury was "lied to."
"The odd things keep piling up," he said. "There is no other way to say it. It's inexcusable. It's abhorrent."
Supporters of Read gathered near the courthouse to listen from a laptop computer in Dedham, Mass. Some have held signs reading "Free Karen Read" along highways over the past few months.
The prosecutors, however, pointed toward Read's drunk driving and alleged conversations with O'Keefe, including one where she cried that she might have killed him.
A Norfolk grand jury had previously 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.
Prosecution provides timeline
Read and O'Keefe, 46, 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.
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."
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.
"She knew exactly where he was," said prosecutor Adam Lully during his closing statements. "She drove him there. She struck him there. She left him there to die."
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.
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 on Monday, 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. He added that if a "pedestrian is positioned in a normal upright position" the bumper would have also been damaged.
Police witnesses had said O'Keefe was projected about 30-feet after the alleged impact.
The defense said in previous court filings that Wolfe's team's findings are inconsistent with the idea that O'Keefe was struck by a vehicle.
Around 6 a.m., Read sees 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."
Prosecutors said the medical examiner ruled O'Keefe's cause of death as hypothermia as well as blunt impact injuries to the head.
Jennifer McCabe said Read asked her to search how long it would take for someone to die of hypothermia.
"There is no innocent explanation for that Google search," defense attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing statement Tuesday, noting no one could rule out McCabe made the search after Read had left the house.
Defense focuses on 'false' testimony
Defense attorneys Alan Jackson and David 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 has been focus on wounds to O'Keefe's arms that could suggest Albert's dog attacked him during the fight.
Dr. Marie Russell, a retired emergency room physician in California who has written extensively on animal bites, took the stand Friday. Russell, who also previously worked as a police officer in Malden, reviewed hospital records and photos taken of O'Keefe when he was in the hospital as well as the autopsy records and affidavits.
"I believe that these injuries were sustained by an animal, possibly a large dog, because of the pattern of the injuries," Russell said. "Those were inflicted by either teeth or claw marks."
Russell also noted the wounds are on "the part of the arm that would sustain defensive type wounds."
"Every single injury is answered," defense attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing statement Tuesday.
Police found a broken co*cktail glass and pieces of taillight at the scene. A forensic toxicologist estimated that Read's blood alcohol content would have been around .13 to .29 when she was driving O'Keefe around 12:45 a.m.
Prosecutors said in court filings they have DNA evidence recovered from the broken taillight that implicates Read.
Read's defense team argues one of the first responding officers gave "false and deceptive testimony."
The defense team said an FBI expert concluded the evidence does not support the theory that O'Keefe died after being hit by an SUV.
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."
Jackson argued last week after the Commonwealth rested their case that Judge Beverly Cannone should issue a verdict of not guilty on all charges.
Cannone denied the defense motion.
Two months of trial testimony
Opening statements and testimony started on April 29.
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."
Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello said Proctor provided her crime scene photos that showed no footprints in the snow on the lawn of the Fairview Road area where O'Keefe's body was found.
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."
McCabe recalled the frantic moments when she and Read found out O'Keefe was dead in her testimony.
"I thought she was honestly, like, just talking crazy," McCabe said. "And then she said, 'Oh my god, I left him there.' Like, she was extremely irrational. She told me again that they had gotten into a fight. ... She was just kind of all over the place, just screaming. She was very hard to understand. So my brain started going, 'OK, well, if she left him there, where could he be? Who could he be with?'"
McCabe had texted O'Keefe around 5 a.m. saying "karen is worried we need to find u" and "please answer so i know ur ok."
According to McCabe, Read "stated that she hit him" when a paramedic asked what happened.
She also noted she had seen a dark SUV matching Read's pull up outside of the Fairview Road house but didn't think much of it when Read and O'Keefe didn't come inside.
"So I have a question, Ms. McCabe. Where was the body?" Jackson asked.
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.
Jurors heard the 911 calls from the day O'Keefe's body was found. The recording reported that Read could not find O'Keefe. A recording from an hour later said they found him unresponsive on Fairview Road in Canton.
Multiple witnesses denied erasing data or destroying evidence.
Brian 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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