Prosecutors have announced plans to try Karen Read after mistrial declared in a murder case
Read was convicted of second-degree murder as well as other charges in the 2022 murder of John O’Keefe. He was the boyfriend of her cop. Lawyers for Read claimed she was accused of being framed in the case by officers who were not her.
The judge announced a mistrial on Monday when jurors told the judge they were at a deadlock on the murder trial of Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman whose murder trial is pending. her boyfriend, a police officer, in 2022.
The verdict was announced five days after the start of liberations on the fifth day of liberations, and following an eight-week trial at a federal courthouse located outside Boston in which Read’s lawyers outlined the murder of John O’Keefe 46, as a ploy to cover up the crime carried out by law enforcement officials.
Prosecutors claimed that Read 44, Read O’Keefe, and Read had an uneasy relationship that culminated in the financial analyst assisting her in turning her Lexus SUV to her boyfriend’s vehicle and then leaving him dead on the 29th of January. 29th 2022.
Read is charged with second degree murder, manslaughter in a motor vehicle intoxication and fleeing the scene of an accident that resulted in death.
In a note dated on Monday, afternoon Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone, the jury foreman stated that despite their efforts, the jury comprised composed of six jurors and six women were still at a deadlock. A few believed that the evidence was beyond the required proof to find guilty Read according to the note and others concluded that the prosecutors did not establish their defense.
In a prior note, jurors informed the judgethat “Despite our dedication to the task entrusted to us, we are deeply separated by fundamental disagreements in our beliefs and state of minds.”
Following the mistrial’s declaration, Cannone set a status hearing for the case for later this month.
In an announcement the office of the district attorney expressed its gratitude to the family of O’Keefe and stated that the prosecutors plan to try again the case.
In the outside of the courthouse the lawyer of Read, Alan Jackson, reported to reporters that the prosecutors had relied on shady investigators and an investigation that was compromised.
“We are not going to stop the fight,” he said.
O’Keefe’s body was discovered to be not breathing in the morning, and the doctor later declared him dead. Medical examiners attributed the cause of death to an injury to the head as well as hypothermia.
The lawyers of Read claim that she was deceived by police officerswho tried to hide a beating that they claim O’Keefe was subjected to during a party at the house where the body of his victim was found.
The defense claimed that the principal investigation into the incident, Massachusetts state tate trooper Michael Proctor, manipulated evidence, did not properly examine the death of O’Keefe and then issued a string of insults and profane messages regarding Read to relatives, friends and even supervisors.
In his closing argument on Tuesday Norfolk County A.D. Adam Lally acknowledged that Proctor’s statements were “indefensible” however he claimed that they had no impact on the credibility of the investigation.
In a statement released Monday evening, Massachusetts State Police confirmed that Proctor was “relieved of his tasks.”
“Upon hearing about the result of today’s vote the department immediately took actions to release trooper Michael Proctor of duty and officially transfer him to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office State Police Detective’s Unit,” Colonel John E. Mawn, Jr. declared in an announcement.
The department had earlier launched an investigation within the department into Proctor’s allegations of grave misconduct, which is in progress.
Lally denied the defense’s assertion of a cover-up, calling it “rampant theories.”
Read repeatedly informed first responders that she’d struck O’Keefe Lally told her, and car data showed that she reversed her vehicle for 62 feet at a speed of 24 mph in the vicinity of the residence of a different officer Brian Albert, after midnight on Jan. 29.
Lally stated that the evidence she found was physical and backed the claim that she struck him such as a taillight that police claimed was damaged after the collision. She also claimed to have hair and DNA of O’Keefe was discovered in the rear of the car.
Lally claimed that no one at the gathering remembered O’Keefe being in Albert’s house.
Lawyer for defense Alan Jackson said the taillight was broken when Read dropped O’Keefe at Albert’s home, drove back and went to bed in a panic a few hours later, when she realised that her boyfriend hadn’t returned.
The defense showed a security video from the home of O’Keefe, which shows Read driving her SUV towards her boyfriend’s car as she drove off to find him. The data from O’Keefe’s iPhone indicated that the device had walked dozens of steps at the time that prosecutors believed he was struck, Jackson said, suggesting that those steps might be to his basement house.
The lawyers of Read were able to argue a third-party defense, which was an explanation of the death of O’Keefe which was not in line with the prosecution’s theory — and they suggested an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who exchanged flirtatious texts with Read as potential suspects in the death of O’Keefe.
Jackson said that his agent Brian Higgins, became angry when Read was not paying attention at an establishment prior to the party at the home of Albert. In Albert’s home, Jackson said, there might have been a fight with Higgins and O’Keefe about Read which could have resulted in O’Keefe falling down and hitting his head.
Higgins stated that he had did not see O’Keefe in Albert’s home, and that he was not unhappy over being not listened to by Read.
As per the the Associated Press, a an engineer in forensics who examined the handling of law enforcement in cases for Department of Justice testified that O’Keefe’s injuries could be more serious if he had been hit by a car traveling at more than 20 miles per hour.
“We don’t have sufficient evidence in this instance to know what incident actually caused the damage,” said the expert, Andrew Rentschler, according to the AP.
Tim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
Patrick Smith