A Massachusetts woman is asking the state’s highest court to dismiss some of the charges against her after her murder trial in the death of her police officer boyfriend ended in a mistrial amid emerging allegations of a corrupt cover-up involving his own colleagues.
Karen Read, a 44-year-old former financial professional, was in a relationship with John O’Keefe, a 46-year-old Boston police officer who was found dead on the front lawn of another Boston police officer in Canton the morning after a nor’easter in January 2022.
The criminal case against her ended in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked after 26 hours of deliberation, but prosecutors now plan to retry her early next year.
Prosecutors allege she ran him over with her SUV during a drunken fight and then drove away, leaving him injured but alive until he froze to death.
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After the jury was dismissed for the day, Karen Read, right, listens as Sergeant Michael Lank of the Canton Police Department is questioned by attorney Alan Jackson. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
She appeared earlier the Massachusetts The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that two of the three charges in her first trial should be dropped under a constitutional ban on double jeopardy, saying jurors were deadlocked only in the third trial.
“Today’s appeal addresses the core issues surrounding double jeopardy protections that protect defendants, in this case Ms. Read, from the risk of prosecution for the very same crimes for which a previous jury was dismissed,” Read’s attorney told me, Martin Weinberg, to a state Supreme Court jury, according to The Associated Press.
Officer John O’Keefe poses for his official head shot. O’Keefe’s girlfriend, Karen Reed, has been charged with murder after he was found dead outside a home in Massachusetts in January 2022. (Boston Police Department)
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Weinberg said several jurors came forward after the mistrial to say they were deadlocked on the manslaughter charge but believed Read was not guilty of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
However, they had not told the judge.
He asked for the jurors to be brought in to testify on the case. The panel did not announce a decision on Wednesday.
Hundreds of Karen Read’s supporters gather outside Norfolk County Superior Court before one of her appearances. (Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
Read claims she dropped O’Keefe off at Boston police officer Brian Albert’s home on a snowy night and went home after a night out with friends.
Early the next morning, realizing that he had not returned, she went to look for him with friends. They found his body in the snow on Albert’s lawn.
Karen Read’s defense team holds up a billboard with information they say will exonerate their client of John O’Keefe’s murder. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
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Read has argued that she was framed by the real killers – who she believes are also other members law enforcement who attacked O’Keefe in Albert’s house and then threw him outside into the storm. None of these officers have been charged with a crime.
Karen Read arrives at Norfolk Superior Court for a hearing to dismiss the murder charges against her. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
The medical examiner found that O’Keefe died of blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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