(VOR News) – Karen Read, a Massachusetts woman accused of killing her police officer lover in 2022, had her trial declared a mistrial by a judge on Monday.
The verdict was rendered on the fifth day of a nine-week trial that took place in a courtroom outside Boston. During the trial, Read’s attorneys claimed that the death of 46-year-old John O’Keefe was a police cover-up.
Prosecutors claim that on January 29, 2022, Karen Read, 44, crashed her Lexus SUV into her fiancé, leaving him for dead.
Read was accused of DUI manslaughter, second-degree murder, and escaping the scene of a tragic collision.
Six men and six women made up the jury, and on Monday afternoon the foreman wrote to Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone to express that despite their best efforts, the panel remained divided. The letter stated that while some believed the prosecution’s case to be weak, others believed there was sufficient evidence to condemn Read.
The jurors were devoted to their duty, but they were also “deeply divided by fundamental differences in our opinions and state of mind,” as they wrote to Cannone.
Cannone scheduled a status hearing for later this month following the mistrial.
In addition to thanking O’Keefe’s family, the district attorney’s office declared a retrial.
Reporters were informed outside the courthouse by Karen Read lawyer,
Alan Jackson, that the prosecution had employed dishonest detectives and an improper investigation. “We will not give up on our struggle,” he declared.
That morning, O’Keefe was discovered to be unresponsive and declared deceased. The medical examiner concluded that the patient died from blunt force injuries to the brain and hypothermia.
In order to hide an attack that O’Keefe had during a party at the apartment where his body was discovered, her defense team alleged that the police conspired to frame her.
The chief investigator in the case, Massachusetts state trooper Michael Proctor, was accused by the defense of falsifying evidence, neglecting to look into O’Keefe’s death, and sending derogatory messages and epithets about Karen Read to his friends, family, and superiors.
During his last Tuesday’s closing remarks, Assistant District Attorney for Norfolk County, Adam Lally, referred to Proctor’s texts as “indefensible,” although he clarified that they had no bearing on the investigation.
Lally dismissed the defense’s cover-up claim as “rampant speculation.”
Read allegedly told first responders that Lally had struck O’Keefe more than once. According to vehicle data, on January 29, at midnight, she reversing her SUV about 62 feet at 24 mph near Brian Albert’s house.
Evidence, according to Lally, proved she hit him. Authorities discovered O’Keefe’s hair and DNA on the back of the car, along with a broken tail light.
According to Lally, nobody at the party remembered seeing O’Keefe at Albert’s house.
Karen Read dropped O’Keefe off at Albert’s house, drove home, and ran away in a panic, breaking the tail lamp, according to defense attorney Alan Jackson. Hours later, she discovered her partner was vanished.
Using surveillance footage from O’Keefe’s house, the defense presented evidence of Read reversing her SUV into her boyfriend’s vehicle on her way out to find him. O’Keefe’s iPhone, according to Jackson, recorded dozens of steps around the moment that prosecutors claim he was struck. It could have been Albert’s basement down those steps.
In contrast to the prosecution, Karen Read lawyers were able to prove O’Keefe’s death was the result of third-party wrongdoing. A BATFE agent suspected of O’Keefe’s murder exchanged passionate texts with Read.
Before the Albert’s house party, Jackson thought that Karen Read had abandoned him at a pub, which had infuriated agent Brian Higgins. Jackson thought O’Keefe may have fallen and struck his skull during a fight between Higgins and O’Keefe at Albert’s house over Read.
Higgins claimed that he had never seen O’Keefe at Albert’s house and that Karen Read lack of emotion didn’t bother him.
O’Keefe’s injuries should have been worse if he had been struck by a car traveling more than 20 mph, according to a forensic engineer who assessed law enforcement’s case management for the Department of Justice, as reported by The Associated Press.
Expert Andrew Rentschler reportedly told the Associated Press, “We do not have sufficient evidence in this case to ascertain which specific event caused the injury.”
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