Karen Read to Stand Trial Again in January 2025 For Police Office Boyfriend's Death
Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman accused of killing her police office boyfriend by hitting him with her car in 2022, will stand trial again in January of next year.
Read's new trial, which will begin on Jan. 27, was set at a hearing in Norfolk Superior Court on Monday, July 22.
The judge in Read's murder trial declared a mistrial on July 1 after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
That ruling came after jurors handed the judge a note saying they were "deeply divided by fundamental differences" in their opinions about a verdict on the fifth day of deliberations.
Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone read the jury's note out loud on July 1, after telling the courtroom she had “never seen a note like this.”
"Despite our commitment to the duty entrusted to us, we find ourselves deeply divided by fundamental differences in our opinions and state of mind," the jury wrote in the note, according to Cannone.
"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," the note said.
Cannone called the jury into the courtroom and read the jurors the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions, which under Massachusetts state law are additional instructions given to a jury when they cannot agree.
After reading the instructions, Cannone ordered the jurors to continue their deliberations.
Cannone's decision to opt for the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions came after a similar exchange on Friday, when the jury informed her in a separate note that they were struggling to reach a verdict, according to NBC Boston.
On Friday, Cannone ruled that the jurors needed to continue deliberating amid the massive amount of evidence in the case — testimony from 74 witnesses and 657 exhibits — in which Read was accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in 2022.
Jurors had been deliberating since June 25. The two-month trial began on April 29.
Read was charged with second-degree murder and other charges after prosecutors alleged she hit O'Keefe with her car and left him for dead outside of another police officer's home in a suburb of Boston in January 2022.
Here's more on Read's case:
Read to stand trial again in January
In court on Monday, July 22, Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone declared that Read will again stand trial for second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and other charges on Jan. 27.
Read was present in court. Cannone also scheduled hearings on the defense's motion to dismiss two of the charges, including the murder charge for Aug. 9, and a trial conference for Jan. 14, NBC News reported.
Judge declares mistrial
Cannone declared a mistrial at approximately 2:37 p.m. on Monday after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
Judge reads Tuey-Rodriguez instructions for when jurors can't agree
After receiving Monday's note, Cannone asked the prosecution and defense if they believed the jury had conducted due and thorough deliberations.
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally said that while he understood the jury had "been at this for awhile," he argued they had been deliberating for 22 to 23 hours, which did not amount to one hour for each day of the 29-day trial.
Defense attorney David Yannetti countered that jurors had come to the judge twice indicating that they were "hopelessly deadlocked," and that they'd written they have looked at all the evidence.
Cannone sided with the defense and said she would issue the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions.
“I think this has been an extraordinary jury. I’ve never seen a note like this, reporting to be at an impasse," Cannone said before calling the jurors back in.
The jury said they couldn't reach a unanimous verdict, but the judge ordered them to keep deliberating
The 12-person jury told Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone on Friday, June 28, that they were "unable to reach a unanimous verdict" in the fourth day of deliberations.
After being given the note, Cannone ordered the jurors to continue deliberating.
“This note arrived with less than three hours of deliberations today, — we heard from 74 witnesses, there are 657 exhibits, very complex issues in this case," she said, according to NBC Boston. "I’m not prepared to find that there have been due and thorough deliberations at this point.”
Cannone brought the jurors into court and told them to have lunch and continue to work toward a verdict, per NBC Boston.
Cannone's ruling sided with Lally, who after the note arrived argued that the jury had not spent enough time deliberating given a series of shortened days.
“There simply hasn’t been sufficient time," Lally said, according to NBC Boston. "The jury received this case earlier this week. They’ve had slightly shortened days.
"I’m not suggesting they haven’t conducted their due diligence... but I submit it is far, far, far too early to even consider giving them any Tuey-Rodriguez instruction or anything even close to that," he said, referring to a set of instructions judges in Massachusetts give to deadlocked juries.
Closing arguments wrap up a two-month trial
Alan Jackson, a lawyer for Read, began his closing argument on June 25 by insisting that the jury had been lied to.
“Look the other way, look the other way — four words that sum up the commonwealth’s entire case,” Jackson said, according to NBC Boston.
“Conflict of interest doesn’t matter, look the other way. Late night calls and Google searches ... inverted videos and butt dials galore, just look the other way. That’s what they want. That’s what they are counting on. But the incontrovertible fact is you have been lied to in this courtroom.”
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally used his closing argument to focus on the timeline of the night of O’Keefe’s death, as well as texts from Michael Proctor, the Massachusetts State Police trooper who was the lead investigator in the case.
“Text messages from Trooper Proctor are unprofessional, they’re indefensible, they’re inexcusable. However, as distasteful as those messages are in their content, I submit they had no bearing whatsoever, or impact whatsoever, on the integrity of the entirety of the investigation that the Massachusetts State Police collectively — collectively — conducted into John O’Keefe’s death,” Lally said, according to NBC Boston.
Jurors spent about an hour after the closing arguments listening to instructions from Cannone before they began deciding Read’s fate.
Trooper Proctor reads texts to friends, colleagues from his personal cellphone
During questioning from prosecutor Adam Lally on June 10, Proctor read texts in court from a conversation with a group of friends he has known since childhood, NBC Boston reported.
In one conversation from the evening of Jan. 29, the day O'Keefe was found dead, Proctor texted his friends Read and O'Keefe "arrived at the house together, got into an argument, she was driving and left," adding, "there’ll be some serious charges brought on the girl." He told jurors he meant that there was already "compelling evidence" against Read.
A friend replied, "is she hot at least," and Proctor responded that Read was a "whack-job," before calling her a vulgar name for a woman.
NBC Boston reported Read's attorney objected, and after Cannone asked if these were his words, Proctor said the word "c---" out loud.
Proctor continued: "she's a babe. Weird Fall River accent though."
He also texted a comment about Read's rear, NBC Boston reported.
When Lally asked Proctor why he would text that, Proctor said they were "unprofessional and regrettable comments (that) are something I’m not proud of and I shouldn’t have wrote in private or any type of setting."
As Proctor read the messages out loud, some jurors shook their heads and quietly gasped, CBS News reported.
In a separate thread, he texted state police colleague that he was going through his “r---- client’s phone,” according to NBC Boston.
“No nudes so far,” Proctor said in the message.
On the stand, Proctor said he made a “distasteful joke,” and that he was not looking for nude photos, but “location data text communications … more evidence contained within the phone.”
Read responded to Proctor's texts outside of court.
"I’d like the state police to say something about the language they’ve heard," she told NBC Boston.
Massachusetts State Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the texts to NBC Boston.
New details about key evidence: A broken taillight, a sneaker and a hair
During the week of June 4, crime scene analysts testified to jurors about several pieces of evidence, NBC Boston reported.
State police forensic scientists who examined Read's vehicle described dents, scratches and a broken taillight they observed, as well as what appeared to be a hair near the broken taillight.
A state police officer who helped search for O'Keefe also testified that he found several pieces of a broken taillight, as well as O'Keefe's sneaker, in the snow, NBC Boston reported.
Before Memorial Day, key witnesses Brian Higgins took the stand.
Higgins, a bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, testified on May 24 that he and Read had kissed and exchanged flirty text messages in the weeks leading up to O'Keefe's death.
Higgins also testified and explained why he destroyed his personal cellphone — at first saying it was old and broken, then saying a separate "target of investigation" had called him in July 2022 on his personal cellphone number.
The defense pushed back, arguing that he destroyed his phone in September 2022, about 24 hours before a court order to keep the phone as evidence would go into effect.
Jennifer McCabe, a friend, testifies about cellphone searches related to dying 'in the cold.'
Read's attorney Alan Jackson questioned Jennifer McCabe, a friend of the couple, who testified that she was with Read and O'Keefe on the night of his death.
McCabe said she helped Read search for him in the morning following their night out, NBC Boston reported from the courtroom on May 22.
Jackson showed jurors cellphone data that suggested McCabe searched "Hos (sic) long to die in the cold" around 2:27 a.m. — about four hours before Read and McCabe found O'Keefe in the snow.
"You made that search at 2:27 am because you knew that John O’Keefe was outside on your sister’s lawn dying in the cold, didn’t you?" Jackson asked McCabe. "Did you delete that search because you knew you would be implicated in John O’Keefe’s death if that search was found on your phone?"
McCabe testified she never made the search, nor deleted it.
"I never would have left John O’Keefe out in the cold to die because he was my friend that I loved," she said on the stand.
What happened to John O'Keefe, according to prosecutors
On the night of Jan. 28, 2022, Read, O'Keefe, Boston police detective Brian Albert, his sister-in-law Jennifer McCabe and others were out drinking at bars in Canton, outside Boston, according to a criminal complaint obtained by TODAY.com.
The region was experiencing heavy snowfall and icy temperatures due to a winter storm, the complaint stated.
At a bar where the group was gathered was shutting down around 12 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, the members of the group decided to go to Albert's home, according to the complaint. Read and O'Keefe left in Read's black Lexus SUV, prosecutors said in court filings.
Multiple witnesses told authorities they recalled seeing a dark SUV pulling up to Albert's home around 12:15 a.m., though no one from the car came inside, and it left around 12:45 a.m., prosecutors said.
By 4:53 a.m., Read and O'Keefe's niece both tried contacting O'Keefe, but they were not able to reach him, according to a police report obtained by NBC Boston. (TODAY.com has not reviewed the same report.)
A friend picked up Read and McCabe to start looking for O'Keefe around 5 a.m., the complaint said.
The group found O'Keefe unresponsive in the snow outside Albert's house around 6 a.m. and began performing CPR until medical personnel arrived on the scene, according to the criminal complaint.
O'Keefe was pronounced dead later that morning at Good Samaritan Hospital in Boston, according to the complaint.
In a search of the crime scene, Canton police officers found a broken drinking glass consistent with one O’Keefe had been seen holding earlier in the night and patches of blood, prosecutors said.
Around 6 p.m. on Jan. 29, Massachusetts State Police investigators also recovered three pieces of plastic consistent with the taillight on Read's vehicle, prosecutors wrote in a court memo.
In a phone call, a spokesperson for the Norfolk County District Attorney's office declined to comment on the case to TODAY.com, due to the ongoing trial.
What is Karen Read's defense?
Read was charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of a deadly crash on Feb. 1, 2022, according to the criminal complaint.
At the time, Yannetti called the charges “a tremendous reach,” according to NBC Boston.
Four months later, on June 9, a grand jury indicted Read on charges of second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of personal injury and death, according the indictment filed in Norfolk Count Superior Court.
She pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and was later released on $100,000 bond, according to NBC Boston.
In court, court filings and statements to the press, Read's attorneys have argued that Read has been the victim of a massive coverup by the Canton Police Department.
The day after Read was first charged in February, Yannetti alleged in court O'Keefe's injuries were not consistent with a vehicle collision.
He also alleged the lead state police trooper on the case, later identified as Proctor, had a conflict of interest when he did not disclose his relationship with key witnesses, NBC Boston reported.
In September 2022, Read's defense team further argued that police framed Read, presenting evidence that showed O'Keefe was severely beaten, and that Albert had ties to both the Canton Police Department and Massachusetts State Police, NBC Boston reported.
In August of that year, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said state and local police were not involved in a coverup, adding that there was no evidence to support O'Keefe was ever in the home where the party took place, according to NBC Boston.
Morrissey called the idea that multiple police departments and the district attorney's office would be involved in a “vast conspiracy” in the case “a desperate attempt to reassign guilt,” according to NBC Boston.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts launched an investigation into Read’s arrest and prosecution last year.
Massachusetts State Police said in March it had opened an internal investigation into a “potential violation of department policy” against Proctor, NBC Boston reported. But state police have not said whether the investigation is related to a specific case.
Michael DiStefano, Proctor's attorney, told CNN his client was cooperating with the investigation and did nothing wrong.
No one has been charged as a result of the federal investigation into the state's prosecution of Read.
In April 2023, Read's attorneys released court documents with evidence they said showed McCabe searched “ho(w) long to die in cold” hours before O’Keefe was found, as well as photos of the lead state police investigator with members of Albert's family.
Prosecutors have disputed the timeline of McCabe's search, saying she searched the query after O'Keefe's body was found.
Read's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case, though Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone denied the request in March, NBC Boston reported, leading to jury selection beginning in the trial on April 16.
Who is 'Turtleboy?'
Aidan Kearney, a blogger who goes by "Turtleboy," was one of Read's supporters. NBC Boston described him as “a longtime presence in Massachusetts’ news scene.”
He began posting dozens of articles about Read's case, selling "Free Karen Read" merchandise and raising money for Read's legal defense fund over the course of the case.
Kearney was arrested on charges of witness intimidation and conspiracy on Oct. 11, 2023, according to NBC Boston.
The judge ruled for Kearney to have no contact with the people he is accused of intimidating, which include Proctor and witnesses who were at the home where O'Keefe's body was found, NBC Boston reported.
Two months later, he was indicted on 16 additional witness intimidation charges related to his involvement with Read's case, the station reported.
His bail was revoked and he was sent to jail on Dec. 26, 2023 after he was charged with other witness intimidation counts, as well as assault and battery charges in connection with allegations that he pushed a woman he was dating, according to NBC Boston.
Kearney has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denied the accusations against him.
“I will not be intimidated, I will not be silenced and we will continue on our journey,” Kearney told supporters outside of Stoughton District Court in October, according to NBC Boston.
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