Pool/court TV
Karen Read in the courtroom during opening statements at her trial.
CNN
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The judge presiding over Karen Read’s murder trial in Massachusetts ordered the jury to continue deliberations after jurors said in a statement Friday that they could not reach a unanimous verdict.
The jury of six men and six women in the trial of Read – who is accused of drunkenly hitting her boyfriend, a police officer, and leaving him to die in January 2022 – informed the court shortly after noon, saying: “Despite our comprehensive review of the evidence and our careful consideration of all the disputed evidence, we were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.”
After hearing arguments from the prosecution and defense, Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone asked the jury to continue its deliberations.
“Lunch will be served shortly. When that time comes, I would like to ask you to clear your heads, eat lunch and then resume your deliberations,” Cannone told the jury.
The jury has been deliberating Read’s fate since Tuesday afternoon. The case is accused of a comprehensive police cover-up.
Read, 45, pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while driving while under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. If found guilty of second-degree murder, Read faces a maximum sentence of life in prison under Massachusetts law.
The body of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, was found bruised and beaten in the snow outside the home of another Boston police officer in Canton, Massachusetts on January 29, 2022.
Prosecutors allege that Read and O’Keefe, who had a sometimes stormy relationship, got into an argument that night, after which she drunkenly bumped into him and fled the scene, leaving him to die in the cold.
“What the constellation of facts and evidence here inevitably shows is that the defendant backed her vehicle 62 feet at 24 miles per hour, struck Mr. O’Keefe and inflicted these catastrophic head injuries, incapacitated him and left him frozen to death,” prosecutor Adam Lally said in his closing argument on Tuesday.
In contrast, Read’s defense Off-duty police officers at the Canton home are said to have beaten O’Keefe to death, dumped his body on the lawn, and then used fabricated evidence and false testimony to plot to incriminate Read.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this case was a cover-up, plain and simple,” said defense attorney Alan Jackson. “I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, ‘I don’t want to believe it, I don’t want to believe that something like this could happen in our community,’ but unfortunately you’ve seen it right before your eyes over the last eight weeks.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
