Investigations against state police officers

Earlier this week, 44-year-old Read of Mansfield learned that she will be back in court in January. She is accused of the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe.

A Supreme Court judge declared the trial null and void on July 1 after the jury said it had not reached a verdict after several days of deliberations. Read’s trial lasted more than two months and was marked by conflicting accounts of the death of a police officer and allegations of a comprehensive police cover-up. The proceedings attracted widespread attention in local and national media and resulted in dozens of pink-clad Read supporters demonstrating daily outside the courthouse in Dedham.

Read, a financial analyst and adjunct professor, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol and hit-and-run.

A defense motion is currently pending to dismiss the murder and fleeing the scene charges. Read’s attorneys claim in court documents that five jurors told them, either directly or through intermediaries, that the jury had unanimously agreed to acquit on those two counts and was only divided on manslaughter. Therefore, the defense argues, the judge should dismiss those charges because otherwise Read would be charged twice with the same crimes, they say.

Prosecutors allege that Read, while drunk, intentionally drove her Lexus SUV into O’Keefe early in the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, after dropping him off outside a Canton home following a night of drinking. Norfolk prosecutors received testimony that the two’s relationship was in crisis and several first responders claimed Read said, “I hit him,” after discovering O’Keefe’s body in the snow several hours later.

Read’s lawyers say the blame was placed on her.

The Massachusetts State Police’s conduct in this case has already come under heavy criticism after the lead investigator, Trooper Michael Proctor, was suspended without pay earlier this month.

Proctor had previously been relieved of his duties as a detective in the office of Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey after his crude and degrading text messages about Read came to light at her murder trial.

During the trial in June, Bukhenik said he and another investigator went to Read’s parents’ home in Dighton on Jan. 29 to find out what Read remembered from the previous evening, but Read stopped questioning them when they asked for details about a U-turn she made after O’Keefe got out of her SUV.

They asked Read to guide us through the last 24 hours, Bukhenik said.

“She said she was ready to answer our questions,” Bukhenik said. She did not want to “go into too much detail,” which Bukhenik said she understood because she had just gone through a traumatic experience.

Read told authorities that she and O’Keefe had an argument on the morning of January 28 “about what the niece and nephew” had for breakfast, and that she met O’Keefe that evening at McCarthy’s Pub, where they drank “vodka sodas.”

Read said she later “dropped off” Mr. O’Keefe on Fairview Road, then turned around three times and drove away, Bukhenik said. Read told Bukhenik she did not see O’Keefe come into the house.

Read told Bukhenik that when she woke up, she began looking for O’Keefe.

Regarding the damage to her SUV’s taillight, Read said, “‘I don’t know, it happened last night,'” Bukhenik testified.

Bukhenik said that when he asked Read to describe the turnaround and her next steps step by step, she stopped the interview.

Bukhenik said he told Read that authorities would confiscate her phone and vehicle.

Later in the trial, Tully told jurors that Read made dozens of calls to O’Keefe’s phone between 12:33 a.m. and 6:03 a.m.

“We learned through interviews that she was calling people as early as 4:45 a.m. to locate Mr. O’Keefe” and left his apartment a short time later to look for him, Tully said.

Globe writers Tonya Alanez, Sean Cotter and Travis Andersen contributed to this report.

You can reach Danny McDonald at [email protected]. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.