Was it a deadly romance or police corruption in the Karen Read murder trial? The jury must decide

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — The fate of Karen Read rests in the hands of jurors who must decide whether she ended a difficult romantic relationship by fatally hitting her boyfriend with her SUV after a night of drinking, or whether she is the victim of a law enforcement cover-up designed to protect the real suspect who left him for dead after a fight outside a house party.

Wednesday was the second day of deliberations after a Two-month murder trial in the case of Boston police officer John O’Keefe in January 2022. The case has attracted excessive attention, fueled by true crime fanatics, conspiracy theorists, and Read’s pink-shirted supporters.

Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, is charged with first-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, as well as manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a crime involving personal injury and death. The manslaughter count carries a sentence of five to 20 years in prison, and the other count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

In his closing argument on Tuesday, defense attorney Alan Jackson described a cancer of lies This evolved into a cover-up, with jurors being told that the case involved “magic hair,” conflicts of interest, and “a lot of ass talk.”

The defense argued that Read did not intentionally drive her SUV into O’Keefe, but that he was beaten at the home of another Boston police officer and thrown outside into the snow.

“Just look away. That’s what they want. That’s what they’re counting on,” he told the jury.

“The undeniable fact is that you have been lied to in this courtroom,” Jackson said. “You are the only thing standing between Karen Read and the tyranny of injustice.”

But Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally told jurors there was no conspiracy or cover-up. He asked them to follow the evidence — including pieces of Read’s broken taillight found at the crime scene and a hair from O’Keefe found on her car. He began his closing argument with the words four witnesses heard Read say after O’Keefe was found in the snow:

“The defendant repeatedly said I hit him. I hit him. Oh my God. I hit him,” he said. “Those were the words that came out of the defendant’s mouth on January 29, 2021, as John O’Keefe lay dying on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road, where the defendant had left him after hitting him with her car several hours earlier.”

Lally also painted a picture in angry text messages and voicemails of a couple whose relationship was falling apart long before their last boozy night together. And he raised questions about Read’s behavior the next morning, noting that she never cried after O’Keefe’s unconscious body was found.

He also scoffed at defense suggestions that O’Keefe may have been beaten at Albert’s house party by Brian Higgins, a federal agent who had exchanged flirtatious text messages with Read, and that Albert and others helped cover up the crime.

“Brian Albert, the criminal mastermind and genius who has worked for the Boston Police Department for 28 years, leaves John O’Keefe’s body on his lawn. Really? That’s the conspiracy?”

Jackson said investigators focused on Read because she was a “convenient outsider” who spared them from having to consider Albert and other police officers at the house party. He also pointed to connections between Albert and the state trooper who led the investigation.

“Michael Proctor didn’t draw a thin blue line, he built a tall blue wall,” Jackson said. “A wall that you can’t climb, a wall that Karen Read certainly couldn’t climb. A wall between us and them. A place where you are not invited. ‘We protect our own people.'”

A block from the courthouse in suburban Massachusetts, dozens of Read supporters sat glued to their phones, waiting for a verdict. Their mood was exuberant, with supporters chanting, waving American flags and being cheered on by passing motorists who honked their horns.

“She was wrongly accused and we hope she can go home today,” said Vicki Walkling, a pink-clad supporter. “This case has everyone on edge because it’s unfair. It could happen to any of us. Any of us could be framed for a murder we didn’t commit.”