Jury selection begins on Tuesday in the retrial of Karen Read, who says she was framed by law enforcement in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend.
Read, of Mansfield, is accused of striking her boyfriend, the Boston police officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm outside a house party in Canton. Her attorneys have said that O’Keefe was actually killed by someone else, possibly another law enforcement agent who was at the party.
Last year, the judge declared a mistrial after jurors said they were at an impasse and that deliberating further would be futile.
After the trial, several jurors came forward to say the group was unanimous in finding Read not guilty of the most serious charge, second-degree murder, and a lesser charge. Despite attempts by Read’s lawyers to get those charges dismissed, she will face the same counts as she did at her first trial. They also failed to have the entire case tossed, arguing governmental misconduct.
Read, who worked as a financial analyst and Bentley College adjunct professor before she was charged, faces second-degree murder and other charges in the death of John O’Keefe, who was 46 when he died. The 16-year police veteran was found unresponsive outside the home of a fellow Boston police officer.
After a night out drinking, prosecutors say Read, who is 45, dropped off O’Keefe at the house party just after midnight. As she made a three-point turn, prosecutors say, she struck O’Keefe before driving away. She returned hours later to find him in a snowbank.
Like the first trial, prosecutors will try to persuade jurors that Read’s actions were intentional. They are expected to call witnesses who will describe how the couple’s relationship had begun to sour before O’Keefe’s death. Among them will be his brother, who testified during the first trial that the couple regularly argued over such matters as what Read fed O’Keefe’s children, and that he witnessed a 2021 fight the couple had in Cape Cod over how his brother treated her. The brother’s wife testified that Read told her the couple fought in Aruba after she caught O’Keefe kissing another woman.
The defense is expected to portray the investigation into O’Keefe’s death as shoddy and undermined by the close relationship investigators had with the police officers and other law enforcement agents who were at the house party.
Among the key witnesses they will call is the former state trooper Michael Proctor, who led the investigation but has since been fired after a disciplinary board found that he sent sexist and crude texts about Read to his family and colleagues. He also is on the prosecution’s witness list.
