The high-profile case against Karen Read is over after a jury found her not guilty of killing her police officer boyfriend, though they found her guilty on a far lesser charge.
The 45-year-old expressed relief to a crowd of supporters outside of the Norfolk County Superior Court after jurors deliberated for at least 22 hours in the emotional case.
Read could have faced a life sentence in prison for the murder charge, but instead she will only serve one year of probation.
Read was accused of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of John O’Keefe, a Boston Police officer, in 2022. On the night of his death, she dropped him off at a party in the home of a fellow officer.
Prosecutors said that Read had run him over with her SUV before driving away and leaving him for dead in the snow. Read and her attorneys claimed that O’Keefe had been beaten to death inside of the home, and his body was dragged out into the street in order to frame her.
“No one has fought harder for justice for John O’Keefe than I have — than I have and my team!” said Read to supporters after the hearing.
A separate jury hearing the case had declared a deadlock and that trial had ended in a mistrial. A different special prosecutor in the second trial lowered the number of witnesses that provided testimony for the case.
The jury did find that there was enough evidence to pronounce Read guilty of drunken driving.
Read could have faced a life sentence in prison for the murder charge, but instead she will only serve one year of probation for the drunken driving charge.
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Brian Albert, who owned the home where the party was located, accused Read of spreading “lies and conspiracy theories” to infect the prosecution.
“The result is a devastating miscarriage of justice,” added Albert.
Read’s attorneys had produced experts who testified there was no evidence of a collision to support the prosecution’s version of events.
“There is no evidence that John was hit by a car. None. This case should be over right now, done, because there was no collision,” attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing argument.
Supporters of Read wore pink after she said it was her favorite color. The case had made national headlines after online commentators picked apart every detail of the allegations.
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