Live court updates: Verdict watch begins as jurors start deliberations in Karen Read trial

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP/Boston 25) — Jurors in the long-running murder trial of Karen Read must decide whether she was a callous girlfriend who drove off after running over her Boston police officer boyfriend with her luxury SUV, or whether police framed her to cover up a brutal beatdown by his fellow officers.

After nearly two months of testimony and a media storm fanned by true crime bloggers, lawyers delivered closing arguments Tuesday before jurors were tasked with sifting the wildly differing accounts of the death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.

The start of closing arguments was delayed by more than an hour after a juror was dismissed. Attorney Alan Jackson then addressed jurors on behalf of Read’s defense team. Adam Lally addressed the court on behalf of the prosecution.

Judge Beverly Cannone provided the jury with instructions before sending them off to deliberate Read’s fate shortly before 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

• WATCH LIVE: Streaming coverage of Tuesday’s closing arguments begins at 9 a.m.
• Also streaming on Facebook, X, and YouTube
• Live court updates from Boston 25′s Ted Daniel

LIVE PLAY-BY-PLAY UPDATES:

4:24 p.m.

• Jury is excused for the day and will resume deliberations tomorrow. No verdict reached.

1:26 p.m.

• The jury begins deliberations in the Karen Read trial. Verdict watch begins.

12:30 p.m.

• In her instructions, Judge Cannone tells the jury, “If there are conflicts in the testimony it’s your job to resolve those.”

12:15 p.m.

• Lally closes with a quote from John Adams. The judge cuts him for time and gives him one more sentence. Closings are done.
• The judge says jury instructions should take an hour.
• Court takes a short break.

12:10 p.m.

• AL: “They found the evidence where it had been… in the snow.”

12:05 p.m.

• AL: (Speaking about Brian Albert a then Boston Police Officer), “He’s just going to leave Mr. O’Keefe’s body on the front lawn?”

12 p.m.

• Lally talks about a video of KR’s vehicle backing into JO’s: “You don’t see snow moving off the vehicle or taillight pieces.”
• He says “the magic hair” (referring to AJ’s description) was “frozen to the vehicle.”

11:55 a.m.

• Lally brings up that KR did not take her off her shoes at JO’s house when others did “because she knows she left him in the snow.”

11:50 a.m.

• AL: (JM’s Google search) “These searches were done at 6:23 and 6:24, not at 2:27.″

11:45 a.m.

• Lally tells the jury, “There are only 2 videos missing from the ring system” (meadows). One is the defendant returning after murdering him… the other is when KR shows JM and KR damage to her Lexus.”

11:38 a.m.

• AL: The defendant shows up at the house… left with a bag of her belongings… in the height of a blizzard… drove… all the way down to her parents’ house in Dighton.

11:35 a.m.

• AL says KR doesn’t call 911 as JO is “laying freezing from a skull fracture at 34 Fairview Rd.”
• He says KR “knew exactly where he was” because he says she returned to 34 Fairview in the 5 am hour and left.

11:20 a.m.

• AL: “It’s a 3 card Monte trick. Don’t pay attention to the facts and evidence…. because it will lead to the defendant is guilty…”
• Lally calls Proctor’s texts inexcusable: “What do you not see in those text messages?” He says there is nothing about a conspiracy or cover-up in Proctor’s texts.

11:15 a.m.

• Lally references testimony from Officer Saraf, “The defendant saying ‘this is all my fault’” and “left him freezing to death in a blizzard.”

11:13 a.m.

• The prosecution begins closing arguments.
• ADA Lally begins with: “‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.’” “The defendant said, ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.’”

11:10 a.m.

• AJ: “I think I’m being kind when I say Trooper Paul’s analysis lacks credibility. It’s nonsensical and borders on laughable.”

11 a.m.

• AJ: “John went into the house.. injuries did not come by being hit by a car.”
• “John was attacked inside the home where Chloe (dog) was”

10:55 a.m.

• AJ: “Ladies and Gentlemen, you were lied to. It’s inexcusable, it’s abhorrent.”

10:50 a.m.

• AJ: “This brings us to the magic hair...you would have to believe that little hair… survived 75 miles of a raging blizzard outside… that hair was placed there.”

10:45 a.m.

• AJ: “Who’s she by the way (points to KR)? A nobody, an outsider.”
• AJ: “You have to believe when the Alberts found that out they thought they hit the lottery. The guy who catches the case is Michael Proctor.”

10:40 a.m.

• AJ: “She called him 53 times before finding his body. Think about that. The Commonwealth wants you to think she murdered this man.”

10:38 a.m.

• AJ: “She dropped off John, he walked into 34 Fairview… and that’s all she knows.”
• AJ: “By 12:30, Karen is mad. By 12:37, she’s getting furious. She does not know something’s happened to John.”

10:35 a.m.

• AJ on Jen McCabe’s Google search: “There is no innocent explanation for that Google search.. none.”
• AJ: “The only person to use… the actual IOS (analyzing search time) was Rick Green (defense expert).”

10:30 a.m.

• AJ: “It wasn’t intended to go that far but it did.”
• AJ: “They actually got rid of the dog all together... this is the dog they had for 7 years.”
• Aj: “Was there something about that dog they didn’t want law enforcement to find out?”

10:20 a.m.

• AJ: “She was gone by 12:30 (am) and JO’s phone was taking 36 steps… after she left.” “
• AJ: “There’s only one place JO could have been... and that’s in the house.”

10:15 a.m.

• AJ: “Magic hairs, magic glass... butt dials... Just look the other way... that’s what they want you to do.”
• AJ: “They will look you in the eye and deny phone calls,” “Destroy your phone, destroy your SIM card.”
• AJ: “They even stooped so low to call the children… to say… Karen spoiled them too much.”

10:10 a.m.

• The jury is seated and defense attorney Alan Jackson begins his closing arguments.

10:05 a.m.

• Breaking: A juror was just dismissed from the Karen Read trial on the morning before closing arguments. This is the juror who was brought in 2x to the sidebar.
• 14 jurors remain. They stacked the jury box during selection to have enough ready to deliberate in case some were lost along the way.

10 a.m.

• The same juror has come in again and is back up at sidebar.
• She is sent out again.

9:45 a.m.

• There is a “potential juror issue” in the Karen Read trial. One juror came in briefly. The rest of the jury has not entered yet. We wait...

9:35 a.m.

• The camera operator was given an advanced warning that a juror would be coming in to speak with the lawyers and the judge at the sidebar. That’s why the camera “fanned” up. She spoke briefly with everyone at the sidebar and then left.

9:10 a.m.

• We have reached closing arguments. Alan Jackson is expected to go first followed by ADA Adam Lally.
• Some witnesses are in the courtroom today including Brian Albert, Colin Albert, and Jennifer McCabe. They all previously testified for the Commonwealth.

• Read is charged with 2nd-degree murder, manslaughter OUI, and leaving the scene of a fatality.

PREVIOUS STORY:

Prosecutors contend Read struck O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV in January 2022, leaving him unconscious outside in the snow after a night of bar hopping. He died in a hospital after being found unresponsive hours later outside the Canton home of another Boston police officer who had hosted a party. The cause of death was hypothermia and blunt force trauma, a medical examiner testified.

Arguing that Read was framed, her lawyers contend O’Keefe was dragged outside after he was beaten up in the basement of fellow officer Brian Albert’s home in Canton and bitten by Albert’s dog.

Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of personal injury and death.

On Monday, three witnesses for the defense cast doubt on the prosecution’s version of events.

Dr. Frank Sheridan, a retired forensic pathologist and former chief medical examiner for San Bernardino County in California, testified that O’Keefe should have had more bruising if he’d been struck by the SUV. He also suggested that scratch marks on O’Keefe’s arm could’ve come from a dog and that other injuries were consistent with an altercation.

Two witnesses from an independent consulting firm that conducts forensic engineering also suggested some of the evidence didn’t line up with the prosecution’s version of events. Describing their detailed reconstructions, the witnesses said they concluded that damage to Read’s SUV, including a broken taillight, didn’t match O’Keefe’s injuries.

“You can’t deny the science and the physics,” Andrew Rentschler from the firm ARCCA said at one point, describing an analysis of the level of injuries associated with various speeds of a vehicle like Read’s. ARCCA was hired by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a federal investigation into state law enforcement’s handling of the Read case.

The defense contends investigators focused on Read because she was a “convenient outsider” who saved them from having to consider other suspects, including Albert and other law enforcement officers who were at the party.

Testimony began on April 29 after several days of jury selection. Prosecutors spent most of the trial methodically presenting evidence from the scene.

The defense called only a handful of witnesses but used its time in cross-examining prosecution witnesses to raise questions about the investigation, including what it described as conflicts of interest and sloppy police work. The defense was echoed by complaints from a chorus of supporters that often camp outside the courthouse.

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