Karen Read is one juror away from opening statements with 15 seated so far
Jury selection for Karen Read’s retrial on murder and other charges in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe, is set to resume on Thursday with just one more seat to fill. The court requires 12 deliberating jurors and four alternates, with 15 people already chosen by the end of the day on Wednesday.
Read faces charges of second-degree murder, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and manslaughter in connection with O’Keefe’s death on Jan. 29, 2022. Prosecutors allege that she backed into him with her Lexus SUV and then left him on the ground in a blizzard. O’Keefe died of blunt force trauma to his head and signs of hypothermia, according to an autopsy report.
If convicted of the top charge, Read could face life in prison. She has a separate Supreme Court petition pending in which she is seeking to dismiss two of the three charges, leaving her to face only the manslaughter charge.
Despite maintaining her innocence both in and out of court, Read’s defense team has suggested the possibility that someone else may have been responsible for O’Keefe’s death and left him in the cold. They have also raised questions about the nature of injuries found on his right arm, in addition to the injuries on his face, head, and hands.
O’Keefe was discovered on the front lawn of another Boston police officer, Brian Albert, who has since retired. The initial investigation into his death revealed flaws that led to an outside audit of the local police department in Canton, Massachusetts, where Albert lived at the time. Auditors identified several shortcomings and flaws in the investigation but found no evidence of a coordinated effort to frame Read for the crime by the Canton Police Department.
The lead investigator, former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, was fired last month after an internal review uncovered that he had sent lewd text messages with details about the active investigation to individuals outside of law enforcement.
The trial, which is expected to last six to eight weeks once the full jury is selected, began on April 1. Despite Read’s petition to pause the trial until the Supreme Court considers her case, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson denied the request, paving the way for opening statements to begin next week.
For more coverage of the ongoing trial, stay tuned to Fox News.
