Karen Read Returns After Cop Boyfriend’s Murder Case Deemed Mistrial 

Karen Read, the Bostonian who stands accused of leaving her boyfriend John O’Keefe for dead in a snow-bank after running him down with her SUV, returns to court on July 22 after having received a mistrial the first time around. 

The charges stemmed from an incident in 2022 when Read dropped O’Keefe, who was a police officer, off at a party hosted by a brother cop. Sometime after Read dropped him off, other party attendees found him dead from blunt force trauma and lying in a snowbank. She was accused of getting into a fight with O’Keefe and ramming him with her SUV before driving away. Her previous trial, which stretched for two months, ended in a hung jury on day five of deliberations. 

In Read’s new trial, jury deliberations are already proving to be an issue the judge must wrestle with. According to several motions already filed, the defense has claimed that four of the previous jurors have told them that the jury successfully reached a unanimous not-guilty verdict on two of the charges in the case. The deadlock, they claim, only occurred regarding the charge of manslaughter. The charges of driving under the influence and of murder were properly acquitted, so trying Read again on these matters would constitute a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on double jeopardy. 

The defense has also complained that Judge Beverly Cannone improperly dismissed the first trial. She neglected her duty to question the jury about their position on each of the three charges and declined to offer either prosecuting attorneys or defense counsel a chance to comment before she declared a full mistrial. 

Prosecutors, in turn, have characterized the defense’s gambit to avoid the second-degree charge as “unsubstantiated” and “sensational,” saying it is based wholly upon conjecture and hearsay, and is legally inappropriate. 

As the defense attempts to kill the retrial, it has petitioned the judge to hold a post-verdict inquiry to substantiate its claims.