Nine months after her sensational first trial ended with a hung jury, Karen Read is standing trial once again for allegedly murdering her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, three years ago in Canton. The case has developed into a national true-crime obsession, with allegations of a police cover-up prompting scores of Read’s supporters to converge outside the courthouse to proclaim her innocence.
Read is accused of backing her Lexus SUV in a drunken rage into John O’Keefe early on Jan. 29, 2022, after dropping him off outside a home on Fairview Road following a night of bar hopping. His snow-covered body was found on the lawn near the road around 6 a.m. that morning when Read and two other women returned to the scene to look for him.
Lawyers for Read say she was framed and that O’Keefe entered the house, owned at the time by a fellow Boston officer, where he was fatally beaten and possibly bitten by a German Shepherd before his body was planted on the home’s front lawn.
Read’s first trial ended in a hung jury in July and she remains free on bail.
Follow live updates for all the courtroom drama as it unfolds.
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
Read arrived Tuesday morning at the Dedham courthouse ahead of opening statements.
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
Judge Beverly J. Cannone has barred the defense from telling jurors at the retrial that Colin Albert, the nephew of then-Fairview homeowner Brian Albert, is culpable for O’Keefe’s death.
Cannone has also ruled that the defense at openings can’t name Brian Albert or his friend Brian Higgins, an ATF agent who swapped flirtatious texts with Read, as O’Keefe’s possible assailants, though Read’s lawyers can “develop the theory through relevant, competent evidence at trial.”
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
Both sides have brought on additional lawyers for the highly anticipated retrial.
Special Prosecutor Hank Brennan, a prominent Boston defense lawyer whose clients have included the late crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, is leading the government team this time around, along with Assistant District Attorneys Adam Lally and Laura McLaughlin, who both tried the case the first time.
For the defense, Read’s first trial team of attorneys Alan Jackson, Elizabeth Little, and David Yannetti is being augmented the second time around by attorneys Robert Alessi and Victoria George, who served as an alternate juror in the first trial.
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
Eighteen jurors have been selected for the retrial, 12 of whom will decide the case with the remainder serving as alternates.
Nine men and nine women have been selected for round two, and a deliberating juror during the first trial, paramedic Ronald Estanislao, told the Globe in a recent interview that in “my mind, the injuries sustained by John O’Keefe and the damage to the motor vehicle did not make sense to me and left reasonable doubt.”
Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected].
