A jury in Massachusetts acquitted Karen Read of murder and manslaughter charges on Wednesday in the 2022 death of her boyfriend, a Boston police officer. But the jury of seven women and five men convicted Ms. Read on a relatively minor charge of operating a vehicle under the influence in a retrial, ending a legal saga that has transfixed the city.
Ms. Read’s first murder trial ended in a mistrial last July, when jurors could not agree on a verdict.
After the mistrial, her lawyers argued in court that the charges should be reduced. The court did not agree, so Ms. Read once again faced three charges in the death of her boyfriend, John O’Keefe: second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of an accident causing death.
The jury acquitted her on those charges on Wednesday. The lesser charge of operating a vehicle under the influence was an “included offense” that made up a part of the manslaughter charge.
Prosecutors presented the same theory of the case that they had in the first trial, arguing that Ms. Read, 45, intentionally backed her car into Officer O’Keefe and killed him after a night of drinking.
The defense made the same counterargument as well, maintaining that someone else had killed Officer O’Keefe during a party at a fellow officer’s home and that Ms. Read was the target of a biased law enforcement investigation.
The case attracted a wide audience of conspiracy theorists and true-crime aficionados who closely followed both trials in Norfolk County Superior Court.
Ms. Read’s supporters staged daily protests outside the courthouse during the trials, wearing pink and carrying “Free Karen Read” signs. Many continued to protest around the region in the months between the two trials. .
After the verdict on Wednesday, Ms. Read thanked her “amazing supporters” for years of financial and emotional support.
Here’s what to know about the case.
What happened to John O’Keefe?
On the night of Jan. 28, 2022, Ms. Read and Officer O’Keefe went out drinking with friends in Canton, Mass., a town about 20 miles south of Boston. At a bar, they ran into another Boston police officer and were invited to a late-night party at his house.
Shortly after midnight, the couple drove to the house, where Officer O’Keefe, 46, got out of Ms. Read’s black Lexus S.U.V. Prosecutors say that the couple had been fighting and that Ms. Read accelerated in reverse, intentionally striking her boyfriend, and then left him in the snow.
He was found unresponsive later that morning by Ms. Read, who said she had frantically searched for him after waking up on his couch around 4 a.m. on Jan. 29 and realizing that he had not come home. Officer O’Keefe, who had severe head injuries and hypothermia when he was found, was pronounced dead that day.
Ms. Read was arrested three days later, and pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident.
Defense lawyers accused the police of a cover-up.
Ms. Read’s lawyers have accused law enforcement officials of a sweeping conspiracy to hide the truth about the murder.
They argued that after Ms. Read dropped her boyfriend off at the house party in Canton, someone inside beat him to death and then dumped his body outside in a raging blizzard. At both trials, defense witnesses testified that Officer O’Keefe’s injuries were not consistent with a car accident.
Ms. Read’s lawyers pointed to a Google search, including a misspelled word, that was recovered from the cellphone of a woman who was inside the home that night: “hos long to die in cold.” They said the query was made around 2:30 a.m.; Officer O’Keefe’s body was found around 6 a.m.
The defense also highlighted a web of relationships connecting some of the people in the house that night with the law enforcement officers who investigated the case, and described the methods that investigators used to collect and store crime-scene evidence as shoddy and unprofessional.
“There was no collision,” Alan Jackson, a lawyer for Ms. Read, told jurors during opening arguments at the retrial. “She’s a victim of a botched and biased and corrupted investigation that was never about the truth.”
Prosecutors say Ms. Read was angry with Officer O’Keefe.
Prosecutors argued that Ms. Read and her boyfriend were fighting before she drove him to the house in Canton, and that she intentionally backed into him after he got out of her S.U.V.
In court filings, prosecutors described damage to the rear end of Ms. Read’s vehicle; pieces of a red taillight that were found outside the house; enraged voice mail messages that she left on Officer O’Keefe’s phone that night; and statements from witnesses saying that he had told her he wanted to end the relationship.
As the retrial began, Hank Brennan, the new special prosecutor appointed to handle the case, saidthat Officer O’Keefe was “left at the corner of that yard, left to die with no help.” Mr. Brennan previously represented James “Whitey” Bulger, the notorious Boston mobster.
Some of the emergency workers who were called to the scene on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, testified at both trials that they had heard Ms. Read say repeatedly, “I hit him.”
Ms. Read suggested that in her shock and grief that morning, she had uttered a panicked question — “Did I hit him?” — and not a confession.
Expert witnesses disagreed about the timing of the Google search for the phrase “hos long to die in cold.” Prosecutors said the query was made between 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., at Ms. Read’s frantic request, just after she discovered her boyfriend unresponsive. Their witness testified that the phrase was typed into a search tab that had been left open since 2:30 a.m., resulting in a misleading time stamp.
The lead investigator sent vulgar text messages about Ms. Read.
The state’s case was hurt by vulgar and misogynistic text messages sent by the lead investigator on the case, Trooper Michael Proctor of the Massachusetts State Police. In texts sent to friends that Trooper Proctor read aloud during his testimony last year, he joked about searching for nude photos on Ms. Read’s phone, mocked her health problems, critiqued her appearance and said he hoped she would kill herself.
The state police relieved Trooper Proctor of duty in July 2024 and fired him in March.
Mr. Jackson, the defense lawyer, argued at the start of the retrial that Mr. Proctor’s involvement had tainted the entire case.
“There’s not a single part of the case, folks, not a single part that he didn’t touch, that he didn’t direct, that he didn’t orchestrate personally,” he said.
The prosecution did not mention Mr. Proctor in its opening statements at the retrial, and did not call him as a witness.
In closing arguments at the first trial last year, Adam Lally, an assistant district attorney in Norfolk County, acknowledged that Mr. Proctor’s texts were “distasteful and disrespectful and unprofessional.” Still, he said, the evidence showed that Ms. Read killed Officer O’Keefe.
“There is no conspiracy,” Mr. Lally said. “There is no cover-up. There is no evidence for any of that, beyond speculation.”
What else has happened beyond the trials?
Last August, the estate and family of Officer O’Keefe filed a wrongful-death suit against Ms. Read in Plymouth County Superior Court, citing “negligent infliction of emotional distress,” according to court records.
The suit also names two bars — C.F. McCarthy’s and Waterfall Bar and Grille, in Canton — as defendants, and claims that they “negligently served” alcohol to an intoxicated Ms. Read on the night of Mr. O’Keefe’s death.
In November, a judge postponed Ms. Read’s deposition in the lawsuit until after the conclusion of her criminal retrial.
Johnny Diaz and Susan C. Beachy contributed reporting.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
Jenna Russell is the lead reporter covering New England for The Times. She is based near Boston.
Kate Selig is a Times national reporter and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their career.
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