Opening arguments are set to begin on Tuesday in the retrial of Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman who is accused of killing her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, in 2022.
Ms. Read’s first murder trial transfixed the city last year, but it ended in a mistrial in July when jurors failed to reach agreement 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 faces 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 case has attracted a wide audience of conspiracy theorists and true-crime aficionados who closely followed the three-month first trial in Norfolk County Superior Court last year.
Prosecutors argued that Ms. Read, 45, intentionally backed her car into Mr. O’Keefe and killed him after a night of drinking. Lawyers for Ms. Read said Officer O’Keefe was killed by people at a party, at a home owned by a fellow Boston police officer, and that law enforcement officials framed Ms. Read to cover it up.
Ms. Read’s supporters staged daily protests outside the courthouse during the first trial, wearing pink and carrying “Free Karen Read” signs. Many continued to protest around the region in the months after the mistrial; a “Free Karen Read” sign popped up in the stands behind home plate during a Red Sox spring training game in Fort Myers, Fla., in February.
Judge Beverly J. Cannone, who is presiding over the case again, set a 200-foot buffer zone around the courthouse where protests will not be allowed during the retrial. Prosecutors had requested a 500-foot buffer.
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. and realizing that he had not come home. Officer O’Keefe, who had severe head injuries and hypothermia, was pronounced dead on Jan. 29.
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 have 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 argue 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 the snow. At the trial last year, 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 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.
“The incontrovertible fact is, you have been lied to in this courtroom,” Alan Jackson, a lawyer for Ms. Read, told jurors during closing arguments last year. “One lie begets another, and it’s a malignancy that grows — and that, folks, is how a cover-up is born.”
Prosecutors say Ms. Read was angry with Officer O’Keefe.
Prosecutors said at the trial last year 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.
Some of the emergency workers who were called to the scene on the morning of Jan. 29 testified 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?” — 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.
Adam Lally, the Norfolk County prosecutor, said in his closing arguments in the first trial that the text messages were “distasteful and disrespectful and unprofessional.” But 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 has happened since the mistrial?
Judge Cannone declared the mistrial last July after the jury wrote that they had “fundamental differences in our opinions,” and that “consensus is unattainable.”
In their final note to the judge, the jurors indicated that it was not a matter of a lone holdout.
“Our perspectives on the evidence are starkly divided,” the six men and six women wrote. “The deep division is not due to a lack of effort or diligence, but rather a sincere adherence to our individual principles and moral convictions.”
Mr. Jackson has said that the defense will continue to challenge the prosecution’s case. “We have no quit,” he told reporters outside the courthouse last year.
Ms. Read’s legal team has grown since the first trial; in an unusual twist, one of her new lawyers served as a juror in the trial last year.
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.
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