What you should know about the jury deliberations in the death of a Boston police officer

The jury is currently deliberating in the case of Karen Read, a Boston-area woman charged with joint murder in the death of her boyfriend, a police officer.

Read, 44, will soon face a verdict on whether she murdered John O’Keefe – who died in January 2022 – or was the victim of a cover-up fabricated by law enforcement. She has pleaded not guilty.

Attention surrounding the trial has grown, captivating Tiktok audiences and fans of true crime novels alike. Passionate groups have formed outside the courthouse to support Read, and a local blogger even disrupted the proceedings. Here’s everything you need to know about the case.

Who are Karen Read and John O’Keefe?

Read is a former equity analyst and adjunct professor at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts. O’Keefe worked as a Boston police officer for 16 years. The two dated for two years until O’Keefe’s death in January 2022.

What happened on the night of January 28, 2022?

According to court testimony reported by the Associated Press, Read and O’Keefe were out with friends on the evening of January 28, 2022. Read allegedly dropped O’Keefe off at a party at the home of his friend – another Boston police officer, Brian Albert – in Canton, Massachusetts, shortly after midnight.

Early the next morning, O’Keefe was pronounced dead at the hospital. The autopsy listed the cause of death as hypothermia and blunt force trauma.

What is Karen Read accused of?

Read is charged with second-degree murder, which carries a life sentence. She is also charged with manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol and fleeing the scene causing bodily harm and death. Manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of five to twenty years in prison, and fleeing the scene carries a maximum sentence of ten years.

What does the prosecution say happened?

Prosecutors argued the couple had a difficult relationship and the two had argued before O’Keefe went to Albert’s house. Prosecutors claimed that Read deliberately drove over O’Keefe with her car in anger before driving away – evidence of this was her car’s vehicle details, the broken tail light and hair found on the bumper.

Prosecutors also had testimony from several first responders who claimed they heard Read say, “I hit him. I hit him. Oh my God, I hit him.”

Prosecutors also showed a voicemail that Read allegedly left for O’Keefe as he left Albert’s house. They told jurors that in the message, Read was “seething with anger” and “screaming, ‘John, I fucking hate you!'”

What does the defense say happened?

The defense says O’Keefe was beaten by guests at Albert’s house, thrown outside and positioned to look like he had been hit by Read’s car.

“He was allegedly sprawled on the lawn just a few feet from where these people walked when they left the house,” Read’s defense attorney David Yannetti said in his opening statement. “None of these people saw John O’Keefe.”

Read’s defense attorneys said there was evidence of dog scratches on O’Keefe’s body that could have come from Albert’s German shepherd. The defense claimed Albert’s home was never properly searched for evidence of a fight and claimed the investigation was biased against Read because of the lead investigator on the case, Michael Proctor of the Massachusetts State Police.

Proctor acknowledged during his testimony that he had used derogatory language about Read in messages to other police officers and made a “regrettable” and “unprofessional” joke about not finding any private photos when he searched her phone.

Read more at NBC News: The lead investigator in Karen Read’s murder trial says his derogatory comments ‘dehumanised’ her

Who is Brian Higgins and how is he involved in all this?

The defense pointed to a 22-second phone call between Albert and Brian Higgins, a friend and agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, that took place at about 2:30 a.m. on January 29. Higgins dismissed the 22-second phone call as a “puff dial.”

Higgins was at Albert’s party earlier that evening and was seen on surveillance video interacting with Read and O’Keefe at one of the bars.

Prosecutors have released dozens of flirtatious text messages between Read and Higgins from the weeks before O’Keefe’s death.

“I’m not proud of those text messages, it is what it is, and I take responsibility for it. But John was a friend at the same time,” Higgins testified.

Who is Jennifer McCabe and what role does she play?

McCabe is Albert’s sister-in-law and was out drinking on the night of January 28 and at Albert’s house later that evening. The defense claims McCabe is involved in covering up what really happened to O’Keefe that night.

McCabe testified that she was with Read when O’Keefe’s body was found and that she remembered with “100 percent clarity” hearing Read say on the morning of Jan. 29, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.” The defense countered that McCabe told the state grand jury something different – namely, that she had previously said Read asked, “Could I have hit him?”

McCabe’s phone records were also turned over to police. She testified that she could not remember talking to O’Keefe on the phone between 12:29 a.m. and 12:50 a.m. on January 29. In previous statements, she dismissed these as “unnecessary calls.” However, a phone records report revealed that she had deleted other calls she made to O’Keefe that same morning, which she admitted on the witness stand.

McCabe’s Google search “How long does it take to die in the cold?” also caught the attention of the defense and the jury. She claimed Read asked her to Google the question after they found O’Keefe’s body.

Read more at Boston 25 News: Witness Jennifer McCabe denies deleting phone calls; Read’s defense attorney questions her for four hours

The case develops a life of its own, both online and offline

The case has garnered widespread attention in mainstream media nationwide, but on TikTok, the story has reached new heights. In November, the Pew Research Center found that at least 14% of American adults regularly get their news from TikTok.

A search for “Karen Read” on the platform yields hundreds of videos, some with millions of views, offering amateur commentary and analysis of court footage.

TikTok, in particular, is teeming with conspiracy theories, crime novels and sensational personal stories, so it’s understandable that the app would focus on Read’s case.

The Boston Globe reported that hordes of Read supporters dressed in pink and holding “Free Karen Read” signs gathered outside the courthouse during deliberations. Much of the themed merchandise was made by local bloggers and YouTubers who have covered the case.

One of the movement’s online figureheads, a blogger named Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearny, is credited with turning the case into a spectacle with his local blog, Turtleboy Daily News.

But Kearny has run into legal trouble himself. He was arrested in October 2023 on charges of intimidating and harassing witnesses in the Read case.

“They will never silence me, they will never, ever, ever stop me from reporting the truth about what happened to John O’Keefe,” he told the media after his arraignment and release. “Reporting the news is not harassment. Asking questions is not harassment.”

He was mentioned in the courtroom on May 22, when McCabe referred to Kearny as “a named blogger who I believe the defense knows very well.”