A jury acquitted Karen Read of murder and manslaughter in the 2022 death of her boyfriend John O’Keefe on Wednesday, bringing an end to the case that drew national attention.
Read’s first trial last year ended in a hung jury.
After more than 22 hours of deliberation, the new jury found Read not guilty of the most serious charges, including second-degree murder. Jurors convicted her on a lesser count of operating under the influence, resulting in a year of probation.
Read still faces a pending civil suit filed by O’Keefe’s family.
“The stress was this high energy anxiety and anticipation,” said NBC Boston commentator Sue O’Connell, who was in the courtroom when the verdict was read. “When the crowd outside...heard the not guilty verdicts, they erupted. And it just was so loud we couldn’t hear the rest of the verdicts in the courtroom.”
Outside the courthouse, O’Connell described the crowd as “respectful,” saying people celebrated peacefully, followed police instructions and cleaned up after themselves.
“It was quite a moment in American history, I would say,” she said.
Legal experts have criticized the prosecution’s move to charge Read with second-degree murder, a charging decision that former Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral saw as overreach
“I wasn’t surprised by [the verdict],” Cabral said. “The charging decision…is still inexplicable to me and most other prosecutors. You don’t charge that which you don’t believe you can or don’t have a reasonable belief that you can prove.”
Cabral argued that if Read was as intoxicated as the evidence suggested, it would be difficult to prove she had the specific intent required for a second-degree murder conviction.
Besides the charging decisions made by prosecutors, some also took issue with the way police handled evidence in the case.
“If you have misconduct or alleged misconduct by law enforcement, that really, really ultimately will doom your case,” Cabral said.
Retired Canton police lieutenant Paul Gallagher, the highest-ranking officer who responded to the scene where O’Keefe’s body was found, used red Solo cups from a nearby home to collect blood evidence, later storing them in a brown paper grocery bag.
O’Connell cited that as a major issue. “My big problem with the first case was the way the police responded or did not respond and investigate properly,” said O’Connell.
The Massachusetts State Police also came under scrutiny. Lead investigator Michael Proctor was fired after the discovery of offensive and inappropriate text messages about Read during her first trial in 2024. Another trooper, Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik, was disciplined for failing to report Proctor’s behavior during the investigation.
“That just is so much reasonable doubt for a juror…it’s not at all surprising that they came back not guilty on those charges because there was no clear evidence chain of custody,” O’Connell said.
Cabral compared the situation to the O.J. Simpson trial, where strong evidence was ultimately overshadowed by law enforcement misconduct.
She noted the infamous involvement of LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman, whose credibility collapsed after tapes surfaced of him using racial slurs.
“The same dynamics were at play here,” Cabral argued. “It was the perfect storm of the death of a police officer… a legitimate charge of prosecutorial overreach [and] allegations of police misconduct.”
O’Connell noted that many women publicly identified with Read. “They’ve said to me that they see Karen in themselves and that this could have happened to them.”
While Read 's criminal case is now over for now, a civil lawsuit brought by the O’Keefe family remains pending.
“The civil case is ongoing, and you can always bring a [new] prosecution if something comes out in the civil cases,” Cabral said.
