The Karen Read trial: Even in Australia, people have opinions. But why?

Boston Globe

22-04-2025

How did the trial of a relatively obscure woman, charged with murdering a relatively obscure man, reach the heady heights of
The investigation should probably start with Court TV, the network that helped launch the trial-tainment juggernaut. Read's retrial has made the network's prestigious
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I was eager to know what about Karen Read's case intrigued the network, and on a recent morning, Grace Wong, the senior director of courtroom coverage and field operations, came to the phone.
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'Most murder trials I cover, it's self-defense or an alternate suspect,' Wong began, speaking from Dedham, where she's been deployed with three other staffers. 'This case has an alternate suspect, but it's not just an ordinary alternate suspect. She's accusing the police — the very people who are investigating her — of framing her. That's what makes it so fascinating.'
She listed other elements, too, of course, which we'll return to, but in the meantime, if you search Court TV's online page of 'trials to binge,' as one does, the categories alone will provide a window into what vaults a trial to national status.
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They are: celebrities on trial; crimes of passion; kidnapping; kids who kill; killer cults; killer parents; killer spouses: love triangles; mass killers; medical crimes; murder and mayhem; murder-for-hire; police brutality; scorned lovers, self-defense or murder; and sex crimes.
To my surprise, Read's trial archive isn't on that particular landing page, but elsewhere on the site, it's tagged 'vehicular murder' and 'murder and mayhem,' and Wong thought it would fall somewhere between 'scorned lovers' and 'killer spouses,' although Read is not quite either.
Read, as people in
Whether the second jury buys the defense's alternate theory or not, the corrupt-cops angle resonates with the public, said true crime bestselling author and former Boston Herald reporter Dave Wedge, who's
'Accusations of police wrongdoing are catnip for social media,' he said.
'I don't want to compare it to OJ,' Wedge added, 'but what made that so sensational, besides it being OJ, was [Los Angeles detective] Mark Fuhrman and his racist comments and the police wrongdoing.'
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That same element has been famously stoked in the Karen Read case by local blogger Aidan Kearney — a.k.a. the 'Turtleboy.' As the Globe
Read's assertion that she's the victim of a law enforcement frame job comes at a moment when distrust of authority and information is running high, said Daniel Medwed, a professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University.
'There's this idea that there's more to the story,' he said, 'that we don't know exactly what the police did or did not do, or what she did or did not do.'
Beyond that, the enormous amount of evidence —
'It becomes a self-fulfilling machine of information,' said Medwed.
The defense has fueled interest by providing new content and, in fact, authorized a documentary filmmaker to cover the first trial, and the resulting series,
Cameras — and viewers — are in the car as Read and her team drive to the courthouse. In the 'war room' as her lawyers practice their statements. With her as she styles her hair for court.
As a law professor, Medwed wonders about the legal impact this secondary body of evidence could have on the jury pool and the case itself. But viewed as a way to build engagement, he said, it's working. The defense is giving people the 'dopamine' hits they crave.
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Indeed, when I asked the documentary's director, Terry Dunn Meurer, what made her want to spend time on the trial, she responded instantly. 'The access.'
In addition to the entertainment value, Read's predicament is compelling because it's one that many people fear for themselves, experts said.
'A lot of people get really drunk and have had a bad night,' Wedge, the true crime writer, said, 'and they think, 'What if I got drunk and hit my husband after a fight?' That's a very real human emotion in this case. 'I could suddenly be charged with something horrible I didn't mean to do.''
Then, of course, there is the 45-year-old defendant herself, a professional, middle-class white woman with no criminal history who is considered traditionally telegenic.
For many, Read is not only a relatable figure, but an 'aspirational' one, said Sue O'Connell, a commentator on NBC 10's 'Canton Confidential: The Karen Read Murder Trial.'
'She owned her own home, she worked at Fidelity, she was an [adjunct finance professor] at Bentley, she was dating a good-looking Boston police officer,' O'Connell said. 'She has an allure to her that people find attractive.'
As Shira Diner, a Boston University School of Law lecturer and a clinical instructor in LAW's Defender Clinic, said, if all those things weren't true — if Read weren't a white woman of means — 'this case would look completely different than it does now.
'For starters,
many people who are charged with second-degree murder are held on bail while the case is pending,' she said. 'All the work she and her defense have done to garner interest in the case, someone who is held on bail couldn't do any of that. That's an important angle when you think about how much of what we're seeing is because she has decided to tell her story.'
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Indeed, Court TV's Wong said she could not think of another trial where a murder defendant was regularly greeted on the way into court by fans eager for selfies.
'She's like a folk hero,' she said.
Beth Teitell can be reached at