Karen Read trial live updates: Jury begins deliberations

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2 days ago

Karen Read's fate now rests in the hands of Massachusetts jurors – again.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys delivered impassioned closing arguments Friday in Read's second murder trial over the death of her Boston cop boyfriend John O'Keefe, ending eight weeks of criminal proceedings.
The judge dismissed the jury for deliberations at roughly 2:40 p.m.
'Don't you have questions?' one of Read's lawyers, Alan Jackson, asked jurors in his final message to them. If their confidence in the case against Read isn't 'unshakeable,' leaving no room for doubt, he said the jury must acquit.
Prosecutor Hank Brennan leaned into the phone and vehicle evidence he presented in his final last few words, telling jurors: "Data doesn't lie.' He added: 'The timeline in this case is beyond dispute."Read, 45, is accused of striking O'Keefe with her SUV and then leaving him to die in the snow on the lawn of a friend's house after the couple got into an argument during a night of heavy drinking in January 2022.
The defense said Read dropped O'Keefe off at the home of their friend and fellow Boston police officer, Brian Albert, and never saw him again. Police, they argued, were biased against Read from the beginning and never investigated evidence suggesting other potential suspects were responsible for O'Keefe's death.
Now, the 12-person panel will weigh the heaps of evidence and witness testimony presented by the lawyers over the last eight weeks. They will decide whether Read is guilty on three charges: second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death.
The deliberations come nearly a year after the jury in Read's first trial could not come to a verdict on the charges against her, resulting in a mistrial. Since then, the case has garnered intrigue from true-crime fans nationwide, and Read has amassed a legion of supporters who have held demonstrations professing her innocence.
Catch up here on Read's retrial.
The judge dismissed the jury for deliberations at roughly 2:40 p.m.
The judge began reading the jury instructions at about 1:30 p.m. She explained the definition of reasonable doubt, telling them it 'does not mean beyond all possible doubt.'
She also explained that the court empaneled 18 jurors at the start of the case, but would only need 12 for deliberations. She said a court officer would randomly choose the 12 jurors. The other six will become alternates.
The prosecution spent much of their closing argument outlining Read's actions when she realized O'Keefe didn't come home on Jan. 29, 2022.
Less than 30 minutes after she got home, she left O'Keefe a voicemail message saying, 'Nobody knows where you are,' Brennan told jurors.
The next morning, she was frantic, he said. Read called one of O'Keefe's friends and the sister-in-law of Brian Albert, Jennifer McCabe, and told her she left O'Keefe at the bar the night before, Brennan said. McCabe told Read she had seen her car outside of the Albert house the night before, according to her earlier testimony in the case.
Then, Brennan said Read called another one of O'Keefe's friends: Kerry Roberts. This time, he alleged, Read said she thought O'Keefe was 'hit by a plow.'
Brennan suggested Read was already beginning to cover her tracks in those moments.
'What is causing this extraordinary duress?' he asked.
Later, he told jurors the evidence doesn't show how a collision between Read's car and O'Keefe happened. But, the data shows "it happened."
Brennan finished his closing argument by displaying a photo of O'Keefe to the jury.
Prosecutor Hank Brennan continued to focus the early part of his closing argument on the data presented in the case.
The first point of data, he says: Read was drunk. Her blood alcohol level was 'almost two to three times the legal limit.'
Another point: Read's SUV moved 87 feet in reverse at about the time O'Keefe's phone locked for the last time, according to data from both machines, Brennan told jurors. O'Keefe's location data showed lying close to the flag pole outside Albert's house all night and his battery precipitously dropped in temperature, Brennan said.
He then showed jurors an interview clip of Read, where she wondered if O'Keefe could have attempted to flag her down as she was driving away, then admitted she was trying to garner that reaction.
'She didn't think he was mortally wounded. But she knew she hit him,' Brennan said.
Brennan laid out the commonwealth's case in three sentences at the start of his closing argument: 'She was drunk. She hit him. And she left him to die."
He told jurors Read and O'Keefe had a 'toxic relationship' and asked them to recall testimony from O'Keefe's niece about a vacation the family took in Aruba. Amid discord, he said O'Keefe walked away to be alone and Read banged on his door to 'have the last word."
Brennan said it 'mirrored' what happened on Jan. 29, 2022.
'The timeline in this case is beyond dispute,' he told jurors. 'Data is data.'
Defense Attorney Alan Jackson implored jurors to look at the mistakes investigators made in O'Keefe's case – including not securing the scene around O'Keefe's body, not treating Albert's house like a crime scene and not securing the ring camera of a neighbor across the street.
He reread lewd texts sent by Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator in O'Keefe's case, referring to Read as 'crazy.'
When one of Proctor's friends asked, 'Is the homeowner going to catch a lot of shit?' the investigator replied: 'Nope, he's a Boston cop too.'
Jackson reminded jurors of surveillance video showing Albert 'skulking through the hallways' of the Canton, Massachusetts police department in the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022, before O'Keefe's body was found.
The Alberts also sent their dog, Chloe, to a farm in Vermont shortly after O'Keefe's body was found, Jackson said. The defense has suggested the dog caused the cuts on O'Keefe's arm.
'Who gets rid of their family pet?' Jackson questioned. 'Unless they had something to hide.'
'Don't you have questions?' he asked jurors, later telling them, 'Don't let the commonwealth get away with this.'
Jackson walked jurors through the defense's case from the beginning, starting with the hours before O'Keefe's death. He pointed to a video showing Albert and another man, Brian Higgins, sparring at the Waterfall Bar and Grille where O'Keefe and Read were drinking.
Higgins had texted Read 'um... well' after seeing her with O'Keefe, Jackson said, noting that Read had previously flirted with Higgins. The play fighting, Jackson alleged, was practice for a later assault of O'Keefe.
Read, he said, arrived home at 12:36 a.m. She left O'Keefe increasingly angry voicemails because she was 'frustrated' he hadn't come home yet, Jackson suggested.
He then pointed to the forensic evidence, saying, 'the science doesn't take sides.'
'Not a single medical expert, not one has testified that O'Keefe was hit by a car,' Jackson told jurors, and added that there was no evidence of an impact site on O'Keefe's body.
Prosecutors have suggested cuts on O'Keefe's right arm were caused by Read's broken taillight. But Jackson questioned how O'Keefe could have received 36 cuts from the taillight if there were only nine puncture holes in his sweatshirt.
There was 'no evidence' O'Keefe was hit by a car, he repeated. 'How much more reasonable doubt could there be?'
'There was no collision. There was no collision,' Jackson told jurors at the beginning of closing arguments, before launching into an explanation of how they should consider the evidence in the case.
He said they were being asked to 'stare down injustice' and were the 'last line of defense between an innocent woman and a system that has tried to break her.'
If jurors believed the commonwealth's case against Read 'maybe' 'possibly' or even 'likely' true, Jackson said they would need to acquit Read. To convict Read, he said they needed to have an 'unshakeable' level of confidence in the prosecution's case.
The judge said she intends to hand Read's case to the jury by the end of the day Friday.
"I don't want to end the charge and send them home for the weekend," Cannone said about giving the jury their instructions. "That's not fair after they've waited so long."
Cannone will allow the defense and prosecution each an hour and 15 minutes to present their closing arguments.
After a lunch break in the afternoon, the judge will read the jury instructions. She said she has asked the jury to stay until 5 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. to deliberate.
CourtTV has been covering the case against Read and the criminal investigation since early 2022, when O'Keefe's body was found outside a Massachusetts home.
You can watch CourtTV's live feed of the Read trial proceedings from Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts. Proceedings will begin at 9 a.m. ET.
Contributing: Jessica Trufant, USA TODAY NETWORK
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Karen Read trial live: Jury begins deliberations