11:42 am ET
Defense delivers its opening arguments: ‘There was no collision with John O’Keefe’
Jessica Trufant
Defense attorney Alan Jackson started his opening arguments at 10:45 a.m by saying “There was no collision with John O’Keefe.”
“He did not die from begin hit by a vehicle. Period,” Jackson said.
He questioned how then they got to that point, where Karen Read is charged from O’Keefe’s death. He said a text message from a now-fired State Trooper Michael Proctor to a friend, who inquired if Brian Albert, the owner of the home where O’Keefe was found death outside, would face any backlash.
“Nope. He’s a Boston cop too,” Proctor responded.
“That quote defines the lack of integrity of the Commonwealth’s entire case,” Jackson said.
Jackson said the case and investigation is corrupted by “bias,” “incompetence” and “deceit.” He said a malignancy impacted the entire investigation.
“A cancer that cannot be cut out. A cancer that cannot be cured,” Jackson said. “The cancer has a name. The cancer is Michael Proctor.”
He said Albert never stepped outside the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, despite the fact there was a full-blown crime scene outside. Jackson said Proctor, the investigator, never went inside the home to question Albert.
Instead, he said Proctor made an early pronouncement that Albert “wouldn’t catch any shit” because he’s a Boston cop.
He said evidence will show that Proctor’s priority wasn’t to solve the case, but to protect Albert and his friends.
“In his world, his priority is to protect the brotherhood. To protect that blue wall,” he said.
10:50 am ET
Defense starts its opening statements in Karen Read murder retrial
Jessica Trufant
Defense attorney Alan Jackson has started his opening arguments on behalf of Read.
In the first trial, David Yannetti delivered opening statements. He opened by saying “Karen Read was framed.”
Yannetti argued that the Albert family, who owned the home where O’Keefe’s body was found, was never investigated because of their extensive connections with Canton police and lead investigator, State Trooper Michael Proctor.
The defense lawyer concluded that someone “ambushed” O’Keefe. The assailant didn’t mean to kill him, but “went too far,” Yannetti said.
10:48 am ET
Prosecution delivers opening arguments
Jessica Trufant
Prosecutor Hank Brennan started his opening arguments at 10:05 a.m.
He started with a narrative from the perspective of Canton firefighter/paramedic Anthony Flematti who received and responded to a call of cardiac arrest just after 6 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022.
He described Flematti and firefighter Timothy Nuttall arriving at the scene at 34 Fairview Road in Canton and finding three women and a man on the ground in the front yard.
“He tried to find any signs of life, a pulse, and he found nothing,” Brennan said of Flematti.
Brennan said the firefighters the approached the women to give them up update on O’Keefe and heard these words from Karen Read: “I hit him. I hit him. I hit him.”
“It was at that time that she, the defendant, admitted what she had done that night. That she had hit John O’Keefe,” Brennan said. “John O’Keefe was killed by the actions and conduct of the defendant Karen Read.”
Brennan told jurors they will learn from the science and evidence that Read backed into O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV, causing him to fall and crack his skull, leaving him mortally wounded.
“(The defendant) simply drove away,” Brennan said.
Brennan then introduced jurors to who John O’Keefe was, including that he was a Boston police officer who stepped up to raise his niece and nephew when his sister and brother-in-law both died.
He said O’Keefe and Read knew each other from the past and rekindled a relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said things were good until 2022, when the was “tension and arguments” between the two.
10:08 am ET
Prosecution starts its opening statements in Karen Read’s second murder trial
Jessica Trufant
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan, who was hired by the Norfolk County District Attorney’s office to handle Karen Read’s second trial, has started the prosecution’s opening statements.
In Read’s first trial, which started in April of 2024, prosecutor Adam Lally argued in opening statements that Read was drunk and angry when she purposely put her Lexus SUV in reverse and struck John O’Keefe, leaving him to die in cold on the Albert’s front lawn at 34 Fairview Road.
Lally said DNA evidence, crash reconstruction analysis and Read’s own statements prove her responsibility for O’Keefe’s death.
10:07 am ET
Judge welcomes Karen Read case jurors, gives instructions
Jessica Trufant
After dealing business regarding motions at sidebar with the attorneys, Judge Beverly Cannone welcomed the jurors and they were then sworn in.
The charges against Read were outlined for the jurors by Norfolk Superior Court Chief Clerk Jim McDermott.
Cannone then made some “preliminary remarks” to introduce jurors to some legal principals.
“Ms. Read starts this trial presumed to be innocent,” Cannone told jurors. “It is only the jury, you folks, who can decide whether the prosecution has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
She then explained what proof beyond a reasonable doubt it, and how they will rely on moral certainty in making their decision. She said a “strong probability” is not enough to convict Read.
She also discussed biases, and how jurors will rely on evidence in making their decision. She said opening arguments and closing statements are not considered evidence.
She said only the answers from witnesses are evidence, not the questions asked by attorneys. Cannone said anything jurors have previously seen, read or heard about the case outside the trial is not evidence.
Cannone said jurors are allowed to take notes if they wish. They will have to rely on their own memories and notes while deliberating.
She also cautioned jurors against using social media due to the intense public interest and opinions on the case. Jurors are not allowed to watch, listen or read anything regarding the case during the trial.
9:40 am ET
Who is John O’Keefe?
Jessica Trufant
John O’Keefe was found outside a Canton home on Fairview Road during a nor’easter Jan. 29. Karen A. Read, his girlfriend, has been charged with manslaughter and motor vehicle homicide in connection with his death.
O’Keefe was raised in Braintree and lived in Canton. He was a Boston police officer for 16 years after getting a master’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Massachusetts. He was a Braintree High School graduate and a former intern at the Braintree Police Department.
“Moving forward, I will do my best to continue his legacy of caring and supporting others … even though I know I will never come close to the way he did,” Paul O’Keefe said in his eulogy of his older brother at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Braintree.
When O’Keefe’s sister and brother-in-law died, he took in his niece and nephew.
More: Two young Canton kids lose mom in November, dad in January
“John was a kind person dedicated to his family and will be greatly missed by his coworkers and anyone who had the privilege of meeting him,” Boston Police Superintendent-in-Chief Gregory Long said in a statement.
9:20 am ET
There are new faces for both the prosecution and defense in the Karen Read case
Jessica Trufant
Both the prosecution and defense teams have added to the lineup since the first trial.
Hank Brennan, a private defense attorney who represented mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, was hired as a special prosecutor by the Norfolk County District Attorney’s office to try the case. He will serve as lead prosecutor, assisted by former lead prosecutor Adam Lally and Laura McLaughlin.
The defense has also added two attorneys: Robert Alessi and Victoria George, who is a former alternate juror from Read’s first trial. David Yannetti, Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little also remain on Read’s team.
9:01 am ET
What happened in Karen Read’s first trial
Jessica Trufant
Prosecutors called more than 65 witnesses in testimony of the first trial that started April 29, 2024. The defense’s list of witnesses was much shorter. Read did not testify in her own defense.
Cannone declared a mistrial in the case in July after jurors returned multiple times saying they could not reach a verdict.
8:40 am ET
Who is Judge Beverly Cannone?
Jessica Trufant
A longtime judge for Massachusetts’ Superior Court, Cannone is a South Shore native who was once a public defender.
Cannone grew up in Quincy and lives in Norwell.
Cannone’s father, the late John Prescott, was a Norfolk County prosecutor in the early 1970s and later a public defender who ran the Boston office of the Massachusetts Defenders Committee.
After graduating from the New England School of Law in 1985, Cannone was a public defender for 25 years in Middlesex, Plymouth and Norfolk counties.
Then-Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick nominated Cannone to Quincy District Court in 2009.
Five years later, in 2014, Patrick nominated Cannone to Superior Court.
Cannone has presided over some of the South Shore’s most high-profile cases, including the trial of Emanuel Lopes, who was convicted of killing Weymouth police officer Michael Chesna.
8:20 am ET
Karen Read asks U.S. Supreme Court to toss 2 of 3 charges against her
Jessica Trufant
Karen Read has asked the nation’s highest court to overturn two charges that her lawyers say jurors in the first trial agreed to acquit her of.
Read filed the petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to take up her case. The Supreme Court agrees to hear about 100 to 150 of the more than 7,000 cases that it is asked to review each year.
Read’s attorneys attempted to get two of the three charges against her dropped after they said jurors had made a unanimous decision to acquit her. Those charges are second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a crash causing injury or death.
Her attorneys argued that jurors agreed she was not guilty on those two charges, but weren’t told by Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone that they could return a partial verdict.
Read’s attorneys first made the argument in a motion to dismiss filed with Cannone, who is presiding over her retrial. Cannone denied the motion.
Read’s defense team appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s highest court, which upheld Cannone’s decision.
A federal judge then declined to intervene, prompting Read’s team to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The First Circuit of Appeals upheld the judge’s decision, allowing the trial to move forward.
On April 3, Read’s attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case and to delay her trial. The court refused to delay her trial and has not yet decided if it will hear her case.
8:01 am ET
What is Karen Read charged with?
Read, 45, is accused of killing her boyfriend, Braintree native and Boston police officer John O’Keefe. Defense attorneys for Read say she was framed for O’Keefe’s death.
Read’s attorneys attempted to get two of the three charges against her dropped after they said jurors had made a unanimous decision to acquit her. Those charges are second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a crash causing injury or death.
She is also charged with manslaughter while operating under the influence.
7:40 am ET
Who is Karen Read?
Jessica Trufant
The death of Boston police Officer John O’Keefe, the discovery of his body outside of a Canton home on Jan. 29, 2022, and the investigation and trial that followed have captured public attention for the last few years.
And at the center of that has been Karen Read, the woman who was dating O’Keefe and is charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of a deadly crash.
Two narratives have since emerged. The prosecution alleges that Read killed O’Keefe by backing into him with her SUV and leaving him to die after a fight. Read’s defense team argues that the police and other parties have colluded to frame Read for his murder.
Read is from Mansfield and grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, and in Taunton. She attended Coyle & Cassidy, a now-closed private school, and earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in finance at Bentley University in Waltham. The 45-year-old worked in financial services and as an adjunct professor at Bentley College, teaching finance, until she was arrested.
More: Was accused killer Karen Read the ‘girl next door’? What her Taunton teachers, a parent say
Read and O’Keefe were dating for two years prior to his death. In the first trial trial, the relationship was been painted as tumultuous, with arguments about “what Read fed O’Keefe’s two adopted children, and that he witnessed a 2021 fight the couple had in Cape Cod over how O’Keefe treated her.” A witness also testified that Read became angry after she thought O’Keefe had kissed another woman during a vacation to Aruba.
7:20 am ET
How to watch the Karen Read trial live
Jessica Trufant
CourtTV has been covering the case against Read since early 2022. You can find CourtTV’s ongoing coverage of the Read trial on courttv.com. You can also watch their live feed where CourtTV anchors report on the Read trial proceedings as they occur, as well as coverage on other ongoing legal stories.
You can also find analyses on different aspects of the trial like dissecting Read’s defense team’s strategy or the body camera footage of her arrest.
If you prefer to watch the courtroom drama unfold on your television screen, CourtTV can be watched on Roku, Amazon FireTV, Apple TV or AndroidTV.
The trial is also being broadcast by NBC Boston. The coverage can be found on nbcboston.com, NECN, NBC Boston streaming platforms, including Roku, Peacock, Samsung TV and their Youtube channel, according to NBC. CBS News Boston and WCVB are also streaming the trial.
