Karen Read Mistrial: Jury Says Retrying Her for Boyfriend’s Murder Would be Unfair

A juror from the Karen Read mistrial corroborated the defense’s assertion that the jury unanimously voted to acquit her of murder and stated it would be “unjust” to retry her.

Legal documents obtained by TMZ revealed that the juror described the final day of the trial as a “whirlwind” and “very confusing.” After the judge declared a mistrial, jurors were taken away on a bus, questioning if anyone would know they had acquitted Karen Read on Counts 1 and 3, as no one had asked about those counts.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, a Norfolk County grand jury in Massachusetts indicted Read in 2022 on murder, motor vehicle manslaughter, and leaving the scene of a collision causing death charges. She’s accused of killing her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer.

Read was initially arrested on manslaughter charges after she allegedly hit O’Keefe with her SUV, then left him for dead outside a friend’s residence in Canton. Police said the incident happened after Read had a night out involving drinking.

Read pleaded not guilty to the charges and claimed that she’s been framed.

The defense suggested O’Keefe was beaten up inside his friend’s home and bitten by a dog before he left the residence.

The prosecution, however, asserted that Read’s SUV was damaged when she reversed into O’Keefe on Fairview Road. They argued that she left him for dead in a snowbank outside another officer’s home in the early hours of January 29, 2022.

The murder case ended in a mistrial July 1 when the jury told Judge Beverly Cannone that they were deadlocked. This was the third note from the jury indicating they couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict after five days of deliberations.

Although the judge declared a mistrial, she didn’t disclose the vote count. Read’s attorney, Alan Jackson, filed a motion arguing that retrying the murder case would constitute double jeopardy, which prohibits being tried twice for the same crime.