The Jury In The Karen Read Trial Has Reached A Verdict

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Jurors in the murder trial of Karen Read reached a verdict Wednesday in a divisive case about the death of a Boston police officer that lawyers have presented as either a tragic love story or a sinister cover-up.

Read, 45, is accused of fatally striking her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46, with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow outside a house party where other local police and a federal agent were closing out a night of drinking in 2022. She’s charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene. If convicted on the most serious charge, she faces life in prison.

Jurors began deliberating June 13 after weeks of often heated testimony from both sides. The deliberated for at least 22 hours.

Defense attorney Alan Jackson, his arms crossed, paced up and down the court, visibly exhaling. Read’s defense said O’Keefe was beaten, bitten by a dog, then left outside a home in the Boston suburb of Canton in a conspiracy orchestrated by the police that included planting evidence.

Prosecutors have described Read as a scorned lover who chose to leave O’Keefe dying in the snow after striking him with her SUV outside the house party.