DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - 45-year-old Karen Read sat there listening as her attorney Alan Jackson laid out his case for acquittal in the 2022 death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe.
“All you need to know is that the commonwealth failed,” said Jackson. “They failed to prove the essence of their case that John was even hit by a car to begin with.”
The Read team abandoned its third party culprit defense. It’s not blaming someone else for John O’Keefe’s untimely death.
Jackson did not tell the jury Brian Albert, or his friend Brian Higgins, killed John O’Keefe. However, he did blame state police for not investigating them.
“Don’t let them get away with this, do not let them get away with an investigation that is corrupted from top to bottom,” said Jackson.
18 jurors watched Jackson, occasionally looking up at the courtroom screens which showed tear outs of notes in a hand written font as he highlighted his points.
Jackson claimed that tests performed by Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler, who work for a private firm called ARCCA, prove the damage to Lexus and the injuries O’Keefe suffered aren’t consistent with a car colliding with a pedestrian.
“Not one bruise, nothing,” said Jackson.
The L.A. attorney made fun of the prosecution’s next expert who dressed in the clothing O’Keefe wore the night he died and showed how Read’s Lexus could have come into contact with his arm.
“Dr. Dan Wolfe did the testing on the tail light,” said Jackson. “Actual testing. Not some ridiculous blue paint kindergarten project.”
Jackson urged the jury to find Read not guilty, three times.
The judge spent over an hour instructing jurors how to deliberate. Six jurors got the bad news they’ll be alternates and kept in a separate room. The deliberating jurors, chosen at random, are seven women and five men.
Read left the courthouse just before 3 p.m., saying she feels confident.
“I feel good,” Read said.
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