CANTON, MASS. (WHDH) - The jurors in the Karen Read murder retrial left the courthouse Friday to view the Canton house where victim John O’Keefe was found dead in January 2022.
Read is accused of killing O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend, by hitting him with her car and leaving him to die in a snowbank after a night of drinking. Her lawyers argue she is being framed. Her first trial last summer ended in a mistrial.
The scene visit is intended to help jurors better understand the evidence in the case. Judge Beverly Cannone told the 18 jurors to be observant but not to take notes or photos while viewing the home at 34 Fairview Road.
Read’s Lexus, which she was driving on the night of O’Keefe’s death, was brought back to the house — owned by another police officer, Brian Albert, at the time.
“The best way to summarize a view is that your job is to simply stop and look,” Cannone said.
Prosecutors and Read’s lawyers both briefed the jury before they took the tour.
“I ask you to make a note on the Lexus about the height of the bumper and make note of the height of the right, rear tail light, and I also ask you to take note of — on the top of the hatchback, there is a part that protrudes,” said special prosecutor Hank Brennan.
Defense attorney David Yannetti also had notes for the jury.
“We’ll be asking you specifically to consider the distance between that second floor front window and the front lawn, the distance between the front doors to the house and that front lawn, the distance between the driveway to the front lawn. And we’ll be asking you to take a good look at that Lexus. Just stand next to it, to size it up,” Yannetti said.
Cannone and the attorneys accompanied the jurors to the scene. Read, herself, did not tag along.
“I don’t ever want to go back to 34 Fairview,” Read said outside court.
At the scene, a neighbor was stuck behind a police roadblock. Everyone was kept 100 yards away from the home while the jury was present.
When asked about the general consensus on Read’s case, the neighbor said he doesn’t know people who are “split” on the issue.
“Not the people that I know. Everybody knows that she’s absolutely innocent,” the neighbor said.
Jurors returned to court afterward to hear from two witnesses, including Jack Becker, a Canton firefighter and paramedic who was called to the scene the night O’Keefe died amid concerns Read might take her own life.
He said Read assured him she was not suicidal, and also made a statement about her last interaction with O’Keefe.
“Last conversation she had with her husband at the time was an argument,” Becker said on the stand.
Read has said publicly she was drinking the night O’Keefe died.
“I had a few cocktails,” said Read in a video. “I had a normal amount, like a vodka tonic every 40 minutes.”
Brockton pathologist Dr. Garrey Faller, who tested Read’s blood, took the stand after the jury got back to Dedham.
The results showed she was legally drunk the next morning.
“When it was ordered, it was 9:03 in the morning,” said Faller.
“And when was it taken sir,” Faller was asked.
“The blood test was taken five minutes later,” he responded.
Testimony will continue Monday morning.
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