DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - Special prosecutor Hank Brennan delivered his closing argument in the Karen Read murder retrial Friday.
“She was drunk, she hit him, she left him to die. It’s that simple,” Brennan said.
Brennan worked to convince the jury that it was Read who struck her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe with her SUV after a night of drinking, leaving him to die in the snow in Canton in January 2022.
“She was drunk, she hit him, she left him to die. It’s that simple,” Brennan said. “Look at the facts, look at the data, and it all leads to one person — the defendant.”
Read never took the stand in her retrial, but Brennan used Read’s own words from interviews she gave leading up to the trial. He reminded jurors that even Read herself suggested she did it.
“The timeline in this case is beyond dispute. You can accuse, assault, characterize, malign, twist. The timeline doesn’t change. It is data. Data is data,” Brennan said.
The prosecutor, who significantly streamlined the case this time, was focused on the science and data instead of who was in the house at 34 Fairview Road.
“Blood was taken, the samples, the retrograde analysis, almost two to three times the legal limit. She was drunk. She hit him,” Brennan said.
As for the lead Massachusetts State Police investigator, Trooper Michael Proctor, who was fired for inappropriate text messages that were read in court, Brennan said his misconduct had no impact on the scientific data in the case.
“When you read those text messages, they’re hard to look at. It’s unfair. It’s unfair. And if there’s a penalty more than being fired, maybe that penalty will be deserved, but it had nothing to do with the justice in this case. It just doesn’t,” Brennan said.
Brennan, after his one hour and 15 minute closing, said there is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this eight-week trial — Read knew she hit O’Keefe and drove off after.
“John O’Keefe is not a body. John O’Keefe is not a buffalo on a prairie. John O’Keefe was a person. And he was murdered by Karen Read,” Brennan said.
Brennan also told jurors O’Keefe wasn’t bitten by a dog.
After both the prosecution and defense made their closing arguments, the jury was sent to deliberate Friday afternoon.
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