Karen Read juror speaks out after verdict

Crime

“I don’t know what happened to John,” Juror #4, identified only as Jason, said. “I was only presented a limited scope of what happened that night.”

A juror in the Karen Read trial said while there was reasonable doubt from the “poor investigation,” he felt Read “was innocent.”

Juror #4, identified only as Jason, said in an interview with TMZ that he doesn’t believe that Read’s SUV collided with John O’Keefe, the Boston police officer who died after being found in the snow outside a Canton home early on Jan. 29, 2022.

“There’s just too many holes, and it’s hard to prove that the collision happened, so if there’s reasonable doubt that that happened or that there may have been foul play, if there’s room for that, then it’s hard to come to a guilty verdict,” the juror said.

Jason pointed to the taillight as the main piece of evidence that cast doubt on the prosecution’s argument. The jury was tasked with determining whether Read struck O’Keefe in a drunken rage while dropping him off at an afterparty. Read was found not guilty of second degree murder on Wednesday, but was convicted of operating under the influence.

“We did a lot of review of the tapes, and it seemed to me that the videos that we could see from the car after the alleged incident happened, that when we could see the tail light, it was lit up red where it shouldn’t just have been red,” Jason said. “I don’t believe that the SUV collided with John O’Keefe.”

Jason said Read being innocent “doesn’t necessarily mean” she was framed. He also said there’s “no way for me to know” if the police investigation was corrupt. The defense posited that Read was framed in a coverup, suggesting she was the victim of a botched and biased investigation. They floated an alternate theory that O’Keefe was attacked after entering the home at 34 Fairview Road, owned at the time by a fellow Boston police officer. 

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened to John,” Jason said. “I was only presented a limited scope of what happened at the night, and I can only base my opinion off of the evidence that was shown in the courtroom, so I don’t really know if there was a cover up or not.”

There was immense pressure as the jury deliberated, Jason said, particularly from the crowd outside.

“All of the eyes are on us,” Jason said. “We had to look at the evidence that was presented to us, absorb it, really understand it, and see if there’s any reasonable doubt. And there was.”

Molly Farrar is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on education, politics, crime, and more.