Jury deliberates in Boston woman’s retrial
DEDHAM, Mass. (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - The jury has started deliberations after closing arguments Friday in the retrial of a Boston woman accused of hitting her boyfriend with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow.
Prosecutors say Karen Read killed police officer John O'Keefe following a lovers' quarrel. The defense argues O'Keefe was killed by a fellow officer at a house party.
Read is charged with second degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene after prosecutors said she hit O'Keefe with her SUV outside of a house party after a night of drinking at a local bar.
Her defense attorney, Alan Jackson, says the state did not provide evidence a collision ever happened.
"There is no evidence John was hit by a car...the science does not lie. The medical evidence does not lie. The physics do not lie. Find Karen Read not guilty, not guilty, not guilty," Jackson argued.
"They were fighting. It was a relationship in decline. And he got of the car. He had a brief window of life left. When he got out and when she drove away, she couldn't let it go. She got drunk. She hit him. She left him to die. It's that simple," said Hank Brennan, a prosecutor.
The jury started deliberations Friday afternoon.
Read's first trial ended with a mistrial last July. If she's convicted, Read faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.
