Jury begins deliberating whether Karen Read is guilty of murder in Boston police boyfriend’s death

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Jurors in the murder trial of Karen Read began deliberations without a verdict Friday after weeks of testimony in a highly divisive case in which the prosecution’s theory of jaded love turned deadly was countered by a defense claim that a cast of tight-knit Boston-area law enforcement killed a fellow police officer.

Read, 45, is accused of fatally striking her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46, with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow outside a house party where other local police and a federal agent were closing out a night of drinking in 2022. She’s charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene. If convicted on the most serious charge, she faces life in prison.

Jurors went home for the weekend and will resume on Monday.

Read’s defense said O'Keefe was beaten, bitten by a dog, then left outside a home in the Boston suburb of Canton in a conspiracy orchestrated by the police that included planting evidence.

The first Read trial ended July 1 in a mistrial due to a hung jury.

The state's case was led by special prosecutor Hank Brennan, who called fewer witnesses than prosecutor Adam Lally, who ran the first trial against Read.

Describing O’Keefe as a “good man” who “helped people,” Brennan on Friday said O’Keefe needed help that night and the only person who could lend a hand — call 911 or knock on a door — was Read. Instead, she drove away in her SUV.

“She was drunk. She hit him and she left him to die,” he said, repeating the phrase twice.

Brennan again referenced Read’s statement about the possibility that she backed into O’Keefe, which the defense has pointed out came not from police reports but from a voluntary interview she did for a documentary series. In the television interview, Read said, “I didn’t think I hit him,” but acknowledged she could have “clipped him.”

He bolstered that with the testimony from first responders, several of whom heard Read say, “I hit him,” multiple times.

“She is now coming to terms with the moment. Her fear is realized,” he told jurors when she uttered those words. “She is facing the reality of what she had done. Her emotions are overwhelming.”

Brennan then played a video clip in which Read questioned whether she said, “I hit him,” so many times at the scene, words that he said validate what the first responders heard.

In the first trial, the state called Michael Proctor, a Massachusetts state trooper who was the lead investigator in the case. Proctor was later fired after a disciplinary board found he sent sexist and crude text messages about Read to his friends, family and co-workers. Prosecutors never called Proctor, but he was referenced repeatedly by attorneys during the trial.

“I'm not saying you shouldn’t be disgusted by the text messages. You should. They are not defensible,” Brennan said. “I don’t stand here and defend impropriety. I don’t. But that doesn’t change the physical evidence, the scientific evidence and the data."

The evidence and data Brennan repeatedly referenced included a broken cocktail glass that O'Keefe was holding after he got out of the SUV and pieces of Read's broke rear taillight from the scene.

Brennan also said the data on Read’s Lexus SUX proved she reversed the vehicle and accelerated after dropping O'Keefe at the party. She was drunk, he said, and the pair had argued on the way to the party which had added fuel to an already “toxic” and “crumbling” relationship.

Defense attorney Alan Jackson began his closing argument by repeating three times: “There was no collision.”

“There is no evidence that John was hit by a car. None. This case should be over right now, done, because there was no collision,” he said.

Jackson told the jury that Read is an innocent woman victimized by a police cover-up in which law enforcement officers led by ringleader Proctor sought to protect their own and obscure the real killer. He said pieces of taillight were planted. And he and zeroed in on federal agent Brian Higgins, who exchanged flirtatious text messages with Read, leading the defense to question if that led to a fatal confrontation. Higgins was present at the party.

“What happened inside that house, that basement or that garage? What evidence was there for investigators to look into? What did they ignore?” Jackson asked, noting the “obvious dog bites" on O’Keefe’s arm and the head injury from his falling backward onto a hard surface.

Jackson also dismissed the witnesses who heard Read claim she “hit” O'Keefe at the scene. “It wasn’t a confession. It was confusion,” said Jackson, noting that it was normal to ask those kinds of questions when someone is experiencing grief or in shock.

Jackson also argued the state had failed to show how Read could have hit O'Keefe with her SUV — insisting they admitted not knowing how Read hit him and showing a crash simulation of a dummy being hit but admitting they weren't sure where O'Keefe was standing. The defense also argued Read's taillight was damaged when she backed out of O'Keefe house and hit his car, not when she hit him.

“The truth is Karen Read is not guilty not because of technicalities but because the facts, the law, the science, the physics, the data they all say so. They demand it," Jackson said. “The Commonwealth doesn’t have a theory about how John was hit by the car. They haven’t even shown you that it’s possible he was hit by a car.”

At the end of court Friday, a supporter handed Jackson a bouquet of pink flowers for Read, and he gave it to her when they got in a car. As she left, Read told reporters, “We’ve done everything we can."

Whittle reported from Scarborough, Maine.

Karen Read, is surrounded by reporters as she and her legal team leave the Dedham, Mass. courthouse, after the judge issued instructions to the jury in Read's trial at Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)

Prosecutor Hank Brennan, left, speaks to jurors during closing arguments in the murder trial of Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool)

Karen Read, right, gestures to supporters as she and attorney Alan Jackson, left, leave the Dedham, Mass. courthouse, after the judge issued instructions to the jury in Read's trial at Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)

Defense attorney Alan Jackson speaks to jurors during closing arguments in the murder trial of Karen Read, at right, in Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool) /// [EXTERNAL]

A costumed Karen Read supporter who declined to be identified, center, gathered with fellow supporters waiting for Read to arrive at the Dedham, Mass. courthouse, for closing arguments of her trial at Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)

Judge Beverly Cannone speaks to jurors before closing arguments in the murder trial of Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool) /// [EXTERNAL]

Defendant Karen Read, second from left, defense attorneys and prosecutors meet at side bar with Judge Beverly Cannone, right, before closing arguments during the murder trial of Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool) /// [EXTERNAL]

Defendant Karen Read smiles at her family before closing arguments during her murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool) /// [EXTERNAL]

Supporters of Karen Read gather prior to the day's session outside Norfolk Superior Court, Thursday, June 12, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Prosecutor Hank Brennan questions accident reconstruction specialist Dr. Daniel Wolfe during the murder trial of Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 6, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Lowell Sun via AP, Pool)

Defense attorneys Robert Alessi, left, and David Yannetti, confer before the Karen Read's murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass., Friday, June 6, 2025. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool)

Judge Beverly Cannone speaks to jurors at the start of Karen Read's murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass., Friday, June 6, 2025. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool)

Defendant Karen Read listens as accident reconstruction specialist Dr. Daniel Wolfe testifies during her murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 6, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool)

Defense attorney Alan Jackson questions accident reconstruction specialist Dr. Daniel Wolfe while holding a 2021 Lexus SUV taillight assembly during Karen Read's murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass., Friday, June 6, 2025.(Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool)

Karen Read and her defense attorneys listen as accident reconstruction specialist Dr. Daniel Wolfe testifies during Read's murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass., Friday, June 6, 2025. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle via AP, Pool)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein did not maintain a “client list,” the Justice Department acknowledged Monday as it said no more files related to the wealthy financier's sex trafficking investigation would be made public despite promises from Attorney General Pam Bondi that had raised the expectations of conservative influencers and conspiracy theorists.

The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represents a public walk-back of a theory that the Trump administration had helped promote, with Bondi suggesting in a Fox News interview earlier this year that such a document was “sitting on my desk” for review.

Even as it released video from inside a New York jail meant to definitively prove that Epstein killed himself, the department also said in a memo that it was refusing to release other evidence investigators had collected. Bondi for weeks had suggested more material was going to be revealed — "It’s a new administration and everything is going to come out to the public,” she said at one point — after a first document dump she had hyped angered President Donald Trump's base by failing to deliver revelations.

That episode, in which conservative internet personalities were invited to the White House in February and provided with binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified" that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain, has spurred far-right influencers to lambast and deride Bondi.

After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a “truckload” of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI. In a March TV interview, she claimed the Biden administration “sat on these documents, no one did anything with them,” adding: “Sadly these people don’t believe in transparency, but I think more unfortunately, I think a lot of them don’t believe in honesty.”

But after a months-long review of evidence in the government's possession, the Justice Department determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,” the memo says. The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and “only a fraction" of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”

The two-page memo bore the logos of the Justice Department and the FBI but was not signed by any individual official.

“One of our highest priorities is combatting child exploitation and bringing justice to victims," the memo says. Perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein serves neither of those ends."

Conservatives who have sought proof of a government coverup of Epstein’s activities and death expressed outrage Monday over the department's position. Far-right influencer Jack Posobiec posted: “We were all told more was coming. That answers were out there and would be provided. Incredible how utterly mismanaged this Epstein mess has been. And it didn’t have to be.”

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones wrote that "next the DOJ will say ‘Actually, Jeffrey Epstein never even existed,' calling it “over the top sickening.” Elon Musk shared a series of photos of a clown applying makeup appearing to mock Bondi for saying the client list doesn't exist after suggesting months ago that it was on her desk.

The client list hubbub began when Bondi was asked in a Fox News interview whether the department would release such a document.

She replied: “It's sitting on my desk right now to review.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said Monday that Bondi was referring to the Epstein files in general, not a client list specifically.

Among the evidence that the Justice Department says it has in its possession are more than 10,000 videos and images that officials said depicted child sex abuse material or “other pornography.” Bondi had earlier suggested that part of the reason for the delay in releasing additional Epstein materials was because the FBI needed to review “tens of thousands” of recordings that she said showed Epstein “with children or child porn.”

The Associated Press published a story last week about the unanswered questions surrounding those videos.

Multiple people who participated in the criminal cases of Epstein and socialite former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell told AP that they had not seen and did not know of a trove of recordings along the lines of what Bondi had referenced. Indictments and detention memos also don’t allege the existence of video recordings and neither Epstein nor Maxwell were charged with possession of child sex abuse material even though that would have been easier for prosecutors to prove than the sex trafficking counts they faced.

The AP did find reference in a filing in a civil lawsuit to the discovery by the Epstein estate of videos and pictures that could constitute child sex abuse material, but lawyers involved in that case said a protective order prevents them from discovering the specifics of that evidence.

The Justice Department did not respond to a detailed list of questions from AP about the videos Bondi was referencing.

Monday’s memo does not explain when or where they were located, what they depict and whether they were newly found as investigators scoured their collection of evidence or were known for some time to have been in the government’s possession.

Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on sex trafficking charges, in a suicide that foreclosed the possibility of a trial.

The department’s disclosure that Epstein took his own life is hardly a revelation even though conspiracy theorists have continued to challenge that conclusion.

In November 2019, for instance, then-Attorney General William Barr told the AP in an interview that he had personally reviewed security footage that revealed that no one entered the area where Epstein was housed on the night he died and Barr had concluded that Epstein’s suicide was the result of “a perfect storm of screw-ups.”

More recently, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino have insisted in television and podcast interviews that the evidence was clear that Epstein had killed himself.

FILE - This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, File)

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the media, Friday, June 27, 2025, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)