Closing arguments take place in the new trial of Karen Read on Friday for the death of John O’Keefe

After almost eight weeks of testimonials, Massachusetts prosecutors and defense lawyers for Karen Read should give jurors their closing arguments on Friday while his new trial for the death of his boyfriend, John O’Keefe, approaches his end.

The prosecutors accused of reading O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, with his SUV in January 2022 during an evening drinking with friends, alleging that she had struck O’Keefe by leading to reverse and let him die outside a house in Canton, Massachusetts.

Read – whose first trial ended with a suspended jury – insists on his innocence and pleaded not guilty of second degree murder, involuntary homicide in a state of drunkenness and leaving the scene of a collision leading to death.

Read, 45, said it was the target of concealment, alleging the security forces out of service inside this home was responsible for the death of O’Keefe and that they conspired to frame it. But his defense at the trial was more widely focused on the SAPER the police investigation and the offer of alternative theories of jurors for what, apart from the SUV of Read, could have killed O’Keefe.

In fact, defense lawyers Thursday said they would not dispute a so -called “third -party” defense. On the contrary, the judge will allow them to argue that the crime scene was not sure, to raise questions on the chain of guard of evidence and prejudices in the investigation.

Friday, the closing arguments mark the summit of not one, but two trials which divided these suburbs south of Boston during the best part of three years, causing a vocal contingent of the court observers who fiercely defend the defendant, echo his allegations of corruption and police song, “Karen Lue Lue”.

Each side will have an hour and 15 minutes on Friday to summarize its cases. Prosecutors will try to synthesize the many sons they have explored in a convincing history, while the defense will work to sow enough “reasonable doubt” in the minds of the jurors to convince them that the Commonwealth did not respond to his proof of evidence.

The two hope that their version will resonate and lead the jurors to make a verdict in favor – something that each side was refused at the end of the first trial last July, When the jury could not make a verdict unanimous, forcing the judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court, Beverly Cannone, to declare a trial.

Read did not testify in any of the two trials, although she seemed to consider the idea throughout the new trial. Prosecutors presented clips from reading interviews gave the media, trying to use her words against her to highlight the inconsistencies in her account and strengthen their theory.

The case focuses on a time window that started late on January 28, 2022 and spread in the hours early the next day.

That evening, Read and O’Keefe came out with friends in two canton bars, while the region was preparing for a historic snowstorm. The party finally moved to a house at 34 Fairview Road, and even if Read said that she had deposited O’Keefe, witnesses who testified for the accusation said he had never entered.

This is the theory of accusation that O’Keefe left the vehicle, and the reading put its SUV upside down and supported the gas at around 75%. According to the testimony presented at the trial, the prosecutors allege that I read with O’Keefe at a speed of about 24 MPH, breaking the rear light of his SUV, sending the victim to the ground and making him boundless trauma injuries to the head which incapable him, which led to his death.

When they returned to the scene the next morning with two other women, they found O’Keefe lying in the snow near a mast in the courtyard of the house. In the account of the accusation, when a paramedical ambulancer who responded to Treat O’Keefe asked what had happened, Read replied: “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”

“And it was at that time, through the accused’s words, that she admitted what she had done that evening,” said special prosecutor Hank Brennan in her declaration of opening. “That she struck John O’Keefe.”

Read lawyers rejected this theory, arguing that no collision occurred: their experts testified some of O’Keefe’s injuries – specifically cuts and scratches on their arm – were caused by a dog, and that Read’s rear fire damage was incompatible with this by hitting a person.

The defense worked to undermine confidence in the investigation, highlighting the sexist and offensive text messages that the principal investigator, Michael Proctor, sent to the accused. Proctor was never called upon to testify, but these messages finally led to his dishonorable discharge from the police from the Massachusetts State.

In his opening declaration, the defense lawyer, Alan Jackson, said that there was “increasing and overwhelming evidence that there was no collision and that the body of John O’Keefe was transferred to this lawn.”

Scientific evidence, he added, “will establish that Karen Read’s SUV has not been damaged by hitting a pedestrian and conversely, John O’Keefe’s injuries did not come from the shot.”

“People, science will not lie and physics cannot lie,” said Jackson. “And that science will tell you with certainty that there was no collision with John O’Keefe. You will add this to this rising mountain of reasonable doubt.”