The Trouble Isn't Over for Karen Read

Moments after she was acquitted of murdering her police officer boyfriend, Karen Read addressed a crowd of hundreds of supporters gathered outside Norfolk Superior Court on Wednesday. "No one has fought harder for justice for John O'Keefe than I have and my team," she said, per MassLive—something O'Keefe's family might dispute. They previously filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit against Read, which is expected to heat up now that her criminal trial is over. Though Read can't be retried for O'Keefe's death in criminal court, in a civil trial, there's a lower standard of proof, meaning the family need only show their claims that Read drunkenly struck O'Keefe with her SUV outside the home of a fellow Boston police officer is "more probably true than not true," MassLive reports.

During Read's second trial, the defense didn't repeat its claim that O'Keefe, who died of blunt force trauma and hypothermia, was beaten by others inside the home on the night of Jan. 29, 2022, then thrown outside in the snow, per CNN. An expert testified that O'Keefe's phone exited Read's vehicle, moved for just a few minutes, and never moved again until it was found much later with his body, just off the road. Read's SUV had a broken taillight and taillight fragments were found in O'Keefe's clothing and around his body. However, prosecutors failed to explain beyond a reasonable doubt how O'Keefe received injuries to his arms "and I think that helped the defense," says CNN's Jean Casarez.

In the view of law professor and former assistant district attorney Jeffrey Abramson, Read's acquittal on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter is "a total repudiation of the prosecution's case," per USA Today. Brian Albert, the retired police sergeant at whose home O'Keefe was found, calls it "a devastating miscarriage of justice," per NBC News. How a jury interprets the facts in a civil trial remains to be seen. Read—the symbol of a community that came to believe corruption was rampant among police and local government, per CNN—is likely to now be deposed in the case, MassLive reports. (More Karen Read stories.)