It was a chilly killing.
Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe died from blunt pressure trauma to the pinnacle and hypothermia throughout a January snowstorm in Canton, Massachusetts, about 15 miles exterior the town correct.
Karen Learn, the previous finance skilled and O’Keefe’s girlfriend on the time, was accused of fatally working him over in a drunken struggle and fleeing the scene.
However her trial, as soon as considered as a “slam dunk” case for the prosecution, ended with a hung jury in July after she claimed the case was an elaborate cover-up and that she had nothing to do with whoever left him out within the chilly to die.Â
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After the jury was dismissed for the day, Karen Learn, proper, listens as Canton Police Sgt. Michael Lank is questioned by protection legal professional Alan Jackson. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe through Getty Photographs)
A decide has already cleared the best way for a second trial, scheduled for Jan. 27, however each side have requested the courtroom to push it again to April 1, a spokesman for the Norfolk District Legal professional’s Workplace advised Fox Information Digital. The decide has not but selected that matter, and the state Supreme Court docket is weighing whether or not two of the fees must be dismissed if the case does return to trial – together with the highest cost of second-degree homicide.
If the case does get a brand new trial as anticipated in January, it will likely be led by a particular assistant prosecutor, Hank Brennan, who as soon as represented the mobster James “Whitey” Bulger and has already begun making an attempt to acquire unpublished information from Massachusetts reporters who’ve interviewed Learn.
The plans might change once more as a result of quite a lot of dangers that might crop up in a brand new trial, in line with legal protection legal professional David Gelman, who has been following the case.
“You already had all these police testify,” Gelman mentioned. “They’re now gonna be put in a really unwelcome place. They’re gonna must testify once more, and if they are saying something in another way, then they’re gonna perjure themselves. I would not wish to be in that place.”
Officer John O’Keefe was discovered lifeless exterior a Massachusetts house in January 2022. (Boston Police Division)
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Learn, in a current spherical of interviews, argues that she was framed by the actual killers, whom she believes are different members of legislation enforcement O’Keefe bought right into a struggle with after she dropped him off on the house of fellow Boston Police Officer Brian Albert.Â
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Prosecutors, nevertheless, charged her with hitting her boyfriend along with her SUV after a drunken struggle and leaving him to die in a snowstorm.
A lawyer holds {a photograph} of Karen Learn and John O’Keefe in courtroom on June 10, 2022. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe through Getty Photographs)
His stays had been found on Albert’s entrance garden.
In response to Learn, when she awoke at 6 a.m. after an evening of consuming, she realized O’Keefe wasn’t house and went out to search for him.Â
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Post-mortem photographs additionally present what seem like wounds from an animal on O’Keefe’s proper arm, which the protection argued had been a suspicious element in what prosecutors alleged was a vehicular murder.
The protection for Karen Learn holds up a poster board containing data they declare exonerates their shopper within the homicide of John O’Keefe. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe through Getty Photographs)
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Doubtlessly extra damning to the case was testimony from Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor.
Jurors had been seen shaking their heads in courtroom as Learn’s protection staff learn a few of his textual content messages.
In them, he referred to as Learn a “wack job,” a “babe … with no a–” and a “c—.”
Karen Learn arrives at Norfolk Superior Court docket for a listening to to dismiss homicide prices towards her. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe through Getty Photographs)
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He wrote that he wished she would kill herself and joked about on the lookout for nude selfies whereas looking her telephone.
His cross-examination already turned off one jury, Gelman mentioned. A second go might do the identical factor, and if Proctor adjustments his story in any respect, the protection will doubtless pounce.
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“I can’t presumably assume that they’re going to put officers on the stand who’ve already screwed this trial up,” he argued. “They’re biased as a result of, clearly, it is one in all theirs who died. I can perceive, probably, that they could have some sort of a bias on this.”
Lots of of Karen Learn supporters collect in entrance of Norfolk County Superior Court docket earlier than one in all her appearances. (Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald through Getty Photographs)
However that is not an excuse for botching an investigation with questionable ethics, he mentioned.
“They’re paid to do that job, they usually must do it the proper method,” he mentioned. “However they went about this very unprofessionally.”
Gelman predicts that the almost certainly end result is Learn agrees to a plea deal. In any other case, the case will get dismissed. And if it is dismissed with prejudice, that might be the top of it.
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Brennan, for his half, seems able to do what he is been introduced in to do.
“I assume full accountability and all obligations for prosecuting this case and can achieve this meticulously, ethically and zealously, with out compromise,” he advised The Related Press after being named particular prosecutor.
“I’ve two core obligations. The primary is to make sure that Karen Learn receives a good trial… The second is to make sure that the details surrounding John O’Keefe’s loss of life are totally pretty aired within the courtroom with out exterior affect.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.
