A choose declared a mistrial Monday after jurors stated they had been at an deadlock within the homicide trial of Karen Learn, the Massachusetts lady accused of killing her police officer boyfriend in 2022.
The choice got here on the fifth day of deliberations and after a nine-week trial in a courthouse exterior Boston the place Learn’s legal professionals described the killing of John O’Keefe, 46, as a cover-up carried out by legislation enforcement officers.
Prosecutors had argued that Learn, 44, and O’Keefe had a tumultuous relationship that culminated with the monetary analyst backing her Lexus SUV into her boyfriend and leaving him for lifeless on Jan. 29, 2022.
Learn was charged with second-degree homicide, motorcar manslaughter whereas driving beneath the affect and leaving the scene of a collision inflicting demise.
In a notice despatched Monday afternoon to Norfolk County Superior Court docket Decide Beverly Cannone, the foreman stated that regardless of rigorous efforts, the jury of six males and 6 ladies remained deadlocked. Some believed the proof surpassed the usual of proof wanted to convict Learn, the notice stated, whereas others discovered that prosecutors had not established their case.
In an earlier notice to Cannone, the jurors stated: “Regardless of our dedication to the responsibility entrusted in us, we discover ourselves deeply divided by elementary variations in our opinions and mind-set.”
After the mistrial was declared, Cannone set a standing listening to for the case later this month.
In an announcement, the district legal professional’s workplace thanked O’Keefe’s household and stated prosecutors intend to retry the case.
Outdoors the courthouse, a lawyer for Learn, Alan Jackson, informed reporters that prosecutors had relied on compromised investigators and a compromised investigation.
“We is not going to cease combating,” he stated.
O’Keefe’s physique was discovered unresponsive that morning, and he was later pronounced lifeless. The medical expert attributed his reason for demise to blunt pressure trauma to the top and hypothermia.
Her legal professionals alleged that she was framed by officers who sought to hide a beating that they stated O’Keefe suffered throughout a gathering on the residence the place his physique was discovered.
The protection alleged that the lead investigator within the case, Massachusetts state Trooper Michael Proctor, manipulated proof, didn’t correctly examine O’Keefe’s demise and despatched a sequence of slurs and vulgar messages about Learn to mates, household and supervisors.
In his closing argument final Tuesday, Norfolk County Assistant District Lawyer Adam Lally acknowledged that Proctor’s texts had been “indefensible” however stated that they had no bearing on the integrity of the company’s investigation.
Lally dismissed the protection’s declare of a cover-up as “rampant hypothesis.”
Learn repeatedly informed first responders that she had hit O’Keefe, Lally stated, and automobile knowledge confirmed her reversing her SUV for 62 toes at 24 mph close to the house of one other officer, Brian Albert, after midnight on Jan. 29.
Lally stated bodily proof backed up the allegation that she struck him, together with a tail gentle that authorities stated was damaged after the collision and hair and DNA from O’Keefe that was discovered on the rear part of the automobile.
Lally stated that nobody who attended the gathering recalled seeing O’Keefe inside Albert’s home.
Protection lawyer Alan Jackson stated the tail gentle was truly damaged after Learn dropped O’Keefe off at Albert’s home, drove residence and left in a panic hours later she realized her boyfriend by no means returned.
The protection introduced safety video from O’Keefe’s residence displaying Learn backing her SUV into her boyfriend’s automobile as she left to go discover him. Knowledge from O’Keefe’s iPhone confirmed that his system had gone dozens of steps across the time prosecutors stated he was struck, Jackson stated, suggesting that these steps may have been to the basement of Albert’s residence.
Learn’s legal professionals had been allowed to current a third-party wrongdoer protection — a idea of O’Keefe’s demise that differed from the prosecution’s — and so they pointed to an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who’d traded flirtatious texts with Learn as a doable suspect in O’Keefe’s demise.
Jackson steered the agent, Brian Higgins, turned indignant after Learn ignored him at a bar earlier than the gathering at Albert’s residence. At Albert’s home, Jackson stated, there may have been skirmish between Higgins and O’Keefe over Learn that might have ended with O’Keefe falling and hitting his head.
Higgins testified that he by no means noticed O’Keefe inside Albert’s residence and he stated he was not upset about being ignored by Learn.
In line with The Related Press, a forensic engineer who reviewed legislation enforcement’s dealing with of the case for the Division of Justice testified that O’Keefe’s accidents ought to have been extra extreme had he been struck by a automobile touring greater than 20 mph.
“We don’t actually have sufficient proof on this case to find out what one particular occasion truly brought about that harm,” stated the professional, Andrew Rentschler, in line with the AP.
