DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Within the warmth of early summer time, a Massachusetts jury is deciding whether or not melting snow revealed proof that proves a lady murdered her boyfriend, or uncovered a cover-up constructed on connections and police corruption.
Karen Learn is charged with second-degree homicide within the January 2022 dying of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. She’s accused of dropping him off at one other officer’s home get together after an evening of consuming, after which ramming him together with her SUV and leaving him to die in a blizzard. However her protection workforce argues she was framed, and that the proof reveals O’Keefe was overwhelmed up by another person inside the home, bitten by a canine and left outdoors.
It wouldn’t be the primary time a rocky romantic relationship resulted in dying, and the associate is all the time a high suspect. Nevertheless it additionally has turn into simpler to query police techniques and integrity after many high-profile instances of misconduct nationwide. Of their second day of deliberations Wednesday, jurors needed to take into account whether or not the typically tiny bits of proof — items of a damaged tail mild, a single human hair — level to a lady’s guilt, or a sprawling conspiracy by legislation enforcement officers to plant proof and shield their very own, leaving a killer unpunished.
What first may need gave the impression to be an open-and-shut case has drawn outsized consideration, fueled by true crime fanatics, conspiracy theorists and Learn’s pink-shirted supporters.
Learn, a former adjunct professor at Bentley Faculty, is charged with second-degree homicide, which carries a most penalty of life in jail, together with manslaughter whereas working drunk, and leaving a scene of non-public harm and dying. The manslaughter cost carries a penalty of 5 to twenty years in jail, and the opposite cost has a most penalty of 10 years.
In his closing statements Tuesday, protection lawyer Alan Jackson described a most cancers of lies that become a cover-up, telling jurors the case included a “magic hair,” conflicts of curiosity and “butt dials galore.”
Quite than Learn intentionally reversing her SUV into O’Keefe, the protection argued that he was overwhelmed up in the home of one other Boston police officer and thrown outdoors within the snow.
“Simply look the opposite means, that’s what they need. That’s what they’re relying on,” he advised the jury.
“The undeniable fact is that you’ve got been lied to on this courtroom,” Jackson stated. “You’re the solely factor standing between Karen Learn and the tyranny of injustice.”
However Assistant District Lawyer Adam Lally advised jurors there was no conspiracy or cover-up. He requested them to comply with the proof — together with items of Learn’s damaged taillight discovered on the scene and a hair from O’Keefe’s discovered on her automobile. He started his closing argument with the phrases 4 witnesses reported listening to Learn say after O’Keefe was found on the snow:
“The defendant repeatedly stated I hit him. I hit him. Oh my God. I hit him,” he stated. “These have been the phrases that got here from the defendant’s mouth on Jan. 29, 2021 as John O’Keefe lay dying on the entrance garden of 34 Fairview Highway, the place the defendant had left him after hanging him together with her motorized vehicle a number of hours earlier than.”
Lally additionally painted an image — by offended texts and voicemails — of a pair whose relationship was failing lengthy earlier than their final evening of heavy consuming collectively. And he raised questions on Learn’s conduct the subsequent morning, noting that she by no means cried after O’Keefe’s unresponsive physique was discovered.
He additionally scoffed at protection strategies that O’Keefe might have been overwhelmed up at Albert’s home get together by Brian Higgins, a federal agent who had exchanged flirty texts with Learn, and that Albert and others helped cowl up the crime.
“The legal mastermind and genius that Brian Albert is, 28 years on the Boston police division, he’s then going to go away John O’Keefe physique on his entrance garden. Actually? That’s the conspiracy?”
Jackson stated investigators centered on Learn as a result of she was a “handy outsider” who saved them from having to contemplate Albert and different legislation enforcement officers on the home get together. He additionally pointed to connections between Albert and the state trooper who led the investigation.
“Michael Proctor didn’t draw a skinny blue line, he erected a tall blue wall,” Jackson stated. “A wall which you can’t scale, a wall that Karen Learn actually couldn’t recover from. A wall between us and them. A spot you people aren’t invited. ‘We shield our personal.’”
A block from the court docket in a Massachusetts suburb, dozens of Learn supporters have been glued to their telephones awaiting a verdict. Their temper was jubilant, with supporters chanting, waving American flags and getting encouragement from passing motorists who honked their horns.
“She was unjustly charged and we hope she will go dwelling at present,” stated Vicki Walkling, a supporter wearing pink. “This case has enraptured everyone as a result of it’s unfair. It might occur to any one in all us. Any one in all us might be framed for a homicide we didn’t commit.”