It was inevitable that there would nonetheless be extra questions than solutions following the decision this week within the case in opposition to Karen Learn, the Massachusetts lady acquitted of homicide and manslaughter within the demise of her police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe. However a few issues about this convoluted story are unambiguous.
First: O’Keefe’s demise is a tragedy. Second: The yearslong ordeal—which devolved right into a lawyerly circus and electrified many individuals throughout the nation alongside the best way—is a microcosm of what can occur when metastatic misconduct and zealotry infect the monopoly on energy.
The story is, to place it mildly, a bit dizzying. However the fundamental particulars are as follows: On an early morning in January 2022, O’Keefe was discovered lifeless within the snow exterior a home the place a few of his pals had gathered after an evening out ingesting. Learn had dropped him off a number of hours prior, and it had been, by many admissions, a night dripping with booze. Within the following days, legislation enforcement would coalesce round the concept Learn—intoxicated and offended with O’Keefe—deliberately careened into him together with her car, drove away, and left him to die within the freezing chilly.
Learn was in the end indicted on expenses of second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working drunk, and leaving the scene of private damage and demise.
It didn’t take lengthy, nonetheless, for that case to begin dissolving. There are lots of causes for that.
To start, legislation enforcement, by any regular commonplace, botched the crime scene. Police opted to not search inside the house the place Learn had dropped O’Keefe. They used purple Solo cups to gather blood samples. One officer used a leaf blower to clear away snow. (It would not take a really lively creativeness to imagine how that may compromise the scene.) And police didn’t discover what was arguably a very powerful piece of proof within the case—a taillight fragment—in the course of the preliminary search. An officer as a substitute stated he found it hours later when he returned to the home, after Learn’s car had been impounded.
Maybe extra fraught nonetheless is that the case was tormented by accusations that legislation enforcement acted as a brotherhood to stonewall Learn and shield themselves. O’Keefe was a Boston cop, and the home he was discovered lifeless in entrance of was owned by Brian Albert, one other Boston cop who has since retired. His brother, Kevin Albert, a Canton police officer, helped with the investigation behind the scenes. However it was Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator, who would go on to cement the looks of conflicts of curiosity and a venomous type of bias in opposition to Learn.
She’s a “wack-job cunt,” he texted a gaggle of pals the day of O’Keefe’s demise, including that, whereas she is likely to be “a babe,” she has “no ass.” He advised his sister that he hoped Learn “kills herself.” Of her Crohn’s illness, he famous that Learn has “a leaky balloon knot” and “leaks poo.” In one other group chat with legislation enforcement, Proctor shared he was going by means of her cellphone and lamented he had but to search out nude pictures of Learn, whom he additionally stated was “retarded.”
Prosecutors, too, took warmth for his or her overzealousness. The homicide cost in opposition to Learn—no matter you might consider her—was at all times a baffling stretch, notably when paired with the dearth of proof the federal government had on its facet. Massachusetts medical expert Irini Scordi-Bello testified she didn’t discover proof of any “impression web site” on O’Keefe according to a car strike, and neurosurgeon Aizik Wolf, one other witness for the prosecution, stated that such blunt trauma accidents are “very continuously” seen when “sufferers which are drunk fall down on ice [or] sidewalks.” That overcharging, as prosecutors are sometimes identified to do, “doubtless had the impact of polarizing all people,” Thomas Merrigan, a retired state district courtroom decide, advised The Boston Globe, making it tougher to get a jury on board with the case in opposition to her.
To that time, Learn’s first trial in 2024 ended in a hung jury. However whereas that panel failed to succeed in a consensus on the manslaughter cost, they did unanimously vote to acquit her of homicide and leaving the scene. That will solely come out after their service concluded, as a result of the decide, Beverly Cannone, didn’t ballot them on every particular person rely. Learn was retried on these expenses anyway, in what her attorneys stated amounted to a case of double jeopardy.
Cannone, in the meantime, was basically accused of appearing as a prosecutor in a gown, with what gave the impression to be a noticeable hostility towards Learn and her crew and a penchant for ruling in opposition to them. The jury directions, drafted by Cannone, have been additionally a difficulty, and in a method introduced the ordeal full circle: Jurors from each trials expressed that they did not perceive them. Throughout deliberations within the second trial, members of the panel stated, familiarly, that they weren’t positive if an incapability to succeed in a consensus on one cost would lead to a mistrial in the event that they agreed on the opposite two. Cannone declined to make clear, saying that the query was “theoretical” to her, and that “we do not reply theoretical questions.” (The jury in the end convicted Learn of working beneath the affect and acquitted her of all the pieces else, together with the manslaughter cost related to the drunk driving offense.)
For her half, Learn’s crew alleged that O’Keefe was attacked by individuals inside the house, that accidents on his arm have been according to canine bites from the house owner’s German Shepherd, and that legislation enforcement then engaged in a conspiracy in opposition to her. Whether or not or not the primary two elements are true is up for debate. The latter, nonetheless, is tougher to dismiss—even when it was, in some sense, unconscious, and even when it is not the precise conspiracy Learn alleges. The themes at play—highly effective establishments rallying to guard their very own, and the federal government wielding its huge equipment to disclaim individuals a good shake—are evergreen, and will stay within the public consciousness even after Learn’s time within the true crime ecosphere fades away.
Proctor’s phrases greatest seize that. “I am positive the proprietor of the home”—the one John O’Keefe was discovered lifeless in entrance of—”will obtain some shit,” a buddy texted Proctor in one among his group chats.
“No,” Proctor replied. “House owner is a Boston cop, too.”
