Karen Read juror reveals moment that convinced jury she was innocent in murder trial that captivated America

One of the jurors who voted to acquit Karen Read of murder over the death of her Boston cop boyfriend has spoken out about the decision.
The juror, only identified as Jason, told TMZ that there were a lot of 'holes' in the case prosecutors presented as they argued Read drunkenly rammed her SUV into her boyfriend, former Boston police officer John O'Keefe, and left him to die in blizzard conditions on January 29, 2022.
'There was holes in that case that left reasonable doubt,' Jason said, though he noted he was not sure whether police corruption played a role in the 'poor investigation' into O'Keefe's death - as Read's defense had suggested.
'I don't know if there was any corruption going on, but I do know that there wasn't enough proof or evidence secured by the police to convict Karen Read, absolutely,' he explained.
The jury ultimately returned a not guilty verdict on the charges of murder and leaving the scene resulting in death on Wednesday. However, Read was found guilty of Operating Under the Influence and was sentenced to probation.
She had already faced the charges at a trial last year. But after five days of deliberations, Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial as the jurors remained split on whether she intentionally killed her boyfriend.
Jason said that during her second trial there was initially some division amongst the 12 jurors as some were convinced she was 'definitely innocent,' while others agreed there was enough reasonable doubt to acquit her on at least the most serious charges.
Others remained on the fence and 'a few' thought she was guilty - before being persuaded that there was too much reasonable doubt.
But Jason said he doesn't believe Read ever even hit O'Keefe with her SUV, as the prosecutors had claimed.
He pointed out that the jury was shown a video that showed Read's taillight was working fine after the alleged collision - despite prosecutors saying they found pieces of broken taillight around O'Keefe's body.
Jason said he now remains unsure what happened to O'Keefe on the night of January 22, 2022, but he does not believe Read was responsible.
The only thing the prosecution convinced the jury on, he said, was that there was 'enough evidence she was driving under the influence.'
Prosecutors had argued Read was drinking with O'Keefe and a group of his friends at the Waterfall Bar and Grill in Canton - about 14 miles south of Boston - when they were invited to an afterparty at his friend Brian Albert's home.
Read had even admitted to having several alcoholic drinks beforehand, but said she decided to drop O'Keefe off at the afterparty before she returned to his house.
According to Read's version of events, she woke up at 4am to find that O'Keefe never returned home, leading her to frantically drive out to try and find him.
After finding O'Keefe's body outside the home - which party attendees claimed he never entered - first responders on the scene alleged that Read repeatedly told them she hit him while in a panicked state.
The prosecutors then argued that Read was a scorned lover who chose to leave O'Keefe dying in the snow, after striking him with her SUV.
O'Keefe's cause of death was ultimately listed as blunt force trauma and hypothermia after police say he was left outside in a blizzard.
The couple had been dating for two years at the time and were said to be having arguments in their relationship.
Read's defense team, though, suggested O'Keefe was beaten, bitten by a dog, then left outside a home in the Boston suburb in a conspiracy orchestrated by the police that included planting evidence - the taillights the police had found.
They argued that investigators focused on Read because she was a 'convenient outsider' who saved them from having to consider law enforcement officers as suspects.
At the center of their argument were claims that the investigation was inappropriately handled by dishonorably discharged State Trooper Michael Proctor, who sent vulgar text messages about Read.
He was fired over texts that included calling Read a 'whack job' and a 'c***.'
In other messages, he joked about rummaging through her phone for nude photos during the investigation, and remarked that she had 'no a**.'
Defense attorney Alan Jackson brought Proctor up again in his closing arguments as he claimed the prosecution could only feign a case because 'their investigation was flawed from the start because their investigator was corrupted from the start by bias, personal loyalties.'
Jackson went on to argue that experts agree 'there was no collision,' and concluded by saying 'reasonable doubt abounds.'
The case - and the suggestion that there was a police coverup - captivated America, as Read gained a cult following from the widespread social media coverage and hit HBO documentary of the case.
The 'Free Karen Read' supporters were such a presence at her trial that the judge ordered they be kept 500 feet away from the courthouse and banned attendees inside the court from wearing pink, a color that they wore to show support for Read.
'Honestly, that made the pressure a lot harder and it did not give me comfort, it made it a lot harder to block everything out,' Jason said of the crowd outside, noting that 'all of the eyes were on us.'
But he insisted Read's widespread support played no role in the jury's final decision, and when the verdict was finally read on Wednesday, Read was greeted by a massive crowd of pink-clad fans shouting 'Karen Read is free.'
One supporter told DailyMail.com she was ecstatic over the news and was ready to help fight for justice for O'Keefe.
'God, this is just. The American jury system prevailed, and the Commonwealth failed. The Commonwealth failed its people. The jury came back with a just verdict,' said Rita Lombardi, who had been at court nearly every day.
'This is history, and this is what ordinary people did: ordinary people raised their voices in positive and productive ways to speak truth to power.
'My message to the people who did this to John is that you failed miserably. It's just the beginning,' she warned.
In brief remarks following the verdict, Read thanked her lawyers and her fans.
'I could not be standing here without these amazing supporters who have supported me and my team financially and more importantly emotionally for almost four years,' she said.
'No one has fought harder for justice for John O'Keefe than I have. Than I have, and my team.'
But O'Keefe's loved ones - including the party host Brian Albert - condemned the not guilty verdict as a 'miscarriage of justice.'
'Today, our hearts are with John and the entire O'Keefe family. They have suffered through so much and deserved better from our justice system,' they said in a statement.
'While we may have more to say in the future, today we mourn with John's family and lament the cruel reality that this prosecution was infected by lies and conspiracy theories spread by Karen Read, her defense team, and some in the media.
'The result is a devastating miscarriage of justice.'
The statement was penned by Jennifer McCabe, Matthew McCabe, Chris Albert, Julie Albert, Colin Albert, Nicole Albert, Brian Albert, Kerry Roberts, and Curt Roberts, some of whom were at the house party the night O'Keefe died.

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an hour ago

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LYING in her hospital bed, three-year-old Alyssa was desperately ill – painfully thin and dehydrated, her little frame covered with tubes. Her apparently doting mother Brittany Phillips sat by her side. But, when the nurses' backs were turned, she did the most unspeakably depraved act to her defenceless little girl. 4 4 When no one was looking, Phillips smeared human faeces onto Alyssa's feeding tube in a bid to make her MORE ill. She was aping a case she read about online concerning Emily McDonald, a 23-year-old mother from Austin who, four months earlier, had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for poisoning her daughter by putting poo onto her IV catheter. It was later revealed that Phillips had keyed in terms to her computer like 'poo in the feeding tube' and 'pee in veins'. Sick poisoning Hours later, Alyssa developed a rare and extremely dangerous blood infection caused by her mother's perverted act. Without the swift actions of doctors at Cook Children's Medical Centre – she could have suffered from heart failure, a stroke or even death. And that was just the tip of the iceberg of the horrendous abuse Phillips had put her daughter through in her short life. Phillips had insisted that Alyssa had to be in leg restraints for medical reasons. She also said she needed to be fed by a tube as she choked if she ate solid food. The little girl was emaciated and her growth stunted. Several family members had been so concerned that they'd filed reports with the CPS in Fort Worth, Texas, but no action was taken. Distant family members Bill and Laura Waybourn had been suspicious ever since they'd seen Alyssa at a family party a few months before. 4 They'd heard Phillips warn everyone that Alyssa couldn't eat anything, if she did, she'd choke. "We witnessed her eat a piece of cake and she didn't choke at all. She appeared to be very hungry," Waybourn said. And his wife, a CPS worker "was suspicious". "She got a close-up look at Alyssa and felt like something wasn't right. But nobody had any idea what was really going on behind the scenes, which was actually torturous," he told The Daily Mail. It transpires Phillips had Munchhausen by proxy – also known as medical child abuse – where a parent or care giver fakes, exaggerates and even causes illness in their child for the purpose of getting attention or some other benefit. A later search of her laptop revealed pages and pages of online research into the illnesses and symptoms she then tried to manufacture in her defenceless young daughter. It also showed her prolific activity on mums' internet forums – where she catalogued Alyssa's many 'illnesses' in a bid for sympathy. The day that changed everything In August 2011, a few weeks after that family party, Alyssa was taken to Cook's hospital, where her mother told medics she had dehydration. This was one of many hospital visits Alyssa had endured by the time she was three, so much so, she had spend much of her life in hospitals, and was worryingly underweight and short for her age. Despite concerned friends and family filing several reports to CPS over the years, it was this hospital visit that set off alarm bells with medical staff. During that day, Phillips repeatedly tried to stop Alyssa from eating, claiming she would choke, despite medical staff observing otherwise. She was aggressive and rude, and she piled blankets on her daughter then claimed she had a fever. She appeared to paint Alyssa's mouth blue and then claimed she was alarmingly cold. Then, Phillips suddenly demanded blood tests on her daughter. The blood test results revealed a life-threatening infection that doctors said had to have been caused by the three-year-old being poisoned. Medics feared Phillips was abusing her child, so moved Alyssa to another room which had surveillance cameras monitoring any activity inside. Phillips quickly noticed the cameras and was furious. Alyssa, on the other hand, under the watchful eye of a camera, rapidly got better. So much so, hospital staff alerted the authorities and Alyssa was taken out of Phillips' care and an investigation was launched. Following a brief period in foster care, the Waybourns took the little girl into their home, later adopting her. In an interview, Bill Waybourn said they 'saw tremendous improvements immediately' adding: 'She started eating by mouth everything in sight. The doctors were blown away by how well she was doing.' But over time, the Waybourns noticed trauma manifesting in Alyssa's behaviour. 'She was really protective of her food. If she had a plate of food and got down from the table for a minute and came back and the plate was gone, she would be extremely upset,' Waybourn recalled. 'She also had a funny gait where she would walk on her toes. We had to coach her out of doing that, to walk on her whole foot.' Alyssa's reaction to medical staff and treatments was also telling. British cases of Munchausen Syndrome revealed In August 2016 a woman from south London has been jailed for fraud and child abuse after causing her children to undergo surgery for fictitious medical problems. Croydon Crown Court heard the mother of six, who cannot be named for legal reasons, persuaded doctors to prescribe copious medication and provide equipment for her children worth more than £145,000, which - as they did not require it - was potentially dangerous for them, the prosecution said. She also convinced them to perform invasive operations and insert feeding tubes into her son and daughter's stomachs. Serial killer nurse Beverly Allitt, dubbed the Angel of Death was given 13 life sentences in 1993 for murdering four children, attempting to murder another three and causing grievous bodily harm with intent to further six at Grantham and Kesteven hospital in Lincolnshire. The former nurse was diagnosed as suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP) when she carried out the attacks between 1991 and 1993. In January 2010, Lisa Hayden-Johnson was sentenced to three years and three months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of child cruelty and perverting the course of justice – in one of the most notable examples of Munchausens by proxy. Hayden-Johnson began her deceitful actions shortly after the birth of her son Matthew in 2001. Claiming he was afflicted with numerous severe health issues, including cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and severe food allergies, she subjected him to unnecessary medical procedures and interventions. These included the use of a wheelchair, feeding tubes, and numerous hospital visits, totalling over 325 medical encounters. 'If you took her to a doctor or a paediatrician - even for something small like an earache - she would just totally freeze up,' he said. 'Those were all things we saw in the beginning. That went on for a long time.' Waybourn says a 'big fear' for him and Laura was that Phillips would try to regain custody of Alyssa. Terrifyingly she was allowed to visit at the beginning – up until the time Alyssa developed a rash after her mother had given her new toys. The Waybourns were sure she had put a substance on them to cause it. After that she wasn't allowed to see her. Over the years Alyssa has told her adopted parents some of what she endured. She confided that her mother used to pull her feeding tube in and out. She also coached her to choke in the doctor's surgery. In 2015, aged seven, she testified against her mother in court. Cuddling a teddy bear, she raised her T-shirt to reveal the physical evidence of her mother's torture – a scar on her stomach from unnecessary surgery to insert the feeding tube. Mental scarring No one will ever know the extent of the mental scarring. Despite her mother's actions though, Alyssa, who's now 17, is flourishing. 'Alyssa is not a victim,' Waybourn says. 'She is a thriving little woman and I couldn't be more proud of her.' Phillips' original court case was declared a mistrial. But soon after, in exchange for a five-year prison sentence, Phillips pleaded guilty to serious bodily injury to a child. In April 2022, a couple of years after she was released from prison, Phillips was found dead from an apparent overdose. According to Waybourn, Alyssa was initially teary. She went for some time alone in her room, and then when she came out she said: 'I'm free, free at last.' Finally she knew that her mother could never hurt her again. Alyssa's story is told in a book by Andrea Dunlop and Mike Weber entitled The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception and Munchausen by Proxy. Mike Weber, a now-retired Tarrant County investigator worked on Phillips' case. 4