Life is shifting on for all the important thing gamers besides John O’Keefe’s household after a Massachusetts jury discovered his former girlfriend Karen Learn not responsible of all homicide-related costs in his dying outdoors a midnight home celebration throughout a blizzard on Jan. 29, 2022.
O’Keefe’s niece and nephew, who he took in after their mother and father died, are orphaned for a second time.
Learn has a e-book deal – and a TV sequence about her saga within the works. However she’s additionally dealing with a wrongful dying lawsuit, which requires a lesser commonplace of guilt to carry her liable. Her civil workforce filed a movement to dismiss earlier this week.
An out of doors investigation by the FBI discovered no alternate suspects and dispelled allegations of corruption leveled at native and state police. However prosecutors and investigators who led the case are dealing with a reckoning.
The Albert household, former house owners of the property the place Learn and two different girls discovered O’Keefe useless below a sheet of snow, simply celebrated a marriage.
Jennifer McCabe, a key witness in each of Learn’s trials and one of many girls with Learn that morning, is the brand new bride’s aunt.
On the wedding ceremony, attendees pitched in to rent non-public safety after Learn’s supporters allegedly circulated the venue on-line. Native police made their presence identified, too. A marked SUV was parked on the foot of the church steps.
Kerry Roberts, a pal of O’Keefe’s who was additionally current with McCabe and Learn after they discovered his physique, advised Fox Information Digital she is among the many witnesses dealing with an ongoing harassment marketing campaign, together with the Alberts, the McCabes and O’Keefe’s fast household.
“I don’t know why they’re making Jen McCabe a villain,” she mentioned in a telephone interview. “All she did was answer the same phone call I did. Karen called her. She didn’t call Karen. It’s so stupid and bizarre.”
The sufferer’s mom, Peggy O’Keefe, is coping with harassment of her personal, together with a girl seen dancing on video on the foot of her driveway after Learn’s acquittal.
Roberts mentioned the Norfolk District Legal professional’s Workplace advised her to cease contacting their witness advocate after the trial, at the same time as strangers proceed to throw issues at her home, name her household “murderers” within the grocery store and mock her kids.
“We put our a–es on the line for three and a half years, two trials, to help the state of Massachusetts, and you’re not going to help us when we’re being harassed?” she mentioned. “It’s not worth it to put my family through ever again, and not be protected at all. It’s sick. It’s absolutely sick.”
There’s an ongoing witness intimidation case in opposition to Aidan Kearney, a Canton blogger who goes by the identify Turtleboy, however whereas Roberts just isn’t one in all his alleged victims, she says she faces impolite feedback and different harassment from random members of the group.
After baseball video games, youngsters on the workforce opposing her son would possibly inform him “Free Karen Read” whereas lining as much as shake fingers, she mentioned. She filed a grievance in opposition to her mailman, who allegedly muttered a vulgarity into her doorbell digital camera when he noticed a “Justice for John O’Keefe” signal at her home. Now another person delivers her letters.
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“My message to people is don’t ever be a witness,” she mentioned. “If this happens to you, you’re not gonna be protected at all.”
Learn’s lead protection lawyer Alan Jackson returned to Los Angeles in time for the Fourth of July vacation, the place he was seen cruising in a Shelby Cobra duplicate – powered by a 351 Stroker he described as “a fire-breathing dragon.”
“[It’s] taking a while to come down,” he advised Fox Information Digital. “But I’m slowly getting back into my rhythm.”
He already has one other lethal crash case lined up – the protection of Fraser Bohm, a 22-year-old from Malibu dealing with 4 counts of homicide in a high-speed wreck that killed 4 sorority women from Pepperdine College in October 2023.
Bohm is due again in court docket subsequent month after Jackson requested for extra time to prep a protection for his new shopper.
Michael Proctor, a former murder detective with the Massachusetts State Police, misplaced his job however should still resurface within the upcoming homicide trial of Brian Walshe – who’s accused of killing his spouse Ana outdoors Boston.
Her stays haven’t been discovered. Proctor labored that case, too, and Walshe’s attorneys have argued his presence tainted the investigation. That trial is scheduled to kick off in October.
State police fired Proctor after he despatched lewd texts about Learn to his pals – formally faulting him for sharing legislation enforcement delicate info with civilians – and for consuming on the job.
His former supervisor, Yuri Bukhenik, was additionally reassigned within the wake of Learn’s second trial out of the murder unit in Norfolk County and to an administrative submit in Boston, in accordance with Boston 25.
Learn’s protection alleged a cover-up by state and native police, alternately insinuating they acquired lazy within the investigation and did not do an intensive job or outright framed her.
Hank Brennan, the high-powered protection legal professional employed as a particular prosecutor to steer Learn’s second trial, reportedly raked in additional than $550,000 for his work, in accordance with the Boston Herald.
That’s an affordable sum for a non-public lawyer, mentioned retired Massachusetts choose and Boston School legislation professor Jack Lu, but additionally way more than a deputy district legal professional on the state payroll would have made: “Probably $130,000 annually.”
Brennan put in lengthy days and sure labored by means of weekends, whereas preserving his non-public apply open on the similar time, he added.
And whereas in a uncommon public assertion he slammed the prevalence of witness intimidation and apologized for not securing a conviction, O’Keefe’s supporters indicated they recognize his work on the case.
“The jury pool was completely tainted is all I can say,” Roberts advised Fox Information Digital. “Hank did so much work. He was a genius. He really was. Nobody could’ve gotten it done. Which is wicked sad.”
