Karen Learn and boyfriend, John O’Keefe, had a biting combat over textual content simply hours earlier than the Boston cop’s lifeless physique was pulled out of the snow — and a surprised jury heard all the trade Thursday as Learn sat stonefaced.
The acrimonious trade was recited in a matter-of-fact monotone by a Massachusetts state trooper throughout an action-packed day, the third in a sensational homicide trial enjoying out in a Massachusetts felony court docket.
The texts had been launched within the final trial — which resulted in a mistrial — however that is the primary time a jury heard them play out in a single steady trade.
The beleaguered couple argued over a variety of sensitive points acquainted to anybody in a strained relationship, referring to all the things from childcare, Fb statuses, scorching water heaters and determined questions on their future as a romantic merchandise.
“You’ve actually harm me this time,” certainly one of Learn’s texts to O’Keefe flashed on the courtroom display screen.
Learn and the jury watched the display screen because the State Trooper Nicholas Guarino reenacted the textual content combat from the stand.
Learn wonders about their future, and accuses O’Keefe of getting a wandering eye and having curiosity in one other lady.
Need to study extra about Karen Learn’s homicide trial? Click on down beneath
“So that you’re not into me anymore,” she writes, accusing O’Keefe of missing affection together with her.
O’Keefe responds that he’s sick of preventing “weekly for a number of months now.”
“So yeh I’m not as fast to leap into being lovie dovie as you apparently,” he provides.
Learn’s clean, expressionless face was lit by the glow from the display screen as Guarino continued to recite the tense trade. The jurors, visibly rapt, adopted alongside as properly.
After a number of cellphone calls between the 2, certainly one of which O’Keefe declines to reply, the textual content combat continues.
“Are you able to pls reply???,” Learn sends.
Learn defined that she was within the throes of a “private disaster” and that she wanted to lean on O’Keefe for emotional help. One other time she texts about how O’Keefe’s adopted kids are, “slowly killing our relationship.”
What to know in regards to the Karen Learn homicide case
- Karen Learn, 44, was charged with second-degree homicide for allegedly mowing down her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, as she was dropping him off to fulfill pals in Canton, Mass., on Jan. 29, 2022.
- The night time of O’Keefe’s dying, the couple had been out on a bar crawl, with Learn allegedly consuming seven drinks in simply 90 minutes, in keeping with stories.
- Prosecutors declare that after Learn drunkenly ran over her boyfriend, she drove off and left O’Keefe to die outdoors as a snowstorm was set to comb in.
- Learn’s attorneys argued she was framed in a sweeping legislation enforcement cover-up and that O’Keefe really died after entering into an altercation along with his officer pals.
- On July 1, 2024, Decide Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial within the case because the jury was not in a position to attain a unanimous verdict after 5 days of deliberations.
- On April 22, 2025, Learn will stand trial for the second time, going through the identical expenses regardless of her attorneys’ failed plea try to the highest Mass. court docket to drop the homicide and hit-and-run expenses.
- Learn confronted as much as life in jail if she had been convicted on the highest rely of homicide.
“I do know your coronary heart isn’t on this anymore. I’ve felt it for awhile and esp recently,” Learn texts.
After some back-and-forth about assembly up, O’Keefe, apparently rising pissed off on the indecision, writes: “I already advised you what you need to do. Not going to maintain doing this.”
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