Karen Reed compared her supporters to Vietnam War protesters — telling one group Monday to keep up their efforts. New murder trial in Massachusetts It is going to start next year.
Reid, 44, stopped at a highway side demonstration in Dedham, Massachusetts, to express his gratitude for their support.
“Thank you. I hope to meet all of you one day, and I don't know you but I love you,” Reid told the crowd — then appeared to compare her trials to the terrible war that killed nearly 60,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese.
“You are brave. You would have protested the Vietnam War and ended it. And this is the modern equivalent of that, so thank you all,” he said in the footage. Received by WCVB,
Beyond that, Reed was accused of running over her boyfriend — Boston police officer John O’Keefe — with her car and leaving him frozen in the snow during a drunken night in January 2022.
Her trial in July ended in an explosive mistrial — but the following month her lawyers demanded that the charges be dismissed, claiming jurors had voted to acquit her of murder but misunderstood deliberation procedures.
The protest Reed attended on Monday was one of several held in support of him across Massachusetts after a judge rejected his request to drop the charges – clearing the way for a new trial in January.
Reed's case drew huge crowds of supporters who gathered daily outside the Dedham courthouse to speak out against critics who said Reed had murdered O'Keefe.
The couple had a fierce argument the night of his death, and Reid had left several nasty voicemails on his phone, including one in which she said “John! I hate you!”
But Reid claimed she was the target of a cover-up by O'Keefe's police colleagues, who her lawyers argued killed O'Keefe during a fight that night, and later tried to pin the blame on Reid.
Reed's new trial is set to begin Jan. 27.
