Approaching an SUV to leave for the day with her attorneys, Karen Read tapped her right hand above her heart, showing appreciation to a crowd of supporters anxiously awaiting a verdict.

About 350 “Free Karen Read” supporters from across the country crowded around the courthouse wearing various shades of pink, holding signs and belting out chants, as the jury in the murder trial received the case Tuesday afternoon following closing arguments.

Allison Taggart, of Dedham, has been at the court for the entire case, forming a connection with Read’s parents and family. She sat in the courtroom for two days of testimony, and she said supporters look at the defendant as a role model.

“Women and little girls are watching Karen stand up for what she thought was right,” Taggart told the Herald. “She believes she’s innocent, she believes she knows what happened.”

“They’re watching her take on the Mass State Police and the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office,” Taggart added. “It’s empowering. It’s an important thing to see.”

The first day of deliberations drew people from around the country, including Virginia, Tennessee, Colorado, and Michigan, though most supporters were local.

Alli Riker, a native of Westwood, has lived in Virginia Beach for the past decade. She flew up from Norfolk, Va. to Providence Tuesday morning, arriving at the courthouse around 1:30 p.m..

“This is going to take down a whole set of corruption, and it’s historic,” Riker told the Herald. “I just felt like how you’d want to go to a Patriots game in the playoffs – you want to be here, you want to feel it, you want to support Karen.”

As temperatures stretched toward the 90s, dozens of supporters sat on folding chairs under tents and trees to stay cool, a block from Norfolk County Superior Court in Dedham.

Sidewalks and a lawn adjacent to First Church and Parish in Dedham have served as ground zero to the demonstrations after Judge Beverly Cannone, in April, approved the prosecution’s plan to set up a “buffer zone” around the courthouse.

The buffer zone sets a perimeter of 200 feet around the courthouse and the parking lot behind the county Registry of Deeds across High Street from the court in Dedham.

Prosecutors allege Read, 44, of Mansfield, struck John O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer and boyfriend of two years, with her SUV following a drunken argument and left him to die in a snowstorm in front of 34 Fairview in Canton in the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022.

Read faces charges including second-degree murder.

Defense attorneys counter that outside actors killed O’Keefe and conspired with state and local police to frame Read for his murder.

“It’s bittersweet,” Norwood resident Jessica Atkins told the Herald, “because we’re all getting together for a person who is not guilty, and she’s being railroaded … but everyone’s here for the same reason: We’re all here to support Karen and get justice for John O’Keefe, Officer John O’Keefe.”

Atkins and her boyfriend Tom Cruise both called Canton an “awful town.”

Cruise held a sign bearing supportive messages, “Not Guilty/FKR!” “Justice for Officer John O’Keefe, NOW!” and End the corruption!”

“They have to clean house,” Cruise said of what Canton needs to do to repair its reputation. “They have to get out of the old regime and get new people in there who will do the right thing. They have to start fresh after this.”

A supporter of Karen Read displays a sign reading, ‘Now get the bad guys,’ outside her trial at Norfolk Superior Court. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)
Supporters and media mob Karen Read and her attorney outside her trial at Norfolk Superior Court. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)