Something unusual happened outside the courthouse during the fourth day of jury deliberations in the Karen Read murder trial — the defendant’s critics showed up and made some noise.

“Karen Read cannot be freed” stated one of the signs held by anti-Read demonstrators on Friday. “This is about Officer John O’Keefe, not you!” stated another.

They’re distinguishable at a glance because none of them wear pink — the color chosen as a symbol of support for Read since all picketing and speech related to the case is barred within 200 feet of the Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham where the trial has played out since April 29.

Karen Read in court. (Nancy Lane/The Boston Herald)

In the early days of broad but not yet fanatical attention to the case of the Mansfield woman accused of murdering her Boston cop boyfriend, one would be just as likely to see pro-prosecution attendees at the court. They had their own insignia: a yellow “Justice for JJ” pin, “JJ” being a favorite nickname for victim John O’Keefe.

But as the trial has gained national visibility, such voices had long since been washed out by the thunderous pink wave.

A jury of six men and six women have since Tuesday considered the guilt or innocence of Read, 44, on the following charges: second-degree murder, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, and manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence.

This last charge carries two subordinate charges the jury can also consider if they believe the prosecution failed to prove its case in the main charge: involuntary manslaughter and motor vehicle homicide.

Prosecutors say that Read, drunk and angry in a crumbling relationship, struck O’Keefe with her SUV outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022, leaving him to die in the cold in a heavy snowstorm. She and two other woman would find his body there at around 6 that morning.

Jurors indicated that they were deadlocked at around midday on Friday. Judge Beverly Cannone, who has to make precise moves with the jury in situations like this, told them to go back and continue to try to reach a verdict. Jurors will continue deliberations on Monday.

Clashing views

For both camps, the rabid Read supporters who have tailgated outside the buffer zone for most of the trial and the hardcore detractors who braved wading through enemy territory on Friday to voice their own truth, the case is not a complex issue but a simple one that the other side has needlessly muddled.

Read’s supporters say that she, a financial analyst and Bentley University lecturer, was snagged in a plot to frame her and that the killing was done by someone else.

Their signs often highlight the evidence they say points to such a conspiracy, like “hos long to die in cold,” which is prosecution witness Jennifer McCabe’s Google search that was performed at a disputed time.

A defense expert says that search was irrefutably made hours before O’Keefe’s body was discovered, pointing toward a conspiracy, while prosecution experts state that it was equally irrefutably made at 6:34 a.m. — which is when McCabe herself says she made the search at Read’s request after they found his body.

Those who believe she is guilty say the whole angle was made up to bury a simple truth: that Read struck O’Keefe with her car and doesn’t want to take responsibility for it.

One detractor’s view

John DePetro (Courtesy / John DePetro)

Rhode Island talk radio host John DePetro told the Herald Friday that he was “100%” sure Read was guilty.

“I couldn’t buy into the concept of the conspiracy,” DePetro told the Herald. “There’s a lot of noise around it and I wasn’t interested in the pink—” he said, just as two Read supporters walk by. “You know, that stuff.”

He said he believes the COVID pandemic may have helped spur the tribalism surrounding the case, in which people forced to be home turned to social media and YouTube to find a digital community. It created, he said, “an echo chamber.”

Instead, he said, there is compelling evidence to Read’s guilt of something — if not necessarily the murder charge — and that the story the defense presented had holes in it.

Chief among that, to him, is what Read said at the police station when she was arrested following indictment in June of 2022.

“Okay you’re aware he was beaten up by Brian and Colin Albert? I mean, we’re all in on the same joke, right?” Read told the cops then. But, to DePetro, her leaving out ATF Agent Brian Higgins in that statement is a red flag against the defense theory.

The defense named Higgins, Brian Albert and Colin Albert as possible alternative killers. In trial, they suggested a spurred romance as a motive for Higgins to kill O’Keefe — the most concrete motive established for any of the three.

DePetro also said the “The defense never got (O’Keefe) in the house,” which is paramount to their theory of a basement beating.

He’s also suspicious of Read’s actions that early morning. If she was so worried about her boyfriend and whether something bad had happened to him, why were none of her huge number of calls to everyone but 911?

DePetro said that the courtroom dynamics have also played into the drama, especially in defense attorney Alan Jackson — likening him to the commanding presence of Johnnie Cochran in the OJ Simpson trial of the 1990s.

“(Prosecutor) Adam Lally has never tangoed with someone like this,” he said, saying that Lally’s like “a reliable car. … There’s nothing flashy about him. He just churns through the evidence.”