The Karen Read murder retrial is taking today off.

The announcement came in the form of a somewhat cryptic message from the state’s courts.

“Please be advised that the trial in Commonwealth v. Karen Read is not taking place today due to unavoidable circumstances,” Massachusetts state courts spokeswoman Jennifer Donahue wrote in an email.

There was no further explanation

Read, 45, of Mansfield, faces charges including second-degree murder in the death of John O’Keefe, a Boston Police officer who she had dated for roughly two years at the time of his death on Jan. 29, 2022. She was tried last year but that ended in mistrial. There have been 14 days of testimony so far in her retrial.

Prosecutors say that Read struck O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV sometime after midnight and left him to freeze and die on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road in Canton.

The trial so far

The previous three days of trial featured testimony from Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik, one of the principal investigators of the case. His testimony included details on his investigation with his investigative partner, Trooper Michael Proctor, who has since been fired from the MSP due primarily to his behavior in this case.

Proctor’s testimony was shocking in the first trial last year, in which he read texts he sent that included calling Read, the subject of his investigation, things like a “babe” and a “whack job” as well as cruder things. Bukhenik’s time on the stand was so extensive that it’s not clear if Proctor will be returning this year.

Bukhenik has also introduced physical evidence to the jury and spent hours reading all the text messages Read exchanged with ATF Agent Brian Higgins in the two weeks before O’Keefe’s death.

New lead prosecutor Hank Brennan has unleashed a new tactic in the retrial compared to last time: using Read’s own words against her. The defendant has done so many media interviews and even gave unprecedented access to a documentary film crew ahead of and during her previous trial. Brennan has mined all of it for damaging clips.

The main thrusts of both his and the defense’s cases come down to three repeated words used in each opening statements.

Brennan said that first responders heard Read admit to the vehicle strike: “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”

Defense attorney Alan Jackson said that’s impossible.

“The evidence in this case will establish above everything else three things,” Jackson said. “There was no collision … there was no collision, there was no collision.”