A Boston police officer who testified in Karen Read’s retrial has resigned, the department said Friday.
Officer Kelly Dever resigned, effective Sept. 1. Police didn’t share more information on the circumstances around her resignation, saying only that the personnel order on the resignation was released Friday.
She had been on leave, which a Boston police spokesman confirmed to NBC10 Boston in July.
Dever was a Canton police officer in January 2022 when Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe was found fatally injured in the snow on Fairview Road. Read was soon charged with second-degree murder in his death.
Dever was called to testify as the defense’s third witness in June, and the back-and-forth with defense attorney Alan Jackson was sometimes contentious. Asked if she wanted to be in court, she said, “I have no idea why I’m here. I have no connection to this case.”
A former Canton police officer called by Karen Read’s defense got into a heated exchange with one of the lawyers in court as he accused her of changing her testimony since speaking to federal investigators. We ask our experts what they thought of the exchanges, if she met the definition of a hostile witness and about Read’s claim she’s part of a “blue wall of silence.” Plus, how the jury reacted to a dog bite expert from the first trial and, after childhood friend of Michael Proctor’s takes the stand, our experts weigh in on whether the defense will — or should — call the disgraced former trooper at all.
Dever said she initially told investigators about seeing two figures in the case alone with Read’s SUV, but later realized she could not have been there at that time, calling it “a false memory” she later retracted.
After Read’s acquittal on all but the lowest form of one charge, Jackson demanded that the Boston Police Department place her on what’s known as the Brady List, a compilation of officers who have credibility concerns that prosecutors must disclose to defense attorneys in criminal cases.
“Either Officer Dever lied about having a false memory, or she actually suffers from a condition that subjects her to false memories. In either case, her credibility and reliability as a law enforcement officer are irreparably compromised,” Jackson wrote in a letter to Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, obtained by NBC10 Boston.
In a scathing letter to Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, defense attorney Alan Jackson demands Officer Kelly Dever be included in the Brady database.
The Boston Police Department didn’t initially receive a response to Jackson’s letter.
There’s been no confirmation that Dever’s leave, which the department has characterized as being over family, or her resignation were related to the Read case.
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