Karen Reed bizarrely compared her supporters to Vietnam War protesters and urged them Monday to keep up their efforts ahead of a new murder trial in Massachusetts starting next year.
Reed, 44, stopped by a protest on the side of a highway in Dedham, Massachusetts, to express his gratitude for the support.
“Thank you. I hope to meet you all one day. I don't know you, but I love you,” Reed told the crowd, before likening his ordeal to the devastating war that left some 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese dead.
“You are brave. You protested the Vietnam War and you ended it and this is a modern day version of that. Thank you all,” she said in the footage. Retrieved by WCVB.
Instead, Reed was accused of running over her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, with her car on a drunken night in January 2022, leaving him frozen to death in the snow.
Her trial ended in a shocking mistrial in July, but the following month her lawyers sought to have the charges dismissed, arguing that the jury had found her not guilty of murder but had misunderstood the deliberation procedure.
Reed's visit on Monday was just one of many that took place across Massachusetts to show support for her after a judge rejected her request to have the charges dropped, paving the way for a new trial in January.
Reed's case sparked large daily gatherings of supporters outside the Dedham courthouse to confront opponents who say she killed O'Keefe.
The couple had had a heated argument on the night of her husband's death, and Reed left a series of nasty voicemails on his mobile phone, including one that read, “John! I really hate you!”
But Reed argued she was the target of a cover-up by O'Keefe's fellow officers, and her lawyers argued they killed O'Keefe in a fight that night and tried to pin the blame on Reed.
Reed's new trial is scheduled to begin on Jan. 27.
