Prado, an attorney originally from Brazil, said she was emotional after the verdict as she thought about the O’Keefe family.

“It was a very intense week,” Paula Prado said of her first time sitting on a jury. “Great for Karen Read, but horrible for the family. He seemed to be a very nice guy, the story with his nephew and niece … I really want them to get justice for John O’Keefe for real.”

One of the 12 jurors in the Karen Read trial spoke out on Thursday, saying that “holes” in the prosecution’s case led her to change her mind and decide that Read was not responsible for killing her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, according to an interview with WBZ News .

“Seeing John O’Keefe’s family leaving the courthouse melt[ed] my heart,” she said. “I’m a mother and I saw her pain through all those days.”

On Wednesday, a jury cleared Read of three serious charges: second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of a crash resulting in death. The jury found her guilty of a lesser charge of drunken driving.

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She will serve one year of probation as a first-time offender.

The decision marked the end of a years-long criminal case in which prosecutors alleged that Read backed her SUV into O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, and left him to die in the snow. Read’s lawyers said she was framed.

Prado said she did not realize the extent of the media coverage of the case. When jurors entered the courthouse, she occasionally saw a few people wearing pink shirts, but did not know that crowds of Read supporters were gathering outside the courthouse.

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Throughout her time on the jury, Prado said she didn’t hear “anything” inside the courthouse, and that the windows in the deliberation room were covered.

She said she thought “justice was served” by the verdict and is “100 percent convinced” Read is not responsible for O’Keefe’s death. She is “happy” for Read and her family, she said.

“We couldn’t prove there was a collision, and she was responsible for John’s death,” Prado said. “The Commonwealth and the investigators didn’t do their jobs to prove that to us.”

Prado said she initially thought Read may be guilty of manslaughter but changed her mind about three weeks ago after evidence of DNA was presented, which she found inconclusive.

The investigation had “too many flaws” and felt “not precise,” she said.

“I just realized there [were] too many holes that we couldn’t fill, and there’s nothing that put her on the scene in our opinion, besides just drop[ping] John O’Keefe off,” Prado said. “Too many pieces were missing.”

At the beginning of deliberations, the jurors decided not to vote, and instead went through the testimony, videos, and other evidence, Prado said. The group then talked about the charges one by one, eliminating the ones they didn’t agree with, until they reached a verdict, she said.

Prado said deliberations were respectful and the jurors listened to each other’s opinions. The discussion never got “heated,” she said.

The final crash reconstruction expert the defense called made a not guilty decision “clear” she said.

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“They did a very good job,” Prado said. She also said the prosecution’s argument that the injuries to O’Keefe’s arm came from the taillight of Read’s SUV “didn’t make much sense,” and there were “too many coincidences” in the evidence to blame Read.

“I don’t think the car killed John O’Keefe,” she said.

In terms of the OUI, Prado said it was the “only thing” the jurors could charge Read with because she said in a video played in court that she was drinking and video footage from the bars showed her drinking.

“We couldn’t let that pass,” Prado said.

Asked about what she thought happened to O’Keefe, Prado said Read might have backed up her SUV and “touched him somehow” but that was not what caused his death.

“In my opinion, he definitely went inside, and something happened inside the house,” Prado said. However, Prado said she “can’t say” Read was framed as she just began looking at more details on the case online.

Prado said the jury knew the case was a retrial and the jurors were “positive” they would discuss all the evidence to reach a decision.

“We definitely didn’t want to hang this jury,” Prado said. “The amount of money spent on this trial made me very upset, and I’m sure made my fellow jurors upset too.”

Prado said she “did not find it strange” that she didn’t hear from Michael Proctor, the lead investigator on the case who was later fired. But she did “find it strange” not to hear from Brian Albert, a now-retired Boston police officer who owned the house on Fairview Road, or Brian Higgins, an ATF agent who attended the afterparty at the Canton home and exchanged flirtatious text messages with Read.

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Prado said she wants to tell the O’Keefe family it’s “not your fault” that Read was not convicted.

“I really, really hope there is a way for the case to be reopened, and they can investigate again and find who actually did that to John,” Prado said.

Ava Berger can be reached at ava.berger@globe.com. Follow her @Ava_Berger_.