Karen Read has arrived for the first days of her murder trial, accused of running over her policeman boyfriend and leaving him to die.
Read, 44, arrived at Norfolk Superior Court, south of Boston, on Tuesday morning for jury selection to a circus of protesters, media, and off-duty cops.
She climbed the courthouse stairs alone ahead of her superstar legal team in a sharp light-grey suit with a white blouse tied in a bow around her waist.
John O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston cop, was found dead about 6am on January 29, 2022, outside a house where she dropped him off for an afterparty about 12.45am.
The financial analyst and university professor faces second degree murder and manslaughter charges for allegedly backing over him with her SUV in a snowstorm after a fight.
The six-week trial begins today after two years of intrigue, conspiracies, social media circus, and a secretive parallel FBI investigation.
Karen Read, 44, arrives at court for her first day of trial, accused of murdering her Boston policeman boyfriend
Jury selection begins on Tuesday at the Norfolk Superior Court, south of Boston, where Read faces second-degree murder and manslaughter charges
John O’Keefe, 46, was found dead 6am on January 29, 2022, outside a house where she dropped him off for an afterparty about 12.45am
Prosecutors alleged the couple’s two-year relationship was breaking down and she rammed her car into O’Keefe after he repeatedly tried to dump her.
Read’s black Lexus SUV had a broken taillight when is was seized by Massachusetts State Police investigators, pieces of which allegedly had O’Keefe’s DNA on them.
Her defense instead claims O’Keefe, 46, was beaten up by people at the party and thrown outside where died on the lawn, and Read is being framed.
The case, and Read’s claims of a wide-ranging conspiracy against her, whipped up intense speculation online that spilled over into the real world.
The court was picketed on Tuesday and likely will be for the whole trial by Read’s supporters, including a local true crime blogger was jailed for allegedly harassing witnesses.
Such is their ferocity that Judge Beverly Cannone banned protesters from coming within 200ft of the courthouse or its car park during the trial.
No one can enter the courtroom wearing buttons, photographs, clothing, or insignia relating to the case, or anyone involved.
‘Law enforcement officers who are testifying or are members of the audience are also prohibited from wearing their department issued uniforms or any police emblems in the courthouse,’ the order read.
Read and O’Keefe had a fight after a night out and she dropped him off at an afterparty they were invited to and went home alone. She woke up about 4.30am in a panic as he hadn’t come home.
She called Jennifer McCabe, a friend of O’Keefe whom they were drinking with at Waterfall Bar the previous night, and they went looking for him.
Eventually they returned to 34 Fairview Road in Canton, where the afterparty was held. The house was owned by McCabe’s brother-in-law Brian Albert, 60, a Gulf War veteran who was on the Boston Police Fugitive Unit until his retirement.
They found O’Keefe lying on the snow-covered lawn, bleeding from his nose and mouth with swollen eyes, and Read began CPR.
When police and paramedics arrived, they found Read still trying to revive her boyfriend, her face covered in blood from giving him mouth-to-mouth.
Read’s defense is that O’Keefe was bashed at the party, and possibly attacked by a dog as marks on his arm looked like bites
Read, 44, takes her seat before jury selection begins on the first day of her trial, accused of murdering her policeman boyfriend
Read walks into Norfolk Superior Court on Tuesday morning for the first day of her trial
Prosecutors alleged Read said ‘could I have hit him? Did I hit him?’ and ‘what if he’s dead? What if a plow hit him? I don’t remember anything from last night, we drank so much I don’t remember anything’.
First responders also claimed to have heard her say ‘I hit him. I hit him’ repeatedly after they arrived, which Read claimed was preceded by ‘did I’.
O’Keefe was pronounced dead and his autopsy ruled he died of head trauma and hypothermia, with no obvious signs of a fight.
Read was charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide, and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death on February 2, 2022.
She pleaded not guilty, and stuck to that when the charge was upgraded to murder on July 10 that year after a grand jury indictment.
Read’s defense is that O’Keefe was bashed at the party, and possibly attacked by a dog as marks on his arm looked like bites.
Albert’s family has lived in the area for generations and has deep connections to law enforcement both in Canton and Boston, while Read is more of an outsider.
Read’s defense is led by Alan Jackson (center, with Read on right), the high-powered lawyer who secured disgraced actor Kevin Spacey’s acquittal of sexual assault charges
Karen Read at her final pretrial hearing on April 12 at Norfolk Superior Court
Read has an army of supporters after the case, and Read’s claims of a wide-ranging conspiracy against her, whipped up intense speculation online
The court will likely be picketed for the whole six-week trial, as it was already on Tuesday
Read’s defense is led by Alan Jackson, the high-powered lawyer who secured disgraced actor Kevin Spacey’s acquittal of sexual assault charges.
‘Certainly the Massachusetts State Police is involved. There are people that were in that house that are involved,’ her said during a pretrial hearing.
‘Brian Albert is involved. Jennifer McCabe is involved. The rest of the folks that were in that house, there’s some level of involvement by every one of them. Every single one of them.
‘We’re not going to rest until we get to the bottom of exactly who’s behind this coverup.
‘Not only Karen Read deserves this. John O’Keefe deserves this, and has deserved this from moment one. And that’s why they’re not going to rest.’
Read said the same thing on the courthouse steps after a hearing last year, saying ‘you all know’ who did it and who was covering it up.
‘I tried to save his life. I tried to save his life at six in the morning, I was covered in his blood. I was the only one trying to save his life,’ she said.
A key component of the defense is that O’Keefe’s injuries, in the view of some experts, are not consistent with being hit by a car.
‘The damage on the car was inconsistent with having made contact with John O’Keefe’s body. In other words, the car didn’t hit him, and he wasn’t hit by the car,’ Jackson said at a hearing.
Prosecutors alleged the couple’s two-year relationship was breaking down and she rammed her car into O’Keefe after he repeatedly tried to dump her
Prosecutors painted Read as a jealous girlfriend who believed O’Keefe was cheating on her – despite her own ‘romantic entanglements’
The defense, and Read’s army of supporters, argue his injuries were only above the neck and his right arm – which the SUV wouldn’t have hit.
He also has injuries to his hands that looked like boxer’s fractures, and a two-inch gash at the back of his head despite there being little blood at the scene.
Within months of O’Keefe’s death, Albert and his wife ripped up the basement floor of their home and sold it, after living there for many years.
He and others at the party told police O’Keefe never arrived at the party.
The couple also rehomed their German shepherd named Chloe, which the defense said had a history of biting people, not long after that.
McCabe ran a Google search for ‘ho(w) long to die in the cold’, which the defense claimed was sent at 2.27am but prosecutors insisted was at 6.23am – after the body was found.
The is also considerable disagreement about the broken taillight prosecutors claim is a key indicator of her guilt.
Footage showed Read come very close to O’Keefe’s car in their driveway as she raced off to look for him at 5.07am, which the defense was when the taillight was broken – not from her backing into O’Keefe.
The defense also claims other video of the house showed the taillight intact before Read left the driveway.
Prosecutors countered that no taillight fragments were found at the house, but they were at the crime scene – including on O’Keefe’s body.
Read’s supporters, including retired law enforcement and crime scene investigators, claimed police must have planted the evidence.
Matthew Pervier of Worcester with a sign he made to support Read
Prosecutors painted Read as a jealous girlfriend who believed O’Keefe was cheating on her – despite her own ‘romantic entanglements’.
They will introduce angry voicemails and text messages, both from the night he died and earlier, to support the claim.
She allegedly said ‘you are a f**king loser, f**k yourself’ and ‘John, I f**king hate you’ about 1am on January 29, 2022.
Prosecutors alleged there was a ‘continuing animosity’ between the couple after Read accused O’Keefe of cheating on her with a friend’s sister during a holiday to Aruba four weeks before his death.
They cited voicemails and texts around the time of his death where Read was still angry and accusing him of cheating.
Prosecutors alleged in court documents that Read had her own ‘romantic entanglement’.
‘The defendant complains that the Commonwealth attempted to besmirch the defendant in some manner and fabricate problems within her relationship with the victim as a motive for murder by introducing testimony about an incident four weeks prior in Aruba,’ they wrote.
‘Yet the defendant avoids mention or challenge to the venomous voicemails she left on the victim’s cellphone as well as evidence of other issues in their relationship, including the defendant’s recent romantic entanglement.’
