On January 29, 2022, Boston police officer John O’Keefe was found unresponsive in front of his friend Brian Albert’s home. This started one of the most discussed true crime stories over the past ten years.
Karen Read and John O’Keefe were hanging out with a group of friends at the Waterfall Bar and Grill on the night of January 28, 2022. A little after midnight, Read and O’Keefe went to the home of Brian Albert, a Boston police officer, where the group from the bar intended on meeting up. In the group, aside from Read and O’Keefe, was: Brian Albert, Jennifer McCabe and Brian Higgins. Around 12:15, or 12:30 a.m.—depending on the witness—people at the house saw Read and O’Keefe’s black SUV pull up to the home. Jennifer McCabe had been messaging O’Keefe around this time, and the last four messages sent to O’Keefe At 12:31 a.m. and 12:45 a.m. went unanswered. Witnesses then watched the SUV leave around 12:45 a.m. and had no one enter the house. According to Read, she had dropped off O’Keefe then left.
Between 12:36 and 1:18 a.m. Karen Read left serval angry voicemails for O’Keefe. The first one saying, “John, I f—- hate you!” Later, the voicemails had Read saying that she was at O’Keefe’s house with his kids, and no one knows where he is.
Allegedly, around 2:27 a.m., Jennifer McCabe’s phone records show her look up “[how] long to die in cold.”
That is all we have about the night till 4:53 a.m., when O’Keefe’s niece called McCabe saying that he still wasn’t home, and that they were unable to reach him. Then around 5:00 a.m., Kerry Roberts, a close friend of O’Keefe, picked up Jennifer McCabe and Karen Read to look for John.
Around 6:00 a.m., Read saw O’Keefe’s body lying in the snow outside of Brian Albert’s home. Immediately after, 911 gets a call from Jennifer to report the body, and Read can be heard screaming in the background.
On February 1, 2022, Karen Read was arrested on a manslaughter charge for the killing of John O’Keefe. At her arraignment, on February 2, 2022, Read pleaded not guilty and was released on bail.
The trial began in April 2024, and Read was facing second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, and leaving the scene resulting in death.
Read was accused of drunkenly hitting O’Keefe with her SUV that night, then leaving him to die in the snow by the prosecution. The defense claimed that Read was framed by the officers at the house that night, and that the officers beat and killed O’Keefe.
The main point of debate in this case is the broken tail light. The idea that Read hit O’Keefe with her car formed from a broken tail light on Read’s car, along with other damages to the SUV. According to Maureen Hartnett, a forensic scientist at the Massachusetts State police Crime Lab, the SUV had a dent in the trunk door, scratches on the bumper, and a broken tail light. While Hartnett also stated that a test for blood on the SUV came back negative, with the head trauma, that was the cause of death for John O’Keefe, along with hypothermia, the prosecution did not have to reach to come to the conclusion that Read had hit O’Keefe with her car that night—causing the damages to the car—then left him in the snow.
Read’s defense argued this point by claiming Read was framed by the law enforcement. This broken tail light became a very debated topic throughout the trial on whether or not Read was framed.
The jury deliberated for five days, before ending in a hung jury. The first trial ended in a mistrial.
During her second trial, Read faced the exact same charges as before. Throughout the retrial, the defense and prosecution continued with their same story of what happened the night of O’Keefe’s death. The trial was intense. Having, at one point, Read’s lawyer say to the jury: “There was no collision,” three separate times in his closing statement. Along with sexist messages about Read, sent by the lead investigator on the case, were read aloud in court.
In the end, Read was only charged with operating a vehicle under the influence, and she was acquitted on all other charges. She received one year of probation for driving under the influence.
