The jury deliberated for three hours so far in the trial of a Massachusetts woman accused of killing her police officer boyfriend, before they went home Tuesday evening.
Karen Read, 44, is on trial for murdering John O'Keefe on Jan. 29, 2022 with her car after he was found dead in a fellow police officer's driveway after a night out drinking. The jury will resume deliberations on Wednesday.
Read, a financial analyst and college professor, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, and her legal team has argued that she is the victim of a police conspiracy to frame her.
"The odd things keep piling up," defense attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing statement Tuesday. "Ladies and gentlemen, you were lied to. There is no other way to say it. It's inexcusable. It's abhorrent."
The prosecutors, however, have pointed to her drunk driving and alleged conversations including one where she frantically cried that she might have killed O'Keefe.
"There is no case against me," Read said after court on June 18. "It's smoke and mirrors, and it's going through my private life and trying to contrive a motive that was never there."
Supporters of Read gathered near the courthouse to listen from a laptop computer in Dedham, Mass. Some have held signs reading "Free Karen Read" along highways over the past few months.
A Norfolk grand jury had previously indicted Read in 2022 on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence and leaving the scene of a personal injury and death.
She pleaded not guilty in Norfolk Superior Court and was ordered held on $100,000 bail. She posted bail and has been out on release since.
Prosecution provides timeline
Read and O'Keefe, 46, along with a group of friends went to the Water Bar and Grill in Canton on Jan. 28, 2022. After a night of drinking, according to prosecutors, Read drove O'Keefe to Boston police officer Brian Albert's home.
The couple, who began dating in 2019, had a strained relationship, according to court documents. There were cheating allegations on both sides, as shown through text messages and voicemails.
"Things haven't been great between us for awhile," O'Keefe wrote at one point.
Around 1 a.m. on Jan. 29, Read allegedly left O'Keefe a voicemail that called him an "f---ing loser." Read allegedly told O'Keefe "John, I f---ing hate you."
A few hours later at 4:23 a.m., O'Keefe's niece called Albert's sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe, telling him Read was "distraught" because O'Keefe did not come home and wasn't answering his cellphone.
State Police Dt. Lt. Brian Tully told the court that between 12:33 a.m. to 6:03 a.m. Read made 53 calls to O'Keefe.
"She knew exactly where he was," said prosecutor Adam Lully during his closing statements. "She drove him there. She struck him there. She left him there to die."
Around 5 a.m., Read called another woman whose husband was friends with O'Keefe.
"What if he's dead? What if a plow hit him?" Read allegedly said, according to the prosecution. "I don't remember anything from last night, we drank so much I don't remember anything."
Read and two women went looking for O'Keefe shortly after 5 a.m.
A surveillance camera at O'Keefe's house shows Read's SUV coming "extremely close" to O'Keefe's SUV in the driveway. Prosecutors said no taillight pieces were found at O'Keefe's house.
Dr. Daniel Wolfe, a crash reconstructionist who was called to the stand on Monday, said the crime scene photos showed fragments of red and clear plastic as well as chrome and black plastic. There was also pieces of glass and a black drinking straw. Wolfe works with ARCCA, which was hired by the FBI to look into O'Keefe's crash.
Wolfe said Read's right taillight was disfigured, but the damage is isolated. He added that if a "pedestrian is positioned in a normal upright position" the bumper would have also been damaged.
Dr. Andrew Rentschler also testified that there would be additional contusions if O'Keefe was hit by a car. The cuts found on his arm were all very consistent with each other, which would not happen if it was struck by a shattered taillight.
Police witnesses had said O'Keefe was projected about 30-feet after the alleged impact.
The defense said in previous court filings that Wolfe's team's findings are inconsistent with the idea that O'Keefe was struck by a vehicle.
Around 6 a.m., Read sees O'Keefe lying in the snow outside of Albert's home. An emergency responder said Read was hysterical and inconsolable and kept repeating "I hit him."
Prosecutors said the medical examiner ruled O'Keefe's cause of death as hypothermia as well as blunt impact injuries to the head.
Jennifer McCabe said Read asked her to search how long it would take for someone to die of hypothermia.
"There is no innocent explanation for that Google search," defense attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing statement Tuesday, noting no one could rule out McCabe made the search after Read had left the house.
Defense focuses on 'false' testimony
Defense attorneys Alan Jackson and David Yannetti allege that O'Keefe was involved in a fight at Albert's home. They say O'Keefe was beaten and his body was later dumped outside.
There has been focus on wounds to O'Keefe's arms that could suggest Albert's dog attacked him during the fight.
Dr. Marie Russell, a retired emergency room physician in California who has written extensively on animal bites, took the stand Friday. Russell, who also previously worked as a police officer in Malden, reviewed hospital records and photos taken of O'Keefe when he was in the hospital as well as the autopsy records and affidavits.
"I believe that these injuries were sustained by an animal, possibly a large dog, because of the pattern of the injuries," Russell said. "Those were inflicted by either teeth or claw marks."
Russell also noted the wounds are on "the part of the arm that would sustain defensive type wounds."
"Every single injury is answered," defense attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing statement Tuesday.
Police found a broken co*cktail glass and pieces of taillight at the scene. A forensic toxicologist estimated that Read's blood alcohol content would have been around .13 to .29 when she was driving O'Keefe around 12:45 a.m.
Prosecutors said in court filings they have DNA evidence recovered from the broken taillight that implicates Read.
Read's defense team argues one of the first responding officers gave "false and deceptive testimony."
The defense team said an FBI expert concluded the evidence does not support the theory that O'Keefe died after being hit by an SUV.
Massachusetts State Police said in March that they opened an internal investigation into a "potential violation of department policy" by Trooper Michael Proctor, who was the lead investigator in the case.
"We know who did it. We know. And we know who spearheaded this coverup. You all know," Read said when she spoke to the public for the first time. "I tried to save his life. I tried to save his life at 6 in the morning, I was covered in his blood. I was the only one trying to save his life."
Jackson argued on Friday after the Commonwealth rested their case that Judge Beverly Cannone should issue a verdict of not guilty on all charges.
"There has been no competent evidence presented in the Commonwealth's case that Karen Read's vehicle actually struck John O'Keefe," Jackson said on Friday. "There's been conjecture. There's been speculation but no actual competent evidence."
Lally said his testimony does not "rest and fall" with the State Police's theory that O'Keefe was hit with Read's vehicle.
Cannone denied the defense motion, and the jurors were brought back in to begin the defense witness testimony.
Two months of trial testimony
Opening statements and testimony started on April 29.
State Police Trooper Michael Proctor was questioned for his conduct. Proctor is the case officer for Read's case, but Read's defense team accused him of having a role in framing Read for the murder of O'Keefe.
Proctor testified to making several insulting comments about Read over text during the beginning of the investigation into O'Keefe's death. He wrote that he hated one of Read's attorneys and joked about not finding nude photos when he was going through Read's phone. Messages include remarks on Read's medical condition, her "ass" and that he hoped Read "kills herself."
"She's a wack job," he wrote in texts according to court. "Yes, she's a babe. Weird Fall River accent, though. No ass."
Jurors shook their heads as the texts were read.
Proctor testified his "juvenile" texts had "zero impact on the facts and the evidence and the integrity of this investigation."
Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello said Proctor provided her crime scene photos that showed no footprints in the snow on the lawn of the Fairview Road area where O'Keefe's body was found.
She testified that the bruising found on O'Keefe's brain is likely from a fall. Scordi-Bello also said O'Keefe's head injuries could be consistent with striking his head on concrete or frozen ground. His facial injuries could also be caused by a blunt object, like glass or pieces of plastic.
Dr. Frank Sheridan, a retired forensic pathologist who was called on by the defense on Monday, June 24, said O'Keefe's injuries were not consistent with being struck by a vehicle.
"If it's a significant impact at all, you're going to get bruising and we don't have any bruising here," Sheridan said. "We just have linear abrasions without any bruising. That does not look to me at all remotely like an impact from a motor vehicle."
Teri Kun, a forensic scientist with the University of California Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory Forensic Unit testified that swabs taken from a shirt in the murder investigation did not show signs of canine DNA.
Jackson pointed out that the lab did not receive the item of clothing for testing, only swabs. Kun admitted she had "no idea how the agency collected the swabs."
"We have been inquiring about the nature of these injuries and their significance in O'Keefe's death, Jackson said.
McCabe recalled the frantic moments when she and Read found out O'Keefe was dead in her testimony.
"I thought she was honestly, like, just talking crazy," McCabe said. "And then she said, 'Oh my god, I left him there.' Like, she was extremely irrational. She told me again that they had gotten into a fight. ... She was just kind of all over the place, just screaming. She was very hard to understand. So my brain started going, 'OK, well, if she left him there, where could he be? Who could he be with?'"
McCabe had texted O'Keefe around 5 a.m. saying "karen is worried we need to find u" and "please answer so i know ur ok."
According to McCabe, Read "stated that she hit him" when a paramedic asked what happened.
She also noted she had seen a dark SUV matching Read's pull up outside of the Fairview Road house but didn't think much of it when Read and O'Keefe didn't come inside.
"So I have a question, Ms. McCabe. Where was the body?" Jackson asked.
Brian Loughran was driving his plow down Fairview Road on Jan. 29 and said he could see "the entire front lawn" around 2:45 a.m.
"I saw nothing," Loughran said, adding he did not see a body when asked by Read's lawyer David Yannetti.
Loughran said the only vehicle he saw on the street was a Ford Edge.
Jurors heard the 911 calls from the day O'Keefe's body was found. The recording reported that Read could not find O'Keefe. A recording from an hour later said they found him unresponsive on Fairview Road in Canton.
McCabe also denies erasing her call log before handing her cellphone over to the police. Read's attorneys allege this is part of the coverup.
"There was a coverup in this case, plain and simple," Jackson said in his closing statement Tuesday, noting evidence was manipulated, destroyed and "pinned on" Read.
Brian Albert, who owned the home in front of which O'Keefe died, testified that he had disposed of his cellphone the day before a court order was issued demanding it be preserved. He said he needed to upgrade his phone.
"That just happened to be the day that I got it," Albert testified.
The Albert family allegedly had a strained relationship with O'Keefe, who lived in the same street, various neighborly disputes.
Another witness, Brian Higgins, is denying destroying his cellphone. Higgins, who is an agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was reportedly at the Fairview Road home the night O'Keefe was found dead.
Jackson asked Higgins about removing the SIM card from his cellphone, driving to a military base, and trashing the device and SIM card in separate dumpsters during the investigation into O'Keefe's death.
"That is not correct," Higgins said.
Higgins, however, did confirm he sought advice on phone data extraction from a fellow ATF agent who works in the FBI's regional computer forensics lab. He said he threw the phone away and did not destroy it.
"I had every right to do that," Higgins maintained.
Who is Karen Read?
Read was a Bentley University finance lecturer in Massachusetts. The school announced in 2022 that she would not be teaching and her Financial Markets and Investment course would be taught be the chair of the finance department instead.
"By now you may have seen or heard the news involving a member of our community and the death of a Boston police officer," said Donna Maria Blancero, Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs, in a statement at the time. "Karen Read is an adjunct lecturer at Bentley. The university cannot comment on an active investigation, but we are aware of the evolving situation and following it closely."
Blancero had announced that her "thoughts go out to Officer O'Keefe's family and loved ones."
On LinkedIn, Read still lists herself as a part of Bentley's faculty. Read had graduated from Bentley's Elkin B. McCallum Graduate School of Business in 2004 and she has a BS in Finance from the college as well. She wrote that she graduated from an accelerated studies program for her undergraduate in three years. Read also listed she was a "Presidential Scholar" in both 1999 and 2000.
Read's LinkedIn also shows her currently working at Fidelity Investments for equity research within the tech sector. Previously, she was a financial analyst at Sensata Technolgies, client account manager at Brown Brothers Harriman, and a trading room assistant at Hughey Center for Financial Services.
Who was John O'Keefe?
The Boston Police Department remembered O'Keefe as a "kind person, dedicated to his family," in a Facebook post in 2022.
He grew up in Braintree and graduated from Northeastern University. O'Keefe also earned a master's degree in criminal justice from UMass Lowell.
O'Keefe was a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department.
He lived in Canton, where he was raising his niece and nephew since his sister and brother-in-law's death.
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