Karen Read Update: Details Emerge About Alleged Boyfriend Killer’s Retrial

Karen Read was back in court on Wednesday as her legal team and prosecutors asked the judge to delay her murder retrial.
Read is accused of hitting her boyfriend John O’Keefe, who worked as a Boston police officer for 16 years, with her car and leaving him to die in 2022. She is facing charges of second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death.
Read’s first trial began on April 16. The judge declared a mistrial on July 1 after the jury stated it was deadlocked on the fifth day of deliberations.
The prosecution and defense filed a joint motion to change the start date of the retrial to April 1. It is currently scheduled to start on January 27.
Both sides said they do not expect any additional delays. Defense attorney David Yannetti said there is “simply not enough time” to prepare for the January start date. Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone took the matter under advisement.
Several other matters were discussed during the hearing. Prosecutors requested further analysis of data from Read’s Lexus SUV using a new expert. Read is accused of fatally striking O’Keefe with the SUV.
Prosecutors claimed that there were “irregularities” in the data obtained by the experts in the first trial. They said the experts only analyzed one of the three boards of data in the vehicle.
The defense did not object, but they want their own expert present to witness the analysis.
Cannone granted the requests from both sides.
“It sounds like you have a lot to do,” Cannone said.
The defense asked Cannone to release transcripts from courtroom sidebar discussions during Read’s first trial. Both sides agreed to release the transcripts to attorneys only.
Cannone granted the request but excluded any conversations about jurors.
The prosecution filed a motion requesting phone and text records from Karen Read’s father, William Read. The defense noted its objection to the request in a court filing on Tuesday.
“The Commonwealth’s motion is a fishing expedition, and an inappropriate attempt to invade Mr. Read’s privacy,” the defense wrote in its filing.
Hank Brennan, a former Whitey Bulger attorney recently added to the prosecution, asked to discuss the matter at a later date since he is not ready to present his argument yet.
The matter is expected to be discussed at a hearing on November 26.
Prosecutors are also asking Cannone for unredacted audio recordings, notes and texts between Read and a reporter from a 2023 interview with Boston Magazine.
Cannone has also not yet ruled on a motion filed by the defense to obtain Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s personal emails and phone records.
The defense claimed Morrissey used his personal email to contact judges and employees at Stoughton District Court about a witness intimidation case against Aidan Kearney, a blogger who has been covering Read’s case.
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.
Read and O’Keefe 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.
A forensic toxicologist estimated that Read’s blood alcohol content would have been around 0.13 to 0.29 when she was driving O’Keefe around 12:45 a.m.
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.
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.”
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.
Around 6 a.m., Read saw 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.”
Police found a broken cocktail glass and pieces of taillight at the scene.
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.
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