The high-profile murder charges against Karen Read are finally set for trial, and the judge in the case is allowing Read's attorneys to raise the question they have been asking for over a year: Who killed Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe?
Prosecutors argue Read is responsible for her boyfriend's 2022 death outside a Canton home, charging her with second-degree murder. Read's defense team has long held that she is being framed in a cover-up.
Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone agreed to allow Read's team to, with limits, use a third-party culprit defense — something prosecutors had sought to prevent — making the question of whether she or someone else is responsible a major part of the trial.
As the complicated case goes to trial, here are some elements to keep in mind:
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John O'Keefe's death and Karen Read's arrest
O'Keefe was found in the snow on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, and later pronounced dead at a hospital. Read was arrested days later on suspicion of hitting him with her SUV and leaving him to die.
In the hours beforehand, O'Keefe and Read had been drinking at a bar with a group of people. That group included Brian Albert, another Boston police officer, and his sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe — who are both now among dozens of witnesses who could be called to testify at trial.
Prosecutors have said they were at C.F. McCarthy's bar in Canton with several friends on the night of Jan. 28, then went to Waterfall Bar & Grille across the street around 11 p.m.and stayed for about an hour. They left there and were invited to Albert's home on Fairview Road. Hours later, O'Keefe would be found fatally injured outside that house.
Read told police she dropped O'Keefe off at the house shortly after midnight and went home because she was having stomach issues. Early in the morning, after she was unable to get O'Keefe to respond to her calls and texts, Read said she returned to the home with McCabe and Kerry Roberts, another potential witness at trial. They found O'Keefe unresponsive outside the home on Fairview Road in the snow amid blizzard-like conditions.
An autopsy found several abrasions to O'Keefe's right forearm, two black eyes, a cut to his nose, a two-inch laceration to the back of his head and multiple skull fractures. Hypothermia was also believed to be a contributing factor in his death.
Read was arrested three days after O'Keefe's body was found. Initially charged with manslaughter, she was later charged with second-degree murder, to which she has pleaded not guilty.
The prosecution's case against Read
The office of Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey has said that Read suggested to McCabe and Roberts, as well as to a Canton firefighter/paramedic at the scene, that she believed she hit O'Keefe with her SUV.
Investigators found the SUV at her parents' house and seized it. Prosecutors said the 2021 black Lexus SUV had a shattered right rear taillight and several scratches on its rear bumper. There were shards of glass embedded in the bumper, prosecutors said, consistent with a glass O'Keefe had previously been seen holding.
Pieces of the taillight were also found in the snow outside the home on Fairview Road, prosecutors have said. Earlier this year, they said the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory had found O'Keefe's DNA on the taillight.
"The victim and the defendant had been arguing for quite some time. Numerous times over the weeks preceding this, that on one occasion the victim had attempted to break up with the defendant, had asked her to leave his home and she refused to do so," Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Adam Lally said in court last year.
In court documents, prosecutors cite voicemails left on O'Keefe's phone "in the time period surrounding" his death, in which Read allegedly screamed, "John, I f***ing hate you," called him a pervert and accused him of cheating on her.
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The same documents also describe a trip to Aruba a month before O'Keefe's death. Witnesses, including O'Keefe's teenage niece, alleged confrontational behavior from Read. The girl, who was 14 at the time, said Read accused O'Keefe of kissing someone else, leading to a 20-minute argument in their hotel room. A longtime friend of O'Keefe also described an incident in which Read allegedly yelled "f*** you" at her after she bumped into O'Keefe in the lobby and hugged him.
Amid the media firestorm surrounding the case, authorities have also arrested Aidan Kearney, a popular blogger better known as "Turtleboy," on charges of witness intimidation involving his writing on and advocacy involving the case. They later said Read sent Kearney confidential information during dozens of hours of phone calls.
The defense's claims of a coverup
Since 2022, Read's team has alleged a large-scale coverup in the case. They have pointed to a search made on McCabe's cellphone, evidence on O'Keefe's body and questions about the investigation and court proceedings.
Last April, in a motion seeking access to Albert's phone records, Read's attorneys said records from McCabe's phone showed she had searched the phrase, "Hos [sic] long to die in cold" on Google hours before 911 was called to report O'Keefe was found in the snow.
Read's attorneys say the records show the search was made around 2:30 a.m. But prosecutors have disputed the timing, arguing McCabe made the search after O'Keefe was found unresponsive. It's been a major point of contention in the trial.
Maintaining that the search was made earlier, defense attorneys Alan Jackson and David Yannetti said in a statement last year that the evidence establishes other people "were aware that John was dying in the snow before Karen even knew he was missing."
In a document responding to Read's motion to dismiss indictments against her, the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office said the state "did not withhold exculpatory evidence pertaining to Jennifer McCabe's google searches from the grand jury. The purported 'incriminating' google search did not appear in the initial download given the version of Cellebrite software that existed at the time."
However, no one besides Read has been charged in O'Keefe's death, and Morrissey, the district attorney, has spoken out against public speculation that they were involved in the killing, which he characterized as harassment.
Read's attorneys have also said the wounds found on O'Keefe's arm were not consistent with a crash but with an animal attack, and said the Alberts had a dog that was sent away months after O'Keefe's death. Prosecutors have called their questions into the whereabouts of the family's dog a "fishing expedition."
A judge granted the defense's request for any information the town of Canton has on the dog last year, and a notice of discovery filed by prosecutors days before the trial referred to veterinary genetic lab work. Whether the issue of the dog is raised at trial remains to be seen.
Defense attorneys also say the state police investigator in charge of the case had ties to the Albert family, as did a Canton police officer involved in the early part of the investigation.
Massachusetts State Police announced in March that Trooper Michael Proctor was the subject of an internal investigation. Sources told NBC10 Boston the probe was in connection with the Read case, for which he served as lead investigator. But Proctor remained on full duty amid the internal investigation, and the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office said investigation had not impacted Proctor's case assignments.
Throughout the pretrial period, the defense has argued Proctor was "conflicted," sharing photos purportedly showing the trooper with relatives of Albert as far back as 2012.
Documents unsealed just days before jury selection began show that in seeking to dismiss the case, Read's attorneys argued Proctor and Canton Police Detective Sgt. Michael Lank did not disclose connections with members of the Albert family in their testimony to grand jurors.
The prosecution has maintained there was no conflict for investigators and that the defense's claims were a distraction from the issue.
How does 'Turtleboy' factor into the case?
Kearney has covered the case extensively on his "Turtleboy," website and social media pages, advocating for Read's innocence in hundreds of posts. With the publicity he brought to Read's claims of a coverup came intense protests and, according to prosecutors, harassment of witnesses.
The controversial blogger was arrested in October on charges of witness intimidation and conspiracy. He was ordered at the time to stay away and have no contact with witnesses in the case.
Kearney's bail was later revoked after new charges of assault and battery and witness intimidation were brought against him, leaving him in jail for about 90 days. The charges stem from claims that he pushed a woman he was dating and threatened to release personal information and explicit photos of her.
Upon his release from jail, Kearney was charged with new crimes against the same woman: harassing a witness and intercepting written or oral communication.
"He threatened her in saying that, if she didn't cooperate, he would destroy her in front of her kids by publishing old probate court records that he had acquired," a prosecutor said in court, adding that she found out Kearney had recorded their conversation when he posted an edited version online following the assault charge.
Kearney has denied the allegations, writing on his blog that the woman "personally hates Karen Read and is jealous of her due to the fact that she believes Turtleboy is in love with Read."
According to a Massachusetts State Police search warrant affidavit released in January, Read fed information to Kearney, including personal details about witnesses in the case, autopsy photographs, crime scene photographs, images of her car and the 911 call made when O'Keefe's body was found.
The two allegedly communicated directly for more than 40 hours during 189 phone calls. Police also allege Read and Kearney interacted via intermediaries and the Signal messaging app.
"The prosecution is doubling down on defective theories of witness intimidation that we are in the process of attacking at the SJC in Mr. Kearney's case," his defense attorney, Timothy Bradl, said in a statement. "The only crime here is the robbery of privacy."
"Turtleboy does not reveal sources," Kearney wrote on his website the same day. "However, there is nothing wrong or criminal about seeking out people close to Karen Read in order to write a story about her. At no point did Karen Read ever direct content on the Turtleboy website."
"Free Karen Read" merchandise with the "Turtleboy" logo remains available for sale on Kearney's website; past stories have said proceeds go to a fund for Read's legal defense.
How the feds are involved
Federal investigators have been reviewing the investigation, and what they uncovered has already played a role in the trial.
While it was originally set to begin March 12, the trial was delayed more than a month after the office of Joshua Levy, the acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, submitted more than 3,000 pages of evidence that were gathered in his office's investigation.
The delay came weeks after the prosecution and the defense filed a joint motion requesting the trial to be pushed back as both sides awaited the evidence from the U.S. Attorney's Office — a move Cannone declined to make at the time.
After its release, Read's attorneys characterized the new evidence as being exculpatory, while prosecutors said the majority of it was consistent with prior testimony in the case.
Federal prosecutors have been investigating how the case is being handled, but the U.S. Attorney's Office did not comment when asked by NBC10 Boston about the nature of the probe. No charges have been filed, and federal investigations do not always lead to people being charged.
What's next?
Jury selection in Read's case began April 16. Once a jury is seated, the trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.
