The confrontational blogger known as “Turtleboy” was charged Wednesday with witness intimidation and conspiracy related to a criminal case against a woman accused of running over and killing her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, with her vehicle.
Aidan Timothy Kearney wore a hoody emblazoned with the message “Free Karen Read" when he was led handcuffed into a courthouse to be arraigned on multiple counts of intimidation of a witness, juror or law enforcement official, and a single count of conspiracy. Kearney, who pleaded not guilty, was released on personal recognizance — with a requirement that he not have contact with people tied to Read's murder case.
Kearney's arrest was just the latest twist in a controversial case that is drawing national attention, with "Dateline" already working on an episode about the saga.
Here's what we know about Wednesday's developments, and the case in general:
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Who is Turtleboy?
A longtime presence in Massachusetts' news scene, Kearney has been reporting on the Read case and rallying supporters who believe that Read is the subject of a coverup in the town of Canton.
Saying his client “vehemently denies” the accusations, Kearney's lawyer told the judge Wednesday that Kearney's opinions were protected by the First Amendment.
The charges in Stoughton District Court stem from Kearney's advocacy on behalf of Read, who's accused of running over her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, and leaving him unconscious on the lawn of a home in Canton in January 2022. Read is charged with second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while impaired and leaving the scene of an accident.
On Wednesday, Fall River attorney Kenneth Mello, the special prosecutor appointed to look into Kearney's actions, read aloud messages Kearney allegedly sent to witnesses and investigators, saying they were aimed at harassing, threatening and intimidating. He also said Kearney received material from a police dispatcher who illegally accessed a motor vehicle database.
Aiden Kearney responds: 'I'm not the one guilty of intimidation'
After Wednesday's court hearing, Kearney posted a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying "I can't log into YouTube because the police I've been exposing for covering up a murder took my phones and computer."
"Men with guns showed up at my house, tore it apart, took my computer and phones and handcuffed me in full view of my kids as they got on the school bus," he added in a new post on X Thursday morning. "I'm not the one guilty of intimidation."
Kearney did go live on Facebook for an hour on Wednesday night, where he talked about how his lack of technology is hindering his ability to do his job as an "award-winning journalist" and "content creator."
"They tried to silence me today. My house was ransacked by armed thugs. It was supposed to be the day that broke me, but it only made me stronger."
Kearney went on to describe his arrest, which he said occurred just after he had put his kids on the school bus.
"This was by design," he said. "This could have been a summons. I would have shown up for court. No, that's defeating the whole purpose here. The purpose was to send a message. Shut the [expletive] up. Stop talking about this. Stop exposing these people or we will humiliate you in front of your children. Guess what, I'm never going to stop."
Officer John O'Keefe's death and Karen Read's arrest
O'Keefe was found in the snow outside the Canton home 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.
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., where they stayed for about an hour. They left there and were invited to a party at the home of Brian Albert 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. Read returned to the home with two friends early in the morning after she was unable to get O'Keefe to respond to her calls and texts, and they found him 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 pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.
The prosecution's claims against Karen Read
Norfolk County prosecutors have said that Read suggested to the friends who she was with, as well as a Canton firefighter/paramedic at the scene, that she believed she hit O'Keefe with her SUV.
One of the friends told police at the time that Read called her at 5 a.m. and said, "John's dead, I wonder if he's dead. It's snowing, he got hit by a plow."
"I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him," she allegedly told the paramedic.
Investigators found the SUV at her parents' house and seized it. The 2021 black Lexus SUV had a shattered right rear taillight and several scratches on its rear bumper, and prosecutors have said there were shards of glass embedded in the bumper, consistent with a glass O'Keefe had previously been seen holding.
Pieces of the tail light were also found in the snow outside the home on Fairview Road, prosecutors said.
"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 in June.
The defense's claims of a coverup
Since last year, Read's team has alleged a large-scale coverup in the case, pointing to evidence on O'Keefe's body and from a search they did of a cellphone that belonged to someone else at the party as proof. They say that the state police investigator in charge of the case had ties to the homeowner, and say people at the party coordinated to point the blame, falsely, at Read.
Lally called the search for the dog a fishing expedition, arguing that the defense has not showed the "relevancy or evidentiary value" of the records requested.
The defense elaborated on their claims in a court appearance on May 3. Her attorneys said they have been denied access to evidence, but that the evidence they have seen suggests O'Keefe actually died inside Brian Albert's home.
Alan Jackson, one of the lawyers representing Read, argued that the wounds found on O'Keefe's arm after his death were not consistent with a car crash but an animal attack. He pointed to the German shepherd previously owned by Albert, which has since been rehomed.
According to Jackson, Albert told a grand jury that his dog was inside on the night of O'Keefe's death.
"If that dog was inside the house that night — not on the front lawn, not in the front yard, but inside the house — and these injuries were suffered or sustained at the time John O'Keefe was killed, then that means that John O'Keefe was inside the house when he was killed, and it also means that his body was moved," Jackson argued.
He also pointed to cellphone data that suggests O'Keefe went up and down stairs after Read dropped him off, though the prosecution has said such health information is unreliable.
Jackson said the defense needs records about the location of the dog, if she is still alive, as well as a saliva sample and a hair sample. The judge in the case later granted the defense's request for any information the town has on the dog, a victory for Read's team.
NBC10 Boston has reached out to two of the people whose actions Read's attorneys have called into question — Albert and Albert's sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe — and has not heard back.
Neither Albert nor McCabe has been charged with a crime, and lawyers for both successfully argued this week that they should not be called as witnesses in an evidentiary hearing in the case.
'Ho[w] Long to Die in Cold'
On April 12, in a motion seeking access to Albert's phone records, Read's attorneys said newly uncovered records from McCabe's phone showed she had searched the phrase, "Ho[w] long to die in cold" on Google hours before 911 was called to report O'Keefe was found in the snow.
In a statement at the time, Jackson and David R. Yannetti, another defense attorney, said this evidence establishes other people "were aware that John was dying in the snow before Karen even knew he was missing."
Read's attorneys say that she frantically began calling friends, including McCabe, after becoming concerned that O'Keefe had not returned home to his children.
Read's attorneys said in the court documents that McCabe "inserted herself into the 'search' for O'Keefe, making every effort to delay Ms. Read in returning to the Albert Residence to look for him." The defense said she "insisted" they drive Read's car back to O'Keefe's home, where Read had already searched for him unsuccessfully.
Read and McCabe arrived together at 6 a.m., where Read found O'Keefe unresponsive, her attorneys say. McCabe called 911.
"Immediately after disconnecting with 9-1-1 dispatch," attorneys for Read say McCabe made two calls at 6:07 and 6:08 to a cellphone belonging to her sister — Albert's wife, who was also out with the group the previous night — and deleted them from her phone. She also made an unanswered call to Albert at 6:23, which was also deleted, Read's attorneys say.
Less than a minute after that call, the lawyers also allege McCabe opened an article titled "How Long Does It Take to Digest Food," which the defense connects with the digestion process often being used by investigators to calculate time of death.
The attorneys add that Albert and his wife "were among the first individuals to be notified that O'Keefe was lying unresponsive mere feet away on their front lawn, and in spite of being in such close proximity, made no effort to go outside and assist or otherwise investigate the emergency that was unfolding on their doorstep."
Hours later, McCabe allegedly tried to "sanitize" her phone of contact with Albert, deleting his contact information, which had been saved under "uncle brian a."
Additionally, on Feb. 1, Read's attorneys say McCabe made "a transparent (and unsuccessful) effort to conceal her own criminality and blame it on Ms. Read," telling police that after the two arrived at the scene of O'Keefe's death, "Karen then immediately yelled at [me] two times to Google, 'How long do you have to be left outside to die from hypothermia.'"
At a court hearing Wednesday, the prosecution and the defense had different interpretations of the data and what it meant, both citing forensic experts. Lally said the evidence suggests that McCabe made the search in the minutes after O'Keefe's body was found.
After both sides in the case traded explanations, the judge denied the defense's request for more access to cellphone data.
What Karen Read said about the case
Following the May 3 court hearing, Read briefly spoke to reporters outside the courthouse.
"It feels we're the only ones fighting for the truth of what happened to John O'Keefe, and me and my family and my attorneys and my team have marshaled every resource to get to the truth. It just feels like no one else wants it," she said.
Asked by a reporter if she killed O'Keefe, she said, "We know who did." One of her lawyers, Alan Jackson, jumped in to say, "No, she didn't do it. No, she didn't do it. This is an innocent woman. She didn't do it."
And Read added that, when she found his body outside the home early on Jan. 29, "I was the only one trying to save his life."
'The Taillight Muder': Karen Read case to be featured on 'Dateline'
NBC revealed in July that the O'Keefe murder case will be featured on an upcoming episode of NBC's "Dateline," entitled, "The Taillight Murder."
A portion of an exclusive interview with Read and "Dateline" correspondent Dennis Murphy aired July 24 on the "TODAY" show on NBC, a day before she was scheduled to appear in court for a pretrial hearing.
In the segment, Read told Murphy she and O'Keefe were "happy, having fun, laughing, just very normal" on the night of his death -- Jan. 29, 2022. She said she dropped him off at a house party in Canton after they left the bar they were at earlier that night, and waited in her SUV and watched him go to the door.
"I texted him, I called him, and within minutes of him exiting my car is not answering his phone," she said. "Minutes. So I left."
She drove home and went to sleep. When she woke up the next morning and realized O'Keefe wasn't there, she said she drove back to the home where she had dropped him off and found him in the snow in front of the home.
"His eyes were swollen shut. He had blood dripping out of his nose," Read said.
Alan Jackson, Read's attorney, said he believes O'Keefe was set up that night, and alleges a large-scale coverup, pointing to evidence on O'Keefe's body and a search they did of a cellphone that belonged to someone else at the party as proof.
"I have an innocent client, period," Jackson told NBC. "John walked into an element of hostility in that house. John O'Keefe got out of a car, walked into the house, was sucker punched, fell, hurt himself, and then ultimately his body was moved."
DA blasts 'baseless' witness harassment
In August, Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey took the unusual step of releasing a video statement in which he condemned “absolutely baseless” harassment and vilification of witnesses in the matter. “Innuendo is not evidence,” he said.
"The harassment of witnesses in the murder prosecution of Karen Read is absolutely baseless. It should be an outrage to any decent person, and it needs to stop," Morrissey said in a video statement he said was the first of its kind he's made in 12 years leading the office.
Lawyers trade barbs, accusations at heated hearing
The most recent court hearing in the Read case was held on Sept. 15, with prosecution and defense lawyers trading barbs and accusations in a heated hearing that had members of the public laughing and cheering during the proceedings.
About 100 supporters of Read rallied outside and packed the courtroom for her hearing. The vocal group applauded loudly as Read entered the courtroom and could be heard laughing and groaning at some of the statements made by Lally, the prosecutor.
Read left court with her attorney following the nearly two-hour hearing. She didn’t speak, but Jackson did -- taking aim at Morrissey, who has rejected the suggestion of a coverup.
"I have something to say directly to Mr. Morrissey, right here, right now," Jackson said before emphatically adding, "So listen up, Sir. And I’ll speak slowly, so you understand. Michael Morrissey we aint got no quit.”
What's next?
At the conclusion of Read's court hearing last month, the judge set a trial date of March 12, 2024. She also set several other key dates in the proceedings.
Attorneys for both sides have until Nov. 3 to file a pretrial conference report, and all remaining motions must be filed by Nov. 16. The next in court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 8, and the judge set a Jan. 15, 2024 deadline for filing all evidentiary motions. A final pretrial hearing is scheduled for Feb. 26, 2024, leading up to the beginning of the trial in March.
