Trial starts in conspiracy-fueled case of girlfriend charged in Boston police officer’s death

DEDHAM, Mass. — The trial of a Massachusetts woman who prosecutors say killed her Boston police officer boyfriend by deliberately crashing into him with her SUV is set to begin Monday amid allegations of a massive police cover-up.

Karen Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces several charges, including second-degree murder in the 2022 death of John O’Keefe, 46. O’Keefe, a 16-year police veteran, was found unconscious outside a home from a fellow Bostonian. police officer and was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Read has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail.

As the case developed, the defense’s strategy was to portray a vast conspiracy involving a police cover-up. It has earned Read a loyal group of supporters – who can often be found at the courthouse – and brought the case national attention.

The couple had gone to two bars one evening in January 2022, prosecutors alleged, and then headed to a party in nearby Canton. Read said she wasn’t feeling well and decided not to attend. Once at the house, O’Keefe got out of Read’s vehicle, and as she made a three-point turn, she allegedly struck him and then drove away, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors haven’t said where they think she went next, but they allege she later panicked after saying she couldn’t reach O’Keefe. She returned to the scene of the party house where she and two friends found O’Keefe covered in snow. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. An autopsy concluded that he died of head trauma and hypothermia.

A friend who returned home with Read recalled wondering whether she had hit O’Keefe. Investigators found a cracked right taillight near where O’Keefe was found and scratches on her SUV.

The defense has argued in court for months that the case was marred by conflicts of interest and accused prosecutors of presenting false and deceptive evidence to the grand jury. In a motion to dismiss the case, the defense called the prosecution’s case “based entirely on vague speculation and conjecture.” A High Court judge rejected the request.

Among their claims is that local and state police officers involved in the investigation failed to disclose their relationship with the party host. They also claimed that statements from the couple who owned the house were inconsistent.

The defense also advanced several theories aimed at casting doubt on Read’s guilt, including suggestions that partygoers at the house beat up O’Keefe and later placed his body outside.

In August, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey criticized suggestions that state and local law enforcement agencies were orchestrating a cover-up, saying there is no evidence that O’Keefe was at the Canton home where the party took place, nor was was in a fight.

The idea that multiple police departments and his office are involved in a “vast conspiracy” in this case is “a desperate attempt to reassign blame.”

Such comments have done little to silence Read’s supporters.

Most days, several dozen supporters — some carrying signs or shirts that read “Free Karen Read” — stand near the courthouse. Many had no connection with Read, who before this case worked in the financial industry and taught finance at Bentley University.

One of her most ardent supporters is confrontational blogger Aidan Timothy Kearney, known as ‘Turtleboy’. He has been accused of harassing, threatening and intimidating witnesses in the case. For months he has raised doubts about Read’s guilt on his blog, which has become a popular page for those who believe Read is innocent.

“Karen is being pressured,” said Amy Dewar, a supporter from Weymouth, from outside the courthouse where the jury was being selected. “She didn’t do it.”

O’Keefe’s friends and family fear the focus on Read and the conspiracy theories takes away from the fact that a good man was murdered. In interviews with The Boston Globe, they described how O’Keefe took in his sister’s two children after their parents died.

To them, Read is responsible for his death. “No one planted anything in our heads,” his brother Paul O’Keefe told the Globe. “No one brainwashed us.”