HOMICIDE: Karen Read
- Yasmin Sudarsanam
- Mar 15
- 4 min read
Trigger Warning: The following case includes depictions of graphic violence. Please read at your own discretion.
In just a few weeks, a trial is beginning in Massachusetts following a mistrial in the summer of 2024, and people remain divided on the facts and the implications of the case. Unlike some of the other cases we’ve covered in the past few months, there exists evidence to support both sides of this argument, so after reading this post, feel free to comment your opinion on the case below! This is the story of Karen Read.
Born on December 8, 1975, John O’Keefe was a Boston police officer who grew up in Braintree Massachusetts. He attended Northeastern University and earned his master’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Since 2014, O’Keefe had lived in Canton, Massachusetts where he raised his niece and nephew following his sister and brother-in-law’s deaths. He was a veteran of the Boston Police Department of sixteen years and was off duty at the time of today’s incident. Karen Read was born in 1980 and grew uo in Taunton, Massachusetts before her family relocated to Blacksburg, Virginia. She worked as a financial analyst at Fidelity Investments and as an adjunct professor at Bentley University, and Read began dating O’Keefe in 2020.
On the night of January 28, 2022, Read and O'Keefe had visited two bars in Canton: C.F. McCarthy’s and Waterfall Bar & Grill. They met a few acquaintances at these locations, including Brian Albert, and after midnight, Albert invited a group of individuals including the couple back to his home to continue the festivities. Albert was a retired Boston police sergeant who would go on to retire in September of 2023. The pair drove to the home in Read’s SUV, and Read would later claim that she dropped her boyfriend off at the house because she wasn’t feeling well.
Allegedly, when Read woke up the next day, O’Keefe had still not yet returned to their home, and after repeated attempts to contact him, she and two other women left the residence and began looking for him. They returned to Fairview Road where the party had taken place the night before, they found O’Keefe lying unresponsive in the recent snowfall from the night before. Read immediately attempted CPR while the two other women dialed 911, calling first responders to the scene. Tragically, O’Keefe was pronounced dead soon after; while he had suffered numerous abrasions, lacerations, bruising, and even skull fractures, he ultimately died from acute hypothermia.
As witness testimony and evidence were collected over the next few days, police arrested Read in connection to O’Keefe’s death on February 1, 2022. They accused her of hitting her boyfriend with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow while intoxicated. To back up this claim, investigators pointed to the pieces of a cocktail glass and a piece of a broken taillight found next to the body, with the fragments apparently matching Read’s own broken taillight. However, Read has continuously proclaimed her innocence since then and continues to accuse others, including law enforcement, of attempting to frame her. Ultimately, Karen Read pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and fleeing the scene of personal injury and death.
When Read’s trial began, her defense attorneys attempted to portray her as a blameless victim whose boyfriend had been ripped away from her. They pointed to O’Keefe’s injuries aligning with him being in a physical fight and having received several blows to the head rather than having collided with a vehicle. They proposed an alternate theory to the prosecution’s claim: they believed Brian Higgins, a man who had recently been flirting with Read, had lured John to Albert’s home where a fight broke out. They alleged that O’Keefe had been violently beaten by Higgins, Collin Albert who is Brian Allbert’s nephew, and Brian’s dog, attempting to explain the mysterious bite and scratch marks on O’Keefe’s arm that could have come from a large dog like the family’s German Shepard. Beyond that, after seven years with their beloved pet, the Allberts suddenly rehomed her after O’Keefe’s death, which aroused suspicion in some.
Brian himself testified at trial, maintaining that O’Keefe had never entered his home and that he only learned of the tragedy when his sister burst in with the news early the next morning. When the defense attempted to cast doubt on his credibility, Brian claimed that no members of his family had come outside to check on the commotion on January 29 because they didn’t want to get in the way of first responders.
Read’s first trial in the summer of 2024 ultimately ended with a hung jury, divided on whether she was guilty or not. Her defense attorneys pushed to drop all charges against her on account of a violation of double jeopardy, which prevents prosecutors from trying a person repeatedly for the same crime. They cited the fact that several jurors had emerged after the first mistrial stating that Read had actually been found not guilty of two of the three charges she faced, though they had been unable to come to a unanimous conclusion on the third charge, and thus, Read should not face trial for the first two charges again. However, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ultimately denied this request, and Read’s second trial is set to begin on April 1 of this year in just a few weeks.
Since then, the O’Keefe family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit, another way for families to achieve a form of justice and closure outside of criminal court, against Read and the two bars. They accuse Read of hitting and killing their loved ones and the bars of overserving her passed the point where she could have exercised sound judgment. However, this case continues to cause division in Canton, and many individuals still carry doubts as to whether police arrested the correct person responsible for O’Keefe’s tragic death that cold morning.
Feel free to leave your thoughts, opinions, and questions below! If you want to see more cases similar to this one, like this post to let me know!
Thank you to Emily for suggesting this case; if you have a specific case you would like me to cover, please leave it in the suggestion box!
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