Karen Read looks at the gallery during her murder trial at Norfolk Superior Court. Photo:
Kayla Bartkowski/The Boston Globe via Getty
Since January 2022, Karen Read has been at the center of one of Boston’s most divisive murder cases.
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend of two years, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, on a snowy January night in 2022 in Canton, Mass. Prosecutors allege that Read drunkenly ran over O’Keefe with her SUV after a night out together — and then drove away, leaving him for dead on the front lawn of fellow police officer Brian Albert’s home.
But Read has consistently maintained that she “never harmed” O’Keefe and insists she is being framed. She and her defense attorneys contend that O’Keefe was severely beaten in an altercation inside the home of Albert, and then dragged outside and left to die in a snowbank. What allegedly happened after that, according to Read and her supporters, was a widespread cover-up that spanned both local and state law enforcement — and sought to place the blame solely on Read.
The former lecturer, however, is standing steadfast in her innocence. “I’m not backing down now,” Read told Vanity Fair in October 2024. “As scary as a potential conviction is, I will go to jail for something I didn’t do before I plea out. I will never give them that win.”
Read’s 2024 trial, where she faced a second-degree murder charge ended in a mistrial in July of that year. Ahead of Read’s retrial, which is scheduled to begin on April 1, Investigation Discovery released A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read — a true crime docuseries that closely follows Read and her legal team behind the scenes during the first trial.
The docuseries will air on ID and stream on Max over three nights beginning on March 17, with a one-hour finale on March 19.
“Doing this film is my testimony,” Read said in the series, per The Hollywood Reporter. “I know what happened between John and me.”
Here’s everything to know about Karen Read’s case — from the night John O’Keefe died to the latest developments in her retrial.
Karen Read and John O’Keefe. Courtesy David Yannetti
Read, a former financial analyst and adjunct professor at Bentley University, and O’Keefe, an officer in the Boston Police Department, first crossed paths in 2004, when Read attended a birthday party for O’Keefe’s sister Kristen, per Vanity Fair. The two exchanged numbers and dated for several months before Read moved to Ireland for her job — forcing the two to go their separate ways, per The Boston Globe.
Sixteen years later, in the spring of 2020, the two reconnected during the COVID-19 pandemic after O’Keefe sent Read a Facebook message.
“Hey, blast from the past. How’s things?” the message read, per Vanity Fair.
Read and O’Keefe rekindled their romance, bonding over their shared traumas from the past decade-and-a-half: Read had undergone multiple surgeries and been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and multiple sclerosis, while O’Keefe lost his sister Kristen to brain cancer and his brother-in-law to a heart attack. O’Keefe had stepped in to raise his niece and nephew, and Read began spending most of her time with him and the children at O’Keefe’s house.
Their relationship continued over the next two years, but not without its issues. Read alleges she saw O’Keefe kissing another woman during a New Year’s trip to Aruba (the woman denied this during the trial); while Read admitted to exchanging flirtatious texts with Brian Higgins, an ATF agent and contact of O’Keefe’s, according to Vanity Fair.
A photo shown of Karen Read and John O’Keefe. John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty
On the night of Jan. 28, 2022, Read and O’Keefe went out with friends to a local bar in Canton, Mass., a town about 15 miles southwest of Boston. Shortly after midnight, retired Boston cop Brian Albert invited several people at the bar— including O’Keefe — to his house for more drinks. Read reportedly dropped O’Keefe off at Albert’s and waited in the car to hear if she should join him inside. After 10 minutes with no word from O’Keefe, she left and returned to his home.
Read later told Vanity Fair that she believed O’Keefe hadn’t answered because he was “screwing around” potentially with a former romantic partner who allegedly lived down the street and, as a result, sent him several angry text messages and voicemails. But in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, Read reportedly became “distraught” when O’Keefe had not returned home and wasn’t answering his cell phone, according to CBS News.
Read and two mutual friends went searching for O’Keefe, only to find him unconscious and covered in snow in Albert’s front yard at around 6 a.m. (Twenty inches of snow had fallen during the night and temperatures had dropped to 12 degrees, according to The Boston Globe.)
Upon the discovery of O’Keefe, Read allegedly became hysterical and desperate to revive her boyfriend. While attempting mouth-to-mouth and covering his body with hers, Read claimed she was screaming, “Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?” However, a responding officer testified that Read repeatedly cried, “I hit him. I hit him.”
Despite resuscitation efforts from Read and paramedics, O’Keefe was pronounced dead at a local hospital of blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia, according to NBC News.
Karen Read leaves Norfolk County Superior Court ; Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. Getty ; Boston Police Department
Within hours of O’Keefe’s death, Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor had already zeroed in on a suspect: Read. By 5 p.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, Proctor (who would become the lead investigator in the case) had seized Read’s phone and SUV — and began texting his friends about her.
In a group text message sent the night after O’Keefe’s death, Proctor wrote about Read: “There will be serious charges brought on the girl … She’s a whack job c—. Zero chance she skates. She’s f—–,” according to Vanity Fair.
When a person on the group text wondered if the homeowner would “receive some s—” for the death as well, Proctor responded: “Nope. Homeowner’s a Boston cop too.”
On Feb. 2, 2022, Read was arrested and charged with manslaughter, leaving the scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death and motor vehicle homicide. She pleaded not guilty and was released on $50,000 bail, per CBS.
Four months later — to the surprise of Read and her attorney, David Yannetti — the manslaughter charge was upgraded to second-degree murder. It was then that Read first thought something “dirty” was going on behind the scenes.
“I believe it was to scare me and get some kind of plea deal going,” she claimed to Vanity Fair. “This is intentional. They’re framing me.”
Karen Read at her pre-trial hearing at Norfolk Superior Court. David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty
After months of pretrial hearings, Read’s first trial began on April 16, 2024. Over the next 10 weeks, Massachusetts state prosecutors and Read’s defense team presented two very different narratives of how O’Keefe ended up lying dead in a snowbank on the front lawn of Albert’s home.
The prosecution (led by Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey and Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally) alleged that Read, after a night of drinking, dropped off O’Keefe at the residence, struck him with her SUV while making a three-point turn and left him there for dead, according to the Associated Press.
The state argued that broken tail light pieces from Read’s SUV — that were reportedly found at the scene and contained O’Keefe’s DNA — proved their argument.
Read’s defense, however, claimed that O’Keefe was beaten up while inside Albert’s home and was attacked by their German Shepherd before being dragged outside and left to die in the snow. Her lawyers argued that O’Keefe’s injuries, including two black eyes, skull fractures, cuts on his face and on the back of his hands and claw-like wounds on his right arm, were not consistent with being struck by a car.
Bolstering the defense’s argument were photographs of O’Keefe that her lawyers said suggested “he was beaten severely and left for dead, having sustained blunt force injuries to both sides of his face as well as to the back of his head,” per Inside Edition. O’Keefe also had a cluster of deep scratches and puncture wounds on his right arm that they claimed were “consistent with bite marks and/or claw marks from an animal, more specifically a dog.”
In addition to O’Keefe’s injuries, Yannetti claimed that someone inside Albert’s home searched “ho(w) long to die in cold” on the night O’Keefe died.
“This evidence unequivocally exonerates Karen, because it establishes that individuals who were in the house … that night were aware that John was dying in the snow before Karen even knew he was missing,” he stated in a news release obtained by PEOPLE.
After weeks of tense deliberations, the trial concluded on July 1, 2024. Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial after jurors, who were deadlocked for days, were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
Hundreds of Karen Read supporters gather in front of Norfolk County Superior Court. Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty
Read’s lawyers allege that she was framed for O’Keefe’s death by local and state law enforcement who wanted to protect their friends in the force. Their argument is fueled by alleged conflicts of interest, so-called planted evidence and reportedly “false and deceptive testimony,” according to CBS News.
“Karen Read was framed,” Yannetti claimed during opening statements in April 2024. “She did not cause his death, and that means somebody else did.”
At the center of the defense’s cover-up claims is former lead investigator Proctor. He reportedly had ties to the Alberts and the McCabes (who were allegedly in the home that evening), presenting a potential bias — despite Lally claiming “these are not people that know each other,” according to Vanity Fair.
Read’s defense attorneys claimed that the state’s key evidence — pieces of Read’s tail light that contain O’Keefe’s DNA — were planted by Proctor. The shards weren’t discovered in the Alberts’ yard until after 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, according to Vanity Fair. Proctor’s affidavit declares that he seized Read’s car around that time.
However, security camera footage confirmed that Proctor took possession of Read’s car at 4:12 p.m., not 5:30 p.m. Read contends that her tail light was only cracked at the time — and didn’t become smashed until it was in police custody, per Vanity Fair.
Vulgar and inflammatory text messages sent by Proctor were also called out by Read’s lawyers. One such text that Read’s attorneys believed pointed to a cover-up came from Proctor’s sister on the day Read was arrested. In the message, she wrote that “when this is all over,” Julie Albert — his sister-in-law — wanted to get him “a thank you gift.” In other texts, Proctor referred to Read as a “whack-job” and a “c—” and wrote that he hoped she died by suicide. Proctor admitted the text messages were “unprofessional” and “regrettable,” but claimed they did not affect the integrity of the investigation.
However, an internal affairs investigation was opened into Proctor as a result of the testimony at Read’s trial. He was “relieved of duty” on July 1, 2024 — the same day Read’s murder case ended in a mistrial.
In addition to the problems with Proctor and his investigation, the phone search for “ho(w) long to die in cold” also pointed to a cover-up, according to Read’s lawyers. However, the prosecution contended the Google search was made at 6:23 a.m., per NBC Boston, and Jennifer McCabe testified that it was Read who asked her to make the inquiry, according to CBS News.
Other issues, pointed out by the defense, were the facts that the Alberts’ home — the supposed scene of the crime — was never searched by police and was then sold in the spring of 2023, The Boston Globe reported. Additionally, the Alberts’ dog Chloe — who was known to be violent, according to Vanity Fair — was also rehomed in the months after O’Keefe’s death, per The Boston Globe.
Karen Read leaves court after another day in her murder trial. David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty
Prosecutors vowed to retry the case immediately following Read’s mistrial in July 2024. Her second trial is scheduled to start on April 1, 2025.
Prior to her retrial, Read’s lawyers attempted to have two of the three charges against her dismissed on the grounds of double jeopardy. Their argument was based on the fact that the jury had previously voted unanimously during deliberations to acquit Read on the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied Read’s double jeopardy appeal in February 2025, according to CBS News. In March 2025, a federal judge denied the request to drop the charges, per CBS.
While awaiting her second trial, Read has been living with friends and family after selling her Mansfield, Mass. home to help cover her legal expenses. Since being charged in O’Keefe’s death in 2022, Read has lost both of her jobs, her health insurance, her car and her life savings — and has been living off of what remains of her 401(k), per Vanity Fair. As of October 2024, she was facing over $5 million in deferred fees for her defense team.
“This is no life. I’m not in prison, but this is no life. I’m stressed every day. I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop,” Read told 20/20 in September 2024. “It just feels like a kind of purgatory.”
In mid-March 2025, she shared more of her side of the story in ID’s docuseries A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read.
