Unpacking the Karen Read story: a victim of a police coverup or guilty of committing murder?

By Charlie Sawyer

Updated Sep 5, 2024 at 04:12 PM

Reading time: 4 minutes

Email Facebook WhatsApp X Flipboard

Copy Link

Images courtesy of TikTok and X

The high-profile murder trial of Karen Read has become one of the most talked about criminal cases in recent times. The 44-year-old woman has been labelled as “America’s happiest murder suspect” by tabloids and, following an incredibly messy mistrial, the case has even prompted doubts about the efficiency and potential impartiality of both the Massachusetts police department and prosecutors. Indeed, I think it’s fair to say that the Read story will go down in history as a murder investigation that split a state in two.

If you live in the UK, it’s likely that you’ve never heard the name Karen Read before, and it’s also probable that you know next to nothing about the ongoing murder trial that she is at the centre of. But fret not, as in this article, I’ll break down all of the most important moments and facts needed to truly understand just how wild this case is.

On 1 July 2024, after an incredibly tense trial and days of deliberation, the jury in the Karen Read murder case reached a deadlock and could not provide a unanimous decision. Therefore, a mistrial was declared, with the judge scheduling a retrial for January 2025. During the initial trial, several things came to light, including police misconduct, outlandish conspiracy theories, and witness intimidation. These are the key aspects of the story we’ll explore in detail.

Karen Read is a financial analyst from Mansfield, Massachusetts who is currently standing trial for the murder of her boyfriend, former Boston police officer, John O’Keefe. It is alleged that Read hit and subsequently killed O’Keefe with her SUV in January 2022 during a snowstorm. O’Keefe, who at the time of his death was a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department, died due to blunt force trauma and hypothermia.

Three days after O’Keefe’s death, Read was charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide, and leaving the scene of a deadly crash. Despite maintaining her innocence, four months later, Read was indicted for second-degree murder. According to court documents, in the weeks before, and even the hours leading up to the night out, text messages between the couple showed a very turbulent and volatile relationship. In one voicemail left by Read to O’Keefe, the defendant stated: “You are a f*cking loser, f*ck yourself and John, I f*cking hate you.”

Regarding other possible suspects, Read’s defence attorneys, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, argue that John O’Keefe was involved in an altercation inside the home of another former police officer, Brian Albert. Read’s legal team alleged that O’Keefe may have been killed by some of his former police buddies after a drunken bust-up. Supposedly, Read then raced back to the house when her partner didn’t return home and discovered his body.

Now, while O’Keefe and Read’s relationship may have been strained, no-one could have predicted that the 44-year-old would have ever killed her partner. So, what exactly went down? And how is it that one murder investigation could have the ability to divide an entire nation? 

The main reason why the Karen Read case is so interesting and has garnered so much media attention, from both mainstream publications and on social media, is because at the centre of this case is a conspiracy—one that was introduced by her defence team and one that has now completely taken over the narrative in this case. That conspiracy theory is that Read is innocent and is actually a victim of an elaborate coverup from a group of people, including individuals from law enforcement.

It all began when one of Read’s defence lawyers told the jury that O’Keefe’s real murderers had decided to “pin it on the girl” in order to protect the police officers guilty of the crime.

Indeed, law enforcement’s many mistakes during the trial definitely helped Read’s case. For example, Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, who was the lead investigator on the case, was accused of mishandling evidence, making derogatory comments about Read, and holding extreme bias throughout the case. These instances of “severe misconduct” ultimately led to Proctor’s dismissal from the force.

The police definitely did not make a good show of themselves during the trial and there were so many blunders that it’s understandable why people might begin to believe that this whole thing is indeed a coverup.

Witness intimidation also played a role in the recent trial, with a blogger named Aidan Kearney, also known as “Turtleboy,” facing separate charges for alleged conduct involving witnesses. Kearney had been covering the Read case closely and often filmed himself confronting witnesses out in public.

And Kearney wasn’t Read’s only online defender, the defendant’s fans are widespread these days. There’s even multiple Reddit threads dedicated to discussing and defending Read, insisting that she must be the victim in all this. One user in the subreddit r/karenread, which has 1,300 active members and includes the hashtag #justiceforkarenread in the bio, wrote: “Anything is possible. The investigation was terrible. People are lying in court,s o many suspicious things are going on. People are starting to believe something is up.”

Another apparent defender of Read noted “And you think KR [Karen Read] fabricated all the corruption and mishandling? All by herself? Isn’t it more plausible they covered it up and found it easier to blame one person rather than tell the truth?”

Of course, much of this defence didn’t explain why multiple first responders at the scene testified that Read was heard yelling “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him” when they arrived. See, this really is one of the most complicated cases I’ve ever heard.

There are also lots of people online who don’t believe Read or her defence team. On X, formerly Twitter, Read’s personality and demeanour both in-court and outside of court have been dissected and discussed at great length. The hashtag #JusticeForJohnOkeefe has also been trending online.

As previously mentioned, the Read murder case ended in a mistrial. However, according to The Guardian, the jurors did unanimously agree that Read was not guilty of murder or of leaving the scene of a deadly accident, and instead were deadlocked on the final charge of manslaughter. Therefore, the defendant’s team was hoping to avoid a retrial by arguing that for reasons of double jeopardy, the state cannot retry her for the specific charge of murder.

Double jeopardy refers to a scenario where a person who was found by the court to be not guilty of an offence cannot be prosecuted again.

This being said, Judge Cannone denied the request to dismiss the two charges that had been agreed upon, stating: “Where there was no verdict announced in open court here, retrial of the defendant does not violate the principle of double jeopardy.”

The case of Karen Read is not a simple one. And even after the trial in January 2025 concludes, it’s likely we’ll still have a number of questions about what really happened that snow night.