Prosecutors in the case of Karen Read, accused of running over her boyfriend with her SUV in Canton last year, call recently filed defense documents implicating others a “fanciful” “conspiracy” ahead of the next hearing.
Read, 43, of Mansfield, is charged in Norfolk Superior Court with second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a collision causing death in the Jan. 29, 2022, killing of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, 46, of Canton.
Her defense attorneys filed motions they say “must reverse the trajectory of this case.” They requested cell phone data from the host of the party and a smaller motion last week seeking more physical evidence.
The filings contained bombshell allegations that two others at the party in Canton where O’Keefe’s body was found the next morning conspired in the O’Keefe’s death: homeowner Brian Albert, a fellow member of the Boston Police; and Albert’s sister-in-law, and O’Keefe’s longtime friend, Jennifer McCabe.
In the filings, defense attorneys David Yannetti and Alan Jackson wrote that they had uncovered a compromising Google search on McCabe’s phone hours before O’Keefe’s body would be found in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton that asks “ho(w) to die in cold” that they said was not present in the police’s own forensic report on the cell phone.
This discovery, they argued, “uncovered significant steps to delete and tamper with evidence.” Because of that, they argued, they also wanted homeowner Brian Albert’s cell phone turned over for their own forensic examination.
Prosecutors were “ethically constrained” from responding to the filings outside of the courtroom, Norfolk DA spokesman David Traub said that day. He added that “it has not yet been determined that defense has interpreted the raw data correctly,” and that prosecutors would submit a “formal and detailed response” ahead of or on the next scheduled hearing date, which is tomorrow afternoon.
On Monday, that response came — though it was not publicly available again Tuesday until just before the Norfolk Superior Court’s clerk’s office closed at 4:30 p.m.
“The defendant here submits a supporting affidavit by one of her counsels that is simply a reiteration of an argument bereft of any evidentiary support,” Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally wrote in the filing, adding that he found the whole request to be a “fishing expedition.” “The defendant posits a fanciful ‘facts’ section to support the conspiracy that purportedly exists … ”
The defense “offers only speculative grounds” for the request to turn over Albert’s phone, Lally wrote, “nor offers any relevant statements or new factual support. This motion should be similarly denied.”
Further, he counter’s the defense’s theory that O’Keefe’s injuries were suggestive of being beaten to death and not of being hit by a car with Grand Jury testimony by the doctor who examined O’Keefe who said that “she observed no signs of an altercation or fight.”
The prosecutor’s filing saying the defense motion to be tossed also includes some additional details that are either new or rarely told in retellings of the night O’Keefe died.
One is that O’Keefe’s nephew and niece told forensic interviewers that Read and O’Keefe were arguing a lot in the weeks leading up to the night of Jan. 28.
The niece said that they were arguing about two to three times a week and that O’Keefe had told Read a week before that fateful night that “their relationship had run its course and that it isn’t healthy.”
Lally writes that a forensic examination of O’Keefe’s phone shows voicemails and text messages between the pair that “detailed strains in their relationship.”
Further, while it’s been widely reported that Read brought over a glass of a mixed vodka drink from C.F. McCarthy’s to Waterfalls Bar and Grille in Canton when she and O’Keefe joined others there, nobody had yet said she appeared drunk.
Lally writes in this filing that the State Police Crime Laboratory estimated that her blood alcohol content around the time of O’Keefe’s likely time of death at between 0.13% and 0.29%, or well above the legal limit of 0.08%.
On Tuesday, defense attorney Yannetti said that his team would respond to the filings in court.