The twisting and complicated murder case against Karen Read took yet another unexpected turn when the defendant, her voice quivering and tears in her eyes, spoke directly for herself on the steps outside Norfolk Superior Court.
“It feels we’re the only ones fighting for the truth of what happened to John O’Keefe and me and my family, and my attorneys, and my team have marshaled every resource to get to the truth,” Read said, her attorneys David Yannetti and Alan Jackson at her side and her family behind her. “It just feels like no one else wants it.”
When asked by a reporter at the steps, “And Karen, just to be clear, you didn’t do it?”
“We know who did it,” she said. “We know. And we know who spearheaded this coverup. You all know.”
“I tried to save his life,” she said, as her supporters at the step clapped and exclaimed. “I tried to save his life at six in the morning. I was covered in his blood. I was the only one trying to save his life.”
At this point, a man on the street, who has sat on the prosecutor’s side of the aisle and on Wednesday sported a “Justice for JJ” pin, asked, “Why’d you admit to it?”
“She didn’t admit to it. She didn’t admit to anything close to that,” defense attorney Jackson shot back. “She asked a question, which is very different.”
The question that spurred the man to speak and that Jackson referred to is the one said by Assistant Defense Attorney Adam Lally, the prosecutor for the case, at Read’s initial appearance just days after her boyfriend of two years, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, was discovered dead on the front lawn of 34 Fairview St. in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022.
First responders found Read attempting to resuscitate O’Keefe and using her body to cover his in an attempt to provide warmth in the frigid winter air.
The question was, “Did I hit him?” The question, as Lally intoned at that initial appearance, went on a few more times, questioning if she had somehow hit him with her SUV, leaving him to die in the cold and snow.
That’s the Commonwealth’s theory of the case. Read is charged with second-degree murder.
The defense has a different theory, and Wednesday’s hearing was held for Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone to rule on whether there would be an evidentiary hearing compelling live testimony from two third-party witnesses, Boston Police Officer Brian Albert, who owned the home where O’Keefe died, and Jennfier McCabe, Albert’s sister-in-law and O’Keefe’s longtime friend who reportedly invited the couple there the evening before O’Keefe’s body was discovered.
“There’s nothing fanciful about any of the facts that we submitted and have supported with affidavits and evidence,” Jackson said during the hearing. “The Commonwealth’s theory, quite to the converse, is supported by nearly nothing, nothing.”
Following arguments by Yannetti, Lally, and defense attorneys for Albert and McCabe — respectively Gregory Henning and Kevin Reddington — Cannone ruled that “there will be no evidentiary hearing” and granted Henning and Reddington’s motions to quash testimony from their clients.
This is a developing story.