Killed by his girlfriend? Or by fellow Boston cops? After years of mass publicity and two trials, his death is still unsolved.
Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe’s body was found in the snow at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Mass., on January 29, 2022. So began a high-profile investigation into his death that revolved around two equally complicated theories.
O’Keefe and his girlfriend, Karen Read, were out drinking with friends on the night of January 28, 2022. A bit after midnight, Read drove the couple to Boston Police Officer Brian Albert’s home, where friends from the bar met back up. Around 1 a.m., Read left the house. She left O’Keefe a series of angry voicemails and texts telling him she was “going home.”
When O’Keefe never came home that night, Read frantically alerted O’Keefe’s family and friends, and went looking for him. Around 6 a.m., Read found O’Keefe in the snow outside Albert’s home, dead. O’Keefe’s cause of death was ruled as blunt force trauma and hypothermia. He had several abrasions on his body, two black eyes, small cuts on his face, a laceration on the back of his head, and skull fractures.
Weeks later Read was arrested; police ultimately charged her with second-degree murder. Read was found not guilty of murder this week after her first trial ended in a mistrial in 2024.
Read’s trials were like the O. J. Simpson trial for Gen Z. Even after years of mass publicity, though, O’Keefe’s death is still unsolved.
The prosecution accused Read of hitting O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die outside their friend’s home. Read’s defense argued in the first trial that she was framed by police, who they alleged fought with O’Keefe inside the house, maybe killing him. Both theories gained massive traction online in part thanks to the “Turtle Boy,” an independent blogger who latched onto the case.
Prosecutors at first seemed to have a solid case. During the search for her boyfriend, Read told friends how drunk she had been the night before and said that her SUV’s taillight was broken in the morning. Police found fragments of her taillight on the Alberts’ lawn. Everyone who was at the Alberts’ home said they never saw O’Keefe come inside. According to a paramedic, Read said three times, “I hit him” (the paramedic’s testimony, however, has changed over time; paramedics and law enforcement also never recorded Read’s purported confession in their reports of the day’s events). And, Read and O’Keefe’s relationship was on the rocks — Read exchanged “flirty texts” and a kiss days before the party with Brian Higgins, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent who was also at the Albert home on the night in question.
As the case garnered more attention, Read’s defense presented compelling circumstantial evidence to suggest that Read was framed by police for O’Keefe’s murder. Autopsy results don’t suggest that O’Keefe was hit by a car anywhere near hard enough to be killed on impact, if he was hit by a car at all. Although members of the party that night all said they were asleep after about 2 a.m., that wasn’t true.
In the early hours of January 29, Jen McCabe, a friend of O’Keefe’s who was also at the bar and party that night, searched on the internet, “hos long to die in cold.” Albert made a call to Higgins around 2:22 a.m. on January 29, which wasn’t answered. Seconds later Higgins called Albert back, and Albert answered the call. The men said the exchange was a mutual misdial. Defense attorneys argued that cellphone data points to a coordinated cover-up.
Police also sought footage that would have shown Read’s car after she left the Alberts’ home to see if her taillight was broken before or after O’Keefe’s suspected time of death. But all of the footage handed over to Read’s defense team had suspicious gaps — gaps in which Read’s car would have been visible.
Theories that police botched the investigation to protect their own also floated around. Police never searched the Alberts’ house. State Trooper Michael Proctor, who led the investigation, sent text messages to friends, saying that he hoped Read would kill herself, and implying that fellow officer Albert’s home would not receive attention from investigators: “Homeowner is a Boston cop, too,” he wrote in a text.
Read’s defense proved reasonable doubt. They had no responsibility to provide an alternate theory of death, of which there are a few. Read could have backed into O’Keefe, causing him to fall and hit his head. Someone in the house could have killed him accidentally or intentionally and taken the body outside. He could have gotten into a scuffle inside, then walked outside, where he drunkenly fell and died of hypothermia.
Regardless, investigators haven’t presented a plausible alternate theory. John O’Keefe’s death turned into Read’s spectacle; and the O’Keefe family still has no answers.