‘Karen Read Was Framed’: Murder Case That Divided a Town Kicks Off
Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman accused of fatally hitting her police officer boyfriend with an SUV after a night of drinking, is being “framed” for his 2022 death, defense attorneys argued at the start of her murder trial on Monday.
Read, 44, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, manslaughter while driving under the influence, and leaving the scene of a crime after her boyfriend, Boston Police Office John O’Keefe, was found dead in a snowbank on January 29, 2022. She faces a life sentence if convicted of the second-degree murder charge.
The case has garnered national media—and sharply divided the Boston suburb of Canton, where O’Keefe was raising his niece and nephew. Prosecutors allege that Read backed her SUV into O’Keefe, a 16-year police veteran, while dropping him off at a friend’s home for an after party in the midst of a blizzard and then cruelly left him to die in the cold. Defense lawyers insist that Read is actually the victim of an elaborate police cover-up.