‘A Calculating Killer or a Damsel in Distress?’: The Trial Transfixing Boston

Karen Read has been accused of murdering her boyfriend, Officer John O’Keefe. But her lawyers say she’s innocent, alleging a cover-up to hide the truth about his death.

In the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022, as a snowstorm raged, a 46-year-old Boston police officer, John O’Keefe, was discovered unresponsive outside the home of a fellow officer in Canton, Mass.

He was found by his girlfriend, Karen Read, who said she had frantically searched for him after waking up on his couch around 4 a.m. and realizing he had not come home from a night out. Officer O’Keefe had severe head injuries and hypothermia and was pronounced dead that morning. Ms. Read was arrested three days later, and the case has transfixed Boston ever since.

Ms. Read, 44, is now on trial in a Massachusetts courtroom, accused of killing Officer O’Keefe by backing into him with her sport utility vehicle after an argument and then leaving the scene. Her lawyers, along with a vocal and devoted squad of defenders, say she is innocent, alleging a sweeping conspiracy and cover-up by law enforcement officials to hide the truth about the murder.

Public fascination with the case has been fueled by an unusual confluence of factors: the relative rarity of a woman accused of murder; the mysterious circumstances of the death; the small-town setting and the web of relationships connecting the key players; and the magnetic appeal of conspiracy theories to those inclined to mistrust the police and the government.

“Any one of those things would get attention, but when you add them all up, there is a fascination,” said Daniel Medwed, a professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University. “We’re all like rubberneckers, watching for the next bombshell.”