Karen Read was acquitted of the most serious charges in her highly publicized Massachusetts murder retrial on June 18, 2025, after four days of jury deliberations. The jury found her not guilty of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of an accident causing death, in connection with the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe. However, Read was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol and received a sentence of one year probation.
The case, which has captivated Massachusetts for years, revolves around the mysterious death of John O’Keefe in early 2022 and the allegations that Karen Read struck him with her SUV and left him to die. Read’s first trial, which began in April 2024 at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, ended in a mistrial after the jury was starkly divided. Following months of pretrial hearings and legal battles, her second trial commenced in April 2025, with jury deliberations starting in mid-June.
### Timeline of Events Leading to the Death of John O’Keefe
On the night of January 28, 2022, Karen Read, John O’Keefe, and a group of friends went to the Waterfall Bar and Grill in Canton, Massachusetts. According to prosecution, Read consumed several alcoholic drinks during the evening. Later, she drove O’Keefe to the home of Brian Albert, a Boston police officer, where others from the bar were gathering. Court documents and phone records revealed a strained relationship between Read and O’Keefe in the days and hours leading up to that night, including hostile voicemails from Read to O’Keefe expressing anger and hatred.
In the early hours of January 29, around 4:23 a.m., amid heavy snowfall, O’Keefe’s niece contacted Jennifer McCabe, a friend of O’Keefe’s and sister-in-law to Brian Albert, saying that Read was distraught because O’Keefe had not returned home and was not answering his phone. McCabe later recounted hearing Read screaming, “John didn’t come home. We had a fight.” Around 5 a.m., Read called another woman and allegedly said, “What if he’s dead? What if a plow hit him? … I don’t remember anything from last night, we drank so much I don’t remember anything.”
At 5:07 a.m., Read, McCabe, and the third woman began searching for O’Keefe. Surveillance footage later showed Read’s SUV coming extremely close to O’Keefe’s vehicle in the driveway of Brian Albert’s home. While prosecutors argued that no tail light debris was found in the driveway, Read’s defense claimed that damage to Read’s SUV tail light was consistent with having struck O’Keefe’s vehicle.
Around 6 a.m., Read reportedly found O’Keefe lying in the snow outside the home. Emergency responders testified that Read was hysterical and repeatedly said, “I hit him. I hit him.” The defense contended that one of the first responding officers gave false testimony to the grand jury that led to Read’s indictment.
Both sides agreed that a Google search about “how long to die in cold” was made on the morning of O’Keefe’s death, though they disputed its timing. Prosecutors said the search occurred after O’Keefe was found, while the defense presented expert testimony that it happened earlier, before police were alerted.
A toxicologist estimated Read’s blood alcohol content (BAC) to be between 0.13 and 0.29 around 12:45 a.m. on January 29 — well above the legal limit. The autopsy ruled O’Keefe’s cause of death to be blunt impact injuries to the head and hypothermia, with no obvious signs of a fight or altercation.
### The Legal Battle and First Trial
Karen Read was first charged in early 2022 with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide, and leaving the scene of a collision causing death. On June 10, 2022, a Norfolk County grand jury indicted her on more serious charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene causing death. Read pleaded not guilty and was released on bail.
Throughout 2023, Read’s defense lawyers, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, advanced an alternative theory suggesting