On January 29, 2022, at 6:03 am, John O'Keefe, an officer of the Boston Police Department, was found unconscious on the front lawn of fellow Boston police officer Brian Albert’s house in Canton, Massachusetts, United States. O'Keefe's girlfriend, financial analyst Karen Read, had dropped him off at a party at the Albert household shortly after midnight and returned early that morning to find his body after he failed to return home. O'Keefe was declared dead at 7:59 am at a local hospital. An autopsy performed two days later found that he had died of impact injuries to the head, although his manner of death was undetermined.

Read was subsequently arrested and charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide, and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death. Prosecutors alleged that she had killed O'Keefe by backing into him with her car after dropping him off. Read's defense team alleged that O'Keefe was murdered inside the Albert household, and that police officers involved in the case used their resources to taint the investigation and frame Read. Following a grand jury indictment, Read's charges were upgraded to second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of personal injury and death.

Read's first criminal trial resulted in a mistrial on July 1, 2024, due to a hung jury. She was tried a second time beginning on April 1, 2025, and found not guilty on all three major charges. She was found guilty of operating a vehicle under the influence, receiving the standard sentence of one year of probation.

The case received widespread media attention due in large part to a series of investigative articles published by local journalist Aidan Kearney (under the alias "Turtleboy"), who alleged a substantial police cover-up and maintained that Read was innocent. Kearney was arrested multiple times for witness intimidation related to his involvement in the Read case.

Background John J. O'Keefe III, nicknamed "J.J." or "Johnny" (born December 8, 1975), was raised in Braintree, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He graduated from Braintree High School and later Northeastern University, going on to earn a master's degree in criminal justice from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Following the deaths of his sister and brother-in-law in 2013 and 2014 respectively, O'Keefe took guardianship of his niece and nephew, with whom he resided in Canton, Massachusetts. O'Keefe was a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department (BPD).

Karen A. Read (born February 26, 1980) grew up in Taunton, Massachusetts, and Blacksburg, Virginia. She graduated from Coyle & Cassidy, a private Catholic school in Taunton, and attended Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she obtained both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in finance. Until her arrest in February 2022, Read had been a financial analyst at Fidelity Investments since 2007 and was an adjunct professor at Bentley University. Read was living in Mansfield, Massachusetts, at the time of O'Keefe's death.

O'Keefe and Read met in 2004 and dated briefly. They rekindled their relationship in 2020 after connecting over Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Incident

On the evening of January 28, 2022, Read met O'Keefe for drinks at C.F. McCarthy's, a bar in Canton, around 9 pm. They moved to an establishment across the street, the Waterfall Bar & Grille, shortly before 11 pm. There, the couple met up with a group of acquaintances, including fellow BPD officer Brian Albert and his wife Nicole. As the bar was closing, the group was invited to the Albert household at 34 Fairview Road, where their son was celebrating his 23rd birthday with friends and family. Security footage shows Read and O'Keefe leaving the establishment together at 12:11 am. Others invited to the Albert household from the Waterfall that night include Nicole Albert's sister, Jennifer McCabe; her husband, Matthew McCabe; and Brian Higgins, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Read drove O'Keefe in her Lexus LX 570 to the Albert household, although she was unfamiliar with the neighborhood. Jennifer McCabe called O'Keefe at 12:14 am to give them directions; she and her husband arrived at the house at 12:18 am. Read and O'Keefe pulled up in front of the house about six minutes later, with O'Keefe's cellphone activity data showing the closure of a navigation app at 12:24:26 am and his location data showing the phone stopping in front of 34 Fairview Road at 12:24:38 am.

Between 12:24:59 am and 12:31:56 am, O'Keefe's cellphone activity data recorded no movement. Between 12:24:59 am and 12:25:09 am, O'Keefe's phone was unlocked with Face ID, a message from Jennifer McCabe was marked as read, and the phone was locked via the lock button. At 12:27:33 am, O'Keefe's cellphone received an iMessage from Jennifer reading, "Here!?", which the phone recorded as read at 12:27:48 am after being unlocked with Face ID. At 12:29:44 am, the phone logged a seven-second answered phone call from Jennifer; one second after hanging up the call, the phone was unlocked with Face ID, and one second after that, the phone was locked via the lock button at 12:29:53 am. At 12:31:47 am, the phone received an iMessage from Jennifer reading, "Pull behind me." According to Read, O'Keefe told her he would quickly check inside the house to ensure the couple were welcome. His cellphone data recorded movement activity it interpreted as 36 steps beginning at 12:31:56 am. During this activity, the phone was unlocked with Face ID at 12:32:04 am, recorded that Jennifer's "Pull behind me" text was read at 12:32:06 am, and recorded its final lock at 12:32:09 am. The movement activity the phone interpreted as 36 steps concluded at 12:32:16 am. No further movement from O'Keefe's phone was recorded until after 6 am.

Read said she watched O'Keefe enter the house. Richard D’Antuono, Ryan Nagel, and Heather Maxon, who arrived at 34 Fairview in D’Antuono's Ford F-150 shortly after Read to pick up Ryan Nagel's sister and partygoer Julie Nagel all testified that they saw Read sitting in her vehicle alone. Ryan Nagel also testified that he witnessed Read driving safely in the neighborhood. Brian Albert Sr., Nicole Albert, Brian Albert Jr., Caitlin Albert, Jennifer McCabe, Matthew McCabe, Sarah Levinson and Julie Nagel have testified that they were in the house during that time and did not see O'Keefe. Read said she grew impatient when O'Keefe did not come back out of the Albert household and started driving toward O'Keefe's house at 1 Meadows Avenue. Around the time she departed 34 Fairview Road, the prosecution argues her Lexus recorded a "Techstream" "trigger" event, the exact cause and timing of which were disputed at her criminal trials. Such trigger events can have several causes—including excessive acceleration (possibly over snow or ice), steering or braking—but not collisions per se. It is unclear whether this trigger event occurred during the key cycle in question or while the vehicle was in police custody.

Between 12:33:35 am and 12:36:40 am, O'Keefe's cellphone recorded seven unanswered calls from Read. Read connected to the Wi-Fi at O'Keefe's house at 12:36 am. After arriving there, she left him a succession of voicemails and iMessages. At 12:37, Read said in a voicemail, "John, I fucking hate you!" At 12:59 am, she said, "John, I'm here with the fucking kids. Nobody knows where the fuck you are. You fucking pervert." At 1:10 am, she said, "It's 1 in the morning. I'm with your fucking niece and your nephew. You fucking pervert. You're a fucking pervert!" At 1:17 am, she said, "John, I'm going home. I cannot believe [inaudible]. I need to go home. You are fucking using me right now. You're fucking another girl. [O'Keefe's niece] is sleeping next to me. You're a fucking loser. Fuck yourself!" Read's last call attempt for several hours was at 1:18 am, before she fell asleep next to O'Keefe's niece.

At 12:40 am, O'Keefe's cellphone received an unread iMessage from Jennifer McCabe—the first iMessage from her since 12:31 am—saying, "Hello." At 12:42 am, it received an unread iMessage from McCabe saying, "Where are u." At 12:45 am, it received another unread iMessage from McCabe saying, "Hello."

Over the course of the night, O'Keefe's cellphone recorded the following drop in battery temperature: 12:37 am: 72 °F 12:45 am: 66 °F 12:53 am: 61 °F 1:07 am: 55 °F 1:36 am: 50 °F 6:06 am: 43 °F 6:35 am: 37 °F

Between 12:33:14 am and 5:52:26 am, the phone's pocket state detection system automatically used its front camera 26,532 times to determine whether the view from the front camera (i.e., obstructed or unobstructed) was consistent with the phone being inside or outside of a pocket. At all times during that interval, the phone registered itself as in a pocket state. The phone had last recorded itself in a non-pocket state at 12:32:03 am, and it did not record itself in a non-pocket state again until 6:02:41 am.

At 4:38 am, Read woke and resumed trying to call O'Keefe after realizing he had not come home. At 4:53 am she called Jennifer McCabe from the niece's phone, asking her to help look for O'Keefe. At 5:00 am, Read called Kerry Roberts, a friend of O'Keefe's, to ask her to join them. Roberts later testified that Read initially yelled over the phone, "John is dead! Kerry! Kerry!" and hung up and, in a subsequent call, explained to Roberts that she feared John was dead and might have been hit by a snowplow. O'Keefe's niece later testified that she heard Read say on the phone statements to the effect of "Could I have done something?", "Could he have been hit by a plow?", and "Maybe I like...hit him."

At 5:07 am, Read was seen on O'Keefe's home's Ring security camera backing out of his garage in her Lexus. She visibly bumped O'Keefe's parked Chevrolet Traverse; the footage shows O'Keefe's car move slightly as the cars made contact. At precisely the same time, Jennifer McCabe called her sister Nicole Albert—the owner of 34 Fairview, where O'Keefe's body was found—that lasted 38 seconds. McCabe did not deny making the call, but denied speaking to Nicole that morning. After failing to find O'Keefe, Read drove to McCabe's home, where Roberts picked them up. The three women traveled back to O'Keefe's house to check if he had returned while Read was outside searching.

At around 6 am, Read, McCabe and Roberts arrived at 34 Fairview Road, where Read saw O'Keefe's body near a flagpole in the front yard. At 6:03 am, McCabe called 911 and reported "a man passed out in the snow", saying, "I think he's dead." Amid this discovery and subsequent emergency response, at 6:04:01 am, O'Keefe's cellphone health data registered the phone's first movement since 12:32:16 am. Jennifer and two paramedics later testified that, at the scene of the response, Read repeatedly said, "I hit him", although this was never recorded in any report. Read later said in interviews she only asked something to the effect of "Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?"

Investigation