Karen Read — a Massachusetts woman accused and later acquitted of killing her police officer boyfriend with a car — has given her first in-depth interview since her trial, and revealed that she is working on a book about her experience.
Read appeared on the Rotten Mango podcast, which covers true crime stories, where she recalled the trial, her retrial, the verdict, and how her life has changed since being thrust into the public eye.
In January 2022, John O’Keefe — a Boston police officer who was dating Read — died while he was at a house party with colleagues and was found dead outside a Canton home on the night of a snowstorm.
Read was accused of hitting him with her SUV while drunk and leaving him to die outside, but she and her defense team argued that police framed her to protect another officer who was at the party.
“Based on his injuries, it looks to me like he got into a fight and fell backwards,” Read told the podcast. “Someone in that house killed John O’Keefe.”
Read revealed during the podcast that she was afraid that someone from the law enforcement community would try to kill her and frame her death to look like a suicide.
“I live alone; I’m like a sitting duck. Will I be hanging from a doorknob in my house?” she said. “And they could easily explain it as guilt, depression over what had happened, and, ‘She just gave up.’”
During her trial, critics of Read complained that she lacked empathy while discussing her boyfriend’s death. She said that the public had no idea what she was feeling, and noted that she had grieved in the months and years before she became publicly known.
“I am out of tears about the tragedy of January 29th,” she said. “I have mourned for months and years before the public ever knew me… I would not cry in front of the O’Keefes. I would not cry in front of the prosecution.”
She said that since the trial, she has faced financial difficulties and is living at home with her parents. Despite her struggles, she said that she and her team are working on a book that she hopes will hit shelves sometime in the next five years.
While Read was ultimately acquitted, she said memories of the trial and fears over what might have happened to her if she’d been found guilty still weigh heavily.
“I’m trying to understand why I haven’t felt more celebratory, and what I think is that I lived with some very singular emotions — fright, anger, and anxiety,” Read said. “It was very intense every waking hour. Every hour, I thought about my freedom and if I could lose it. And those feelings just don’t disappear when a jury foreman says, ‘Not guilty.’”
Read’s first trial ended in a mistrial, and her retrial ended when she was found not guilty of all charges save for a misdemeanor drunk driving charge.
Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey, whose office spearheaded Read’s prosecution, said he would not run for re-election this year, according to Boston 25 News.
