Lawyers for Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman charged with murder in the 2022 death of her police officer boyfriend, began calling witnesses to the stand in an effort to portray their client as the victim of an elaborate law enforcement conspiracy seeking to frame her for the killing.
The testimony began Friday as the trial closed out its eighth week in a courtroom in suburban Boston.
The judge has allowed the lawyers to raise a third-party culprit defense, a strategy that permits the team to present evidence and call witnesses while introducing a theory of John O’Keefe’s death on Jan. 29, 2022, that differs from the prosecution’s.
The assistant district attorney prosecuting the case in Norfolk County has accused Read, 44, of backing into Boston police officer O’Keefe, 46, with her Lexus SUV outside the home of another Boston police officer and leaving O'Keefe there to die.
Read was charged with second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter and other crimes.
The other officer, who has since retired, was having an afterparty at his home that O’Keefe was invited to. O’Keefe’s body was found in the home’s front yard around 6 a.m. Jan. 29.
O’Keefe was pronounced dead just before 8 a.m. A medical examiner later attributed his cause of death to blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia.
Prosecutors have said that O’Keefe never actually made it to the party — no one who was there has said they saw him — and they pointed to evidence found on Read’s SUV that they say shows the vehicle was used to run him down outside the home.
The Lexus’ tail light was broken, the prosecutor has said, and strands of O’Keefe’s hair were found on the vehicle’s bumper.
Voicemails and texts introduced by the prosecution earlier this week showed the couple had a tumultuous relationship, with Read leaving messages on O’Keefe’s phone on the morning of Jan. 29 saying she hated him and accusing him of cheating on her.
The defense has said that Read dropped O’Keefe off at the party. Once there, they’ve alleged, he was beaten — possibly by a federal law enforcement agent whom Read traded flirtatious texts with, then "ghosted" — and bitten by a German shepherd that belonged to the retired officer’s family.
Among the defense witnesses recently approved to testify are experts in dog bites and crash reconstruction.
The defense lawyers have also accused the state trooper who led the investigation into O’Keefe’s death of failing to properly examine the case and dehumanizing Read with slurs and vulgar texts that he sent to friends, family and supervising officers. In one instance, the investigator, Michael Proctor, told his sister that he hoped Read took her own life.
Proctor has said the comments were unprofessional but didn’t compromise the integrity of the investigation.
The judge in the case has said she expects the trial to continue until the end of the month.
