As the Karen Read Trial Begins, Here's (Practically) Everything You Need to Know About the Homicide Case That's Tearing MA Apart

As I've mentioned before in the couple of times I've written about Karen Read, who's charged with killing her boyfriend Boston Police officer John O'Keefe, I spent 17 years working for the MA Trial Court. And while I'd love to have that experience give me 17 years of expertise to bring to bear on this matter, I spent as much of that time as possible working on Barstool blogs. So I didn't really learn much. I'm less a True Crime Guy than I am a product of television. So I always preferred my court proceedings to be filled with madcap hijinks. A wizened, wisecracking judge who's seen it all. A bailiff who doesn't put up with any guff. Whenever possible someone acting as their own lawyer who doesn't know when to yell "Objection, Your Honor!" At least one, "That's highly unusual, but I'll allow it." And surprise witness that turns the case on its head as hilarity ensues. That's the little fantasy bubble I've always tried to keep myself in to whatever extent possible.

The Karen Read case has none of that. It's real life. A law enforcement veteran of 16 years has lost his life. By most accounts, a good cop and an even better person, who had been raising his niece and nephew after their parents died, was found dead in a snowbank on a stormy night on a nice side street in the town of Canton. That's the gravity of the situation. And bringing the person(s) responsible to justice is the grim task at hand. 

In other words, this isn't that other trial that's beginning this week. Where a jury is being impaneled because a former President of the United States paid a D-list porn actress to keep their sexual shenanigans behind his wife's back to herself and charged the money to his campaign. That might be American history unfolding before our eyes. Something we can tell our grandchildren we witnessed. But solving the case of Officer O'Keefe's killing actually matters.

The shortest SparkNotes version of the prosecution and the defense is this. The Commonwealth is charging Read with backing her car into him with enough force to kill him after a night of drinking. The Read's attorneys are presenting the theory that she d him off at the home of a fellow BPD officer, Brian Albert and went home. And that O'Keefe was killed in a fight inside the home.  Here's a very good, concise rundown:

NY Post - [O'Keefe's] body was found lying in the snow outside a house in suburban Canton, 14 miles south of Boston, on January 29, 2022.

Prosecutors say Read and O’Keefe, 46, argued drunkenly in her car as she was dropping him off at a friend’s house party after a night of barhopping. 

They allege she intentionally backed her Lexus SUV into O’Keefe in a rage, leaving him to die in the snow. 

But Read — whose powerhouse legal team is led by attorney Alan Jackson ... claims she’s being framed by people in the suburban party house. ...

Most extraordinary is the ongoing federal probe of a possible police cover-up that has turned into a parallel investigation to the murder.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” a source close to the Read case told The Post about the feds’ shadow investigation. “It’s pretty crazy and yet the Norfolk DA is going ahead with the trial and no one’s stopping it. To me the [prosecutors] are on a suicide mission.”

According to Read, she then drove the three miles to his home in Canton [and] woke up around 4:30 a.m., panicked that her boyfriend of a couple of years had not come home. She tried calling him, then phoned McCabe — who claimed to have never seen O’Keefe arrive at the party. ...

When no one had answers, Read says, she went to Jennifer’s house in hysterics. ... When they finally got to the Albert home at 34 Fairview Road, it was still dark outside — but Karen saw O’Keefe’s body on the lawn and ran to give him CPR. ...

She was arrested on February 2, four days after O’Keefe was found, and charged with manslaughter. Four months later, the charges were elevated to murder.

Today is the start of jury selection. And thlat in and of itself is going to be a major undertaking because 98% of the population of jury age Massholes knows about the case, and 99% of them have made up their minds already. But by no means does that mean everyone agrees. The first time I wrote about this, I got a hundred messages each from two different attorneys. One who insists the defense hasn't made a single useful argument on Read's behalf. And the other who says not only is Read about to get very rich, police investigators are going to jail over this. So get comfortable; we're gonna be here a while.

One thing I did learn in between writing Barstool blogs on the taxpayers' dime was that once a jury is selected, the judge gives them carefully worded instructions. Which include the admonishion that the proscutors and defense will each make opening arguments to lay out their cases. But those arguments are not evidence. Neither are the questions they ask witnesses, "no matter how artfully phrased." The only evidence the jury can consider are what the witnessed testify to, and exhibits that are entered into the record. So with that in mind, here's my summary of what both sides' opening arguments will be:

The prosecution: O'Keefe and Read were out barhopping and ran into Brian Albert and Jennifer McCabe, who invited them back to their house at 34 Fairview Road. Read was drunk as he she drove there. She dropped O'Keefe off on the street outside Albert's house. And while turning around, backed into him and drove home, leaving him to die. The impact damaged the taillight on her SUV and gave him a head injury that left him unconcious in the snow, where he eventually died of hypothermia. O'Keefe never entered the house, no one in the house saw him or knew he lay dying outside. The next morning, Read was heard by first responders saying "I hit him!" over and over. And pieces of her broken tailight were eventually found at the scene. 

The defense:  Read dropped O'Keefe off and drove home to go to bed. He went in the house. A fight broke out between O'Keefe, Brian Albert, his 18 year old son Colin Albert, and friend of the family Brian Higgins, an ATF agent. O'Keefe suffered wounds on the back of his head that aren't consistent with getting hit by an SUV doing a 3-point turn on a side street. O'Keefe also had cuts on his knuckles consistent with being in a fight, and was mauled on the arm by the Alberts' dog, Chloe. In a panic, they dragged O'Keefe's body out to the street to stage the accident with Read's vehicle. At 2:22am, Albert and Higgins talked on the phone. Five minutes later at 2:27am, McCabe Googled “hos [sic] long to die in cold” on her phone. O'Keefe was found dead three hours later. Read's damning "I hit him!" were, in fact, her asking, "I hit him???" The State Police were brought in, and Trooper Michael Proctor became the lead investigator. Proctor never disclosed to anyone he had a long-standing friendship with the Alberts and McCabe until he was forced to admit it to a Grand Jury. A mutual friend reached out and said they want to buy him a gift for all he's done, and he replied they should instead give one to his wife. Due to this conflict of interest, Read is being framed and the crimes that took place inside 34 Fairview have been covered up. Among other things, Proctor had access to Read's car, broke the taillight and placed the pieces at the scene. This coverup is evidenced by the fact they've lied about the phone calls, destroyed their phones, dug up a section of the basement of the house, and sent the dog away to be "re-housed" after owning it for years. Because of this, the whole matter is being investigated by the FBI for widespread corruption. 

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Now even as I say this, I know it's barely scratching the surface of the surface. Some of my best friends have been following this since Day 1 and can site chapter and verse. Even bringing up the topic can be a very long thread to pull, one that will take all day to unravel. And the case has opened up a thousand social media rabbit holes. There are accounts that have turned the investigation into a lifestyle. Not the least of whom is Chloe the dog, who went hard in the paint the first time I wrote about this:

Also Turtleboy, who has been leading the protests on the courthouse steps and went to jail for a while on charges of witness intimidation. And he's repeatedly called bullshit on the prosecution for, among other things, misrepresenting Read's own words:

There's also been the seemingly preposterous claim that the early morning calls between Albert and Higgins were butt dials:

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Then there've been allegations from others that Higgins, a federal agent, went to a military base on Cape Cod, broke the SIM card and smashed the phone:

Despite an order from the District Attorney to preserve all phone records:

Others - some actual journos - are reporting that there's been an alarming pattern of security cameras going out at inopportune times. Such as two minutes missing from the footage outside the Canton Library that would've shown Read's taillight intact. And worse:

It's all been so contentious before prospective jurors even showed up for duty, that there are conflicting reports about whether or not John O'Keefe's father plans to sit with the people supporting the woman on trial for killing his son:

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Believe me, I could go on all day about this. But there are just too many layers of this onion to unpeel it any further. Virtually everything you read about it from the experts, the podcasters, the bloggers and the social media sleuths immediately gets shouted down by all the other experts, the podcasters, the bloggers and the social media sleuths. And the actual practicing trial attorneys I talk to on a regular basis. 

Which is actually the beautiful thing about our criminal justice system. It's why, for all its flaws, it is still the best one ever devised by humankind. Because ultimately it comes down to 12 persons, good and true, being presented with the facts and weighing in their own minds what was proven and what was not. People who don't have a (pardon the unfortunate phrase here, but there's no other way to say it) dog in the fight. Who are impartial. And unswayed by public opinion and anything the rest of us are screaming about on the internet all day. After dealing first hand with literally hundreds of juries, I can assure you they respect the process and do their best to reach a fair verdict in all cases. 

Regardless of what actually happened to Officer O'Keefe on 1/29/22, let justice be done though the heavens fall. Now let's get this thing started.