The latest on the Karen Read murder case
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Karen Read case: These are the key players to know
Karen Read’s high-profile murder case heads to trial for a second time this month. Here’s a guide to who’s who.
Less than a year after a deadlocked jury left her murder case unresolved, Karen Read is heading back to court for a highly anticipated retrial.
And in a case rife with conspiracy theories, coverup claims, and small-town connections, keeping track of who’s who in this sprawling legal saga is easier said than done. Here’s a guide to the key players.
Karen Read
Read, 45, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. She has pleaded not guilty.
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Read previously worked as an equity analyst at Fidelity Investments and as an adjunct finance professor at Waltham’s Bentley University. She had been dating O’Keefe for about two years when he died, though testimony from her first trial revealed fault lines in the relationship. Read and O’Keefe exchanged heated messages the day before he died, and jurors also heard testimony about Read’s passing flirtation with another man.
Prosecutors allege Read backed her SUV into O’Keefe in a drunken rage as she dropped him off outside a home in Canton early on Jan. 29, 2022. However, Read’s lawyers maintain she was a “convenient outsider” framed in a vast coverup among law enforcement and witnesses. They allege O’Keefe was beaten and possibly attacked by a pet dog inside 34 Fairview Road, owned at the time by fellow Boston officer Brian Albert.
John O’Keefe
A 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department, O’Keefe, 46, was assigned to the Sex Offender Registry Unit when he died, according to The Boston Globe. He was off-duty when Read and two other women found him unresponsive in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road.
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The Braintree native was raising his young niece and nephew in Canton after his sister and brother-in-law died months apart.
The witnesses
Brian Albert
Albert is a former Boston police sergeant detective who previously owned the home in Canton where O’Keefe’s body was found. He and his wife, Nicole Albert, were with friends and family at the Waterfall Bar & Grille in Canton on Jan. 28 when Read and O’Keefe arrived and joined them. As their time at the bar wound down, the Alberts invited the group back to their home for an afterparty.
The couple’s daughter, Caitlin Albert, was among the group at the Waterfall that night and accompanied her parents back to 34 Fairview Road. Her brother, Brian Albert Jr., was celebrating his birthday at home with some friends at the time. Several of the Alberts testified during Read’s first trial that neither she nor O’Keefe entered 34 Fairview Road on Jan. 29. However, one of Brian Albert Jr.’s friends said she saw a “black blob” on the front lawn as she was driven past the home early that morning.
Read’s lawyers have sought to implicate the Alberts in their coverup theory, pointing to the family’s decision to sell their house and rehome their dog less than a year after O’Keefe died. However, Brian Albert said the decision to sell was a long time coming.
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While the defense has suggested the Alberts’ former pet, a German shepherd named Chloe, could be to blame for the wounds on O’Keefe’s arm, a forensic scientist with the University of California, Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory Forensic Unit testified that swabs from O’Keefe’s shirt showed no signs of canine DNA. Nicole Albert explained that the family opted to rehome Chloe after she attacked another dog in May 2022.
Colin Albert
Brian Albert’s nephew, Colin, stopped by 34 Fairview Road on Jan. 28 to wish his cousin Brian Albert Jr. a happy birthday. Taking the stand last summer, he estimated he arrived home around 12:20 a.m. on the 29th.
Colin Albert’s family once lived on the same street as O’Keefe, and he told jurors his parents, Chris and Julie Albert, were friendly with the victim. The elder Alberts also drank with O’Keefe at the Waterfall on the 28th, though they did not return to 34 Fairview Road afterward.
Read’s lawyers had attempted to tie Colin Albert to their third-party culprit defense, suggesting he and O’Keefe held some animosity. During Read’s first trial, the defense played clips of a high school-aged Albert threatening to “f*** up” other teens and scrutinized his timeline from the night O’Keefe died. However, on the eve of jury selection for Read’s retrial, Judge Beverly Cannone ruled Read’s defense team hasn’t presented enough evidence to attempt to implicate him this time around.
Jennifer McCabe
McCabe, Nicole Albert’s sister, was also present at the Waterfall on Jan. 28 and stopped by 34 Fairview Road with her husband, Matthew McCabe, after the bar closed. Separately, the couple’s daughter, Allison McCabe, gave Colin Albert a ride home from 34 Fairview Road shortly after midnight on the 29th.
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Jen McCabe, who was friends with O’Keefe, told jurors she encouraged him and Read to join the afterparty and provided them directions over the phone. McCabe maintained she never saw O’Keefe enter the home and awoke later that morning to a call from O’Keefe’s 14-year-old niece, who informed her O’Keefe hadn’t come home.
McCabe testified that she spoke with Read, who allegedly mentioned a cracked taillight on her SUV and asked, “Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?” She and another woman joined Read in searching for O’Keefe and ultimately found him in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road.
Key to the defense team’s coverup theory is McCabe’s Google search for “hos long to die in cold.” Read’s lawyers contend McCabe made the search at 2:27 a.m., hours before finding O’Keefe in the snow. However, McCabe maintains she made the search after they discovered O’Keefe’s body, and at Read’s insistence.
Brian Higgins
Higgins, a federal agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, was friendly with O’Keefe and Brian Albert and was present at both the Waterfall and 34 Fairview Road. Higgins testified that Read “planted a kiss” on him weeks before O’Keefe died and that he and Read had exchanged flirty texts in January 2022.
Read’s lawyers have attempted to link Higgins to their allegations of a coverup, questioning his early morning calls with Brian Albert and his decision to throw his cellphone away on a military base. Higgins, for his part, testified that he didn’t remember any calls with Albert in the early hours of the 29th and that he’d thrown his phone away after receiving a call from the target of one of his investigations.
Michael Proctor
Proctor is a former Massachusetts State Police trooper who led the investigation into O’Keefe’s death, working alongside State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik.
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During Read’s first trial, Proctor admitted he “dehumanized” Read in private text messages with family, friends, and coworkers. He read those messages aloud on the stand, revisiting texts in which he called Read a “wack job c**t” and “retarded,” made crass remarks about her Crohn’s disease and her appearance, joked about looking for nude photos on her phone, and expressed hope she would kill herself.
Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey previously stated Proctor “had no close personal relationship with any of the parties involved in the investigation, had no conflict, and had no reason to step out of the investigation.” However, Julie Albert later acknowledged she’s close friends with Proctor’s sister, Courtney, and Colin Albert testified about serving as the ring bearer at Courtney Proctor’s wedding.
State Police suspended Proctor without pay soon after Read’s mistrial. He was fired last month.
The families
The O’Keefes
O’Keefe’s mother, Peg, and brother, Paul, sat through weeks of testimony during Read’s first trial, sometimes joined by O’Keefe’s father, John Sr., and Paul’s wife, Erin. O’Keefe’s family also has a pending wrongful death lawsuit against Read and the two bars where she and O’Keefe drank in the hours before he died.
The Reads
Read’s team of supporters includes her parents, William and Janet, and her brother, Nathan.
The lawyers
Prosecutors
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan is leading the state’s case against Read this time around. A veteran criminal defense attorney, Brennan was once a prosecutor in Essex and Suffolk counties and previously represented the late gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.
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He’s joined by Assistant District Attorneys Adam Lally and Laura McLaughlin, who led the prosecution during Read’s first trial.
Defense attorneys
Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, both former prosecutors turned high-profile defense attorneys, are returning to represent Read during her retrial. Jackson notably secured a murder conviction against music producer Phil Spector in 2009 and went on to represent disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and actor Kevin Spacey. Yannetti rose to prominence after securing convictions for the two men who killed Jeffrey Curley, the 10-year-old Cambridge boy abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered in 1997.
Werksman Jackson & Quinn partner Elizabeth Little is also back for Round 2. New to the defense team is New York-based attorney Robert Alessi and Victoria Brophey George, a lawyer who was an alternate juror during Read’s first trial.
Judge Beverly Cannone
Cannone is a former public defender who became a district court judge in 2009 and joined the superior court five years later. She has presided over other notable cases, including that of Emanuel Lopes, who was convicted last year for killing Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna and bystander Vera Adams.
Michael Morrissey
As the district attorney for Norfolk County, Morrissey is overseeing Read’s prosecution. He was elected DA in 2010 and has repeatedly voiced confidence in the state’s investigation into O’Keefe’s death, even amid mounting protest.
The media
Aidan Kearney
Kearney, a blogger known as “Turtleboy,” has become the de facto face of the “Free Karen Read” movement through his prolific chronicling of the case and zealous defense of Read’s innocence. He’s also been charged several times with intimidating witnesses in Read’s case and even spent time in jail last year.
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Kearney and his lawyers maintain his conduct is protected under the First Amendment.
The defense experts
Read’s lawyers have offered up several experts to establish their third-party culprit defense. Below are some of the highlights.
Dr. Marie Russell
Russell is a retired emergency room physician and forensic pathologist from California who believes O’Keefe’s arm wounds were from a dog attack and not a collision with Read’s SUV. She testified for the defense during Read’s first trial, and Cannone has given her the green light to testify again this year.
Richard Green
Green is a digital expert who maintains Jen McCabe’s “hos long” Google search happened at 2:27 a.m. on Jan. 29. While two prosecution experts testified they found evidence to back up McCabe’s explanation that she made the search hours later, Green stands by his earlier timestamp.
Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler
Wolfe and Rentschler are crash reconstructionists from the firm ARCCA Inc., which was initially hired by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as part of a federal probe into the state’s handling of the investigation into O’Keefe’s death. They testified for the defense last summer, opining that O’Keefe’s fatal head injuries weren’t consistent with getting hit by a car and that damage to Read’s SUV was inconsistent with striking O’Keefe.
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