The latest on the Karen Read murder case
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Here’s what happened on the first day of Karen Read’s murder retrial
Jurors got a glimpse into the arguments for Read's guilt or innocence when both sides made their opening statements Tuesday.
On the stand Tuesday:
Judge Beverly Cannone concluded Tuesday’s court proceedings with Roberts on the stand. She is set to resume her testimony Wednesday.
Previously:
‘You’re going to get a DUI,’ Kerry Roberts says she told Karen Read before frantic search
Kerry Roberts testified she awoke at 5 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, to a brief but frenzied phone call from Karen Read.
“The first thing she said was, ‘Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, John’s dead.’ And then she hung up,” Roberts recalled. “She was yelling loud enough that she woke my husband.”
Roberts had been friends with Read’s boyfriend, John O’Keefe, since high school and even listed him as an emergency contact at her children’s schools. When she got Read on the phone again, Roberts learned her longtime friend hadn’t returned home after going out drinking the night before.
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“I think something happened to John,” Read allegedly told her. “I think he got hit by a plow. He didn’t come home last night. … We drank so much, I don’t remember anything from last night.”
Roberts said she directed Read, who was driving around at the time, to return to O’Keefe’s house and wait with his niece, who was home alone.
“I said, ‘You’re going to get a DUI. You need to go home,’” she recalled.
Roberts testified that both she and her husband tried to call O’Keefe, though he didn’t answer. She said she also called around to the police and local hospitals to see if O’Keefe had been involved in any accidents.
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Roberts eventually met up with Read and another woman, Jennifer McCabe, who had been drinking with Read and O’Keefe in Canton the night before and had invited the couple to an afterparty at her sister and brother-in-law’s home on Fairview Road.
According to Roberts, Read told the women at one point that she left O’Keefe at a local bar the night before.
“And I heard Jen say, ‘No, I saw you pull up in front of my sister’s,’” she testified.
The three women searched O’Keefe’s house but didn’t find him there, so they set off for Fairview Road. As they approached, Roberts said Read began kicking the car door to get out, screaming, “There he is! There he is! Let me the F out of this car.”
Roberts testified she looked around but didn’t see anything. Read, however, “ran right over” to a “mound” of snow Roberts said she later realized was covering a body.
Roberts will return to the stand for additional testimony Wednesday.
Canton firefighter says he heard Karen Read say, ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him’
Canton firefighter and paramedic Timothy Nuttall testified he found no signs of life when he checked John O’Keefe at the scene outside 34 Fairview Road on Jan. 29, 2022.
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O’Keefe had “a pretty good bump” over his right eye, several scratches along his right arm, matted blood in the hair on the back of his head, and chilly extremities, Nuttall recalled.
“His fingers were very, very white,” Nuttall testified. “They were very stiff, which can be signs of hypothermia and frostbite.”
He said as he knelt down to tend to O’Keefe, he looked up and saw Read standing over him with blood on her face. Nuttall testified that he asked Read for any relevant background information and she replied, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”
“How clearly do you remember her words, saying to you ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him’?” special prosecutor Hank Brennan asked.
“I remember it very distinctly,” Nuttall answered. He testified he wasn’t able to ask Read any follow-up questions, as she’d already walked away.
Brennan played footage captured by a police cruiser parked at the scene and Nuttall identified himself later approaching a frantic Read. However, the video had no audible sound around the moment when Nuttall said he heard Read say she hit O’Keefe.
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On cross-examination, Nuttall told defense attorney Alan Jackson he had spoken with prosecutors three times ahead of his testimony, including a meeting Monday night. Jackson pressed Nuttall on his memory, hammering at inconsistencies between his testimony Tuesday and the comments he made during Read’s first trial in 2024. He noted Nuttall previously testified that Read said “I hit him” twice, but Nuttall was adamant he’d heard Read repeat the phrase three times.
Turning his attention to the wounds over O’Keefe’s right eye, Jackson asked Nuttall whether being punched in the face could lead to the injuries he observed.
“I couldn’t speak to how that injury occurred,” Nuttall replied.
“Are those injuries … consistent with being punched in the face?” Jackson pressed.
“Those injuries could be sustained … numerous ways,” Nuttall testified. “Yes, it could be from that. But it could be from others as well.”
On redirect, Brennan continued to pepper Nuttall with questions about O’Keefe’s injuries.
“Did it stand out to you that all of his injuries, … other than the cut on the back of the head, that they were all on his right side?” Brennan asked.
“Yes, sir,” Nuttall replied. He denied seeing any hematomas, scratches or abrasions on O’Keefe’s left side.
“Did you notice any marks that would be consistent with an altercation on the left side of his body?” Brennan asked.
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“I did not,” Nuttall testified.
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
Opening statements begin Tuesday in Karen Read’s second murder trial, laying bare the arguments for Read’s guilt or innocence in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend.
Prosecutors allege Read, 45, drunkenly and deliberately backed her SUV into John O’Keefe while dropping him off at a home in Canton following a night of bar-hopping in January 2022. They’ve pointed to angry texts and voicemails suggesting the couple’s relationship was on the rocks, arguing Read left her boyfriend of two years to die alone in the snow.
More on Karen Read:
Yet Read’s lawyers say she was a “convenient outsider” framed in a vast law enforcement conspiracy to protect the family of homeowner Brian Albert, a fellow Boston police officer with strong local ties. The defense suggests O’Keefe entered Albert’s home for an afterparty early on Jan. 29, 2022, and was beaten, attacked by the family’s pet dog, and ultimately dumped on the front lawn.
Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal collision. Her first trial ended in a mistrial last July after jurors returned deadlocked.
Tuesday’s opening statements will feature a change in lineup; where Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally and defense attorney David Yannetti delivered opening statements the first time around, special prosecutor Hank Brennan is now making the state’s case, and defense attorney Alan Jackson is up at bat for Read’s team.
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Both sides have offered clues about what their opening statements might entail. Brennan has indicated he plans to use Read’s own words against her by introducing out-of-court statements she’s made about the case, including her comments to the media. Judge Beverly Cannone last week gave prosecutors the green light to play a short clip from one of Read’s interviews during opening statements.
Meanwhile, defense attorneys said they only plan to display a single photograph during their opening. In a court filing last week, Brennan alleged the photograph in question shows O’Keefe’s arm wounds, a hotly contested piece of evidence in the case.
He asked Cannone to bar Read’s lawyers from claiming in their opening statement that any of O’Keefe’s injuries were caused by a person or animal inside Albert’s home at 34 Fairview Road. Cannone has not yet ruled on the motion.
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