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Boston officer who testified about ‘false memory’ in Karen Read case resigns
Officer Kelly Dever had been on family medical leave since earlier in the summer.
A Boston police officer who squared off with Karen Read’s lawyers over claims of a “false memory” has resigned, the department confirmed.
Officer Kelly Dever had been on family medical leave since earlier in the summer. Her resignation became effective Sept. 1, according to the Boston Police Department.
Released Friday, the personnel order shed no further light on the circumstances surrounding Dever’s resignation.
Dever, who took the stand during Read’s second murder trial, faced intense public scrutiny following a combative line of questioning from defense attorney Alan Jackson. She testified that she was working as a patrol officer in Canton when Read’s boyfriend, John O’Keefe, was found unresponsive on a snowy lawn there in January 2022.
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While prosecutors accused Read of drunkenly backing her SUV into O’Keefe while dropping him off at a house party, her lawyers argued she was framed in a law enforcement coverup. A jury acquitted Read of murder and manslaughter charges in June, convicting her only of a drunk driving misdemeanor.
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Pressed to say whether she’d seen “anything unusual” in the police station garage where Read’s SUV was housed, Dever grew testy. She confirmed she initially told federal investigators she had seen Brian Higgins — a witness in Read’s case — and then-Chief Kenneth Berkowitz enter the garage together “for a wildly long time” while Read’s SUV was there, though she said she was later reminded she’d left the station before the vehicle arrived.
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“It was a distorted memory. Therefore I can’t state it, because at this point it would be a lie,” Dever testified. “I cannot make that statement that you’re wanting me to make on the stand, because I’ve advised that that would be a lie.”
She also alleged the defense threatened to accuse her of perjury “if I didn’t lie on the stand right now.”
Jackson later penned a scathing letter to Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, calling for Dever to be put on the department’s Brady list, which is used to track law enforcement officials whose credibility has come under fire.
“Her reports, statements, and testimony can no longer be presumed accurate, and any case — current or prior — involving Officer Dever must be reviewed accordingly,” Jackson wrote.
He alleged Dever’s credibility and reliability had been “irreparably compromised,” suggesting her “false memory” claim meant she had either lied on the stand, “or she actually suffers from a condition that subjects her to false memories.”
Dever had also testified about speaking with Cox prior to taking the stand in Read’s case, though she was adamant the conversation was “not about anything malicious.” She denied Cox told her anything meant to guide her testimony, adding, “He just wanted me to tell the truth up here.”
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Cox likewise dismissed allegations that he pressured Dever into changing her testimony.
“I have nothing to do with Karen Read,” Cox told reporters in July. He also claimed not to have known Dever was even associated with Read’s case.
“I was struck, like, ‘What do I have to do with the Karen Read case?’” he said at the time. “And so the fact is, it’s much ado about nothing. We have employees here that we have to develop and encourage and do things, and I do that for tons of our employees.”
While O’Keefe also served as a Boston police officer, he died while Cox was leading the Ann Arbor Police Department in Michigan. Read still faces a wrongful death lawsuit from O’Keefe’s family and is due back in court for the civil case Sept. 22.
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