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‘This is my version of testifying’: Karen Read revisits early days of murder case in new docuseries
Read takes viewers behind the scenes in a new Investigation Discovery docuseries, offering an intimate look at her quest to defend her innocence.
Getting candid in a new true crime docuseries, Karen Read adamantly maintained her innocence and fired shots at prosecutors and witnesses alike as she took viewers behind the scenes into her sensational murder case.
“This is my version of testifying. Doing this film is my testimony,” Read said in Investigation Discovery’s “A Body in the Snow.”
The first two installments of the docuseries landed Monday night, bringing true crime fanatics into a case that has put local law enforcement under the microscope, spawned countless protests, and gripped Greater Boston for more than three years.
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The episodes chronicle Read’s nearly two-year relationship with Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, whom she’s accused of ramming with her SUV on a snowy night in Canton in January 2022. Prosecutors allege Read was driving drunk after a night of bar-hopping and left O’Keefe to die in a blizzard as she dropped him off at an afterparty hosted by fellow Boston officer Brian Albert.
Read’s first trial ended in a hung jury last summer, and she’s scheduled to stand trial again in April.
Read thought O’Keefe was cheating the night he died
Speaking in the docuseries, Read recalled the house at 34 Fairview Road looked dark and uninviting as she and O’Keefe pulled up shortly after midnight on Jan. 29, 2022. She said she sent her boyfriend inside to confirm they were welcome, as they didn’t know the Alberts well.
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Read claimed she saw O’Keefe reach the side door, “and he opened the door and went to walk in.” When he didn’t return, Read drove off, irate. In a series of subsequent voicemails left on O’Keefe’s phone, she called her boyfriend a “f***ing pervert,” told him she hated him, and accused him of sleeping with “another girl.”
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“I’m drinking, I’m swearing — it’s horrible,” Read acknowledged in the docuseries, reflecting on her messages.
“I became convinced he’s sleeping with someone,” she explained. “And there were multiple women in the neighborhood of Fairview that John had been with.”
Read vs. McCabe
When O’Keefe hadn’t returned home hours later, Read launched a frantic search and roped in two of his friends, Kerry Roberts and Jennifer McCabe. McCabe, Brian Albert’s sister-in-law, had been drinking with the couple the night before and attended the afterparty at 34 Fairview Road. She’s also one of several people Read’s lawyers allege took part in a conspiracy to frame Read for O’Keefe’s killing.
When the three women first found O’Keefe unresponsive in the snow around 6 a.m., “My first thought was, ‘He left drunk. He fell, and he’s asphyxiating on his vomit,’” Read recalled.
Within months — and with help from a “gravelly” voiced tipster — Read’s lawyers had another theory: That O’Keefe was severely beaten inside 34 Fairview Road, attacked by the Alberts’ pet dog, and left for dead. Key to that theory is a Google search McCabe purportedly made at 2:27 a.m., “hos long to die in cold.” (McCabe maintains she made the search after finding O’Keefe’s body hours later, and at Read’s insistence.)
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Testifying in Read’s first trial last summer, McCabe alleged Read said, “I hit him. I hit him. I hit him” when a paramedic asked if she knew what happened to O’Keefe. Several first responders also testified they heard Read say “I hit him,” though defense attorney Alan Jackson pointed out the statement isn’t memorialized in incident reports or footage from the scene.
Read made no secret of her animosity toward McCabe as she reflected on that fateful morning.
“Jen McCabe, it’s me or her,” she said. “Either I’m going down, Jen, or you are.”
Read added: “I remember everything. I said, ‘Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?’ I mean, I’m not as clear as I would be if I hadn’t been drinking.”
Read claims she didn’t drink as much as prosecutors allege
Still, Read denied consuming the nine alcoholic beverages prosecutor Adam Lally ascribed to her in his closing argument last summer. She claimed she didn’t consume three of the drinks served to her at C.F. McCarthy’s and instead had a total of six drinks over the course of three hours.
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“Everybody was some level of intoxication,” she said of the group outing. “That was what we did in Canton; everybody drank. They leave these bars, they’re in their little enclaves where they can all go drunk driving on the way home, and nobody gets pulled over.”
Shock at escalated charges
Read said the question of her potential culpability plagued her for about three days after O’Keefe died.
“The day after John was killed, I was confused and bewildered,” she recalled. “There was no memory of anything happening, but I had been drinking and it was late. I never heard from him again, ever, obviously. So I thought, ‘Could I have run him over? Did he try to get me as I was leaving and I didn’t know it?’”
But defense attorney David Yannetti said he was “floored” when a grand jury indicted Read on charges that included second-degree murder — an escalation from her prior district court charges. Read’s surprise is similarly evident in footage from her June 2022 arrest on the more severe charges.
As shown in the docuseries, Read pleaded with officers for the chance to change out of her pajamas and slippers before she was taken into custody.
“I don’t want to be on Channel 4 in my pajamas,” she explained.
The footage then cuts to the lead investigator, embattled Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, who can be seen telling his colleagues, “See how crazy she is? … She’s more concerned about what she looks like on TV.”
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According to Read, reality sunk in as she was booked and brought to jail.
“That’s when I realized this was for keeps,” she said. “They wanted a pound of flesh from me.”
New episodes will air on Investigation Discovery Tuesday and Wednesday night at 9 p.m. Episodes will also be available to stream on Max.
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