The latest on the Karen Read murder case
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‘The worst day of our lives’: John O’Keefe’s cousin speaks out after Karen Read verdict
O’Keefe “would be ashamed knowing how our family’s getting treated,” Vanessa Rizzitano told Boston 25 News.
As cheers from Karen Read’s supporters echoed through the courtroom last week following news of Read’s acquittal, Vanessa Rizzitano felt queasy.
“That made me sick to my stomach,” she told Boston 25 News nearly a week after jurors cleared Read of murder and manslaughter charges in the death of Rizzitano’s cousin, John O’Keefe.
“While it’s other people’s celebration, it literally was like the worst day of our lives,” Rizzitano added.
A former TV news anchor and reporter, she said she viewed O’Keefe as an older brother after living with him as a young child and then again as a recent college graduate. She joined some of O’Keefe’s other family members and friends in court for parts of Read’s retrial.
More on Karen Read:
After hearing the verdict last Wednesday, “I felt like I didn’t even have strength in my body to still stand,” Rizzitano said.
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Read, 45, had been accused of backing her SUV into O’Keefe in a drunken rage while dropping him off at a home in Canton following a night of bar-hopping in January 2022. While prosecutors alleged Read left her boyfriend of two years to die in a blizzard, her lawyers argued she was the victim of a botched and biased investigation. They floated an alternate theory that O’Keefe was attacked after joining the afterparty at 34 Fairview Road, then dumped outside as part of a coverup.
In the end, jurors only found Read guilty of drunk driving — a crime for which she received a year of probation.
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“The only way that we would have found some kind of peace in this would have been a guilty verdict,” Rizzitano told Boston 25.
She also said she took issue with Read’s bold claim that “no one has fought harder for justice for John O’Keefe” than Read and her team.
“Hearing those words come out of her mouth literally was sickening,” Rizzitano said. “No. The prosecution, his family, his loved ones, including myself — we’re the ones that fought the hardest for Johnny, not you.”
Only on Boston 25 News tonight, John O’Keefe’s family is speaking out nearly a week after a not guilty verdict came down in the retrial of Karen Read.
— Boston 25 News (@boston25) June 25, 2025
See the full interview tonight at 10 & 11. pic.twitter.com/Ti49hKBul3
Members of O’Keefe’s family said they’ve faced online harassment and name-calling as Read’s divisive case became a national spectacle. A clip of a purported Read supporter dancing in the street outside the family’s home in Canton earlier this week fueled outrage on both sides of the aisle. Canton Chief of Police Helena Rafferty confirmed her department took a report on the incident but did not respond to requests for the report.
“They think that the loss of my cousin and a grieving family, they find that entertaining. And I think that’s so sick,” Rizzitano said of the harassment, adding that O’Keefe “would be ashamed knowing how our family’s getting treated.”
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