Did Karen Read kill John O'Keefe?
John O'Keefe was a Boston police office and boyfriend of Karen Read. Read is accused of killing O'Keefe. On January 28, 2022, Read and O'Keefe met some friends at a bar in Canton, MA. At the bar, they ran into Brian Albert a fellow Boston police officer. Shortly after midnight, Albert invited them to come to his home to hang out. Read and O'Keefe drove to Brian Albert’s house. Read dropped O'Keefe off and drove back to O'Keefe's residence. Hours later, when O'Keefe had not returned home, Read went looking for him. When she arrived at Albert’s residence, she found O'Keefe's body in the snow. O'Keefe's cause of death was determined to be hypothermia and blunt force trauma.
The police believe Read was angry with O'Keefe and in a drunken state ran into him and left him to die in a snowstorm. Read's SUV had a broken tail light. Pieces of the tail light were found by O'Keefe's body. Read's defense believes O'Keefe was killed in Albert's residence by fellow officers. They then took his body outside and placed pieces of Read's tail light around O'Keefe's body to frame her. In February 2022, Read was charged with O'Keefe's death. She went on trial in April 2024. The trial ended with a hung jury. This month, she is being retried.
I have not been able to obtain a transcript of Read's police interview. In August 2023, Read was interviewed by Matt Gutman on Nightline. Read described what happened when they arrived at Albert's residence.
"So, I < pull > at the foot of the driveway. < It's > snowing. John < has > no coat on. < It's > windy. So, I < drop > him off. He < goes > up the driveway and < approaches > the side door, and as I < see > him approach the door, I < look > down at my phone. I hadn't been on my phone the entire night. I < Q > up the phone to play on my, my Bluetooth and I just
One of the first things we see is that Read used a lot of present tense language when describing what happened. I have identified the present tense verbs by placing angle brackets around them. The rules of grammar tell us that when talking about a past event, we are required to use past tense language. This is very easy to do when the story is coming from memory. When people are making up a story, they sometimes unknowingly use present tense language because they are not recalling what happened. While it is unusual, there are times when a person may relive the event in their mind as they tell their story. This may cause them to use present tense language. Therefore, we look to see if there are any other signs of deception in her statement.
Read began her statement by saying "So." She used this word again in the fifth sentence. The word "so" indicates she is explaining her actions. When giving a statement, people should generally be telling us what happened or what they did. Offering an explanation is considered to be out-of-bounds and indicates sensitivity within the statement.
While this is anecdotal, when the word "phone" appears in a statement, it often ties the person to the crime scene. If you walked into a convenience store and found the clerk has been shot, you would probably use your cellphone and call 911. The word cellphone ties you to the crime scene in an innocent way. For deceptive people, they may mention being on the phone to account for their time and to avoid telling you certain things. The key is to see how much information they provide concerning the word phone. Whom did they call? What did they talk about? Did they use their phone to search for something?
With Read, she first offers an explanation as to why she is looking down at her phone; "I hadn't been on my phone the entire night." Again, this is considered to be out-of-bounds. There is no reason for her to mention this. Shen then repeats the word "my" when she said, "I Q up the phone to play on my, my Bluetooth." This repetition is a slight pause giving her time to think about what to say and what not to say. It is a slight indication her story may not be coming from memory.
She goes on; "I just start browsing through, you know, missed missed text messages, and a couple of emails." Read used the word "just" which can be have several meanings. Most of the time when people use this word, they are minimizing their actions. They have done more than what they are telling us. She may have also used this word to indicate immediacy. She instantly looked down at her phone.
She then used the phrase "you know." People will sometimes use this phrase to get us to take for granted what they are saying is true. However, we take nothing for granted. The truth is, we do not know. She wants us to assume she was checking her text messages and emails.
Read again repeats two words, "missed missed." As I previous mentioned, this may be a stall tactic giving her time to think about what to say. When a story comes from memory, we expect it to flow smoothly.
When we look at her use of the word "phone," which often ties the person to the crime scene in a not so innocent way, we see there are a lot of problems. She offers an explanation. There is repetitiveness. She wants us to take things for granted and she may have minimized her actions.
Later in the interview, Read said she thought she had four drinks that night. After stating she felt she had a buzz, Gutman asked her the following questions.
Q. Would you say you were angry with John that night?
A. Yes
Q. Could you have been angry enough and slightly drunk, because he had annoyed you, that in a fit of rage you just backed up –
A. Never.
Q. – just tapped him.
A. Would never –
Q. Not to try and kill him but to try to –
A. To tap him with my 6,000-pound full size SUV? To hit John’s body with my car? No.
We see Read is a little antsy as she answered some questions before Gutman had a chance to fully ask them. The biggest problem is she answered the second question with the word "never." The best denial would have been for her to say "No." You cannot substitute the word "never" for the word "no." This is because the word "never" means "not ever" but it doesn't mean "no." When people use the word "never," they are talking about their entire lifetime. Therefore, they are addressing the specific issue at hand. Using the word "never" in lieu of the word "no" is very common in deceptive language.
To get a better idea if Read is telling the truth or being deceptive, we would want to look at her original police interview. Based on what she said on Nightline, it appears she is being deceptive. However, the prosecution may have a hard time getting a conviction as lead investigator in the case was accused of inappropriate conduct.