As John O’Keefe’s death nears its third anniversary, his accused killer Karen Read says she’s “America’s happiest murder defendant,” pointing to her innocence and the support she’s garnered.
Read is also slamming O’Keefe’s family for arguing that she struck her Boston police officer boyfriend of two years with her car and left him to die in a major snowstorm in Canton without holding evidence that she mistreated him while he was alive.
In an explosive second article of its two-part series on the case, Vanity Fair broke down how Read and the O’Keefes have cut ties since the fateful early morning of Jan. 29, 2022, with Read responding to the family’s criticisms.
O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston police veteran, died at the age of 46 that morning, shortly after Read found his bloody body covered in snow on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Rd., in Canton – a property his BPD colleague Brian Albert owned at the time.
Her defense attorneys counter that outside actors killed O’Keefe and conspired with state and local police to frame her for his murder.
“I have mourned and cried over John O’Keefe, but that is not productive now,” Read told a magazine reporter who spent three days with her in August. “I don’t feel the acute sadness … We weren’t married. The public is now hearing a lot for the first time, but they have to realize I’ve gone through these stages of grief.”
“I’ve reached the point that—John, if you can hear me—I’ve done everything I can,” Read added. “I don’t think your family can be saved. They want to see me incarcerated for the rest of my life despite never seeing evidence while you were alive that I mistreated you.”
Read also responded to a Daily Mail headline calling her “America’s Happiest Murder Defendant.”
“If being innocent and enjoying the support and refusing to be down day after day, month after month, year after year makes me America’s happiest murder defendant,” she said, “then I’m America’s happiest murder defendant.”
Paul O’Keefe, in an interview with WBZ-TV days after Read’s first trial resulted in a mistrial in July, highlighted how his brother and Read argued and that the two were getting “towards the end of their relationship.”
Read admitted to Vanity Fair she and John O’Keefe argued but defended that she was never abusive and neglectful.
In a statement to Vanity Fair, the family declared it believes Read is “liable for John O’Keefe’s death. Unlike most people accused of murder and sued for wrongful death, Karen Read has embraced her celebrity in outsized ways.”
Read responded to the claim, “First of all, I don’t want to be here. … if you think for a second that anyone has fought harder to find the truth about what happened to John and to enlighten everyone about what happened to John harder than me, you’re wrong.”
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Vanity Fair also divulged further details about Read’s expenses throughout the case. She owes more than $5 million in deferred legal bills, ahead of the anticipated second trial in late January.
Read housed her defense team – attorneys David Yannetti, Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little – in the same hotel throughout the nine-week trial and “negotiated rates with two Uber drivers to shuttle the team to and from court.”
“She paid $1.2 million before and during the court proceedings between bails; accommodating, feeding, and transporting three lawyers; and hiring private investigators and experts,” the magazine reported. “For that, she used her savings, about $500,000 from her since-depleted legal fund, and $400,000 donated by friends and family.”