Karen Read’s retrial continues as testimony enters Day 3

Karen Read listens to testimony during her trial, Thursday, April 24, 2025, at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, Pool)

In a 2024 television interview with Investigation Discovery, Karen Read recounted drinking at McCarthy’s bar, where Read consumes “most of [her] alcohol,” the evening John O’Keefe was killed. Read described how she poured multiple shots into her glass because the bar was serving weak drinks, complaining her vodka soda “tasted just like all soda water with lime.”

“The guys that we were with ordered a round of shots and gave me one that I didn't drink, but I poured it in my drink,” Read said. “So that's now my fifth and sixth drinks, with the seventh, which is a shot that all the men did and I poured it. So that’s one glass that I’m holding,” adding the cocktail had, “three drinks in it.” 

Following the interview being presented to the jury, Judge Beverly Cannone sent the jurors home for the day following confusion regarding witness scheduling.

Detective Nicholas Guarino reads text messages between Karen Read and John O’Keefe during the third day of Read’s murder trial. (Pool)

Following the court’s morning recess, detective Nicholas Guarino began reading text messages between Karen Read and John O’Keefe from the morning before the pair went out drinking, showing an apparent disagreement between the couple. 

“Sick of always arguing and fighting,” O’Keefe wrote. “It's been weekly for several months now. So yeh I'm not as quick to jump back into being lovie dovie as you apparently.”

Following several text messages and declined phone calls, Read later replied, telling O’Keefe, “I've been trying to get over the hump w is arguing and now you tell me you're not into things. And you don't want to fight weekly but fly off the handle at 8am w me. Like you're setting me up to fail.” 

The back-and-forth between the pair continued, with Read inviting O’Keefe out for drinks later in the evening. 

The defense previously asked Judge Beverly Cannone to allow a third-party to read the text messages, but Cannone sided with the state by ruling Guarino will read to the jury. 

Massachusetts State Trooper Nicholas Guarino on the witness stand during the second murder trial of Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court Wednesday, April 23, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)

Detective Nicholas Guarino returned to the witness stand to answer questions regarding the department’s cell phone data extraction methods. 

The state asked Guarino to verify call logs between Karen Read, John O’Keefe and various key witnesses within the case on the day of O’Keefe’s death that Guarino gathered from their cell phones - a process required to enter items into evidence, Judge Beverly Cannone told the jury. 

Cannone then asked the court to break for its morning recess.

Michael Camerano, a friend of John O'Keefe testifies during the Karen Read trial at Norfolk Superior Court, Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, Pool)

The state called Michael Camerano, a family friend of John O’Keefe’s, to the witness stand on Thursday morning.

Camerano testified the friends were planning to go out for drinks at a nearby bar to celebrate their daughters’ acceptance into Bishop Feehan High School and were joined by Karen Read later in the evening.

During the defense team’s cross-examination, Camerano confirmed the couple appeared affectionate at the bar before Camerano left, with Read and O’Keefe staying behind.

Camerano testified he was seemingly unaware of any disagreements between Read and O’Keefe that day, and that O’Keefe seemed to be happy with the couple’s relationship. Camerano did tell Read’s defense team she did not like having other women around O’Keefe, but the relationship appeared normal to his knowledge.

Following yesterday’s testimony, Karen Read’s father, William, spoke to reporters on the steps of the courthouse, doubling down on his daughter’s assertion that she did not kill John O’Keefe. 

“Karen Read is innocent,” William said. “She is not responsible. There was no collision. None. And it will be proven. When you hear the testimony of these witnesses from the state you will see how they are buckling.” 

Read’s father went on to praise the defense team, telling reporters he hopes to be called to the witness stand and addressing testimony from Peggy O’Keefe on his actions the day John’s body was found. 

During Peggy’s emotional testimony on Wednesday, she said Karen, alongside William and her brother, entered John’s house shortly after the family left the hospital and went upstairs into a bedroom to gather a few belongings. 

“I know the truth,” William said. “I was there. I was in the O'Keefe house that day. I know why we went back, I know what we did when we went there, I know how long we were upstairs. I know it all and I don't lie at my age, I answer to another maker.” 

Day three of Karen Read’s second murder trial kicked off with Judge Beverly Cannone granting the state’s request to play a 2024 interview Read gave to Investigation Discovery regarding an alleged conversation between Read and Peggy O’Keefe in the hours after John O’Keefe’s body was discovered. 

“His mother leans over the kitchen island and says to me, ‘I think he looks like he got hit by a car, he looks like he got hit by a car,’” Read said.

The defense asked Cannone to omit the interview after the jury was dismissed yesterday, with the judge ultimately siding with the prosecution and allowing jurors to view the recording.

Kerry Roberts, a close friend of John O'Keefe's who was with Karen Read and Jennifer McCabe the morning they found him dead in a snowstorm, admitted during cross-examination Wednesday that she did not hear the defendant ask McCabe to make a Google search about hypothermia after they found the body.

"Hos long to die in cold" is the infamous Google search, typo included, at the heart of the 45-year-old Read's claim that she is being framed by Massachusetts police for the death of her Boston cop boyfriend three years ago.

Roberts, when asked in 2022 in front of a grand jury that would indict Read on a second-degree murder charge, testified that she heard Read ask McCabe to "Google hypothermia" while they were praying near a police car as paramedics lifted O'Keefe out of the snow.

"Yeah," she said.

"Except it's not true, is it?" Read's attorney, Alan Jackson, followed up.

"I did not hear her ask that," Roberts said.

Roberts testified that she did not intentionally lie but rather misunderstood the question when she appeared before the grand jury.

Read the full story here.

Karen Read chats with reporters while returning to court following the lunch break with her defense attorney Robert Alessi at her trial at Norfolk Superior Court, Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

The third day of Karen Read’s second murder trial is set to kick off Thursday. Read is facing a retrial for the alleged killing of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in January 2022. 

Prosecutors allege Read struck O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV during a drunken argument, before leaving him to die in a winter blizzard outside a fellow police officer’s home. Read’s defense team insists she was framed in an elaborate scheme that involved a “corrupted” investigation led by now-fired investigator Michael Proctor.

On Wednesday, the jury heard testimony from various state witnesses, including O’Keefe’s mother, Peggy, and long-time family friend, Kerry Roberts. If convicted, Read faces up to life in prison.