Latest news with #JohnO'Keefe
NBC News
25-06-2025
- NBC News
Watch the Dateline episode "Center of the Storm" now
The story captivated the nation. John O'Keefe, a Boston police officer, dead. He was only 46 years old. His body was discovered lying in the snow in front of another officer's house in the early morning hours of January 29, 2022. His girlfriend, Karen Read, on trial. Did she kill him? Or was she set up? Or was it something else? It took three years and two trials, but finally — a verdict. To find out what happened, watch the full episode, 'Center of the Storm,' which is available on Peacock now. You can also watch on the NBC app or listen to it on our podcast. When you're done with the episode, you can watch John's loved ones remember him as a fun-loving leader, who always wanted to be a police officer. You can also listen to this week's episode of Talking Dateline with Andrea Canning and Blayne Alexander, in which they take you behind the scenes of filming the episode.
Fox News
24-06-2025
- Fox News
Second Karen Read juror faults 'sloppy police investigation' in John O'Keefe murder case
Print Close By Michael Ruiz Published June 20, 2025 A second Karen Read juror has come forward after arriving at not guilty verdicts on most of the charges she faced in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe. "It could just be bad police work, but if anyone had done their job correctly, we wouldn't be in this position," Paula Prado, who was Juror No. 11, told ABC News. "It would either be proved or disproved right away." Another of the 12 jurors explained the panel's reasoning Thursday, a day after her second trial came to a close. He also explained brief confusion Wednesday afternoon that arose out of a verdict that jurors later retracted before it was read in court. Judge Beverly Cannone sealed that one. Within minutes, jurors had a verdict for real. "Everything on that initial slip was the same as the slip that was presented," Juror No. 4, identified only as "Jason," told TMZ Live. He said they pulled the first slip back over the OUI charge – operating under the influence of liquor, of which jurors found her guilty. KAREN READ MURDER CASE VERDICT REACHED AFTER DEADLOCKED FIRST TRIAL WATCH: Juror No. 4's interview "In our deliberations, we had decided there was enough evidence and proof that she was driving under the influence," he said. Cannone ordered that the jurors' names remain sealed for 10 days, but she said individual jurors could come forward on their own, if they wanted. Jurors found Read not guilty of murder, manslaughter and fleeing a deadly accident in a trial that stretched on for more than 30 days of testimony and four days of deliberations. The lesser included charge of OUI is the Massachusetts term for drunken driving. "I don't know what happened to John," Jason said. "I was only presented a limited scope of what happened at the night, and I can only base my opinion off of the evidence that was shown in the courtroom. So, I don't really know if there was a cover-up or not. "I know that's the big conspiracy around it, but I don't really know. All I know is there was a lot of holes in the investigation. Whether they were deliberate holes or not deliberate holes, it's kinda hard for me sitting back to know that — you know, what actually happened." He said the defense claim that O'Keefe could have been killed by someone in the house — in an attack that involved a dog — was an "example of reasonable doubt." "We were tasked with finding ... with deciding this person's fate based on the proof in the evidence that the commonwealth was able to present, and there was a lot of holes," he said. He said another important factor for the jury was video that showed Read's taillight. "We could see from the car, after the alleged incident happened, when we could see the taillight it was lit up red, where it shouldn't just have been red," he said. "I don't believe that the SUV collided with John O'Keefe." Still, he added, there was no way for jurors to know whether claims of a "corrupt" police investigation were true. "I don't know that there was any corruption going on," he said. "But do I know that there wasn't enough proof or evidence secured by the police to convict Karen Read? Absolutely." Also Thursday, Massachusetts State Police brass broke their silence on the years-long case marred by investigative missteps and the firing of a state trooper who played a central role in the case. Read was accused — and acquitted — of killing her boyfriend by slamming an SUV into him and leaving him to die on the ground during a blizzard after a drunken argument. Jurors found her guilty only of drunken driving, for which she received a sentence of one year probation and outpatient treatment. Col. Geoffrey Noble, the state police commissioner, said the entire department sends its condolences to O'Keefe's family. "The events of the last three years have challenged our department to thoroughly review our actions and take concrete steps to deliver advanced investigative training, ensure appropriate oversight and enhance accountability," Noble said in a statement. "Under my direction as colonel, the state police has, and will continue to, improve in these regards." He said the goal is to deliver "excellent" service and maintain public trust. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB Jurors did not appear to trust the investigation after four days of deliberation, when they rejected the prosecution's case almost entirely. MASSACHUSETTS TROOPER MICHAEL PROCTOR 'TERMINATED' FROM STATE POLICE The lead investigator on the case, former State Trooper Michael Proctor, lost his job in March after an internal investigation concluded he shared confidential and sensitive law enforcement information with civilians in a group text, the contents of which were also lewd in nature and mocked Read's health issues. FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON X It was Noble who announced the firing, days before Read's second trial began. Her first trial ended with a deadlocked jury last year after the texts were read in court and Read's defense exposed other glaring flaws in the investigation. "It is incumbent upon me, as well as every member of this department, to hold one another accountable when any member compromises our mission by failing to uphold our values," he said at the time. SIGN UP TO GET THE TRUE CRIME NEWSLETTER Noble and the department were also sued by true crime reporters and some of Read's supporters over the enforcement of a "buffer zone" around the Dedham courthouse that their lawyers called unconstitutional. Separately, local police in Canton, Massachusetts, were subjected to an external audit that recommended increased training and oversight while dispelling claims of a conspiracy to frame Read for O'Keefe's death. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP A federal investigation into the case ended without charges against members of either law enforcement agency. Print Close URL
Fox News
24-06-2025
- Fox News
Karen Read 'didn't do this crime,' says jury foreman after acquitting her of murder charges: report
The jury foreman in Karen Read's retrial on murder charges is the latest to open up and blame police missteps for the outcome, declaring the vindicated defendant not just not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but completely "innocent" in a new televised interview. "Karen Read is innocent, and she didn't do this crime," Juror No. 1 told "Today" on Tuesday morning. "No one could prove that she did this crime, so I looked at her from Day 1 as an innocent woman that needed to be proven guilty, and I don't think any of that was shown in this process." Jurors rejected all homicide-related charges last week, convicting her only of drunken driving after she spent the night drinking cocktails and driving around Canton, Massachusetts, during a blizzard. Prosecutors alleged that she backed her 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV into her then-boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, and then left him to die on the ground in the cold with a fractured skull. The state presented broken taillight fragments collected from the crime scene, which matched smaller pieces recovered from O'Keefe's clothes and a chunk missing from Read's Lexus. However, police missteps doomed the case, and the jury found the state's evidence unconvincing. Defense experts dismissed claims from their counterparts working for the prosecution, who had suggested that the vehicle struck O'Keefe with a glancing blow, sending him tumbling backward to hit his head on the ground. Despite evidence showing his phone stopped moving at the time Read hit the gas in reverse, jurors saw no link between black box data from the SUV and the victim's final recorded movement. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB "People had questions, and we used the evidence to answer their questions, and we didn't try to go down these rabbit holes where we're just getting lost in all these other things that were thrown at us in court or whatever," the foreman, who did not reveal his name, told the interviewers. "We just had to lock down and figure it out through the evidence." SIGN UP TO GET TRUE CRIME NEWSLETTER The lead investigator was fired after sending explicit text messages about Read and the progress of the investigation to a group of friends – people who were unauthorized to receive confidential details about the case. O'Keefe, 46, was a Boston police officer who had taken in his orphaned niece and nephew after their parents died within months of one another. O'Keefe's niece testified at trial that he had a toxic relationship with Read and indicated he wanted to call it off in the weeks before his death. In an earlier interview with the Boston Herald, the foreman said he had ties to another high-profile local case. He knew the Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as well as an 8-year-old victim of their terror attack, Martin Richard.
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Yahoo
Crowd Outside MA Courtroom Erupts as Karen Read Found Not Guilty of Murder
Crowd Outside MA Courtroom Erupts as Karen Read Found Not Guilty of Murder originally appeared on L.A. Mag. After two emotionally wrought trials that divided a nation, Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman whose defense team had long argued was the victim of a shoddy police investigation and corrupt cops, was found not guilty of murder Wednesday. Read, 45, who is more than a million dollars in debt to her high-powered defense team - which included Los Angeles heavy hitters Alan Jackson and Elizabeth "Liza: Little - along with Robert Alessi of New York and former Boston prosecutor David Yanetti, who left the courtroom in tears after the verdict was read, will serve one year probation after the jury found her guilty of "No one has fought harder for justice for John O'Keefe than I have," Read told throngs outside the courthouse who erupted in cheers as she emerged after being acquitted of the most serious charges. O'Keefe, a beloved Boston police officer who was raising his niece and nephew, was found dead in a snowbank outside the home of a fellow Boston cop on Jan. 29, 2022. She was flanked by her attorneys, who were praised by her father William, who has been in court daily with Read's mother Janet. "I want to acknowledge the strength of my daughter Karen," he told the crowd, before lauding what he called "the greatest team of attorneys," adding, "We needed them all to defeat Bless you all!" The verdict came after a chaotic hour in the courtroom where jurors said they had reached a verdict Wednesday afternoon, but then retracted that statement moments later, according to Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone. "So we do not have a verdict, because as we all know, there is no verdict until it is announced in court," she later, the clerk was handed a manila envelope. The extended family of homeowner Brian Albert, the now-retired Boston Police Sergeant who was hosting an afterparty at 34 Fairview Avenue in Canton, Mass. where O'Keefe's body was recovered, released a statement. Albert was not called as a witness in Read's eight-week retrial, but his sister-in-law Jen McCabe took the stand and his family was subjected to endless taunts from Read supporters. "Today our hearts are with John and with the entire O'Keefe family. "Lies and conspiracy theories," they wrote, tainted the jury. This story was originally reported by L.A. Mag on Jun 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Yahoo
Federal Murder Case Connected to Karen Read Slated to Heat Up Next Week
Federal Murder Case Connected to Karen Read Slated to Heat Up Next Week originally appeared on L.A. Mag. The Karen Read retrial in Massachusetts has ended in a not guilty verdict for the most serious charges leveled against the 45-year-old finance analyst who was charged with murdering her boyfriend, beloved Boston police officer John O'Keefe. But many of the same questions centered on state police practices in the case that transfixed the country are now being asked in connection with a murder that took place in the same Massachusetts town that was the scene of the Read case: Canton. On February 4, 2021 - nearly a year to the day before the body of beloved Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe was found in the snow on a front yard of a fellow cop's house in Canton - Sandra Birchmore, a pregnant 23-year-old teacher's aide, was recovered in her bedroom with a duffle strap around her neck. Investigators from the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office, many of whom were witnesses or connected to the Read case, determined almost immediately that Birchmore had taken her own life despite overwhelming evidence, federal officials now say, that she was not suicidal. On the day investigators now believe was her last, Birchmore was excitedly making plans for her future, planning a newborn photo session, making arrangements with a friend to care for her two cats, and even putting a load of laundry in the washer while she waited for the man she believed was the father of her baby: Stoughton Police Detective Matthew Farwell, who was also a powerful union official, to stop by. In the lead up to her brutal alleged murder, she was pestering Farwell, according to a federal complaint, "regarding her due date, ultrasounds, genetic testing, gender reveals, and doctor appointments.' Farwell, a married man whose third baby was due around the time Birchmore was excitedly telling everyone she was expecting and the detective was the father, wasn't as excited and had texted her that he "wish she would die."On Feb. 1, 2021, Farwell had a change of heart. He texted Birchmore he "wanted to come by for a minute," braving an ongoing blizzard that had created treacherous conditions, dumping a foot of snow on Boston's south shore area. That night, Birchmore was captured on her apartment building's security cameras coming in and out with an ice scraper. She texted Farwell at 9:10 p.m. that her door would be open. That was the last activity on her cell phone. Farwell showed up four minutes later - wearing a COVID mask with a hoodie pulled tight over his head - and left twenty minutes later, driving directly to a Boston area hospital where his wife Michelle was giving birth to their third child, a boy. The six-foot-four detective, 38, was the last person to see her alive, and her body was found days later after Canton Police were asked to do a well-being check when Birchmore didn't show up for work and couldn't be reached. Yet, he was never seriously considered a suspect in her death despite multiple tips to the Norfolk County D.A.'s office about Farwell's long history with Birchmore, who had been involved in a police mentoring program since she was a girl. It would take nearly four years, and an FBI investigation, before Farwell would be arrested in Birchmore's death, essentially charged with framing the young woman for her own murder. Federal prosecutors now say he used his "knowledge and experience as a law enforcement officer to stage her death to make it look like a suicide." 'He arrived wearing a mask to disguise his appearance. He quickly strangled Birchmore, choking off her air supply until she perished. He moved her body and tied a duffle bag strap to the closet door knob to make it look like Birchmore had done this to herself. And he quickly left her apartment. The crime required planning and a unique willingness to take risks to cause irreversible harm,' federal investigators said in court records. But did Farwell have help is the question that appears to be ongoing as his case is delayed over and over again, with hearings pushed, including one scheduled for next week that is now slated to be held on August 4 at Boston's federal courthouse. Farwell was arrested in a dramatic takedown by the FBI last August and charged with murder motivated in part because he "could no longer control Birchmore," former Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Josh Levy told reporters. Farwell, prosecutors believe, "silenced her permanently." "Ms Birchmore was very excited about becoming a mother," Levy said. "She had good friends. She had a good job. She had dreams of being a nurse and a child on the way." The Birchmore case has so many overlaps with Read case, the Superior Court Judge overseeing the 45-year-old's retrial, Beverly Cannone, barred her defense team from any mention of the Birchmore case. The FBI's presence in Canton was referenced in Read's trial several times by several witnesses, including former Canton cop Kelly Dever, now a Boston Police officer, who testified that statements she made to federal agents were a "false memory" that she later recanted. After Birchmore's death, troopers in the Norfolk County D.A.'s office were "advised by multiple sources that the victim Sandra was possibly pregnant and that she said the father of the baby is Detective Matthew 'Matt' Farwell from Stoughton Police Department," MSP Lt. John Fanning wrote in one report. Fanning was also a figure in the Read case and was one of the MSP supervisors who were disciplined or admonished for being in the much-discussed text chain that dehumanized Read after her arrest and led to the firing of Trooper Michael Proctor earlier this year. DNA evidence has since proved Farwell was not the father of Birchmore's unborn baby, a civil attorney for the Birchmore family confirmed to Los Angeles, but the motive, the FBI believes, remains the same: Farwell killed Birchmore to keep her quiet about how he allegedly abused her for years after she joined the Police Explorers, a mentoring program run by the police department that employed him. Farwell is also accused of taking Birchmore's virginity - which is the crime of statutory rape in Massachusetts - when she was 15. The DNA test does not change the charges against him. Birchmore's family says. "He's still a rapist and murderer who should never see the outside of a jail cell - it changes nothing there," Birchmore's cousin Barbara Wright told Los Angeles. "He is a monster." Two other since disgraced Stoughton cops, Farwell's twin brother William, and Robert Devine, have been accused of an "ongoing scheme of grooming" in a civil suit filed by Birchmore's family. The town's animal control officer and Birchmore's U.S. Army recruiter have also been accused of preying on the troubled young woman. Farwell declined to seek bail after his arrest and has been held in a federal lockup for nearly a year with no court appearances, and a surprisingly scant record of filings in his case. All of it, two sources told Los Angeles, points to a larger federal investigation that is ongoing. "The Read retrial might be over, but federal looks at a bigger issue isn't," the investigator said. "That is far from over." Farwell, federal prosecutors say, covered his "tracks" in an attempt "to get away with murder." "And he almost did," Levy said at the time. This story was originally reported by L.A. Mag on Jun 23, 2025, where it first appeared.
