Death of John O'Keefe

On January 29, 2022, at 6:03 am, John O'Keefe, an officer of the Boston Police Department, was found unconscious on the front lawn of fellow Boston police officer Brian Albert in Canton, Massachusetts, United States. O'Keefe's girlfriend, financial analyst Karen Read, had dropped him off at a party at the Albert household shortly after midnight and returned early that morning to find his body after he failed to return home. O'Keefe was declared dead at 7:59 am at a local hospital. An autopsy performed two days later found that he had died of impact injuries to the head, although his manner of death was undetermined.

Read was subsequently arrested and charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death. Prosecutors alleged that she had killed O'Keefe by backing into him with her car after dropping him off. Read's defense team alleged that O'Keefe was murdered inside the Albert household, and that police officers involved in the case used their resources to taint the investigation and frame Read. Following a grand jury indictment, Read's charges were upgraded to second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of personal injury and death.

Read's first criminal trial resulted in a mistrial on July 1, 2024, due to a hung jury. She was tried for a second time beginning on April 1, 2025, and ultimately found not guilty on all three major charges. She was found guilty of operating a vehicle under the influence, receiving the standard sentence of one year of probation.

The case drew national attention due to local journalist Aidan Kearney's investigation of evidence of foul play in the death of O'Keefe. His multi-part series, "Canton Cover-Up," exposes the close relationships between law enforcement and those who were present at the Albert household on the night of O'Keefe's death.

Background

John J. O'Keefe III, nicknamed "J.J." or "Johnny" (born December 8, 1975), was raised in Braintree, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He graduated from Braintree High School and later Northeastern University, going on to earn a master's degree in criminal justice from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Following the untimely deaths of his sister and brother-in-law in 2013 and 2014 respectively, O'Keefe took guardianship of his niece and nephew, with whom he resided in Canton, Massachusetts. O'Keefe was a sixteen-year veteran of the Boston Police Department (BPD).

Karen A. Read (born February 26, 1980) grew up in Taunton, Massachusetts, and Blacksburg, Virginia. She graduated from Coyle & Cassidy, a private Catholic school in Taunton, and attended Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she obtained both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in finance. Until her arrest in February 2022, Read had been a financial analyst at Fidelity Investments since 2007 and was an adjunct professor at Bentley University. Read was living in Mansfield, Massachusetts, at the time of O'Keefe's death.

O'Keefe and Read met in 2004 and dated briefly. They rekindled their relationship in 2020 after connecting over Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Incident

On the evening of January 28, 2022, Read met O'Keefe for drinks at C.F. McCarthy's, a local bar in Canton, at approximately 9:00 pm. They moved to an establishment across the street, the Waterfall Bar & Grille, shortly before 11:00 pm. There, the couple met up with a group of acquaintances, including fellow BPD officer Brian Albert and his wife Nicole. As the bar was closing, the group was invited to the Albert household at 34 Fairview Road, where their son was celebrating his 23rd birthday with friends and family. Security footage shows Read and O'Keefe leaving the establishment together at 12:11 am. Other individuals invited to the Albert household from the Waterfall that night included Nicole Albert's sister, Jennifer McCabe, and her husband, Matthew McCabe, as well as Brian Higgins, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Read drove O'Keefe in her Lexus LX 570 to the Albert household, although she was unfamiliar with the neighborhood. Jennifer McCabe called O'Keefe at 12:14 am to give them directions; she and her husband arrived at the house at 12:18 am. Read and O'Keefe pulled up in front of the house approximately six minutes later, with O'Keefe's cell phone activity data showing the closure of a navigation app at 12:24:26 am and his cell phone location data showing the cell phone stopping in front of 34 Fairview Road at 12:24:38 am.

According to Read, the couple remained in the car, as Read felt uncomfortable going inside. Between 12:24:59 am and 12:31:56 am, O'Keefe's cell phone activity data recorded no movement. At 12:27:33 am, O'Keefe's cell phone received an iMessage from Jennifer reading, "Here!?" which the phone recorded as read at 12:27:48 am. At 12:29:44 am, the phone logged a seven-second answered phone call from Jennifer. At 12:31:47 am, the cell phone received an iMessage from Jennifer reading, "Pull behind me." According to Read, O'Keefe told her he would quickly check inside the house to ensure the couple were welcome. His cell phone data recorded movement activity it interpreted as thirty-six steps beginning at 12:31:56 am. During this activity, the phone recorded that Jennifer's "Pull behind me" text was read at 12:32:06 am and that O'Keefe's cell phone recorded its final lock at 12:32:09 am. The movement activity the phone interpreted as thirty-six steps concluded at 12:32:16 am. No further movement from O'Keefe's phone was recorded until after 6:00 am.

Read claims she watched O'Keefe enter the house. Richard D’Antuono, Ryan Nagel, and Heather Maxon, who arrived at 34 Fairview in D’Antuono's Ford F-150 shortly after Read to pick up Ryan Nagel's sister and partygoer Julie Nagel, all testified that they saw Read sitting in her vehicle alone. Ryan Nagel also testified that he witnessed Read driving safely in the neighborhood. Brian Albert Sr., Nicole Albert, Brian Albert Jr., Caitlin Albert, Jennifer McCabe, Matthew McCabe, Sarah Levinson and Julie Nagel have testified that they were in the house during that time and did not see O'Keefe. Read claims she grew impatient when O'Keefe did not come back out of the Albert household and started driving off towards O'Keefe's house at 1 Meadows Avenue. Around the time she departed 34 Fairview Road, the prosecution argues her Lexus recorded a "Techstream" "trigger" event, the exact cause and timing of which would become points of dispute at her criminal trials. Such trigger events can have several causes—including excessive acceleration (possibly over snow or ice), steering or braking—but not collisions per se. However, it is still unclear whether this trigger event occurred during the key cycle in question, or whether it occurred while the vehicle was in police custody.

Between 12:33:35 am and 12:36:40 am, O'Keefe's cell phone recorded seven unanswered calls from Read. Read connected to the Wi-Fi at O'Keefe's house at 12:36 am. After arriving there, she left him a succession of voicemails and iMessages. At 12:37, Read stated in a voicemail, "John, I fucking hate you!" At 12:59 am, she stated, "John I'm here with the fucking kids. Nobody knows where the fuck you are. You fucking pervert." At 1:10 am, she stated, "It's 1 in the morning. I'm with your fucking niece and your nephew. You fucking pervert. You're a fucking pervert!" At 1:17 am, she stated, "John I'm going home. I cannot believe [inaudible]. I need to go home. You are fucking using me right now. You're fucking another girl. [O'Keefe's niece] is sleeping next to me. You're a fucking loser. Fuck yourself!" Read's last call attempt for several hours was at 1:18 am, before falling asleep next to O'Keefe's niece.

Meanwhile, at 12:40 am, O'Keefe's cell phone received an unread iMessage from Jennifer McCabe—the first iMessage from her since 12:31 am—saying, "Hello." At 12:42 am, it received an unread iMessage from McCabe saying, "Where are u." At 12:45 am, it received another unread iMessage from McCabe saying, "Hello."

Over the course of the night, O'Keefe's cellphone recorded the following drop in battery temperature:

• 12:37 am: 72 °F
• 12:45 am: 66 °F
• 12:53 am: 61 °F
• 1:07 am: 55 °F
• 1:36 am: 50 °F
• 6:06 am: 43 °F
• 6:35 am: 37 °F

At 4:38 am, Read awoke and resumed trying to call O'Keefe. At 4:53 am she called Jennifer McCabe from the niece's phone, asking her to help look for O'Keefe. At 5:00 am, Read called Kerry Roberts, a friend of O'Keefe's, to join them. Roberts later testified that Read initially yelled over the phone, "John is dead! Kerry! Kerry!" and hung up and, in a subsequent call, explained to Roberts that she feared John was dead and that he might have gotten hit by a snowplow. O'Keefe's niece later testified that she heard Read say on the phone statements to the effect of, "Could I have done something?", "Could he have been hit by a plow?" and, "Maybe I like...hit him."

At 5:07 am, Read was seen on O'Keefe's home's Ring security camera backing out of his garage in her Lexus. She visibly bumped O'Keefe's parked Chevrolet Traverse; the footage shows O'Keefe's car move slightly as the cars made contact. At precisely the same time, Jennifer made a call to her sister Nicole Albert – the owner of 34 Fairview, where O'Keefe's body was found – which lasted thirty-eight seconds. However, Jennifer denied speaking to Nicole that morning.