John O’Keefe, a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department, died of blunt force trauma and hypothermia on January 29, 2022, after being found on a fellow Boston Police Officer’s front lawn during a blizzard. His girlfriend, Karen Read, is charged with allegedly backing into John with her SUV, and leaving him to die in the cold after a night of drinking. But her defense team poses a different theory – a massive cover-up spanning law enforcement agencies across Massachusetts. Karen’s first case ended in a mistrial on July 1, 2024. Her second trial is set to begin in April 2025.Join us in watching the trial and get daily recaps on Crime Junkie Jury, hosted by Brandi Churchwell, only on YouTube. We know you are following this case as closely as we are, and we can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the second trial! Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/infamous-john-okeefe-the-trial-of-karen-read/Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.The Crime Junkie Merch Store is NOW OPEN! Shop the exclusive Life Rule #10 Tour collection before it’s gone for good! Don’t miss your chance - visit the store now! Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
Chapter 1: What captivated the nation about John O'Keefe's case?
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. All right, you guys. This is a case that captivated the nation last year, like the kind of media circus you can't ignore. And even if you weren't a crime junkie, you knew about this case and you had an opinion about this case.
And I touched on it briefly in my SiriusXM show, but I never did a proper crime junkie deep dive because as we were getting into it, it was going to trial. And I thought, like, OK, things are going to wrap up. We're going to have a conclusion. Right. I have never been so wrong.
The trial of Karen Reid for the murder of John O'Keefe was a six-week spectacle that had more twists and turns in theatrics than most legal dramas on TV. And it all ended with a mistrial. So it's happening again. Now, last time, I quite literally watched every minute of every day at trial because this is a case where you have to know every detail to talk confidently about what happened.
And this time around, I want the crime junkies to join in as well. So I'm going to catch you up. I want to tell you everything we know about the death of John O'Keefe, everything we know about the prosecution's case against Karen Reed and her defense's rebuttal, so that you can be fully prepared for the second trial that's starting soon.
And I have a way for you to follow along with us through that second trial. We're going to be doing a trial watch along with my friend and fellow podcaster Brandi Churchwell, who has become quite literally an expert on this case. Now, she's not a lawyer. She is a layman like you and me, like the jury.
And she'll be doing live watch alongs and daily recaps on our new YouTube page, Crime Junkie Jury. But before we get back to court, I'm going to present to you the two versions of the same story that we heard last time. and you get to decide which one is true. These are the stories of the death of John O'Keefe. Here's what we know for sure about January 28th and 29th, 2022.
On January 28th, 41-year-old Karen Reed met up with her 46-year-old boyfriend of two years, John O'Keefe. They met at this bar in Canton, Massachusetts called C.F. McCarthy's.
Now, surveillance video shows Karen walking in, greeting John at 8.51 p.m., and they're drinking there for about two hours until they walk over to another nearby bar, The Waterfall, where they meet up with a group of people that John knew, some of whom Karen knows-ish. But some of them were law enforcement, just like John, who is a Boston cop.
Now, everyone's having a good time, like mingling, talking. No one person standing out more than another. Video from that night shows that Karen was throwing back drinks. At one point in the night, she actually seemed to be like ordering shots and then pouring them into her mixed drink, I guess to like make them stronger. Actually, I just watched the documentary that came out on HBO.
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Chapter 2: What are the details of John O'Keefe's last night?
Do you think that he could have gone back there? And it's really interesting because there is this moment in the trial where the first trial where Jen McCabe is on the stand and she even says that in one of her like first conversations with Karen, she's asking her like what happened or whatever. And Karen's like, oh, I like I left him at the Waterfall Bar. And Jen's like, no, you didn't.
Like we left together. We saw you outside of my sister's house. So I don't know if that is like what Karen believed. Like all of her stories now are she like remembers going, remembers him going in there. So like was she making up a story? Does she not remember in the early days? Is everything a blur? Like is everyone drinking so much that no one knows what's going on? I don't know.
But she goes looking for 20 minutes, at least like in the, we've got her going in the direction of the waterfall, but then she like makes it back to Jen where they meet up. Jen, meanwhile, in this time, tries calling John's phone a few more times. 508, 509, both deleted later. From 514 to 532, there are a bunch of calls between Karen's phone and Jen's phone and Jen to John's phone.
Those all get deleted as well in Jen's call log. And Karen also tries to call John a few more times. By 546, the three women are at John's house, still trying to call his cell with no luck. And so they all head out at 552. They get to the Alberts, and at 6.04, Jen makes the call to 911.
Now, first responders get to the scene fast, and this is when some of them say that they allegedly heard Karen say, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, or like some variation of that. But interestingly, the defense makes a big point in court to show that nobody put any of this in their reports from that day. Not the police, not the paramedics.
This confession that everyone remembers so vividly only gets spoken about later. Which does feel odd that, like, nobody mentions a confession of any kind. They're not arresting her for admitting that she hit him. Well, and if it's not in any notes, it's
So we're using this confession as that it actually happened, not a misremembering of what she said or what she could have said. And they like pick at this at trial.
They're like, this isn't like just like a small detail. You have someone confessing to the crime. How does that not make it into any report? And they're just like, I didn't think it was relevant or like there's a zillion reasons why they say they didn't put it in. But like they swear on the stand it happened. But the defense is like, did it? Now, the defense says Karen never said that at all.
When Karen talks to 2020, she says it was preceded by did and was a question. Did I hit him? But I'm like getting confused about this to begin with, because this seems like one of the things like she has admitted to, like she admits on 2020, even in the beginning of this HBO doc, like she talks about it.
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