New evidence may defend a Massachusetts professor accused of killing her police officer husband in January 2021 by hitting him with her car while intoxicated.
In June 2022, a grand jury in Norfolk County indicted 42-year-old Bentley University Professor Karen Read of Mansfield for second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter, and leaving the scene of an accident that allegedly caused the death of 46-year-old Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.
Massachusetts Authorities Investigate O’keefe’s Death
In a motion submitted on April 12 in Norfolk County, attorneys for Read assert that phone evidence links Boston Police Officer Brian Albert and his sister-in-law Jennifer McCabe to the murder of O’Keefe.
According to Massachusetts investigators, Read allegedly drove O’Keefe to Albert’s home on Fairview Road in Canton shortly after midnight on January 29, 2021, while intoxicated. Just before a 21-inch nor’easter hit the area that morning, authorities discovered O’Keefe outside his Canton home at around 6 a.m.
The off-duty officer was transported by authorities to Good Samaritan Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead hours later. Albert and McCabe were at home at the time, but both witnesses told investigators they never saw O’Keefe enter the residence that evening before McCabe discovered his body outside the following morning.
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Search For Evidence On Mccabe’s Phone
Read reportedly returned to the Canton home on the morning of January 29 after not hearing from O’Keefe, where she and two friends, including McCabe, found him lying on the floor with cuts, his eyes swollen shut, and his clothes covered in vomit and blood.
The next day, before giving her phone to law enforcement, McCabe took calculated steps to purge her phone of this inculpatory search and at the same time, attempted to delete her communications with Brian Albert and remove a screenshot of his contact information, which she had obviously shared with someone that morning.
Read’s defense also contends that the state failed to investigate McCabe and Albert as suspects and withheld cellphone evidence for more than a year.
The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office stated that while prosecutors are ethically limited in the statements they can make outside the courtroom, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office has received the motion filed last week and expects to file a detailed response to the court on May 3 refuting the assertions in that motion.
In a statement released after his death in February 2022, the Boston Police Department referred to O’Keefe as kind and dedicated to his family.
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