With the second murder trial fast approaching, the defense is fighting back against prosecutors’ efforts to access phone records from Karen Read’s parents.
The Karen Read case was back in court on Tuesday in a hearing that addressed a flurry of motions, including requests from the Commonwealth for phone records and materials from the media.
Read is accused of ramming into John O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend, with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm in January 2022. Read’s attorneys argue she is being framed and that other law enforcement officers are responsible for O’Keefe’s death.
A judge declared a mistrial in June after finding that jurors couldn’t reach an agreement. A retrial on the same charges is set to begin in January.
Prosecutors said Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, and O’Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police, had been drinking heavily before she dropped him off at a party at the home of Brian Albert, a fellow Boston officer. They said she hit him with her SUV before driving away. An autopsy found O’Keefe had died of hypothermia and blunt force trauma.
The defense portrayed Read as the victim, saying O’Keefe was actually killed inside Albert’s home and then dragged outside. They argued that investigators focused on Read because she was a “convenient outsider” who saved them from having to consider law enforcement officers as suspects.
The discovery hearing at Norfolk Superior Court touched upon several motions and pieces of evidence that would impact Read's new trial. Prosecutors have requested phone records from Read's mother and father, saying they want the records to establish Read's regular patterns of calls with her parents. The request centers on the Commonwealth's belief that Read called her parents around 1:30 a.m. the day O'Keefe was found.
"The interference is strong evidence that Ms. Read knew she had done something terrible, she knew she had struck John O'Keefe and she knew she had left him behind," attorney Hank Brennan argued.
The defense pushed back on that request, arguing that prosecutors should have the information they need from previously disclosed records from Read's phone and calling the motion a "fishing expedition."
The Commonwealth is also seeking materials from several media outlets, including Boston Magazine, WCVB-TV, WFXT-TV and NBC10 Boston. These requests, Brennan alleges, are to establish that Read has made contradictory statements in media interviews.
"Isn't it amazing that ABC, NBC, Boston Magazine and FOX all sat in on alleged confessions and never publicized it?" Read quipped as she left court. "That is a fishing expedition, they don't exist."
While the Commonwealth's requests took up the most significant amount of time, Judge Beverly Cannone also sought updates on other matters, including the defense team's request for emails and cellphone data from Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey. Those records are still being compiled. The defense requests data from both personal and work devices, arguing that Morrissey used his personal phone in communications with court officials.
"We have reason obviously to not to trust Mr. Morrissey in light of his actions using this personal email account to make this ex parte communication and we ask that a more thorough search be done for these types of communications," Attorney David Yanetti said.
Attorneys also provided updated timelines on planned testing of the telematics in Read's SUV, which is set to be done in the first week of December, and transcripts of sidebar conferences from the first trial.
Cannone took the motions under advisement. She has not yet ruled on a joint request from the Commonwealth and the defense to push back the start of the new trial from late January to April 1.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
