Karen Read's true-crime documentaries may impact second trial: court docs

Karen Read's out-of-court statements, including in popular true-crime TV programs, will play a key role in her second murder trial in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe, according to new court filings.

Read is accused of backing her Lexus SUV into O'Keefe just after midnight on Jan. 29, 2022, then leaving him to die on the ground as a blizzard swept through New England. 

They had argued that morning, then spent hours drinking together and were allegedly involved in a fight outside another officer's house where an after-party was underway. She pleaded not guilty, and jurors couldn't agree by the end of her first trial last year, clearing the way for a new trial.

Hank Brennan, a prominent Massachusetts defense attorney who was brought in to take charge of the case after the first trial ended in a mistrial, had previously requested subpoenas for unpublished transcripts of interviews with Read that included her statements, including remarks left on the cutting room floor for both TV and print publications.

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Karen Read and John O'Keefe (Karen Read)

"The defendant has made numerous statements to witnesses, first responders, medical providers, family members, and journalists, as well as recorded statements on John O'Keefe's cellphone," prosecutors wrote in a court filing unveiled Monday. "These statements range from the defendant's immediate impressions and state of mind in the minutes and hours surrounding John O'Keefe's death to crafted narrations, sometimes in the presence of counsel that recount for the defendant's version or impressions of events months and years after the murder."

Read made waves with multiple public interviews after the jury deadlocked last July, giving a magazine writer access to her former home for a weekend and sitting for multiple local and national TV interviews in which she alleged that she was being framed for O'Keefe's death by his law enforcement colleagues. More recently, she said she would've "cheered" the O.J. Simpson verdict if it were handed down today.

Critics, including the relatives of the lead investigator who Massachusetts State Police fired over misconduct allegations stemming from her case, call her media tour an "unrelenting propaganda" campaign and an attempt to draw attention away from evidence against her.

Prosecutor Hank Brennan introduces himself to jury members inside Norfolk Superior Court during the second week of the Karen Read trial, April 8, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Matt Stone/The Boston Herald via AP/Pool)

A separate discovery filing shows some of the Read elements that Brennan's team has turned over to her defense: They include "Dateline" and "20/20 episodes", a transcript of Read's interview for "A Body in the Snow" on HBO Max and interviews with her parents for the same true-crime docuseries.

Brennan's team turned over 41 audio or video clips of interview statements but did not go into specific details about each one.

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Prosecutors also included a copy of the recent audit of the Canton Police Department, resumes for expert witnesses and other discovery documents.

Read the three filings in one PDF:

DEFENSE LAWYERS URGED TO REEXAMINE CONVICTIONS LED BY FIRED KAREN READ DETECTIVE

Both sides have agreed not to call a Boston Magazine editor to the witness stand, even though her reporting may be introduced at trial. This would exempt her from rules sequestering witnesses before they testify and allow her to continue covering the trial.

Defendant Karen Read and attorney Alan Jackson review jury questionnaires during the second day of her retrial at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass., on April 2, 2025. (Greg Derr/Pool/Patriot Ledger)

She has a petition before the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to toss two of the three charges against her, arguing that while jurors never announced a verdict at the end of her first trial, they had cleared her of both second-degree murder and leaving the scene of an accident but got stuck on the third, manslaughter.

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Read faces up to life in prison if convicted on the top charge she currently faces. Jury selection continued Monday, and opening statements could happen any day once the full 12 jurors and six alternates are chosen.

As of the end of the day on Monday, two spots were open.