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The Trial of Karen Read and the Suspicious Death of John O’Keefe

July 8, 2024

On this episode, Payton recaps the Karen Read trial that revolves around the death of Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

And he's the husband.

And I'm the husband.

We are still with family right now, so we are making do with the recording situation. But I wanted to make sure that Garrett got in today's episode and gave you guys a 10 seconds. Before we get into that, I just wanted to say thank you guys for always loving and supporting us. I know that we have received tons of messages about, you know, just what is going on and love. We are all good over here; everything is good. We are so sorry for all of the inconveniences. Life happens, but we're here and we're trying to make everything solid with the podcast. So thank you guys so much for continually supporting us and loving us even through the tough times. We love you so much.

Okay, let's get into Garrett's 10 seconds.

Like Payton said, thank you for all the messages. I've gotten a lot of messages on Instagram and everything, so I appreciate it. I've ignored dozens, if not 100 plus texts from friends. So sorry, I still love you. I'm just going to jump into 10 seconds here and keep everyone updated with everything else.

Payton and I went to the rodeo the other day, and when we were at the rodeo, I was thinking, you know, I'm going to quit the podcast and I'm going to ride a bull. I was looking at it, and I know it looks—I just feel like it looks kind of easy. And I know it's not easy. So if anyone does do that, I know it's not easy. I was just thinking about it. It looked fun. I actually think I wouldn't do that. I would do the steer wrestling. Is that what you'd call it? Something about it just looks fun. I'm not tough enough, and I'm too much of a baby, so I can never do it. But it looked fun. I just wanted to come on, share 10 seconds, say hi to everybody, and I will be back soon, I promise.

Thank you for the support. I know it seems weird and secretive, you guys, so I just want to say thank you for respecting our privacy during this time. I promise if there was anything that you needed to know, we would let you know. We are good. We just want to keep going on with life.

With that being said, let's get into the episode.

All right, so it's pretty rare on Murder With My Husband that we cover a case so fresh in the news, but today's story is one that we just couldn't resist. We also got hundreds of messages from you guys about this case. It's a case that not only divided a town but honestly kind of the entire nation—a woman who found her police officer boyfriend dead in another family's yard after a night out and a party full of people who say he never even made it inside that house.

That's right, if you're a true crime junkie, then you know I'm talking about the explosive Karen Read trial. It's been called the ultimate battle of the experts, as professionals took the stand to help the jury determine: was this another domestic homicide, or was there a massive conspiracy that ended with the framing of Karen Read?

Well, after eight weeks of testimony, there still was no verdict. The judge declared a mistrial once the jury came to an impassee. Now what lingers is a series of tough questions and honestly unclear answers. But today, I'm going to give you the points as unbiased as I possibly can, and I'll let you play the role of the jury. So here is the story of John and Karen.

It's the evening of January 28th, 2022. A winter snow has started to descend on Canton, Massachusetts. This is about 20 miles south of Boston. They're supposed to get about six inches of snow overnight, and locals know they better get out to the bars now in case things shut down.

46-year-old John O'Keefe and his 43-year-old girlfriend Karen Read are two of those people. John's been a Boston police officer for 16 years now, and he's lived in Canton for five of them, since 2014. The reason he moved to town was because his sister was living with a brain tumor, and he was helping her raise her teenage niece and nephew. After she passed away, John actually became their sole caretaker. So, he took on these two kids. When people heard the name John O'Keefe, that was the information that came to mind for many of them in this town. He was a kind, selfless man who stepped up to the plate and helped his family in a time of need. John O'Keefe was a good guy. This is what most people in town said about him. He was one who deserved a good woman, and many felt that John had found that in his girlfriend, Karen Read.

Karen was an equity analyst and adjunct professor at Bentley University. She was smart and beautiful, plus it helped that she had a squeaky clean record since she's now dating a cop, right? By 2022, things had gotten pretty serious between them. After being together for two years, Karen rented out her house in Mansfield and moved in with John and his niece and nephew, the two that he had taken on to raise as his own.

So, that Friday night, it was January 28th, just as the snow was starting to fall. Remember, this storm is coming in. Karen and John decided to celebrate the end of the week by going out and getting a few drinks over the weekend. They decided to hit Canton's Washington Street. Around 11:00 p.m., they made stop number two at the Waterfall Bar and Grill. They're just bar hopping during this snowfall on the weekend. Inside Waterfall Bar and Grill, John sees a few people that he knows. Remember these names because they will be very important.

Sitting at the table is John's neighbor, Chris Albert. He's a town selectman. His brother, Brian Albert, another Boston police officer who leads the fugitive apprehension team, is also there. And then Brian's sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe. These are all born and bred Canton townies. They wave John and Karen over because remember, John is also an officer. One drink leads to another, and then another. John is having beers and Karen is having her usual vodka sodas. They're all having a good time.

When last call happens, Brian Albert, remember he's the fellow BPD officer, says, "Hey, let's keep this party going at my house." They all aren't ready for the night to end, but Karen is. Karen's hungry, she's tired, and she's ready for bed. She doesn't want to be out for another few hours. So she tells John, "How about I drop you off at Brian's house so you can continue partying and I will head home and turn in for the night?" Then she says, "Maybe you can just get a ride home."

Neither one of them should be driving at this point, especially not in a snowstorm. But John takes her up on it, and even worse, Karen allegedly takes her drink and the glass it came in on the road with her.

Now, before you're like, "Oh my gosh, these are cops and they're literally taking alcohol into the car with them and they are driving drunk," yes, they are. And you are right.

It's around midnight when all of these people leave the Waterfall Bar, Karen behind the wheel of her black Lexus SUV, while John is plugging in Brian's address into the GPS. When they get to the house, Karen pulls into the driveway and supposedly stays in the car while John gets out. Remember, they're at Brian's house because Karen is going to drop John off so he can keep partying while she goes home.

According to Karen, she decides to wait until she can see John go inside. She watches him walk into the house because, according to her, it looks kind of quiet there. She isn't even sure if people are home, let alone still partying. Karen says she watches John walk up to the door and disappear inside. She actually waits a few minutes just to make sure that he's going to stay there. She lets her boyfriend go in and then waits to see if he comes back out. When he doesn't come out, Karen says she calls him a few times, wondering if she can head home or if he needs a ride back with her. When he doesn't answer the phone, she decides that means he's staying there. She takes off and calls it a night.

Around 4:30 a.m., according to Karen, she wakes up in the home she's now sharing with John and the two kids, but John's not home yet. She looks out the window, and there's a lot of snow. She says she's worried because why hasn't John made it back yet? It's 4 a.m.; she dropped him off at 12:15 a.m. This is especially concerning because John's not answering his phone now. She thinks to call Jennifer McCabe, Brian's sister-in-law, who was at the bar with them and went back to Brian's house. Only, she doesn't have her number. So Karen thinks fast and wakes up John's niece, who is friends with the McCabes' kids, and gets it from her.

When Karen and Jennifer speak, Jennifer senses Karen's panic and urgency because Jennifer doesn't know where John is either. By 5:30 a.m., Karen, Jennifer McCabe, and John's close friend Carrie Roberts are all out driving around, searching in the 18-degree weather for him. She has now recruited two people who are close to John to begin looking for him.

According to Jennifer, Karen says some pretty important stuff during this ride while they are searching for John. For one, she says she and John actually got into a fight last night, and she thinks that's maybe why he hasn't come home. Jennifer also remembers Karen saying something a bit alarming. She begins theorizing in the car with these two people, and this is what she says: "What if he's dead? What if a plow hit him? I don't remember anything from last night. We drank so much; I just don't remember anything."

Now, this is pretty alarming while you're searching for someone who has only been missing for hours at this point. Eventually, they get the idea to go back to Brian Albert's house where John was last seen. They’re out searching, and then they finally decide to go to Brian's house. They pull up to the driveway and spot a large, dark shape lying in the fresh, white snow between the flagpole and the fire hydrant in front of the house.

Karen rushes out of the vehicle and right up to this figure. She’s hysterical because she realizes it's John O'Keefe, her boyfriend, frozen in the snow. At this point, Karen begins performing CPR, even ripping open his shirt to lay on top of him to try and warm him up. Meanwhile, the other women dial 911, and this is at 6:04 a.m. When the EMTs arrive, they take over for the hysterical Karen, who now has John's blood all over her. One of those first responders reportedly hears her saying something even worse. She's repeating over and over again, "I hit him, I hit him."

In the craziness of all of this, they rush John to a hospital in Brockton, but it's already too late. Shortly after his arrival, John O'Keefe is pronounced dead at around 7:50 a.m.

There are a few critical pieces of evidence that I need to point out here before we go on. According to reports, when John was first found in the snow, he had blood around his nose and mouth, and his right eye was swollen and black. He was also missing one of his sneakers and the baseball hat that he had shown up in. There were multiple spots of blood in the snow around him, but police say there’s only one other item of evidence collected from the crime scene when they first show up: a broken cocktail glass, seemingly like the one Karen Read took with her when she left the Waterfall Grill. When they go back a second time, they also find something they supposedly didn’t see before. They go back to the crime scene a second time and find broken pieces of a taillight in the snow.

Around 4:30 p.m. that day, police arrive to speak with Karen at her parents' home nearby. When they get there, they realize that Karen's right taillight is broken on her SUV, and according to police, she has a pretty significant dent and some scratches on there too. But when she speaks with them this day, she tells them the story we just heard: she dropped John off, he went inside the house without her, and then he never came home that evening. However, when police interview Jennifer McCabe and her husband Matt, who also went to the afterparty (and remember Jennifer was on the search ride when they found John), they say something totally different. They say that John O'Keefe never made it to the afterparty that night. He never stepped foot inside the Alberts' home.

But Jennifer says she did see them pull up. She tells police shortly after she got to the Alberts', she saw Karen's SUV arrive outside, which was all part of the plan, right? They decided back at the restaurant that Karen was going to drop John off and then go home. But according to Jennifer, a few minutes later, when John didn't ever come inside the house, Jennifer says she texted him saying "hello," and then at around 12:45 a.m., she looked out the window again and saw the car driving away. She figured they had both just changed their minds about the party, like they had come and sat outside in front of the house and then both decided to go home.

In fact, it's not just Jennifer and Matt who say that John never showed up. Everyone at that little gathering says, "Nope, John O'Keefe never even made it inside the home that night."

Although there are a few witnesses who say otherwise. One man, Ryan Nagel, went to the Alberts' house to pick up his sister Julie at the same time that Karen and John arrived. While he was sitting in his car waiting for his sister to come outside the house, Ryan said he got a good look inside Karen's SUV. He said that she was in there alone and she didn't seem distressed. He also said no, John was not anywhere—he was not in the car, he was not lying on the ground behind it, he was not where his body was found. He also says he didn't notice any damage to Karen's car either.

So although he wasn't inside the house and didn't see John in the house, he also claims no, John wasn't outside. He's one of the only witnesses from that night who isn't closely tied to the Albert family because I want to mention that there are important people inside this party and they all have ties to the Albert family.

There's also another witness in this case who kind of says the same thing. It's a plow truck driver named Brian Luffin. At around 2:45 a.m. that night—so this is long after Karen Read would have dropped John off—Brian is out driving his plow and clearing the roads for the following morning.

If you don't live near snow, this is a very normal thing. The snow plows come out in the middle of the night and they clear off the roads so that by the time people wake up and need to drive to work, they can. Now, his plow emits a lot of light—it has to, so that he doesn't hit anything with it or hit anyone with it. He says when he passed by the Alberts' house at that time, he could see the yard clear as day with his snowplow lights. He claims there was no body on the front lawn when he drove by. Again, there was no body there when he circled back with the plow at 3:15 and 3:30 a.m. A body that, mind you, Karen Read spotted right away when she pulled up to the Albert house the following morning.

So those are the two witnesses in the case who have no connection to the Alberts' family, home, or party from that night. Both of them are saying pretty clearly that there was no body in the front of that house long after Karen Read left or while Karen was there.

Now, we need to talk about the investigation. Strangely enough, and it's not that strange because there are a lot of cops involved in this case, police never examined the inside of the Alberts' home for signs that John was actually inside. You could find fingerprints, DNA, something putting John in the party. This is where things start to get a little questionable in this case because two days after John's death, his autopsy brings up even more questions.

The medical examiner rules his death was due to blunt impact injury to the head and hypothermia. According to that same medical examiner, he did not show any signs of an altercation or a fight, which is strange to say considering he marked some other glaring issues in that report like several bloody abrasions that looked like dog bites that were carved into John's right arm, two swollen black eyes, a gash right on his forehead, a cut along the side of his nose, and a big gash on the back of his head along with multiple skull fractures and a brain bleed. But no, he wasn't in a fight or an altercation.

So police have only one leading theory at this point. This is like two days in. This is their theory: Karen Read hit and killed John with her car before he was ever able to step foot into that house or into the party that night. This is why on February 2nd, 2022, at around 7:40 p.m., a team of police officers converged on Karen's home. A day or so later, Karen was brought into the courthouse and charged with vehicular manslaughter, to which she pleaded not guilty.

So this is just a big mess. Karen's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't kill him," but she also told the EMTs that she might have hit him, and then she was alluding to the fact that he was dead. Everyone in the party was like, "John never made it in," but then you have these two witnesses who are like, "We never saw him outside." The whole thing's a mess. The medical examiner is like, "Nah, he was just hit by a car," but when you look at the evidence on his body, it feels way worse than just a car hitting him.

So, on the way back from that hearing, Karen is at the courthouse, and she pleads not guilty. Her lawyer, David Yannetti, decided to return a call to an anonymous tipster who had left a message at his office. When he speaks to the guy, he says, "Your client Karen Read is innocent." Then the caller proceeds to lay out a whole new possibility in the death of John O'Keefe. He says that during that party that night at the Alberts' home, John did go inside, and he got into a fight with Brian Albert and his nephew, a 17-year-old boy named Colin Albert. Colin is a senior and the star football player at Canton High School.

According to the caller, the fight got so violent that they accidentally killed John and then left his body out on the front lawn with the intention of pointing the finger at Karen. When Karen hears this, she claims the story adds up for one good reason: Colin, the 17-year-old, and John, her now dead boyfriend, do have beef. According to her, there was one night back in the spring of 2020 when she and John were lying in bed when their home security alarm went off. John, a police officer, rushed out to the yard where Karen said Colin and a few other teenage friends were drinking and having their own little party in his front yard. When John told them to get out of his yard, Colin, who has some family members in high places and that are also cops, looks at John, a cop, and says, "Go f yourself." Apparently, there has just been bad blood between John and Colin ever since.

Something that bolstered this theory is that Colin had posted pictures on his social media just days after John's death, and it's clear that his knuckles are scabbed and bruised. He looks like he has been in a pretty severe fight. At this point, everyone legally is pointing the finger at Karen, and Karen and her attorney are like, "Whoa, I did not do this." So Karen and her attorney hire a PI because they now feel like they cannot trust the police. Apparently, he starts poking around Colin's friend group. Most of them slam the door in the PI's face and refuse to talk, but allegedly, he finds one girl who confesses that Colin and a few other friends were definitely at Brian Albert's house the night John died. The 17-year-old and friends were partying at the same party that John supposedly never made it into, but Karen watched him walk into.

This theory is something that David Yannetti, Karen's lawyer, has to take into consideration because, one, John's injuries looked more like he had been in a pretty bad fight with a person rather than being run over by the back of Karen's SUV. Second, the Alberts have a dog. The house party that John never walked into, or did walk into, has a dog, and it's a German Shepherd. Remember, there are dog bites all over John's arm. How did he get them if he never went inside the house that night? Karen and her lawyer are thinking the dog maybe jumped in on the fight and caused the lacerations to John's arm. Karen and her attorneys seem to think so, and the mystery deepened when Karen met with some friends of hers a few months later while she was out on bail.

So she goes to jail. Remember, she's arrested. She pleads not guilty, and then she's out on bail. So these friends tell Karen something interesting that she hadn't known before. Yet as all of this is unfolding, the lead detective on the case, a Canton resident and a State Trooper named Michael Proctor, is very close with the Albert family. Obviously, we know that there were some higher-up officials involved in Canton; they are police, and this lead prosecutor is friends with the Albert family and had known them for years, which would obviously make this a major conflict of interest if he was heading up the investigation, right? Like he's obviously biased.

Well, apparently Proctor didn't really disclose that information when he was assigned to the case. In fact, he downplayed knowing the family at all. Even worse, he'd allegedly received a text message from one of the witnesses who offered to buy him a nice gift when the case against Karen came to a wrap. And he'd sent text messages to friends, calling Karen a bunch of names, including a wack job. He even told his sister that he wished Karen would just kill herself. I mean, this is not okay. None of this is okay. None of this is legal.

So despite some of these red flags, fingers continue to be pointed at Karen Read, even though she is desperately like, "Whoa, can you guys not see that this is all being pinned on me and like everyone is in on it?"

So on June 10th, 2022, cops show up at her front door again, and this time they are there to arrest her for a new charge: murder in the second degree. It is no longer vehicular manslaughter. They are now implying that the death was not accidental but was intentional.

And with these new charges and the case becoming bigger and bigger news, Karen decides to hire another criminal defense lawyer to help her team out. It's a man named Allan Jackson who'd worked on high-profile cases before. Because at this point, this case is starting to gain traction. He defended people like actor Kevin Spacey in his sexual assault case. And once Allan Jackson agreed to take on the case, some even more interesting details started to come to light.

For example, John O'Keefe's Apple Watch offered some insight on his movements the night he died. It said that between 12:21 and 12:24 a.m. (this is right after Karen claims she allegedly dropped him off), John took over 80 steps. Now, a digital forensic expert named Richard Green also said the app showed him moving up and down three flights of stairs right around that time. This is around the time that Karen claims he walked into the party, and everyone in the party claims he never came inside. Apparently, the Alberts' home has three flights of stairs inside. So John's Apple Watch is claiming that he went into the house.

But they also uncovered another detail about the Alberts: shortly after John's death, they got rid of their dog, Khloe. This is the German Shepherd they've had for seven years. But right after the death, they decide to get rid of her. And the Alberts also put their home up for sale, which is just shady. Someone dies in your front yard, and there's dispute about whether that person came inside. Police have never even searched your house yet, and now you decide to put it up for sale.

Although one of the biggest pieces of evidence actually comes from Jennifer McCabe's cell phone. Remember, Jennifer was Brian Albert's sister-in-law who was also at the party and was the one Karen called the morning she found John was missing. Jennifer claims John never came to the party. Well, when Jennifer voluntarily handed her phone over to authorities, they found a Google search that appeared to have been done at 2:27 a.m., just before John was found dead and hours after he was dropped off at the house by Karen, according to her. So the search read (and there's going to be a typo, but I'm going to say it exactly how it was typed in): "hos long to die in cold." Clearly, this is a typo that meant to say "how long to die in cold." But the problem isn't the typo; it's the timing. Because why are you typing that in on a night that someone is going to die of hypothermia in the front yard of the party that you were at? So this doesn't look good for Jennifer McCabe and the others who stayed late at the party that night, who are claiming that John never came in.

However, come April 2023, it wasn't just the police and attorneys who had this information; it became the entire nation's. That month, a blog in the Boston area picked up on the story and all of the strange little details that had been unfolding. His name was Aiden Kerney or to his followers, "Turtle Boy." Now, combining police reports and other official documentation, Turtle Boy released his findings on his website, TB Daily News, along with his own opinions of the case. He believed Karen Read is currently being framed and that she is innocent, and this is why XYZ. He lays everything out that I've told you. His website made claims alleging Jennifer McCabe had helped seed doubt into Karen's mind, convincing her that maybe she had drunkenly run over her boyfriend the night before, which is why Karen even maybe said that to the responders. And that Proctor had actually broken her tail light and planted the shards of glass at the scene for police to find later that afternoon. Now, this was the first time many of the details of the case were actually exposed to the public, and it nearly crashed his website thanks to all of the online traffic. By the following week, it also caused a massive divide amongst everyone in the Canton area. We are talking high school kids unfriending people on social media when they're not on the same side of who has done this, parents not talking to each other at school sporting events over their personal opinions if Karen Read is guilty or innocent. And this is because the ties in this city run deep, and the answer was what decided the future of your social circle in Canton.

Because the next time Karen appeared in court, it was clear that a large portion of Canton had her back. People showed up, they were shouting their support, saying things like "go get them Karen" and "free Karen Read" as she entered the building that day. But this is when things get a bit ugly around town too, and this is mainly due to Turtle Boy.

Not only was he spreading some pretty biased news — I mean, it was very clear where he stood — he was showing up in Canton to rally the masses and harass witnesses. On July 22nd, 2023, he got over 100 people to gather in a grocery store parking lot to write slogans on their cars, including "hos long for justice," kind of like "how long for justice," a play on Jennifer's Google search, which is definitely a damning piece of evidence in this case. Then they drove around town, stopping in front of the homes of Brian Albert, Michael Proctor (remember, he's the prosecutor in this case who is friends with the Alberts), and Jennifer McCabe's home. They go around these homes, and Turtle Boy shouts at them from a bullhorn about the ways he felt they were covering up John's murder.

Now, Turtle Boy's insertion into the case got so bad that in October of 2023, he was actually arrested on charges of witness intimidation. So after that, it seems Turtle Boy dialed it back, but he had successfully changed the public's opinion on Karen Read. Still, there were a lot of questionable details that didn't look so good for her either.

Let's start with John's home security footage. According to investigators, there's video of Karen leaving the driveway around 5:30 a.m. to go look for John. This matches her story, and in that video, her tail light is already broken, which definitely refutes Turtle Boy's theory of Proctor breaking her tail light when he went to question her at 4 p.m. that day to frame her, right? That totally breaks that theory. And what's more, forensics reportedly found microscopic pieces of her tail light on John O'Keefe's shirt, along with a hair sample still lodged in Karen's tail light. When they ran it for DNA analysis, the lab said there was strong support to suggest that it was a match to John.

There are also a few issues with the Colin Albert of it all — this is the theory that this whole fight started because of 17-year-old Colin. Apparently, there are text messages that show Colin was not at the party when John supposedly arrived. His texts show that he left around 12:10 a.m., just minutes before John got there. According to these text messages, Colin left with Jennifer McCabe's daughter, who drove him home. So just another teenager — her mom is obviously at the party. Colin's parents say he was home for the rest of the night that night, so they are coming forward saying he has an alibi.

And on top of that, witnesses said from what they knew, there wasn't bad blood between John and Colin after all. That Karen had misremembered the story and that Colin wasn't even among the teens who were drinking on John's lawn that night of the initial fight. And as for the Alberts' dog and the house, Brian said they had to give their dog away because it had recently attacked another dog, and that they had been in talks with a realtor to list the house well before John's death. This wasn't a decision they made after.

And when it comes to what seems like the smoking gun, this is Jennifer McCabe's Google search — "how long to die in cold" or "hos long to die in cold." The prosecution has an explanation for that as well. Experts said Jennifer didn't necessarily type that into the search engine at 2:27 a.m. the night that John died in the cold. Instead, she might have searched it in a tab that got opened at 2:27 a.m. Apparently, it's hard to tell the difference, but if she reopened her Safari or Google app wherever she searched it, it could have signaled that it was researched. But this is something she could have searched well before that night at 2:27 a.m.

But Jennifer maintained that she typed the misspelled phrase in when they found John's body in the snow that morning. She's like, "I don't know why it says 2:27 a.m. I actually typed that in after we found his body because I was just wondering how long he'd been out there."

Things get even more questionable when you learn that Karen supposedly changed her story a handful of times since the night John died. For example, she first told police that she dropped John off and drove away quickly before seeing him walk inside because she had a stomach ache. Then she said no, she did sit around and make sure he went inside, just waited around to make sure he got in, which are two very different takes on what happened.

Perhaps the most explosive part of all of this was that Karen might actually have a motive for killing John. Police found evidence that showed the two had been fighting constantly in the weeks leading up to John's death. Apparently, Karen had been texting frequently with one of John's colleagues, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives agent named Brian Higgins. They had been exchanging flirty text messages for weeks prior to John's death, and according to reports, Higgins was also at the party the night John O'Keefe died, just another cop or higher-up official at this party. So do with that what you will.

I will say this though: while Karen and John were clearly on the outs, what's interesting is the amount of calls and texts that she made to John the night of his death. So Karen had called him 50 times after she allegedly dropped him off, mostly because she was accusing him of being with another woman. She left several voicemails that night, but one left around 1:00 a.m. said, "John, I am here with you, your exploitive kids, and no one knows where the exploitive you are, you exploitive pervert."

Which is interesting because this could mean a few things: one, either Karen had no idea or did not remember hitting John in the driveway; two, she was using these messages as a way to play dumb and cover up her tracks later on; or three, John was still inside that party, and she genuinely believed that he was with another woman at this party, two-timing her while she was home with the kids.

So all of these possibilities would come into question when Karen's trial began on April 16th, 2024, just a few months ago. Over the course of the next 8 weeks, close to 70 different witnesses were called to the stand, many of them experts weighing in on everything from the phone data to John's injuries to the damage to Karen's vehicle.

And as the trial began winding down, one of the most critical witnesses took the stand on Friday, June 21st: Dr. Marie Russell. She was a dog bite expert and former emergency room physician who spoke about the lacerations on John's arm. Her conclusion: "I believe that these injuries were sustained by an animal, possibly a large dog, because of the pattern of the injuries." She said, "There's a number of patterns here, parallel lines on the upper arm that could be teeth or claw marks."

While the defense tried to argue that these could have been caused by John scraping them on the driveway, there was another expert who doubled down on Dr. Russell's claims.

On Monday, June 24th, 2024, which was actually the final day of testimony, the defense called their last witness: Dr. Andrew Renchler, a biomechanical engineer hired by the Department of Justice to do a third-party reconstruction analysis of Karen's possible hit-and-run. They needed to show that hitting him with the back of her car could cause these injuries, but Renchler told the jury John's injuries were not consistent with being hit by a vehicle. The second expert who has said this, and that the damage to Karen's tail light did not reflect someone getting hit by her car. That same afternoon, the jury began their deliberations, and on July 1st, the jury returned to the courtroom. This is literally just three days ago as I'm recording this to say that despite all of the evidence in this case, despite this lengthy trial, they had reached an impasse, they were split on their decision, and the judge ruled it a mistrial.

So now, right now, the prosecution faces a tough decision. Do they try Karen Read again in the future, or do they let it lie, which means for many the question remains: Was there really a giant conspiracy unfolding involving police, EMTs, medical examiners, local officials, etc., or is Karen Read just very skilled at deflecting the blame? The saddest part about all of this is J. O'Keefe's family does not get an end to his story, not anytime soon at least. And unfortunately, in the media circus that has surrounded Karen Read and this conspiracy, John O'Keefe's name and his humanity has kind of sort of gotten lost in all of it.

So, I kindly ask this: next time you talk about Karen Read, the mistrial, the police cover-up, or conspiracy, I mean, if she's innocent, it is good that we talk about it and make sure she doesn't go to prison for a crime she didn't commit, but let's make sure that we include John O'Keefe's name too, and remember at the center of all of this was an innocent life taken far too soon.

And you guys, that is my wrap-up on John O'Keefe's murder. I hope that you kind of got an unbiased view of both sides. I try to lay pros and cons of both and catch you up to where we are in this case. I know, like I said, I don't normally do a current case, but there were lots of comments asking for it. Let me know in the comments or on social media what you think about this case, and again, let's all remember John as we finish this episode. I love you guys so much, and I will see you next week with another one.

I love it, and Garrett hates it.

Goodbye.

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