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Prosecutor: Karen Read’s calls to her parents suggest she ‘knew she had done something terrible’
“When Ms. Read knew that she struck John O’Keefe is a critical issue in this case,” special prosecutor Hank Brennan asserted Tuesday.
There is “strong evidence” Karen Read “knew she had done something terrible” when she called her parents soon after allegedly leaving her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, to die in a blizzard, special prosecutor Hank Brennan argued in a hearing Tuesday.
Several motions were on the docket as Read returned to Norfolk Superior Court, including prosecutors’ requests for phone records from her parents, Janet and William Read.
Prosecutors say Read called her parents and texted her father after she allegedly backed her SUV into O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, shortly after midnight on Jan. 29, 2022. Authorities allege Read, 44, was driving drunk at the time, struck O’Keefe deliberately, and left him to die on a snowy lawn in Canton. Her lawyers contend she was framed in a law enforcement coverup.
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“The inference that a 40-something-year-old woman is calling her parents at 1:30 in the morning after this tumultuous event, the inference is strong evidence that Ms. Read knew she had done something terrible, she knew she had struck John O’Keefe, and she knew that she had left him behind,” Brennan alleged. He said Read’s calls went unanswered.
Read is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Her first trial ended with a hung jury in July, and she’s due to stand trial again in January, though lawyers on both sides have asked for an April delay. Judge Beverly Cannone said Tuesday she’s still weighing the request.
More on Karen Read:
Brennan said prosecutors will likely call William Read as a witness in his daughter’s upcoming retrial, pointing to his statements in an interview with Boston 25 News last year.
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“She felt she struck something,” William Read said in the Boston 25 segment. “She said, ‘Dad, I think I struck something. … I remember … backing up and hitting something.’” Later in the clip, however, he clarified his belief that his daughter damaged her taillight while backing out of O’Keefe’s garage to look for him just after 5 a.m. on the 29th.
Read’s parents did not testify during her first trial, though they sat behind her in the courtroom in a show of support.
“When Ms. Read knew that she struck John O’Keefe is a critical issue in this case,” Brennan said. He explained he’s seeking a month’s worth of phone records from the time leading up to O’Keefe’s death in order to establish whether it was out of the ordinary for Read to call her parents in the middle of the night.
“In the absence of any other calls, it is terribly remarkable that she is panic-calling her parents at 1:30 in the morning,” Brennan said. Prosecutors have also requested records of William Read’s calls, texts, and data use for Jan. 29 through Jan. 30, 2022.
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Brennan argued that Karen Read’s records are insufficient for prosecutors, as call logs can differ between devices and some of Read’s phone records may have also been redacted as investigators parsed through the data.
Yet defense attorney Elizabeth Little called the request a “gross invasion” of privacy and alleged Read’s call logs confirm she didn’t make any calls to her father on the 29th until after finding O’Keefe incapacitated in the snow around 6 a.m.
“The commonwealth did a kind of funny thing, right? They suggested during their arguments that she called both parents in the middle of the night. That’s not true,” Little said. “There was only one call to her father on Jan. 29, the morning of. It was at 6:32 a.m.”
Brennan argued it was unclear whether Read’s father answered her mother’s phone, or vice versa.
Describing prosecutors’ requests as a “fishing expedition,” Little called on Cannone to deny the motions. The judge took the matter under advisement and did not issue a ruling.
Separately, prosecutors also sought records from several news outlets that interviewed Read or her parents, including Boston magazine, Boston 25, NBC’s “Dateline,” and ABC’s “20/20.” Brennan accused Read of giving contradictory statements during her various interviews.
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While Boston magazine previously turned over some records of its interviews with Read, Brennan alleged the recordings were peppered with significant redactions and interruptions from Read’s lawyers.
“One thing that stands out when you actually listen to the interviews and you look at the transcripts, is that many times during the attorneys’ interruptions, there’s a redaction, and then when the conversation resumes, there is a change — sometimes subtle, sometimes not subtle — there is a change in the statement by Ms. Read,” Brennan said.
Defendants, he added, “enjoy a Fifth Amendment privilege, as they should; a defendant is presumed innocent. But when they cast it aside, it’s at their own peril.”
Robert Bertsche, a lawyer for the magazine, blamed the redactions on prosecutors’ original motion, which requested only statements from Read, not her attorneys. Cannone took the matter under advisement.
Read’s lawyers have also requested Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s personal phone and email records, and the lawyers briefly discussed a protective order that Brennan said would allow prosecutors to turn over some of the requested materials, with more still to come.
Cannone suggested the prosecution and defense continue to confer with one another, leaving open the possibility for a hearing on the matter during Read’s Dec. 12 court date.
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
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