Blame to Go Around in the Karen Read Trial

As the second trial of Karen Read for the murder of Officer John O'Keefe is about to start, it's worth exploring how we got to where we are in Canton

By Brett Talley and Alice LaCour

The Karen Read Trial, Part 2, is upon us, and the circus is back in action at the Canton courthouse. The next few weeks will tell the tale of this case — will the prosecution take a different approach? Will the defense abandon the dog bite theory? Will they double down on the conspiracy?

But here, on the brink, it’s worth examining how we got here.

Not to the trial itself. That’s pretty obvious. For those of you who haven’t followed the case, on the night of January 29, 2022, Karen Read and her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, went out drinking with some friends on the eve of a blizzard. When it was suggested that the party return to a friend’s house, Karen and John agreed. But according to the partygoers, John never made it inside, and the next morning, his body was found under the snow in the front yard near the road. How he got there was a mystery, though police suspected he may have been struck by a vehicle.

Police officers groomed Sandra Muchmore (right) from the age of 12 when she joined a police explorers program. Supporters of Karen Read (left) have used murder charges against an officer in Birchmore’s case to undermine faith in the police.

When the evidence came back, which included John’s DNA and hair on Karen Read’s bumper, shards from her broken taillight in his clothes and in the snow around him, and multiple people who heard Karen say she hit John, Karen was arrested.

But what might have been a simple hit-and-run turned into something completely different. If you follow true crime, you know that Karen has become the center of a movement with almost cult-like devotion.

Instead of Karen, the defense has argued, a large group of John’s friends beat him viciously at the party, dumping him in the front yard to die in the snow, and then conspired with multiple police departments to cover it up. An army of YouTubers, podcasters, and even some mainstream reporters took that story and ran with it, leading to Karen’s attorney opening his statement to the jury in the first trial with, “Karen Read was framed.” That trial ended with a hung jury and here we are, waiting for round two.

And so, what should have been a simple trial, maybe a quick guilty plea with little prison time attached, has turned into a media firestorm, a circus worthy of Barnum and Bailey.

We’re on the record with our thoughts on the case—Karen killed John, and it’s not close. We did nine episodes and a bonus on The Prosecutors if you want to hear more details. But that’s not what this article is about. Instead, we want to talk about who is to blame for what is going on in Canton.

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