DEDHAM — Paul O’Keefe, who watched every second of the murder trial of Karen Read, the woman accused of killing his older brother, John O’Keefe, says the entire ordeal was overshadowed by what he called “The Karen Read Show.”
“All the time. It’s turned into the Karen Read Show,” Paul O’Keefe said in an exclusive interview with Kristina Rex, a reporter from Boston’s WBZ-TV.
Read, 44, is accused of killing 46-year-old John O’Keefe during a January 2022 snowstorm by hitting him with her Lexus SUV in Canton after a night of heavy drinking with friends.
“She walks through a crowd cheering her on,” Paul O’Keefe said of Read. “She goes out in public, takes pictures and signs autographs. She just lives her life like nothing ever happened, and my brother has been dead for almost 2 1/2 years. I just want people to remember who the victim is here. It’s not her, it’s my brother.”
He also revealed an exchange he had with Read on Monday, shortly after a Dedham Superior Court judge declared a mistrial because the jury could not reach a verdict on whether Read had killed John O’Keefe.
“When the mistrial was declared,” O’Keefe said, “she turned around, looked right at Erin (Paul O’Keefe’s wife), grinned at her, then walked over to her, hugged her and celebrated a little bit. And I just said, ‘You know, you’re not done yet.'”
In a murder trial that garnered national attention, Read’s lawyers claimed she was involved in a law enforcement conspiracy carried out by corrupt investigators who covered up the real killers.
Prosecutors argued that in January 2022, a drunk and angry Read backed up her SUV, struck John O’Keefe and left him dying outside the home of another Boston police officer in Canton.
Read, who did not testify at her trial, claims she dropped O’Keefe off at the house for a party. Her lawyers claim he was beaten and possibly bitten by a dog before they were left outside.
The prosecution immediately announced a retrial of Read, who had pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder and other charges.
“We know what happened,” said Paul O’Keefe. “We know Johnny and Karen had a falling out, it was towards the end of their relationship. Things were not going well. They were drinking, arguing and fighting, and in an intoxicated state of anger and jealousy she just decided to do something about it.”
He said he decided to speak out because many people had been misinformed about the case.
“A lot of the public was misinformed because they only heard one side of the story, and we didn’t go public to tell our side of the story or say what we think really happened. We kept a low profile and kept quiet throughout this whole thing,” he said. “Now is the time. Now is the time for people to know the truth.”
Paul O’Keefe said his family had received hate messages from members of the Free Karen Read movement.
Read’s supporters stood outside the courthouse and chanted “Free Karen Read” during the preliminary hearings. During the trial, they were held in a buffer zone. But some went even further, O’Keefe said.
“They yelled at us, shouted at us and called us names. To this day I don’t know what I did wrong,” he said. “I keep getting messages on Facebook or other means of communication. They tell me I’m an idiot, I’m stupid, I should open my eyes and things like that. I don’t really care what people say to me. Because this isn’t about me. This is about my brother.”
Paul O’Keefe sat just a few feet away from Read in the cramped courtroom every day during the two-month trial.
“Throughout the entire trial, she liked to turn around, look at me and grin,” O’Keefe said, adding that until the mistrial was announced, Read never made eye contact with his wife, Erin, who sat next to him every day.
O’Keefe called the mistrial a “stumbling block.”
“We will do it as often as necessary,” he said.
A status conference on this case has been scheduled for July 22.
