Karen Read’s name has become synonymous with one of the most closely watched criminal cases in recent years — a saga that began with the death of her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, in January 2022 and continued through two trials, a high-profile acquittal and now a sweeping civil lawsuit against the police departments she says wronged her.
After a jury cleared her of murder in June 2025, Read has refused to walk away quietly. Instead, she’s taking her fight back to court — this time as the plaintiff.
Here’s everything to know about how Read’s case unfolded, what the jury decided and why she’s still battling for what she calls justice.
Karen Read and John O’Keefe’s Relationship Explained
Read was dating O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, at the time of his death. On January 29, 2022, O’Keefe, 46, was found mortally wounded on the lawn of the home of now-retired Boston police sergeant Brian Albert. He died of blunt force trauma to the head.
Prosecutors accused Read of driving her SUV into O’Keefe while intoxicated and leaving him to die in a blizzard. Read denied the allegations from the start, maintaining that she had nothing to do with his death and that she was being framed.
She was arrested in February 2022 and charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident. Read pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Karen Read’s 1st Trial Ends in a Mistrial
Read’s case officially went to trial in April 2024 and quickly captured national attention. After months of testimony, the proceedings ended in July 2024 with a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
Throughout the legal battle, Read maintained her innocence and chose not to take the stand in either trial.
“I have nothing to hide. My life is in the balance, and it shouldn’t be,” she told Boston 25 News in February 2025. “The more information the public has, the more they understand what we already know.”
The case also caused Read to reexamine other high-profile trials, including O.J. Simpson’s 1995 acquittal in the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
“I felt so strongly about the prosecution and his guilt and the fact that he spent all this money on this dream team of lawyers. They all looked like snake oil salesmen to me,” Read told Vanity Fair in April 2025. “I’m not saying I believe O.J. was innocent, but I believe that it was not a completely above-board investigation. Now that I am smarter, I would’ve cheered at that acquittal. You have to hold cops accountable.”
Karen Read Found Not Guilty in Retrial Verdict
Read’s second trial came to an end on June 18, 2025, when the jury found her not guilty of second-degree murder in O’Keefe’s death.
Read was also found not guilty of leaving the scene of an accident. The jury did, however, find her guilty of operating a vehicle under the influence — a first-time offense. The judge sentenced Read to serve one year of probation.
The verdict came after a retrial that featured significant scrutiny of the original police investigation. Ahead of the retrial, lead State Police investigator Michael Proctor was dishonorably discharged after admitting to sending “derogatory, defamatory and disparaging and/or inappropriate text messages” about Read during the investigation, including texts that discussed her appearance.
Proctor’s family claimed in a statement that he was subject to “egregiously false statements” from Read and her legal team that led to his firing.
“All the statement did was put his vile behavior back in the news cycle,” Read told Vanity Fair. “And he had to use two women to do it? Can’t he speak for himself?”
She added that she found it “rich” that Proctor’s family statement specifically mentioned the phrase, “How would you feel if the contents of your personal phone were questionably released to the public without full context?”
Karen Read Files Lawsuit Against Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police
After her acquittal, Read filed a lawsuit in Bristol Superior Court on June 4, 2026, against the Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police Department. In the filing, Read claimed that her 2025 trial revealed “an (embedded) culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot at the very core of both organizations,” according to court documents.
The lawsuit includes disturbing voicemails, text messages and other communications between Proctor and former Canton police Sgt. Sean Goode as evidence. Neither person has been named as a defendant in the lawsuit, and they no longer work at their police departments.
Proctor was fired by the State Police in March 2025 partially due to messages he sent about Read that came to light during her first trial, including one in which Proctor said he hoped Read “kills herself.” Goode resigned on Tuesday, June 2, in the middle of an internal investigation related to dozens of messages he and Proctor exchanged starting back in 2013, according to CBS News.
The text messages were obtained as part of the prosecution of Myles King, who has been accused of killing Marquis Simmons in 2021. Proctor’s personal phone was searched as part of that murder trial because he was the lead investigator on the case.
Read’s attorneys allege that Proctor and Goode used racist and sexist language, made offensive comments about public officials including Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, and made a derogatory statement about New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who is Jewish.
The lawsuit further alleges that Proctor and Goode had “long-standing and deeply held biases against women,” with several text exchanges allegedly showing the former officers discussing inappropriate behavior toward women and referring to women in vulgar terms.
Read claimed in her lawsuit that both police departments knew or should have been aware of Proctor and Goode’s bigotry, as well as that of other officers she believes were unfit to investigate crimes.
Karen Read Breaks Her Silence on the Lawsuit
Read appeared on the Today show on June 5, 2026, to reveal her goals for the lawsuit. She was joined by her attorney, Alan Jackson, who explained she’s seeking more than financial damages.
“What Karen wants, you cannot write on a check, which is exposure,” he said. “Exposure of the corruption that is the DNA of the Massachusetts State Police and the Canton Police Department.”
Read told viewers that she had no choice but to keep fighting.
“This was always our plan, that I had to save my own life first,” she said. “I can’t do anything if I’m not free. I had to fight for my freedom for years, and I knew as it unfolded I was never going to be able to just forget that this happened to me, that I was wronged in this way. I couldn’t just go back to life as it was. I have to continue fighting for justice.”
She added that the “acquittal is deserved, but the wrongs have not been completely righted.”
Following the lawsuit, the Massachusetts State Police told Us Weekly that “these disturbing messages are entirely inconsistent with any basic standard of decency and certainly with the expectations of a Massachusetts State Trooper. These racist, sexist and abhorrent comments absolutely do not reflect the values of the Massachusetts State Police and are not tolerated within our ranks. They underscore and fully support my decision to terminate Michael Proctor.”
The Canton Police Department issued a statement on its Facebook page, saying that the town “has not been served.”
“As such we have nothing to review with legal counsel at this time. We have no comment on the press release issued by the Read legal team,” the department added.
This story was compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists.
