Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Damning Evidence Revealed in Case of Girlfriend Accused of Murdering Boston Cop

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Karen Read faces several charges including second-degree murder in the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, John O'Keefe. Read maintains she is the victim of a massive frame-up by state and local police. On Monday, Read's trial was delayed until April 16 after federal prosecutors turned over more than 3,000 documents to her lawyers. The move came as state prosecutors revealed some damning pieces of evidence against Read. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with former prosecutor Wendy Murphy and defense attorney Lara Yeretsian in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.Host: Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests:Wendy Murphy  https://twitter.com/WMurphyLawLara Yeretsian  https://www.tiktok.com/@yeretsianlawCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Love you, Karen. Free Karen Reid! Free Karen Reid! Free Karen Reid! Karen Reid, the Massachusetts woman accused of hitting her boyfriend John O'Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow has become a cause celeb. Said it feels we're the only ones fighting for the truth of what happened to John O'Keefe. Reid claims she's the victim of a massive police cover-up, while prosecutors say Reid killed her

boyfriend and now her trial has been delayed. I'll tell you why and about some of the evidence prosecutors say points to Karen Reid. I'm Anjanette Levy and this is Crime Fix. Karen Reid faces a second-degree murder charge in the death of her boyfriend, John O'Keefe. O'Keefe was a Boston police officer who was dating Reid in January of 2022. Surveillance video from a bar called McCarthy's captured Reid and O'Keefe, who you can see there wearing a baseball cap, on the evening of January 28, 2022. After that, prosecutors say the couple moved to another bar and then planned to go to a friend of O'Keefe's home for an after-party. O'Keefe was found dead

the next morning around 6 a.m. outside of that home covered in snow, his cell phone found underneath his body. In a recent filing, prosecutors said O'Keefe's DNA was found on the broken taillight of Reed's SUV and that plastic consistent with that taillight was found in O'Keefe's clothing. Reed's defense team has claimed a massive cover-up by state and local police. They've actually claimed O'Keefe was beaten inside that home and that cuts on his arm came from a dog bite. But prosecutors have said that didn't happen and dog DNA was not found on O'Keefe's body. And they're going to look back at this

as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice. The prosecutor in Norfolk County has also said that Reed has conspired with a blogger called Turtle Boy to spread misinformation about the case and to harass witnesses. They say the evidence points to one person being responsible for John O'Keefe's death, and that person, according to the prosecutor, is Karen Reed. Now Reed's trial is being delayed until at least April 16th, after federal prosecutors looking into the case dropped a trove of more than 3,000 documents on prosecutors and Reid's defense team. Joining me to discuss the latest on this crazy case are two people who've been in the trenches on big cases in the past. Laura Uretzian is a defense attorney who was part of Scott Peterson's defense team back

in the day. And Wendy Murphy is a former prosecutor who's also an advocate for victims. Thanks to both of you for coming on. Wendy, I'll start with you. Your reaction to the latest news that the case is now delayed. The trial has been pushed back to at least April 16th because the feds have come in and turned over 3,000 pages of documents saying who knows what. The defense says it helps them. The prosecution says that's not true. Yeah, I guess we'll find out at the trial. I'm not surprised that it's kicked over to April. I'm frankly, I'm not surprised that there haven't been more defense tactics to get this kicked over a lot longer than just April, because to me, this is such an overwhelming case. And one of the things defense attorneys do when the case is overwhelmingly strong against them is they just try to delay it until everybody drops dead.

You know, it's a it's a tactic that doesn't often work. It's just a tactic. And I so I was wrong. I thought the judge would kick it over for a lot longer. And I thought, frankly, that maybe one of the defense attorneys would withdraw for the purpose of facilitating that continuance, because that's also a fairly common defense tactic. Now, having said all of that, is it a big deal to continue the case for a few weeks from the March date to the April date? Not at all. First of all, that is it a big deal to continue the case for a few weeks from the march date to the april date not at all first of all that's a tiny little bit of time and as we know the defense wanted much more of a continuance they didn't get it sure and um presumably that's because they failed to

persuade the judge that they needed more time because of this recent document done from the feds so i think we have to infer from that, that whatever it is that the feds turned over and it may well be thousands of pages, you can have thousands of pages with absolutely nothing in them of significance. If there was something really significant in there, the defense probably would have said,

look, this really important piece of information has just come out from these federal documents. And now we're gonna need to hire another expert, do a deeper investigation or deeper dive on this such and such issue. And they didn't do that. I mean, so I think we have to assume there's not a lot in there. But nevertheless, this is the judge saying, when you get 3000 new documents, you deserve a few more weeks. So I don't see it as a particularly consequential development at all. And it's not a big deal to push a case for a few weeks. And the judge basically said, I'll give you a few weeks, but you need to be ready to go on April 16th. So they'll be back

in court in a couple of weeks. And I think they'll determine from there whether or not further delay is needed. Laura, you're a defense attorney. I'm assuming more time is always better when you have a high profile case. I mean, every time this woman appears in court, there are throngs of people outside holding signs, cheering her name. It's kind of absurd, but that happens sometimes in some of these cases. Your thoughts on the delay? You know, I was surprised that they only got a few weeks. I mean, if you get 3,000 pages of new discovery that you need to go through, and it's not just about reviewing all of these pages.

I mean, it takes quite some time to review several thousand pages. And you also need to see what the issues are and if there's a need for additional investigation. So I was surprised that they only got three weeks. I would have thought that they needed at least a couple of months just to make sure that they've covered their bases, right? They've gone through this. They've done the investigation that needs to be done. But obviously the judge is holding them on or keeping them on a tight leash. So we'll see what happens. I mean, you never know.

They may come back again and say, you know what, Judge? There were a few things that we noticed and we're still investigating them and we need more time. And they're entitled to that time. So I know Wendy sees this as a tactic and this and that. But no, I mean, 3,000 pages is a lot. That's voluminous. Some cases don't even have half of that. And attorneys get a lot of time because they're doing their investigations, they're going through all this because you don't want to leave a stone unturned, right? This is someone's life and you want to ensure that their due process rights are protected and they get a fair trial. And the only way someone can get a fair trial is if also the attorney representing that client or the team are doing their due diligence and preparing the defense effectively. So, I mean, that's where I stand. The part that's surprising to me is that it was only a few weeks. It should have been longer. You know, some people may have known about this

already, but there's been some interesting things that have been noted by the prosecution in this case. And it came in a filing in response to Karen Reid's attempt to have the indictment tossed, the charges thrown out. First thing, you know, and I'm not sure how consequential this is, but they're saying basically that this was a relationship at the time that this happened that was on the rocks. That Karened had accused john o'keefe of cheating on her uh she was saying stuff like i effing hate you in voicemails she was accusing him of cheating on a trip to aruba um you know it sounded like things were not so happy and that he was thinking about breaking up with her so So Laura, I want to go to you first on that. Do you think this paints a picture of maybe something happening that night?

The prosecution might say, look, this was a relationship that they might have looked really happy on the surveillance footage in the bar, but maybe it wasn't so great. And there was an argument or something happened. Look, of course, they're going to try and go there, but just because people have had arguments and every relationship has its stages, right? There's the happy days and there's the days when there's arguments and just taking an argument or an accusation from some time prior to this incident doesn't necessarily mean that that's what was happening on that day. I don't even, I'm not even sure. I think it's more

prejudicial than relevant in some ways. If you ask me, what matters is what was happening on that day. I don't even, I'm not even sure. I think it's more prejudicial than relevant in some ways. If you ask me, what matters is what was happening that night. If everything seemed fine, unless their theory is that she planned on killing him. She was so upset with him and she was accusing him. And this was something she was planning. And she intentionally did this. I don't see why this should come in. What difference does it make what was going on?

If this was an accident, again, how is all of that relevant to this? Wendy, your thoughts on the text and voicemails? Yeah. You know, I'm not 100% in disagreement, but I do think it's relevant for this reason. If you had a fight with someone, whether your relationship was rocky or not, if you had a disagreement or a fight right before they died, that's fair game. I mean, the jury might not think it was a big enough fight to justify murder, but they're entitled to hear about it because motive matters. Motive isn't an element of the crime, but it matters. And then I think, you know, it goes both ways. If she was doing something that upset him or he

was doing something that upset him or he was doing something that upset her, you've got to give the full context of the relationship to the jury. They shouldn't get snippets. And that's what I would worry about as a judge, that they only find out she was mad at him because he had an affair or they only found out that he was mad at her because she was doing sexting things with the ATF agent. You've got to give the whole picture because if a jury is going to use the nature of their relationship as a factor in terms of them figuring out why something might have happened, they deserve the full picture and not a partial picture. They shouldn't think one person is bad and not the other, even though, of course, it's the defendant who's on trial

and the victim really isn't a party to the case, when a relationship is the focus of the jury's attention, they should hear everything about it. And it seems to me there's no disagreement that their relationship was rocky. I mean, there's really no disagreement that they were having problems. The evidence shows that both from his children and from people who knew them. And by the way, the people that were at the party where the house was, where the car was in front of the house, and that's where the incident happened, the people in the house didn't know them that well. So there's not a lot that's going to come from those witnesses

about how much they liked each other or didn't like each other. And all of those witnesses, I think this is correct, testified that they were getting along great that night when they were at the bar. They had all been, I don't know if this has come out, but they had all been, I don't think Karen was there, but the police had been to a funeral service earlier in the day on behalf of another cop who had been killed. And they got, they, cops often get together after these things. And that's what they did. They got together and went to a bar and went to several bars and got drunk. I mean, there was a lot of drinking and both John and Karen were very drunk. And who knows, maybe they had a good relationship with each other because they were both drunks

who like to be together because they enabled each other to be drinkers. I don't know. What I do know is that the evidence shows they were getting along pretty well in the hours before this happened. But they also had a history of difficulty in their relationship. And each of them had a reason to be angry at the other. I think that's the most we can say at this point. And it's fair game for the jury to know all of it.

What does that have to do with what happened here? My understanding is that the allegations are that she was under the influence and she hit him. And that we're looking at it from the negligence angle. We're not looking at a specific intent to murder somebody so or oh no she's charged with murder she's charged with second degree murder she's charged with but i mean my my understanding is that the theory is not that she intentionally did this to him this that this could have been an accident in the sense maybe there's gross negligence or whatever it may be,

or a conscious disregard for human life and the way she drove. But the bottom line is that it's not necessarily that she intended on killing him. And there was no evidence. But I don't think you don't need it. It's a really good point, actually, but I don't think specific intent to kill is the issue so much as what might have been the motive. And state of mind is always relevant. As you know, as a defense attorney,

state of mind is always a factor, whether it's a specific intent, mens rea, or something more like what you said, recklessness. It's still important to know the state of mind of the defendant and to the extent they have evidence that might bear on that. The jury's entitled to hear it. But I hear what you're saying. If this were just an accident, even an accident because she was drunk, you might be right. This is less relevant. But she's charged with second degree murder because what the government has said anyway is that she was originally charged with manslaughter because they did think it was an accident and perhaps a drunk driving accident.

But something changed after that. When they did more investigation, they decided to up the charge to murder. I'm not sure I would have done that. I've always said in this case that I think overcharging always leads to overdefending and it creates a just the degree of mens rea that you described, which is more like an accident. They claim they have a basis for accusing her of intending to kill him. We'll see what that is. I think that's a tough hill to climb, but I don't have access to the evidence the state has. So we'll see. Definitely a tough one. I agree with you. I'm not sure how they're going to prove that, at least not through some texts sometime before the incident, especially when on the eve of everything is great and happy. Let's move on now to the taillight. The prosecution is saying that the taillight from Karen Reed's SUV, that they found pieces of plastic that were consistent with that red plastic from Karen Reed's SUV taillight,

that they found fragments of that in John O'Keefe's clothing and that John O'Keefe's DNA was found on Karen Reed's taillight. So that seems pretty significant. Laura, that seems like a big piece of evidence evidence almost kind of like bombshell stuff i agree i mean this is this is not very favorable to to the defense but there could be a logical explanation to it right and and somebody who knows the facts but i may be able to argue it but but it could have happened after the fact when she came back it could have happened at any point right for the dna to have transferred onto uh some of these pieces or some of that broken pieces having gone onto his clothing, on O'Keefe's clothing. So there may be a reasonable explanation. There may be a good explanation.

And I'm sure there's going to be experts testifying as to all of that, because we know even though the defense has all this information and what seems to be inculpatory, they are still stuck to their position that she is innocent and this was a setup. And they're claiming that there's plenty of exculpatory evidence in the 3,000 pages that they've gotten. And we don't know what they see as exculpatory because they haven't shared that with us and none of us have seen those 3 000 pages all we've got is what now the prosecution is alleging but i would like to see what else they've got because we still have that text and i know there's a dispute about that text about how long for someone to die in the snow yeah and there's a dispute between defense and uh prosecution experts but again these are all things that are going to be litigated, right, later, whether it be in motions of limine or, you know, with witnesses testifying at the trial.

And we'll have more information so we can come to a better conclusion on these issues. And just so the audience knows, the 6.23 a.m. text, the prosecution says it was sent at 6.23 a.m. text. The prosecution says it was sent at 6.23 a.m. when they were, you know, after they had found John O'Keefe's body, Karen Reed and some other women, and that she had asked somebody to Google, how long does it take you to die in the snow? And that a friend had done that. Karen Reed's defense attorneys say it happened much earlier in the evening, and this was part of the cover-up. But Wendy, the taillight evidence, your quick take on that as far as John O'Keefe's DNA being on it and the fragments being found in his clothing, according to the prosecution. Yeah, I don't think there's any way to really argue against it. You can, and you know, you have to. You're a defense attorney. You got to put

something up. But when the argument, when the allegation is that her car killed him by crashing into him and that a consequence of that crash was her taillight was broken and pieces of her taillight are found, microscopic pieces, like not a big piece that you could plant, but microscopic pieces that come when plastic shatters. Microscopic pieces matching her taillight, scientifically proven, they match and came from her taillight, landed in the shirt that he was wearing at the time. You cannot argue against that. I'm sorry. You can try to make a claim that somebody planted them there, but who's going to plant microscopic pieces? And it's just so stupid to think somebody planted microscopic pieces in his shirt. The second piece of it, of course, is the evidence in the other direction. So you've got her car on his shirt. You've also got his DNA on her bumper. Now, some have suggested, well, you know, he lived with her. They lived together. Maybe he somehow came into contact with her bumper in an innocent way. Fine. Make that argument. But the jury isn't going to abandon its common sense. His DNA on her bumper, which is the same

bumper that killed him and has the taillight evidence on his shirt. You have to abandon common sense, not to think that that is the evidence that forensically is going to prove guilt regardless of what those 3,000 pages say. We're going to have to end things right there. Laurie Yaretzi, and thank you so much for coming back on. Wendy Murphy, thank you for coming on as well. We hope you both will come back sometime. You bet. Thank you, Anjan for coming on as well. We hope you both will come back sometime. You bet.

Thank you, Anjanette. Always a pleasure. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Until then, have a great night. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google,

and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law and Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabee is our audio editor.