BOSTON (Court TV) — Days after Karen Read filed a lawsuit accusing witnesses from her trials of conspiring to frame her, the group has turned to the public for help in mounting a defense.
Karen Read attends her murder retrial in Norfolk Superior Court, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
Read stood trial twice on charges that she murdered her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe, by hitting him with her Lexus SUV and leaving him to die in the cold. O’Keefe’s body was found early the next morning on the front lawn of a home owned by friends and a fellow police officer. After the first jury deadlocked and caused a mistrial, a second jury acquitted her of the most serious charges, convicting her only of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Read filed a lawsuit last week targeting some of the key players in her trials, including Brian and Nicole Albert, who owned the home where the victim was found, as well as others who were inside the house that night: Jennifer and Matthew McCabe and Brian Higgins.
MORE | Judge allows O’Keefes’ civil case against Karen Read to move forward
Now, a website claiming to help “support witnesses in the John O’Keefe case who continue to be relentlessly harassed and defamed” is inviting those who have followed the trial to donate money to a fund to help the witnesses. A campaign launched on GiveSendGo raised more than $48,000 by Tuesday afternoon.
While many of the comments on the donation website offer support for O’Keefe’s family and friends, others take direct aim at Karen Read. “I cannot understand how anyone could come to the conclusion Karen is not guilty,” one anonymous donor wrote. Another post by Jeffrey Tyrcha says, “I have worked with Karen; she was awful. No one liked her. Justice for the family.”
Read’s lawsuit, which has no scheduled court date yet, has already caused delays for a separate civil lawsuit she’s facing from the O’Keefe family, due to overlapping evidence.
