Mansfield Woman Charged In Boyfriend's Death: 'We Know Who Did It'

BOSTON, MA — Karen Read, the Mansfield woman charged in the 2022 death of her boyfriend—Boston police officer Brian O'Keefe—was denied a hearing that would have allowed witnesses to speak to evidence that her lawyers say could prove she's being framed, multiple outlets reported Wednesday.

Read, 42, is accused of hitting O'Keefe with her SUV and leaving him in the snow to die after a night of drinking with her friends in January 2022. Days after her boyfriend's death, she pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter, leaving the scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death, and motor vehicle homicide.

A Norfolk County grand jury indicted Read in June 2022 on the charges, WCVB reported.

A judge ruled Wednesday that the court would not hold an evidentiary hearing which would have included testimony from witnesses, NBC10 Boston and other outlets reported. The next hearing is set for July 25.

Read's lawyers claim O'Keefe, who was found unresponsive in the snow outside a Fairview Road home before dying at the hospital, was attacked by a dog and beaten at the home, according to WCVB.

According to NBC10 Boston, defense attorneys have already presented evidence they claim shows others were involved in Read's death, including a Google search from someone inside the house where O'Keefe was found asking hours beforehand—prosecutors argue that the search was actually made after O'Keefe's body was found—"Ho[w] long to die in cold."

The defense wanted to subpoena the woman who they say made the search as well as the owner of the home by which O'Keefe's body was found—an opportunity they will not have now that the evidentiary hearing was denied.

"We know who did it," Read told reporters while standing on the courthouse steps Wednesday. "We know. And we know who spearheaded this coverup. You all know. I tried to save his life. I tried to save his life at 6 in the morning, I was covered in his blood. I was the only one trying to save his life."

Prosecutors previously said Read and O’Keefe, who was off-duty at the time, were at a bar early Saturday morning and left to go to the home in Canton. Read told investigators she dropped O’Keefe off around 12:45 a.m., made a three-point turn and left, but did not see O’Keefe go inside the house.

During a hearing in early 2022, David Yannetti, Read's attorney, said she became worried and tried to phone O'Keefe several times around 4:30 a.m. Sunday. She asked a friend to drive to the home, where they found O’Keefe in the snow with cuts on his arm, eyes swollen shut and bleeding from the nose and mouth.

Read allegedly said, “Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?” as they tried to figure out what happened to O’Keefe, according to a CBS 4 report.

According to the DA's office, O'Keefe knew the residents of the home on Fairview Road where he was found. His body was cold at the time he was discovered, as temperatures were in the teens.

O'Keefe was a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department. Read is a faculty member in the finance department at Bentley University.