Karen Read’s second trial started Tuesdsay with opening statements and witness testimony in the high-profile Massachusetts murder case. Read, who is accused of hitting her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow in Canton in 2022, is being retried less than a year after her first trial ended in a mistrial. 

The 45-year-old Read is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of personal injury of death. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and argues she is being framed by several people, including law enforcement. 

Eighteen jurors – nine men and nine women – have been seated after a grueling jury selection process that took 10 days. One of the alternate jurors from Read’s first trial is now a member of her legal team. 

Prosecutors said in a filing last week that they plan to use Read’s own words against her at trial, and it’s expected that they will play clips from Read’s various media interviews that she has done in recent months. The jury saw two interview clips on Tuesday. 

Karen Read opening statements

Special prosecutor Hank Brennan, the former Whitey Bulger attorney who was not part of the first trial, made the opening statement for the Commonwealth. 

Brennan started by setting the scene in Canton, describing how firefighter and paramedic Timothy Nuttall responded to 34 Fairview Road in “near blizzard conditions” and found O’Keefe in the snow without a pulse.

“He looked up at Ms. Read and he said, ‘what happened?” And you’ll hear her words through firefighter Nuttall, she said ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,” Brennan said. “We are here today because John O’Keefe was killed by the actions and conduct of that defendant, Karen Read.”

Brennan told the jury that data from Read’s cellphone and car will be a key part of the the prosecution’s argument. In addition to location information, Brennan said data showing the temperature of the cellphone battery “will be critical to your analysis of this case” – an element that wasn’t raised during Read’s first trial. 

When it comes to Read’s SUV, Brennan suggested there is “black box” data that reveals different things than what were discussed in the first trial. He says she threw her Lexus into neutral and then reverse, and put her foot on the gas pedal to 75% acceleration.

“She clipped John O’Keefe, he fell backwards, hit his head, broke his skull,” Brennan said.

Brennan also brought up angry voicemails that Read left for O’Keefe after midnight. The prosecutor referenced a 12:59 a.m. message in which Read says “John, nobody knows where you are.”

“‘And this is where the plot and the cover-up begins,” Brennan said. “The evidence will make clear that she knew he was there. She did not call 911, she did not go back for him, she did not leave an anonymous tip. She left him.”

Brennan ended by playing a clip from an Oct. 2024 Dateline interview with Read. 

“I didn’t think I hit him, hit him, but could I have clipped him? Could I have tapped him in the knee and incapacitated him? He didn’t look mortally wounded, as far as I could see,” Read says in the interview clip. “But could I have done something that knocked him out in drunkenness and in the cold, he didn’t come to again?”

Read’s lawyer Alan Jackson delivered the opening statement for the defense. During last year’s trial, it was attorney David Yannetti who spoke first to the jury.

Jackson started by telling jurors that the evidence will establish “there was no collision with John O’Keefe.”

“John O’Keefe did not die from being hit by a vehicle. Period,” he said. “The facts will show that, the evidence will show that, the data will show that, the science will show that and the experts will tell you that.”

Jackson said the investigation into O’Keefe’s death was “corrupted by bias, corrupted by incompetence, and corrupted by deceit.” He blasted former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator in the case, as a “cancer” who never went into the Fairview Road home owned by Boston police officer Brian Albert or canvassed witnesses. 

“You’ll see during the trial that he intentionally lied and fabricated evidence during the course of this investigation. He lied in reports, warrants, he lied under oath. He lied about the time that he actually secured Karen Read’s vehicle. Why?” Jackson asked. “He lied because he did not want it revealed that he had access to that vehicle and he had access to that taillight before any taillight fragments were found at 34 Fairview.”

At the end of his opening statement, Jackson asked the jury to find Read not guilty on “all three” verdicts. After the first trial concluded, some jurors told the defense that they had agreed that Read should be acquitted on two charges, but weren’t sure how to communicate that to the judge.

“Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty,” Jackson repeated. 

Canton firefighter, paramedic Timothy Nuttall testifies

After opening statements, prosecutors began calling witnesses to testify at trial. Canton firefighter and paramedic Timothy Nuttall, whom Brennan referenced in his opening statement, was the first to take the stand.

He said snow was coming down heavily when he arrived at 34 Fairview and followed the sounds of women screaming. He said he saw O’Keefe laying on his back and took his pulse.

“I looked for any signs of breathing. I found none,” Nuttall said. “He was very cold to the touch.”

While he was attending to O’Keefe, Nuttall says he looked up and saw a middle-aged woman with blood on her face. He identified her in the courtroom as Read.

“I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,” Nuttall recalled Read saying. “I remember it very distinctly.”

He said he observed that O’Keefe had a “pretty good bump” over his right eye and several “notably deep” scratches on his right arm. The defense has argued that O’Keefe’s injuries came from a dog attack inside the Albert home and not from Read’s SUV. 

In cross-examination, Jackson asked Nuttall about his previous meetings with prosecutors and pointed out that Nuttall testified in the first trial that Read said “I hit him” only twice.

“If you testified last year that you heard the phrase twice, and now a year goes by and you’re testifying in front of this jury this year that you heard it three times, those two statements are inconsistent with one another, correct?” Jackson asked.

“Yes sir,” Nuttall replied.

Kerry Roberts testifies in Karen Read trial

The next witness called was Kerry Roberts, a friend of O’Keefe who helped Read look for boyfriend on the night he died. But before Roberts testified, the prosecution played what appears to be an unedited clip of a Read media interview from the “Investigation Discovery” docuseries.

“I know I said I hit him, but did I really say it as many times as law enforcement’s claiming that I said it?” Read says in the video.

Roberts testified about getting a frantic 5 a.m. phone call from Read.

“The first thing she said was, ‘Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, John’s dead.’ And then she hung up,” Roberts said. 

Read hung up but called back, Roberts said.

“The second time she said, ‘I think something happened to John. I think he got hit by a plow. He didn’t come home last night,'” Read said, according to Roberts. 

Karen Read trial witnesses

There are 150 names that the prosecution and defense could call, but not all are expected to testify. 

Among those who played a major role in the first trial and could testify again are former Trooper Proctor, who was fired for his conduct while leading the Read investigation, and Jennifer McCabe, who made the controversial “hos long to die in cold” Google search. 

Also on the witness list are Brian Higgins, Brian Albert and Colin Albert. The defense has argued they could have killed O’Keefe during a fight inside Brian Albert’s home at 34 Fairview Road. Judge Beverly Cannone, however, has ruled that the defense cannot argue that Colin Albert, who was a teenager at the time, could be one of the men responsible for O’Keefe’s death.

Click here for more about the key witnesses in the case. 

Karen Read trial schedule

Roberts will be back on the stand when the trial resumes Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. 

There will be a full day of testimony on Thursday. Cannone said there will be no witnesses on Friday as the court will instead hold a voir dire hearing for the prosecution’s crash reconstruction experts. 

Karen Read’s first trial consisted of 29 days of testimony over nearly two months. The second trial may move faster, as Cannone said the court will be doing as many full days as possible, as opposed to half days of testimony that were a frequent occurrence in the first trial.

Court generally starts at 9 a.m. and goes until 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. They take a short morning break around 11 a.m. and a longer break for lunch at about 1 p.m.

At some point early on in the trial, the jury will take a trip to Fairview Road in Canton to view the crime scene. That visit will not be shown live for the general public. 

How to watch the Karen Read trial

You can watch Read’s trial streaming live from Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham on CBS News Boston or in the video player above when the proceedings begin at 9 a.m.   

Click here for a full timeline of events in the case. 

Neal Riley