The theories of a Canton murder

The murder case of Karen Read, set for trial this week in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, is one complex beast.

A Google search Saturday afternoon of just the defendant’s name in quotes returned more than nine million results. Any cursory examination of the discussion on any web forum, be it Reddit or X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — is a rabbit hole that could suck one in for hours, days, or even months.

Many observers are, rightly or wrongly, obsessed with the finer details of the case and have staked strong claims on the guilt or innocence of the 44-year-old former financial analyst and Bentley University lecturer from Mansfield. She’s accused of killing her boyfriend of two years, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022.

No matter a reader’s true crime preferences, the case has allegations of it all: conspiracy, dog bites, police and prosecutor corruption, witness tampering, affairs, intoxication, a good ol’ boys network, evidence tampering, surveillance cameras, suspicious Google searches, phone software tracking, and even a mysterious federal probe hanging over it all.

Judge Beverly Cannone estimated the amount of evidence discovery filed in the case to be 4,500 pages.

In other words, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

Here is a guide to the thrusts of both the defense and prosecution theories on what actually happened in Canton that winter night.

The charges

Read was indicted June 9, 2022, on charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing death. This pushed her case to the Norfolk Superior Court, where she pleaded not guilty to the charges.

This indictment upped the charges she was originally arrested on. She pleaded not guilty in Stoughton District Court on Feb. 2, 2022, to original charges of manslaughter, leaving the scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death and motor vehicle homicide.

The victim

John O’Keefe, 46, was a 16-year member of the BPD, who his family described following his death as “not only a dedicated police officer, he was an exemplary guardian, son, brother, uncle and friend and we were so fortunate to have him as a part of our lives.”

At the time of his death, O’Keefe had been in a relationship with Read for two years.

He was also a father figure to and had custody over his niece and nephew, both of whom were orphaned when their parents died in 2013 and 2014.

A GoFundMe drive set up for the children’s benefit following O’Keefe’s death amassed a total of $336,735 at its closure — in far excess of its $10,000 goal.

The players

The defense: Boston attorney David Yannetti has represented Read since the beginning of the case.

Yannetti was joined in September 2022 by California-based defense attorneys Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little of the Los Angeles firm Werksman Jackson & Quinn. Jackson had formerly been a Los Angeles prosecutor famed for his successful murder prosecution of legendary record producer Phil Spector. He also famously defended Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey on sexual assault charges in Nantucket.

The prosecution: Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally has been the prosecutor in the case since the very beginning. Fellow Norfolk ADA Laura McLaughlin has also joined the prosecution since it came to the Superior Court.

Norfolk DA Michael Morrissey, while not present at the defense table, has been a subject of the case. Letters between Morrissey and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston — which launched its own investigation in the case — have been filed as evidence. Morrissey also made an unprecedented public statement on the case, for which the defense has asked him to be sanctioned and his office disqualified. Those motions failed.

The judge: Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone was appointed to the bench by Gov. Deval Patrick in 2014. A Quincy native, Cannone began her career after graduating from the New England School of law in 1985 as a public defender. She began her judicial career in 2009 with her appointment as judge of the Quincy District Court.

The lead-up to the mystery

O’Keefe and Read joined many others at the Waterfall Bar and Grille in downtown Canton at around 11 p.m. on Jan. 28, 2022, and, according to state witness Jennifer McCabe, the pair appeared to be in good spirits.

In fact, according to summaries filed in the case of the 1,445 pages that make up the non-public grand jury transcripts, each witness of the night’s outing described “the atmosphere within the bar as friendly with no arguments amongst any of the patrons.”

McCabe told investigators that Read appeared to have snuck in a possible vodka-based mixed drink from C.F. McCarthy’s bar across the street, where she and O’Keefe had been drinking before the Waterfall get-together.

When the Waterfall was set to close, the whole party — including Read and O’Keefe — was invited back to 34 Fairview Road, the then-home of Boston Police Det. Sgt. Brian Albert and his wife Nicole Albert. McCabe said she saw O’Keefe and Read leave together.

Canton Police would discover O’Keefe’s body in the yard outside that home at around 6 the next morning, as it “was snowing heavily with the wind blowing.” Read, McCabe and a woman named Kerry Roberts waved an officer down as Read tried to warm and resuscitate her boyfriend.

Prosecution’s theory: Read killed O’Keefe

The prosecution and defense theories take a major departure at the part of the story when Read arrives at 34 Fairview Road in her 2021 black Lexus SUV. In short, prosecutors say that Read slammed her car into O’Keefe in front of the property following a drunken argument and that a broken passenger-side rear tail light clinches their version of events.

McCabe said that O’Keefe texted her “where to,” at 12:14 a.m. and called a few minutes later asking for more details. She said Read’s Lexus pulled up near the driveway at around 12:30 a.m. but that her texts to O’Keefe from that point on when unreturned. The SUV then pulled to the other side of the home, where O’Keefe’s body would be found later, and at around 12:45 a.m. left the area.

The positioning of the vehicle was backed up by other grand jury witnesses, prosecutors say, including McCabe’s husband Matthew.

Then, shortly before 5 a.m., McCabe received a call from O’Keefe’s niece at Read’s behest, she said. Read sounded distraught on the phone, McCabe told the grand jury, and said that she didn’t remember seeing O’Keefe after the Waterfall and that they argued in a fight the last time they were together. McCabe told her she saw the pair leave together and that she had seen Read’s SUV at the property.

Read drove to McCabe’s house and she and McCabe along with Kerry Roberts set off to search for O’Keefe, McCabe testified to the grand jury, prosecutors say. McCabe said Read said she had a broken taillight and during the drive mused “Could I have hit him?” When approaching the property, McCabe said, Read spotted O’Keefe before either of the other two women, who both said the visibility was too bad at that point to see anything.

Roberts for her part said she got a call from Read at around 5 a.m. stating that O’Keefe had not come home. Roberts further said that Read was “hysterical” and stating that O’Keefe was dead and might have been hit by a snow plow. She said Read appeared drunk even at that time and told her, “I was so drunk I don’t even remember going to your sister’s last night.”

A Canton Fire and EMS worker allegedly told investigators that Read told her “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,” which is a quote that prosecutor Adam Lally used as a dramatic beginning of Read’s lower court arraignment.

The next day, State Police troopers say they found the Lexus SUV at Read’s parents’ home in Dighton and “observed the rear right passenger side taillight to be shattered and a large red piece of plastic to be missing from the taillight.” Police say they found pieces that could be from the tail light after digging through the snow at the scene

In summaries of interviews, prosecutors say witnesses indicated that Read and O’Keefe’s relationship was in a bad place at the time. The couple had argued just that morning, and O’Keefe’s niece said they argued “a lot … approximately two to three times a week … and it was mostly yelling.”

There was jealousy, too, as prosecutors say the children said Read accused O’Keefe of kissing someone else during a New Year’s trip to Aruba. About a week before the fateful night, the niece said, O’Keefe told Read their relationship had run its course.

An examination of logs from O’Keefe’s cell phone, which they say was recovered under his body, indicated great relationship strife and that Read left him voicemails around the time of his death that include the words, “John, I (expletive) hate you.”

The defense theory: It’s a cover-up

The defense counters that there is no way O’Keefe’s brutal injuries were caused by being hit by a car in the way the prosecution describes it. In short, they say Read, who was suffering from stomach and other woes due to various medical conditions, dropped O’Keefe off for the after party. They say he was beaten inside the home and placed on the lawn in a cover-up to frame Read.

Read attorneys have argued what is called a “third-party culpability” defense, which means someone else killed the victim, since the middle of last year.

Judge Cannone ruled that the defense cannot state such an argument in their opening but will be allowed to “develop” it over the course of the trial.

Defense attorney David Yannetti said in the final hearing before jury selection that both his team’s expert witness as well as experts retained into the federal probe of the Read investigation have “corroborated that O’Keefe’s injuries are not consistent” with being struck by a car.

“So, your honor, if Mr. O’Keefe was not hit by a car, then the defendant did not kill him,” Yannetti said. He added later that, “If you want to point the finger in a third-party culpability defense, you have a constitutional right to do so.”

He named three specific people he says had the motive and opportunity to kill O’Keefe.

Those are Brian Albert, the then-owner of the home; Colin Albert, Brian Albert’s then-16-year-old nephew; and Brian Higgins, a federal special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) who maintains an office at the Canton Police Department.

Yannetti said Higgins had a prior romantic relationship with Read and seemed to suggest jealousy as a motive to kill O’Keefe. He said Colin Albert had a demonstrated history of “bad blood” with O’Keefe. He said Brian Albert also has “expressed hostility toward O’Keefe” and that when he stayed in his home as a fellow police officer lay mortally wounded on his front yard, he abdicated his duty to help, which Yannetti says indicates “consciousness of guilt.”

But Yannetti said “It is not our job to solve this case for the prosecution,” but only to defend the client. He said there is enough evidence that someone else killed O’Keefe but that finding the actually responsible party has been hindered by an extensive conspiracy and cover-up.

He said there is a demonstrated history between the primary MSP investigator in the case, Trooper Michael Proctor, and the Albert family. It’s the same, the defense has argued, for Canton Police Sgt. Michael Lank, who was the first on the scene.