In an emotional testimony on Wednesday, the mother of a Boston police officer described the heartbreaking moment she learned her son had been found unresponsive in a snowbank — and pushed back against comments made about her by Karen Read, the woman accused of killing him.
Peggy O’Keefe told the court she received a call around 6 a.m. on January 29, 2022, from one of her son John O’Keefe’s friends — someone who had been with Read when the officer was discovered on the front lawn of Brian Albert, a then-sergeant with the Boston Police Department.
“She said, ‘John was found in a snowbank,’” O’Keefe recalled through tears. “I didn’t understand. I asked, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘They found him in the snow. They don’t know what happened.’”
This was the first time O’Keefe testified in the high-profile case. She did not appear during Read’s initial trial, which ended in a hung jury last summer.
Read, 45, faces charges including second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while driving under the influence, and leaving the scene of a deadly collision.
During opening statements on Tuesday, prosecutors alleged that Karen Read struck Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46, with her SUV and left him to die outside the home of Brian Albert in suburban Boston during a snowy January morning in 2022.
In response, defense attorney Alan Jackson argued that others inside the home were responsible for O’Keefe’s death and accused law enforcement of misconduct and orchestrating a cover-up. He maintained that Read is being wrongfully blamed.
On Wednesday, John O’Keefe’s mother, Peggy O’Keefe, testified that her son’s friend — who had been with Read — picked her up along with Read and drove them to the hospital where John had been taken.
During the ride, she said, she asked Read what happened. “She said they had gone to a party and she left him there,” O’Keefe recalled. “I asked, ‘You just left him there?’ and she said, ‘Yes, I just left him there.’”
Prosecutors allege that Read dropped O’Keefe off at Albert’s home, then reversed her Lexus SUV and fatally struck him. The defense contends there was no crash — that O’Keefe entered the house and was later attacked inside, possibly even bitten by Albert’s dog. Albert has testified that O’Keefe never entered his home.
Peggy O’Keefe told the court that Read never clarified whether she left her son inside or outside the house.
When they arrived at the hospital, O’Keefe said she was being led through the emergency room when she heard Read shouting, “Is he dead?”
Toward the end of her nearly 20-minute testimony, prosecutor Hank Brennan referenced an interview Read gave for an Investigation Discovery documentary. Brennan argued that Read’s comments in that interview, along with others made to ABC’s 20/20, demonstrated a “consciousness of guilt.”
He sought to admit footage of Read recounting a moment in which Peggy O’Keefe allegedly leaned over a kitchen island after the hospital visit and said, “I think it looks like he got hit by a car.”
Brennan asked Peggy directly, “Did you ever lean over a kitchen island and say, ‘I think he looks like he got hit by a car?’”
“I don’t remember talking to her that morning,” she replied.
Jackson declined to cross-examine O’Keefe but objected to the interview clip being admitted, saying it only captured Read repeating something she had allegedly heard and had no evidentiary value.
“This is clearly being used to try to vilify my client with something irrelevant,” Jackson argued.
Brennan disagreed, calling it “an extraordinarily strong piece of consciousness of guilt evidence.”
Judge Beverly Cannone has not yet ruled on whether the clip will be admitted.
