The latest on the Karen Read murder case
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‘Sick of always arguing and fighting’: Trooper reads heated texts between Karen Read and John O’Keefe
In some of their final messages before his death, John O’Keefe told Karen Read he was growing frustrated with their increasingly frequent fights.
On the stand Thursday:
Judge Beverly Cannone dismissed jurors for the day shortly before noon, citing some confusion regarding witness scheduling. The jury will go on a view Friday, visiting relevant scenes in the case.
- Trooper Nicholas Guarino, Massachusetts State Police
- Michael Camerano, Canton, MA
- Brigid Meehan, Canton, MA
- Jean DeMulis, Canton, MA
- Daniel Whitley, Canton Fire Department
12:30 p.m. update: The day before he died, John O’Keefe texted Karen Read he was ‘not into fighting all the time’
Karen Read and John O’Keefe argued over text the day before his death, Read accusing her boyfriend of losing romantic interest in her and “setting [her] up to fail,” and O’Keefe expressing frustration over the increasing frequency of their spats.
“Things haven’t been great between us for awhile,” O’Keefe texted Read on Jan. 28, 2022, telling her in another message he was “sick of always arguing and fighting.”
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Hours later, O’Keefe was dead and Read was the main suspect in his murder.
Massachusetts State Police Trooper Nicholas Guarino returned to the stand Thursday to walk jurors through the couple’s texts and calls from Jan. 28, 2022. Guarino, who does phone and computer forensic investigative work for the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office, previously testified about compiling reports of chats, texts, and calls between several individuals in Read’s case.
Read allegedly told investigators she and O’Keefe fought over what O’Keefe’s niece and nephew — who lived with their uncle — ate for breakfast on Jan. 28. Below are some of the messages that followed, as they were shown to jurors.
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“You have really hurt me this time,” Read wrote in a text that morning.
O’Keefe apologized and said he felt he was “forced to always be the bad guy” when it came to raising his niece and nephew.
“Most of the time I try to do what is healthy/smart for them,” Read replied. “More importantly, I try to support you in what you need. You just lashed out at me and said terrible things. I don’t know how you’ve gotten to this point with me, when I’m just trying my hardest. You made your point, and continue to beat me down. I have a lot going on too. Physically I am falling apart and trying to get answers and help.”
In another message, she added: “I am just your girlfriend. I am not a perfect parent. I am trying very hard and sometimes treat them – nothing like I used to.”
O’Keefe apologized again, adding, “[I] always feel like I’m failing at this parenting thing. I wasn’t built for this.” Read reassured O’Keefe and complimented his niece, telling him, “everything wonderful about her is because of you.”
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But as they discussed meeting up later that day, Read told O’Keefe she was still feeling upset “about how this morning went down,” adding, “I know you said sorry but it really stung. Esp[ecially] when I’ve been trying pretty hard lately. I feel like a loser turning around just coming back over after everything you said.”
“Not sure what else you want me to do,” O’Keefe replied. “I said I’m sorry and I was outta line. If you prefer to stay home I totally get it.”
According to Guarino, Read called O’Keefe several times that afternoon, and he answered three of those calls but missed or rejected the majority of them.
“Tell me if you are interested in someone else,” Read texted at one point. “Can’t think of any other reason you’ve been like this.”
“Nope,” O’Keefe wrote back, adding, “Things haven’t been great between us for awhile. Ever consider that?”
In another text, Read wrote that O’Keefe whacked her in the face with a pillow when she tried to hug and kiss him that morning.
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“Last night you’re basically like ‘yeah what about??’ when we talk about the future,” she added. “So why don’t you just admit you’re not into so much anymore?”
“Not how it went down but ok,” O’Keefe replied.
“Can you pls admit your head is out of the game [with] us?” Read asked.
“Sick of always arguing and fighting. It’s been weekly for several months now,” O’Keefe wrote. “So yeh I’m not as quick to jump back into being lovie dovie as you apparently.”
When Read tried calling him again, he texted back, “Omg!! Stop calling.”
Later, Read asked O’Keefe again whether he was “not into this anymore.”
“Not into fighting all the time correct,” O’Keefe replied.
“If you tell me you’re interested in someone else, you will never hear from me again,” Read wrote. “You can have all the space in the world.”
O’Keefe replied with an eyeroll emoji.
In later texts, the couple again discussed meeting up and Read pressed O’Keefe repeatedly on whether he would go out for drinks that night.
“You’re like jonesing to drink,” he wrote back at one point. “So go!”
Read replied and said her questions had nothing to do with drinking, but rather the growing tension at O’Keefe’s home.
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“I think it’s clear me around with the kids around is slowly killing our relationship,” she explained. “And our relationship is much more important to me.”
Later, she added: “I think the four of us together is toxic to this relationship. Would like to limit it.”
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan said he plans to call Guarino again for additional testimony later in the trial. Brennan then played jurors a series of clips from interviews Read has given to various news outlets.
In each clip, Read spoke about her alcohol consumption the evening of Jan. 28. She discussed drinking vodka tonics and feeling “buzzed,” explaining in one interview that she found the cocktails at C.F. McCarthy’s weak and supplemented them with an additional shot of liquor.
Read disputed prosecutors’ claims that she consumed a total of nine drinks that night, though she said in one clip her memory was “fuzzier” than it would have been had she had no alcohol. In another, she asserted she was driving cautiously early on Jan. 29.
“I shouldn’t have been driving,” she acknowledged. “But I know I wasn’t driving recklessly.”
10:15 a.m. update: Karen Read and John O’Keefe greeted each other affectionately hours before he died, friend says
While Karen Read and John O’Keefe argued and bickered as a couple, they appeared affectionate in the hours prior to O’Keefe’s death, Michael Camerano testified Thursday.
Camerano said he and O’Keefe were close friends, as his children were friendly with O’Keefe’s niece and nephew, who lived with their uncle. When Camerano’s daughter and O’Keefe’s niece were both accepted to Bishop Feehan High School, a Catholic school, he and O’Keefe made plans to celebrate the night of Jan. 28, 2022.
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The two men went out for drinks at C.F. McCarthy’s in Canton, where Read joined them. According to Camerano, Read and O’Keefe greeted each other affectionately.
“They seemed happy to see each other, did they not?” defense attorney David Yannetti asked.
“They did,” Camerano confirmed. He testified he saw no arguments or tension during their time at the bar.
“And during the month before John’s passing, … you observed their relationship, in your presence, to be normal, caring, and affectionate, right?” Yannetti asked.
“Yes,” Camerano replied.
However, he testified earlier there were some points of strain in the couple’s relationship. O’Keefe “would get upset … if [Read] bought expensive things for the kids,” Camerano explained, adding O’Keefe wanted to avoid spoiling his niece and nephew. Camerano also suggested he sometimes detected hints of jealousy in the relationship.
“They did everything together, a lot of things together,” he explained. “And I thought at times, yeah, you could see she didn’t want other women around John.”
Camerano said he left O’Keefe and Read together at the bar and awoke the next morning to missed calls from both Read and his wife, who was at work. He learned O’Keefe hadn’t returned home and drove over to his friend’s house to pick up O’Keefe’s niece, who was home alone.
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“She looked distraught,” Camerano recalled. He tried to comfort the teen and brought her over to his house to wait.
A few hours later, O’Keefe’s brother, Paul, called with an update and asked Camerano to bring the teen home. Camerano said he didn’t tell O’Keefe’s niece then that her uncle had died, but “she had a feeling. … She didn’t want to go home.”
9:45 a.m. update: Prosecutor introduces bar surveillance video
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan introduced surveillance video from the two bars where John O’Keefe and Karen Read drank in the hours before his death.
Jean DeMulis, the general manager of C.F. McCarthy’s, and Brigid Meehan, owner of the Waterfall Bar & Grille, both testified briefly about providing surveillance footage to Massachusetts State Police investigators from Jan. 28, 2022.
They were each called to the stand to confirm the video clips played in court showed the interiors of their respective bars. Defense attorneys declined to cross-examine either woman.
9:30 a.m. update: Cross-examination of Canton firefighter turns combative
In a testy exchange, defense attorney David Yannetti grilled Canton firefighter and paramedic Daniel Whitley on his memory of Jan. 29, 2022.
Whitley was one of the first responders dispatched that morning to 34 Fairview Road, where Karen Read found her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, unresponsive in the snow. He transported Read to Good Samaritan Medical Center for a mental health evaluation after she allegedly expressed suicidal thoughts.
While Whitley insisted his memory from three years ago was “very good, as it is today,” Yannetti highlighted discrepancies in the firefighter’s 2022 grand jury testimony and his testimony during Read’s two murder trials. He noted Whitley’s phrasing changed slightly each time he testified, focusing on Whitley’s comment Wednesday that Read “kept asking if there was any chance her husband [sic] could be alive, even sitting outside in the snow with no coat on for many hours.”
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According to Yannetti, Whitley didn’t include the “many hours” detail in his 2022 grand jury testimony. On redirect examination, Whitley clarified that his grand jury testimony wasn’t as in-depth as his testimony during Read’s trials. Answering a follow-up question from special prosecutor Hank Brennan, Whitley denied “inventing facts.”
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
The Karen Read murder trial enters its third day of testimony Thursday, with more witnesses expected to take the stand.
Jurors on Wednesday heard emotional testimony from the mother of Read’s boyfriend, slain Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. Through tears, Peggy O’Keefe recalled racing to Good Samaritan Medical Center after receiving a call that her son had been “found in a snowbank” the morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
“He was bruised up,” Peggy O’Keefe recalled. “His eyes were closed. Just not a good scene.”
More on Karen Read:
Also on the stand Wednesday was Kerry Roberts, John O’Keefe’s longtime friend and one of the two women with Read when she found her boyfriend unresponsive on a snowy lawn in Canton.
Prosecutors allege Read, 45, drunkenly and deliberately backed her SUV into O’Keefe while dropping him off at a house party shortly after midnight on Jan. 29, 2022. They claim she drove off and left O’Keefe mortally wounded, only to return to the scene hours later after realizing he hadn’t come home.
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Yet Read’s lawyers allege she was a “convenient outsider” framed in a vast law enforcement conspiracy. They contend O’Keefe was actually beaten after walking into the party at 34 Fairview Road.
Canton firefighter and paramedic Daniel Whitley testified Wednesday that first responders received orders to take Read to the hospital for a mental health evaluation after she discovered her boyfriend’s body.
He testified that Read was “pretty upset” and crying, though her emotions fluctuated as they traveled to the hospital.
“She kept asking if there was any chance her husband [sic] could be alive, even sitting outside in the snow with no coat on for many hours,” Whitley recalled. He said firefighters tried to “give her hope” by telling her about hypothermia cases where patients miraculously survived with no deficits.
On cross-examination, defense attorney David Yannetti highlighted the firefighter’s connections with Roberts, one of Whitley’s neighbors, and the lead investigator on the case, former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor. Whitley and Proctor attended school together, though they were two years apart.
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