The Case Against Karen Read

The Crash Course 101 🚘💥 Buckle up, we have a lot of info to cover.

Note: This case is layered with multiple witnesses, allegations, and assumptions. It’s important to know the basic story outline before proceeding into all the other side stories spiraling online and in the community. The purpose of this article is to explain those basic bones of the case.

(This outline has been created prior to trial, so please take into account that the actual trial may alter some of these details once witnesses testify.)

Summary and Sequence of Events:

▪️On the night of 1/28/2022, Boston Police Officer, John O’Keefe, and his girlfriend of 2 years, Karen Read, went bar-hopping with some friends and acquaintances in their local town of Canton, Massachusetts. (Despite earlier arguments over text messages showing that John was frustrated with Karen, he agreed to have her meet him at C.F. McCarthys bar where he had plans to meet up with some pals. That small group eventually walked across the street to the Waterfall Bar & Grill to meet up with more friends & acquaintances.)

▪️The group of friends & acquaintances staggered out of the Waterfall Bar & Grille at different times, but John (victim) and Karen (defendant) walked out about the same time as John’s good friend, Jen McCabe and her husband Matt McCabe. 

▪️Jen invites John and Karen back to her sister, Nicole’s home. (Nicole and Brian Albert). 

▪️John and Karen get into Karen’s black Lexus SUV. Karen is driving.

▪️Jen and Matt McCabe get into their own vehicle and drive away.

▪️John texts Jen, “Where to”.

▪️Jen calls John back and gives him the address. 

▪️Jen and Matt pull up to the Albert property (they park in the driveway) and enter the home.

▪️Karen and John miss a turn on their way to the property on Fairview home. They turn around and reach a three-way-stop. A vehicle coming from the opposite direction stops at the stop sign. Karen makes a right turn onto Fairview Road with the other vehicle following directly behind them as they both pull up to the Albert property.

▪️Karen pulled up on the side of the road in front of the property (passenger side closest to the property) at approx. 12:24 AM.

▪️The vehicle driving behind her is a grey Ford truck with 3 young adults (Ryan Nagel, Ryan’s gf Heather, and Richie (driver). That vehicle pulls up behind her.

▪️There’s another vehicle (Brian Higgins’ white Jeep with a front snow plow extension) that was already parked by the mailbox and driveway. The Ford truck pulls up past it. (Note: The placement of Brian Higgins’ Jeep is contradicted by different witnesses. This may or may not be noteworthy).

▪️Ryan Nagel is there to pick up his sister Julie Nagel. She comes out of the property and tells Ryan that she wants to stay later. She invites him and his friends in, but they decline and leave.

▪️Ryan notices that Karen’s SUV drives forward a bit and stops in front of the middle divide between the Albert property and their neighbor’s property.

▪️Ryan Nagel reports he never saw John exit the vehicle. 

▪️From arrival to driving away, Ryan Nagel states he was there for no longer than 5 minutes.

▪️Ryan reports that snow was falling and sticking to the ground for about 30 minutes at that point.

▪️When Ryan drives away, he passes by Karen’s vehicle, and glances over. He reports seeing a woman looking forward, hands on steering wheel, center light on. He is asked if he saw someone in the passenger side, and he said he did not notice another person.

Here are the times and call log between John (victim) and his friend (Jen McCabe).

▫️Jen McCabe is wondering why John and Karen have not come into the house. She continues to call and text John over a span of 20 minutes.

▫️Jen reports looking out the window and seeing the SUV pull forward at one point, just like witness Ryan Nagel also reported. 

▫️Jen eventually sees that Karen’s SUV is gone. Jen’s husband, Matt, reports seeing tire tracks in a V shape, which lends to the conclusion that Karen made an unnecessary three-point turn to head home. 

▫️ John’s phone records his finally steps between 12:31 - 12:32 am. The geolocation shows he never left the lawn area of the property. This is where his body will be found hours later.

Karen’s phone connects to John’s house WIFI at 12:36 (unknown seconds. Could be closer to 12:37). The drive from the Albert property to John’s house is 6 minutes going the speed limit per google maps. If Karen hit John, she would have been speeding to make the 6 min drive in under 5 min. This drive time has been tested by a journalist, and he made it just over 4 min.

▫️Jen and Matt leave the Albert property around 1:30 am, and they give Julie Nagel a ride home on their way.

🔴 Karen states in her Nightline interview (Link added at the bottom of this article) that when they reached the Albert property, she told John to go make sure they were welcome despite being given an invitation and directions from Jen McCabe. Karen says John within minutes of John entering the home, he is not answering her calls and texts. She gets frustrated and drives away back to his house (Approx. a 6 min drive when going the speed limit per google map).

(Karen’s cell records reported in court will show that she actually did not call or text him during that timeframe. It wasn’t until she had already driven away. Her cell records will also show that she made multiple phones calls to John’s voicemail with nasty messages. The first one stating that she “fucking hates” him. She also makes unanswered calls to her parents.)

🔴She then says she fell asleep around 1:30 and woke up before 5am noticing John was not home. She says she decided to drive around town in a 2 mile radius for about 20 minutes and look for John outside in the snow. She does not mention driving back to the Albert property to look for John. Does not say why she assumed he was out in the snow in the middle of the night.

🔵 “Lucky” the snow plow driver makes several passes that night down Fairview Road. He reports not witnessing any man laying in the snow on the front side of the property and is sure he would have noticed a body.

🔵 Per the Private Investigator’s affidavit, “Lucky” the snow plow driver states that at 3:30am or 4am, he was on Cedarcrest Road passing by Fairview Road. He glanced down the street and saw the back of a “Ford Edge or something similar” parked on the side of the road where the body would later be found. He said the vehicle was not there earlier when he did passes on that road.

(Note: In trial, Lucky’s memory of times are different than in the affidavit, which now includes him driving down Fairview around 5am one last time. He says the vehicle was no longer there at that time.)

🔴 Karen states she fell asleep somewhere around 1:30am and woke up before 5am. She began driving around town “in a 2 mile radius” canvassing the area for John.

🔴 Karen arrives back to John’s house again, and wakes up his 14 year old niece. The niece has Jen McCabe’s phone number, so Karen has her call Jen. The call is made at 4:53 am.

🔴 According to John’s niece, Karen’s story about John changes several times when speaking with Jen. Karen is panicked.

🔴 Ring footage from John’s property captures Karen’s SUV exiting the garage to drive over to Jen’s house. Her SUV appears to come in possible contact with John’s parked vehicle. This is a video that many people debate over. Did her SUV tail light actually crack from this incident? No shards of red plastic are seen in the snow from this footage. Police later examine the area and John’s vehicle stating no signs of damage.

🔴 Karen arrives at Jen’s house around 5:30 am, and then Jen drives Karen’s vehicle back to John’s house with her. They arrived back at John’s house around 5:45am, and John’s friend Kerry met them there. They all checked to make sure John was actually not at his home. They then proceeded to get into Kerry’s car and look for John back at the Albert property.

🔴 Jen and Kerry state that Karen was frantic on the drive there and making remarks like, “Could I have hit him?” and “Look at the crack in my tail light. There is a crack in it.”

🔴 As the women drive up Fairview Road, Karen (who is in the back passenger seat) is the first to see John laying in the snow.

🔴 Karen and Kerry attempt CPR and Jen McCabe calls 911 at 6:03 AM

🔴 EMS and LE arrive within minutes.

🔴 Karen yells at Jen McCabe to google, “how long to die in the cold” (This google search has been highly debated by people). The theory is that the “last tab open” time stamp at 2:27am was when Jen googled the infamous “Hos long to die in cold”. Meaning she knew John was dead before he was found, thus lending to a murder cover-up. Prosecution says that the FBI and Cellebrite Forensic Digital Expert concluded that the search was after 6am, just like witness Jen reports. However, Defense says FBI reports it did happen at 2:27. Trial will hopefully clear this up for everyone.

🔴 John is not pronounced dead on scene. EMS loads John into the ambulance and leaves immediately for the hospital. His body temp is around 80 degrees.

🔴 Karen makes suicidal statements to her parents on the phone, so (due to state law) she is transported to hospital to be checked and treated. Her blood alcohol level is taken at 9:08 AM when she was admitted, and it was .07-.08%. Forensic toxicologist concludes from this that Karen’s BAC was at .13-.29% around the time she was parked out front of the Albert property.

🔴 After being at the hospital for almost two hours, John is pronounced dead at 7:50am

🔴 While at the hospital, Karen tells her dad that she remembers she “struck something”.

🔴 After EMS left the scene, LE went into the Albert property to speak with the homeowners.

🔴 SERT team was called in later that day to help search the area for any more evidence. They found John’s second shoe (the other one was still on his foot), and they located shards of red tail light pieces under the snow around where John’s body was located that morning. When LE first arrived to the scene earlier that morning, they found clear shards from John’s cocktail glass he was captured on video holding when leaving the bar.

LINKS

Police Report Document

Karen Read’s Nightline Interview (Youtube video)

Karen Read’s Parents’ Interview (Youtube video)

Jen McCabe Interview Summary Document

Boston Magazine Article (Tribute to John)

Make the Case on Karen Read with Yellow Cottage Tale (Youtube)

Commonwealth’s Opposition to Motion to Dismiss Document

OKAY guys, THIS was A LOT of info. And it's just the bare bones of a trial that is currently in jury selection process as I write this. I will try and come back to this timeline after the trial to update with more details confirmed in court.

Lots of rumors and misinformation have been swirling around the internet about whether the police involved in this case actually framed Karen Read for this murder. I will go further into that in another post soon.

Let me know if you have any questions, or if you see a mistake or typo in this report. Accuracy matters. Thanks!

Before I end this outline regarding the case, I want to make sure we honor the victim, John O’Keefe.

Here is a well-written article about WHO he was as a person, how well-loved he is, and the hell a conspiracy theorist mob put his family and friends through during this tragic time in their life. READ HERE.