A Massachusetts woman facing multiple charges in connection with the death of her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, is out on bail. Karen A. Read, 41, of Mansfield, is charged in the death of Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, a 46-year-old who lived in Canton, WCVB5 reported.
Read was released on $50,000 bail Wednesday, shortly after she appeared in court to face charges related to O’Keefe’s death over the weekend, reported WBZ4. Read pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death in Stoughton District Court Wednesday as new details in the case were revealed.
O'Keefe was found unresponsive outside a Canton home early Saturday morning and taken to Good Samaritan Medical Center, in Brockton, where he was pronounced dead several hours later. Multiple sources told WCVB5 that O'Keefe was found in the snow outside the home of another Boston police officer. Those sources also said O'Keefe was suffering from head trauma.
Prosecutors said the victim and the defendant went to at least two bars together earlier in the evening before they went to the home. Read told investigators that she later tried contacting O'Keefe, but could not get in touch with him. A woman who was with the couple said she received a phone call from Read "distraught" that she could not locate O'Keefe, prosecutors said.
The other woman said she drove Read's vehicle to O'Keefe's house to look for him because she was "too hysterical to drive." While driving, Read allegedly said, "Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?" prosecutors said. When they arrived at O'Keefe's house they saw a cracked taillight on Read's vehicle.
During an interview, Read told investigators that she left O'Keefe at the residence and went home because she was not feeling well, officials said.
"She stated that she dropped the victim off, she made a three-point turn in the street and left — did not see the victim in the house. She indicated that she first observed the broken taillight in the morning and did not know how she broke it the previous evening," Prosecutor Adam Lally said.
