Karen Read and her legal team enter Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham on April 22, 2025. Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
Updated 4/22/25 3:56 p.m.
DEDHAM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The prosecution and defense in Karen Read's second murder trial gave their opening statements Tuesday in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass.
Read is charged with hitting her then-boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, and leaving him for dead in the snow in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022. Read has maintained for years she is innocent, and is the victim of a police coverup.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan delivered the opening statements for the Commonwealth. Brennan joined the prosecution after Read's first trial was declared a mistrial. Last year, Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally led the prosecution.
Attorney Alan Jackson delivered opening statements on behalf of Read on Tuesday. He is not new to the defense team, but attorney David Yannetti delivered the opening statements in the first trial.
After opening statements and a morning break Tuesday, the prosecution's first witness, Canton firefighter and paramedic Timothy Nuttall, was called to the stand. He was one of the first to respond to the scene after Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe was found in the snow. Nuttall testified he heard Read say "I hit him, I hit him, I hit him." During cross-examination, Jackson suggested that his memory might not be accurate.
The second witness called to the stand was Kerry Roberts, who was friends with O'Keefe. Robert's husband went out drinking with O'Keefe and friends the night before O'Keefe's body was found.
Roberts testified that Read had called her at 5 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022. to say "John's dead," before calling her a second time to say O'Keefe was missing and she thought he could have been hit by a snow plow. Roberts said she went with Read and another witness, Jen McCabe, to look for O'Keefe outside a home on Fairview Road in Canton, Mass.
Court wrapped up for the day shortly before 4 p.m. Roberts is set to return to the stand on Wednesday.