Peggy O’Keefe, the mother of deceased Boston police officer John O’Keefe, took the stand to testify in Karen Read’s murder retrial and tearfully recounted learning about her son’s death.
After a 2024 mistrial due to a hung jury, Read, 45, is being tried in a second trial that began earlier this month. She is accused of hitting her then-boyfriend John with her SUV and leaving him for dead on Jan. 28, 2022, on the lawn of fellow officer Brian Albert’s home.
Found unresponsive in the snow, O’Keefe was later pronounced dead of hypothermia and blunt force trauma.
Read has maintained her innocence and accused the police of orchestrating a cover-up to protect other officers, who she alleges actually killed John.
On Wednesday, April 23, Peggy acted as a witness in the retrial, recalling interactions that she had with Read and more. John’s mother did not testify in the first trial, according to reporting by NBC News.
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty
Peggy testified for approximately 20 minutes and first broke into tears while describing the 2013 death of her eldest child, daughter Kristen. Her son-in-law Stephen Furbush died of a heart attack months later, according to Boston 25 News, leaving two children behind.
She said that John, her second child and oldest son, became the “primary guardian” of his niece and nephew.
Discussing John’s death, she recalled the phone call that she got from Kerry Roberts, one of her son’s close friends, after his body was found, per NBC10 Boston.
“She said, ‘John was found in a snowbank,’ ” Peggy recalled. “I didn’t understand. I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She’s like, ‘Found him in the snow. They don’t know what happened.’ ”
Kerry drove Peggy and her husband to the hospital. She said that Read was not with them but that they did speak while she was in the car. During the alleged conversation, she said that Read told her that she left John after dropping him off at a party, per NBC News.
“You just left him there?” O’Keefe recalled asking her son’s boyfriend. “She said, ‘Yes, I just left him there.’ ”
Peggy was asked if Read told her if she left John inside or outside of the house and alleged that Read did not provide that information.
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She said that she briefly encountered Read when she arrived at the hospital with Roberts and her husband, per NBC10 Boston.
“I hear Karen Read yell, ‘Peg, is he dead? Is he dead, Peg? Peg, is he dead?’ And I just kept walking,” Peggy said, describing Read as being “loud.” She alleged that she was told Read was in the hospital to be “psych evaluated.”
After they returned from the hospital, Peggy alleged that Read arrived with her father and brother at John’s house and asked if they could go upstairs to “get a couple of her things.”
“I don’t know what they did upstairs,” Peggy said, estimating that they were upstairs for between 10 and 15 minutes.
Peggy confirmed that she did not “personally interact” with Read while she was in the home.
Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP
“Did you ever confront the defendant with any accusations when she was in your home that morning,” she was asked, replying, “I don’t even remember her being in the house. When she went upstairs, that’s the last I saw of her.”
According to NBC News, the line of questioning was in reference to previous comments Read made during interviews for Investigation Discovery and 20/20, where she described an alleged conversation with Peggy.
Read alleged that Peggy told her, “I think it looks like he got hit by a car.”
“I don’t remember talking to that morning,” she said.
Read’s attorney Alan Jackson said that he did not have any questions for her, saying that he was “very, very sorry” for her loss.
