A business school finance professor in Boston has been charged with manslaughter after allegedly running over her police officer boyfriend. 41-year-old Karen Read, who is a finance lecturer at Bentley University and an equity analyst at Fidelity, dropped off her boyfriend of two years at a suburban house in Boston for an afterparty following a bar crawl. She has since been accused of running him over later that night and leaving him to die in a snowbank. Read did not alert 911 until early next morning.
46-year-old John O’Keefe, who was the sole carer of his nephew and niece, was found in with skull fractures, hypothermia, and swollen eyes at around 6 a.m. on Saturday. Soon after being located, he was transported to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton, where doctors pronounced him dead hours later. Read was subsequently arrested but released on $50,000 bail on Wednesday. She has since pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide, and leaving the scene of a collision, according to Daily Mail.
According to prosecutors overseeing Read’s arraignment, O’Keefe, who was off duty on the day of his death and had visited two bars before arriving home at 34 Fairview Road in Canton. Read however chose not to attend due to stomach issues. It was later discovered that the house where the party took place was owned by someone with the same name as the Boston police sergeant, although Boston Police Department is yet to confirm it.
The circumstances surrounding O’Keefe’s death are still under investigation. Meanwhile, Read claimed that she dropped off O’Keefe around 12:45 a.m. Before making a three-point turn and left. She also noted that she never saw O’Keefe go inside the house. At around 4:30 a.m. she became worried having not heard from him and thus made multiple calls to him, according to her attorney. Read then contacted a friend, she drove her to the Fairview Road property where she met with the woman who was hosting the party.
“Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?’ while trying to recall what happened to O’Keefe. Read also allegedly said in front of the two women, ‘I wonder if he’s dead. It’s snowing. He got hit by a plow,'” she allegedly said at the time. One of her friends, Kerry Roberts, told cops, “she believed Karen was still intoxicated in the morning” and that “she did not remember last night.” Ultimately, they were able to locate O’Keefe at the location where Read had dropped him off and 911 was called to the scene.
One of the officers with the Canton Fire Department remembers Read saying, “I hit him. I hit him. I hit him. I hit him.” On further investigation, officers found a cracked rear tail light on Read’s black Lexus SUV. Broken pieces of the car were also located in the snowbank where the officer was found unresponsive. As the investigation continues to unfold, O’Keefe’s loved ones have been left devastated.
“He was the best person on the planet,” shared his work partner. “John was not only a dedicated police officer, he was an exemplary guardian, son, brother, uncle and friend and we were so fortunate to have him as a part of our lives,” shared his family in a statement issued by the police department. “When John’s sister passed away, and then her husband did as well a short time later, John welcomed the opportunity to raise his beloved niece and nephew and build a home and a life around their needs.”
“People talk about someone who would give you the shirt off their back, but that was truly who John was, and it is heartbreaking for us to suddenly be talking about him in the past tense. We appreciate the outpouring of support we have received but we ask for privacy at this time, and will have nothing further to say, as we mourn this unbearable loss,” it continued.
Cover image source: YouTube Screenshot | CBS Boston
