Why Didn’t Karen Read Attend John O’Keefe’s Funeral?

In the early hours of January 29, 2022, Boston police officer John O’Keefe was found unresponsive in the snow outside a Canton, Mass., home. Within hours, the discovery set off a chain of events that spiraled into one of the most contentious criminal cases in recent memory. As investigators worked to determine how O’Keefe died, attention quickly focused on his girlfriend, Karen Read. She was later charged in connection with his death, igniting fierce public debate that has only intensified with time.

Among the many details seized upon by observers, one has proven especially persistent: Read did not attend O’Keefe’s funeral. To some, her absence became symbolic, interpreted as coldness, guilt or indifference. To others, it reflected the grim realities of criminal procedure, where legal restrictions and defense strategy often override personal grief. 

Untangling the meaning of that absence requires stepping back from speculation and looking at the broader dynamics that often surround high-profile deaths.

The facts of what happened that night in January have been central to every twist in this case. During the evening of January 28, O’Keefe and Read visited two bars before heading to a gathering at the home of Boston police detective Brian Albert.

Read said she dropped O’Keefe off at Albert's house shortly after midnight on January 29 during a heavy snowstorm. Later that morning, O’Keefe’s body was found lying in the snow outside the home; he was pronounced dead at a hospital. Medical examiners determined he died of blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia.

O’Keefe’s death shocked colleagues, friends and family. A veteran Boston police officer, he was widely described as dedicated to his job and deeply involved in the lives of his niece and nephew, whom he had taken in after the deaths of their parents. The circumstances of his death—found outside a fellow officer’s home after a night out during a snowstorm—immediately raised troubling questions.

Read was questioned by police at the scene and later at the hospital. In the days that followed, she was arrested and charged. Prosecutors alleged that Read, who was intoxicated, struck O’Keefe with her SUV, then left him in the yard to die. Read was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident causing death.

From that point forward, Read was no longer simply a grieving partner. She was a criminal defendant navigating a system that imposes strict boundaries. 

After Read’s arrest, she was released pending trial under specific court-imposed conditions, including a no-contact order. Such orders are common in cases involving alleged violent death. The order legally barred Read from contacting O’Keefe’s family and from appearing at events where interaction with them was likely. A funeral is, by its nature, a gathering centered on family. Attending would have risked violating the order, an act that could have resulted in her immediate incarceration and negatively affected her defense.

Defense lawyers emphasize that anything a defendant does publicly can be interpreted negatively. Attending a funeral could be portrayed as manipulative or performative; not attending could be framed as callousness. In that context, minimizing exposure is often considered the safest course. 

Funerals—especially those attended by the media—can quickly become emotionally charged environments where a defendant’s behavior is scrutinized frame by frame. One of the most famous examples was the 1994 funeral of Nicole Brown Simpson, which became a media circus when her ex-husband, O.J. Simpson, appeared. Already considered a prime suspect in her death, Simpson’s behavior was highly scrutinized, and just days later he was arrested and subsequently tried for the murder of Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman.

Notably, Read was not the only person connected to the case who did not attend O’Keefe’s funeral. Those who were at the party at the Albert home that night, including Brian Higgins, Jennifer McCabe and Albert himself, did not attend. Their absence drew far less public attention at the time. In the wake of Read’s defense team’s argument that these individuals were actually involved in O’Keefe’s murder and its subsequent cover-up, their actions after his death received heightened scrutiny.

Beyond formal court orders, defense attorneys often advise clients in high-profile cases to avoid public appearances and contact with the media. Read’s team notably broke with that strategy. She granted numerous print and TV interviews, including participating in a documentary series that filmed her first trial, which ended in a hung jury. 

As the Read case progressed through hearings, motions and two trials, the question of why she did not attend O’Keefe’s funeral became a kind of shorthand accusation. The case became the subject of intense online debate that deeply divided the local community and spiraled into a public circus outside the courthouse that saw observers closely watching every move Read made in and out of the courtroom.

Read’s supporters believed she was being framed, the victim of corrupt law enforcement officials who helped fellow cops cover up the murder of O’Keefe. Others believed that Read was clearly guilty but had shrewdly leveraged social media and true-crime fandoms with increased interest in controversial cases like hers to cast doubt on the prosecution’s case against her. 

Read’s 2025 acquittal of the most serious charges left her a free woman but also left behind many lingering questions about that fateful night that may never be answered.