Karen Read

Karen Read was acquitted in 2025 of the most serious charges in the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, after two trials that became one of the most closely watched cases in Massachusetts history. The criminal case is over. What remains is civil, and slow.

O'Keefe's family is pursuing a wrongful-death lawsuit against Read, with depositions running through the summer of 2026 and no public dates set beyond that. Read has her own federal defamation suit pending. Neither has produced a hearing of note since a July 22 Boston Magazine piece examined the "campaign to acquit," and a Lifetime film, "Accused: The Karen Read Story," has kept the case in podcast rotation.

In September Read became the face of an advertising campaign for Skin MD, a Massachusetts chain of med spas, saying in the ad that the company helped her through "some very difficult times." Marketing professionals told NBC Boston that her name recognition alone made the deal noteworthy. The SUV at the centre of the case, which never went to auction as planned, is for sale at a dealership in Dedham. Her former lawyer Martin Weinberg has since been hired by Lindsay Clancy.

The case is filed under Haunting and sits in the Dormant phase: an acquittal on the record, a death still contested in civil court, and a town that has not finished arguing about it. Read was found not guilty, and the board records that outcome as the jury returned it.