Blizzard of Lies
Karen Read, John O'Keefe, and the Shocking Unsolved Murder in Cop Town, USA by Dave Wedge
Today I'm happy to share an excerpt from Blizzard of Lies: Karen Read, John O'Keefe, and the Shocking Unsolved Murder in Cop Town, USA by my old pal the prolific author and reporter Dave Wedge. If you're unfamiliar with the case – which is all anyone could talk about here in Massachusetts for years – it's about as quintessential a "true crime" story as they come. Doomed romance, death, insular Massachusetts townies, alleged police corruption and all the rest. I happen to be one of the only people around here who didn't follow it as it happened so I found it to be a fucking page-turner kid. It's also an impressive and thorough work of good old fashioned journalism.
If you're in Boston I'll be speaking with Wedge tonight at Parkside Bookshop.
The publisher describes it like so:
The explosive story of O’Keefe’s death, and the subsequent accusation and trial of his girlfriend Karen Read, ignited one of the most high-profile true crime mysteries in decades. The apparently open-and-shut manslaughter case quickly devolved into a chaotic mixture of lies, institutional corruption, and police cover-ups that threw the Massachusetts law enforcement scene into turmoil.
And Read’s 2025 acquittal left O’Keefe’s death an unresolved mystery, with more questions than answers.
With dramatic twists including a rogue journalist, a mistrial, and polarizing public protests—along with revelations that called several other murder cases into question—Blizzard of Lies is a Boston-area veteran reporter’s detailed and immersive account of one of the most controversial crime stories of his career.
Wedge most recently wrote for Hell World on the passing of Ozzy.
Luke O’Neil
CHAPTER 1
John, I fucking hate you,” Karen shrieked into the phone. It was just after 1 am and she was drunk. Very drunk. And angry.
Karen Read, by day a pretty, successful professor at Bentley University, was just a half hour away from the serene campus in Waltham, Massachusetts, but the calm familiarity of the college might as well have been a continent away. At that moment, she was in a hellscape of
stress, chaos, and anger as a blizzard whipped outside.
The alcohol coursing through her veins—vodka and sodas consumed for hours—tormented her thoughts. She was racked by uncertainty and jealousy as her emotions launched into overdrive. Her night of drinking with her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, took her on a roller-coaster journey that night in January 2022.
Karen helped John in raising his niece Kayley and nephew, Patrick, both of whom he adopted in 2014 after their parents died just a few weeks apart. John’s sister, Kristen, died of cancer in November 2013 while her husband, Stephen, followed her in January 2014, suffering a sudden heart attack while grieving at her grave. It was a shock to the O’Keefe clan and ended John’s bachelor life abruptly as he was suddenly thrust into the unexpected role of father. While shocking, he embraced the responsibility and loved Patrick and Kayley.
John and Karen had a classic COVID relationship. While locked at home during the pandemic in 2020, he and his cousin Stephanie were watching the romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You one night when John decided he was going to reach out to some old girlfriends.
He sent out messages to a dozen former girlfriends and acquaintances via Facebook. He was looking for someone to hang out with while riding out the dystopian isolation of lockdowns and social distancing.
As a Boston cop, he never stopped working and was frustrated by quarantines and business closures. He desperately wanted to get back to having some fun. He craved normalcy and human connection, so he threw out lifelines to several old flames.
He started scrolling through the “People You May Know” section of his Facebook feed. Karen’s profile popped up.
“Hey, I used to date her like twenty years ago,” he told Stephanie.
He fired off a message.
“Hey, blast from the past. How’s things?” he wrote.
Karen responded. They started chatting and eventually spoke by phone.
“She thinks I’m a married dad with kids,” John told Stephanie.
After he explained that he was single and had adopted Kayley and Patrick, Karen agreed to get together with him.
They’d first met sixteen years earlier, at a party in 2004 at the Black Rhino, a now-closed restaurant and nightclub in Boston’s financial district. It was a thirtieth birthday party for John’s sister, Kristen. Karen didn’t know the O’Keefes, but she went out that night with a woman who graduated from Braintree High School with John. Karen and the friend had met randomly in Newport, Rhode Island, and became close friends. That night, they were invited to the Black Rhino by a mutual acquaintance of John’s, also from Braintree. The Black Rhino, on Boston’s Broad Street, was a four-floor financial district hot spot with a rooftop bar. In the early 2000s, it was a notorious meat market for twentysomething singles and young professionals in the after-work crowd.
Karen and her friend followed the pulsing sound of the DJ up to the third floor where John and several friends were partying. Karen and John were introduced and hit it off quickly. Karen was a knockout and immediately had John’s full attention. She thought he was cute, and they had a fun night together. They went on a few dates, but the relationship went nowhere as neither was looking for a long-term commitment. Her work took her to Dublin, and they stopped seeing each other.
“We maybe dated another couple of weeks after that,” Karen recalled. “Then I went to work that spring in Ireland temporarily. Because of that I stopped seeing him. Just lost touch.”
When Karen reentered his life, she embraced her role as surrogate stepmom. Together, they got the kids to and from school, sports, and playdates with friends, leaning on a large inner circle of family and friends to help out. Patrick and Kayley had been through unimaginable pain and trauma, but John—the “funcle” (fun uncle) in the family—was the lighthearted, fun-loving soul they needed to help them find their way through the darkness. Karen stepped in at just the right time to support John and be a strong female figure for Kayley as she navigated her teen years and Patrick as he became a tween.
The blended family had plenty of good times—trips to the beach, cookouts, family dinners, movies—and their lives were as normal as could be, given the tragic circumstances that had unfolded, as well as a global pandemic. It was a mostly stable home for the kids, but there was a good deal of arguing between John and Karen.
John was always a party guy and a heavy drinker. Karen was more of a social drinker, and she abstained at times for health reasons, but when she was living with John, her drinking escalated.
It was not unusual for them to have all-day/night drinking sessions. Karen would sometimes join the other wine moms at the kids’ sporting events, drinking vodka and soda from her Yeti at the baseball field. John would go to Patriots games or out to bars to meet up with friends to watch games and have a few beers. He was a big Boston sports fan and loved nothing more than celebrating the hometown team victories with a few cold ones.
They enjoyed each other’s company, had a busy social life, and became good drinking buddies. They were also good at sharing the duties in caring for the kids and running the household. Money wasn’t an issue, as Karen made a healthy salary as a financial executive, and John took home around $150,000 a year as a Boston cop, depending on his overtime.
While their day-to-day life was stable and they had busy social lives, the normal stresses of relationships, jobs, and responsibilities sometimes turned them against each other in heated arguments. It was not unusual for them to swear at each other or for her to scream at him and call him names. Kayley and Patrick saw volatility between them and heard them fight frequently.
The bickering aside, Karen liked the life they were building. She was forty-one with no kids of her own and was committed to him. But John, a forty-six-year-old serial dater who never wanted the married lifestyle, was not long for the relationship. Before reconnecting with Karen, he was a guy’s guy, single to his core. He was well known on the dating scene on Massachusetts’s South Shore. He had a couple semiserious relationships, but nothing approaching buying a ring. Mostly, he dated women for a few months at a time and moved on. And he liked it that way.
When Karen responded to his fateful COVID message, they again hit it off. But this time, they were more than a decade older and the stakes were higher for both.
When they’d last met, both were just finding their postcollege careers. But now, John was raising two kids and working as a full-time Boston Police officer, while she was a successful executive for global investment house Fidelity.
Kayley and Patrick were just six and three, respectively, when their mother, Kristen, died of cancer in 2013. Their father, Stephen, died just two months later. In 2020, Kayley was a gregarious, happy twelve-year-old who loved American Girl dolls and making videos dancing with her uncle John. Patrick was nine and loved playing his Nintendo Switch and having donuts with his grandfather, John’s dad, John Sr.
John never wanted kids but embraced his fatherly duties not only because it was the right thing to do, but because he and his sister had been extremely close. He was with her when she died and made her a promise that he would always watch out for Kayley and Patrick. He was true to that word.
When COVID first hit, he struggled to homeschool two kids over Zoom while working full-time. His cousin on his mother’s side, Stephanie Rizzitano, was a twentysomething young professional who worked from home. Stephanie was already close with Kayley and Patrick, as she had been helping out with the kids from the time Kristen first got sick.
Stephanie moved in with John and the kids and became a live-in caretaker, helping with dinners, laundry, and keeping Kayley and Patrick going on their schoolwork. It wasn’t how any of them planned it, but life threw them all nasty curveballs, and they pulled together to make it all work.
Stephanie and the children hadn’t met John’s previous girlfriends, so it was a bit of a shock to them when he announced one day: “This new girl I’m seeing is coming over.”
It was a big step for John to introduce them to Karen. They made a plan to rent the Disney movie Frozen II, which was one of the kids’ favorites. Kayley was protective of John and pulled a power move when Karen came over and the movie started. Karen went to sit down on the couch next to John, but Kayley slid in next to him, blocking her. She leaned on John throughout the movie, sending a clear message to Karen that she was the number one girl in John’s life.
As a good Catholic boy, John always gave something up for Lent, usually beer. That night was during Lent, so beer was out. Instead, he and Karen drank what became their drink of choice: Tito’s vodka. They each had Yeti tumblers filled with ice and vodka while the animated movie played. Perhaps it was her nerves, but Karen drank to excess that night. She was buzzed and kept talking during the movie, which upset Kayley and caused some bickering.
After the movie ended, Patrick showed her his Nintendo Switch. He also showed her a game he was saving up to buy.
“I can just buy it for you right now,” Karen told him.
John got mad.
“No. Don’t buy him that,” he said.
“It’s my money. I can buy him whatever I want,” she shot back.
“No,” John said. “He’s on his video games all the time. We’re trying to get him off them.”
Karen was persistent, though, and convinced John it was her decision and she wanted Patrick to have the game. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was a bit of a sign of things to come. Karen often showered the kids with gifts. She bought Kayley makeup, hair products, pricey Lululemon leggings, and a cashmere sweater. John often got mad at her for “spoiling” the kids.
Kayley and Patrick liked Karen. She was the fun aunt to John’s fun uncle. She became part of the family’s COVID bubble and started spending a lot of time at his house in Canton, Massachusetts, where John and the kids lived.
“I felt like this [was] a perfect situation,” Read told Vanity Fair. “It’s a Karen-sized hole in this house that I have the energy and resources to fill.”
Karen worked remotely from the house. She made meals and helped the kids take their Zoom classes throughout the pandemic, while John worked at the District A-1 police station.
Kayley and Karen sometimes butted heads, though. They would go shopping and to the grocery store together, but their relationship “kind of depended on the day,” Kayley would later say. The teenager felt that Karen spoiled Patrick and would sometimes be “cold” toward her.
Bickering and family squabbling were one thing, but nothing prepared any of them for the events of January 29, 2022. That night started off like any other night for the couple. They were planning to have dinner with John’s brother, Paul, and his wife, Erin, who had become a close friend and confidant of Karen’s.
The plans were derailed, though, by a nasty nor’easter headed to coastal Massachusetts, bringing with it whipping winds, frigid cold, and thirty inches of snow. Paul and Erin canceled dinner, but John and Karen had cabin fever and still wanted to get out.
It was one of the worst snowstorms in years and shut down Logan International Airport for two days. For many hardy New Englanders, there’s nothing quite like riding out a snowstorm in a dark Irish pub with a fireplace, music, hot chowder, cold pints of beer, and shots of whiskey while the snow piles up outside. Count John and Karen among them.
They left the kids at home and hit some local bars in Canton with a group of fellow snowstorm revelers. They drank heavily at two townie haunts, C.F. McCarthy’s and the Waterfall, before driving to an after-party at 34 Fairview Road, the home of one of John’s fellow Boston cops, Brian Albert.
John and Karen argued on the way there. When they arrived, John stepped out of the car into the blizzard, and Karen sped off back to their house. After leaving him there, he didn’t answer her calls or texts. She made a string of desperate, angry calls to him that went straight to voicemail.
“John, I’m here with the fucking kids. Nobody knows where the fuck you are. You fucking pervert,” she screamed in one.
“You’re fucking another girl. John, I fucking hate you! This is fucking dirty!” she said in another.
After sleeping for a couple hours, Karen awoke in a fog. She stumbled into Kayley’s room in hysterics around 5 am.
“Kayley, John’s not home. He never came home,” she yelled to the teenager through tears. “Could I have done something? Could he have been hit by a plow?”
Karen then called Brian Albert’s sister-in-law, Jen McCabe.
“Maybe I hit him,” Karen said to McCabe. “We were in an argument. Maybe I did something.”
Dave Wedge is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning investigative journalist who wrote for the Boston Herald for 14 years. His book about the 2013 Boston Marathon attacks, Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph Over Tragedy, was adapted for the 2016 movie Patriots Day. He has written bestsellers about Tom Brady and “Deflategate,” Whitey Bulger, and John Lennon. His most recent books, Riding with Evil: Taking Down the Notorious Pagan Motorcycle Gang and Blood & Hate: The Untold Story of Marvelous Marvin Hagler’s Battle for Glory, are both in development as feature films.
Dave is also a co-producer on Hunting Whitey Bulger, a three-episode Hulu docuseries produced and narrated by Ben Affleck and based on Dave's book, Hunting Whitey: The Inside Story of the Capture and Killing of America’s Most Wanted Crime Boss. The series airs in early 2027.