Vanity Fair Karen Read Bombshells

By Steve Atkinson

The interview with Karen Read in Vanity Fair reveals significant insights into her case regarding the death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keeffe. The article from Vanity details the events of that night and the moments following the incident. It describes how Read discovered O’Keeffe the next morning after she dropped him off at Brian Albert’s house around midnight for an after-party. Additionally, it highlights the staggering amount she owes in legal fees—an overwhelming $5 million. She has exhausted her life savings, retirement funds, and legal fund in her fight for justice.

On January 29, 2022, Karen Read dropped John O’Keeffe off at 34 Fairview Road after a night of drinking at C.F. McCarthy’s and the Waterfall Bar and Grille in Canton. The house belonged to Brian Albert, a well-known Boston police officer who didn’t know O’Keeffe well, even though they were both on the force at the time. Since Karen didn’t know these people well, John went to check things out and was supposed to inform her that he was okay.

Michael Proctor Had Karen Read Guilty From The Get-Go

Karen recalls that after he walked to the door and opened it, she looked down at her phone. When she looked up, he had vanished. He wasn’t outside, so she wondered where he could be; she had just watched him go to the door. After waiting for about ten minutes—frustrated that he hadn’t given her a heads-up—she decided to leave. If he wasn’t outside, then the only explanation was that he was still inside the house. Had the house not belonged to a Boston police officer, the Canton and State Police would have likely conducted a more thorough investigation into what occurred inside. This point was emphasized by Trooper Michael Proctor during his testimony at Karen Read’s trial in the summer.

Proctor  said, “Nope, homeowner is a Boston cop, too.”

Brian Albert is a well-known Boston police officer, while Karen Read is relatively unknown, leading some to assume her guilt. Lead investigator Michael Proctor believed Karen Read was guilty as soon as he took the case on January 29th. Proctor had connections with both the McCabe and Albert families, as mentioned in a Vanity Fair article and reported by Turtleboy through his journalism.

The Google Search Was Real In The Karen Read Case

Vanity Fair confirmed that Jennifer McCabe conducted a Google search at 2:27 AM with the phrase “how long to die in cold.” Meanwhile, the Commonwealth presented their own expert, who claimed that the search occurred after 6 AM. However, the defense had its own expert who supported the timing of the search. Ultimately, the expert from Vanity Fair sided with the defense.

Vanity Fair asked Umit Karabiyik, a PhD at Purdue’s Department of Computer and Information Technology who specializes in iPhone artifacts and the limitations of digital forensics, to evaluate the prosecution’s expert testimony as well as an affidavit from Read’s expert. “Based on my research and expertise, I concur with what I see in the Affidavit from Richard Green,” Karabiyik emailed VF, referring to Read’s expert. Though the browser tab was opened earlier than the searches, Karabiyik said, “The time stamp for the search items is recorded for searches [and] stored in the database, not the time of the tab opening.” He noted that Green additionally verified the search times with associated WAL files that are occasionally overlooked.

The defense was not allowed to mention the FBI investigation during the trial, but they better be able to do so in the next trial in three months. No one from the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office wanted to take on the prosecution of Karen Read. Michael Morrissey went outside and hired a lawyer who had defended Whitey Bulger.

If a person is guilty, they probably won’t speak out or talk publicly. Vanity Fair’s author, Julie Miller, reached out to the McCabe family, the Alberts, the Norfolk County DA, Judge Cannone, and the Massachusetts State Police, but all declined to comment. Even the O’Keefe family, who believes that Karen is guilty, chose not to comment for the article.

If Karen did indeed commit the crime, she wouldn’t be speaking out. She’d remain silent and wouldn’t have an explanation for everything. Consider the doorbell camera across the street, which is owned by a Canton Police Lieutenant and failed to capture anything. Then there’s the missing two minutes of footage from the Canton library that occurred just after she left Fairview Road, and the inverted Sally Port video when the State Police had the SUV. It all seems sketchy. Moreover, the injuries don’t align with someone being hit by a car; people were present at the house, so someone would have seen something. It just doesn’t make sense.

Alan Jackson Knows Something Is Going On

Even Alan Jackson believes this whole situation is a setup.

Jackson gets more than a hundred representation requests monthly, but the subject line of Read’s email stood out: “murder of a Boston cop.” He clicked on it and read her plea: “I am fighting for my life against a blue wall…and therefore marshaling whatever resources/advice I can find.” On a call with Read, Jackson agreed to share his cell-phone-data-related motions and asked to hear more about her case. After learning that she was being accused of fatally hitting O’Keefe with her SUV, the lawyer asked to see photos of O’Keefe’s injuries. Read immediately sent over a few, revealing O’Keefe’s bruised and swollen eyes and the cuts above his right eye and nose. But it was O’Keefe’s right arm, which looked like it had been clawed, that caused Jackson to exclaim, “That’s an animal attack.” Jackson later said by phone, “If there’s any medical examiner or DA or lead investigator out there claiming that’s from a car, that’s bullshit. And if that’s not true, what else isn’t true?”

Karen Read’s Whole Defense Team Knows she’s being Framed

Another significant development in this case is that Karen Read has a rug from Albert’s house that she is currently storing. She is trying to save money to have the rug tested for John’s DNA. I believe the defense should call Steve Scanlon to the stand in January. He informed the defense early on, just a few days after John O’Keefe was killed, that he believed Karen Read was innocent.

Yannetti received a different kind of call on February 2, within hours of Read’s arraignment. A man with a gravelly voice claiming to have a background in Boston law enforcement made an explosive claim: He told Yannetti that Brian Albert and his nephew had beaten up O’Keefe on January 29. When O’Keefe didn’t come to, said this mysterious man, Albert and an unnamed “federal agent” put O’Keefe’s body on the front lawn. When Yannetti called him back for a more thorough interview, he backtracked, saying he was only speculating based on photos of O’Keefe in the news, and he ultimately recanted the tip altogether. But Yannetti points out that photos of O’Keefe hadn’t been released at the time of the first call. And other details from the tip lined up: Higgins, the ATF agent, had been drinking at the Albert home that morning. As had Albert’s nephew Colin. Until the tipster’s call, Read and Yannetti hadn’t known that Colin was at the house, as he later testified he was, because his name was not in police reports.

That tip was before the images of what John looked like were known to the public. Nobody knew Brian Albert’s nephew was at the house at the time or ATF agent Brian Higgins. So he knew what happened because he knew the family probably and was told to keep quiet so he stopped talking.

One of my favorite quotes from Karen Read in this article was

Though this chapter of her life has been dark and arduous, Read tells me she’s witnessed the best and worst of humanity because of it. “The evil people in my life, you know who you are,” she says, once again directing her answers toward people who don’t hear her. “You know what you did. I am at peace with my maker, and you, I promise, are not.”

Read feels a momentum toward justice. “It’s starting—one domino after the other,” she tells me. “I just don’t know how long the trail of dominoes is. Are there 10? Are there 100 more? I don’t know how long it takes to get there. But I know there’s a big explosion at the end.”