Inside the allure of alleged murderer Karen Read: Cover-up, corruption and a controversial blogger
DEDHAM, Mass. — Karen Read’s Massachusetts murder trial has galvanized a perplexing cult following, with hordes of pink-clad supporters gathering outside the courthouse each day to defend the accused killer as the victim of a corrupt frame-up.
Hundreds of Read backers waited with bated breath Friday for a jury’s verdict in the case — during the fourth day of deliberations at the Norfolk County Superior Courthouse in Dedham, Mass.
The 44-year-old is charged with second-degree murder for allegedly mowing down her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, with her Lexus SUV as she was dropping him off at a Canton, Mass. home where his cop buddies were partying on Jan. 29, 2022.
Prosecutors claim Read, a former adjunct lecturer at Bentley University, then drove off, leaving O’Keefe to die outside as a snow storm was set to sweep in.
Read’s lawyers at the trial — which has been live-streamed during the two months of proceedings — argued she was framed in a sweeping law enforcement cover-up and that O’Keefe actually died after getting into an altercation with his officer pals.
The possibility that Read was framed seems to have fascinated the public which has had uninterrupted access to what’s going on in the courtroom through a video feed of the trial and also thanks to online sleuths — including the controversial “Turtleboy” blogger.
Meanwhile, Nick Rocco, 29, told The Post he runs a Facebook group of 50,000 people who’ve helped raise $250,000 for Read’s legal defense.
“We put up billboards in Foxborough,” Rocco said. “We have mobile trucks here driving around the court.”
Rocco said the group hired lawyers to help them get better access to the trial after they were pushed behind a “buffer zone” around the courthouse.
“It’s taking our freedom of speech away,” Rocco said. “But we stay back. We are law-abiding citizens. We have no problems here.”
Rocco, a married dad, said this case matters to him and others because it highlights that anyone could become the victim of a cover-up and if that happened it can be nearly impossible fight against a government agency.
“How are you going to fight them?” Rocco said. “They have the guns, they have the power, they have the money to do what they want. If they want you, they will make it fit just like they did to Karen Read.”
Rocco insisted the movement supporting Read isn’t political.
“Because when someone is framed it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat, or a Republican or an Independent,” he said. “It means zero … and what matters here is to free Karen Read and get justice for John O’Keefe.”
TD Floras, 62 — who drove about an hour from Nashua, New Hampshire — echoed Rocco’s sentiment that the injustice and specter of a frame job is what drew her into the case.
“I think she’s standing up to corruption, that’s why people are supporting her,” Floras said.
“Why do I care?” Floras said. “Because Karen Read can be anybody. I’m sure a lot of people are probably in jail and are innocent because of investigations that weren’t done properly…but they didn’t have the means or notoriety to fight this like she did.”
Floras said she got hooked on the case by watching the daily live streams of the trial — which made her so knowledgeable about the case that she knew the specific exhibit number for the piece of evidence she said killed the prosecutions case in her eyes.
“Exhibit #19 to me is where the prosecution lost me months ago,” Floras said. “When I saw the photo of John O’Keefe’s arm you couldn’t reconcile their version of what happened.”
Read’s lawyers have said O’Keefe’s injuries, including an alleged dog bite on his arm, couldn’t have been from a strike from a 7,000-pound SUV going around 26 miles per hour.
Rather, the injuries show O’Keefe suffered a head injury during a physical fight, her lawyers contend, adding the alleged dog bite would have come from Albert’s dog.
Another Read fan, Elaine Casamassima, 55, of Sandwich, Mass. said she used 75 hours of vacation time at work to show up for Read’s trial.
“I want to support someone I believe in, who is not guilty,” Casamassima said.
Casamassima, like Rocco, and many others, first found out about the case through the “Turtleboy” blog, which is run by Aidan Kearney and promotes the defense theory that Read is bing set up.
Kearney put witnesses in the case on blast for their alleged conspiracy against Read and he was even arrested in October for allegedly “harassing, threatening and intimidating” witnesses and investigators through messages.
While the vast majority of people outside the court are Read supporters, a handful of people who believe she’s guilty also showed up Friday and were met with a hostile reception with one pro-Read activist launching a swear and another flipping the bird at their opposers.
Lindsey Gaetani, who showed up holding a sign that read “Karen Read Killed a Man!” said she think’s everyone who’s mobilized for Read has too much time on their hands and are easily swayed.
“People are lonely, bored people with nothing better to do,” Gaetani said. “They want to feel like they are a part of something and they don’t care what it stands for.”
“They hurt the victim’s family. They hurt the witnesses in this case, they hurt the victim’s memory as well,” she added. “That is not activism, that’s terrorism!”
One witness at trial, Allison McCabe, cried on the witness stand as she spoke about the harassment that another witness in the case, Colin Albert, received from people online.
Another counter-protester, Kate Peter also had a skeptical take on the support for Read: “This is the result of a multimillion-dollar social media [Public Relations] apparatus. It’s the same reason why people care who Lady Gaga is at this point. They made her into a star.”
As Read headed into the courthouse Friday, one of her supporters yelled “stay strong!”
“Always,” Read replied, placing her hand on her heart.
When Read’s dad, William Read, was asked by The Post how he feels about the support his daughter is getting, he said it felt “gratifying” and “overwhelming.”
Read has been out on bail but she faces up to life in prison if she’s convicted of second-degree murder. The jury will continue deliberating on Monday.
