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Karen Read’s defense team is looking to build on momentum yesterday from a surprise police witness who testified that her taillight was less damaged when he helped seize it with a warrant than it appears in photos taken after it arrived at the Canton Police Department, where authorities first towed it.
Taillight fragments were not found at the crime scene until later, too, and her defense’s implication is that they could have been planted there.
Wednesday marks the 27th day of Read’s retrial on murder and other charges in the January 2022 death of her then-boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.
KAREN READ’S SILENCE IN MURDER TRIAL RAISES STAKES FOR DEFENSE
Karen Read listens to testimony during her murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Libby O’Neill/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)
She is accused of hitting him with her 2021 Lexus SUV and leaving the scene, where he died with head trauma and signs of hypothermia. The defense says no collision happened and something or someone else caused his injuries.
On Tuesday, Dighton Police Sgt. Nicholas Barros testified that when he arrived at Read’s parents’ house to help state police confiscate the vehicle, fewer pieces of taillight were missing from the cracked taillight.
Dighton Police Sgt. Nicholas Barros uses his fingers to indicate the size of the missing taillight fragment while testifying during the Karen Read murder retrial at Norfolk Superior Court on Tuesday, June 3, 2025 in Dedham, Massachusetts. (Libby O’Neill/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)
He said that a photo of Read’s SUV taken at the Canton Police Department’s sallyport – a secure garage – did “absolutely not” show the taillight in the same condition it was in when he saw it in the driveway.
Barros surprised the courtroom when he testified for the commonwealth during Read’s first trial, which ended with a deadlocked jury last year. This time, he was a defense witness.
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Officer John O’Keefe poses for his official portrait. O’Keefe’s girlfriend, Karen Reed, is currently on trial for murder after he was found dead outside a Massachusetts home in January 2022. (Boston Police Department)
“He was a devastating witness who has the [district attorney’s] case on life support,” said Mark Bederow, a New York City-based defense attorney who is closely following the case.
He said special prosecutor Hank Brennan conducted an “excellent” cross-examination, showing Barros and the jury images of Read’s taillight taken over the course of the day, before police took her SUV, but defense attorney Alan Jackson performed equally well in redirect questioning.
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A photo of Karen Read’s SUV, parked in the Canton Police Department’s sallyport, is projected during her murder retrial, showing pieces missing from the right, rear taillight, in Norfolk Superior Court on Monday, May 12, 2025 in Dedham, Massachusetts. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
“The sum total is that Barros is 100% unequivocal: the taillight he saw on January 29 was not anywhere near as destroyed as when the [Massachusetts State Police] had it,” he said.
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Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts defense attorney who is also following the case, called Barros’ testimony a “bombshell” and said the surprise in trial 1 was “a clear Brady violation” – referring to a rule that prosecutors must share exculpatory evidence with the defense.
“The fact that a police officer drove to the Omni Hotel to meet with the defense team of a defendant on trial for murder clearly indicates he wanted to tell his story,” she told Fox News Digital.
Dr. Judson Welcher, an expert for the prosecution, explained to jurors how he found that O’Keefe appeared to have been struck in the arm by the back corner of Read’s SUV before he fell to the ground and fractured the back of his skull.
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Christina Hanley, an analyst with the state police’s crime lab, testified that investigators recovered plastic fragments from O’Keefe’s clothing that were a match with the broken taillight or something made of the same material.
Read could face life in prison if convicted of the top charge, second-degree murder.
