Prosecutors are seeking phone records from Karen Read’s father and plan to call him as a witness

BOSTON – Prosecutors in the Karen Read case are now seeking records from her father’s cellphone. When Read’s second trial begins, prosecutors plan to call William Read as a witness.

Read is charged in the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe January 29, 2022in the canton.

Prosecutors say William Read’s phone records can help establish a timeline of his daughter’s contact with him. They say Read made multiple phone calls to different people, giving conflicting accounts of the incident.

William Read’s cell phone records

The Commonwealth has asked the court to order Verizon Wireless to produce call records, text messages and data from William Read’s account between January 29, 2022 and January 30, 2022, the immediate aftermath of the alleged crime.

Prosecutors are also requesting call records from December 30, 2021 to January 30, 2022. “The relevance of this request is to compare the timing and frequency of Karen Read’s calls to her father on the night of the victim’s death to the frequency, or otherwise “A lack of data that has nothing to do with the alleged crime,” said the deputy district attorney Hank Brennan wrote in the motion filed Friday.

Brennan said it was possible that William Read would be “an adverse witness for the Commonwealth” and the records would have to be made available as possible evidence in an impeachment trial.

“The records reasonably indicate that the defendant, a 44-year-old woman, regularly called her parents in the middle of the night after consuming large amounts of alcohol and engaging in a domestic dispute with her boyfriend,” Brennan wrote.

Who is Karen Read?

Karen Read is a Massachusetts woman accused of killing her boyfriend John O’Keefe on a snowy night in January 2022.

Prosecutors allege she hit O’Keefe with her SUV after a night of heavy drinking and an argument. She is charged with second-degree murder, disappearing from the scene and manslaughter.

Read’s lawyers said she was framed and that O’Keefe was killed at another Boston police officer’s home in Canton and dragged outside.

Read’s first trial ended in a mistral on July 1, 2024 due to a hung jury. Her second trial is scheduled to begin on January 27, 2025.