Karen Read's retrial over the 2022 death of boyfriend John O'Keefe is putting a focus on her drinking the night he died. On Thursday, jurors watched media interviews in which Read described drinking with O'Keefe and a friend at CF McCarthy's bar in Canton, Massachusetts, on January 28, 2022, per the AP. In one clip, Read noted the bartenders were pouring weak drinks, describing a vodka tonic she'd ordered as "all soda water with lime." That's why, she said in a documentary on Investigation Discovery, she started adding extra shots to her drinks.
"Not that I need it to be a martini, but it might have a splash of vodka in it," she said in the footage, adding that at one point, one of her cocktails had "three drinks in it." Surveillance footage showed Read adding the extra booze into her beverages, per CBS News, but she said she was just putting them on par with a regular drink. "I did not consume nine vodka martinis or take nine shots, depending on how you count it," she said in one interview. "The last two drinks I did not touch."
However, Read conceded she shouldn't have been behind the wheel that night, though she added, "I know I wasn't driving recklessly. I know I was driving safely." Read is accused of hitting O'Keefe, then a 46-year-old cop, with her SUV later that evening when she dropped him off at a house party thrown by a fellow police officer and leaving him to die. She returned a few hours later with friends, finding him dead in a snowbank.
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Also addressed on the third day of the trial: texts between Read and O'Keefe from earlier on the day of his death. In those messages, O'Keefe wrote he was "sick of always arguing and fighting" and urged Read to grab a drink on her own,, as she seemed "jonesing to drink." They eventually met up at CF McCarthy's. Read's legal team says she's the victim of a conspiracy involving local police, and that O'Keefe's injuries may have been sustained in an altercation with a third party, per the AP. Read, 45, has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving a scene of personal injury and death. Her first trial ended in a mistrial last year. (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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