Karen Read is facing a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the brother of her late husband, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. Paul O’Keefe filed the suit on behalf of his family, accusing Read of drunkenly running over John with her SUV and leaving him to die outside during a snowstorm in Jan. 2022.
The lawsuit also named as co-defendants the two bars in Canton, Massachusetts, where Read and John were drinking before John’s death, the Waterfall Bar & Grille and C.F. McCarthy’s; both establishments are accused of “negligently serv[ing] alcohol to an intoxicated person, namely [Read].
” The civil suit comes nearly two months after Read’s first criminal trial — a 10-week ordeal that went viral among true crime fanatics on TikTok — ended with a mistrial and a “deeply divided” hung jury.” Read was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of personal injury and death after John’s body was discovered. She pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly denied killing John.
Her retrial is tentatively scheduled for early 2025. The new civil suit echoes a lot of the claims prosecutors leveled against Read in the criminal case. It notes that Read had nine drinks at the two bars over the course of the night of Jan.
28, 2022, and alleges that she was “under the influence of alcohol and unable to drive a motor vehicle safely” when she took O’Keefe to a friend’s house to an afterparty just afte.