The Boston police officer, who owned the property where John O’Keefe was discovered deceased during a January 2022 snowstorm, expressed profound loyalty in a televised interview, stating he would have “taken a bullet” for his former colleague. This interview came shortly after jurors acquitted Karen Read, the suspected murderer.
Brian Albert’s sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe, alerted him after she, Karen Read, and another woman discovered O’Keefe unresponsive on the property around 6 a.m. on January 29, 2022.
“By the time I made it downstairs, the police were already inside my home, John had already been removed, and there was no way to help,” Albert recounted to ABC News on Friday. “I would’ve taken a bullet for John O’Keefe.”
After a trial that stretched on for more than 30 days, and four days of deliberation, jurors found Read not guilty of all homicide-related charges. They convicted her only of drunken driving, for which she will serve a year on probation.
Brian Albert testifies during Karen Read’s first trial at Norfolk County Superior Court, Friday, May 10, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. That trial ended with a deadlocked jury. She was found not guilty of murder after her second trial, which ended this week. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, Pool)
After the trial, her defense hinted that whoever did O’Keefe has eluded investigators, who were faulted for a sloppy investigation and missed protocols at trial, in an audit, and through internal reviews.
“Somebody is still out there, and it’s a shame that this investigation was not done in the proper way so that they could have gotten to the truth,” David Yannetti, one of her defense attorneys, told reporters Thursday.
