The family of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, who was killed on January 29, 2022, during a blizzard, continues their quest for justice this week, just days after jurors acquitted his ex-girlfriend Karen Read of all homicide charges.
Read, 45, will serve a year of probation for driving under the influence but was found not guilty of second-degree murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
“The only way we could have found some kind of peace in this situation would have been a guilty verdict,” said Vanessa Rizzitano, O’Keefe’s cousin and a former journalist for Boston 25, to the outlet.
“After an independent and thorough review of all the evidence, I concluded that the evidence led to one person, and only one person,” he said. “Neither the closed federal investigation nor my independent review led me to identify any other possible suspect or person responsible for the death of John O’Keefe.”
Prosecutors alleged that Read backed her 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV into O’Keefe outside a house party and fled the scene after a night of drinking. She came back with two other women nearly six hours later and found him unresponsive on the ground.
Police missteps, including the firing of a lead investigator, sloppy work at the scene and a disputed chain of custody for key evidence, left plenty of reasonable doubt for jurors.
The defense argued that something else caused O’Keefe’s injuries and denied a collision ever happened.
