A Massachusetts judge has agreed to bar references to an unrelated, botched murder investigation in Karen Read’s second trial on murder and other charges in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe. 

Police in Canton, a suburb about 20 miles south of Boston, inaccurately determined the Feb. 4, 2021 death of Sandra Birchmore, 24, was a suicide before federal investigators said she had been strangled and charged a Stoughton officer with her murder.

The FBI arrested former Stoughton Police Officer Matthew Farwell, 38, in August in Birchmore’s murder.

Prosecutor Hank Brennan questions Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik during the trial of Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court May 8, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (Charles Krupa, AP Pool)

O’Keefe was found dead on Brian Albert’s front lawn. Albert’s brother is a Canton Police detective. 

State police took over the investigation later that day. But their involvement wasn’t without controversy. The lead detective was fired earlier this year after an internal investigation into unprofessional text messages revealed in court during Read’s first trial, which ended in a mistrial.

Still, she said, she believes there is plenty of room for jurors to find reasonable doubt.

“They gotta prove she hit him,” she said. “It’s really as simple as that. It’s a drunk-driving hit-and-run.”

Read’s SUV has a broken taillight, and police witnesses described finding matching pieces on Albert’s front lawn.

But the defense also played surveillance video from O’Keefe’s garage that appears to show her backing her SUV into his parked vehicle shortly before she found his remains along with two other women, Kerry Roberts and Jennifer McCabe.

Still, the veteran trial attorney praised Brennan’s handling of the case and how he’s left out key witnesses who may have tanked the prosecution in the first trial and gave the defense less room to maneuver.

“The way Brennan has tried this case is that he’s not letting any of the bad stuff in, so whenever Alan Jackson goes to the stuff that really hurts them, he doesn’t have a place to go there,” she said.

For one, he left former Massachusetts State Tpr. Michael Proctor off the prosecution’s witness list. Proctor sent a series of rude, lewd and unprofessional text messages about Read and the investigation, which led to his firing.

He is still on the defense’s witness list and could be called to the stand later.