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This is a Law & Crime Network presentation. This podcast explores themes of violence and death and contains harsh language. Please listen with care. On a January night in 2022, a powerful nor'easter was blowing into the town of Canton, Massachusetts. But come morning, the fierce blizzard paled in comparison to the headline that would soon take the world by storm. She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence and then she left him there.
Local woman Karen Reed had been implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. The apparent murder weapon? Her SUV. But this isn't your typical hit and run.
The motive basically appears to be jealousy combined with drinking. Theory is that she had nine drinks that night and that she was heavily intoxicated. There's some evidence to support it, but there's also a whole bunch of evidence to counter it. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location, a house party hosted by another Boston police officer, Brian Albert. What happens next?
Depends on who you ask. If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Did you hear her say, could I hit him? I heard, I hit him, I hit him. That's what you believe at this point? That's what I heard. If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Was it a cold-blooded crime of passion or a corrupt cover-up?
The suggestion here is basically that the Alberts have really strong connections to police. They're sort of presented as this connected, powerful family that really didn't like outsiders. They didn't like the people who were not part of that world, which included Karen Reed. The theory is that they dumped him outside in the snow and they were simply going to say, we never saw him, he never came into the house, and let that be that.
And the handling of evidence left more questions than answers in this not-so-classic case of whodunit.
From the scene of the murder... The processing in the crime scene was a textbook example of how not to do it. They should have gone in, secured this scene, and they didn't do that. To the forensics... What exactly happened that night? I haven't seen enough evidence to really be able to affirmatively hang my hat on any single theory. To the digital footprints... Ms. McCabe, every single one of those calls was deleted automatically.
off your phone, correct? According to the reports. According to that report, yes. What was actually contained on that SIM card, I'd like to know. But people get rid of things for a reason, and that's important. But it was the lead investigator's testimony that arguably catapulted the case of Karen Reid into the national spotlight. So the way that you were going to make it cut and dry, pretty simple. Just pin it on the girl. Who did you mean by the girl, by the way? The defendant.
Karen Reed? Yes, sir. Only fanning the fires for those claiming conspiracy. To say that it's troubling is to sugarcoat it.
When police ethics were brought into question, it struck a national nerve. On both ends, there is a distrust of authority, there's a distrust of police, and this case threads that needle. Local outcry grew louder, too. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. Outside the courthouse, droves of supporters gathered daily in support of Karen Reid.
What in the world is going on in Massachusetts, the birthplace of America? A woman's being railroaded and framed for a murder she didn't commit. Then suddenly, the whole world couldn't get enough. Role-playing as armchair detectives. Did she murder him or is she being framed? And the more I dug into it, the more I felt like I was Alice going down the rabbit hole.
Social media became captivated by the sensation, yet true justice for a remarkable man and the fate of a woman's life hung delicately in the balance. Would John O'Keefe's death remain a mystery? Could Karen Reid be convicted for a crime she potentially didn't commit? Or is it possible that a guilty woman could walk free?
After the 10-week trial, everyone had an opinion. There's just reasonable doubt dripping off the vine. The longer this trial has gone on, the more passionate people have gotten. There's a lot going on on social media, a lot of theories sort of floating around about the prosecution, about the judge. They're all in cahoots with each other.
Everybody should be upset by this because really, if you're sitting here thinking Karen Reid is guilty, then you should be also thinking that John O'Keefe was owed a proper investigation using proper investigative techniques by officers who are above reproach.
And just when you think the end is near, the 12 men and women tasked with deciding the fate of Karen Reed could not come to a unanimous decision. To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. But before all of this, they were just Karen and John. And to understand this sensational story, we have to go back to the beginning. From Law & Crime, I'm Paula Barrows, and this is Karen.
It was the dreary days of COVID, when isolation was the norm and millions used their keyboards as a lifeline. In the midst of the monotony, a mundane Facebook message from an old flame could make your day. And that's exactly what sparked new life into the relationship between Karen Reid and John O'Keefe, a love story that had been dormant for nearly two decades. John reached out to Karen on Facebook Messenger.
The two first met in their 20s shortly after college, but career opportunities eventually steered them in separate directions. And by the time they reconnected in 2020, they were settled squarely in adulthood and looking for love. Karen was living in Mansfield, Massachusetts and working as both a financial analyst for Fidelity Investments and an adjunct professor at Bentley University in Waltham. She was an educated and accomplished woman in her career.
But it wasn't just her brain that stood out. She's beautiful, too. Karen Reed is an attractive, white, upper-middle-class woman from a well-to-do suburb of Boston. She's a very petite, white woman in her mid-40s. She's very well put together. She has long hair that's always blown out or curled with freshly done highlights. She's very well-dressed.
Less than 10 miles east of Karen, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed John O'Keefe had put down roots in Canton. Canton is a suburb south of Boston. It's a beautiful place. It's definitely a big town with a small town feel. There's a nice downtown and there's a lot of beautiful suburban neighborhoods, grass-lined streets with picket fences kind of feel to it.
Canton is a combination community, I would say. I don't think it's necessarily considered one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts, but it is a nice suburb, middle to upper class. It's where a lot of people own homes, have grown up there and then purchased homes there. It's kind of like your average middle to upper class suburb of greater Boston. It just has that small town sort of feel to it.
John had served in the Boston Police Department since 2006. He was a police officer. And it was a family tragedy that originally brought him to Canton in 2014. He had taken in his sister's children after she and her husband both passed away, and he was raising his niece and his nephew. Once he officially became their legal guardian, John transitioned to an administrative role on the force.
This noble act of sacrifice, compassion, and familial duty didn't go unnoticed. John was well-liked by everybody in the community, but also he was a single police officer who had taken in his niece and nephew. He was an eligible bachelor. Which was something I understand attracted Karen Reed to him.
Karen was indeed smitten. In an interview with ABC's Nightline in 2023, Karen referred to John as the patron saint of Canton and said you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who didn't like him.
Not long after the blast from the past Facebook message, the two became an item. Karen made frequent visits to Canton, becoming almost a surrogate mother figure to his orphaned niece and nephew. And in pictures posted on their social media profiles, the two appear smiling ear to ear, as if in each other's presence, they were transported back in time, picking right back up from where they left off in the thrilling magic of young love.
But the thrill of the rekindled connection began to gradually fade. They had been getting into arguments. Their relationship had soured.
That's MassLive reporter Luis Fieldman. He recalled what Karen and John would butt heads about. Apparently, there were issues that cropped up between Karen Reed and John O'Keefe about their decisions on how to raise the children. John's younger brother, Paul, cottoned on to the couple's differences in child rearing, too. He didn't like, you know, if she would spend a lot of money on the kids for gifts. I know there were some arguments over what she fed them.
whether it's Dunkin Donuts or whatnot, but those things along those lines.
But the arguments evolved into more than just family friction. And they weren't taking place behind closed doors anymore either. The two would openly argue in front of friends and family. So they had rented a house down in Cape Cod. That was the summer of 2021. I brought my two daughters down for a couple nights. And I witnessed one intense fight between the two of them. It was a verbal argument.
Alcohol had been involved. I recall her complaining that he wasn't nice to her or something to that effect. It might sound like your typical lover's quarrel, but Paul said he ultimately had to intervene. I was kind of the referee in that entire situation. The public nature of their discord didn't end in Cape Cod Bay.
For New Year's going into 2022, John and Karen took a trip to Aruba with a group of more than 30 of their friends and family members. For many of them, this had become sort of a yearly tradition. And this was Karen's first time joining. It kept getting referred to as the Aruba incident where, you know, there was some drinking involved. And apparently Karen Reed was convinced that she saw John O'Keefe kiss somebody that they had gone on this trip with.
That somebody is Marietta Sullivan. By the time of the Aruba trip, Marietta and her sister Laura had a close friendship with John.
In fact, John was the godfather to Laura's son, and that's how they both affectionately refer to him, godfather or Johnny. He was similar to a big brother to me. He was somebody who was there for my sister during her darkest times, so I really respected him for that. He was a big brother and a family friend. On New Year's Eve 2021, Marietta went to dinner with various members of the Aruba Vacation Clan. She returned to the hotel, saw her mother to her room on the fourth floor, then...
took the elevator down to the lobby to join her friends for drinks at the poolside bar. So when the elevator opens up, the first person I saw was the attendant standing behind the desk. I didn't see anybody else in the lobby with me until I stepped out. When I stepped out, I looked to my left and I saw Johnny coming in through the first set of outside doors.
They were almost ships in the night. But as John was entering the lobby from the bar, the two caught a glimpse of one another. So he sort of stumbled in. I came out of the elevator and my initial response to him was, whoa, you OK? I actually said, whoa, Godfather, are you OK? But yeah, he was stumbling into the lobby.
To Marietta, John was visibly intoxicated as they shared a brief exchange. I pulled back. He was glassy-eyed, looking above me. We never made eye contact. He was looking above me. It looked like he was looking for someone. I asked him, where are you going? Assuming that he would be coming to the pool bar to meet us. I
He kept looking around and he indicated that he was going that way and pointed toward a bank of rooms to our right. And I said, well, you should go that way. And I stepped back and I guided him toward the area that he was going. So I pointed in that direction. He walked off. I continued out to the pool bar.
Then suddenly, Marietta was interrupted by a loud outburst in the distance. I heard very loudly his name screamed across the lobby, very angrily, and it made me stop in my tracks. Intrigued and concerned, she pivoted, heading back to the lobby. So I turned around to go back in. As I'm going back in, I hear someone yell, who the fuck was that? And as I come around the corner, I see Mr. O'Keefe walking toward me.
A woman. This was her first introduction to Karen Reed. He said, calm down, that's Laura's little sister. Before Aruba, Marietta had yet to meet Karen, but her sister Laura had. Given it was only their first day on the trip and their large group was still trickling in from travel throughout the day, it makes sense that the two had yet to cross paths. This was my first interaction with her. I had never been fully introduced to her at all.
That was until Marietta put herself in the middle of Karen and John in the lobby. When I came back around the corner after Mr. O'Keefe said, calm down, that's Laura's little sister, I said, hi, nice to meet you. Despite Marietta's attempts to de-escalate the tension, their interaction took a hostile turn fast. That's when Ms. Reed's head snapped up and she very loudly told me to go fuck myself across the lobby. And I said, yeah, fuck you too, and walked away.
As she saw herself out, Marietta made a few more observations of Karen's behavior. She was just very loud. She was waving her hands. Johnny was trying to calm her down. I went out to the pool bar, so I didn't see much after that.
But the drama didn't end there in the lobby that night. In the days following, rumors began to circulate amongst the group. On a poolside cabana in Aruba, Marietta's sister Laura confronted her about what she'd been hearing. So my sister pulled me aside from everybody and asked if the night that I got into the altercation with Miss Reed in the lobby, if I was making out with Mr. O'Keefe.
Marietta was flabbergasted and immediately nipped the gossip in the bud. I absolutely was not. He was family. He was my older brother. For all intents and purposes, it just never would have happened between us.
After the altercation, things just weren't the same. John pulled away from Marietta and her family. Marietta said the strain in their relationship was obvious and out of character. As far as I knew Johnny, that wasn't normal. He would always come up to us, up to our family, try to be around my nephew, his godchild. He was always the life of the party and wanted to be around his family and his friends.
The Aruba trip may have come to an end, but the discord between Karen and John followed them back to the suburbs of Massachusetts. She had accused him of cheating on her and that apparently this Aruba incident kind of continued on for the weeks that followed. John O'Keefe and even the person who was accused of kissing him said that that never happened. But that contention continued running through the relationship.
It's now January 2022. The new year always promises fresh starts and resolutions. Karen and John were still together despite the distrust and jealousy Karen exhibited on their vacation. She often stayed the night at John's, continuing to help out with his adopted niece and nephew.
New England sees some fairly frigid winters, and on the night of January 28th, John and Karen decide to cure their cabin fever by meeting up with a couple friends in downtown Canton. And this particular night was especially blustery. In fact, Massachusetts resident attorney Will Corman and reporter Christina Rex remember to this day just how bad the winter weather was that evening.
It was during a terrible snowstorm. It was actually the last bad snowstorm we had here in Massachusetts. I remember that snowstorm. I specifically remember that I couldn't work that day and it was on a weekend and it was an all hands on deck situation. Locals were prepping for what's known on the east coast of North America as a nor'easter, a storm that blows from the northeast accompanied by heavy rain and snow. But it didn't stop Karen and John from making a break for it.
At nearly 11 p.m., the two showed up to the Waterfall Bar and Grill, a cozy neighborhood spot with a brick exterior and red and white signage resting above black and white striped awnings.
They join John's friend, Brian Albert, whose family ties in Canton are strong, to say the least. So it's not unusual for there to be multiple families or multiple generations of families in Canton. Albert is now a retired Boston police officer. His brother, Kevin Albert, is a police officer with the Canton Police. And they have a brother, Chris Albert, who is now on the Canton Select Board. The Albert family, these are people who had problems
deep roots in Canton, both not only having been there a long time, but being very present in the community, being a police officer, being a town selectman, sort of being very visible to the small-ish community or a community that is, although it's 30 plus thousand, feels much smaller. It feels like you know everybody, even though you don't really. And they were well-known. Their family was well-known. Their children are well-known.
Along with John and Karen, at the bar are Brian and Nicole Albert, their daughter, Caitlin Albert, Chris and Julie Albert, Brian's brother and sister-in-law, respectively, Jennifer and Matthew McCabe, Nicole Albert's sister and brother-in-law, respectively, and Brian Higgins, close friend of the Alberts, who has an office in the Canton Police Department.
After a couple rounds, the group finds themselves at a crossroads, its last call at the Waterfall Bar and Grill. But they aren't ready to call it a night just yet. Brian Albert and his wife, Nicole, invite everyone back to their place for an impromptu house party at 34 Fairview Road, less than two miles south of the bar.
Here's Christina Rex again. Their son, Brian Jr., and a couple of his girlfriends were there celebrating his birthday that night. Brian Higgins, an ATF agent who happened to live in Canton, who was good friends with Brian Albert, was at the house that night. And then, of course, there's Jen and Matt McCabe. Jen and Matt McCabe are also from Canton, and they knew John O'Keefe
through their children, through being parents in town pretty much. But also, Jen McCabe is sisters with Nicole Albert, the homeowner. And so everybody at that home, except for John O'Keefe,
Brian Higgins and Brian Jr.'s friends, everybody at that home was related. This was like a group of Canton parents, for lack of a better term. And John O'Keefe seemed to know these people once he had taken his niece and nephew in and became their full-time guardian and really took on that dad role for them. That was how he started to meet these people. And it seemed like they were certainly friendly with him and had been out drinking before, but maybe not best friends with him.
And it was John's friendships with the Canton crew that were allegedly called into question on his and Karen's drive over to the Alberts. Karen wasn't feeling comfortable rolling up to a house full of people she barely knew. She wanted to make sure they were welcome there, since she didn't hear the invite extended to either of them at the waterfall. While John was on the phone with Jennifer McCabe getting directions to the Alberts, Karen decided she'd drop off John at Nicole and Brian's, then return to John O'Keefe's home to stay the night.
Karen told ABC's Nightline that she pulled to the foot of the driveway, dropped John off, and as he approached the side door, she looked down at her phone. She never actually saw him go into the house. Karen pulls out of the driveway and heads home as planned. But that's just Karen's side of the story.
What happened next that evening, in the driveway of the Alberts' home as the storm unit rolled in, is the subject of much debate. John O'Keefe and Karen Reid had gone out drinking with some friends in Canton. After they had gone drinking, she goes to drop him off at a house party in Canton. And John O'Keefe never made it inside. Karen Reid actually backed up her car, struck John O'Keefe,
knowingly and with intent and left him injured with severe injuries on the front lawn. Karen Reed drove her boyfriend to the Alberts house in Canton, Massachusetts, where he got out of the car and either they were having an argument due to alcohol or she was negligent and she hit him with the car and
And that caused injuries to him. And then she drove away. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts claims that she got drunk with him earlier in the night, dropped him off at 34 Fairview Road. But then before he went inside, that she backed up into him, hit him. They claim that it was some sort of a jealous rage and that they were about to break up.
My understanding is that she realized the next morning that he never came home. She started panicking, reaching out to friends and then drove back to the scene and the body was recovered at the scene. And the government is claiming that because of her intoxication, she negligently killed this individual by hitting him with her car.
And he died from injuries, but also from hypothermia. And that the next day, she calls up on two friends and that they find him unresponsive on the front lawn. So how did John O'Keefe really end up on the Alberts' front lawn?
And how did a hit and run turn into a conspiracy theory laden national news story? The problem is that you don't necessarily get a clear motive. There's somebody who was at the waterfall who had this sort of relationship that it's kind of hard to categorize with Karen Reed. His name is Brian Higgins. There was some alleged conspiracy.
flirtatious text messages between Karen Reid and some folks who live in the house. I do know that there were some rumors of bad blood between the folks who were in the house and Karen Reid's boyfriend. It wasn't this cut-and-dry crime scene where police showed up and taped it off with crime scene tape and immediately started collecting evidence and also immediately knew what happened and immediately suspected it was a homicide. At first, when officers responded, none of that was true.
That whole damn thing should have been locked down. They go in and they thoroughly examine that area. Every bit of it is a crime scene, period. That's all coming up on the next episode of Karen.
This has been a Law & Crime production. I'm your host, Paula Borrows. Our executive producer is Jessica Lowther. Our producer and writer is Cooper Maul. Our editor is Brad Mabee. Our researcher is Stephanie Doucette. Our bookers are Alyssa Fisher and Diane Kay. Legal and fact-checking by Elizabeth Voulay. And special thanks to Sean Panzera for designing our key art.
