5/14/2025 9:09:15
O’Keefe’s parents, John Sr. and Peg, have entered the courtroom. They have been raising the niece and nephew since his death. An order from the court prohibits reporters from publishing the names of the niece and nephew and the schools they attend.
5/14/2025 9:20:02
A man carries a large evidence box sealed with red tape into the courtroom. The door closes.
5/14/2025 9:23:05
The judge is on the bench. For now, the pool camera is still active. Court staff have distributed notepads and pens to the reporters in the courtroom. Lawyers are at the bench.
5/14/2025 9:25:03
The courtroom doors re-open. Lawyers are seated at their tables.
5/14/2025 9:37:40
Jurors enter. All 18 are here. A couple of them smile at the niece as they pass in the hall. The doors reclose.
5/14/2025 10:47:13
Judge thanks the jurors for their patience and their “understanding about yesterday.” She asks her three questions about staying away from info about the case. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan asks to play two clips.
5/14/2025 10:48:15
At the last minute, a couple other additional reporters were allowed to enter the courtroom, stand in the media corner, and take handwritten notes during the niece’s testimony. She was on the stand for nearly an hour.
5/14/2025 10:50:32
The niece is now 17 years. She was 14 at the time of O’Keefe’s. She was questioned by Assistant District Attorney Laura McLaughlin. She has a brother who is three years younger. She plays softball, still lives at O’Keefe’s home with her grandparents. Called her uncle “JJ.”
5/14/2025 10:51:17
McLaughlin asks the niece to point out Read. The niece looks at Read from the corner of her eye and says, “She’s wearing blue.”
5/14/2025 10:52:40
Niece says after Read started dating O’Keefe again in 2020, she stayed over about once a week, later daily. Says she would get food and go shopping with Read. When asked about her relationship with Read, the niece pauses before saying that on some days they were “on a good standard” but not others. “She would kind of like not ignore me. But it felt like a coldness toward me.”
5/14/2025 10:53:07
Niece says there were more fights when they returned home to Canton. She refers to Read as “the defendant” in her testimony. “Remember hearing him say that their relationship was good but had run its course.” Says Read was upset, O’Keefe asked her to leave. “She didn’t want to leave.” Says O’Keefe then “more aggressively” asked her to leave. “It was more like stern,” she says. Says Read followed O’Keefe upstairs. He wouldn’t let her in the bedroom. “She began to bang on his door.”
5/14/2025 10:54:39
Niece says Read’s SUV had a screen that showed the backup camera.
5/14/2025 10:56:59
Niece says O’Keefe and Read’s relationship changed at the end of 2021. “They were fighting a lot,” she says. “Usually like more towards night.” Says O’Keefe seemed frustrated while talking to Read on the phone. “She was very upset, angry,” niece says of Read, her voice louder than her uncle’s.
5/14/2025 10:58:06
Judge instructs jurors about upcoming testimony, says it can only be used to determine Read’s state of mind. Several young people, early teens, are crowded onto the benches where the O’Keefe family sits.
5/14/2025 11:00:09
Niece describes a New Year’s trip to Aruba where she says she witnessed a fight in her hotel room. Says her uncle came in and told her brother to get off his iPad. Says Read then entered and stood up for her brother. Niece says Read “started yelling that he had kissed someone else.” Says “JJ started saying it didn’t happen.” Says Read was “very loud” and “very upset.”
5/14/2025 11:00:43
Niece says O’Keefe came into her room and fell asleep in her bed.
5/14/2025 11:05:07
Niece says she would tell that there was like tension. “They were cold towards each other.” Says the tension surfaced a couple times per week. Says she heard Read on the phone saying she and her brother were worried. Heard O’Keefe says “it’s run its course.”
5/14/2025 11:06:40
On 1/28/22, she and a friend were celebrating, getting into a private high school. Her younger brother had gone to a sleepover. O’Keefe went out, sent her a text asking if she was OK. Per house rules, she put food in her phone in her uncle’s room and went to bed.
5/14/2025 11:08:22
Niece says Read woke her at 4:30am. “She was yelling to wake up,” she says and that O’Keefe had not come home. “She was very, like, frantic.”
5/14/2025 11:11:05
Niece says Read asked her to use her phone to text O’Keefe. No response. Says Read was on her phone, “remained frantic.” Says Read asked for phone numbers, asked her to call Jen McCabe. She put phone on speaker and handed it to Read. Read told McCabe O’Keefe had not come home. McLaughlin asks if the niece heard Read say anything else. There’s a long pause before she says yes.
5/14/2025 11:11:49
“The defendant was asking what could have happened,” the niece says. Says she said things like, “Could have done something? Could he have gotten hit by a plow?” McLaughlin asks her about previous testimony (she also testified at the first trial) then hands her a transcript to review.
5/14/2025 11:15:22
After looking through transcript pages, the niece says, Read said several things including “It was like, ‘Maybe hit him.’” Says she heard that statement just once. Says Read remained frantic. “She said that she had dropped him off.” McLaughlin begins to ask if Read said anything about arguments. Defense attorney David Yannetti objects. Judge sustains.
5/14/2025 11:17:15
The niece says she had never seen Read as frantic as she was that morning. She says Read left for Jen McCabe’s house about 20-30 minutes later, then returned with McCabe and Kerry Roberts. Describes McCabe as the mother of a childhood friend and her basketball coach. Says both McCabe and Roberts were friends with O’Keefe. Says she still has a relationship with McCabe today.
5/14/2025 11:19:36
After the three women arrived, the niece says McCabe came into her room to comfort her. Says McCabe was “very level-headed” and Read was “still very frantic.” Says Read did not try to comfort her.
5/14/2025 11:20:23
The niece says Read returned later in the day with her father and brother. She met them before. They didn’t stay very long. Says Read told her and her grandfather that “she felt she was living in a nightmare.” McLaughlin asks if Read ever comforted her during this time. Yannetti objects. Judge tells jurors to disregard.
5/14/2025 11:23:59
Sidebar. During the sidebar, the niece smiles and says something to the court reporter. She smiles over at her family. A court officer warns someone seated with the Read family they are not allowed to eat in the courtroom. After the sidebar, the judge tells jurors they cannot consider the niece’s statement about not being comforted by Read.
5/14/2025 11:25:50
Yannetti begins his cross-examination. He is speaking in a much softer voice than he has used with other witnesses. Notes that the niece did not use to call Read “the defendant” but instead called her “Karen.” Niece agrees that Read took her to get her nails done once a week. Yannetti asks if Read took her to doctor’s appointments. She answers no.
5/14/2025 11:27:17
Niece says Read went to her sports games, went on a tour of a school with her, helped with a couple school projects, sometimes straightened her hair the night before school, planned a scavenger hunt for one of her birthdays. Niece says she and her brother sometimes stayed with Read at her home in Mansfield.
5/14/2025 11:28:32
Yannetti asks about the Aruba trip. Asks if niece remembers getting ice cream with Read. She doesn’t. Repeats that O’Keefe fell asleep in her bedroom, says she left, came back later, and found her uncle was gone.
5/14/2025 11:30:56
Niece says when they returned home from Aruba, the couple’s relationship had changed. “It was the same amount of time but it wasn’t the same.”
5/14/2025 11:31:48
Yannetti steps away from the podium, whispers something to defense attorney Alan Jackson then to defense attorney Robert Alessi. He’s done with his questions.
5/14/2025 11:32:16
“Haven’t just gotten dumped by the 8th grade boyfriend. This was a crisis,” the niece says. Slight laughter in the courtroom.
5/14/2025 11:33:19
McLaughlin returns for re-direct. Niece says this about the couple’s relationship after Aruba: “They just seemed like less happy to be around each other.” She adds, “There was a lot more tension and fighting.” Says the fighting in January of 2022 was more frequent than before.
5/14/2025 11:35:11
Yannetti returns for a second time. The niece looks down at the floor, not at Yannetti. He asks if Read took her and her brother to a Bruins game that month. She says yes. Her testimony concludes. Outside in the hallway, her aunt Erin O’Keefe hugs her and escorts her down the stairs. The other young people in the courtroom also file out.
5/14/2025 11:46:13
BEFORE the niece’s testimony, Special Prosecutor played two clips of her media interviews, including one where she speculates about what O’Keefe would have done if he learned about her texts with Brian Higgins.
