Probe of town police in Karen Read case finds no sign of 'conspiracy to frame' slain officer's girlfriend

An autarkic bureau recovered nary grounds of a cover-up by the constabulary section successful Canton, Massachusetts, successful the decease of Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe arsenic portion of an audit into the section ordered past year. 

Town residents demanded an extracurricular reappraisal successful November 2024 to probe the constabulary department's effect to O'Keefe's death. Officials chose a steadfast called 5 Stones quality (5Si) to behaviour it betwixt Nov. 18, 2024, and March 30 this year.

The 206-page study was unveiled Tuesday, the aforesaid time arsenic the commencement of assemblage enactment for the 2nd proceedings of Karen Read, O'Keefe's woman who is accused of sidesplitting him successful a drunken hit-and-run aft an argument.

KAREN READ AND JOHN O'KEEFE: INSIDE EVOLUTION OF BOSTON MURDER MYSTERY SINCE JULY MISTRIAL

Karen Read exits Norfolk Superior Court successful Dedham, Mass., Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (Dario Alequin for Fox News Digital)

Read's archetypal proceedings ended successful a mistrial aft her defence alleged bias against her from the pb investigator, missteps astatine the transgression country and a imaginable cover-up.

The auditors addressed allegations of a cover-up circumstantial to Canton constabulary – but members of respective antithetic instrumentality enforcement agencies were progressive successful the probe oregon arsenic witnesses who were with O'Keefe that evening. 

"Our squad has not discovered immoderate accusation that would bespeak that immoderate actions by Canton PD officers oregon detectives were a portion of a conspiracy to framework immoderate idiosyncratic for the execution of Mr. O’Keefe," 5Si found.

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Karen Read and John O'Keefe (Courtesy of Karen Read)

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The 5Si study recovered a fig of faults wrong the department, including:

• The archetypal officers connected country should person photographed O'Keefe's assemblage earlier helium was placed successful an ambulance and rushed to the hospital.
• Witness interviews should person been conducted astatine the Canton constabulary headquarters.
• Police should person secured the transgression country extracurricular the location of Boston Police Officer Brian Albert.
• Canton constabulary person an "inconsistent" interior affairs process.

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They recommended that Canton detectives acquisition "advanced training" connected transgression country investigations and that each patrol vehicles should beryllium equipped with transgression country kits and grounds postulation bags. They called for an summation successful the constabulary department's budget.

John O’Keefe (Boston Police Department)

They besides recovered that department-issued radios don't person afloat sum of the assemblage and that officers are not fixed enactment cellphones. They recommended giving each officers enactment phones and rewriting section argumentation to person them usage their enactment phones to instrumentality transgression country photographs, ne'er their idiosyncratic phones.

Aidan Kearney, the blogger known arsenic Turtleboy, walks toward tribunal anterior to assemblage enactment for the proceedings of Karen Read extracurricular Norfolk County Superior Court, April 1, 2025, successful Dedham, Mass. (Charles Krupa/AP)

Auditors besides referenced the Sandra Birchmore case, recommending that supervisors reappraisal each decease cases for accuracy.

"A Canton PD detective wrote that Sandra Birchmore died of a termination successful the archetypal report," auditors wrote. "It was aboriginal determined that she had been killed by strangulation."

Ex-Stoughton constabulary serviceman Matthew Farwell is charged successful Sandra Birchmore's murder. (AP | IMAGN)

A fishy successful that lawsuit was indicted successful August, and helium was a constabulary serviceman successful the adjacent municipality of Stoughton, different Boston suburb. Matthew Farwell, 38, is accused of strangling her aft she told him she had go large with his kid and past staging the country to marque it look similar she had killed herself. He has pleaded not guilty.

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Read's retrial began with assemblage enactment this week aft the archetypal fell apart, arguably owed to the defense's quality to onslaught investigators and the mode they handled the investigation, experts say.

"Sloppy probe [or] a unreserved to judgement statement is defence lawyer 101," said Neama Rahmani, a Los Angeles-based proceedings lawyer and erstwhile national authoritative who is pursuing the case. "They usage it successful astir each execution lawsuit wherever they don’t reason mishap oregon self-defense."

In Read's case, the pb researcher had a pugnacious clip connected the witnesser basal arsenic jurors were seen shaking their heads during a speechmaking of his substance messages successful which helium joked astir searching her telephone for nudes and called her a "c---." State constabulary fired him past period aft a months-long reappraisal of his conduct.

"The probe was botched beyond belief; evidence, witnesses and the full transgression country was mishandled," Rahmani told Fox News Digital. "Throw successful Michael Proctor, the worst instrumentality enforcement witnesser I’ve seen since Mark Fuhrman successful O.J., the defence is having a tract time with this case."

Read the afloat report:

As of Thursday afternoon, 8 jurors had been empaneled, according to WCVB-TV, a section station. There volition beryllium 12 sitting jurors and 4 alternates selected earlier opening statements footwear off.

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Fox News' Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.