Karen Read says she poured extra shots into her cocktails before John O'Keefe's death

Fox News

25-04-2025

Sometimes, Karen Read might take things into her own hands, like when she got a "weak pour" at a bar the night her boyfriend died.
Unhappy with the alcohol level, she added extra shots on her own, according to a 2024 interview she gave for a documentary on Investigation Discovery.
The clip aired in court Thursday as part of her retrial on murder charges in the death of her boyfriend, John O'Keefe.
"The drinks that they were pouring me at McCarthy's, which was where I consumed most of the alcohol, was the weakest vodka tonic," she told the camera. "It tasted just like all soda water with lime, not that I need it to be a martini, but it might have a splash of vodka in it."
She said she complained about it to O'Keefe, and he suggested ordering another shot and dropping it in herself.
"So each drink was being counted as a double," she continued. "I would get a vodka tonic, and then I would pour a shot into it."
Read recounted drinking at CF McCarthy's bar in Canton, where she said she drank "most of [the] alcohol" she'd consumed on Jan. 28, 2022.
Read described how she poured multiple shots into her glass because the bar was serving weak drinks, complaining her vodka soda "tasted just like all soda water with lime."
WATCH: Karen Read recounts night of drinking at local bar in 2024 television interview
"The guys that we were with ordered a round of shots and gave me one that I didn't drink, but I poured it in my drink," Read said.
"So, that's now my fifth and sixth drinks, with the seventh, which is a shot that all the men did, and I poured it. So, that's one glass that I'm holding." She added that the cocktail had "three drinks in it."
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan had Massachusetts State Tpr. Nicholas Guarino read jurors a series of texts between Read and O'Keefe from throughout the day before he died.
Guarino read through both the history of phone calls between Read and O'Keefe and their texts throughout the day, beginning with that morning. O'Keefe appeared frustrated over arguments, writing that he was "sick of always arguing and fighting."
By afternoon, the conversation turned toward early evening plans. At 2:38 p.m., Read called O'Keefe, and he rejected the call, sending it to voicemail directly rather than just letting it ring unanswered.
Ten seconds later, Read texted, "Can you pls answer??"
O'Keefe waited nearly a minute before he replied, "No Karen. Not sure why you need to announce that you're grabbing a drink but have fun."
She asked him to call again. He told her he was busy taking care of his niece and nephew, who were in his care after his sister and brother-in-law both died within months of each other.
"Have to take them to the [doctor]," he wrote. "He has practice."
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She called back twice. He let the first one ring and rejected the second 44 seconds later.
For the next 20 minutes, he continued to ignore her calls before calling her back just before 3 p.m. Nine minutes later, she texted him, "Why don't you meet me at the hillside at 4:30/5."
After a few follow-up texts, O'Keefe replied, "Like I said, [doctor] now, and he has practice til 6. If you want to go start drinking then go for it."
Read said she didn't know what time practice was but that she wanted to meet him out rather than at his house to give him "space."
After more back-and-forth, O'Keefe texted her at 3:39 p.m., "You're like jonesing to drink. So go!"
At another point in the conversation, she indicated she'd rather meet in town "for drinks" than hang out at his house.
When O'Keefe said his friend, Mike Camerano, was coming over, he suggested Read drop by too.
"Mike doesn't want to go out for a bit?" she replied. "I would like to, been a s--- day from the jump."
Guarino read texts the two sent from that morning until around 8:35 p.m.
While Brennan's case highlighted Read's drinking, experts said jurors might side with Read over O'Keefe's responses.
"I thought this presentation backfired in that it looked like a couple with normal issues, and it was like, she will wake up and leave this relationship where you were being used, not as a motive to murder," said Linda Kenney Baden, a New York defense attorney whose past clients have included Phil Spector, Casey Anthony and Aaron Hernandez.
"Plus, the texts showed a jealous John O'Keefe to me, like the plumber," she added.
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Around 8 p.m., before Read and O'Keefe met for drinks, she told him she was having a plumber stop by because her hot water had run out. He told her he would fix it Sunday or Monday.
That could support the defense theory that O'Keefe did not sustain his injuries in a collision with Read's SUV but rather from a possible altercation with another man at the party who had shared his own romantic texts with the defendant, Kenney Baden told Fox News Digital.
Brennan played the ID clip after Guarino finished reading the texts. After that, Judge Beverly Cannone said, due to some confusion with the witnesses, the jury could go home for the day.
They are expected to hop on a bus for an in-person viewing of the crime scene when the trial resumes Friday.