Karen Read, 'Turtleboy' slapped with defamation lawsuit

Flint McColgan, Boston Herald on Apr 16, 2026

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BOSTON — Four people who testified against Karen Read during her murder trials in the death of Boston police Officer John O’Keefe have filed a defamation suit against the acquitted defendant.

“For years, we have done the right thing by assisting authorities in the hope that John’s family would find justice and peace. As a result, we and our families have been subjected to relentless false accusations, harassment, and intimidation based on a deliberate campaign of lies,” Jennifer McCabe, Brian Albert, Colin Albert, and Brian Higgins said in a joint statement.

The suit, announced Thursday, takes aim at Read as well as the blogger Aidan Kearney, who relentlessly covered the case from a hardline pro-Read stance under the “Turtleboy” media brand and who faces witness intimidation charges related to that activity.

“Our clients testified bravely and publicly because it was the right thing to do. When witnesses are abused and defamed simply for doing their civic duty, their lives are shattered and our entire justice system is put at risk. This lawsuit seeks to right those wrongs,” said Chris Mattei, partner at Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder and co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

O’Keefe died in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022, when his body was found in the snow outside the Albert family home in Canton.

Within days, police arrested Read, O’Keefe’s girlfriend, for his death. She was initially charged with manslaughter and then that June indicted on second-degree murder and other charges.

Read’s defense attorneys in April 2023 changed everything when in a filing, they said that not only was Read innocent but that others were to blame for O’Keefe’s death. In those initial filings, the attorneys identified Jennifer McCabe and Brian Albert as those culpable.

That theory expanded into what became a third-party-culpability defense in the murder trials. The defense alleged that Brian Albert, Colin Albert, and Brian Higgins could have played a physical role in O’Keefe’s murder and that Jennifer McCabe and others had worked to cover up the crime and lead authorities to blame Read.

Read was first tried in the summer of 2024 but that ended in a mistrial when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. She was retried the following summer, when the jury acquitted her on all charges except drunken driving.

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