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Karen Read called her boyfriend John O’Keefe dozens of times and left a spree of expletive-laden voicemails as he lay dying in a bank of Massachusetts snow, jurors were shown on the tenth day of her new murder trial.

“John, I f—king hate you,” Read told O’Keefe in one of the voicemails she left the Boston cop between 12:33 a.m. and 6:03 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022.

“You are f—king using me right now. You’re f—king another girl,” she said in another.


  Karen Read looks on during her trial at Norfolk Superior Court, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. AP Karen Read looks on during her trial at Norfolk Superior Court, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. AP

The shocking messages came as investigators claimed that they Solo cups they used to collect blood as evidence worked “terrifically.

Former Canton Police Lt. Paul Gallagher defended his unorthodox evidence collection methods when he oversaw the January 2022 murder – which included using a leaf blower to clear snow from O’Keefe’s body, gathering his frozen blood in plastic Solo cups, and then transporting those samples in paper grocery store bags.


  Under direct questioning, Guarino reads from a PowerPoint that shows text messages, calls and voicemails between Read and O’Keefe starting just after 12:30 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022. FOX 9 Under direct questioning, Guarino reads from a PowerPoint that shows text messages, calls and voicemails between Read and O’Keefe starting just after 12:30 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022. FOX 9

“[Solo cups] weren’t going to get soggy,” Gallagher told the court during testimony Monday, adding that they “hold liquid terrifically.”

“They were large. I needed a small sample. My thought was, because [the blood] was frozen or coagulated, that we could collect it, transport it and transfer it to the crime lab, who could extract the DNA however they saw best fit,” he said, according to Fox News.

As for the leaf blower, Gallagher said he was afraid breaking up the freshly fallen snow might damage evidence, and that he was thinking fast as blizzard snows continued to pile up on the scene – which he was thinking of as an “unattended death,” and not a homicide.


  Massachusetts State Police trooper Nicholas Guarino, a digital forensics specialist who works with cellphone evidence. FOX 9 Massachusetts State Police trooper Nicholas Guarino, a digital forensics specialist who works with cellphone evidence. FOX 9

And the paper Stop & Shop bags were no different than evidence bags his department would have used to transport the blood anyways, he claimed.

When pressed by Read’s defense – who argue she is the victim of an elaborate cover-up by police – as to why he didn’t send for proper investigative equipment instead of having an officer fetch a leaf blower, Gallagher argued that if O’Keefe’s blood samples did become contaminated with somebody else’s DNA it would have been “good” for Read’s defense — but that never happened.

O’Keefe’s bloodied body was found in a snowbank outside the Canton home of Brian Albert, O’Keefe’s fellow cop buddy. Albert had friends over the night he was killed. 

Want to learn more about Karen Read’s murder trial? Click down below

Read dropped O’Keefe off at Albert’s just after midnight following a night of heavy drinking, and he was found dead later that morning.

Prosecutors allege that Read hit O’Keefe with her car and left him for dead, while her defense claims he was beaten by friends at the Alberts’ party and then dragged into the snow to die – citing the shoddy police work at the scene as just one of numerous indicators of a cover-up and frame job against Read.

Read had been arguing with O’Keefe the night of his death and drove off after dropping him at the party jurors on Tuesday were shown a spree of foul-mouthed messages she left him across dozens of calls and texts sent afterwards as he lay freezing in the snow.

In all, Read called O’Keefe 44 times without a pickup in less than six hours between 12:33 a.m. and 6:03 a.m. that morning.

She also left him eight voicemails, and peppered his phone with raging texts in between.

Jurors were shown a PowerPoint reading out the contents of the calls and texts during testimony from Massachusetts State Police trooper Nicholas Guarino, a digital forensics specialist who works with cell phone evidence.

Guarino helped lead jurors through the messages and arguments Read and O’Keefe exchanged throughout the day – including one where O’Keefe complained about their arguing “weekly for several months now.”

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