Karen Reed said in a new TV special airing Friday that when she learned that her Boston police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe had died, she “broke down” and “didn't want to be alive.”
Reed denied prosecutors' claims that she intentionally ran O'Keefe over with her SUV, saying she was deranged and confused about how O'Keefe died in a snowbank on Jan. 29, 2022.
“I actually emailed my dad and said, 'I think John is dead,'” the financial analyst told “Dateline” in a two-hour special that aired Friday.
“And then he called me and I said, 'Dad, I don't want to live.' Like, I don't want to live. And what the hell happened? I didn't understand. How did this happen at night?”
When she first saw her boyfriend, she said, “I couldn't see his face or his hair,” but “I knew it was him.”
“I knew it wasn't right for that lawn,” she told Andrea Canning.
O'Keefe was eventually taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was found with two black eyes, a fractured skull, cuts to his face and back of his hands, and claw-like marks on one arm.
Reed, who had been dating the officer since 2020, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while driving under the influence, and leaving the scene of bodily injury resulting in death.
During his trial this year, prosecutors accused him of mowing down O'Keeffe with a Lexus SUV as he dropped him off with his police officer friends at a house party in Canton, Massachusetts.
The pair had apparently been bar hopping earlier that night, where Reid is said to have had seven drinks in just 90 minutes.
But Ms. Reed's lawyers argued that Ms. O'Keefe was actually framed by law enforcement after she got into a deadly fight with a fellow officer at a house party.
The proceedings ended in a mistrial on July 1 after the jury could not reach a verdict after five days of deliberations.
