The family of Karen Reed's late boyfriend filed a wrongful death lawsuit this week against a Boston police officer for her death during a snowstorm.
According to a lawsuit filed Monday in Plymouth Superior Court, the parents, siblings and niece of the deceased Officer John O'Keefe III allege that Reed, 44, was intoxicated and intentionally hit him with his SUV, causing his death.
The lawsuit also alleges that two bars, CF McCarthy's and Waterfall Bar & Grill, served Reed excessive amounts of alcohol in the hours before O'Keefe's death on Jan. 29, 2022.
According to the criminal complaint, Reed and O'Keefe, 46, went bar-hopping at two establishments on the night of Jan. 28, drinking nine drinks at each.
She was allegedly “intoxicated and unable to safely operate a motor vehicle” when she drove O'Keefe from Waterfalls to the home of a fellow BPD officer for an afterparty.
A blood test taken at 12:45 a.m. on January 29th at a local medical center revealed Reed's blood alcohol content was between 0.135% and 0.292%.
According to the lawsuit, Reed knew her two-year relationship with O'Keefe was in jeopardy and had been “festering with quarrels, becoming jealous and having delusions of infidelity” in the months before the incident.
O'Keefe's family accused Reed of hitting her with his car and leaving her to die in a snowstorm.
He was pronounced dead a few hours later, with the coroner listing the official cause of death as “blunt impact trauma to the head and hypothermia.”
Later that day, Reed paid a secret visit to comfort O'Keefe's family, and used the opportunity to remove her car and “relevant evidence” from the scene, the family alleges.
In addition to the “extreme emotional distress” they say O'Keefe's family suffered during the ensuing investigation, they also accused Reid of inflicting emotional distress on the officer's 14-year-old niece, who was in O'Keefe's custody at the time of her death.
According to the criminal complaint, Reed woke the girl at 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 29 and claimed O'Keefe had not yet returned home.
The girl allegedly heard Reed say, “Maybe I did something… Maybe the snowplow hit him… Maybe I hit him… Maybe I hit him… (We) were arguing… Maybe he got hit by the snowplow.”
She then allegedly left the girl alone in the house while she returned to the afterparty venue to look for O'Keefe.
O'Keefe's family is seeking at least $50,000 in damages.
The lawsuit was filed nearly two months after Reed's murder trial ended in a hung verdict after five days of deliberations.
She continued to maintain her innocence throughout the high-profile investigation and claimed she was made a scapegoat by Boston law enforcement.
Reed's defense team asked that two of the three charges she faced be dismissed because some jurors had said they intended to acquit her of the second-degree murder charge.
Norfolk County Judge Beverly Cannon ruled last week that both charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a death will stand in the second trial because Reed has not been formally acquitted of either charge.
In addition to those two charges, Reed is also expected to be charged with vehicular manslaughter.
A new trial is scheduled for Jan. 27, 2025.
Reed's lawyers did not immediately respond to The Washington Post's request for comment.
