John O’Keefe’s mother was home with her husband in Braintree when she got a call from Kerry Roberts around 6:15 a.m. Jan. 29, 2022, telling her that her son had been found in the snow in Canton that morning
Later at the hospital, Margaret O’Keefe, who goes by Peggy, said she saw her son’s girlfriend, Karen Read, who would later be charged with his murder. She said Read yelled out to her, “Peg, is he dead?’’
“I just kept walking,’’ Peggy O’Keefe said from the witness stand in Norfolk Superior Court Wednesday, the second day of Read’s retrial in the death of John O’Keefe, 46, who was a Boston police officer.
O’Keefe’s parents were not called as witnesses during Read’s first trial, which ended with a hung jury last summer. As his mother took the stand Wednesday, Peggy O’Keefe became emotional, at times shedding tears as she answered questions about how she learned of her son’s death, as well as the type of man he was.
She spoke about how John stepped up to care for and raise his young niece and nephew after his sister died from cancer in 2013.
“He was wonderful with the kids,’’ Peggy O’Keefe said. “He was their number one, and they called him JJ.’’
Roberts and another woman, Jennifer McCabe, were with Read when she discovered O’Keefe’s snow-covered body on the front lawn of a Canton home that was owned at the time by a now-retired Boston police officer.
Read, 45, says she dropped O’Keefe off at the house the night before, but prosecutors allege that the couple drank heavily that night and were arguing before Read backed her SUV into him and left him for dead.
Read’s attorneys say she was framed and that O’Keefe entered the house, where he was fatally beaten and possibly bitten by a German shepherd before his body was put on the front lawn.
She has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of a crash resulting in death.
Peggy O’Keefe testified Wednesday that Read had told her she “just left’’ O’Keefe at a party the night before his body was found. She said Read “was just loud’’ at the hospital, and a hospital staffer told her that Read was receiving a psychiatric evaluation.
After leaving the hospital, Peggy O’Keefe said she went to John’s house to comfort the children, who are now 17 and 14. She said Read, along with her father and brother, arrived at the house, too, and asked if they could go upstairs to grab some things.
“I never should have let them go up there,’’ Peggy O’Keefe said. “But at the time it was, I just couldn’t think straight. … So I don’t know what they got up there.’’
O’Keefe said she did not further interact with Read at the house. Hank Brennan, the special prosecutor brought in by the Norfolk district attorney’s office to lead the case, asked her if there were “any hugs or condolences’’ during the encounter.
“No,’’ O’Keefe said.
Alan Jackson, one of Read’s attorneys, declined to question Peggy O’Keefe and told her he was “very sorry for your loss.’’
Jurors also heard testimony Wednesday from State Police Trooper Nicholas Guarino, a cellphone forensic investigator who worked on the case and extracted data from the cellphones of O’Keefe and Read.
He said O’Keefe’s phone was stored in a digital forensics lab for two days until officials received the passcode, and investigators had to wait until July 2022 before they could access Read’s data.
Guarino stepped down without cross-examination, though Brennan said he intends to call him back to the stand later.
The final witness called on Wednesday was Canton firefighter-paramedic Daniel Whitley, who was one of the first emergency responders to reach the scene where O’Keefe’s body was found.
Whitley said it was snowing heavily and when he spoke to Read, she was “pretty upset [and] crying.’’ He said paramedics had an order to take her to the hospital for a mental health evaluation.
“She was arguing that she really didn’t need to go to the hospital,’’ Whitley said. “It is not a voluntary order.’’
Ultimately, Read agreed to go to the hospital, he said.
“She kept asking if there was any chance her husband could be alive,’’ he said of Read, who wasn’t married to O’Keefe.
Whitley said Read asked “at least three or four’’ times how long O’Keefe could survive in the cold without a coat.
“We were trying to give her hope,’’ he said. “I was telling her those stories [of other improbable recoveries]. Just trying to give her any sort of hope that her husband would be alive.“
He said Read “kept saying, ‘I can’t take care of these kids, I can’t take care of these kids. They’re not my kids, and they’re not his kids.’’’
Whitley said Read also asked him if he knew Roberts after he told Read that she appeared to have a strong support system. Read said anyone who knows Roberts “wouldn’t say that,’’ according to Whitley.
He said he replied that Roberts had just helped Read look for O’Keefe in a blizzard.
“She just rolled her eyes and put her head back down,’’ Whitley said.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.
