For the first time since her explosive acquittal, Karen Read is speaking at length about the case that turned her life into a national true-crime obsession—and the fear that still follows her long after the jury cleared her name.

Read appeared on the Rotten Mango podcast, where she revisited the trial, the retrial, the verdict, and the psychological wreckage left behind. She also revealed she is working on a book about her ordeal, a project she hopes will be published within the next five years.

The case dates back to January 2022, when John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer and Read’s boyfriend, was found dead outside a home in Canton, Massachusetts, during a snowstorm. O’Keefe had been attending a house party with fellow law enforcement officers earlier that night.

Prosecutors alleged Read struck O’Keefe with her SUV while intoxicated and left him to die in the cold. Read and her defense team countered with a far darker theory—that she was framed to shield another officer who had been inside the home.

“Based on his injuries, it looks to me like he got into a fight and fell backwards,” Read said on the podcast. “Someone in that house killed John O’Keefe.”

Read said the trial didn’t just threaten her freedom—it made her fear for her life. She told the podcast she believed someone in the law enforcement community might try to kill her and stage it as a suicide.

“I live alone; I’m like a sitting duck,” she said. “Will I be hanging from a doorknob in my house? And they could easily explain it as guilt, depression… ‘She just gave up.’”

Throughout the trial, critics accused Read of appearing cold or unemotional. She pushed back hard on that characterization, saying her grief had already consumed her long before cameras and courtrooms entered her life.

“I am out of tears about the tragedy of January 29th,” she said. “I have mourned for months and years before the public ever knew me. I would not cry in front of the O’Keefes. I would not cry in front of the prosecution.”

While Read was ultimately acquitted of all major charges—convicted only of a misdemeanor drunk driving offense—relief never fully arrived. Her first trial ended in a mistrial, and the second stretched her nerves to the breaking point.

“I thought about my freedom every waking hour,” she said. “And those feelings just don’t disappear when a jury foreman says, ‘Not guilty.’”

Read said she is now facing financial hardship and is living with her parents as she tries to rebuild a life derailed by years of suspicion, scrutiny, and fear. Writing the book, she said, is part of that reckoning.

Meanwhile, fallout from the case continues. Michael Morrissey, whose office prosecuted Read, has announced he will not seek re-election this year, according to Boston 25 News.

The verdict closed the courtroom chapter—but for Karen Read, the echoes of that snowy night in Canton are far from silent.