Karen Read is officially developing a scripted adaptation of her two murder trials, just nine days after her retrial ended in an acquittal.
The former financial analyst, 45, recently penned a deal with LBI Entertainment, the production company behind Martin Scorsese’s 2023 drama Killers of the Flower Moon, which was nominated for 10 Oscars. The company will now work with Read and her defense attorney, Alan Jackson, to develop a script based on her three-year legal saga.
In addition to the scripted adaptation, Read and Jackson also hope to secure a book deal, having recently signed with literary agency Janklow & Nesbit.
Read was first arrested in 2022 after her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe, was found dead outside the home of a fellow Boston Police officer in Canton, Massachusetts. At the time, police alleged Read had drunkenly struck O’Keefe, 46, with her car after an argument. She was charged with second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter, and leaving the scene of a collision.
However, Jackson argued that the case, which was plagued by conflicts of interest and allegations of police misconduct, was a cover-up. The defense believes O’Keefe’s real killers were fellow police officers who had beaten him to death in a drunken fight, then framed Read for the crime.
The scripted adaptation will “reflect Read’s insight into the investigators’ conduct and showcase Jackson’s architecture of a murder defense,” Deadline reports.
Read’s case gained national attention during her first trial in 2024, with true crime fanatics divided on whether the defendant was the innocent victim of a police conspiracy or a cunning murderer who killed her lover in cold blood.
Her national profile only skyrocketed when the case ended in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous consensus.
Read’s retrial began in April, with dozens of demonstrators gathering outside the courthouse daily to advocate alternatively for her acquittal or conviction.
Read’s defense team, led by Jackson, presented numerous alternative theories to explain O’Keefe’s death and reiterated claims that the police may have tampered with Read’s car to make the collision story appear more viable.
On June 18, a jury acquitted Read of both manslaughter and murder, though she received a year’s probation for operating under the influence.
However, Read still faces a wrongful death lawsuit brought by O’Keefe’s family, who maintain that she struck and killed him with her Lexus SUV.
A judge previously ruled that the civil lawsuit could not move forward until Read’s criminal case was resolved, and the family elected not to drop the suit after she was acquitted of the murder. The suit, filed by O’Keefe’s brother, parents, and his niece, for whom he was serving as legal guardian when he died, seeks at least $50,000 in damages.
While this will be the first scripted adaptation, Read’s highly publicized story has already been the subject of several true crime adaptations. It was chronicled in the 2024 true crime podcast 34 Fairview Road (a reference to the address where O’Keefe’s body was found), and 2024 episodes of both Dateline and 20/20.
More recently, Investigation Discovery released a docuseries about the case, A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read, in March. Netflix is also developing a three-part documentary.
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