Karen Read exchanged flirty messages with ATF agent just weeks before her boyfriend was found dead
Karen Read exchanged flirty texts with another man two weeks before her cop boyfriend was found dead in the snow, jurors heard during testimony in her murder trial Friday.
“You’re hot,” Brian Higgins — an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, wrote to Read in a series of text message from January 2022.
“Are you serious or messing with me?” Read responded.
“No, I’m serious,” Higgins said.
“The feeling is mutual,” Read wrote. “Is that bad?”
The messages were read during Read’s retrial in a Dedham, Massachusetts, courtroom Friday morning by State Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik, who oversaw the investigation into Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe’s death on Jan. 29, 2022.
Bukhenik carried on reading the communications — which continued for roughly two weeks, starting on Jan. 12, 2022 — aloud for roughly an hour as jurors sat riveted and took notes, NBC Boston reported.
Read told Higgins in the messages that she got his number from a mutual friend and went on to ask him what his dating status was.
“I am solo, no rotation,” wrote Higgins — who previously testified he’s been divorced since 2017. “I am not a hoe.”
“Solo?” Karen responded.
“Solo like no rotation or woman for that matter,” Higgins replied. “Not locked down. Ha Ha.”
“Good for you,” Read said. “That’s the best way to be.”
At one point, Higgins told Read, “I have always been attracted to you.”
Things appear to start escalating over the days they message each other with Read inviting Higgins over and texting him later to tell him: “I’m glad you came over tonight.”
Higgins asked Read what she wanted from him and if she was going to break up with O’Keefe, prompting Read to explain the situation was complicated but that O’Keefe had cheated on her with another woman when they were on vacation in Aruba.
One juror who normally fidgets during testimony, sat with his mouth agape as the seemingly scandalous messages were read out, the outlet reported.
More messages reveal that Read kissed Higgins and that the pair were captured on O’Keefe’s home surveillance, which O’Keefe confronted Read about.
“He’s like ‘Christ, are you guys hooking up??'” Read texted Higgins.
“I don’t need drama dude,” Higgins responded. “You legit planted one on me.”
Read tried to downplay the situation, and told him the kiss wasn’t recorded because she knew where the cameras were.
“It was a peck anyway,” Read said, in an apparent effort to minimize the smooch.
Finally, the jury saw a message from Read to Higgins, that simply said: “John died.”
The panelists couldn’t conceal their shock after the message was read, NBC Boston reported.
At Read’s first trial last year — which ended with a hung jury — Higgins testified that Read “planted a kiss on me. Not like a friend,” when he was leaving O’Keefe’s house one time.
What to know about the Karen Read murder case
- Karen Read, 44, was charged with second-degree murder for allegedly mowing down her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, as she was dropping him off to meet friends in Canton, Mass., on Jan. 29, 2022.
- The night of O’Keefe’s death, the couple had been out on a bar crawl, with Read allegedly consuming seven drinks in just 90 minutes, according to reports.
- Prosecutors claim that after Read drunkenly ran over her boyfriend, she drove off and left O’Keefe to die outside as a snowstorm was set to sweep in.
- Read’s lawyers argued she was framed in a sweeping law enforcement cover-up and that O’Keefe actually died after getting into an altercation with his officer friends.
- On July 1, 2024, Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial in the case since the jury was not able to reach a unanimous verdict after five days of deliberations.
- On April 22, 2025, Read will stand trial for the second time, facing the same charges despite her lawyers’ failed plea attempt to the top Mass. court to drop the murder and hit-and-run charges.
- Read faced up to life in prison if she had been convicted on the top count of murder.
“I’m not proud of these text messages,” Higgins testified at the time. “John was a friend at the same time.”
But the ATF agent admitted he was “physically attracted to” Read.
Read, 45, was dating O’Keefe when he died and is accused of backing over him with her Lexus SUV after a night of drinking and then leaving him for dead outside of a Canton, Massachusetts, home as a snow storm was rolling in.
Read, of Mansfield, Massachusetts, had been at a bar with O’Keefe, 46, before dropping him off at his cop friend, Brian Albert’s house party, which Higgins had also attended.
Read has pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
She has claimed she’s is a scapegoat in a widespread law enforcement cover-up and that O’Keefe was actually killed during the party with his law enforcement buddies at Albert’s house.
Her lawyers have sought to blame Albert, Albert’s nephew, Colin Albert, and Higgins — a defense they used at the first trial.
However, at the second trial, new limitations have been placed on Read for how far she can go with the alternate suspect defense, limiting what her team can say about Higgins’ and Brian Albert’s involvement and barring the defense completely from claiming Colin Albert was involved in O’Keefe’s death.
