DEDHAM — The girlfriend of a Boston police officer who died after being found unconscious in a snowbank outside a Canton home in January was in court Friday facing a second-degree murder charge stemming from the death.
Karen Read, 42, of Mansfield, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment in Norfolk Superior Court to charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while operating under the influence of liquor, and leaving the scene of a collision causing injury or death in connection with the death of Officer John O’Keefe, 46.
Read dropped off O’Keefe at a Canton home, prosecutors have previously said, made a three-point turn to reverse direction, rammed into him, and drove away. No further details about the crash were offered in court Friday.
At the arraignment, prosecutors said taillight pieces recovered from the area where O’Keefe was found matched pieces missing from a broken taillight on Read’s SUV.
Read’s bail was set at $100,000 cash, although prosecutors had asked for $500,000. Her next court date is slated for Aug. 12.
Shortly before 9 a.m. Friday, Read was led down the main hallway of the courthouse in handcuffs. She appeared calm and composed as she climbed the stairs to the courtroom.
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally said during the arraignment that text messages between O’Keefe and Read showed strain and “the victim’s desire to end the relationship.”
Lally said Read consumed nine drinks while she was out with O’Keefe and at 9 a.m. the next day her blood alcohol level was .07 – .08 percent. That meant her estimated blood alcohol count at 12:45 a.m. would have been between .13 and .29 percent, Lally said.
But Read’s lawyer, David Yannetti, said in court that he was surprised by the “lack of new information” presented by the prosecutor.
“They have simply changed the charges,” he said. “This case has gaping holes in it.”
Yannetti said his client is innocent and had been “frantically” looking for O’Keefe the following morning, making 75 calls to O’Keefe’s cellphone.
“She was desperately looking for him,” he said.
And he said he had “grave concerns about the ethics of this investigation.”
Yannetti alleged that the state trooper investigating the case is a friend of the owner of the home where O’Keefe was going that night.
Asked for comment on Yannetti’s assertions, David Traub, a spokesman for Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey’s office, said in a statement that the probe “was an extensive grand jury investigation and we have confidence in their work. Going forward, the issues will be decided by a superior court judge and jury.”
Yannetti also raised questions about O’Keefe’s injuries, which included two black eyes and lacerations on his arm, which he said appeared to be inconsistent with being struck by a vehicle.
“There’s something else going on here,” he said.
Outside the courthouse Friday, Yannetti said he expected Read to post bail and that she would not be giving a statement.
“She knows that she’s innocent, and we are ready to fight this case,” he said.
Read was first arrested Feb. 1 on a manslaughter warrant in connection with the death of O’Keefe, a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department.
She pleaded not guilty at her arraignment the next day in Stoughton District Court and was released on $50,000 cash bail.
Read told a friend she remembered little of the night’s events the next morning, when she began texting and calling O’Keefe to find out why he hadn’t returned to his Canton home, according to an affidavit.
Read, who worked as an equity analyst at a financial firm and an adjunct professor of finance at Bentley University in Waltham, later noticed a broken rear taillight on her black Lexus SUV, prosecutors said.
Read allegedly said to a friend: “I wonder if he is dead. It’s snowing. He got hit by a plow.”
When Read and two friends found O’Keefe, he was face up and unconscious, the affidavit said. Read lay on top of him in an attempt to warm his body and administered CPR, according to the affidavit.
When a firefighter asked Read whether she knew how O’Keefe suffered so much trauma — including the cuts and blackened eyes — Read allegedly looked at one of her friends and said: “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”
The cause of death was skull fractures, with hypothermia a contributing factor, prosecutors said. He was pronounced dead hours later at Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton.
O’Keefe was part of a close-knit family from Braintree that had joined together to provide a home and emotional support for a niece and nephew who lost both parents within a year of each other, according to Boston police and media reports.
At the time of O’Keefe’s death, Boston Police Superintendent in Chief Gregory Long, the department’s acting commissioner, remembered him as “a kind person, dedicated to his family, and will be greatly missed by his co-workers and anyone who had the privilege of meeting him.”
An earlier version of this story misidentified the owner of the house where O’Keefe was heading that night.
Emily Sweeney can be reached at emily.sweeney@globe.com. Follow her @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.