2-hour ‘Dateline’ focused on Karen Read to air Friday

“I didn’t know what the hell happened. How did the night end up like this?” Read says in a trailer for Friday's episode.

The

case is back on the small screen this week as NBC’s “Dateline” prepares to air a special 2-hour episode on the alleged murder of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.

Read is charged with killing O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years, on a snowy night in Canton in January 2022. While Read’s attorneys contend she was framed in a coverup, prosecutors allege the 44-year-old deliberately backed her SUV into O’Keefe following a night of drinking and left him to die in a blizzard. Friday’s episode of “Dateline” will spotlight the case, which has divided the town of Canton, spawned myriad conspiracy theories, and captivated true crime fanatics nationwide.

Read is slated for retrial in January, after her first trial resulted in a hung jury.

“I didn’t know what the hell happened. How did the night end up like this?” Read asks in a “Dateline” teaser published Tuesday. “I felt like I was living in a nightmare.”

The brief clip also includes excerpts from interviews with defense attorney Alan Jackson and NBC10 Boston commentator Sue O’Connell, who sat in on Read’s first trial at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham.

“Dateline” previously teased an exclusive interview with Read in July 2023, months before her trial began.

According to NBC10 Boston, Friday’s episode features Read’s response to witnesses who allegedly heard her say “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him” at the scene shortly after finding O’Keefe unresponsive in the snow.

“I said, ‘Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?'” Read says in the episode, per NBC10. “I don’t know what else it could have been. It was howling wind, I had YouTube blasting on the stereo, and I thought, ‘Did he somehow try to flag me down?’ which was the reaction I was hoping to garner as I slowly pulled away from the house. Did he come out and maybe trip or … bend over to pick up his cellphone and I ran over his foot and then he passed out drunk? I didn’t think I hit him, hit him, but could I have clipped him?”

The “Dateline” episode, titled “The Night of the Nor’easter,” will air Friday at 9 p.m. on NBC.

Interest in Read’s case remains high as her retrial inches closer. Last month, the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office announced veteran criminal defense attorney Hank Brennan will lead prosecutors during the retrial, serving as special assistant district attorney. Legal experts who spoke with Boston.com following the announcement speculated Brennan’s appointment could herald a change in strategy, and court filings last week hinted at some potential new prosecution experts.

A notice of discovery filed Friday included reports and a curriculum vitae from Norfolk DA Multimedia Director Coleen Crawford, whose LinkedIn lists her as a certified forensic video technician. The notice of discovery also includes a CV for Judson B. Welcher, a biomechanical engineer and accident reconstructionist with Aperture.

Prosecutors also announced their plans to reassemble and retest the telematics system from Read’s Lexus SUV with help from another Aperture expert, Shanon R. Burgess. According to the filing, Burgess believes the memory chips contained more data than investigators initially pulled from Read’s car.

“Mr. Burgess would employ updated programming and current software versions to maximize the chances of a complete acquisition,” the court document states. “Mr. Burgess believes the use of a variety of different hardware programs and updated software will yield a more fulsome acquisition of data.”

According to prosecutors, vehicles equipped with navigation can also record geolocation data in the form of track logs, which are “essentially an ordered sequence of GPS coordinate measurements stored by a satellite navigation system.”

“This information is tantamount to laying down a bread crumb trail memorializing travel by location and time,” prosecutors added.

According to the filing, track log and Wi-Fi information from Read’s SUV could independently corroborate testimony from several witnesses who said they spotted her car outside 34 Fairview Road, where O’Keefe was later found in the snow. The data could also identify where Read’s SUV was at the time it engaged in an “impact event” and “would assist in identifying the precise locations that the defendant’s Lexus travelled from the time that the defendant struck and killed Mr. John O’Keefe until … the time the vehicle was seized,” prosecutors asserted.

State Police Trooper Joseph Paul testified during Read’s first trial that some of the data captured by Read’s SUV appeared to be “consistent with a pedestrian strike,” showing the vehicle moving forward slightly, shifting to reverse, and accelerating up to 24.2 mph. The speed dipped to 23.6 mph a half second later, the steering wheel jostling slightly.

“There’s a point in there where it appears to be consistent with a pedestrian strike,” Paul testified. Under cross-examination from Jackson, however, Paul acknowledged he could not say for certain whether the data pointed to Read striking a pedestrian.

Separately, Read’s attorneys have appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court in their bid to drop charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal collision. Oral arguments are slated for Nov. 6, and prosecutors are expected to file their official response by Wednesday.

Read’s lawyers allege the jury in her first trial internally agreed to acquit her of murder and leaving the scene, reaching an impasse only on the charge of manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol. Retrying her on those charges, they argue, would constitute double jeopardy.

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.