After hearing the news of Karen Read’s acquittal last week, Vanessa Rizzitano felt sick as the cheers of her supporters filled the courtroom.
About a week after jurors exonerated Read of murder and manslaughter charges related to the death of Rizzitano’s cousin, John O. Keefe, she told Boston 25 News, “That made me sick to my stomach.”
“It was literally the worst day of our lives, even though it was other people’s celebration,” Rizzitano continued.
After living with O Keefe as a small boy and again as a recent college graduate, the former TV news anchor and reporter claimed to have treated him like an elder brother. During portions of Read’s retrial, she appeared in court alongside some of O Keefe’s other relatives and friends.
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Rizzitano stated, “I felt like I didn’t even have strength in my body to still stand after hearing the verdict last Wednesday.”
After a night of bar hopping in January 2022, Read, 45, was accused of dumping O Keefe off at a Canton home and then, in a fit of wrath, backing her SUV into him. Prosecutors claimed Read abandoned her two-year lover to perish in a blizzard, but her attorneys countered that the investigation was flawed and unfair. As part of a cover-up, they proposed the alternative scenario that O Keefe was attacked after attending the afterparty at 34 Fairview Road and then thrown outdoors.
Read was given a year of probation after jurors ultimately convicted her guilty of drunk driving.
Rizzitano told Boston 25 that a guilty conviction would have been the best option for us to find some sort of peace in this situation.
She added that she disagreed with Read’s bold assertion that Read and her colleagues have done more to secure justice for John O. Keefe than anybody else.
According to Rizzitano, it was genuinely nauseating to hear her say those words. No. It was not you who put up the strongest fight for Johnny, but the prosecution, his family, and his loved ones, including myself.
John O. Keefe’s family is speaking out tonight only on Boston 25 News, over a week after Karen Read’s retrial ended in a not guilty judgment.Watch the entire interview tonight between 10 and 11.image.twitter.com/Ti49hKBul3
As Read’s contentious case gained national attention, members of O Keefe’s family claimed they had experienced name-calling and internet harassment. Outrage on both sides of the aisle was stoked earlier this week by a video of an alleged Read fan dancing in the street outside the family’s Canton home. Helena Rafferty, the chief of police in Canton, acknowledged that her department had filed a report on the incident, but she did not reply to inquiries about it.
They find it amusing that my cousin passed away and that the family is in mourning. Regarding the harassment, Rizzitano stated, “And I think that’s so sick.” He also added that O Keefe would be embarrassed to learn about the treatment our family is receiving.
Abby Patkin covers a wide range of topics as a general assignment news reporter, including crime, public transportation, health, and everything in between. She has been reporting on the murder case of Karen Read.
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