After two murder trials, Karen Read was found not guilty in the death of boyfriend John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer. However, the story isn’t over, as the question remains: Who killed O’Keefe? Criminal defense attorney and former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Bederow exclusively warns In Touch that the world may never find out.

“I think there are so many inherent flaws with the case,” Bederow tells In Touch Investigates’ Kristin Thorne. “Rare is the case where you would ever say that one police department screwed up so badly and was so poor at evidence collection and investigation. You have the Canton police and the Massachusetts State Police, who both did a dreadful job. They didn’t secure the crime scene.”

O’Keefe died at 46 years old at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Massachusetts, after he was found unconscious on the front lawn of the home of a now-retired police officer on January 29, 2022. Read, 45, who had discovered O’Keefe’s unconscious body, was accused of intentionally striking her boyfriend with her vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.

Read was arrested on February 1, 2022, and charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence, operating under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. However, her legal team claimed during her trials that the crime scene was staged, that evidence was planted and surveillance footage was destroyed.

Read was ultimately found not guilty of her murder charges. However, she was found guilty of operating under the influence and was sentenced to one year of probation.

Bederow tells Thorne that properly securing the crime scene would have “wiped out any possibility of planting evidence.”

“If any tail light pieces had been recovered at the scene, if they had secured the crime scene, obviously, there’d be no opportunity to do that,” he says. “But by abandoning the crime scene, by not photographing the condition of the vehicle when they found it, by not investigating witnesses properly. I mean, you could go on and on; solo cups, leaf blowers, Stop and Shop bags. I mean, it’s just awful, awful police work in this case.”

Bederow also shares his thoughts on what may have really happened to O’Keefe, who died of “impact injuries to the head,” according to his autopsy. Medical examiner Dr. Irini Scordi-Bello noted a “laceration to the back of his head, skull fractures, a cut above his right eye, abrasions on his nose and arm, two black eyes, and a scratch on his right knee.”

“The neurologist was very clear that the eye injury, the lacerations, would not have been caused by John O’Keefe smashing his head backwards, which begs the obvious question, if that’s what happened to him and he was found on his back, how did he get some of these injuries to his face, if they weren’t from the impact of the vehicle?” Bederow asks.

After Read’s verdict, some of O’Keefe’s friends, who were present on the night of his death and were witnesses in the case, released a statement calling it a “miscarriage of justice.”

“While we may have more to say in the future, today, we mourn with John’s family and lament the cruel reality that this prosecution was infected by lies and conspiracy theories spread by Karen Read, her defense team and some in the media,” the statement continued.

Bederow says he is doubtful there will ever be “true justice” for O’Keefe.

“For a number of reasons, the most primary of which is the police blew it early. I mean, they put no serious investigative or intellectual curiosity into anything other than, ‘She probably ran him over,’ by not securing the crime scene, by not looking at other people and other things,” he concludes. “I think, short of a miracle of somebody coming forward and revealing things that are corroborated by other evidence, it’ll probably never get solved.”