DEDHAM, Mass. — As a verdict in the Karen Read murder retrial looms in the coming weeks, John O’Keefe’s cousin told Boston 25 they’re ready for the “nightmare” to be somewhat over.
Vanessa Rizzitano, O’Keefe’s cousin, explained, “It’s nerves. It’s anxiety. All you have to do is just hope we can get justice for him.”
Rizzitano lived with O’Keefe when she was a child and again as a recent college graduate. She stayed at his Canton home in 2018 with O’Keefe’s nephew and niece.
“He would make time for everybody, really put everybody before himself,” she said Thursday. “He didn’t use the fact our family was huge as an excuse.”
Rizzitano has been sitting alongside her extended family in court as the Karen Read murder retrial nears its end.
She added, “I’m like, ‘How do my aunt and my uncle and my little cousins and his brother and his wife -- how do they even get through each day?’”
The Massachusetts native lived with O’Keefe for roughly 6 months, then moved to upstate New York for work. She is also a former employee of Boston 25, where she worked as a writer for the station’s broadcasts.
On a short trip back home to Massachusetts in late 2021, she texted her cousin to catch up.
“I was like, ‘Oh, let’s get together with the kids. Like, let’s do something. Let’s get together,’ she explained. “Life got in the way, we got busy, and it never happened.”
She tearfully continued, “I like, literally beat myself up about that every day because it’s the last time I would’ve seen my cousin alive.”
With only a few more weeks expected until a verdict, the O’Keefe family is waiting for answers and time to finally grieve after a case that’s gained regional and international attention.
Rizzitano said her family’s been subject to hate in public and online, receiving comments like, “‘Johnny deserved a better family,’ ‘He should be ashamed of his family’... Like all of this nasty stuff.”
When asked what she thinks O’Keefe would’ve thought of all of this, she said, “I know that Johnny would be really ashamed and hurt.”
Day 28 of testimony is expected to resume Friday morning at Norfolk County Superior Court.
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