Blizzard of Lies: Author sits down with Boston 25 to speak about new Karen Read book

Of course, the death of police officer John O'Keefe continues to be a source of debate. This investigation into his death and the officers involved in it continue to generate headlines like the ones we were just talking about. And now a new book is tackling it all. Joining me live in studio today is David Wedge, crime reporter and author of the latest book here, Blizzard of Lies, Karen Reed, John O'Keefe, and the Shocking Unsolved Murder in Cop Town, USA. David, thank you so much for being here today. So you started working on this really from the get go in 2022. Did you have initial impressions of the case then and where are they now? So as soon as this happened, you know, this is my eighth book. I was a reporter at the Boston Herald and when this story first started back in 2022, my phone started ringing from people that I know in the law enforcement and legal community pretty quickly. People like something doesn't add up here. There's a lot of scandal, corruption, whatever. And so I started looking into it back then in 2022 and I was going to do a book earlier in the cycle, but I ended up doing a different book. And after I finished that one, the trials were starting. So I got back in and I covered the, you know, cover the trials and a lot of the proceedings and all that stuff. And so I started writing it. It comes out in a few weeks, comes out July 28th. So what has changed about your thoughts from beginning to end? Well, not a lot. I mean, I think that, you know, what what made me want to write this book is that I've covered I've covered hundreds of murders in my career. I was again, I was a reporter at the Herald for 14 years. I've written eight books. I've seen a lot of court murder cases and there was a lot of irregularities in this case right out of the right out of the gate. In my opinion, things that I saw happen in the court decisions that were made by the judge situations that were left unexplained and we still don't have a resolution to like, for example, the missing library video. We still don't know what happened to that four minutes of video. Things like that are not normal in court cases, in my experience covering the court. So that's really what I wanted to dig into. And in addition to that, you have this cast of characters that that is really incredible to look into. And we learn a lot more every day. Yeah, every single day. Of course, we should mention Karen Reid found not guilty in the second murder trial there. You do spend some time in this book talking about the man himself, John O'Keefe. Why did you want to make sure you did that? So in all my books, I try to be be sensitive to the victims. You know, I wrote a book about the Boston Marathon bombings and we wrote a lot about the survivors. In this case, I feel like John O'Keefe has kind of been the forgotten person in this whole thing. It's become the Karen Reid case. It really should be the John O'Keefe case. You know, John O'Keefe is the one who lost his life. You know, this situation that Karen Reid, it's it's been a it's been a slog for her, obviously. She's she's been through a lot. But really, it's about John O'Keefe. So I wanted to bring his life to light and show what what kind of a guy he was. And that's what I do in the book. There's a lot of information there that people don't know about what kind of a guy John O'Keefe was. The heroic acts he performed as a Boston police officer, including at the marathon. Ten seconds. Do you think John O'Keefe will ever get justice? I hope so. There's several cases, hopefully some more information comes out. But I hope that the family does get some closure sometime. OK, David Wedge, author of Blizzard of Lies, Karen Reid, John O'Keefe and the shocking unsolved murder in Coptown, USA, out in July. David, thank you for your time today. Thank you.