Karen Read Not Excited to Be Made Into a TV Show

Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images;Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Despite many, many, many critiques of it and objections to it, the true crime industrial complex keeps chugging along. This week, Amazon announced it was developing a series based on the trial of Karen Read. Elizabeth Banks is set to star, with The Sex Lives of College Girls producer Justin Noble showrunning and David E. Kelly serving as executive producer. The show’s logline says it will examine “society’s obsession with true crime, the allure of conspiracy, and the deepening crisis of trust in our institutions.” You know who’s not on board with using the Karen Read trial to examine society’s obsession with true crime? Karen Read. Here’s everything we know about the controversy surrounding Prime Video’s latest property.

Karen Read was accused of murdering her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe in 2022. Prosecutors alleged Read hit O’Keefe with her car while drunkenly backing up. Defense argued O’Keefe was killed in the house of fellow officer Brain Albert, then moved to frame Read. Defense pointed out that the lead investigator, Trooper Michael Proctor, was a close friend of the Albert family. Read’s first trial ended in mistrial, and she was acquitted in the second trial. Read’s two trials became the focus of intense true crime fandom. Besides podcasts about the trial, it was also the subject of countless TikToks.

On August 27, it was announced that Elizabeth Banks’s Brownstone Productions would be making a show about Read, starring Banks. It’s a joint production between Warner Bros. TV and Prime Video. The show’s source material is Karen, a podcast from the Law & Crime podcast network and Wondery.

In her first interview after being acquitted, Read said she’s not involved with the Prime Video series in any way. “I have nothing to do with that,” she said on WRKO’s Howie Carr Show. “It’s not authorized by me in any way.” Read and her defense attorney, Alan Jackson, have a separate development deal with LBI Entertainment. The production company has worked on such projects as Hell or High Water and Killers of the Flower Moon. Jackson backed up his and Read’s claim on the story, saying it’s “Karen Read’s story to tell.”