DEDHAM, Mass. — Nearly a week after Karen Read was found not guilty on second-degree murder and manslaughter, the family of John O’Keefe says they’re unable to find peace.
Vanessa Rizzitano, O’Keefe’s cousin and former Boston 25 News employee, explained, “The only way that we would have found some kind of peace in this would’ve been a guilty verdict.”
She told Boston 25 News Reporter Daniel Coates Tuesday that the days leading up to a verdict felt like years.
Rizzitano watched the verdict from her computer at home on Wednesday afternoon.
She was scheduled to be inside the courtroom in Dedham on Thursday, representing her family.
“I felt like I didn’t even have the strength in my body to still stand,” she remembered after hearing the verdict.
Moments later, she heard cheers from outside Norfolk Superior Court picked up inside the courtroom.
She added, “That made me sick to my stomach... While it was other people’s celebration, it was literally like the worst day of our lives.”
Rizzitano and her family were equally enraged when Karen commented on courthouse steps moments after the verdict.
“Nobody has fought harder for justice for John O’Keefe than I have,” said Read Wednesday.
Rizzitano, in response to that comment, said Tuesday, “Hearing those words come out of her mouth literally was sickening... The prosecution, his family, his loved ones, including myself, we’re the ones who fought the hardest for Johnny. Not you.”
She also called the cheers heard outside and inside the courtroom from Karen Read supporters “sickening.”
Rizzitano lived with her cousin as a young child and once again as a college graduate at his Canton home.
She says he was more of an older brother to her than a cousin.
“He spent his life dedicating his life to help others, and no one was there to help Johnny in his last few minutes of his life,” she said.
The family claims they’re at the receiving end of unbearable online harassment.
“The loss of my cousin and a grieving family, they find that entertaining, and I think that’s so sick,” Rizzitano said. “[O’Keefe] would be ashamed knowing how our family’s getting treated.”
The family told Boston 25 News they’re asking for privacy while they still grieve and find ways to make sure O’Keefe’s legacy lives on.
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