Karen Read apparently has no involvement in the upcoming Prime Video series about her high-profile murder trial. In fact, she said she didn’t even authorize it.
On Wednesday, Deadline reported Prime Video was teaming up with Warner Bros. Television to develop a limited series dramatizing Read’s trial, with Elizabeth Banks ready to play the acquitted Boston-area woman and to executive-produce the production. David E. Kelly is also on board as an executive producer, and Justin Noble (The Sex Lives of College Girls) serves as showrunner and EP.
In an interview on WKRO the following day, however, Read said she hadn’t sanctioned the limited series. “I have nothing to do with that; it’s not authorized by me in any way,” she said, per The Hollywood Reporter. Attorney Alan Jackson added that the legal saga is “Karen Read’s story to tell.”
Read stood trial — twice — for the murder of her boyfriend John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer who was found wounded outside a suburban home on and died of blunt force trauma and hypothermia in January 2022. Prosecutors accused Read of reversing her SUV into O’Keefe. But Read’s defense argued during her first trial that Brian Albert, a former Boston police officer who owned the suburban house, and Brian Higgins, a federal agent, participated in a conspiracy to frame Read, an allegation both men have denied, per NBC News.
Read’s first trial was deemed a mistrial with a hung jury in July 2025; her second trial ended this June in her acquittal on second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while driving under the influence, and leaving the scene of a collision. She was convicted of operating under the influence of liquor and sentenced to one year of probation.
The ID docuseries A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read and the podcasts 34 Fairview Roadand Karen cover Read’s case, and it’s Karen, a Wondery and Law & Crime production, that’s the basis for Prime Video’s limited series.
“The case fractures a community, with some believing she is guilty of first-degree murder, and others that she’s the victim of a sweeping cover-up by state and local law enforcement,” reads a logline shared by Deadline. “This series explores society’s obsession with true crime, the allure of conspiracy and the deepening crisis of trust in our institutions.”