Karen Read SUV auction ends early with private offer

Flint McColgan, Boston Herald on May 14, 2026

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BOSTON — The auction for the Lexus SUV at the heart of the Karen Read murder trials was cut short after a private offer for an undisclosed amount was made.

That’s according to a source at Manzi Personal Property Appraisers & Restorers, which hosted the auction scheduled for 3 p.m. on Thursday at its offices at 22 Prospect St. in Woburn.

Auctioneer Justin Manning confirmed to the Herald that the vehicle’s owner, Bill Broussard of JB Auto, “was presented an offer prior to the auction which he decided to take instead of proceeding with the auction.”

The auction listing by JJ Manning Auctioneers, who conducted the auction, did little to emphasize the connection to Massachusetts’ brightest true crime star other than the listing headline: “KAREN READ SUV AUCTION AT MANZI APPRAISERS IN WOBURN, MA.”

The listing details emphasized that the vehicle, a Lexus LX 570, had only about 12,000 miles on it. The Lexus came with an original manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of around $90,000 and has retained two-thirds of its value — with Kelly Blue Book suggesting a trade value of just shy of $60,000.

Bidders were to have valid ID and $20,000 in confirmed funds in order to register.

Whether that number was inflated by its association with the Karen Read case — and if so, by how much — is unknown unless the private offer value is ever disclosed.

A Read family member reached by the Herald on Thursday declined to offer any comment, citing pending civil lawsuits.

Read was acquitted last June of the murder of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. It was the second of two trials she faced on the same charges after the first jury at Norfolk Superior Court in 2024 failed to come to a consensus.

The 2025 jury deliberated for more than 20 hours before ultimately acquitting the former Bentley College lecturer and equity researcher at Fidelity Investments on all charges save for drunken driving.

Prosecutors alleged that Read and O’Keefe had a troubled relationship and that a night out at two Canton bars had ended with them arguing in Read’s SUV. After O’Keefe exited the vehicle at a home in Canton, prosecutors said, Read floored the SUV in reverse and struck O’Keefe.

Read and two other women discovered O’Keefe’s body frozen in the snow on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road at around 6 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022. He would be pronounced dead at the hospital not long afterward.

From Read’s arrest just days later until her acquittal three and a half years later, Read’s Lexus had been in state custody, with various parts removed by authorities in an attempt to prove the prosecution’s case — and, defense attorneys argued during the trials, physically manipulated to twist the facts.

The vehicle was restored for free by JB Auto Car mechanic Bill Brusard, who painted a picture in a Herald interview of an abused and neglected vehicle:

“The battery was dead.” “It had some rodents living in it. “The dashboard was all apart, and it was messy.” “Obviously, the taillight was missing” — the “obviously” part because the state says the taillight was cracked after striking O’Keefe’s body. “They took the radio apart because it had GPS chips in it.”

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