Massachusetts mechanic fixes Karen Read's car, to be sold at auction

Grace Zokovitch, Boston Herald on Dec 10, 2025

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BOSTON — Karen Read’s Lexus has been repaired and is headed to auction, years after she drove it on the night of John O’Keefe’s death and police impounded the vehicle.

“The battery was dead,” JB Auto Care mechanic Bill Brusard told the Herald. “It had some rodents living in it. The dashboard was all apart, and it was messy.

“Obviously, the taillight was missing,” he added. “So we got it detailed, cleaned, removed the rat’s nest out of there — a mouse nest, whatever it was — put a new battery in it, changed the oil, put the taillight in it, and everything came out great.”

Police seized the Lexus on Jan. 29, 2022, the morning after Read’s boyfriend O’Keefe was found dead outside a Canton home.

Read was brought up on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter related to accusations she had hit O’Keefe with her car. Ultimately after two trials, Read was acquitted of all charges but for driving under the influence.

Her car, a Lexus SUV, was central to the police’s case, with a focus on a contentious broken taillight.

Brusard, who runs JB Auto Care in Weymouth and did the work for free, said he was answering car questions on the Howie Carr Show months ago when the host asked if he’d be interested in fixing the vehicle if it got released.

A couple days later, Brusard said, Read’s attorney got in touch.

“He goes, ‘Hey, I want to take you up on that offer, if you can take her vehicle,’ ” said Brusard. “I’m like, ‘Sure, have it towed down.’ ”

After the two high-profile court cases, Read and her attorney decided not to have her keep driving the car, Brusard said. Instead they will send it to auction through the Howie Carr Show in January, with all the proceeds going to Read.

Brusard said he wanted to help out after hearing about the former defendant’s situation.

“She sold a home to pay for legal fees,” said Brusard. “She’s lost her job, her career, is living at a parent’s house, so she hasn’t worked in a few years. I wanted to help.”

The repair work took a couple weeks, the mechanic said, involving putting back together the dashboard entirely dismantled by investigators.

“They took the radio apart because it had GPS chips in it,” said Brusard. “So we reinstalled that, but the radio does not work. That’s kind of a big deal on those vehicles.”

The dashboard work was “pretty challenging,” Brusard said, noting that it was entirely in pieces. Replacing the radio in a car like that would cost around $15,000, the mechanic estimated.

Brusard said he wasn’t familiar with how property was handled by the police after a situation like Read’s, but thought, “Shouldn’t they be on the hook for this?”

“And the answer is no,” Brusard said, having looked up the process. … “They can accuse you of a crime, kick in the wrong door, and then tear your house apart. And say, ‘Oh, sorry, wrong house.’

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