The captivating story of a Massachusetts woman who said she was framed for the murder of a Boston police officer has made its way to Lifetime, with Arrow‘s Katie Cassidy (above) and I Was Lorena Bobbitt‘s Luke Humphrey bringing the case to life in Accused: The Karen Read Story.
“I have family in Massachusetts and spent a lot of my summers out there since I was a kid,” says Humphrey, who plays John O’Keefe, the cop who, in 2022, was found dead in a snowbank. The blame is placed on his girlfriend, Karen Read (Cassidy). “I had heard of the case before doing the movie but didn’t know that much about it, so when I started digging deeper, I was grateful for my time out there and that I had family there to talk to about their take.”
Cassidy, on the other hand, tells TV Insider she wasn’t familiar with the trial but when she got the offer to play Karen, she “immediately watched the documentary in one sitting and did a major deep dive,” adding that America’s obsession with the story and her own curiosity about the events that took place is what led her to take the role.
“I did such a deep dive in researching the story, I almost felt like a detective myself,” she admits. “There was so much information about Karen Read, but very little on John O’Keefe. I hope this movie will shine a light on the complexity of our legal system while paying a tribute to the man who lost his life.”
For O’Keefe, Humphrey took the responsibility of portraying a real-life victim seriously. “I felt so strongly that what was missing was a sense of who John was as a person, a celebration of the life he lived,” he says. “My biggest hope is that we focus on and honor that this is the story of a real man, someone who was a father, a son, a brother, and a friend.”
As for what the actors learned immersing themselves in such a well-known story? “I learned to let go and trust myself — not just myself, but those around me,” says Cassidy. “I didn’t have as much preparation time, so I really didn’t have any other choice. I have so much gratitude for all those who helped bring this story to life.”
For Humphrey, it was his own experiences of fatherhood. “John’s decision to take on his sister’s kids as his own after she passed really stuck with me,” he says. “Having a sense now of what that entails really gave me so much respect for him.”
Accused: The Karen Read Story,Movie Premiere, Saturday, January 10,8/7c, Lifetime
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