DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - Jennifer McCabe has been on the witness stand for a day and a half.
She was a close friend of victim John O’Keefe and was at the Canton home when his body was discovered in the snow.
McCabe testified as paramedics were moving him to an ambulance, Read had a request.
“She started yelling and pulling on me to Google ‘hypothermia’ and Google ‘how long it takes to die in the cold,'” McCabe said.
McCabe said she tried multiple searches and doesn’t recall what came up on her phone because she didn’t even really look at her screen.
“We were already onto the next thing,” McCabe said. “Karen was already moving and screaming about you know, the next thing to Kerry , ‘are they working on him? Is he dead?'”
There are a number of typos in her January 29, 2022 Google searches, McCabe explained she has multiple sclerosis, and is impacted by extreme temperatures.
“I lose the feeling and sensation in my fingers, which makes the googling hard to do, because of my motor skills,” said McCabe.
McCabe testified she’s quite sure she did those searches at 34 Fairview and not hours earlier at her house.
But a data analysis report done on her phone from the company “Cellebrite,” showed the search came at 2:27 a.m. After court, the defendant indicated McCabe was lying on the stand.
“I did not tell Jenn to make a Google search,” said Read on Wednesday. “I certainly didn’t tell her to make the one at 2:27 either.”
The prosecutor, Hank Brennan, brought in an expert from Cellebrite. He told the jury 2:27 is when McCabe originally opened a Safari tab on her phone.
He did a demonstration for the jury, showing the time on the report does not change when subsequent searches are done on the tab.
“The name, last viewed time, clearly has implications that would make you believe that is the last viewed time,” said Digital Intelligence Expert Ian Whiffin. “It’s a very simple test that I’ve just demonstrated to prove that’s not the case.”
Whiffin says he prompted Cellebrite to change its software in 2023 because of this misleading information found in company reports.
“After I did those tests and used that research, that is when Cellebrite removed the timestamp,” said Whiffin.
McCabe was cross examined on Wednesday.
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