DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - Jennifer McCabe returned to court Friday morning and completed her testimony in the Karen Read murder retrial.
McCabe was a close friend of Boston police officer John O’Keefe and was at the Canton home when his body was discovered in the snow in January 2022.
Read is accused of killing O’Keefe, her boyfriend, by hitting him with her car and leaving him to die in a snowbank after a night of drinking. Her lawyers argue she is being framed. Her first trial last summer ended in a mistrial.
The defense resumed cross-examining McCabe Friday. Attorney Alan Jackson focused on a phone call that McCabe made to her sister, Nicole Albert, who owned the home where O’Keefe was found. Another topic of discussion included seven unanswered calls to John O’Keefe, which she claims were butt dials.
“There’s nothing nefarious. I remembered who I called. I didn’t go back and look at phone records,” McCabe said.
“I didn’t say it was nefarious. Why would you use the word nefarious?” Jackson asked.
“Because there’s nothing about me calling my sister that is nefarious, and I feel like you’re insinuating it might be and it’s not,” McCabe responded.
“Did you use that word because it sounds nefarious?” Jackson asked.
“No, I just used the word because I think that’s how you’re trying to portray something that is nothing,” McCabe said.
A heated exchange between Jackson and McCabe focused on why McCabe did not run into her sisters home upon finding O’Keefe’s body, either for help, or to make sure her family was okay.
“You knew that John O’Keefe was clinging to life during those precious minutes and seconds, isn’t that right?” Jackson asked.
“Yes I did,” McCabe said.
“And you also knew that Brian Albert, your brother in law, was a first responder trained to deal with people in that kind of distress, correct?” Jackson asked.
“In that moment, my only thoughts were John, and everything we could do for John,” said McCabe.
“You weren’t worried about them at all, because you knew what happened, what really happened, didn’t you?” Jackson asked.
“At that moment, I didn’t know he was hit by a vehicle and that there was [a] tail light next to him,” McCabe said.
She said the details of the morning O’Keefe’s body was found are hard to remember. However, she says she is certain she heard Read say she hit O’Keefe.
McCabe was also asked by the defense about a text message group that included her and several other witnesses. The defense says they colluded to align their statements with police, but McCabe denied any collusion.
At one point, McCabe types “she’s telling him everything,” referring to Roberts’ comments to Trooper Michael Proctor, a former state police homicide detective who was fired for misconduct.
The jury also saw cell phone records, saying McCabe’s “Hos long to die in the cold” search came in at 2:27 a.m., and Jackson asked McCabe if it’s her claim that the search was done nearly four hours after that.
“I’m not claiming it, it’s the truth, it’s what happened,” McCabe said.
Jackson also showed the jury video of McCabe talking with police the morning she and Read found the body. He asked her why she never told a 911 operator it was a police officer.
Public comments Read has made
Cannone allowed the commonwealth to show the jury public statements Read had made, including clips shot for an Investigation Discovery docuseries.
Three were shown on Friday. Read talks about former girlfriends O’Keefe had living near the Fairview neighborhood.
She also spoke about the morning she was able to see her boyfriend in the snow.
“John looked like a buffalo on the prairie,” said Read. “It was just the lawn and a heap. It wasn’t a bush or hydrant or a dog, it was a weird shaped lump at that time, in those elements. And I was looking to see him on the side of the road. I was expecting I’d find him.”
Forensic scientist for Massachusetts State Police crime lab takes the stand
Following McCabe, a forensic scientist at the Massachusetts State Police crime lab, who analyzed data from a 9:08 a.m. blood draw when Read was at a Brockton Hospital, took the stand.
Hannah Knowles says her extrapolation estimates Read was likely legally drunk at 9 a.m., and she was able to estimate Read’s blood alcohol at 12:45 a.m., as she would have been leaving Fairview.
“It could be between .14 and .28,” said Knowles.
McCabe had been on the stand since Tuesday
McCabe began her testimony Tuesday. She testified that as paramedics were moving O’Keefe to an ambulance, Read had a request.
“She started yelling and pulling on me to Google hypothermia, and Google how long it takes for somebody to die in the cold,” McCabe said.
McCabe said she tried multiple searches, but doesn’t recall what came up due to the frantic nature of the situation.
“We were already onto the next thing. Karen was already moving and screaming, about, you know, the next thing, to Kerry [Roberts], ‘Are they working on him, is he dead?’” McCabe said.
McCabe testified she is quite sure she made those searches at 34 Fairview Road and not hours earlier at her house. But, a data analysis report done on her phone, from the company Cellebrite, showed the search came in at 2:27 a.m.
After court, Read indicated McCabe was lying on the stand.
“I did not tell Jen to make a Google search. I certainly didn’t tell her to make the one at 2:27 either,” Read said.
A witness for the prosecution, Cellebrite expert Ian Whiffin, said that timestamp is when McCabe opened the search tab on her phone. He did a demonstration for the jury, showing the time does not change when subsequent searches are done on the same tab.
“The name ‘last viewed time’ clearly has implications that would make you believe that is the time that the page was last viewed. It’s a very simple test that I’ve just demonstrated to prove that’s not the case,” Whiffin said.
There was no court session on Thursday.
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