Karen Read‘s second trial in connection with the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, continues on Friday in Dedham’s Norfolk Superior Court before Judge Beverly Cannone.
The trial was off on Thursday for Law Day.
People to know:
Hank Brennan, special prosecutor for the Norfolk County District Attorney’s officeAlan Jackson, lawyer for ReadJennifer McCabe, friend of O’Keefe’s, who was with Read when she found his body
2:11 p.m. – Brennan begins redirect of McCabe
When McCabe returned to the stand Friday afternoon, Brennan asked her about the morning O’Keefe was found.
He asked if she saw any of her sister’s neighbors on Fairview Road come out of their homes to help O’Keefe. She said they hadn’t.
That morning, McCabe said she was “shocked, confused, nervous, scared, anxious.”
“All I wanted to do was get help for John,” McCabe said. “My main focus was John.”
Many of his questions sought to provide a different view on critical issues raised by Jackson on cross, including McCabe’s calls to O’Keefe.
2:03 p.m. – Trial resumes
After a brief admonishment from Cannone that the lawyers were 10 minutes late, special prosecutor Hank Brennan told the judge the defense was objecting to two clips of interviews given by Read he wanted to play.
Elizabeth Little, a lawyer for Read, said the defense simply wanted to play the full answers Read gave to the questions.
Cannone did not immediately rule, and told Little to provide the defense’s proposed clips.
Brennan asked to be heard at sidebar on a different issue.
1:08 p.m. – ‘You knew what really happened’
In a fiery exchange at the conclusion of his cross-examination, Jackson asked McCabe why she never went inside 34 Fairview Road as O’Keefe lay “grasping and clinging to life” outside.
Despite knowing her brother-in-law, Brian Albert, the homeowner, was a trained first responder, McCabe didn’t enter the home until well after O’Keefe was found.
She said her “focus was on John” and she had no reason to worry that either her sister, Nicole, who was not answering her phone, or Brian Albert were in harm’s way.
Still, Jackson pressed on, asking McCabe why she wasn’t concerned. She pointed to Read’s frantic behavior and cracked taillight and her knowledge O’Keefe never went inside.
“You had solved the crime right then and there,” Jackson declared, his voice rising. “The reason you didn’t go in is because you know better. You weren’t worried about them at all.”
“You weren’t worried because you knew what really happened,” he added.
McCabe countered she “didn’t know he was hit by a vehicle” and fragments of taillight were found near his body.
Cannone called a lunch break after the exchange.
12:52 p.m. – McCabe questioned about ‘hos long to die in cold’ Google search
After a lengthy back-and-forth with Jackson where McCabe initially refused to acknowledge making any Google searches at 2:27 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, Jackson began asking her about the “hos long to die in cold” search.
An extraction of McCabe’s phone showed the search was made at that time, hours before O’Keefe was found. McCabe said she Googled “Hockomock Sports” then.
McCabe says she made the search about dying in the cold at Read’s behest. Jackson described it as a “claim.”
“I’m not claiming it, it’s the truth,” McCabe said.
Jackson shifted his questions to whether McCabe had ever discussed the search with Kerry Roberts, the other woman who was with her and Read when O’Keefe was found.
When Roberts testified last week, she said she misunderstood a question about whether she heard Read ask McCabe to Google hypothermia. Roberts said she didn’t hear the request.
Jackson accused McCabe of “instructing” Roberts to tell a state grand jury she heard Read ask about hypothermia.
“I never instructed her to do anything,” McCabe said.
But Jackson pressed on.
“You wanted some witness to back up your story, didn’t you?” he asked. McCabe denied that.
“You knew that that Google search points a very uncomfortable finger right to you,” Jackson said. McCabe said it wasn’t an uncomfortable question.
McCabe, as she has throughout her testimony, was apologetic as she said she was trying to answer his questions truthfully.
Jackson asked her if anyone had “instructed her” to apologize and if she knew how many times she had said sorry. McCabe said she didn’t.
12:19 p.m. – Jackson presses McCabe about ‘butt dials’ to O’Keefe
On the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, O’Keefe’s phone shows he received seven calls from McCabe — from 12:29 a.m. to 12:50 a.m. Only one, at 12:29 a.m., appeared to have been answered.
But McCabe said Friday she didn’t speak to O’Keefe then and their last conversation was at 12:18 a.m. She said some of the seven phone calls may have been inadvertent — butt-dials, as she explained it during the first trial.
“If I inadvertently called his phone, I did,” McCabe said. “It happens to me all the time.”
Jackson noted that an extraction of McCabe’s phone showed no record of those phone calls.
12:03 p.m. – McCabe asked about phone calls with lead investigator
After a delay attributed to printing records, Jackson questioned McCabe about her phone calls with former State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator into O’Keefe’s death.
McCabe confirmed Proctor interviewed her in her home on Jan. 29, 2022. The pair exchanged 14 calls in the “next days and weeks” into February and March, Jackson said.
They began regularly communicating again the following summer, McCabe said. But in an interview with State Police Lt. Brian Tully that fall, McCabe said she had never met Proctor or his sister, Courtney, before September of that year.
“If you had told Trooper Tully that you had never met Trooper Proctor before September 2023, would that be a truthful or untruthful statement?” Jackson asked.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan asked to be seen at sidebar before McCabe answered.
10:56 a.m. – Jackson questions McCabe about visit to Canton police officer’s home
The day after O’Keefe’s death, McCabe and Kerry Roberts, the other woman who was with her and Read when they found O’Keefe, visited Canton Police Lt. Michael Lank’s home.
McCabe testified that she and Roberts went there to drop off Roberts’ daughter who was friends with Lank’s daughter. She claimed they drove from O’Keefe’s home to Lank’s as just a “pit stop.”
But Jackson showed McCabe a map showing they went directly to Lank’s — it “wasn’t an errand, it was a destination,” he said.
On the way, they went by 34 Fairview Road. McCabe said she never spoke to anyone there and she and Roberts “went by to take a look at it.” During the first trial, McCabe denied “stopping by” the home.
She explained away the difference.
“Stopping by and driving by meant something different to me,” McCabe said.
Cannone called a morning recess after Jackson concluded that line of questioning.
10:27 a.m. – Texts show collusion, Jackson says
After McCabe finished reading the texts, Jackson asked her if they were a “textbook example of witnesses colluding with one another about a subject matter that’s under investigation.”
But before she could answer, special prosecutor Hank Brennan objected and Cannone told the jury to disregard the question.
Jackson asked to be heard at sidebar.
When the questioning resumed, Jackson again asked McCabe if they proved collusion between her and her family, who are all witnesses in the case.
McCabe defended her conduct.
10 a.m. – Jackson reviews McCabe’s texts
The cross-examination moved on to text messages McCabe exchanged with her sister, Nicole, on the morning of O’Keefe’s death.
At 8 p.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, McCabe’s sister texted her, “we’ll get more info [tomorrow]. don’t want to text about it.”
Jackson then showed McCabe a group text between her, her husband Matt, her sister, Nicole Albert, and her sister’s husband, Brian Albert.
Brian and Nicole lived at 34 Fairview Road when O’Keefe was found outside.
In that group chat on Feb. 1, after learning news media were at a Canton sub shop owned by Brian Albert’s brother, Chris, Matt McCabe said, “tell them the guy never went in the house.”
Jennifer McCabe confirmed “the guy” was a reference to O’Keefe. She also texted the group that she and Kerry Roberts were working on a “timeline” that morning.
While Roberts spoke to police, Jennifer McCabe texted the group, “she’s telling them EVERYTHING.” Her husband also texted the group during the interview, writing, “this girl could write a book.”
9:40 a.m. – ‘There’s nothing nefarious’
Jackson’s questioning moved to the phone calls McCabe made on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
After getting a call from Read, McCabe said she called Julie Albert, who she was with the night before, and Tom Beatty, a friend of O’Keefe’s. But Jackson revealed she also called her sister, Nicole, who lived at 34 Fairview Road, at 5:07 a.m.
The call lasted 38 seconds. McCabe said she didn’t remember if her sister answered the phone.
McCabe neglected to mention that call in either police interviews immediately following O’Keefe’s death or when she testified before a state grand jury.
“There’s nothing about me calling my sister that’s nefarious,” she said.
“Did you use that word because you think that’s how it’s coming across?” Jackson said.
McCabe said she felt Jackson was “insinuating that it might be.”
9:25 a.m. – Jackson presses McCabe about last time she saw Read’s SUV
Jackson’s cross-examination of McCabe resumed with an exchange about the last time she saw Read’s SUV parked outside 34 Fairview Road.
Testifying before a federal grand jury in June 2023, McCabe said she saw a dark SUV she presumed to be Read’s outside at 12:45 a.m.
“You know that because of a text at 12:45?” Jackson asked.
But on Friday, McCabe said she wasn’t sure. Even after Jackson showed her a transcript, she refused to confirm it was 12:45 a.m.
Instead, McCabe said she couldn’t recall the exact times, saying she went back and forth to the front door of the home many times that night.
9:05 a.m. – Court opens
The day began with a sidebar before the jury was brought in. When the jury was brought in, Cannone asked the panel if they had been able to follow her instructions about discussing the case and avoiding media coverage.
Each juror said they had.
Read, 45, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of O’Keefe, who was found outside the home of a fellow Boston police officer on Jan. 29, 2022.
Norfolk County prosecutors say Read struck O’Keefe with her SUV while driving intoxicated. Read’s attorneys say her car never struck O’Keefe and that others are to blame for his death.
