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Jennifer McCabe was cross-examined for hours more Friday. Here’s what she said.
The key witness in the Karen Read murder trial faced pointed questioning from defense attorney Alan Jackson, on what was her third day of testimony.
On the stand Friday:
4 p.m. update: State Police forensic scientist estimates Karen Read’s blood alcohol level during alleged crash
A retrograde analysis put Karen Read’s blood alcohol level between 0.14% and 0.28% at 12:45 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, a forensic scientist from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab testified Friday afternoon.
Hannah Knowles first explained how she performed a “serum conversion” to determine Read’s blood alcohol concentration from her lab work at Good Samaritan Medical Center on Jan. 29. Dr. Garrey Faller, the hospital’s former laboratory medical director, testified last week that Read registered an alcohol level of 93 mg/dl in her serum, the liquid portion of blood that’s left after removing blood cells and other material.
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Knowles walked jurors through how she used that serum test result to estimate that Read’s blood alcohol level was between 0.078% and 0.092% just after 9 a.m. on the 29th. The legal limit for driving is 0.08%.
When calculating serum conversions, forensic scientists give a range of possible blood alcohol levels to account for the diversity they see in the general population, Knowles explained. A retrograde extrapolation works in a similar manner, taking varying rates of elimination into consideration, she added.
During Read’s first trial, jurors were told her blood alcohol level at 12:45 a.m. would have been between 0.135% and 0.292%, and Knowles testified that the industry-standard conversion factors changed last year, accounting for the discrepancy.
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During a brief cross-examination from defense attorney David Yannetti, Knowles acknowledged her calculations are “only as good as the numbers that I was provided” from the hospital.
3 p.m. update: Jennifer McCabe finishes testimony as jurors hear more of her texts
In texts to friends and family following John O’Keefe’s death, Jennifer McCabe described feeling devastated by the loss of her close friend and physically sick at the mental image of O’Keefe lying cold and unresponsive in the snow.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan read a text to McCabe from Kerry Roberts, who was with McCabe and O’Keefe’s girlfriend, Karen Read, when they found O’Keefe.
“I can’t stop seeing him in the snow,” Roberts wrote. “Jen, this is awful.”
In a follow-up text to Roberts, McCabe wrote, “Every time I close my eyes, it’s all I see. I feel like I’m going to vomit. I just can’t even.”
Brennan noted McCabe’s earlier testimony that she had grown closer to Roberts since bonding over the trauma of finding their mutual friend in the snow. Responding to a question from Brennan, McCabe denied her friendship with Roberts had strengthened due to collusion.
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She wrote in another text to an unknown recipient, “My mind is racing. I have that awful feeling in my gut, like I am about to puke. Besides seeing the awful image, trying to wrap my head around what happened to him.”
McCabe confirmed she received another text from her sister in the same time period that read, “I love you. Don’t beat yourself up. You did the best you could.”
Jurors on Friday also heard some of the texts McCabe sent O’Keefe after learning he hadn’t returned home on Jan. 29, 2022, following a night of drinking.
“Please answer,” one message read, followed by “karen is worried we need to find u” and “please answer so i know ur ok.”
Noting McCabe wears an Apple Watch, Brennan asked her how she was feeling after finding O’Keefe on the snowy lawn outside 34 Fairview Road.
“Extremely nervous, anxious, scared, uncertain, panicked,” she replied. Answering a follow-up question from Brennan, McCabe said she thought her heart rate would have been elevated at the time.
By contrast, she said as she Googled youth sports websites at home earlier that morning, “I was relaxed, just playing on my phone, looking up things before I went to bed.”
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While McCabe previously testified she didn’t recall any of the emergency vehicles at 34 Fairview Road using sirens, defense attorney Alan Jackson confirmed the vehicles did have their lights flashing.
“Certainly you would agree that there was a cacophony of diesel engines and gasoline engines and internal combustion engines that were running right outside of 34 Fairview Road, although no sirens, correct?” he asked.
McCabe explained that while some of the vehicles were right outside 34 Fairview Road, others were pulled farther up the street.
Answering a series of earlier questions from Brennan, she testified that she’s been cooperative with law enforcement throughout the case and has never tried to hold anything back when speaking to police.
However, Jackson pointed to McCabe’s testimony Wednesday that she had suspended an interview and been less than forthcoming with agents from an unspecified law enforcement agency in 2023. McCabe pointed out that she ultimately met with the agents several times and helped “clear up” some of their misconceptions about the case.
After McCabe stepped down from the stand, Brennan played a series of clips from Read’s various interviews with the media. In one clip, Read said she suspected O’Keefe might have been cheating on her when he didn’t return home the morning of the 29th, noting he had a romantic history with several women in the Fairview Road neighborhood. In another, she said O’Keefe “looked like the buffalo on the prairie” as he lay blanketed in snow.
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She explained she was expecting to find O’Keefe by the side of the road as she set out to look for him that morning, adding, “The anticipation of what is awaiting me was as extreme a feeling … as the grief of realizing what happened to him.”
1:15 p.m. update: Jennifer McCabe denies deleting ‘hos long’ search as defense alleges she ‘knew what really happened’
Listening in as Kerry Roberts spoke with an investigator about finding John O’Keefe unresponsive in the snow, Jennifer McCabe pulled out her phone and texted a family group chat, “She is telling him EVERYTHING!!”
McCabe clarified Friday her text was referring to Roberts’s candid comments and personal opinions about Karen Read, O’Keefe’s girlfriend and alleged killer. She previously testified about joining Roberts and Read on a frantic search for O’Keefe on Jan. 29, 2022, ending with the grisly discovery of his body in front of McCabe’s sister’s home at 34 Fairview Road in Canton.
But defense attorney Alan Jackson alleged McCabe’s message suggested something far more sinister. He pointed to text chains in which McCabe discussed the subsequent murder investigation with her husband, Matthew McCabe, and sister and brother-in-law, Nicole and Brian Albert.
Jackson asked McCabe if she and her family coordinated their versions of events or tried to orchestrate some sort of “damage control,” and McCabe denied doing so. She read some of the texts from the chat aloud, including a message she sent her sister around 8 p.m. on Jan. 29 asking if Nicole Albert had heard anything else about the investigation.
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“We’ll get more info [tomorrow],” Nicole Albert replied. “Don’t want to text about it.”
Jackson then turned his attention to messages from the afternoon and early evening of Feb. 1, 2022. In one text, Brian Albert alerted the group about reporters from “Channel 4” stopping by D & E Pizza & Subs, a Canton restaurant owned by Albert’s brother, Chris.
“Eating I assume,” Matthew McCabe responded. “Ask Chris to ask some questions. Tell them the guy never went in the house.”
“Exactly,” Brian Albert replied.
In a later text, Matthew McCabe said of Read, “If she pleads out it will end. If she fights it, it will be an episode.”
Roberts also spoke with investigators who turned up at McCabe’s home while she was visiting. As Roberts spoke with police, Matthew McCabe told the group chat she was talking non-stop and “could write a book.”
“I love it,” Jennifer McCabe replied. On the stand, she confirmed she and her husband could overhear “different parts” of Roberts’s interview.
“That is a textbook example, what we’ve just seen, of witnesses colluding with one another about a subject matter that’s under investigation, correct?” Jackson asked. Judge Beverly Cannone instructed jurors to disregard the comment following an objection from prosecutors.
As Jackson rephrased his question, McCabe denied colluding with other witnesses or organizing statements to investigators.
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‘There’s nothing nefarious’
Earlier in his cross-examination, Jackson pressed McCabe on her prior testimony about looking outside 34 Fairview Road after midnight on Jan. 29 while waiting for Read and O’Keefe to arrive for a house party. Jackson asked McCabe what time she last glanced outside and saw a dark SUV she believed was Read’s.
While he alleged McCabe had previously offered a 12:45 a.m. timestamp for the final sighting, she said she couldn’t be sure of the specific time. A Massachusetts State Police trooper testified during Read’s first trial that Read’s phone auto-connected to the Wi-Fi at O’Keefe’s house at 12:36 a.m. on the 29th.
Jackson then turned his attention to the calls McCabe made early on the 29th after O’Keefe’s niece alerted her he hadn’t returned home. McCabe confirmed she previously told a State Police trooper and a grand jury that she spoke with Read that morning and tried to get in touch with Julie Albert — Chris Albert’s wife — and another friend of O’Keefe’s.
“But you did make another phone call that morning that you left out of both of those statements, didn’t you?” Jackson asked. “At 5:07 a.m. you called over to 34 Fairview Road, didn’t you?”
McCabe confirmed she called Nicole Albert, though she maintained she didn’t speak to her sister.
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“There’s nothing nefarious,” she said of the 38-second call.
McCabe’s butt dials
Jackson grilled McCabe about a series of calls she made to O’Keefe early on Jan. 29, appearing skeptical at McCabe’s claim they were inadvertent.
“And you’re well aware that an extraction was done on your phone, and not one of those butt dials appears on your phone extraction, correct?” he asked.
“I am not aware of that,” McCabe replied.
Pressed by Jackson about how many steps it takes to call someone on an iPhone, McCabe said she wasn’t sure, adding, “I think it’s very common to do butt dials.”
She suggested she might have left her phone unlocked after texting O’Keefe and then accidentally dialed him.
“That happens to me all the time,” she added.
‘Hos long’ search
McCabe acknowledged she’s been questioned repeatedly about the “hos long to die in cold” search she made the morning of the 29th, the timing of which has been hotly disputed. While Read’s lawyers allege McCabe made the search at 2:27 a.m., she maintains she did so at Read’s insistence after they found O’Keefe’s body hours later.
“Are you denying that you made a Google search at 2:27 a.m.?” Jackson asked.
McCabe reminded jurors she had been Googling youth sports websites that morning and asked Jackson to show her the search in question. He provided a record.
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“The paper says it,” McCabe said of the 2:27 a.m. timestamp. “I don’t.”
McCabe testified she wasn’t aware that while on the stand last week, Roberts said she didn’t actually hear Read ask McCabe to Google “hypothermia,” though Roberts previously told a grand jury she had.
“Ms. McCabe, the fact is you instructed Kerry Roberts to say that she heard that ‘Google hypothermia’ statement from my client before she testified at the grand jury, didn’t you?” Jackson asked.
“No, absolutely not. I never instructed her to do anything,” McCabe testified, adding, “It was said, Karen said it. It’s that simple.”
She also denied deleting the “hos long” search from her phone.
‘You knew what really happened, didn’t you?’
As he brought his cross-examination to a close, Jackson asked McCabe a series of pointed questions about why she didn’t try to enter 34 Fairview Road to summon the Alberts before paramedics arrived for O’Keefe, particularly given Brian Albert’s first responder training.
“I never thought about going in the house,” McCabe admitted. “I just thought about how can I help John.”
Jackson raised his voice, questioning why McCabe didn’t fear for the Alberts’ safety, given a man was dead or dying on their lawn and Nicole Albert wasn’t answering the phone.
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“I had no reason to think that they weren’t OK,” McCabe shot back, explaining she had heard Read scream “I hit him” and knew O’Keefe never entered the home.
“The reason you didn’t go inside the house is because you knew better,” Jackson alleged, adding, “You weren’t worried about them at all because you knew what really happened, didn’t you Ms. McCabe?”
“At that moment, I didn’t know that [O’Keefe] was hit by a vehicle, and there was taillight found next to him,” McCabe replied.
With that, Jackson wrapped his cross-examination, and Judge Beverly Cannone called the lunch recess.
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
Witness Jennifer McCabe returns to the hot seat in the Karen Read murder retrial Friday following a brief reprieve due to national “Law Day” festivities.
More on Karen Read:
Read’s lawyers began their cross-examination Wednesday by lobbing bombshell allegations that McCabe, a key player in the case, lied to law enforcement and coordinated information with other witnesses. McCabe denied both claims, though she admitted to discussing the case with others and testified she had “forgotten” to provide certain information to agents who spoke with her in 2023.
McCabe was one of two women with Read when she found her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, unresponsive on a snowy lawn in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022. Prosecutors allege Read backed her SUV into O’Keefe in a drunken rage while dropping him off at a house party there hours earlier, though her lawyers say she was framed in a vast coverup. They claim O’Keefe was attacked after walking in to the party and ultimately dumped outside in the snow.
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McCabe repeatedly told jurors she heard Read tell a first responder at the scene, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,” when they found O’Keefe shortly after 6 a.m. on the 29th.
However, defense attorney Alan Jackson questioned whether McCabe had relayed those statements to a grand jury in 2022, noting an excerpt of her prior testimony where she phrased Read’s comment not as a confession, but as speculative questions — “did I hit him?” and “could I have hit him?”
“I can tell you with 100% accuracy, she screamed, ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,’” McCabe fired back.
The ongoing trial is Read’s second; her first murder trial ended in a mistrial last July after jurors returned deadlocked.
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