(NEW YORK) — One of the key witnesses in the Karen Read murder retrial continued to testify for a third day Friday on the events surrounding the death of Read’s boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, who was found unresponsive in the snow outside a Massachusetts home in 2022.
Prosecutors allege, following a night of drinking in Canton, that Read struck O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV outside of a get-together at another officer’s home and left him to die in a blizzard in January 2022. An autopsy found that the 46-year-old died of hypothermia and blunt force injuries to the head.
After a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the initial murder trial last year, Read is being retried on charges including second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a collision causing death. She has pleaded not guilty and maintains her innocence.
Jennifer McCabe, a friend of O’Keefe who had testified during the first trial, took to the stand for the third day during the retrial on Friday in Dedham, Massachusetts.
In her extensive testimony this week, McCabe recounted that she had attended a social gathering at a bar the night before O’Keefe was found unresponsive in the snow with him, Read and others. McCabe was also at the get-together following the gathering at the bar at a home belonging to her sister and brother-in-law, a Boston police officer.
McCabe and another friend of O’Keefe’s — Kerry Roberts — another key trial witness who testified last week — drove with Read through a blizzard to search for O’Keefe after he never came home the night before, ultimately finding him outside McCabe’s sister’s home unresponsive.
McCabe testified Wednesday that while talking to a first responder at the scene, she heard Read say, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”
Defense attorney Alan Jackson grilled McCabe on her recollection of the events of that day and in the days, weeks, months and years after, highlighting inconsistencies in her various testimonies and against police reports.
In one instance, Jackson noted that, after receiving a call from O’Keefe’s niece and Read that O’Keefe was missing, McCabe had called her sister, though she did not mention that call while testifying to the grand jury that indicted Read on the manslaughter and murder charges.
“There’s nothing nefarious,” McCabe said about the call, testifying that her sister did not answer and she didn’t remember calling her.
Asked by Jackson on her use of the word “nefarious,” McCabe said, “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.”
Mark Jarret Chavous/The Enterprise via AP
Jackson also questioned McCabe about a broken taillight on Read’s SUV. McCabe testified that Read first mentioned the broken taillight in the early morning call with O’Keefe’s niece, though Jackson said that wasn’t included in a police report. McCabe stood by her account.
When pressed on forgetting certain details from that time, McCabe said, “There are certain things I’ll never forget.”
Jackson’s cross-examination also focused on McCabe’s Google search for how long it takes to die in the cold. She testified this week that Read asked her to Google that after finding O’Keefe in the snow, with the search made after 6 a.m. Though Jackson said there is evidence it was made at 2:27 a.m. that morning, hours before O’Keefe was found. McCabe denied she made the search at 2:27 a.m. and said she searched it later that morning, upon Read’s request.
Jackson also alleged that a group chat including McCabe and several family members showed they were colluding in the days following the death to coordinate their statements, which McCabe denied.
As he wrapped up his cross-examination, Jackson grilled McCabe on the moments after they found O’Keefe in the snow outside her sister’s home, and why she didn’t run in to check on her sister and brother-in-law.
“The reason you didn’t go inside the house is because you knew better,” he charged.
McCabe said she wasn’t worried because “something happened on the front lawn that had nothing to do with anything inside that house.”
“You weren’t worried about them at all because you knew what really happened, didn’t you?” he countered.
“At that moment, I didn’t know that he was hit by a vehicle and there was taillight found next to him,” she responded.
On re-direct, special prosecutor Hank Brennan questioned McCabe on her state of mind upon finding O’Keefe.
“I was shocked, confused, nervous, scared, anxious — my friend was lying there on the ground, I didn’t know what happened,” she said.
On the Google search, McCabe affirmed that Read asked her to search how long to die in the cold, and that she had never attempted that search before then.
Brennan brought up McCabe’s texts with Roberts later that day, including one in which Roberts texted, “I can’t stop seeing him in the snow, Jen, this is awful.”
“Is your state of mind collusion?” Brennan asked McCabe, to which she responded, “No.”
McCabe has been dismissed as a witness. The trial adjourned for the day, with a forensic scientist from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab on the stand.
Following McCabe’s testimony on Wednesday, Read alleged McCabe was lying on the stand, saying she never told the witness to make a Google search that morning.
“Every statement’s different. Under oath. Not under oath,” she said. “This is very similar to what we saw a year ago.”
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