Karen Read trial: Witness says defense attorney is 'spinning all of this' (2024)

Testimony in the trial of Karen Read, a Mansfield woman charged in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe, continued Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Read, 44, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of O’Keefe, who was found cold to the touch and unresponsive on Jan. 29, 2022, outside of a home in Canton.

Norfolk County prosecutors say Read struck O’Keefe with her SUV while driving intoxicated. Read’s attorney, David Yannetti, said during the trial’s opening statements that her car never struck O’Keefe and that others are to blame for his death.

The trial is taking place in Dedham’s Norfolk County Superior Court.

On Friday, Jen McCabe took the witness stand. She was a friend of O’Keefe and was at the Waterfall Bar & Grille in Canton with friends, including O’Keefe and Read, before going to 34 Fairview Road after midnight on Jan. 29, 2022.

McCabe was also with Read and another witness, Kerry Roberts, when they found O’Keefe’s body on the front lawn of the Canton home later that morning.

“She told me that she didn’t remember going there,” Jennifer McCabe said of Read on Friday. “She said, ‘Did I hit him, could I have hit him?’ Then she proceeded to say she had a cracked headlight. Honestly, I thought she was talking crazy.”

Defense attorneys are expected to begin cross-examination of McCabe on Tuesday.

This story will be updated throughout Tuesday when testimony continues at 9:00 a.m.

• Read more: 4 takeaways from Karen Read trial: texts, taillight damage and first witnesses
• Read more: Karen Read trial: Jennifer McCabe testifies about when John O’Keefe was found dead

‘You’re spinning all of this,’ McCabe told Read’s attorney — 1 p.m.

Alan Jackson, Read’s attorney, asked McCabe about her phone calls with O’Keefe after midnight on Jan. 29, 2022.

There were six calls between the two of them and the last came at 12:50 a.m., McCabe agreed. Jackson provided her with a call log extracted from O’Keefe’s phone.

Jackson then showed McCabe a document with Apple ID information. It was a Cellebrite extraction of McCabe’s phone records.

It was made after she submitted her phone to law enforcement.

The Cellebrite report about McCabe’s phone extraction did not show the calls between McCabe and O’Keefe between 12:14 a.m. and 12:50 a.m. All those calls were deleted and unrecovered from her phone, Jackson said.

“I didn’t understand that report and I’m not an expert,” McCabe said.

McCabe denied deleting her phone calls before she gave her phone to the police.

“I willingly turned in my phone,” McCabe said. “Absolutely not,” she said in response to a question about deleting the calls with O’Keefe.

She said she handed in her phone four or five days after O’Keefe died.

“I do not recall deleting any phone calls at all,” McCabe said. “I would have no reason to delete anything.”

Jackson asked if she had deleted calls with any witnesses before she turned over her phone, to which she responded, “No.”

Jackson handed her a packet of documents about 10 pages long. It included text messages in a group chat starting Feb. 1, 2022, with Brian and Nicole Albert and her husband, Matthew McCabe.

At 2:15 p.m., she received a message from her husband.

“Tell them the guy never went in the house,” Matthew McCabe wrote, in reference to comments being made to Channel 4 news.

“Exactly,” Brian Albert responded in the text thread, according to Jackson.

“This is one witness telling another witness to give certain information to the media,” Jackson said.

“Did you take any steps whatsoever to influence Kerry Robert’s statements?” Jackson asked.

“No,” McCabe said.

Jackson asked whether McCabe and Roberts discussed a timeline of events.

“The two of us were trying to figure out what happened to our friend,” McCabe said.

A timeline was drafted on Feb. 1, 2022, McCabe agreed.

Two police officers came to McCabe’s home and interviewed Roberts, McCabe agreed.

“She’s telling them EVERYTHING!” McCabe wrote in a text message to the group chat with the Alberts and her husband. Jackson said “EVERYTHING” was written in all capitals. McCabe was listening to a phone call Roberts had with a police officer when she sent the text.

“I was horrified because Kerry is a blunt person and she had made a comment about O’Keefe’s and Read’s relationship. I was shocked and horrified,” McCabe said.

“We never worked together to come up with a story,” McCabe said.

Jackson was pressing McCabe about why she sent the text message while Roberts was speaking to law enforcement.

“At the end of the day, you were eavesdropping on an interview Kerry Roberts was having with law enforcement in their official capacity,” Jackson said.

“No, I was sitting, eating dinner and some of the things I obviously overheard,” McCabe said. “Was I eavesdropping? No. Is there some big cover-up story? No.”

“You consistently reported back to the group about how Kerry Roberts was doing with the police?” Jackson asked.

“I would update them,” McCabe said.

On Jan. 30, 2022, McCabe drove with Roberts to the Canton police Lt. Michael Lank’s household. He was one of the first officers to respond to O’Keefe’s body.

That was never reported to authorities before, Jackson said.

“I guess I never thought about it much,” McCabe said.

Lank’s wife came out of the house and had a conversation inside Robert’s car.

“She was checking on Kerry, and you know, saying ‘Oh, my god, this is so crazy,’” McCabe said.

McCabe then was questioned by Jackson about meeting with the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office ahead of the trial.

Jackson said during that meeting a phone extraction obtained by the defense and submitted during discovery revealed that McCabe was at Lank’s house on Jan. 30, 2022.

McCabe often looked at the jury when giving lengthy answers.

She turned to the jury and said, “Again, I never spoke with Michael Lank at his house. It was not an off-the-books meeting. It was Kerry dropping her daughter at one of her good friend’s house whose husband happens to be a Canton cop. That is what it is. That is the truth.”

“That’s a lot of coincidences,” Jackson said.

McCabe said Jackson was “spinning all of this.”

McCabe agreed she initially told a state trooper that she did not remember going to Lank’s house but later remembered.

McCabe described seven calls over the course of 19 minutes to O’Keefe between 12:29 a.m. and 12:50 a.m. as “butt-dials” to a federal grand jury, according to Jackson.

This was the same period of time that Norfolk prosecutors say O’Keefe died, according to Jackson.

Adam Lally, the Norfolk prosecutor objected to the question and Judge Beverly Cannone sustained the objection.

It was the last question Cannone allowed for the day and jurors were excused at 1 p.m.

Cross-examination will continue on Wednesday of McCabe.

‘You’re creating a scene that didn’t happen,’ McCabe says — 11:56 a.m.

Jennifer McCabe said during cross-examination that she didn’t tell a grand jury about Read’s “I hit him” statements because she wasn’t asked.

Alan Jackson, Read’s attorney, said that the transcript showed that McCabe was asked about what happened when she and Read were standing in front of police officers.

At no point did McCabe tell the grand jury the “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him” statements made by Read.

The grand jury specifically asked what she heard when McCabe and Read were near the police and first responders, according to Jackson.

“Did I hit him? Could I have hit him? Is he dead? Is he dead?” McCabe told the grand jury, Jackson said referring to a transcript.

Next, Jackson played a recording at the time McCabe called 911 on Jan. 29, 2022, but recorded on a voicemail inside the car of Read.

In the background, Read’s screaming can be heard. Windshield wipers rhythmically boom over the recording. The dialogue is difficult to distinguish.

Jackson then began asking questions about who McCabe called that morning. She called her sister after 911, but those calls were later deleted from her phone, according to Jackson.

McCabe said she was friendly with Canton police Lt. Michael Lank. She said she knew of Canton police Sgt. Sean Goode, but she wasn’t friends with him.

Both officers responded to the Canton home when O’Keefe’s body was found.

She knew that Chris Albert and Lank had a good friendship. McCabe’s sister is married to Brian Albert, the homeowner of 34 Fairview Road. Chris Albert is Brian Albert’s brother.

McCabe said she did not remember Goode inside of the house on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, after O’Keefe’s body was found.

McCabe denied talking about what she and the Alberts were going to tell police about what happened.

“You’re creating a scene that didn’t happen,” McCabe said.

Jackson asked whether the McCabe couple, the Albert couple and Brian Higgins were allowed to talk out of earshot of law enforcement. Chris Albert, Brian Albert’s brother who was at the Waterfall the night before, came over “much later,” McCabe said.

“Everybody was trying to figure out what had happened,” McCabe said.

Jackson then began questioning McCabe’s statements to Massachusetts State Police.

“I said the taillight was cracked,” McCabe said she told Trooper Michael Proctor later that morning.

Defense questions ‘I hit him’ statements McCabe says she heard Read say — 10:59 a.m.

Looking at the flat lawn, McCabe could see the SUV clearly around 12:30 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022.

Not once, but six times, McCabe looked out the door of 34 Fairview after midnight, McCabe agreed.

When she looked out that window there was no body, Jackson asked.

“I never saw a body, I wished I had,” McCabe said.

“That sounded a little rehearsed,” Jackson said.

“Not at all,” she said.

Asked if she saw anything out of the ordinary when McCabe left the Canton house, she said, “No.”

Jackson asked McCabe about what she did when she got home. She went upstairs and used her phone.

She did not make any phone calls, but she texted her sisters. She texted her husband and a friend in a group chat, she said.

Jackson then asked about McCabe’s testimony when she quoted Read as saying “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him” on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022.

“It was an impactful statement,” McCabe agreed. When looking at her testimony before a grand jury, she did not recall whether she told the grand jury about the “I hit him” statements.

“I’m not sure it’s in this document, but I can say with 100% clarity that she said, ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,’” McCabe said.

“It is yes,” the most powerful part of her testimony, McCabe agreed. But she could not recall whether she told the grand jury those statements.

McCabe agreed that she had reviewed her transcript with the grand jury before testifying in court, but she did not recall mentioning the “I hit him” statements to the grand jury.

Jackson asked about the 12 different statements that McCabe gave in April 2022 to a grand jury about the statements Read made. In each of those questions, she testified, Read asked “Did I hit him?” or “Could I have hit him?”

“I was answering the question that I was asked,” McCabe said.

McCabe said that when Read spoke with a police officer, she said, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”

She did not remember which officer or if it was an EMT.

McCabe never told the grand jury about the “I hit him” statements she attributed to Read that morning, according to Jackson.

“The truth is that you have manufactured this story for this jury because you think it helps you out,” Jackson said

“Absolutely not,” McCabe said.

The presiding judge called for a morning break before 11 a.m.

‘Where was the body?’ defense asks McCabe — 10:31 a.m.

Alan Jackson, Read’s attorney, asked McCabe whether she’s spoken with her husband about the events of Jan. 28 and 29, 2022.

“Yes, we talk about this case about the vicious harassment we are all receiving,” McCabe said.

Jackson asked about the details of the night, what happened at the bar and her memory of what happened at 34 Fairview, did she talk to other witnesses about that?

“We’ve tried to figure out what happened to our friend John,” McCabe said. Speaking about it is very difficult, she said.

“The harassment of the case,” comes up every day, she said. Facts of the case are not discussed as much as the “vicious harassment,” she said.

Jackson tried repeatedly to ask about what McCabe told a grand jury about Higgins’s Jeep and where it was parked, and McCabe repeatedly asked for a transcript of her statements to the grand jury.

“I may not have been asked about the Jeep,” McCabe said.

Next, Jackson asked about text messages McCabe sent O’Keefe at 12:27 a.m. and wrote “here.” Then at 12:31 a.m., she texted, “pull behind me.”

At 12:40 a.m., she texted “hello.” At 12:42 a.m. “where are you?” and at 12:45 a.m. she texted “hello.”

Five times she texted and each time she walked to the door and looked at the SUV while texting O’Keefe, McCabe agreed.

McCabe asked several times throughout the morning to look at transcripts of her interviews before grand juries, both the Norfolk County one that led to Read’s indictment and the federal grand jury probe which authorities have not disclosed a target.

At one point, she spent several minutes reviewing the transcript before answering Jackson’s question about what she did when she texted O’Keefe and she was inside 34 Fairview Road.

Five times she texted McCabe and six times she looked out the window, the last time the SUV was gone, McCabe agreed.

The SUV moved three times further up the street, McCabe said.

“I had a clear view of Karen’s SUV, correct,” McCabe answered Jackson.

She did not hear any sounds outside, any screaming, nor any screeching tires, she said. She did not hear any collisions or door slams.

“And then you saw the SUV gone,” Jackson said. “So I have a question Mrs. McCabe, where was the body?

“I have no idea,” McCabe said. “I’m assuming the body was on the front lawn.”

“The problem with that is you were looking at the front lawn,” Jackson said.

McCabe agreed she had a clear and good view of the SUV.

“I’m looking at the SUV, not on the ground,” McCabe said.

Defense begins cross-examination of Jen McCabe — 9:35 a.m.

Jen McCabe took the witness stand and resumed her testimony that began last Friday.

Alan Jackson, Read’s attorney, began asking questions about interactions McCabe had with Read and O’Keefe at the Waterfall bar.

“I didn’t see them interact much,” McCabe said.

Asked by Jackson if she told Read, “You are coming with me,” McCabe corrected him.

“Why don’t you come with me?” McCabe recalled asking Read. She then waited outside the bar for Read and O’Keefe.

Jackson showed a surveillance video from outside the Waterfall bar, at 12:11 a.m. O’Keefe walked outside the bar.

A person with white shoes could be seen in the video, but McCabe said she wasn’t sure that it was her.

“I told Karen you are coming with me to Karen because John was still in the bar with Matt,” McCabe said. Matthew McCabe, her husband, testified last week.

Asked by Jackson if there was a reason to separate Read and O’Keefe, McCabe said “No.”

“There was never any idea of separating them,” McCabe said.

“We were waiting for John to come out and I said, ‘Why don’t you come with me,’ it was innocent,” McCabe said.

Jackson asked about what she told Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor during an interview on Jan. 29, 2022.

Under questioning, she said that Proctor incorrectly transcribed what she said about where a Jeep was parked that night. The Jeep belonged to Higgins, a friend of Albert and a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“I never placed Ms. Read’s car where Mr. Higgins’s vehicle was,” McCabe said. “I may never have been asked about a Jeep.”