Karen Read lawyers spar with star witness: Latest from trial over death of cop boyfriend
Karen Read's defense attorney clashed with key witness Jennifer McCabe about her memory during a heated back-and-forth. McCabe's testimony is regarded as central to the case against Read.
Editor's note: This page summarizes testimony in the Karen Read trial for Wednesday, April 30. For the latest updates on the Karen Read retrial, visit Paste BN's coverage for Friday, May 2.
A key witness against a woman accused of murdering her cop boyfriend clashed with lawyers on Wednesday over a bombshell admission she heard from the accused woman: “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”
Jennifer McCabe, a friend of Karen Read and John O’Keefe, is perhaps the central witness in the case against the woman accused of hitting the Boston police officer with her SUV and leaving him to die. McCabe says Read made the shocking confession the morning O’Keefe, 46, was found unconscious in the snow in January 2022.
The star witness’ bout with Read’s lawyers signals a high point in the case so far. McCabe also shared vivid details about discovering the body of “one of her closest friends” and Read’s “crazy” and “erratic” behavior that morning following a night of drinking with the couple.
Jurors also heard McCabe’s reaction to discovering O’Keefe directly through a recording played in court of a 911 call she made then: “There’s a man passed out in the snow,” said McCabe through labored breath. “I think he’s dead.”
Read, 45, is back on trial over the 46-year-old officer’s death after a trial in 2024 ended in a hung jury. Prosecutors say she deliberately killed her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV after a night of heavy drinking and fighting. Read’s lawyers, led by attorney Alan Jackson, have long held that the former financial analyst was framed for the murder by law enforcement officers who they allege killed O’Keefe during an altercation.
The defense continued a strategy of challenging the memory of witnesses against Read by pointing out inconsistencies between testimony given to the grand jury, in the first trial and on the stand at the ongoing trial.
According to a transcript shared in court, McCabe told the grand jury that Read asked, “Could I have hit him?”
When pressed by Read’s attorney, McCabe said, “There are certain things I will never forget, Mr. Jackson.”
The case, which began when O’Keefe’s body was discovered January 29, 2022, has turned into a years long whodunnit legal saga that has garnered massive intrigue from true-crime fans across the country, spurring an array of podcasts, movies and television shows.
Here’s what else happened in the Dedham, Massachusetts, courtroom.
Court adjourned
Cannone dismissed the jury around 4 p.m. McCabe's cross-examination will continue on Friday, May 2.
Jackson, one of Read's attorneys, told the court that he expects to cross-examine McCabe for roughly two more hours. Brennan, the prosecutor, said his questioning would take 20 minutes or less.
McCabe pressed by Read's lawyers
Upon cross-examination, Jackson challenged McCabe’s testimony that she heard Read say, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,” after finding O’Keefe’s body at the home at 34 Fairview Road.
He handed McCabe a 227-pagecopy of her April 2022 grand jury testimony where she remembered Read saying “Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?"
"I don't remember specifically that every grand jury and everything I said, but I can tell you with 100% accuracy, she said 'I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,'" McCabe told Jackson during a heated back and forth.
When Jackson pressed McCabe further about her grand jury testimony, she said Read made both the "Could have" and "I hit him" statements the morning they found O'Keefe dead.
Heated cross examination
Jackson questioned McCabe about an interaction she had with independent investigators not affiliated with the Massachusetts State Police or Canton police – in what appeared to be an attempt to poke holes in her credibility.
Jackson questioned whether McCabe lied to the investigators when she was asked if she had contacted anyone between the time they entered her home and when they began questioning her. McCabe originally told them she had called her husband and Kerry Roberts, a friend who was there the morning she found O’Keefe’s body.
After they left, she later called them back and told them she had also spoken with O’Keefe’s mom, Peggy O’Keefe, her witness advocate at the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office and her brother-in-law, Brian Albert.
The defense in a previous trial alleged that Albert and other police officers killed O’Keefe.
McCabe’s chilling 911 call
Prosecutors played McCabe’s eerie 911 call the morning she, Read, and Roberts, found O'Keefe lying in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts. Distressed noises can be heard in the background, with one person yelling, “Karen, you need to get off of him.”
When police officers arrived, McCabe said Read was “running around crazy ... yelling, screaming, kind of like a ping pong.”
Dashcam footage from the police cruiser showed the pitch-black morning scene. Snow pelted the windshield and a thick-white layer coated the pavement.
'I couldn’t believe that was him lying there'
McCabe previously told jurors during her April 29 testimony that Read had raised concern several times the day O'Keefe's body was found that she hit him the night before. Read, she said, pleaded with her and Roberts to search for him at the home where his body would later be discovered.
As they approached the house, McCabe said Read began screaming “something to the effect of there he is,” but she and Roberts could only see snow blanketing the ground and covering their windows.
It wasn’t until McCabe got out of the car and walked over to a patch of the lawn where Read and Roberts had congregated that she saw O’Keefe. Roberts, she said, was removing snow from his face.
“I couldn’t believe that was him lying there,” McCabe said with tears in her eyes. “It looked like him but just frozen ... I think I knew in that moment that John, you know, was dead.”
Crucial witness Jennifer McCabe takes the stand, describes hearing Read scream
Much of McCabe’s early testimony revolved around her relationship to O’Keefe and Read, as well as the events that took place the evening before O’Keefe was found dead.
McCabe said she was happy to see both Read and O’Keefe when they joined her and other friends, including Brian Albert, at the Waterfall Bar and Grille in Canton, Massachusetts, early in the evening. She said she knew Read through O’Keefe and enjoyed spending time with her.
When the group decided to go to Albert’s house around midnight to continue the evening, McCabe said she expected O’Keefe and Read to join. O’Keefe had texted her to get Albert’s address sometime between 12:15 a.m. and 12:30 a.m., and she called him to relay the plans.
Looking out the glass door at Albert’s house, McCabe said she saw a dark SUV she assumed was Read’s pull up in several locations in front of the home: at one point straight in front of the house, then near a flagpole in the lawn, then further up the road.
She texted O’Keefe “here?” and then, when the car moved, she told O’Keefe he could pull behind her car. He never answered.
By about 1:30 a.m., as the snow and wind began to pick up, she and others began leaving Albert’s house. The mood the entire night was “celebratory,” McCabe remembered.
That changed at 4:53 a.m. when she was awoken by Read’s screams. O’Keefe’s niece, Kayley, and Read had called her because O’Keefe had not returned home that night. Read told McCabe that they had gotten into a fight, and she thought she had left him at the Waterfall.
By 5:30 a.m. Read was in front of her house, screaming. Soon after, Roberts, who had also received a call from Read, pulled up at McCabe’s house, too. The three women planned to go search for O’Keefe together.
Who is Jennifer McCabe?
McCabe is one of the prosecution's key witnesses. She is the sister of Nicole Albert, who is married to Brian Albert, one of the men Read's defense team has alleged killed O'Keefe. The couple lived at 34 Fairview Road.
In the first trial, Read's defense team suggested that McCabe knew something happened to O'Keefe and later helped frame Read.
How to watch Karen Read trial
CourtTV has been covering the case against Read and the criminal investigation since early 2022, when O'Keefe's body was found outside a Canton home.
You can watch CourtTV’s live feed of the Read trial proceedings from Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts. Proceedings begin at 9 a.m. ET
Contributing: Jessica Trufant, Paste BN Network