The question followers of the Karen Read murder trial have been waiting for was delivered on the 16th day: Just when did Jennifer McCabe make the search for “hos (sic) long to die in cold”?
Defense attorney Alan Jackson presented cell phone record analysis that points to that search being made at 2:27 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022 — hours before John O’Keefe’s body would be found on the frosted front lawn of 34 Fairview Road. McCabe countered that the analysis may show that, but she actually made that search a little after 6:20 a.m. at the behest of Read herself.
“Ms. McCabe, the reason you deleted that 2:27 a.m. search is that if it was found you searched for that, it would incriminate you,” Jackson said in a statement that was objected to.
But McCabe had a response, anyway: “I did not delete that search. I did not make that search at 2:27 a.m. I would not have left John O’Keefe outside to die in the cold because he is my friend, who I love.”
Prosecutor Adam Lally allowed her to further defend and explain the Google searches. She said she was in bed in the early morning searching for local sports coverage for a game her daughter played hours before. She then left the same browser window open, she said, and must have used it to perform the new search, which is why the browser has a mark as being opened at 2:27 a.m. in the analysis, and not 6:24 a.m.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer and her boyfriend of about two years when he died at age 46. Prosecutors say that after a night out drinking the pair argued and she killed him by backing her Lexus SUV into him, leaving him to die in the cold during a snowstorm.
‘Viciously harassed’
McCabe, sitting for her third trial day in a row, wasn’t taking hostile questioning from the defense without a fight.
McCabe is a principal figure in the conspiracy the defense alleges the Albert and McCabe families are involved in with local and state police to frame Read for the murder of John O’Keefe in the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
The defense team first alleged the conspiracy more than a year ago, in April of 2023, when defense attorney Alan Jackson filed a document stating that “[T]he defense has uncovered significant and reliable evidence that not only exculpates Ms. Read, but that inculpates Jennifer McCabe and Brian Albert.”
Since that time, McCabe testified, she and others the defense has indicated have been subject to a “social media witch hunt.”
Jackson asked why McCabe visited the home of lead State Police investigator Trooper Michael Proctor in September of 2023. She answered the question with fury that Jackson objected to, but that Judge Beverly Cannone allowed to stand.
She said she visited not Trooper Proctor, but his wife, Elizabeth, who she said she had developed a friendship with over their shared prosecution online and in person.
“We are two mothers who have been viciously harassed,” McCabe said, adding they have been subjected to terrible letters and emails and a harassment parade outside their homes. Worse, she said, was that people “have taken a photo of my daughter and put semen on it and wrote ‘Property of’ a certain blogger I think the defense knows well.”
Finding O’Keefe
Kerry Roberts was called in the case next. She, McCabe and Read were the ones who found O’Keefe in the snow at around 6 a.m.
Roberts said that Read called her at around 5 a.m. and said, “‘John’s dead. Kerry, Kerry, Kerry,’ and then hung up.”
Roberts said she suggested they search his house first. Roberts testified that “neat freak” O’Keefe’s bed was made and that he wasn’t home.
Then the drive to 34 Fairview Road. Roberts and McCabe up front, Read in the back seat. Roberts said they had just driven by and Read screamed, “‘Let me the F out of this car,’ and started kicking the door.”
Roberts said that she hadn’t seen O’Keefe’s body when Read did.
“When she ran over to his body I was like, ‘Oh my God’ and she lifted up his shirt and started to lay with him,” Roberts said. She wiped tears from her eyes as a Canton Police dashcam video played and showed the three women frantic at the scene.
“His right eye looked like a golf ball,” she said, her voice breaking a bit, and described how he was uncovered from “four, maybe three” inches of snow.
Roberts said she told Read to get off of O’Keefe so that she could do chest compressions as Read performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
While McCabe said that she heard Read scream “I hit him” multiple times over his body, Roberts said that she remembered Read only questioning whether she had: “Did I hit him? Did I hit him? Is he dead? Is he dead?”
The Aruba incident
Next on the stand were two sisters, Laura and Marietta “Etta” Sullivan, who Lally used to establish the angle of jealousy — and thus possible motive — in the relationship between Read and O’Keefe.
The Sullivan sisters were close with O’Keefe from way back, with the older sister, Laura, saying she first met him in 2013. O’Keefe is godfather to her son, she said.
Come December 2021, O’Keefe agreed to get some rooms in Aruba for the yearly trip there Laura Sullivan plans. He went along with Read and his niece and nephew for the trip around the New Year, departing on Jan. 5, 2022 — about three weeks before O’Keefe would die.
But all was not perfect in the island paradise. Read, both sisters testified, accused O’Keefe of “making out” with Etta Sullivan and caused a big scene.
“I hear, very loud, ‘Who the (expletive) was that?!’” Etta Sullivan testified. The two women told each other “(Expletive) you” and walked off, she added with a hard look to Read in the courtroom.
Etta Sullivan said she told her sister “Absolutely not” when asked if she had made out with O’Keefe. She said she considers him “an older brother.”
Laura Sullivan said that Read felt sorry over the behavior and wanted to pay for a portion of Etta Sullivan’s room for the trip.
