Witness at Karen Read trial contradicts key defense argument over her cop beau’s death
Accused cop murderer Karen Read faced off against acquaintance Jennifer McCabe for a third day in a Massachusetts court where McCabe’s testimony contradicted key defense arguments.
Read, 45, is on trial in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham on second-degree murder charges for allegedly backing over her boyfriend — Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46 — with her car and leaving him to die in the cold on Jan. 29, 2022.
O’Keefe’s pal Jennifer McCabe wrapped up her third day on the witness stand Wednesday morning during questioning about when she, Read and third friend Kerry Roberts found O’Keefe in the snow around 6 a.m., according to a report by CBS News.
Read has claimed she was a scapegoat in a conspiracy and O’Keefe was actually killed during a fight at the home of his friend Brian Albert and was later brought outside the Canton, Mass. home to make Read look guilty.
McCabe says Read told her to do a Google search for “how long it takes someone to die in the snow,” and while prosecutors say the searches occurred at 6:23 a.m. and 6:24 a.m., Read’s lawyers have tried to argue the search was conducted by McCabe hours before finding O’Keefe at 2:27 a.m.
“I never searched at 2:27. That is not reality,” McCabe said. “I’m sure [telecommunications company] Cellebrite will be able to explain to you. I certainly can’t.”
Read’s defense attorney Alan Jackson pressed McCabe on the issue even accusing her of deleting the Google search since it could make her look guilty.
“Did you delete that search because you knew you would be implicated in John O’Keefe’s death if that search was found on your phone?” Jackson asked.
“I did not delete that search. I never made that search at 2:23. I never would have left John O’Keefe out in the cold to die. Because he was my friend that I love,” McCabe answered.
McCabe also testified she heard Read say the morning they found O’Keefe, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”
But Read denies saying this and her lawyers have alleged that McCabe was involved in the cover-up to frame Read.
Read lawyers claim that Read dropped O’Keefe off at a party with his cop friends at McCabe’s home around 12:30 a.m. after the couple had been drinking.
And when she woke up around 4:30 a.m. and O’Keefe still hadn’t returned she called her boyfriend, then McCabe and O’Keefe’s other friend Kerry Roberts.
Read, McCabe and Roberts drove to O’Keefe’s home and then Albert’s looking for him only to find him unconscious in a snowbank, with skull fractures, swollen eyes and hyperthermia.
But prosecutors claim that Read and O’Keefe got into a drunken fight in her car while she was dropping him off and she intentionally backed her Lexus SUV into him out of anger.
A federal probe has been launched over whether a police cover-up occurred in the handling of O’Keefe’s murder.
