An attorney for a Massachusetts woman accused of killing her Boston police officer boyfriend attempted to implicate a key prosecution witness in the woman’s trial Wednesday, accusing the witness of conducting an incriminating Internet search hours before the man’s body was found. discovered and then delete the search to cover your tracks.
Karen Read is accused of running over John O’Keefe with her SUV on January 29, 2022 and leaving him dead in a snowbank in the Boston suburb of Canton. She has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and other charges.
The case has attracted national attention because the defense alleges that state and local authorities framed Read and allowed the real killer to go free. O’Keefe’s body was found outside the home of another Boston police officer, Brian Albert, and the defense argues that his relationship with local and state police tainted the investigation.
After a night of drinking at several bars, prosecutors say Read dropped O’Keefe off at a party thrown by Albert and his wife just after midnight. As she made a three-point turn, prosecutors say, she struck O’Keefe before driving away. She returned hours later and found him in a snow bank.
Jennifer McCabe, a friend of the couple and Albert’s sister-in-law, previously testified that shortly after O’Keefe’s body was found, Read screamed, “I hit him! I hit him! I hit him! and frantically asked her to do a Google search on how long it takes for someone to die from hypothermia.
But Read’s lawyer showed jurors cellphone data Wednesday that suggested McCabe also did an Internet search for variations on “how long to freeze to death” four hours earlier.
“You did that search at 2:27 a.m. because you knew John O’Keefe was out there on your sister’s lawn, freezing to death, right?” attorney Alan Jackson asked McCabe. “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?”
“I did not exclude this research. I never did that research,” McCabe said. “I would never have left John O’Keefe out in the cold to die because he was my friend who I loved.”
Jackson said it was “extremely convenient” for McCabe to reject the search, which he said would exonerate his client. He also pressed McCabe on why she told grand jurors a dozen times that Read said, “Did I hit him?” or “I could have hit him,” not the definitive “I hit him” that she now says she heard.
He suggested McCabe changed her story after experiencing what she described as “vicious” harassment from Read supporters.
“You were upset in April 2023 because there was public outrage about your family’s involvement in John O’Keefe’s death,” he said. “And two months later, in June 2023, for the first time, you testified in another case and, lo and behold, you attributed the words ‘I hit him’ to my client.”
McCabe acknowledged he first used those words under oath in June, but insisted he also said the same thing to an investigator days after O’Keefe’s death.
She also described “daily, almost hourly” harassment directed at her family, including an “ongoing demonstration” near her home, although the judge warned jurors there was no evidence that Read herself orchestrated it. and that it should not be used against her.
“I was outraged because I am a state witness who is being tortured because of lies,” McCabe said. “I’m not being judged and these people are terrorizing me.”
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