Video: Jen McCabe faces questioning from Karen Read’s lawyers 

Livestream via NBC10 Boston. 

On the stand:

• Jennifer McCabe, Canton, MA

McCabe remained on the stand under cross-examination when Judge Beverly Cannone concluded Tuesday’s half-day session. Her testimony will resume Wednesday morning with a full day scheduled.

A fourth week of the Karen Read murder trial kicks off Tuesday with the highly anticipated cross-examination of Jennifer McCabe, whose controversial Google search for “hos [sic] long to die in cold” launched a flurry of online speculation and conspiracy theories in Read’s case. 

Taking the stand last Friday, McCabe testified about her friendship with Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, Read’s former boyfriend of two years.

“He was my friend,” McCabe said of O’Keefe. “I loved John. He was an amazing guy.”

Read, 44, is accused of backing her SUV into O’Keefe while dropping him off at a fellow Boston police officer’s home in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022. Prosecutors allege she was driving drunk following a night out and left O’Keefe to die in the snow. However, lawyers for the Mansfield woman allege O’Keefe entered 34 Fairview Road for an afterparty and was beaten, attacked by the family’s pet dog, and left outside. Read, they say, was framed.

Defense attorneys have sought to implicate a number of witnesses in their coverup theory, including McCabe, whose sister and brother-in-law owned 34 Fairview Road at the time.

On the stand Friday, McCabe recalled waking up shortly before 5 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, to a frantic phone call from O’Keefe’s niece. Read, who was also on the line, informed her O’Keefe hadn’t come home that night and said they had gotten into a fight. 

A search ensued, with Read screaming at times, “Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?” McCabe testified. She said Read also showed McCabe and another woman, Kerry Roberts, a cracked taillight on her SUV. 

The three women ultimately found O’Keefe cold and unresponsive outside 34 Fairview Road around 6 a.m. According to McCabe, Read “stated that she hit him” three times when a paramedic asked what happened to O’Keefe. 

“Earlier it was ‘Could I? Did I?’” McCabe said. “When she spoke to the paramedic, it was crystal clear: ‘I hit him.’” 

As first responders prepared to take O’Keefe to the hospital, McCabe said Read asked her to “Google hypothermia. Google how long it takes to die in the cold.”

“And so I had my phone out and it was cold and my hands were frozen, and I have [multiple sclerosis], and I took my phone out while she was screaming and shaking my arm, and I attempted to Google, ‘How long does it take to die in the cold,’” McCabe recalled.

Read’s lawyers have disputed the timing of McCabe’s initial “hos long to die in cold” search, alleging that her phone data shows a timestamp of 2:27 a.m. — hours before O’Keefe was found in the snow. Prosecutors maintain the earlier timestamp is based on misinterpreted phone data, suggesting McCabe made the Google search in a tab she’d opened earlier that morning.