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What Jen McCabe had to say about the fiercely debated Google search, the broken taillight, and Karen Read’s alleged ‘I hit him’ statements
McCabe detailed the search for John O'Keefe while on the witness stand Friday.
On the stand Friday:
After an off-day Monday, McCabe is set to return to the witness stand for cross-examination when the trial resumes Tuesday morning.
4 p.m. update: Jen McCabe recalls frantic search for John O’Keefe, from Read’s alleged ‘I hit him’ statements to ‘hos long to die in cold’ search
Huddled in the back of a police cruiser sometime after 6 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, Karen Read allegedly held hands with Kerry Roberts and Jennifer McCabe and asked them to pray, McCabe recalled Friday.
The three women had just found Read’s boyfriend of two years, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, lying unresponsive in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton. When they tried to perform CPR on O’Keefe, blood started coming out of his mouth, McCabe testified.
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She recalled those frantic moments as part of her initial testimony in Read’s murder trial. McCabe explained that Read and O’Keefe were among a group of family and friends drinking at the Waterfall Bar & Grille earlier that night, and they planned to join an afterparty at 34 Fairview Road — owned at the time by McCabe’s sister and brother-in-law, Nicole and Brian Albert.
While McCabe and her husband both testified that they saw a dark SUV matching Read’s car pull up outside the house, McCabe said she didn’t think much of it when Read and O’Keefe didn’t come inside.
“At that point, I thought maybe they decided not to come in, maybe they got into an argument, or maybe [O’Keefe’s niece] had called,” she explained.
She said she later awoke at 4:53 a.m. to a phone call from O’Keefe’s 14-year-old niece, who informed her that O’Keefe hadn’t come home. McCabe testified that she could hear Read screaming “Jen! Jen!” in the background.
“She proceeds to scream my name multiple times, and she tells me that John didn’t come home, they got into a fight, and that she left him at the Waterfall,” McCabe recalled.
She said she made a few calls to friends and mutual acquaintances in an attempt to track O’Keefe down, but her husband reminded her that they had seen Read’s car outside 34 Fairview Road. When she spoke to Read again and told her as much, Read “told me that she didn’t remember going there, and then she started yelling, ‘Jen! Jen!’ And then she was saying, ‘Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?’” McCabe testified.
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She said Read also mentioned a cracked taillight on her car.
“I thought she was honestly, like, just talking crazy,” McCabe said. “And then she said, ‘Oh my god, I left him there.’ Like, she was extremely irrational. She told me again that they had gotten into a fight. … She was just kind of all over the place, just screaming. She was very hard to understand. So my brain started going, ‘OK, well, if she left him there, where could he be? Who could he be with?’”
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally displayed several texts McCabe sent O’Keefe that morning, starting at 4:59 a.m. “Please answer,” read one message, followed by “karen is worried we need to find u” and “please answer so i know ur ok.”
McCabe said she remembered another person who had talked about meeting up with O’Keefe the night prior, but she couldn’t reach the man by phone. She said she decided to get up and search for O’Keefe but heard more screaming — this time outside her home — as she and her husband began to get ready.
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McCabe said Read came running up her walkway, alternating between yelling McCabe’s name and “Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?”
She said Read also yelled, “We have to go to Fairview.”
The search for John O’Keefe
McCabe said she and Read spoke via phone with O’Keefe’s friend, Kerry Roberts, who suggested searching for O’Keefe back at his house. McCabe testified that she and Read met Roberts in O’Keefe’s driveway, and Read showed the two other women her cracked taillight.
“I saw that there were missing pieces, but there was also snow covering it,” McCabe said. “And Karen was screaming, ‘Look! Look!’ And then Kerry was screaming back at her. It was very chaotic. So I didn’t stare in depth, but what I can tell you is … I saw missing pieces from the taillight.”
She said Roberts was yelling at Read, “telling her she’s crazy and that she was driving around drunk and she could’ve hit anything.” McCabe teared up when she recalled speaking with O’Keefe’s niece as she left Meadows Avenue to go search for her friend.
“I promised [O’Keefe’s niece] that I would find John and everything was going to be OK,” she said. The three women piled into Roberts’s car and drove to Fairview Road.
Hours earlier, when O’Keefe called McCabe to ask for directions to 34 Fairview Road, she said she told him the house was near “Bella’s street,” referencing a child who was friendly with O’Keefe’s niece. O’Keefe had also dated Bella’s mother years prior, McCabe said.
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McCabe testified that as they searched for O’Keefe later that morning, Read questioned whether O’Keefe could have been at certain houses, including “Bella’s house.”
When Read asked if O’Keefe might be with Bella’s mother, McCabe said she told her no, “because to me that was a crazy idea.”
Read’s ‘I hit him’ statement was ‘crystal clear,’ McCabe says
As they approached 34 Fairview Road, she said Read suddenly began screaming, “There he is! There he is!”
McCabe said she saw nothing at that time, and as Read exited the car, Roberts turned to McCabe and “said something like, ‘She’s crazy’ or ‘She’s bats*** crazy,’ or something like that.”
However, she testified that Read ran “straight to John.”
“She straddles John and she lifts up his shirt and then she lifted up her shirt and went to lay on him,” McCabe recalled. She said Roberts went over to remove the snow from O’Keefe’s face.
“And for a second or two, I completely just froze,” McCabe said. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And then Kerry and I made eye contact and I called 911. And Kerry was asking me to go to the car and … get towels or blankets or something out of the back of her car.”
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She said she ran the blankets over to Roberts, who was shouting at Read to get off O’Keefe. Read, meanwhile, was screaming, “Is he dead? Is he dead?” McCabe said.
“I was trying to be calm and get help there for John as fast as possible,” she added.
According to McCabe, Read “stated that she hit him” when a paramedic asked what had happened to O’Keefe. Canton firefighter and paramedic Katie McLaughlin shared a similar account in her testimony earlier this month.
“Is that something that she said once or more than once?” Lally asked McCabe.
“Three times: ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,’” McCabe said, later adding, “Earlier it was ‘Could I? Did I?’ When she spoke to the paramedic, it was crystal clear: ‘I hit him.’”
As they waited in the back of a police cruiser, McCabe said Read held hands with her and Roberts and asked them both to pray.
“She looked at her hands and she had blood [on them],” McCabe recalled. “She asked us if she could have gotten her period. We told her no, that was John’s blood. Then she said, ‘What if he’s dead? Promise me you’ll take care of the kids. Someone’s got to take care of the kids.’ Then we prayed.”
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‘My hands were frozen,’ McCabe says of infamous Google search
She said Read asked Roberts to go check on O’Keefe as paramedics removed him from the scene.
“And then at that point, she (Read) grabbed my hands, and she said, ‘Google hypothermia. Google how long it takes to die in the cold,’” McCabe said. “And so I had my phone out and it was cold, and my hands were frozen, and I have MS, 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’s Google searches — including one for “hos long to die in cold” — are among the hotly contested pieces of evidence in Read’s case. The defense has disputed the timing of McCabe’s initial “hos long” search, alleging that her phone data puts the search several hours earlier, at 2:27 a.m.
McCabe also testified that a police officer sent her inside 34 Fairview Road to wake up her sister and brother-in-law, who appeared “shocked, confused” when she told them the news about O’Keefe.
She said she later texted Read to ask for Roberts’s phone number and spoke with Read over the phone as the Mansfield woman was in an ambulance en route to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton for a mental health evaluation. During their call, Read repeatedly asked if O’Keefe was dead, brought up his niece and nephew, and asked if McCabe would visit her, McCabe testified. She recalled telling Read she would.
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Judge Beverly Cannone dismissed jurors ahead of McCabe’s cross-examination. Read’s trial will resume Tuesday with a half-day in court.
1 p.m. update: ‘I really liked her,’ Jennifer McCabe says of Karen Read
Jennifer McCabe, one of the most highly anticipated witnesses in the Karen Read trial, testified Friday that she enjoyed Read’s company after the two women met for the first time in 2020.
“I enjoyed Ms. Read. I really liked her,” McCabe recalled. “I thought we connected from the beginning. She’s very easy to talk to.”
She said she and Read bonded over their mutual diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Asked to describe her relationship with Read’s boyfriend, John O’Keefe, McCabe replied: “He was my friend. I loved John. He was an amazing guy.”
She explained that she previously lived in the same neighborhood as O’Keefe’s sister and brother-in-law, and O’Keefe’s niece was good friends with one of McCabe’s daughters. O’Keefe took custody of his niece and nephew after their parents died and became friendly with the McCabes, she said.
When Read and O’Keefe arrived at the Waterfall Bar & Grille in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022, McCabe was already at the restaurant with family and friends. Read “had brought a glass with her and kind of took it out of her coat and just kind of chuckled about it,” McCabe recalled.
She said O’Keefe was excited about his niece’s recent acceptance to Bishop Feehan High School, while Read was a little frustrated because O’Keefe had asked her not to make a habit of treating his niece to Dunkin’.
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“We just talked about how, you know, challenging it is with kids,” McCabe said of her conversation with Read. “She mentioned that that’s all they kind of ever fight about, and I said, ‘Yeah, well, welcome to parenthood.’”
McCabe added: “She just was a little bit frustrated, felt like the family needed to be doing more to help, and she just wished she had more time just her and John. But again, it was just girlfriend to girlfriend, kind of venting.”
As the bar closed for the night, McCabe’s sister and brother-in-law, Nicole and Brian Albert, extended an open invitation to continue on to 34 Fairview Road. McCabe testified that she encouraged O’Keefe and Read to join the afterparty, and they both indicated they would.
McCabe said she received a text from O’Keefe asking for the address and gave him a call as she drove over to Fairview Road. O’Keefe called her a second time at 12:18 a.m. to ask for further directions, McCabe testified.
After McCabe and her husband arrived at the Albert home, their nephew mentioned seeing another car outside, and McCabe said she went to the door to check. She testified that she saw a dark SUV consistent with Read’s car and texted O’Keefe to ask if he had arrived.
McCabe said she never saw anyone exit the vehicle and denied seeing O’Keefe enter 34 Fairview Road.
12:20 update: ‘Tell them the guy never went in the house’
Matthew McCabe testified Friday that shortly before 5 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, he awoke to screaming so loud, he at first thought someone was shouting in his bedroom.
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He said the person was calling out for his wife, Jennifer: “Jen! Jen! Jen!” The screams, he said, were “loud enough to wake me from a dead sleep.”
McCabe testified that he looked around the room and realized his wife was actually on a phone call. He said he at first didn’t recognize the voice screaming on the other end of the call.
“I asked my wife, ‘What is going on?’” McCabe recalled.
“I’m on the phone with Karen,” he said his wife replied, indicating Karen Read was on the line. “She can’t find John.”
According to McCabe, Read said the last time she’d seen O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years, was at the Waterfall Bar & Grille in Canton the night before.
“I thought she was crazy,” McCabe recalled. “Because I saw her vehicle, I saw the black SUV arrive to 34 Fairview Road that morning.”
He said multiple phone calls followed as the McCabes alternated between speaking with Read and trying to reach friends and mutual acquaintances in an attempt to track down O’Keefe. In one call, they informed Read they saw her car outside the Albert home at 34 Fairview Road after midnight on the 29th.
“And I heard the response of, ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember going there,’” McCabe said.
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He said Read also “blurted that she broke her taillight, cracked her taillight, something to that effect.”
McCabe said he tried to reach O’Keefe but received no response.
O’Keefe had previously mentioned the possibility of meeting up with another person, so the McCabes planned to head over to that person’s house to check, McCabe testified. At that point, he said, he heard yelling in his front yard.
“I realized it was Karen Read, and I told my wife to ‘please tell her to shut up. She’s going to wake up the whole neighborhood,’” McCabe said.
His wife said she would go with Read to look for O’Keefe, and McCabe recalled being concerned about the two women taking Read’s car, given the broken taillight Read mentioned earlier.
“What I thought by a broken taillight was that her taillight was out, meaning there was no light,” McCabe said. “And I didn’t think it was a bright idea to be driving around with no physical light on the taillight.”
He said he next spoke with his wife about an hour later, when she informed him she and Read had found O’Keefe outside 34 Fairview Road.
He said he drove over to his in-laws’ house, speaking briefly at the scene with Kerry Roberts, who had accompanied Read and Jennifer McCabe on their search. Inside 34 Fairview Road, he found his wife, Brian and Nicole Albert, and Canton Police Lt. Michael Lank.
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McCabe testified that his wife appeared to be in shock. He said she is generally “very calm” in a crisis, such as a death in the family.
“She’s the one that can get in the room, sit, relax, hold their hand, make them feel comfortable,” he said. “I can’t do that.”
McCabe also testified that two Massachusetts State Police troopers, Michael Proctor and Yuri Bukhenik, came to his home later that day and interviewed him and his wife separately. His brother-in-law, Brian Albert, also arrived at the McCabes’ home and spoke with the troopers, he said.
Cross-examination
On cross-examination, defense attorney David Yannetti took McCabe back to the Waterfall on Jan. 28, 2022. McCabe confirmed that Brian Albert and Brian Higgins, another man present that night, are both “good-sized guys.” Yannetti asked McCabe if he remembered Albert and Higgins practice-fighting in the bar.
“I recall them grabbing each other,” McCabe answered. “I don’t recall them squaring up like they were fighting each other, no. They were playing a little grabass with each other.”
He later clarified that Albert and Higgins weren’t actually grabbing each other’s buttocks, but said he remembered one man grabbing the other from behind in a bear hug.
Yannetti questioned McCabe about his previous testimony regarding the vehicles he saw parked outside 34 Fairview Road after midnight on the 29th. McCabe testified that he saw a Jeep parked at the edge of the home’s driveway, in front of the mailbox, and later learned it belonged to Higgins.
At one point, McCabe broke into an amused smile as Yannetti repeatedly pressed him on his testimony and statements about an SUV he saw parked outside 34 Fairview Road. McCabe testified Thursday that the SUV was dark-colored, matching the description of Read’s car.
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“By the way, sir, is this funny? I’m sorry, you were laughing,” Yannetti said.
“This is not funny, sir,” McCabe replied soberly. “Not at all. It’s been two years of misery, OK?”
“You’re smiling now, that’s why I ask,” Yannetti said.
“You keep repeating the same question,” McCabe explained.
“Well, I’m trying to get an answer that you won’t give me, sir,” Yannetti said.
McCabe denied observing any damage to the SUV’s rear in the three times he saw the car parked outside 34 Fairview Road. Yannetti asked about McCabe’s previous testimony about tire tracks forming “a weird wave” in the snow.
“And the pattern of those tire tracks that you observed were consistent with the vehicle making a three-point turn, correct?” Yannetti asked.
“I don’t know if the vehicle made a three-point turn,” McCabe said. “It could be consistent with [a three-point turn], because it was a wavy pattern. I’ve never looked at tire tracks after I’ve done a three-point turn to determine what they actually look like.”
He said he didn’t see O’Keefe sitting in the SUV when he looked outside that night, nor did he see a 6-foot-2 man lying on the front lawn. While he noted there was music playing inside 34 Fairview Road at the time, McCabe also denied hearing any yelling, crash noises, or screams of pain outside. He further testified that he didn’t see a baseball cap, sneaker, or pieces of broken taillight on the front lawn as he left the home that night.
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“And once again, you didn’t see a 6-foot-2 man lying on the front lawn, correct?” Yannetti asked.
“No,” McCabe replied. “I wish I did, but I didn’t.”
McCabe and his wife gave two of their nephew’s friends a ride home that night, and he testified that he did not hear one of the women, Julianna Nagel, mention seeing an object on the front lawn as they drove by 34 Fairview Road. Nagel testified earlier this week that she saw a “black blob” on the front lawn and said aloud, “I think I might have saw something. I’m not kind of sure what it was.”
Yannetti also asked McCabe about a group chat he and his wife shared with Brian and Nicole Albert, noting that McCabe texted the group about State Police troopers searching a neighbor’s property on Fairview Road on Feb. 1, 2022. McCabe denied “monitoring” the investigation and said he just happened to notice as he was driving by.
Yannetti showed McCabe a series of messages from the chat, noting that McCabe and Brian Albert exchanged some texts about police “barely” interviewing Kerry Roberts. He noted that earlier on Feb. 1, 2022, McCabe texted the group, “Ask Chris to ask some questions,” referring to Albert’s brother. “Tell them the guy never went in the house.”
McCabe confirmed the “guy” was O’Keefe and later clarified that “them” was referring to a television news crew from “Channel 4” who had come into Chris Albert’s pizza shop.
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“When you told the group to tell them ‘the guy never went in the house,’ that was you talking about how you should all get your stories straight, correct?” Yannetti asked.
“No,” McCabe replied.
“You would agree with me that your stories are all straight in terms of ‘the guy never went in the house,’ correct?” Yannetti continued.
“John never went in the house,” McCabe maintained. “It’s not a story, it’s a fact.”
Yannetti pointed out that Brian Albert responded to McCabe’s text with one word: “Exactly.”
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
A third week of the Karen Read murder trial wraps up Friday with another full day of witness testimony.
Matthew McCabe is expected back on the stand after testifying Thursday about his friendship with murder victim John O’Keefe and his memories of O’Keefe’s last night out on Jan. 28, 2022.
More on Karen Read:
McCabe testified that he and his wife, Jennifer, were out drinking with O’Keefe, Read, and several others at the Waterfall Bar & Grille in Canton that night. The group left the bar shortly after midnight on the 29th, and several people headed back to the home of Nicole and Brian Albert, McCabe’s in-laws. As they left, McCabe said O’Keefe texted Jen McCabe, “Where to?” He said his wife spoke with O’Keefe twice over the phone to provide directions.
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Back at the Albert home at 34 Fairview Road, the McCabes joined a birthday celebration for their nephew, Brian Albert Jr., who already had a couple friends over. One of Brian Albert Jr.’s friends, Julianna Nagel, stepped outside briefly to talk to her brother about a ride home.
“When she went outside or when she was opening the door, her or somebody referenced that there was another vehicle out front,” McCabe recalled. “Upon hearing that, we just assumed that was obviously John and Karen.”
He said he looked outside and saw a dark-colored SUV parked in front of the house, matching the description of Read’s car. McCabe testified that when he checked again after several minutes, the SUV had moved farther up the road.
“It had been a few minutes, and we thought it was weird they hadn’t come into the house,” he said.
According to McCabe, the SUV had inched up even farther when he looked outside a third time. He said he noticed tire tracks forming “a weird wave” on the snowy road. McCabe said his wife texted O’Keefe but didn’t hear back.
The McCabes gave two of Brian Albert Jr.’s friends a ride home from 34 Fairview Road, and Matt McCabe testified that he and his wife arrived home sometime around 2:10 to 2:15 a.m.
McCabe said his wife wanted to watch a show when they got home, but he wasn’t interested. The couple spoke briefly about one of their daughter’s basketball tryouts before Matt McCabe went to bed, he testified.
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Later that morning, he said, “I woke up to screams in my bedroom.”
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