A key witness just wrapped 3 days on the stand in the Karen Read murder trial. Here’s why her testimony is so important

By Jean Casarez and Rebekah Riess, CNN

(CNN) — The second murder trial of Karen Read, a former adjunct professor and financial analyst who is accused of causing the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, continues Monday with additional witnesses to be called to the stand.

Those witnesses will be hard-pressed to top the crucial testimony of Jennifer McCabe, a self-described “typical” small-town mom of four who emerged as a central figure in Read’s retrial over three days of testimony last week.

Prosecutors hope McCabe emerged as a reliable, trustworthy witness, while the defense attempted to paint her as colluding with others in an alleged cover-up scheme framing Read for her boyfriend’s murder.

This is Read’s second murder trial, with her first ending in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked on the charges and reported it could not come to a unanimous verdict. She is accused of striking off-duty officer John O’Keefe with her vehicle and leaving him to die outside a Canton, Massachusetts, home in January 2022. Read has again pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death.

And while Read’s second trial seems similar to the first, McCabe – who also testified in the first trial – provided three days of key testimony at the Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts, that could be crucial to both the prosecution and the defense in the case against Read.

McCabe, who has said O’Keefe was “a very good friend,” was present for nearly every key moment the night of the officer’s death: first, the gathering of family and friends at a local bar ahead of a blizzard; then, the after-party at McCabe’s sister’s home; and finally, the search for O’Keefe early the following morning, when his body was found on her sister’s lawn.

For prosecutors, McCabe’s testimony offered a firsthand account of these events and a window into Read’s “hysterical” behavior that morning O’Keefe’s body was discovered. But the defense spent time Wednesday and Friday trying to poke holes in McCabe’s credibility, attempting to cast doubt both on her account of the events that night and her memory.

Read’s defense claims she is the victim of a vast cover-up, and they have accused off-duty law enforcement officers inside the home of killing O’Keefe and framing Read. Outside of the courthouse Friday, Read told CNN affiliate WHDH that McCabe’s testimony was “not consistent” and suggested she was the “quarterback” in the alleged cover-up.

A firsthand account for prosecutors

For the prosecution, McCabe serves as a key eyewitness. She was in the house at 34 Fairview Road the night of January 28, 2022, in the car with Read searching for O’Keefe the next morning and back at the house when O’Keefe’s body was discovered.

McCabe spoke to O’Keefe on the phone twice as he and Read drove to 34 Fairview Road in those early morning hours the day he died. After seeing Read’s SUV in front of the house, she texted O’Keefe asking if he was “here” and if he was “coming in.” Those phone records corroborate McCabe’s testimony that O’Keefe never entered the house at 34 Fairview Road, where her sister Nicole and brother-in-law Brian Albert lived.

Based on the phone records, McCabe is the last-known person to have contact with O’Keefe, outside of Read, bringing her front and center in the commonwealth’s case during pivotal moments in time.

McCabe testified Wednesday that after leaving her sister and brother-in-law’s home, she and her husband went to bed and she was woken up by a phone call from O’Keefe’s niece at around 5 a.m. She could hear Read screaming in the background, McCabe said on the witness stand, testifying that Read said she and O’Keefe had gotten into a fight and that she left him at The Waterfall Bar and Grille and he never came home.

McCabe told Read she had seen her vehicle outside her sister’s home hours earlier, McCabe said.

“And then she told me she didn’t remember being there,” McCabe said, “and then she went on to say – she started saying, ‘Could I have hit him? Did I hit him?’” The defendant also told McCabe that she had cracked her taillight, McCabe said.

In Wednesday’s testimony, McCabe said she, Read and another woman, Kerry Roberts – whom McCabe only vaguely knew – went to O’Keefe’s home to look for him before driving to 34 Fairview Road.

On the way to the house, Read was “continuously screaming,” McCabe said, describing her behavior as a “bit erratic.”

As they pulled up to 34 Fairview, Read began screaming something like, “There he is, let me out,” and got out of the vehicle, McCabe said. The two other women followed, McCabe said, and as she walked up to the flagpole, she said she saw Roberts removing the snow from O’Keefe’s face.

McCabe recalled Read telling a first responder, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”

A witness with a ‘foggy’ memory of events

Defense attorney Alan Jackson during cross-examination worked to solicit testimony that would support the defense’s theory of a cover-up.

On Wednesday, Jackson initially highlighted McCabe’s own numerous familial ties with members of law enforcement, including her brother-in-law Albert.

Jackson also questioned other portions of McCabe’s testimony — such as who she spoke to from law enforcement in the hours after finding O’Keefe and what she said, specifically whether she relayed the “I hit him” comment from Read. Jackson suggested that Canton police reports from that morning do not reflect McCabe’s claim that Read told her that morning on the phone that she had broken her taillight, or that Read and O’Keefe had fought hours earlier.

McCabe emphasized that it was a chaotic morning, and she didn’t remember what exactly she said to each officer, but she did remember telling at least two officials about the “I hit him” comment from Read.

On Friday, McCabe was again questioned by Jackson, who asked if she “colluded” with her family about what happened the morning of January 29 for “damage control” purposes.

The defense attorney pointed to group chats between McCabe and her husband and her sister and brother-in-law from February 1, 2022.

“You were colluding with other witnesses, percipient witnesses in this case through those text messages, were you not?” Jackson asked.

“I did not,” McCabe testified.

Jackson also presented McCabe with a phone log of calls between McCabe and former Massachusetts state trooper Michael Proctor, spanning from January to March 2022.

Proctor was the lead investigator in the case but has since been fired after a disciplinary board found he sent crude and sexist texts about Read to his family and colleagues.

Jackson’s cross-examination intensified when he returned his focus back to what McCabe said was the “chaotic morning” at 34 Fairview when O’Keefe’s body was located.

He asked McCabe why, when O’Keefe was “clinging to life in those precious moments and seconds,” she did not run into the home and wake up Albert, a trained law enforcement officer who knew CPR, to come down and assist before first responders arrived.

McCabe said she first called 911 and then called her sister Nicole twice, but Nicole didn’t answer. McCabe testified her focus was on giving O’Keefe chest compressions until first responders arrived.

As the cross-examination continued, Jackson also attempted to discredit McCabe’s memory of important facts relayed in her testimony. “A lot of things from that day (January 29) are foggy, certain things, certain details, I may have forgotten,” she told him, but added, “There are certain things I’ll never forget.”

The court hears testimony on Read’s blood alcohol levels

Before court concluded for the weekend, Hannah Knowles, a forensic scientist at Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab, testified that retrograde extrapolation was done with Read’s blood, drawn at Good Samaritan Hospital at 9 a.m. on January 29, to determine what her blood alcohol levels were at 12:45 a.m. that morning.

Read left The Waterfall at about midnight on January 29, after drinking throughout the evening at two bars.

Her blood alcohol level at 9:08 a.m. on January 29, 2022, was between 0.078 and 0.092.

Once extrapolated at the state police crime lab, it was determined Read’s blood alcohol level at 12:45 a.m. could have been between 0.14 and 0.28, Knowles testified.

The legal limit in Massachusetts is 0.08.

When asked by journalists outside of the courthouse if her blood alcohol level could have been three times the legal limit, Read said, “I think it’s garbage in, garbage out and it depends on their assumption of when I last consumed alcohol.”

“It’s an assumption.”

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