Jennifer McCabe doubles down on Karen Read’s alleged ‘I hit him’ confession, but can’t find it in paper trail
Key witness Jennifer McCabe remained on the witness stand all day Wednesday for testimony in the second murder trial of her former friend, Karen Read, whose boyfriend they found on her sister’s front lawn during a blizzard in January 2022.
She said she was sure that Read said, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,” that morning, but lead defense attorney Alan Jackson grilled her over the claim in a cross-examination that took up most of the day.
Read is accused of slamming John O’Keefe with the back of her SUV, then fleeing the scene hours before returning to find him dead in the snow. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene and denies having hit him at all.
No mention of it was made in two police reports from officers who interviewed McCabe, he said, and she didn’t testify about that claim in front of a grand jury just three months after O’Keefe’s death.
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“I can tell you with 100% accuracy she screamed, ‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,’” McCabe said Wednesday.
Jackson asked her to find mention of it in a 227-page transcript of her grand jury testimony.
Judge Beverly Cannone said she didn’t have to read through the entire document. But Jackson pointed to several excerpts that pointed to different quotes from McCabe to grand jurors that said Read had asked, “Did I hit him?” and “Could I have hit him?”
“She also said that,” McCabe testified.
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Read said “she’s lying” on the way out of court.
“Another witness, another instance of perjury, or instances, I’d say,” she told reporters on the sidewalk.
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The trial is expected to resume Friday morning with McCabe returning to the stand. There is a break in court scheduled for Thursday.
McCabe repeatedly described Read as “hysterical” on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, and testified that she repeated many things three times over, including the phrase, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.” She said Read pointed out damage to her own passenger-side taillight before they found O’Keefe and that she appeared agitated all morning, including when she showed up at her house in a panic.
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McCabe was on the stand for most of the day, resuming direct exam questioning from special prosecutor Hank Brennan that began Tuesday and then sitting through hours of grilling from Jackson.
Jackson asked if Brennan and his team had prepared her to take the stand, asking if they gave her any guidance about altering her demeanor compared to Read’s first trial, which ended with a deadlocked jury last year.
She said no.
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He asked if she’d prepared her testimony with input from friends and family, with whom she admitted to repeatedly speaking about the case. Her sister and brother-in-law, Nicole and Brian Albert, live at 34 Fairview Road, the site of an after-party the night O’Keefe was last seen alive and the address where he was found dead under a pile of snow the next morning.
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The defense for more than a year has painted Read as a scapegoat being framed by people with ties to law enforcement. They have noted that Brian Albert was a fellow Boston police officer until recently retiring, his brother is a local detective, his friend, Brian Higgins, who was also at the after-party, is an ATF agent, and the lead investigator, Michael Proctor, is a family friend.
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Jackson also illustrated McCabe’s many friendships and familial ties to members of local law enforcement, asking her about her family tree in front of the jury. Brian Albert, on whose lawn O’Keefe was found dead, has a brother in the Canton Police Department and another brother who is a member of Canton’s Board of Selectmen. McCabe also knew police officers and paramedics at the scene from growing up in the area.
But another contentious moment came when Jackson grilled her about an interview with two unidentified agents of law enforcement from a body that was not identified but noted not to be either the Massachusetts State Police or the Canton Police Department.
Lying to those interviewers would be a crime, Jackson noted, asking McCabe if she lied to them about who she talked to during a 10-minute stretch before they met for an interview at her house.
McCabe testified that she told them she’d spoken to Kerry Roberts, another key witness in the case who was present with Read and McCabe when they found O’Keefe, and her husband, Matt McCabe. Roberts admitted last week that some of the testimony she gave to the grand jury wasn’t true.
She later called those investigators back and told them she’d forgotten to mention three other people: O’Keefe’s mother, her witness advocate at the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office and Brian Albert.
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A federal investigation into the state police’s handling of the case ended this year without charges, special prosecutor Hank Brennan revealed at a March 4 hearing, according to CBS News.
An independent audit of the Canton Police Department found no evidence of a conspiracy. And Proctor, a former state trooper and former lead investigator on the case, was fired after an investigation into lewd text messages he sent about Read, which included confidential information about an active investigation to people outside law enforcement.