A (3:17)

Yeah, let's dive back into it.

B (3:18)

I'm completely spiraling. I'm spiraling. Is anyone out there spiraling with me? I thought I knew this case before and like this back and forth war of the experts has me twisted up.

A (3:31)

Yeah, we're going to get into it, but obviously, like a lot more comes out in the second trial that we're going to go over today.

B (3:37)

A lot. Going to be a lot of images on this one. So if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see see them in the video. But if you're not, that's okay. Just head over to our Instagram at Clues podcast and you can see everything we're going to talk about today, maybe even some other little bonus clips you don't want to miss. So head over there, make sure you follow. And if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe, hit that button. And without further ado, let's dive in.

A (4:02)

All right, so last week we walked you through the backstory of John o', Keefe, his relationship with his girlfriend at the time, Karen Reed, and his unexpected death during a snowstorm on January 29, 2020. But in case you missed it, let's give a little tldr. After a night of drinking, Karen said she dropped John off at a party where his fellow police officers were hanging out. Karen claimed that she saw John go inside of the house, but his friends insisted he never did. Everyone that was inside the house that night says that he never made it in. Now, when John wasn't home by 5am Karen and two of her friends went searching for him, only to find John's body in the front yard of that very same house, the one that was having the party. The theory became very quickly that Karen had backed up into John with her car that night, killing him on the spot, pointing to a contentious relationship as motive. Others thought that something might have gone down during the party that left Jon dead and Karen was just being used as a cover up. The clues and the Investigation around John's death were just as baffling and confusing as the circumstances were. I really encourage you guys to listen to part one. If you haven't. This recap really doesn't do it justice. There's a lot that goes into the first episode that we did. But Karen's first trial was held from April to July of 2024. She was charged with second degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death. But the jury couldn't agree on a verdict. And so it resulted in a shocking mistrial and a blockbuster worthy retrial. Which is what we're going to unravel today.

B (5:44)

And we're gonna dive right into the trial. But I do just wanna mention this because it is an interesting point that is about to get brought up in this second trial. So while Karen Reed did not testify during her initial trial, she does go and start doing what some call a bit of a PR campaign. In between trial one and trial two. She wants to tell her own side of the story here. She had her own documentary series on hbo. Max. She did an expose with Vanity Fair. Not to mention dozens of other media interviews where Karen got to share her side of the story. But that meant that everything she said was fair game in the courtroom. And the prosecution was hoping to use that to their advantage. You also have to keep in mind jury selection for a case like this. Already nuts. Now add in this additional pr, you know, these other media opportunities.

A (6:39)

Yeah. Her name was everywhere.

B (6:41)

Yeah.

A (6:41)

How do you find people that haven't heard of her?

B (6:43)

I would like to know.

A (6:44)

Yeah.

B (6:45)

She's being retried in the same city by the same judge who heard her case the first time around, Judge Beverly Canoni. And all of this means that you probably can't throw a stone without hitting someone who already knew about this case and had an opinion on it. I mean, you guys, my Uncle Jimmy has an opinion on this. He watched four hours of coverage a day. But the show still must go on. So come April 1, 2025, jury selection begins. And they go through nearly 600 candidates before they get their 18 people, 12 to deliberate and six alternates. And on April 22, 2025, it's time to cue the opening statement.

A (7:24)

So what we're going to do is we're going to kind of go day by day during this trial. We're going to talk about some of the stuff that came out. We're going to talk about some of the witnesses that took the stand, some of the experts. So let's start with these opening statements and also how this is going to work is I'm going to present any questions, evidence and testimony that was done by the prosecution and Morgan is going to take the side of the defense. To be clear, before everyone is in the comments talking about this, this has nothing to do with our own personal opinions on this case or otherwise. This is just the way that we thought was best to organize the information because there's a lot of information.

B (7:57)

Yeah. A little, little less confusing if we're each taking aside.

A (8:00)

Exactly. We'll chat a little bit more about our thoughts at the end, but let's just kind of get through all of the information at first. Yes. And we'll talk about our thoughts as we go. Always do that.

B (8:07)

I'll try to keep it together, you guys.

A (8:09)

A quick reminder of the charges. Second degree murder, which is murder with intent, could be heated the moment because it lacks the forethought that first degree murder does, but it is with intent, manslaughter while operating under the influence, leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death. And now there's an extra charge that was added to this trial, the charge of operating under the influence of liquor. Karen is pleading not guilty to all of these charges. And even though the venue and the judge are the same, the prosecutor in this case is actually different than last time. He's supposedly more of a bulldog and he's more senior ranking. His name is Hank Brennan, and he starts his opening statements by really painting a scene. He tries to drop the jury straight into the night that all of this happened. He says at 6:04am on January 29, 2022, the alarm bell sounded at the Canton Fire Department. He then goes on to say that the first responders know exactly what this means and their hearts start racing when they hear it and they grab their bags right when they got the news they were responding to a scene where someone was under cardiac arrest, which he goes on to say is one of the worst calls you can get as a firefighter. For the next 40 minutes or so, Brennan talks about the blizzard conditions that morning, the people who arrived at the scene, everything they were see morning. But more importantly, he really focuses in on the actions of Karen Reed, how EMTs heard her screaming when they arrived. He says one of them heard her repeat over and over, I hit him. I hit him. I hit him. He also starts to speak about the motive. He talks about how in the days leading up to Jon's death, John and Karen had been fighting a lot he says that this was, quote, the beginning of the end of their relationship, essentially. And then he starts to really tell the jury the thing that ultimately he is going to have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt as to what happened that night. He says that on that night In January of 2022, Karen and John pulled up to Brian Albert's home where a party was taking place. The couple had been drinking heavily and was yet again having another argument classic for their relationship. He then says that John got out of the car and Karen threw her vehicle in reverse and backed up into her boyfriend, causing him to fall and hit his head. And he says that that was an injury that led to John's death.

B (10:38)

Well, Karen's lead defense attorney, Alan Jackson, obviously has a very different take on what happened. He starts his opening statements with this, quote, the evidence in this case will establish, above everything else, three points. There was no collision with John o'. Keefe. There was no collision. There was no collision. John o' Keefe did not die from being hit by a vehicle. Period. The facts will show that. The evidence will show that. The data will show that. The science will show that. And the experts will tell you that, end quote. He goes on to talk about how John's death was undeniably a tragic loss, but was, quote, corrupted by incompetence and deceit, which was carried out by disgraced police officers. He even named Michael Proctor, the lead investigator on the case, calling him a cancer that tainted the case. And he spilled some tea. He said how he had been suspended and then fired from the Massachusetts State Police Department after this investigation. He also claimed the injuries on John's arm were the result of a dog bite, dog scratches, and that his experts could prove John was hurt somewhere else and then moved out to the yard later that night.

A (11:55)

So that day, the first day, jury also heard testimony from the prosecution's first witness, paramedic Timothy Nuttall, who claimed that he heard Karen say, quote, I hit him. I hit him. And then they also heard from Carrie Roberts. Remember, that's Karen's friend, who helped her look for John that morning, but also was not at the party with everyone the night before. Carrie claims that when Karen called her at around 5am to help her look for John after he didn't come home that night, she said Karen said that she believed something bad had happened to John and that he wasn't planning to stay out all night and that she thought he may have been hit by a snowplow. So Carrie is suggesting that Karen seemed to have a very specific idea of what may have happened to John that night. And Carrie also said that Karen told her she drank so much the night before that she didn't remember a single thing. But Karen was clearly terrified and frantic in those calls. Now, Carrie's direct examination continued the following day on April 23, as she wrapped up her testimony, during which Carrie stated that Karen had pointed out her broken taillight to her and was worried that the broken pieces could catch on something like the clothing of a passerby. Now, if you listen to the first episode, you know how big of a deal this taillight is. So Carrie is basically saying that that morning Karen pointed out that the taillight was broken. Carrie then spoke about the moment they found John on the ground in front of the Alberts house. How she actually didn't recognize John's body at first, but Karen did. And that he appeared to have one swollen eye while the other was uninjured. Carrie then said that Karen performed mouth to mouth on John while she and their other friend Jennifer McCabe, who had also been searching with them for John that morning, did chest compressions. And they waited for first responders to arrive. Carrie claimed that during these chaotic moments, Karen turned to her and asked Carrie if she thought that Karen may have hit him. And that really stuck with Carrie. After that, the prosecution called John's mother to the stand. Margaret Peggy o'. Keefe. And this was a new development because Peggy did not testify during the first trial. During her direct examination, Peggy spoke about how she had already lost her daughter who had died. And then she lost her son in law because his death just followed a few months later. And now on top of all of that, she's also lost John, which is just unimaginably horrible. The most interesting part of this testimony that Peggy gives is that she talks a little bit about one of these interviews that Karen did in the time between trials. This interview that Karen gave to 2020. And during this interview, Karen said, quote, I was presuming they saw my cracked taillight and thinking, did you hit my son? I could sense from her that she was looking at me warily. I think John's mother thinks I did something to John. Later in that interview, Karen said that she heard Peggy say in the hospital, john looks like he was hit by a car. But on the stand, Peggy denies all of that. She said that she never said anything like that. And Karen definitely did not hear that come from her. So prosecutor Hank Brennan said that these comments from Karen proved that she knew what she had done and she was dealing with a guilty conscience right after John's death. That kind of takes us out of day two.

B (15:18)

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A (16:27)

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A (17:44)

Then we go to day three. So let's talk about when Massachusetts State Police trooper named Nicholas Guarino gets called to the stand. He was there to read some of these texts. We're going to get into a lot of the texts that were exchanged leading up to John's death, but these are specifically texts that were exchanged between John and Karen the night before his death on January 28, Karen sent a text that read, quote, tell me if you're interested in someone else. Can't think of any other reason you've been like this. And we talked about it in the first episode, but there were a lot of questions about fidelity between John and Karen and that John had maybe been seen kissing someone when they went to Aruba in December. And Cameron was upset about that, but, like, he probably wasn't actually kissing that person. And Karen was also at the same time texting one of John's friends. It was like a very messy time in their relationship.

B (18:34)

Yeah, a lot of jealousy, maybe insecurity. There's a lot you can garner from these text messages, but either way, they don't seem very great.

A (18:41)

Exactly. So it sounds like the night before his death on January 28, Karen was still bringing up the questions about fidelity. And John sends a text back that says, quote, nope, things haven't been great between us for a while. Ever. Consider that pretty kurt. And then he also added, quote, sick of always arguing and fighting. It's been weekly for several months now. So, yeah, I'm not as quick to jump back into being lovey dovey as you, apparently. And I made a note here, but in some of these texts that get talked about throughout the trial, Karen's also making notes to friends and a little bit to John about how she didn't love kind of playing guardian to John's niece and nephew that he had kind of stepped in to take care of after his sister died. So, I mean, take that for what you will, but that was, like, part of it too. Guarino said that after those texts that were exchanged the night before, that's when Karen started calling John. But he was ignoring these calls. And he later texted Karen, quote, omg, two exclamation points. Stop calling. I'm not answering two exclamation points. Stop calling. The prosecution also played Clips from the documentary that Karen did with HBO Max, where she admitted that she had been drinking a lot that night and should not have gotten behind the wheel, which is like, very important because she just pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence.

B (20:00)

Yeah.

A (20:00)

And she's literally on record talking about driving under the influence.

B (20:03)

And we had her blood alcohol level and we had. That morning.

A (20:06)

Yes.

B (20:07)

We talk about that in part one.

A (20:08)

Yes.

B (20:09)

However, the day goes on, and there's one witness that the defense really benefits from this day. A friend of John's named Michael Kimmerno. From his point of view, Karen and John had seemed to make up after all those texts because he didn't notice any sort of bad blood between Karen and John that night at the bar. CF McCarthy's. He said there was no bickering, no tension, that they actually seemed really affectionate towards each other on that night out. He said there was no indication John or Karen were looking to end the relationship at that time, suggesting maybe the fight wasn't that serious at all. But I will say, like, you watched the video and you kind of see, like, they seem to be good.

A (20:50)

They're kind of hanging on each other.

B (20:51)

They're hanging on each other. You guys will maybe insert the clip here and you can tell us what you think of it. But we've all had friends that have been in not great relationships as well, voluptuous relationships. And sometimes they get it together when they go out. So we gotta take all we hear today with a grain of salt.

A (21:06)

Absolutely. And so let's talk about day four. I always find it interesting when trials do this, but on day four, the jury actually takes a bus trip to the actual scene of the crime. They go to the front yard of the Alberts, now former home, 34 Fairview Road. And I say former because they sold the property a year after John's death. And that day, jurors were told by Brennan to note the layout of the front yard. They were supposed to look at where the flagpole was near where John's body was found. They wanted to look at the concrete on the street, where the driveway was, just kind of how far everything was from where the house was. And I've heard from people who have actually visited the site because a lot of people have gone and visited the home just to look at the dimensions of everything that actually, when you see photos of the Alberts house online, it's most likely been taken with a wide angle lens. It's actually a lot smaller when you see it in person.

B (22:03)

Super interesting.

A (22:04)

The front lawn isn't as deep and the flagpole isn't as far from the driveway as it looks in all of the photos. So it's just interesting, like the jury actually went and got to see that for themselves. They also had the jury look at Karen's Lexus suv and it was parked at the time out front near the flagpole where the jurors were supposed to take note of the height of the bumper. So where the rear broken taillight was the top of the hatchback. Because remember, they're also trying to judge where on John's body the car would have hit him. So they're just like making notes of all of this. And back in the courtroom later that day, jurors would also go on to hear testimony from Dr. Gary Fowler, who said that Karen's blood alcohol test measured at 0.093, which we talked about in the first episode. There was a couple conflicting reports, but this guy said that it was definitely at 0.093 and that is over the legal limit of 0.08. And that was taken the next morning around 9am, which was hours after she stopped drinking.

B (23:01)

Quite a few hours.

A (23:03)

Things started to heat up a little bit more on day five, and that's April 28th of this year. And that's when the jury spent half of the day listening to testimony about John's cell phone data, during which this digital forensic examiner with a company called Cell Bright, this guy was named Ian Whiffin and he testified for the prosecution. He says that in his expert opinion, it appeared as though John's phone never moved from the flagpole in front of the Alberts home where he was found. This really throws a wrench in what was presented by the defense on the first day of trial where experts were saying that John's phone showed him climbing stairs around 12:22am during this trial, Ian Whiffin says that it was more likely that John was still in Karen's car at the time, not climbing stairs. I mean, we talked about it. They've said, I've seen that moving the phone around can make it look like you're climbing stairs. Not really clear exactly why being in the car made it look like he was climbing stairs, but that's what this expert is saying. And Whiffin also had an explanation for what was our clue number seven last week, the Google searches that Jennifer McCabe made and the infamous Hoss long to die in cold, which was supposed to be how long to die in cold. During the previous trial, the defense argued that this search was made at 2.27am, which would have been the time that Jennifer was inside the party, kind of suggesting that something happened. And she was now Googling how long it would take for someone to die in the cold. But within really maintained. Again, he says in his professional experience, that was probably when the search tab was opened to look for that sports team that she was also Googling at the time. Remember, she made like three Google searches. It was some youth sports league. How long to die in cold? And then it's raining men by the rain. And men weather girls like very strange searches. So he's saying that it was just the tab that was open at 2:27am and that the tab was left open. And then at 6.23am, which was after John's body was found. That's when the search was performed for has long to die in cold. And that was made in the same tab, which is why it probably registered at the 2:27am timestamp. Wiffen also said that John's phone was last unlocked by him at 12:32am he also talked about the temperature of the phone. And this was pretty interesting. We were looking into this.

B (25:34)

Yeah.

A (25:34)

But the temperature of the phone after midnight was around 80 degrees. And then it dropped to 55 degrees after 1am and then at 6:14 in the morning, the next morning when it was found under John's body, it registered at 37 degrees.

B (25:51)

And I will say some sources do note that it actually stayed around 50, 55 degrees for an extended period. And then like right as his body was being found, that's when it dropped.

A (26:03)

Right.

B (26:03)

That's like one source that I've seen, which is interesting.

A (26:06)

Yeah, I've seen people talking online about how, because you mentioned the basement, like it could have gotten to 55 degrees in the basement. Basement seems to be cold. He went out in the garage, put it down. There was no heat in the garage. That's when it started cooling down to 55 degrees. And then it didn't drop to 37 degrees until he was outside.

B (26:22)

We even looked up the temperature that night and given the blizzard conditions and the wind chill, it was around 25 degrees. It was pretty cold. So the phone only got to 37 and it was around 25 outside that night. So it's interesting, interesting data.

A (26:37)

And this, they say, tracks with the prosecution's timeline of when John's body was found laying outside in the snow. They said basically like the temperatures all track with him being hit at 1232 ish and then laying outside all night. They don't say anything about the 55 degrees being for an extended period of time. He later admitted when he was cross examined that the phone might have gone into the house at one point due to the Apple health data and the temperature. But he did say that was very unlikely but he didn't say it was impossible, which is important. So I'm gonna talk about day six, seven and eight kind of as like one thing here because for those three days both the prosecution and the defense spoke to one of the most important witnesses in this entire second trial and that is Jennifer McCabe. As a refresher. Jen is the sister of Nicole Albert who co owned the home where John died. She also was friendly with Karen Reed. She was one of the two people who went with Karen to find John the next morning. And here's what she says on the stand about the night of John's death. She said sometime after midnight on January 29, she remembered looking out of the window and seeing a black SUV outside. When she looked again just a few minutes later, it was gone. And neither Karen nor John had ever stepped foot into the Alberts home. She said that there was never any fighting or disagreements at the party and she and her husband and two other partygoers left sometime around 1:30 or 1:45am she didn't remember the exact time but she said it was plain and simple as that. There was like nothing remarkable about that night.

B (28:14)

However, on day seven, Jen returned to the stand this time to be cross examined by Alan Jackson, again Karen's attorney. He asked Jen about her family connections to other witnesses and whether or not she and Carrie Roberts who was with them when they found John that morning, ever spoke to corroborate their stories. Jen denied it. When asked if she or anyone else heard any screams or a collision outside of the party that night, Jen said no again. And she said she didn't see John's body lying in the snow when she left the house about an hour later.

A (28:46)

And we talked about this too. It was a crazy snowstorm that night but it wasn't necessarily that crazy. When the party ended it had started snowing but it wasn't these whiteout conditions that would kind of pick up the next morning. So the idea that you didn't see anything when you were leaving the house, some people just really don't buy that.

B (29:04)

Yeah, I think from what I saw there was a, about 4 inches of snow around the time she was leaving.

A (29:12)

Which I mean that is a lot of snow.

B (29:13)

It's a decent amount of snow. I think it's interesting that, like, she was looking out the window, noted the car was there, kind of had a reference. Okay, car. She looks back out the window, okay, the car's gone. But like then doesn't see anything else. Which would have been shortly after John's.

A (29:27)

Body would have been right where the car was if that was the case, if he had been hit by that car. So you think she would have seen.

B (29:33)

His body there kind of seemingly already tuned into that location, Right? Yeah. But then again, leaves around, you know, 1:45, she says, and then the Google search potentially, if it did happen, was a little while after that. So it's an interesting timeline we're getting from both sides so far. And Jen also insists that she heard Karen say at the scene of the crime that morning, again, quote, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him. Jackson continued to cross examine Jen in a day eight where he brought up one very interesting point. Why, when Jen found John o' Keefe dead in her sister's yard, did she not go inside her sister's house to wake her up and tell her? And again, Jen's sister married to a police officer, seemingly maybe a good person to have respond on a scene like this.

A (30:22)

Does your brother live in la?

B (30:24)

My brother lives in Minnesota.

A (30:25)

Oh, he does live in Minnesota, Yeah. Okay.

B (30:27)

But if I was in the situation.

A (30:29)

Yeah, if you were going. If you went to your brother's house and there was a person dead in his yard, is there any part of you that wouldn't think to call him and let him know I'd be banging.

B (30:42)

On the door to like, hey, get outside, help us. Grab blankets, let's warm them up.

A (30:45)

Like, yeah, you're there with your friends, they're screaming, the EMTs are coming. And Jen, when she was on the stand too, said, I didn't think to call.

B (30:51)

Yeah, really, it would be my first thought. I'm curious if it would be a lot of you guys out there listening, like, if it would be your first thought.

A (30:59)

I agree. This is one that I really pause at every time I read it. And I'm curious for everyone listening what the moments where you guys pause are like. What are the clues that come forward where you're like, there's no way to explain this away, but this one always sticks.

B (31:11)

It sticks with me. I literally just got chills as we're talking about it. But Jen just says it was the shock, it was the confusion, and her only priority in that moment was getting John help. Again, like, okay, you have someone right inside. But besides the point, this is what Jen says. Police officer inside Jackson also pointed out some group texts that were shared between Jen, her husband, one of her other sisters and her husband. Texts that suggested they were trying to do some damage control. Things get a little messy here, guys. One of these texts read, quote, carrie is talking to the cops and kept it simple. And this was coming the night after John was found in the snow. Jen's sister then messaged back, quote, we'll get more info, Tom. T O M M Don't want to text about it. End quotes. Jackson also referenced some texts from a chat Jen had with her husband and Brian and Julie Albert on February 1st. Text sent from Brian that said, quote, Julie said Channel four is in deep, end quote. And this is referring to a sandwich shop that was actually owned by Chris Albert. Jen's husband then responded in the chat, quote, eating, I assume, ask Chris to ask some questions, tell them the guy never went into the house, end quote.

A (32:31)

So, yeah, just to break it down, Chris Albert is Brian Albert's brother. So I. When Channel 4 is in DE, they're probably referring to, like, the news is inside of his sandwich shop.

B (32:39)

Yeah.

A (32:39)

They're literally texting each other to tell them the guy never went into the house.

B (32:43)

Trying to get seemingly a story straight.

A (32:46)

Yes. Trying to tell the news directly. Yeah.

B (32:49)

So when Jackson asked Jen on the stand who the guy was that her husband was referring to in these messages.

A (32:56)

That's so cold and callous, too, just to call him the guy.

B (32:59)

The guy. Someone you're supposedly friends with.

A (33:02)

They were all friends. Yeah.

B (33:03)

Invited to your house. Jen admitted on the stand it was John.

A (33:09)

On day nine, the now retired Canton Police Lieutenant Paul Gallagher took the stand. He was at the scene collecting evidence that morning. Fun fact, he was actually one of the guys using a leaf blower to melt the snow where Jon's body was there. He said they found pink spots on the snow that led to dark red blood evidence near the flag pole in the yard, about 8 to 10ft away from the road. So, good thing he just leaf blew the out of it and all of that evidence went away. He also mentioned that he found a broken cocktail glass buried in the snow, which John and Karen were seen leaving the bar that night. On security footage, John did have this cocktail glass in his hand as he was leaving the waterfall. Afterwards, a woman named Sarah Levinson was called to the stand by the prosecution. She was also at the Alberts that night attending a birthday party, which was happening for Brian Albert's son, Brian Albert Jr. She and her friend Julie Nagel both got to this house at around 7pm on January 28th. That is way before anyone else arrived. But later, Jen McCabe and her husband gave Julie and Sarah a ride home. And this is when Sarah also corroborates that 1:30am timestamp that Jen said that she left the house at. Sarah also said she never saw John o' Keefe in the front yard as they were leaving to get in the car. And here's where things start getting a little interesting.

B (34:34)

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A (37:02)

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A (37:35)

Julie's brother Ryan also stopped by the house that night and he testified that he saw a woman driving a black SUV arrive at the house. We've already gone over like that is the car that Karen drove. And his then girlfriend, this woman named Heather Maxson went on to testify that she saw a man sitting in the passenger seat when the car first arrived. But when the couple went to leave the house just a few minutes later, only the woman was inside the car, just sitting in there with the dome light on. However, they did not know where the man went. They didn't see him leave the car. They didn't see where he went. They didn't see him enter the home either, though. That kind of brings us to day 10. So that's when Massachusetts State Police Trooper Nicholas Guarino is back on the stand and he has more cell phone data. This time he found that Karen had called John cell more than 50 times on January 29, starting after the time that she left the house. She also left him a ton of voicemails. We go over some of those voicemails last week. That's our clue four.

B (38:35)

Yeah, they're pretty graphic voicemails.

A (38:36)

Yeah, there's one at 12:37am that says, quote, john, I effing hate you. Yeah, it's one in the morning. I'm with your effing niece and nephew, you effing pervert. You're an effing pervert. She does call him a pervert twice. She's very mad in these calls. And I mentioned this last week, but typically, you know, we've seen in a couple cases where someone will pass away and another person calls them a lot, usually if they're trying to establish an alibi. It's like one phone call and the message is very weird. It's so rare to call someone 50 times if you know that they're dead.

B (39:10)

50 is a lot.

A (39:11)

It's a lot. And she's really screaming at him like, where did you go? And we know that she's really drunk. I don't think she's playing like chess in her head, trying to, like, master plan this whole cover up after she knows that she hit him. But the voicemails continued right up until the moment Karen found John's body in the yard.

B (39:28)

Yeah, and these voicemails actually continued as Karen hopped out of the car to go to John. Because there's a lot of conspiracy theories around these voicemails. One of them recorded Jen McCabe on another phone call talking to someone. So these voicemails were continuing up until the point of finding him.

A (39:49)

The prosecution also spoke to the team commander for the State Police Special Emergency Response Team, this guy named Lieutenant Kevin o'. Hara. And he told the jury that he did in fact find six taillight fragments in the snow that day, as well as John's sneaker, which was up against the curb outside the home. And those were found not the morning that John's body was found, but those were found starting at like 5pm that following evening. Just as a reminder to everyone.

B (40:16)

Okay, so let's jump ahead to day 12. Now, this is May 8, 2025, where one very pressing issue finally kind of rose to the surface. And it went by the name of Michael Proctor. Proctor, again, was that lead investigator who was fired for misconduct regarding John o' Keefe's case. A lot of it had to do with all this derogatory and defamatory texts that he was sending to people both in and out of the precinct regarding Karen Reed. If you want to get into those messages, it's on our part one. But, I mean, he was calling Karen a whack job.

A (40:50)

Yes.

B (40:51)

Essentially hoping she killed herself.

A (40:54)

Yeah, he was like trying to find nudes on her phone and texting his Group chat about it. Just really horrible behavior coming from an officer.

B (41:02)

Very, very unprofessional. And there were a lot of messages between him and other people involved in this group. They were talking about their regular lives, like, hey, send me pictures from the ski trip. And then also like, hey, how was it interviewing Julie? She was really nervous. There was a lot happening here. And again, these people are so intertwined and connected, all the lines were blurring. So that afternoon, Alan Jackson cross examined State Police Sgt. Yuri Buchanak, who worked closely with Proctor. And when asked if Proctor had tainted the investigation, Buchenik said, quote, no, the investigation was done with honor and integrity by Michael Proctor. And all the evidence pointed to one direction and one direction only.

A (41:45)

Honor and integrity. You really said that on the stand after they read through all those texts?

B (41:50)

Yeah.

A (41:50)

Get real. Yeah.

B (41:53)

And that is when Alan Jackson asked Buchanik to read some of the texts that Proctor had sent before his dismissal.

A (41:59)

Yeah. Show us the honor and integrity in these texts, sir.

B (42:02)

Putting him on the spot there in another text. We haven't. I don't know if we talked about this one, but Proctor even used the R slur to refer to Karen.

A (42:10)

Yeah, he was using the C word. Like just all words that we. No one ever should be using. But yeah, he was just an officer referring to Karen as all these like, slurs.

B (42:19)

Honor and integrity.

A (42:20)

Yeah.

B (42:21)

And this is a personal hot take of mine for the day. I feel like I am entitled to one every episode. Evidence pointed to one direction, one direction only. You never looked any other direction. The house was never thoroughly investigated to make sure. Hey, no, nothing from John in the house.

A (42:37)

Like, okay, you didn't swab the wounds for the DNA.

B (42:40)

You didn't swab the wounds. Okay. Besides the point, all of this still left the jury wondering, could we trust any part of this investigation that was done under Michael Proctor? Clearly there's this bias. And Alan Jackson, you know, kind of from the get go in his opening statement, made a point to give the jury, like, put the goggles on and look at it through the bias of like, Proctor was going in with a bias. And it's convoluted because of that. And so now the jury is really spinning.

A (43:13)

Absolutely. And I will say Buchanik does bring up something on the stand that people did mention. Was a good point. He talks about how when he and Proctor went to go interview Karen at her parents house the afternoon of John's death, she said that she dropped him off at 34 Fairview, but she did not see him go inside. Of the house. However, he does bring up that Karen later changed her story and said that she did see John walk into the house that night and not come back out. So that is one little piece that he drops that is like, well, she's changing her story, so what can we really believe?

B (43:47)

Yeah, and I. I know we've talked about it quite a bit. You know, the alcohol level, I mean.093 in the morning, hours after the drink. I mean, story is changing. And so Buchanik was actually back on the stand on Friday, May 9, for day 13 of the trial, once again, face to face with Alan Jackson. And this time, Jackson questioned him about the very strange way the crime scene was handled that day. He wanted to know why Buchanik didn't document the exact location of those six taillight fragments or the 14 pieces of glass and plastic they collected from the scene. He also wanted to know why evidence bag labels weren't filled out until later, potentially using secondhand information. And we can't forget about those red solo cups that were used to gather said evidence. Leaf blower used to find said evidence. And things got pretty heated during this exchange between Buchenik and Jackson. And that's when our case takes another sharp turn, because Jackson asked Buchanik to read aloud some more texts. More texts, not between Karen and John, not from Michael Proctor, but this time from Karen to ATF agent Brian Higgins, who was friends with John O'. Keefe. As we've mentioned in episode one, Karen and Brian had been texting since around January 12, 2022, a couple of weeks before John died. Over the next couple of weeks, Karen and Brian sent flirty messages complimenting each other, making plans to go out, and talked about a possible kiss they had. But on the night before John's death, Karen kind of stopped replying to Brian, kind of ghosting him, like, after the drink, maybe lost interest.

A (45:37)

What's interesting about these texts is they were actually brought up in the first trial on behalf of. Of the prosecution because they thought that these texts would make Karen look bad. Like, oh, look at Karen was trying to cheat on John or was cheating on John, and she had these furry texts with someone else. But they're brought up in this trial on behalf of the defense because they actually make Brian Higgins look worse. Like he got jealous, she ghosted him, and maybe he did something to John in the house. So it's interesting just how the strategy was flipped.

B (46:05)

Yeah, and in the first trial, they do talk to a lot of these, you know, people in this group about injuries. They had on their hands. Some of them said, I, oh, I fell on ice. And that's why my knuckles were, were bruised like that. So they were really sowing the seeds of doubt with those testimonies and these text messages in this new way. And Brian Higgins was one of the people at the Albert's house that night of the party. He actually Texted John at 12:20am Moments before Karen said she dropped him off, saying, quote, you coming here? Minutes later, though, John's phone stopped moving. Which was why, the defense wondered, did Brian Higgins have really strong feelings for Karen? You know, sowing those seeds of doubt? Did a heated argument ensue that night when John arrived because of it, one that might have turned deadly, whether accident or not? Well, on Monday, May 12, day 14 of the trial, guess who was back on the stand for a third day in a row? Sergeant Buchanak. But on that day, jurors were also shown surveillance footage of Karen's SUV arriving at the station as evidence. They also saw videos of Federal Agent Brian Higgins at the station in the early hours of January 29th. Remember we mentioned, I think it was around like 1:40am he actually went into the Canton Police Department to make a phone call.

A (47:24)

Yeah.

B (47:25)

Now, Higgins had no business being at the Canton Police station that morning. But during the first trial, he said he was there to help move some vehicles around due to the storm. However, that video also showed Higgins going inside the police department, staying there for about six minutes and then exiting the building with what appears to be a cell phone in his hand. They also showed surveillance videos of Karen's car after it was confiscated and kept in the station Sally Port, which is like a secure garage area at the station. And they pointed out something odd, that that footage appeared to be manipulated or inverted and blocking the damaged tail light from view.

A (48:07)

One thing they say too about that footage, right, because it was when it was sent in, it had a timestamp that wasn't inverted. So they thought that it had been inverted intentionally and then sent in that it wasn't an accident. They were trying to maybe intentionally make it look like Michael Proctor was looking at the other tail light.

B (48:24)

Exactly. And it is interesting because as someone that has quite a few different home security systems, like my house, my dad's place, like the one at my dad is a more commercial one. And the timestamp is just embedded on there. Granted, every system is different, but it is interesting that they would invert it, add the timestamp. It seems like there was definitely thought out effort there, but that's at least.

A (48:47)

What the defense is arguing for. Sure.

B (48:50)

So basically, because of all this, the inverted footage, how sus it's kind of looking. Some believe Proctor or others were able to damage Karen's taillight and get the pieces needed to then plant at the scene of the crime later. Because, as mentioned, all of those shards weren't found initially. They were found after Karen's car was in police custody.

A (49:11)

And they asked Buchanik about this, and he says that he never saw Proctor or anyone else ever touch or remove any part of that taillight, though. On days 15 and 16, attorneys moved on from Buchanan, and they learned from Massachusetts State Police criminalist Maureen Hartnett that there were scratches and a dent found on Karen's vehicle, as well as a strand of hair and a piece of glass. She was also the one who swabbed for DNA and debris that was left on John's clothing, which was later sent out for analysis on May 15, which was day 17 of the trial. Jurors also heard from the medical examiner who conducted John's autopsy, Dr. Irini Scordibello. And she said that John had a laceration on his right eyelid and on his nose. Plus, she said there was a cut and a compound injury to the back of his head, meaning the bone had broken through the skin. His upper right arm had several cuts ranging from 2 to 3 millimeters, all the way up to 7 centimeters. And there were also two bruises on the back of his left hand and a small cut or a scrape on his right knee. But she said that despite all of these injuries, there weren't any signs of a fight or some sort of altercation that may have led to John's death.

B (50:30)

However, we have cross examination, and on cross, she said that the injury to the back of John O' Keefe's head could have occurred while falling backwards. But Dr. Scordabello said John's cause of death was likely blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia, though the manner of death, again could not be determined. She was also unable to say what caused the scrapes and bruises found on John's body. But most importantly, she claimed she did not find any injuries on John that were consistent with being struck by a vehicle.

A (51:05)

May 16, 2025, was day 17 of the Karen Reed trial. And that afternoon, the prosecution shows evidence that the onboard data system in Karen's SUV indicated a, quote, trigger event at 12:31am on the night in question, which is so vague it could mean anything from a sudden acceleration to breaking changes in direction. Also caused this, but also collisions cause this. They also bring up the fact that John's phone was last manually locked at 12:32am now, those times don't necessarily square with each other. If they're saying that the trigger event was a collision that happened one minute before he closed his phone, that doesn't really make any sense. So the prosecution actually receives permission from Judge Kanoni to bring in an expert witness who says that the clock on John's phone was 21 to 29 seconds ahead and that the trigger event and the phone locking actually happened at nearly the exact same time. They also talked to this forensic scientist at the Massachusetts State Crime Lab, this guy named Andre Porto, and he spoke about DNA that was found on Karen Reed's tail light this day. Porto himself took swabs from Karen's vehicle and said that after running them through analysis, they did, in fact, match John o', Keefe, though under cross examination, he really couldn't conclusively say when the DNA was deposited there. He also talked about how they pulled hair off of Karen's suv, but the lab couldn't conclusively say that that hair belonged to John. And during the first trial, there were mentions from Nicholas Bradford, who was another forensic DNA analyst, that John's DNA was found on the broken taillight pieces found at the crime scene. Bradford then took the stand again at this trial to confirm that John's DNA was found on the taillight of Karen's vehicle, along with two other samples, but he could not say who the others belonged to.

B (53:07)

I will just say I think it's somewhat interesting that they were able to find a single strand of hair or any hair after this car got driven around in blizzard conditions. It's. It's talked about quite a bit. Yeah, that's a good point in a lot of the subreddits, but again, it's Reddit. It's not necessarily fact. So that brings us to day 18. The prosecution has Shannon Burgess testify, a data forensic analyst who specializes in digital evidence taken by vehicles. But under cross examination, he agreed that the car recording a, quote, trigger event didn't necessarily mean a collision. Kind of, as you mentioned, Kaylin, it could mean anything from sudden acceleration, braking, changes in direction. In fact, the witness Shannon, agreed there was no information in the Lexus's black box that indicated a collision happened with her car on January 29th. And I will just say, as someone that has, like, smart features in their car, my presence goes off constantly. If there's dirt on the front, if there is, like, anything in the way my car will, like, jerk me and like, I'll be driving. It'll like, register like a pre sense event. You're too close. Like these cars are not foolproof.

A (54:21)

Yeah, exactly. Did you see when Shannon was cross examined, though, by the defense?

B (54:27)

Tell me about it.

A (54:29)

Brennan goes up and asks Shannon, have you ever exaggerated your credentials for the court? And Shannon Burgess says, no. And then Hank Brennan goes, well, do you have your bachelor's degree? And this is where it kind of like starts falling apart for Shannon. He says, I'm working on it. And Brennan is like, how long have you been working on it? And his response is like, 17 years. He just never got a bachelor's degree. He says he's still in the process of getting this degree, but hasn't taken any steps in over 10 years to receive that bachelor's degree. So he's an expert witness on the stand and he's maybe not super qualified. So that was just like one thing that was brought up in court. And I know that people were kind of laughing at it when it started coming out.

B (55:17)

Yeah, it seems like you should maybe have that to be an expert.

A (55:21)

You would think, okay, exactly. There were also two DNA analysts who took the stand that same day, and they both said that a hair found on the back passenger side of the vehicle had been tested, but neither of them could conclusively rule out that it belonged to John o'. Keefe. Although, even if it was John's hair, I mean, think about it. He rode in Karen's car all the time. Who's to say that it didn't end up there days before the accident? Who knows if he was getting something out of the trunk and it wound up there. There's just like, a lot of reasons that a piece of hair could be there. So let's skip ahead to day 20, because the prosecution's case is starting to reach its climax. And there's some pretty interesting stuff that's revealed in the courtroom that afternoon. For one, a trace analyst for the Massachusetts State Police crime lab says that a plastic the size of a grain of rice was found on John's clothing. And it was a direct match, they say, with the taillight pieces from Karen's vehicle, or quote another source with the same characteristics. So that sounds like it could be a couple different things. If you're like, it was definitely Karen's car or it was another car that was similar to Karen's, could have been either. But I guess they are saying that it was a piece of plastic that was probably coming from her car also.

B (56:35)

Again, the clothes were also on the hospital floor.

A (56:38)

Just saying, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff happening with those clothes before they were tested. A neurosurgeon was also brought in that day to say that John's head injury was, quote, classic blunt trauma and was consistent with soft tissue hitting a solid ground. The surgeon said that the result of a fall like this could cause blood leakage in the skull, which is maybe what caused the black eyes. Perhaps that explained Alan Jackson's earlier statement where he said that John looked like he'd, quote, gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson.

B (57:07)

Yeah. And I will say this neurosurgeon had a lot of experience in Minneapolis, Minnesota, very familiar with ice falling head injuries. So that's why they brought him on the stand.

A (57:17)

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't read about that. On day 21, the prosecution called on an accident reconstructionist who made two pretty interesting points. One, they said that the damage on Karen's vehicle was not consistent with her backing into John's car at 5am on the morning of the 29th, even though this bump was also caught on security footage. And that the height of the taillight was actually consistent with the injuries John received on his arms, which many were considering could possibly be from dog bites from the Albert Shepherd. Chloe, this is also kind of like big information because people were saying that the taillight was around his hip height, but this guy is saying, no, the height of the taillight was actually consistent with the injuries that he got on his arm.

B (58:01)

So on day 25, Alan Jackson and his team really get to work. That afternoon. They called former Canton turned Boston police officer Kelly Dever up for questioning. And her story is pretty interesting. She says on the morning John died, she was scheduled to be on patrol, but was then reassigned to be on dispatch so other officers could respond to 34 Fairview Road. Jackson also asked her about statements she made to another officer back in August of 2023, where she claimed to see her chief of police and ATF agent Brian Higgins, the one Karen had been texting, go into the Sally Port where Karen's car was kept right after John's death. She claimed they were alone and there for a, quote, wildly, long time. So we continue on. And Dr. Marie Russell, a forensic pathologist and dog bite expert, also answered questions that day. As one of the most anticipated experts in the trial, she claimed the injuries on John's arm were consistent with a possible dog attack because they were grouped together like teeth and claws might be. And she said they did not look like injuries that would have come from Karen's suv. She also pointed to a hole in John's sweater, which she thought was caused by a dog tooth. And remember, the Albert's dog, Chloe, was rehomed just a few months after John's death. Supposedly, she was sent to live on a farm. Literally. That's what Chloe's former owner, Nicole Albert, said during Karen Reed's first trial in 2024, which that is like, literally the lie parents will tell their kids.

A (59:39)

I know that's what you tell little kids. They're living on a farm upstate.

B (59:42)

Live on a farm. And I will say that Albert's had chloe starting in 2015.

A (59:48)

What is that, seven years, bad at math?

B (59:50)

A long time to have a dog. And this Reddit sleuth, like, put together a timeline of all of Chloe's interactions, and there is one I just want to note before we get really deep into the dog of this. So, back in 2018, another resident was walking their golden doodle past 34 Fairview when Chloe actually surged out and attacked the dog. According to the vet, Chloe had wanted to kill the dog, like, take that with a grain of salt. But there is speculation from the resident that she received a message from Kevin Albert stating, how can we make this thing go away? Okay.

A (60:28)

Kevin Albert being there are so many Alberts.

B (60:32)

So many of them.

A (60:33)

The brother of Brian, the homeowner.

B (60:35)

Yeah.

A (60:35)

Who's also a cop.

B (60:36)

So didn't want to get Chloe in trouble. Didn't want any issues. But coming from my little Reddit sleuth over there. Okay, if you guys want to do a deep dive on it, link will be in the description. So Chloe goes and lives on a farm, and there's a lot of people that knew, like, Chloe, quote, wasn't good with strangers. Jen McCabe said she knew Chloe wasn't good with other dogs, too, and that's why she never brought her dog over there to play. When the Alberts were asked why they rehomed Khloe, they said that in May 2022, a few months after John's death, she attacked another dog and injured the dog's owner, which was apparently the final straw for them. They then contacted a shelter which gave them the name of the farm where they sent Chloe. And what I find really interesting in this is the dog was never examined forensically, nor did it have any DNA taken to compare to the wounds on John's arm that night. And again, I think we, you know, we mentioned it a little bit in the first case. The Wounds were never swabbed themselves.

A (61:35)

Right. We don't have DNA from those wounds.

B (61:37)

The clothing was swabbed. However, I have seen in a couple different sources the analyst that did analyze the swabs from the clothes doesn't even know how the swabs were taken. They just got sent the swabs and they analyzed it. No dog DNA, pig DNA.

A (61:53)

Right, Right.

B (61:54)

Interesting to note here again we have this whole like good evidence methods, cross contamination question mark. Like it's very unclear this chain of command here.

A (62:04)

Right. What's happening to the clothes after they're taken off John? Are they in the hospital? Are they just in the back of the ambulance? We know that there's pig DNA that was found on the clothes. There's a couple different reasons that could have been. Some people suggested it was maybe vomit, like he had eaten something with pig in it and that got on his clothes. Some other people have suggested dog treats or dog food often has pork in it, maybe that got on his clothes. But there's just so many different ways that like the clothes could have been cross contaminated. And I will say Karen's team actually filed for a mistrial over the questionable DNA surrounding the pig versus dog DNA found on his clothes. They said that this DNA was inadmissible evidence. And Judge Kanoni didn't actually go for this. She ruled that any DNA related questions could be asked and then the trial proceeded.

B (62:53)

So on May 26, the defense also called up a witness that we talked about in part one, a former patrol officer named Nicholas Barrows who helped serve the search warrant at Karen Reed's parents home the day John died. He said when he examined Karen's car there, there was a dollar sized fragment missing from the taillight. But when he was shown a photo from the defense of what that tail light looked like later in the Sally Port in police custody, Barrow said the damage was way worse than what he saw at Karen's parents house that day. However, he claimed he did not see any other officers tampering with her vehicle.

A (63:30)

I just want to talk about this piece for a little bit because that is huge.

B (63:34)

Yeah. How did it get more destroyed?

A (63:36)

Yes, we have someone who was an eyewitness to this taillight saying exactly what he saw when he asked for the car to be impounded. And then when he saw it later, it was way worse. So something happened to the tail light.

B (63:50)

Something. I'm also confused why they wouldn't take pictures before loading it onto a tow truck. Just initial external internal photos briefly. Tow trucks can get in accidents what if it fell off the tow truck? I don't know. Why were there not pictures upon initial confiscation of this vehicle?

A (64:09)

Yeah. What reasons would they not have wanted? Any photographic evidence of what the taillight looked like.

B (64:15)

It's confusing. This whole case is confusing. But, like, what were we thinking? Well, day 27 comes around, and this is kind of where one of my favorite witnesses takes the stand. Someone who has no connection to Karen Reed. Or finally, someone who doesn't have a connection to anyone at the party or police department. A snowplow driver named Brian Lucky Loughran.

A (64:41)

He's back.

B (64:41)

He's back. Lucky's back. We mentioned him briefly in part one, but let's dig a little deeper. Lucky's shift started at 2:30am on the morning of January 29, and his route included Fairview Road. His first pass by the house was between 2:40 and 2:45. And he claims he didn't see a body on the lawn when he drove by. He was back an hour later around 3:30am still no body. But this time he saw a Ford Edge SUV parked near the flagpole. Now, unclear if this is true or not, but according to one Reddit theory, a few members of the Albert family owned a Ford Edge. And I will say this is also like a very common police car. If you've ever been driving, you're going a little too fast and you see a Ford Edge behind you, your heart flutters a little bit.

A (65:34)

I'm looking up a Ford Edge. I don't think I know what it looks like off the top of my head, but.

B (65:37)

Oh, you will once you see a Google picture.

A (65:39)

Yeah. Okay.

B (65:40)

You get a little nervous as you see those.

A (65:42)

Yeah. If that pulled up behind me.

B (65:44)

Cop.

A (65:45)

But what would it be doing outside of the house by the flagpole at 3.30am? 3:30 in the morning.

B (65:52)

Yeah. And it doesn't sound like Lucky's route was too extensive, given he did, you know, the loop, and he's back an hour later.

A (65:59)

Interesting. And you were saying too, like we, we talked about in the first episode, that there's some visibility issues with some of the snowplows.

B (66:07)

Yes.

A (66:07)

But this one specifically had very good visibility.

B (66:09)

Yeah. So that was kind of called into question. Like typical snowplows, you can't really see out that far into the surroundings. Like, you can drive it, obviously, but a lot of people were like, how would you see a body in the snow? It's visibility not great up there. Lucky says his snowplow was kind of Frankensteined, so he had an elevated seat and could clearly see.

A (66:31)

I imagine too, as a snowplow driver, you're trying to see the things that are near the curb because you don't want to hit things. There's a lot of debris, trash cans, mailboxes, stuff like that that you're trying to not hit with your vehicle. So I would imagine he was scanning the curb as he was doing it.

B (66:48)

My snowplow drivers at my place in Hermitage, Minnesota, do not have an elevated seat because my mailbox gets taken out.

A (66:53)

Every year, destroyed every time.

B (66:55)

Mail everywhere. And I ordered something from ebay. It was like a piece of jewelry I was shoveling for hours trying to find it.

A (67:02)

Oh my gosh.

B (67:03)

So besides the point here, I digress. Let's start to dive into a little bit more on the Alberts and the rest of the partygoers that night. I want to circle back to something that happened during Karen's first trial. The mention of butt dials. Because there was not one, but three people from the party that night who seemed to use this term or something adjacent, something similar when describing mysterious phone calls. Let's start with the homeowner, Brian Albert, who again only testified during Karen's first trial, not the retrial. A strategic decision by the prosecution. And you're about to see why. At 2:22am after the party, Brian Albert called his buddy Brian Higgins again. The one who was texting Karen. Only Brian Albert told the jury that was an accident. He was getting down with his wife and must have butt dialed Higgins in the process.

A (68:02)

I still can't believe he said that.

B (68:04)

I wish everyone could hear your.

A (68:06)

Where is your phone located?

B (68:08)

This is why you need to watch on YouTube. Yeah. Where is your phone right as you're getting down?

A (68:15)

First we place the phone in the bed and then we get on top of the phone.

B (68:21)

What's interesting is 17 seconds after that, Higgins called Albert back. Except Higgins said that wasn't intentional either. I must have butt dialed him back. Mm. The data, though, says that the call did connect. So I don't know you, but you're both butt dialing back and forth. It's getting answered.

A (68:46)

I butt answered.

B (68:47)

Connecting. I. I don't know. It seems hard to believe.

A (68:51)

No, I totally agree.

B (68:53)

But then you have Jen McCabe, Brian Albert's sister in law, who was at the party and was there when John was found. She admitted that around 12:15am she called John O' Keefe twice. He answered both times and they spoke for less than a minute each time. But then around 12:30am she called him Again and again and again and again for a total of seven times in 19 minutes. She says they were all butt dials.

A (69:24)

That's. I get. I don't know it. I don't buy any of these butt dials.

B (69:29)

I feel like, you know, a lot of people don't have passwords on their phones, but I feel like your ass can't keep calling the same person seven times.

A (69:40)

No.

B (69:40)

Even, like, my phone. I do have a password on my phone. So if I lock it, like, you can't call people. And if you hit the wrong button so many times, it goes into, like, an emergency lockout mode.

A (69:49)

Right, right. If you're continually calling someone like that.

B (69:52)

Yeah. Like, trying to press buttons and get.

A (69:54)

It, like, especially if she was calling him, she's like, oh, these. These calls that I made 10 minutes prior were intentional, but then the ones I made after the time that it was basically potentially confirmed he was dead. All of those were butt dials.

B (70:07)

Yeah. And the thing about all of these calls, though, as if they're not strange enough, none of these phone calls ever went to voicemail, which means that she must have hung it up before. Otherwise there would be voicemails of, I don't know, pocket ass sounds.

A (70:26)

Yeah. People talking in the background of the party. Yeah.

B (70:28)

So she hung up. Seems strange. But let me ask you something else. If you were wondering where John and Karen were and why they hadn't made it to the party yet, why wouldn't you testify to that? Some theories I've heard were that John might have lost his phone somewhere in the house that night, maybe after an altercation of some sort, and Jen was calling it to look for it so that they could then plant it back with John. But there's more. On day 28, the defense brings their own accident reconstructionist to the stand, who pretty much disputes everything the prosecution's expert said. War of the experts as we were familiar with now, because after running their own analysis with the same make and model that Karen had, they found the damage was not consistent with Karen backing into John. They claimed the taillight fragments in their reconstruction at the speed Karen's car was allegedly moving did not cause any tears to the crash dummy's clothing. And remember, John had a pierce in his sleeve. But. Okay, we're going to skip ahead a little bit to day 30 where this debate continues, because that day, the defense also happens to call their final witness, a biomechanist with that same accident reconstruction firm. When asked if, in their opinion, John's injury to the back of the Head and his arm was consistent with a vehicle strike. He said no. Another doctor named Elizabeth La Posada was called to the standard. In her opinion, John hit his head on an uneven surface, not the ground. So what ripped John's shirt then? And where did he get hit in the head, if not the ground, after falling backwards from getting hit by a car?

A (72:11)

That brings us to day 31. The defense finally rests its case on this day. By that point, the jury had heard from almost 50 witnesses, and there were over 200 pieces of evidence for them to take into consideration. That is information overload.

B (72:29)

It's a lot.

A (72:30)

On Friday, June 13, each side was given an hour and 15 minutes to make their closing arguments. And that same day, at around 2:40pm the jurors began their deliberations. And finally, on Wednesday, June 18, that's five days later, they returned with a verdict. And Karen Reed was found not guilty of second degree murder, not guilty of manslaughter while operating under the influence, not guilty of leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death. But she was found guilty of operating under the influence and given one year probation for that conviction, which I think everyone can pretty much agree. She definitely was driving drunk.

B (73:09)

Yeah.

A (73:09)

And that means the case against Karen Reed had finally come to an end.

B (73:15)

If you've gotten to this point in the episode and you're more confused than ever, raise your hand.

A (73:24)

I mean, it seems like the jury was too. Like, if you're given that so many witnesses, so many experts that are saying opposing things to each other, how can you look at all of that and say, I know exactly what happened? And that's the. That's what we do in our legal system here. It's reasonable doubt. If you have any seed of doubt, you're supposed to say not guilty. I've been given that speech by a judge when I was doing my jury selection process.

B (73:53)

Did they pick you?

A (73:54)

They did not. No, they. They didn't pick me for very specific reasons. But one thing I will say about that is this happened twice, where I went in and had to do all the interviews to be on a jury and stuff. They ask a lot of questions, at least in my experience. Maybe because this was 2020 was the first time that I got called for jury duty. But they asked the jurors a lot of questions about cops. And I remember some people specifically saying, I don't think police are capable of lying. And the judge is like, well, humans can lie. Do you agree? And they would say, yes. And they say, well, police are human. So you think police can lie and they would go, no, I don't think a police officer could lie. And then you also have other people that are like, I don't think police are capable of telling the truth. And so they were trying to weed out people who had these really extreme beliefs about certain demographics and police and stuff. But you still will get people on jury sometimes that are like, regardless of any evidence I'm shown, I believe that police are always telling the truth and therefore I believe Karen's guilty. But this jury decided that they just didn't have enough evidence, which is so wild.

B (74:54)

I mean, I understand it. There's a lot of reasonable doubt here. I honestly don't know where I stand. And the Internet is all over this one. I mean Reddit is all over this one TikTok. Everyone is cranking out alternate theories about every little detail. I mean you have everything from like the socks, which we didn't really talk about in this part, but like John's socks were potentially on the wrong feet. Socks were noted in the autopsy, not in evidence. His shoes had DNA that was not just his. There were two other unknown DNA sources in his shoes. The plastic shards from the tail lights, no blood on the shards found in the yard after the leaf blower blew it around.

A (75:39)

And multiple people saying it did not look like he was hit by a car.

B (75:42)

Like multiple people, multiple people. No fractures in an arm. When you're hit by a car that fast, it is confusing. And I think as you said, when you have all of these pieces of evidence, but you have seemingly should be credible people telling you they mean very different vastly things, how can you conclude someone's guilty based on that? It's confusing. And where we've landed today, I mean the Internet is like this was a full blown murder. And cover up to this was just a plain old accident. There's some people that claim John was maybe hit by a snowplow, but I have a hard time imagining if we can't even conclude he was hit by a car getting hit by a snowplow, the injuries would be much worse.

A (76:27)

Wouldn't it be crazy if at the end of all this it was just that one snowplow driver, lucky that did it? Lucky?

B (76:32)

No, lucky.

A (76:33)

Not lucky for sure, wasn't. But that would be wild.

B (76:36)

Others have suggested that John died by accident in the house and then someone at the party tried to make it look like he was in an accident. Some people have pointed to the fact that John was just as drunk as Karen and could have just slipped and fallen before Making it into the house, into the party that night. There's so many other variations of this story where Jon got into a fight. Either Brian Higgins, one of the Alberts, like someone else there. Some think the fight happened inside the house and then he was carried out. I even read something about John being placed into the Ford edge and driven down to the flagpole, where he was left later in the night. Which would explain what lucky the snowplow drivers saw.

A (77:15)

And it would explain. I mean. Cause if it really was that level of COVID up, if they were like, we want to make it look like a snowplow accident, because that's a really easy thing we can get away with tonight. You're not going to drag him through the snow because in your mind you're maybe like, well, they're going to see all the drag marks.

B (77:30)

Yeah.

A (77:31)

So we'll put him in the car and we'll drive him around, and then we'll just dump him near the curb where it will look like he was hit by a snowplow.

B (77:37)

Yeah. I mean, there's so many theories. Like, since this has all happened, there has been cooperation with the new homeowners at 34 Fairview, working with Karen Reed's defense team. They have allowed them to take carpet from the basement. It was not allowed in this trial. It was ruled by the judge. Doesn't matter. Not relevant. There's pictures from a garage where there's red paint thrown all over. People are speculating it's used to hide blood or, you know, take away the ability of luminol to work. There's theories that they went out of the basement out of a storm cellar hatch, and that's how they got him into the flagpole. There are so many rabbit holes and there's so many videos you can watch. If you want to watch Karen's lawyer, Jackson, go in the front yard of the house and scream and make noise to see if someone in the bedroom can hear. You can find this on YouTube. You guys, this is a wormhole in my brain. Like, I truly don't know where I stand on it.

A (78:38)

I don't know exactly what happened, but I think that's the point is there's too much going on in this case to say definitively. I think this is what happened. There's too much. There is too much reasonable doubt. And you just can't convict someone when there's that much reasonable doubt.

B (78:54)

Yeah. And I mean, just so many other issues with this case as far as potential collaboration of stories and convoluted investigation. I Mean, one of the main people at this, Brian Albert, a Boston police officer, is well connected with all this law enforcement investigating officers were friends with people at the party that night. Again, there's so much wrong with the investigation. Personally, I would have loved to have seen them at least go into 34 Fairview and swab stuff and collect some evidence and just rule it out. I think for me, when I look at cases that get a conviction and leave you without any doubt, it's because the investigators go and check off all these other boxes and then really zero in on their suspect, not the reverse. And they kind of missed this big opportunity to not thoroughly investigate and then get justice for John or figure out what really happened here.

A (79:54)

Well, I think that's like, the big thing in this whole case is the justice for John angle. Because that's one thing that we're just not really. The chances of us getting that are so low. Especially now, I imagine there's not enough to try and convict someone who was in the house that night. We're probably never gonna know what happened to him. And I feel so much for his family and those kids. I keep thinking about his little niece and nephew who already lost their parents. Now they lost their other father figure. I mean, I doubt Karen's gonna be a real figure in their lives moving forward. I don't even know if they would want her to be.

B (80:26)

I don't think so, considering the family is still actively suing her civilly. As of today's recording date, the family.

A (80:33)

Is not on Karen's side in all of this. And it sounds like all of her friends that she was part of that group. Like, they also. I mean, she accused them of killing John. So at the center of this was a real person, John o'.

B (80:44)

Keefe.

A (80:44)

He was a son, a brother, a father figure. He is the one whose voice has been missing from all of this. And while the headlines swirl and the blame continues to shift, his family is left grieving. They're confused, and they just have this absence where there should be answers. They didn't get justice. They didn't get clarity. And for them, the future is very uncertain. Are there ever going to be more clues that rise to the surface? You know, this is something. I've talked about it on heartstarts pounding, but I just don't think 10 people can keep a secret. I don't think more than two people can keep a secret. There's like, that saying that's three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

B (81:25)

Damn.

A (81:27)

And I think it's true. I think people have conscience. I think especially the more complicated the secret is to keep, the harder it is to keep. And so I think the. If anything, they agreed upon this really easy secret that was, he never came in the house. That way. We're not gonna tell each other. Okay, well, he came in and did this, and then someone else talked to him, because that's how you can't keep your story straight. But if it's all agreed upon, he never came into the house, there's a much easier secret to keep. But I don't think people can keep that till they die.

B (81:54)

You know, it's already starting to slip, right? There's rumors I've seen on Reddit that one of the Brians was at a bar, got really drunk and said, I didn't do anything. I just pulled the dog off.

A (82:06)

Wow.

B (82:07)

Rumors, though.

A (82:08)

Rumors. Those are some Reddit rumors. We're gonna get sued for libel if you keep talking about that.

B (82:11)

No, if there's any rumors you have seen, if there's anything we didn't touch on. On this case, you know.

A (82:17)

Yeah, you can drop those in the comments. Drop them in the comments. Are not gonna look at the comments.

B (82:21)

No. Allegedly. He was out of our. Allegedly.

A (82:24)

Allegedly.

B (82:25)

Allegedly. Like it's a rumor on Reddit. I didn't start it. I'm not.

A (82:29)

Yeah, you're just reporting on it. Throw away.

B (82:31)

And I said. I didn't specify which Brian even. Hmm.

A (82:35)

That's good.

B (82:35)

I'm fine. Allegedly. But let us know. I know there's a lot we didn't really go into. Even my head, I'm just like, oh, my God, Morgan, you didn't talk about this, this or this.

A (82:43)

I know there's so much going on.

B (82:45)

It's too much.

A (82:45)

But we just wanted to give an overview of the second trial, and I think with that. Do we want to talk about the missing person of the week?

B (82:51)

We do. So this case was found thanks to a comment from a viewer on YouTube. So thank you so much. Our missing person is Jonathan Wong, a 21 year old with autism, was last seen by family on March 30, 2025 at his home around 7pm as he headed to bed in Arlington, Washington. There has been a potential sighting that occurred on June 23rd in Kirkland, Washington, on Northeast 114th Lane. He was caught on security footage at more than one home. Investigators think that he may have been trying to return to his home, as his home address is 114th Drive Northeast in Arlington, Washington. Jonathan was described by his family as having the current mental age of around 8 to 9 years old. He has brown eyes, brown hair, 5 10, about 135 pounds. Last wearing a T shirt and pants and slip on shoes. Identifying characteristics if you see him he does have a mole on right inner forearm and two moles on the left side of his face. There is a Facebook page actively sharing information and any updates we'll be sure to link that and there's a hundred thousand dollar reward for information leading to his recovery with Crime Stoppers. You can call 1-800-222-8477 if you have any information or you can contact the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office or if you are local to that area in Washington call 91 1. I do also just want to note that light the way and the Gabby Petito foundation is helping. I know there's a lot of posts on the Helping us Find Jonathan Wong Facebook page and it's just, it's really heartbreaking. I mean they have the pictures posted of the security ring footage that you see him, you know, potentially wandering. So anyone in Washington, I know we have a lot of Seattle listeners, so anyone in Washington please, you know, keep a lookout and contact Crime Stoppers with any information.

A (84:47)

And that's all we have for this episode of Clues. Thanks for taking part in this two episode Deep Dive with us.

B (84:53)

Our first two episode Deep Dive.

A (84:55)

I know our first two parter. I like doing the two parters. It gives you a little bit more.

B (84:58)

Space to yeah, we really got into things.

A (85:00)

Yes. But we want to hear from you guys now. Thoughts, theories, feedback, clues that we didn't even have time to get into because there's just truly so many. Anything that made you pause in this case and really think about things. All of that is what makes this community so special.

B (85:15)

Yeah. Curious to see your links for any Reddit rumors, conspiracy theories, you know. But at Crime House we really value your support. So share your thoughts on social media and remember to to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover our show. And if you're hungry for even more content, we've got you covered. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening, join our Crime House plus community on Apple podcast. That's all we have this week. Thank you guys so much and see you in the comments.

A (85:43)

Bye guys.

B (85:43)

Bye.

A (85:50)

If you are loving Clues, check out our fellow Crime House original show Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes for the world's darkest truths.

B (85:57)

Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes now wherever you get your podcasts and for ad, free listening and early access to episodes. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts.