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- [00:01]
Kristen Thorne
This podcast is a law and crime production. It may contain harsh language and references to violence and death. Please listen with care. All right, so I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna hold this here. All right, so you live here?
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Navy Veteran
Yeah, I've done it all my life.
- [00:18]
Kristen Thorne
All right. What do you think about all this?
- [00:20]
Navy Veteran
I think it's a bunch of. I can't say, bs. I think the crops are giving a railroad. I think that. Typical. I know I used to be a police officer. A lot of my friends are police officers. And the way it was handled, the first case in that state trooper trying to falsify evidence and lie about her and stuff. I mean, right there, everything should have been just thrown out. None of this retrial stuff. They're trying to. They're trying to blame something on this lady that I don't believe she did. I believe they were on a drunken stupor, they had a fight, they killed the cop, and then they threw him behind her car or whatever. That's what I think happened.
- [00:59]
Kristen Thorne
So here we are sitting at. What's the name of the place where we are?
- [01:02]
Navy Veteran
Cafe Bagel, Denim Square.
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Kristen Thorne
Cafe Bagel, Denham Square. And you can really walk into anywhere in this town and talk to people about this. Everybody seems to have an opinion.
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Navy Veteran
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know what other people's opinions are, but the crowds I see up the courthouse and stuff, though.
- [01:19]
Kristen Thorne
How long have you been living in this town?
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Navy Veteran
I've been here 77 years.
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Kristen Thorne
Have you ever seen anything like this?
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Navy Veteran
Not this bad. No, not this. I'm a Navy veteran. I'm a dav. Navy veteran, disabled and.
- [01:32]
Kristen Thorne
But this. Thank you for your service, by the way.
- [01:33]
Navy Veteran
Thank you.
- [01:34]
Kristen Thorne
This attention, this case, they're talking about all over the world in your town that you've lived in your whole life. What do you think of this?
- [01:42]
Navy Veteran
I don't know. I don't think she should be put through all this. And I want to know why. They said. I think it was last year, they said. All of a sudden, they said, oh, the FBI or somebody investigated, and there's no wrongdoing with any of the cops or at the house drunk? No, no, no. What do you think we're going to believe that that does. That doesn't flush.
- [02:05]
Kristen Thorne
To this Navy vet inside a bagel shop in Dedham Square. The Karen Reed trial isn't about justice. It's about power, about protecting cops and scapegoating a woman who, in his words, didn't do it. If you couldn't tell he's not Exactly. Buying what the Commonwealth is selling. And he's not alone. Walk into any barbershop, coffee joint or bar in this town and bring up 34 Fairview, you'll get a theory. Maybe a few. Some angry, some unhinged, all rooted in one deep suspicion. Something doesn't add up. But inside the courtroom, none of that matters. Inside, it's about what can be proven, what can be sworn to, what holds up under oath, and what the jury believes. From law and crime. I'm Kristen Thorne, and this is Karen. The retrial. Let's get into it. First came Carrie Roberts, a longtime friend of John o', Keefe, one of the women who was first on scene when his body was found in the snow.
- [03:15]
Kerry Roberts
What you told the grand jurors was not true. You never heard her, my client, ask anyone to Google anything, did she?
- [03:25]
Kristen Thorne
I did not.
- [03:26]
Kerry Roberts
And yet that's what you testified to under oath under penalty of the forgery in front of the grand jury, didn't you?
- [03:33]
Kristen Thorne
I did.
- [03:34]
Kerry Roberts
And the reason you did that, the reason that you said that false statement was because someone told you to say it, correct?
- [03:43]
Kristen Thorne
Nobody told me to say it. Her testimony stirred familiar tensions, especially her past grand jury claim that Karen Reid told someone to Google how long it takes to die in the cold, a statement she's since walked back. Attorney Katherine Loftus gave us the gist.
- [04:02]
Katherine Loftus
The defense was able to catch Kerry Roberts in this space where I think the question is, was it a lie? Did she intentionally mean to mislead the grand jury, or did she really think this was her memory? And then when provided with evidence that it wasn't, you know, admitted. You know what? Maybe I didn't hear it myself. I thought I did, and that's what I represented. The question for me, I think then becomes, does that make everything Kerry Roberts said, said unreliable? Does it make her not a accurate narrator? I don't think the jury is actually going to get that from it. She came across largely as fairly sympathetic witness. She doesn't have anything to do with the night before. She's not out with anybody. So she's really not connected to any of these people. What the defense is trying to do with that line of question is basically plant this seed seen in the jury's head that wait for Jen McKay, because we're going to show you she's really the mastermind. She's planting these stories in Kerry Roberts here, things like that. But I don't know that it has as much effect as the online perception of how that testimony went in. I Think the jury likely saw it as, clearly, she made an error. She acknowledged it. And largely doesn't affect the substance of the remainder of her testimony.
- [05:22]
Kristen Thorne
It's a key moment in the defense's playbook, pivoting from suspect Karen Reed to suspicious Jen McCabe. They're setting up a narrative that someone else planted the story in Carrie's head. Someone else staged the scene. But as Loftus points out, what might resonate online doesn't always land in a courtroom.
- [05:44]
Katherine Loftus
What it comes down to in this case is there's so much of a difference in perspective to between the public perception of how things are landing in court and what I think is actually happening.
- [05:55]
Kristen Thorne
So, yes, Roberts admitted a misstep, a big one. She told the grand jury, Karen Reed said something she didn't, and the defense pounced. But in the end, she owned it. She walked it back. And as Katherine Loftus stated, that moment likely didn't crater her credibility. It just exposed a crack, a memory under pressure, a witness on the edge of someone else's story. And that's the thing about this case. It's not just what people say. It's whose story they're really telling. Which brings us to the most personal testimony to date. Peggy o', Keefe, John's mother. Like Roberts, she wasn't there that fateful night. She didn't see what happened. But her presence in that courtroom carried weight.
- [06:44]
Kerry Roberts
She said, john was found in a snowbank. And I. I didn't understand, which I said, what do you mean, found in a snowbank? She said, I found him in the snow. They don't know what happened. As I'm walking down, I hear Karen Reed yell, peg, is he dead? Is he dead, Peg? Peg, is he dead? They brought us down to the room where my son was. He's bruised up, his eyes were closed.
- [07:18]
Kristen Thorne
It's just not a good scene. Attorney Will Corman says it reminded jurors what this case is ultimately about. A man who died, a family in mourning, and a grieving mother now caught in the middle of a murder trial that has consumed the town she lives in.
- [07:38]
Will Corman
Of course, the government is going to put Peggy o' Keefe on the witness stand. They have to. And I think that it pulls at the heartstrings of the jurors to some extent. We need to humanize individuals in trials. Peggy o' Keefe does that.
- [07:52]
Kristen Thorne
She spoke softly. She kept it brief.
- [07:55]
Katherine Loftus
I think also she was brought on to a little bit buttress what Kerry Roberts testimony was just the timeline. When Kerry said, you know, I Called them to pick them up, and then she droves there and then paid. O' Keefe essentially affirms that. And then specifically about the difference in their memory really is so Peggy o' Keefe says, I didn't even talk to her like I was dealing with the kids. Everything else was going on. And Karen, obviously, in the documentary that she gave to ID says what is largely seen as sort of mocking of John's mom and the denial of that from Peggy o'. Keefe.
- [08:32]
Kristen Thorne
When the prosecution played footage of Karen Reed mocking Peggy's account of events in the A Body in the Snow documentary interview, the courtroom shifted. His mother leans over the kitchen island and says to me, I think he.
- [08:46]
Jen McCabe
Looks like he got hit by a car.
- [08:47]
Kristen Thorne
He looks like I hit by a car.
- [08:49]
Katherine Loftus
When the jury saw it, there was sort of like a taken back a lot of them, because I think anybody can see that it is not nice. Right? This is your dead boyfriend's mother. And no matter what you think, it's not a nice way to be. I think what Brennan is trying to do is through these small pieces of information, establish from their perspective that Karen Reid has created these stories as she's gone along and that she's told in multiple interviews, whether it's Boston Magazine, whether it's Dateline, whether it's id, that she has continued to tell these stories and that each time, like these little pieces of information are added to make her perspective and her theory look stronger. And I'm not sure that the impact is quite clear yet, but I think he's sprinkling it in throughout the case. He's going to piece both the witness testimony and the statements of Karen so that the jury, over time, they see, oh, right, she said this and the witness said this, she said this and the witness said this. And then he's going to argue at the end that she purposely did that as ignorant consciousness of her own guilt to have the focus look away on everybody else. Sort of the long game with some of the testimony that's coming in.
- [10:05]
Kristen Thorne
Perhaps Peggy o' Keefe's role wasn't to reveal new facts, but to set the stage for how we can expect the prosecution to utilize clips from Karen Reid's media appearances. Peggy o' Keefe wasn't there to testify to what happened that night. She was there to ground the timeline, support Robert's account, and to humanize the victim. Korman says that might be all her testimony can do.
- [10:32]
Will Corman
Other than that, I don't believe she has a lot to add to the government's case or on cross examination, she doesn't really have anything to add to Karen Reid's case either.
- [10:41]
Kristen Thorne
And so the case moved forward not through testimony, but terrain.
- [10:46]
Will Corman
The jury is unfortunately looking at what could very well be the last resting place of John o', Keefe, and that's powerful.
- [10:54]
Kristen Thorne
The house where Boston police officer John o' Keefe was found unconscious in the snow. The house where prosecutors allege Karen Reed struck him with her Lexus suv. And the house, the defense argues, holds secrets far darker than anyone wants to admit. 34 Fairview Road. @ the scene, jurors were guided through a controlled visit.
- [11:16]
Katherine Loftus
It's similar in a way, into the courtroom, like the judge is ultimately the one who's in charge of everything. There was a perimeter that was set so nobody outside of the judge, the clerk, the court officers, the attorneys, then the jurors could be inside. In there, each side is allowed to point out essentially what they want the jurors to look at.
- [11:35]
Kristen Thorne
Only the judge, the lawyers, court officers and the jury were allowed inside the perimeter. No commentary, no arguments, just a cold, quiet observation. Corman told us why jury views are crucial in a case like this.
- [11:53]
Will Corman
Some people are purely visual learners. Some people need to hear something repeated over and over again. And for those folks who are visual learners and need to actually see something in order to envision how things could or couldn't have happened, jury views are very important. And for other individuals, it does provide some context. Some people don't innately know how far 10ft is. Some people don't know what a quarter acre looks like. Some people don't understand what 50ft from the driveway to the front door looks like. And they actually need a visual to put it in perspective. So I think that jury views are very important. Not only that, I think the jury views also allow an opportunity to humanize certain elements of the case for different folks.
- [12:40]
Kristen Thorne
They saw the flagpole in the front yard, a now haunting landmark where o' Keeffe's body was discovered. They saw Karen Reed's SUV parked near that flagpole, towed in from evidence storage, highlighting dents and missing taillights that the prosecution ties directly to the moment o' Keefe was fatally injured. They saw the house itself, its multiple front doors, its windows, its relationship to the street, a two way residential street. They stood on what was once a snowy path. They walked the incline of the driveway. They noted how close or how far everything really was.
- [13:19]
Katherine Loftus
It always helps to look at something in real life, right, because the pictures are not going to be the same. So I think it's helpful just to provide the jury with a tangible something to what's being talked about in court every day.
- [13:33]
Kristen Thorne
The timing of this visit wasn't random. As Loftus points out, it lined up perfectly with the digital forensic testimony.
- [13:41]
Katherine Loftus
I think that having the view and seeing the physical scene followed up by the Cellebrite expert in Whiffin to sort of explain the data points about where the commonwealth alleges the car was driving, where it stopped, allegedly where he was found, and they say that's where he ended up. I think it was a good idea to connect those two because the family physical scene is fresh in the jury's mind so they can remember, like, okay, he said by the flagpole. I remember that we were just there on Friday instead of it being removed.
- [14:11]
Kristen Thorne
It was a tactical sequence. The jury view on Friday the 25th, and then on Monday the 28th, the data. Enter Ian Wiffen, a digital forensics expert from Cellebrite who laid out the digital trail like stepping stones, from the GPS pings on John o' Keefe's phone to the timing of a Google search that had become a flashpoint. In this case, the phrase has long to die in cold. In the first trial, that search appeared damning, like it happened before Okeefes body was found. This time, Whiffen told a different story. The data, he says, shows it happened after 6:20am, not at 2:27am as initially believed.
- [14:59]
Detective Aaron Benzik
I discovered that it was actually the timestamp that the tab within the browser was brought into focus and had no relevance to when the actual web query had been made.
- [15:08]
Kerry Roberts
So if I have a tab open and I use it continuously 3, 4, 5, 10 times, will the timestamp change? No, it will not. In your opinion, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. Was that the same template tab that 2 hours, 27 minutes and 40 seconds tab open for Hawkermach Sports? Was that the same tab that later was used for searches or attempted searches at 6 hours, 23 minutes and 51 and at 6:24 relative to how long or how long to die in cold? I believe it was, yes.
- [15:42]
Kristen Thorne
What's emerging now is a sharper, more contained trial, a more focused prosecutorial strategy. Gone is the sprawl of hearsay and overlapping witnesses from round one. This time it's maps, timelines, PowerPoint slides and data that aims to anchor a narrative the jury can believe in. Here's Loftus again.
- [16:07]
Katherine Loftus
I think that overall he presented a very concise picture of what the Commonwealth theory is. We didn't Hear it presented in this way last time by Adam Lally. I think the information was there and he was trying to get it out. It just did. It did not translate for whatever reason. But between having Attorney Brennan on the case now as well as, you know, we had a PowerPoint from Ian Whiffin this time. So they really went into detail with sort of the maps, the pinpoints, what they allege. Basically, the Commonwealth alleges that the data from Celebrite, which is the software that reads both John o' Keefe's phone, his Apple Health data, the ways, things like that, pinpoints him to the front lawn near the flagpole, and they say the data points basically reflect that he never leaves that general area of the flagpole and goes inside the house.
- [16:56]
Kristen Thorne
Whiffin's testimony wasn't just about tech, it was also about trust. Because if John o' Keefe's phone really never moved from that front yard, and if that search really came after his body was discovered, then the conspiracy theory the defense has been building starts to feel a little shakier. Because in this case, timing isn't just a detail, it's the battleground. At the center of that fight is a single search, a single timestamp, and a forensic tug of war over what the data actually shows. A critical timestamp, 2:27am raised red flags. But how reliable is that number? To help us make sense of it, we turn to someone who knows this world inside and out, Detective Aaron Benzik. He's a 23 year law enforcement veteran with a background in software development and digital forensics. And in his view, that controversial 2:27am timestamp, it doesn't hold up.
- [17:58]
Detective Aaron Benzik
It's a good question because you have a record that reports a specific time and that's going to be that time of 2:27am and that's concerning in the timeline of things in a time period where you think someone ought not be Google searching something like that. So it obviously raises questions, but Benzik.
- [18:13]
Kristen Thorne
Says the number alone doesn't tell the whole story.
- [18:16]
Detective Aaron Benzik
When you dive into the technical aspects of things and what's being reported here and the things going back and forth, I do believe we can come out of this with a lot of confidence that this is a Google search that did occur after 6:00am in the morning, around that 6:23 timeframe, how Benziq breaks.
- [18:31]
Kristen Thorne
Down the forensic software used in trials like this, tools like Cellebrite and Axiom.
- [18:37]
Detective Aaron Benzik
What they do is they go into the phone databases and they grab those values out of There. And they say, hey, I recognize this database as activity. And here's the content that it has associated with the Google search. Here's the search topic and it lists a timestamp in here and it takes that data out of the phone.
- [18:54]
Kristen Thorne
But here's the catch. Those timestamps aren't always what they seem.
- [18:59]
Detective Aaron Benzik
With certain pieces of data, that timestamp may be saying something different. You have to actually understand how the phone is operating.
- [19:06]
Kristen Thorne
For instance, Apple's browser tabs may not update timestamps even when a user is active. That discrepancy, Benzik says, can mislead an investigator who takes the software output at face value.
- [19:21]
Detective Aaron Benzik
With the cellbrand expert. He testified about law enforcement investigators, even defense investigators, seeing this timestamp and having questions and concerns and bringing it to his attention.
- [19:30]
Kristen Thorne
What really matters is the context, the other digital breadcrumbs that were or weren't present.
- [19:38]
Detective Aaron Benzik
Looking at this 2:27am timeframe, we don't have any of that during that timeframe. What we do have around the 6:23am timeframe is that when we have consistent actions with those things and that's how we're able to find out this is when the phone started being used again.
- [19:53]
Kristen Thorne
In other words, the Google search may show up in the database with a timestamp of 2:27am but the phone wasn't even being used at that time.
- [20:03]
Detective Aaron Benzik
Looking just at the technical aspects of the data on her phone, when that Google search is done, that is consistent and there's other indicators of other data points on that phone consistent with the Google search occurring.
- [20:19]
Kristen Thorne
So what caused the confusion in the first place?
- [20:22]
Detective Aaron Benzik
They're not updating it every time something is used. And Apple engineers are not writing this software so that there's forensic level grade tracking of everybody on their phone.
- [20:30]
Kristen Thorne
That gap between raw data and forensic certainty has fueled much of the courtroom debate.
- [20:37]
Detective Aaron Benzik
Just because Celbride or Axiom takes that data and categorizes and visualizes it for you, that's not telling you definitively things. So you want to develop patterns and competency. And that's where you really have your experts get separated from some people who may be doing this thing without as much experience as others.
- [20:54]
Kristen Thorne
And while the defense raised questions about the Axiom software still showing 2:27am Benzik says that doesn't invalidate the newer analysis.
- [21:06]
Detective Aaron Benzik
They're both accurate and they're both reporting things are accurate. Just because Axiom includes that timestamp doesn't mean it's inaccurate.
- [21:12]
Kristen Thorne
It's.
- [21:12]
Detective Aaron Benzik
It just Means they're bringing the raw data and that they're hoping that the professional investigators are doing their due diligence to understand what these data points mean when we're talking about them.
- [21:21]
Kristen Thorne
In a case with no video and no eyewitnesses, digital footprints matter more than ever. But interpreting them takes more than reading a printout. It requires testing, patience and expertise.
- [21:36]
Detective Aaron Benzik
I think the takeaway is that this timestamp of 2:27am just doesn't hold a lot of water. And I think it eliminates it from a point of conspiracy or point of contradictory values that presenting these alternate theories, it doesn't support them.
- [21:50]
Kristen Thorne
If the digital evidence is a map, then John o' Keefe's phone is one of its most revealing landmarks. At the center of this retrial is a chilling question. Was o' Keefe struck outside in the snow or killed inside and staged there? Later, investigators turned to his phone for clues.
- [22:11]
Detective Aaron Benzik
Looking at o' Keeffe's phone and looking at the location data that it provides, this is going to put us in the best possible place to get the most precise location information.
- [22:20]
Kristen Thorne
Unlike cell tower pings or triangulation, this data comes from the phone itself. Gps, WI fi and Bluetooth signals collected passively, but with surprising accuracy.
- [22:34]
Detective Aaron Benzik
We see some numbers from 1238 over a time period of, I don't know, eight seconds. We got several readings. One's a 43 meter accuracy, 26 meter accuracy, 10 meter accuracy. We have seven meter accuracy. We have all kinds of different levels of accuracy values that come down and those are pretty good reads at times. We're getting a 7 meter accuracy and we're able to visualize that on a map.
- [22:57]
Kristen Thorne
In other words, the phone wasn't moving. It was still planted consistently in the same area. And Benzik says the radius matters.
- [23:08]
Detective Aaron Benzik
The latitude and longitude is not the location of the device. You have to draw a circle around that center point and visualize how large or small of a circle that is. So a 7 meter accuracy radius around those GPS coordinates gets you a pretty good look.
- [23:24]
Kristen Thorne
Where was that pretty good look?
- [23:27]
Detective Aaron Benzik
That is in that front corner of the yard, and that's where the phone is. And the other circles are consistent.
- [23:34]
Kristen Thorne
But what about the cold? On the night of January 28, 2022, temperatures in Canton dipped below freezing, adding another variable to the digital trail. Could extreme cold have interfered with the signal or just maybe confirm that the phone never left the elements?
- [23:54]
Detective Aaron Benzik
If this phone is outside all the time, you're going to not expect to see it rise in temperature. And I Believe from the evidence that's presented, I think they show maybe a 7 degree drop over a period of time of the phone temperature.
- [24:07]
Kristen Thorne
And that gradual drop tells its own story.
- [24:11]
Detective Aaron Benzik
I don't think it's realistic to expect that phone to drop. If you're moving inside, if you're coming inside, you're going to be detecting some of that warmth translating to the phone. The phone continued to drop in temperature. Whether it was a several degrees drop or a smaller degree drop, you would expect that phone to continue to drop in temperature.
- [24:30]
Kristen Thorne
The phone stayed cold, the location data stayed still. The numbers suggest that John Okeefes phone never left the spot he was found in. And that matters because in a case split between two stark narratives, a tragic accident outside versus a cover up inside, this data points clearly in one direction.
- [24:54]
Detective Aaron Benzik
I don't see that they've presented evidence that indicates or suggests that any kind of indoor assault happened. This is consistent with a phone staying outside. Location information is consistent with that. Temperature of the phone is consistent with that.
- [25:09]
Kristen Thorne
So if the data says the search happened at 6:23am not 2:27, then what does that mean for the person who typed it? Because once the forensic timeline is laid down, the question shifts from when to to why. And that brings us to Jen McCabe. She wasn't just a bystander in this story, she was part of it. And when she took the stand on April 29, the trial's emotional core and its credibility fight came right back into focus. Attorney Ian Runkle recounts how the defense came in hot.
- [25:46]
Ian Runkle
The beginning of cross starting off with some. So isn't it the case that you lied to the FBI? That's a heavy start there.
- [25:54]
Kristen Thorne
On day one of cross examination, Jem McCabe described the tense moment in April 2023 when agents from an unnamed law enforcement agency approached her outside her home. Jackson guided her through transcripts from her interview with those agents, zeroing in on the calls she made after they first approached her. But before she spoke to them on the phone and later inside her house, McCabe confirmed she made two calls. The first was to Carrie Roberts.
- [26:26]
Kerry Roberts
You wanted to find out if she had talked to these particular law enforcement officers and what she had told them. So that your story could somehow align or it could inform how you responded to questions that they asked you. Isn't that true?
- [26:42]
Jen McCabe
That's not true. We both know what happened. We don't have to have a story. There is no story. There's what happened and that's it.
- [26:48]
Kristen Thorne
Her second call was to her husband Matt. But here's the problem. When agents asked McCabe if she called anyone besides Roberts and her husband in the 10 minute window between their initial contact and the formal interview, her answer was unexpected.
- [27:06]
Kerry Roberts
And your answer was no, correct?
- [27:09]
Jen McCabe
Correct.
- [27:10]
Kerry Roberts
And that was a lie? Correct.
- [27:12]
Jen McCabe
It wasn't a lie? No.
- [27:13]
Kerry Roberts
Was it true?
- [27:15]
Jen McCabe
I had.
- [27:16]
Kerry Roberts
Was it the truth or a lie?
- [27:17]
Jen McCabe
It wasn't a lie.
- [27:19]
Kristen Thorne
So what was the truth? She had actually made three more calls. One to Peggy o', Keefe, the victim's mother, another to her witness advocate at the district attorney's office, and a third to her brother in law, Brian Albert. After talking it over with her husband, McCabe called the agents back. She wanted to clear things up because it's against the law to lie to them. But the back and forth with Jackson raised eyebrows and cast serious doubt on her credibility as a witness. That opening shot set the tone for the defense. Jen McCabe isn't just a witness, she's a potential linchpin.
- [28:03]
Ian Runkle
They'll certainly want to pressure and probe with respect to the text as to Hoss Long to die in the cold, that's going to be a very big issue.
- [28:13]
Kristen Thorne
And the stakes enormous because the timing of that search could make or break the commonwealth's narrative.
- [28:21]
Ian Runkle
If the jury ultimately thinks that text message was made sort of in the early morning, then that basically destroys her credibility and probably destroys the commonwealth's case entirely.
- [28:33]
Kristen Thorne
On direct, McCabe was confident.
- [28:36]
Kerry Roberts
Do you remember about what time you got to the waterfall?
- [28:39]
Jen McCabe
About 9 o'. Clock. I walk in and I see Julie and Chris Albert, my niece Caitlin, my sister Nicole, and my niece's boyfriend Tristan. I go to my front door and I open it and she's screaming. She's screaming that three times. And then she was saying, we have to go to Fairview. You know, a lot of the. Could I have hit him? Did I hit him? Just. She was on repeat. We saw them moving John towards the ambulance. And at that point, Ms. Reed started yelling to Ms. Roberts, Go check on him. Are they working on him? Is he. Is he dead? Is he dead? And at that point, myself and Ms. Reed got out of the car and she started yelling and pulling on me to Google hypothermia and Google how long it takes for somebody, you know to die in the cold.
- [29:36]
Ian Runkle
She's got all sorts of details ready to hand. She's like, yes, this time is like down to the minute.
- [29:43]
Kristen Thorne
But on cross, the defense seized on the shift.
- [29:46]
Ian Runkle
Her memory starts to fade. She's not able to recollect details as well. And also not only Is she not able to recollect details as well? But she's doing things where when she's asked a question, she wants to see the evidence first.
- [30:03]
Kerry Roberts
You told them that you had called Carrie Roberts before they interviewed you, Correct?
- [30:08]
Jen McCabe
At that moment, I'm not 100% sure, but if you have it, I'll. It seems like something I would do, but if you have it, could show me?
- [30:17]
Kerry Roberts
Absolutely.
- [30:18]
Jen McCabe
Do you remember the time? Can I look at the paper? I was reading everything. I looked at the page.
- [30:22]
Kristen Thorne
So the question is whether you remember the.
- [30:24]
Jen McCabe
Oh, do I remember it? I don't remember the exact time, but I can read it off the paper. That's different than a memory. That's different. Next question.
- [30:33]
Kerry Roberts
You've testified previously that it was around 1250 that you first. I'm sorry? That you last went to the door and noted that the car was completely gone. Is that right?
- [30:43]
Jen McCabe
I. I'm not sure of that. I.
- [30:45]
Kerry Roberts
You're not sure of that?
- [30:46]
Jen McCabe
No. If you could show me, I'd appreciate it.
- [30:49]
Ian Runkle
The problem that you get there is that's not really an indicator of credibility. It's not really an indicator of somebody who's just trying to answer the questions. It's somebody who's worried about cross examination.
- [31:02]
Kristen Thorne
But McCabe isn't new to the stand. This is her second time testifying, and to Korman, that showed she seemed far.
- [31:11]
Will Corman
More polished this go round than she did the first time. She is a very powerful witness for.
- [31:17]
Kristen Thorne
The government because for the prosecution, her testimony carries real weight.
- [31:23]
Will Corman
She always has been because she has the ability to testify about all the things that Karen Reid did in a chunk of time leading up to the discovery of the body. They want to show that Karen Reed was making comments like, did I hit him? Could I have hit him? I think I hit him. And every time that a witness can testify that Karen Reed makes a statement that somewhat implicates her, that's a check mark for the government.
- [31:51]
Kristen Thorne
In a tense Moment on the second day of cross, Alan Jackson pressed Jim McCabe on statements she made to Trooper Michael Proctor about the condition of Karen Reed's taillight on the morning of January 29, 2022.
- [32:06]
Kerry Roberts
As you sit here today, are you telling this jury that you deny saying to Trooper Proctor you saw a crack in it? Are you denying that statement?
- [32:16]
Jen McCabe
I'm not denying it.
- [32:17]
Kerry Roberts
So you could have told him that?
- [32:19]
Jen McCabe
He asked me multiple times, different questions. I spoke to him at my house, and then he had called me. So maybe one time I said in. Had a crack in it, and Another time I said it was broken and missing pieces.
- [32:31]
Kristen Thorne
The defense appeared to suggest McCabe's story was shifting, her language evolving depending on the version of events being discussed. Later. Attention turned to a group text involving Jen McCabe, her husband Matt McCabe, Jen's sister Nicole Albert, and brother in law Brian Albert, the homeowners of 34 Fairview Road. Specifically, a text message that's sent just after the group learns Carrie Roberts had spoken with the police.
- [33:03]
Kerry Roberts
Once she is interviewed, you are responding to the rest of the group. She's telling them everything. Meaning everything we just crafted in this timeline.
- [33:12]
Jen McCabe
No, I meant she was telling them everything. She was telling her personal opinions about Ms. Reed.
- [33:18]
Kristen Thorne
It was a sharp challenge to McCabe's credibility and whether the timeline of events had been carefully coordinated among friends and family before speaking to authorities. Adding another layer of intrigue, the defense then zeroed in on Jem McCabe's account of visiting the very place where John O' Keefe died, her sister's home. What unfolded was a direct clash with her previous sworn testimony, the raising serious questions about the accuracy or perhaps even the honesty of her recollections.
- [33:55]
Kerry Roberts
At that time. You denied altogether ever going by 34 Fairview, correct?
- [33:59]
Jen McCabe
No. I believe the paper says I never stopped by, but we drove by.
- [34:04]
Kerry Roberts
And now you're saying that you did stop.
- [34:06]
Jen McCabe
Stopping by and driving by meant something different? To me.
- [34:10]
Kristen Thorne
It was just one more example. The defense offered to raise doubts about McCabe's memory and her motives. And in the final moments of cross, that memory was brought into sharp focus again.
- [34:23]
Jen McCabe
I was in shock.
- [34:24]
Katherine Loftus
That's right.
- [34:25]
Jen McCabe
So a lot of things from that day are foggy. Certain things, certain details I may have forgotten.
- [34:32]
Kerry Roberts
And all of your testimony over the last several days is based on that memory that you just described to these jurors? Correct.
- [34:40]
Jen McCabe
There are certain things I'll never forget. Correct.
- [34:43]
Kristen Thorne
With each answer, jurors were left to weigh the reliability of a witness whose recollection, by her own admission, was shaped by trauma, time and the pressure of a murder investigation. Still, the defense keeps pointing to what Jen may have known and when. And they're raising questions about how memory works. When grief and group dynamics collide.
- [35:10]
Ian Runkle
When I'm a defense lawyer and I hear all of this sort of aspects of witnesses speaking to each other, witnesses meeting to get a timeline straight. It's really a way that one witness can essentially overwrite another witness in terms of what they're thinking, what they saw. And you can end up with situations where people are very confident in their testimony. But also wrong.
- [35:35]
Kristen Thorne
For the jury, it may come down to something more human than technical. How they see her.
- [35:42]
Ian Runkle
Does the jury like her in a certain sense? Do they find her to be the sort of aggrieved friend of somebody? Or do they find her to be scheming?
- [35:53]
Kristen Thorne
Because if the jury believes her and believes that Google search happened around 6:23am the prosecution holds the line. But if they don't, everything else starts to fall. And as jurors weigh what to believe and who to trust, the trial shifts again. Because after a week of clashing timelines and cross examinations, the commonwealth's theory is about to face its biggest scientific test yet. After much ado, the crash experts are coming back.
- [36:27]
Ian Runkle
If they accept arca's view that John O Keefe wasn't hit by a vehicle, then Karen Reed has to be acquitted.
- [36:34]
Kristen Thorne
Their testimony could change everything, not just because of what they'll say, but because of who they are.
- [36:41]
Ian Runkle
I cannot think of another case where the experts actually originally were hired by the government and then come in as defense experts. That is beyond strange to me. It's virtually unique.
- [36:54]
Kristen Thorne
And if the journey jury believes them, the prosecution's version of events may not survive what comes next. This has been a long crime production. I'm your host, Kristen Thorne. This episode was written and produced by Cooper Maul. Our executive producer is Jessica Lowther. Our editor is Anna McLean. Our associate producer is Tess Jagger Wells. Guest booking by Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher. Legal review by Elizabeth Foulai. Key art designed by Sean Penzerra.