Karen Read witness Jennifer McCabe finds her memory on the stand

DEDHAM, Mass. — Jennifer McCabe, a key witness for both the prosecution and the defense in the murder trial of Karen Read, admitted to misleading investigators at least twice during the probe in John O’Keefe’s death.

The first and more inconsequential mistruth came when McCabe admitted to giving a false name, her sister’s, when first contacted by investigators, who she thought at the time were salespeople.

A second came as Read’s attorney, Alan Jackson, continued to lay the foundation for the defense team’s theory of a conspiracy that pitted “close-knit” Canton locals against an outsider — Read, of Mansfield — on trial for the alleged January 2022 murder of her boyfriend John O’Keefe.

Jackson took a softer approach, at least in the beginning, in his cross-examination of McCabe this second trial as he had her confirm, one by one, the large and interconnected family trees she was a part of, which she agreed was “close-knit.”

Among them is a Canton Police officer, a Boston Police officer, a Canton selectman, and a “best friend” of the wife of State Trooper Michael Proctor, who was chief investigator of the case. Proctor has since been fired and played a huge role in the defense’s opening statement implying a conspiracy.

McCabe then revealed Wednesday that when questioned by new investigators in April 2023 about the case, that she was less than forthcoming about several conversations with the Canton crowd.

McCabe had told the investigators when first contacted that she would talk to them in 10 minutes. She then proceeded to call her husband, Kerry Roberts, O’Keefe’s mother Peggy, and a victim witness advocate with the DA’s office.

When the investigator asked if she had talked to anyone in the 10 minutes, she admitted at the time to only speaking with her husband, and Roberts.

The news of the other conversations was new in Wednesday’s testimony.

Family ‘influence’

The communications represented a continuation of Jackson’s Tuesday efforts to suggest to the jury that this group and others are “influencing” and “orchestrating” a story that they would all use with law enforcement.

The effort began with the relationship McCabe formed with Kerry Roberts. Those two, along with Read, found O’Keefe dead or dying at around 6 a.m. lying near the flagpole on the far side of the front yard of 34 Fairview Road in Canton.

Prosecutors say that Read slammed her Lexus SUV into O’Keefe and left him to freeze and die on that lawn during a winter storm.

McCabe testified Wednesday that she and Roberts have spoken a lot about the case.

“We have shared our experiences … We went through a traumatic experience,” McCabe said. But she countered Jackson by saying those talks didn’t “influence” each other’s memories of that early morning and the time immediately preceding or following O’Keefe’s death.

The cross examination intensified when it came to what came after. She revealed that she and family members got to speak openly — without separation and, as he said, “with no law enforcement oversight” — before being interviewed about what happened.

Then much later, in April 2023, when members of an unidentified “law enforcement agency” unconnected to either the Canton Police Department or the Massachusetts State Police, approached McCabe. McCabe admitted Wednesday that she lied to these “outside” investigators in her first interview with them.

That probe, referred to only vaguely in court, referenced a federal probe of the Read investigation that has since ended, according to a statement by special prosecutor Hank Brennan ahead of trial.

McCabe testified that these law enforcement agents — which is not the word she used, but will be used in coverage — first approached her at the car and she identified herself not as Jennifer McCabe but as her sister, Nicole McCabe because she thought they were salesmen and wanted to avoid them.

But then they called again and identified themselves as law enforcement and asked to interview her. She consented to the interview but asked for 10 minutes to get ready. In that 10 minutes, she admitted on the stand, she called her husband, Matt McCabe, as well as Roberts — both of which she disclosed to the agents.

But on the stand she admitted she also called O’Keefe’s mother Peggy O’Keefe, the victim witness advocate at the Norfolk District Attorney’s office and Brian Albert, her brother in law who along with her sister owned 34 Fairview Road, or, as Jackson called him, “the 30-year Boston police officer and on whose lawn O’Keefe was found dead or dying.”

These calls she did not disclose to the agents, she admitted.

‘I hit him’

Discrediting McCabe could be key to the defense’s case of a conspiracy that she was involved in, because her testimony is also essential to the prosecution’s case.

McCabe was with Read during the pivotal hours before McCabe herself called 911 to report “a man in the snow” and then flagged down Canton Police Officer Steven Saraf a little after 6 a.m., the moment the situation was then in law enforcement hands.

“There are some things I am certain I will never forget.” McCabe testified about dealing with the “traumatic” event of finding her longtime friend O’Keefe dead or dying, and the “chaotic” situation of emergency crews abuzz at the scene.

Chief among those memories is that she heard Read tell first responders, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”

The alleged admission is so essential to the prosecution’s case that it became a motif in the prosecution’s opening statement.

Defense attorney Jackson worked to discredit McCabe’s memory of the event by going over her testimony to the grand jury, in which she did not tell them that’s what Read said. Instead, she said she heard Read question what happened: “Could I have hit him?” “Did I hit him?”

At one point when Jackson was stressing another difference between McCabe’s grand jury testimony and her testimony at this trial, McCabe said that “I don’t need to see my transcript. I know what I know and I remember what I remember. … We’re fighting over silly words.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Jackson countered. “Words matter. Words matter a lot.”

But McCabe said that no matter what she told the grand jury, she remembers what she remembers: “‘I hit him, I hit him, I hit him’ is just as fresh in my mind today as it was three years ago.”

Court is off Thursday or a court holiday. Brennan reported to Judge Beverly Cannone that the trial remains on schedule.

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