Karen Read murder trial Day 14: ‘She looked at her hands and she had blood’

In the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022, a distraught Karen Read noticed blood on her hands moments after seeing her boyfriend of two years, John O’Keefe, buried in the snow on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road in Canton.

“Karen grabbed our hands and asked us to pray,” witness Jennifer McCabe recollected. “She looked at her hands and she had blood. She asked us if she could have gotten her period. We told her no, that that was John’s blood.”

McCabe reflected on those emotional and vivid moments – when she, Read and Kerry Roberts were in the back of a Canton police cruiser after O’Keefe’s body was found that cold, snowy January morning – during Day 14 of testimony in the Karen Read murder trial.

Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer when he died at age 46.

Prosecutors say that after a night out drinking the pair argued and she killed him by backing her Lexus SUV into him at high speed, leaving him to die in the cold during a major snowstorm.

The defense has developed a third-party killer theory and has alleged a massive frame-up job to ensnare their client.

After her husband Matthew McCabe completed a tense cross-examination from defense attorney David Yannetti in the morning part of Friday’s hearing, Jennifer McCabe, at times, shed tears on the witness stand as she testified.

McCabe woke up to a call from O’Keefe’s niece who he had custody of, informing her O’Keefe never came home the night before, with McCabe hearing Read screaming “Jen!” repeatedly in the background.

Read told McCabe she and O’Keefe got into a fight at Canton’s Waterfall Bar and Grill, where they gathered with the McCabes and others the night of Jan. 28, 2022, and O’Keefe never made it home.

“‘Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?” Read asked over the phone minutes before 5 a.m., McCabe testified.

McCabe called O’Keefe a “good friend.” “I loved John,” she said.

O’Keefe introduced Karen Read to the McCabe family in July 2020, thinking the two could bond over how they have MS. One of McCabe’s daughters is close friends with O’Keefe’s niece.

“I enjoyed Ms. Read. I really liked her,” McCabe said. “I thought we connected from the beginning, she was very easy to talk to.”

McCabe testified she didn’t understand what Read was talking about when she said she left O’Keefe at the Waterfall since the couple was also offered to go over to 34 Fairview Road after the bar for a celebratory drink for Brian Albert Jr.’s 23rd birthday.

But when McCabe and others at the home, which was owned by Brian and Nicole Albert at the time, noticed a black SUV out front periodically parking and pulling forward, worry started to sink in, McCabe testified.

Text messages presented to the jury showed McCabe asking where O’Keefe was up until 12:45 a.m., but O’Keefe never responded.

The defense has alleged three individuals were at the home at the time it says O’Keefe was and that the three had motive to kill him.

They are Colin Albert, then a senior in high school who appeared with bruised and cut-up knuckles weeks later, Brian Albert, Colin’s uncle who at the time owned 34 Fairview Road with his wife Nicole, and Brian Higgins, a friend of Albert’s who allegedly had a romantic connection with Read.

Colin and Brian Albert have testified they either did not see O’Keefe enter the home that night or claim they know for a fact he did not. Higgins has yet to be called to the stand.

McCabe testified remembering how Read came over to her family’s home after the two spoke on the phone when Read first mentioned O’Keefe was missing. As Read continued to scream, Matthew McCabe told his wife to tell Read to quiet down so she didn’t awaken the neighborhood.

McCabe and Kerry Roberts drove with Read to O’Keefe’s home to try to find O’Keefe. In a frantic, McCabe and Roberts ran around to the different rooms, and McCabe noticed O’Keefe’s bed was made. Read also showed the two women who accompanied her a broken tail light on her SUV.

O’Keefe was not to be found, and McCabe said she promised his niece: “I’ll find John and that everything will be OK.” McCabe got choked up and started to shed tears on the witness stand.

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On the drive over to Fairview Road, Read continued to scream “Kerry!” “Jen!,” McCabe testified. Read started asking the two whether O’Keefe could have been at the homes of women he had previously dated, and McCabe said she found that to be a crazy idea.

As the three women arrived at 34 Fairview Road, with heavy snow falling down and piling up on the ground, Read started screaming “There he is!,” McCabe testified. When Roberts unlocked the door Read sprinted over to O’Keefe’s body, she recollected.

“I froze,” McCabe said. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I called 911.”

Amid the chaotic scene, as she brushed snow off O’Keefe’s body, Roberts yelled at Read to start doing mouth-to-mouth CPR. But as blood started to pour out of O’Keefe’s mouth, Read continued to scream.

As Canton police and paramedics started to arrive at the scene, Read told one paramedic crystal clear: “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him,” McCabe testified.

McCabe highlighted how Read instructed her to Google “hypothermia” and “How long it takes to die in the cold.”

Shortly following, McCabe testified she went inside her sister Nicole Albert’s home to inform her and her brother-in-law Brian Albert about what was going on outside. McCabe said they were “shocked, confused, not understanding.”

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