Day 13 in the Karen Read murder trial ended on a cliffhanger: Matthew McCabe testified that he woke up to his wife screaming the morning of Jan. 29, 2022.

McCabe, a key witness in the trial, will be back on the stand when Day 14 of testimony begins at 9 this morning at Norfolk County Superior Court in Dedham.

McCabe is the husband of Jennifer McCabe, one of the three women who flagged down Canton Police Officer Steven Saraf around 6 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, outside 34 Fairview Road where O’Keefe’s body was found.

Jennifer McCabe was joined by Kerry Roberts and Read, herself. Other local officers and Canton Fire Department paramedics, who testified in the first week, would come soon after.

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 and her boyfriend of about two years 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.

An FBI examiner has found that Jennifer McCabe made a Google search for “ho[w] long to die in cold” before O’Keefe’s body was found.

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

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, are the three the defense has identified in the theory.

Colin and Brian Albert have testified they did not see O’Keefe enter the home that night. Higgins has yet to be called to the stand.

On Thursday, Matthew McCabe testified he and his wife went out to Canton’s Waterfall Bar and Grill for drinks and socialization the night of Jan. 28, 2022. There, they met with O’Keefe, Read, and Christopher and Julie Albert, Colin’s parents, as well as others.

McCabe recollected the demeanor being “happy” and “normal” at 34 Fairview Road, where he and the others would later go to that night for a celebratory drink for Brian Albert Jr.’s 23rd birthday.

An SUV in front of the home caught McCabe’s attention from inside the room, he said, as Read and O’Keefe had yet to come inside.

“What the hell are they doing,” McCabe thought at the time, he recalled. “We didn’t know where they were.”

McCabe and his wife would leave the home around 1:45 a.m. with Julie Nagel and Sara Levinson, friends of Brian Albert Jr. celebrating his birthday.

Nagel on Tuesday testified that she saw “something out of the ordinary, like a black blob” on the front lawn while leaving the home. She described the object as “5 or 6 feet long,” but it did not raise immediate concerns.

McCabe said Thursday that he didn’t notice anything as his eyes were focused on the road, with snow starting to accumulate.

Developing