DEDHAM, Mass. — A State Police toxicologist says Karen Read was drunk the night John O’Keefe was killed.
She was the last person to testify Friday afternoon before the jury was excused for the weekend.
The other person, Jennifer McCabe, was back for her third and final day on the stand.
So far, nobody been in the hot seat longer than she has. Karen Read calls McCabe the “quarterback” of a conspiracy.
McCabe told the jury she’s been put through hell – and has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the feds.
“Who is it that’s gesticulating in the the video?” Alan Jackson, Read’s defense attorney, asked.
“I was,” McCabe replied.
Jackson peppered McCabe with questions about 7 late night calls from her phone to John O’Keefe’s.
“I believe I called it a butt dial,” McCabe said. “I do not remember making those calls. No. ”
And one call to her sister hours later immediately after Karen Read called in her panic – looking for O’Keefe.
“Were you calling your sister’s phone to alert her of something? Is that why you called?” Jackson asked.
“No,” McCabe said.
Jackson had McCabe read a text she sent to a group chat with Kerry Roberts, another prosecution witness spoke to police.
Jackson also asked why McCabe did not immediately enter 34 Fairview Road to wake her police officer brother in law as soon as O’Keefe’s body was discovered.
“You knew that John O’Keefe was clinging to life,” Jackson said. “You also knew that Brian Albert, your brother in law, was a trained first responder.”
McCabe told the jury her memory is not exact because of how chaotic things were. She also talked about the trauma of losing John O’Keefe, who she describes as a good friend.
Court resumes Monday for a full week of testimony.
Karen Read is accused of striking and killing her Boston Police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe, with her SUV during a snowstorm in 2023.
Prosecutors allege Read intentionally backed into O’Keefe after she dropped him off at a house party and returned hours later to find him dead. The defense has claimed that she was a victim of a vast police conspiracy and that O’Keefe was fatally beaten by another law enforcement officer at the party.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Read’s double-jeopardy appeal Monday, effectively clearing the way for her trial to continue.
Read’s defense had argued that putting her on trial again for two of the charges is an unlawful case of double jeopardy. They told the Supreme Court that the jury at her first trial reached a unanimous but unannounced verdict acquitting her, so a second trial on those charges should be barred as double jeopardy.
The court didn’t ask the prosecution to respond to the appeal, a sign the justices did not think there was a difficult legal issue at stake.
A mistrial was declared last year after jurors said they were at an impasse and deliberating further would be futile.
Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of a crash resulting in death.
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