135: Karen Read: Cold Blooded Murderer or Cover-Up? The VERY Controversial Case & A Deep Dive of Everything We Know
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Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise.

Boy, oh boy, do we have a case to talk about today. But before we get into the case, I wanted to share that today marks the official one-year anniversary of this podcast. One year of Serialistly. So, happy anniversary, besties. I honestly, I can't even believe it.

We've done over 150 episodes covering even more cases than that, and we are just so beyond thankful and grateful for all of you listeners. So thank you for listening, thank you for staying with me, and most importantly, thank you for helping me give victims a voice and for holding those responsible accountable. Every week, you guys take the time to sit down with me, talk through these cases as we

are looking for answers, we're demanding justice, we're trying to raise awareness, and honestly, truthfully, I just could not do it without you. So I really appreciate all of the time that you've spent with me, and I'm excited that we've reached this milestone together. Whether you have been here for the whole ride or whether you are brand new, thank you, happy anniversary to you. And as a thank you, in this episode, there will be one code phrase that will help you crack the code to a very special code word,

or code words. And if you're able to crack the code, you will be entered to win a $100 gift card. So all entries with the correct code word slash words will be put in a special randomized drawing and then five lucky winners will receive a $100 gift card. So the link to submit your response and further instructions on how this all works will be in the show notes below. But good luck, happy hunting, and I'm excited to see who wins this.

So the case that we are talking about today, guys, is one that is very, very controversial. It is one that I talked about several, several months ago, very briefly.

It started kind of as like a conspiracy case. Not a lot of people were talking about it because it felt very heavy into the conspiracy. But what's crazy is now mainstream media sources are even talking about it and they're full out point blank on their headers while they're talking about it. They're saying, is this a cold blooded murder or is this a cover up?

Now, generally, in any cases that we've seen before where there is discussion of possibly a cover-up or possibly some conspiracy, media outlets, especially mainstream ones, never are bold enough to put that.

put that point blank as the header on their coverage. But it has become so controversial and there are so many different elements to this case that could make you side one way or another that they're calling it that. It's pretty wild to see. So the case we're talking about today is the one of Karen Reed.

On January 28, 2022, Karen Reed and her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, spent the night bar hopping and then later that night they were invited to a fellow police officer's house for an after party. This was in Canton, Massachusetts. So when Karen and John arrived at the house, Karen decided not to get out of the car, but John did. Now what happened next is up for debate.

Prosecutors say that Karen was mad at John and that in a drunken rage, she reversed her Lexus SUV and hit him, then drove off and left him to die in the cold. Karen, on the other hand, has a completely different story. She and her defense team say that John 100% went into that house for the afterparty and that something must have happened inside that house after she left.

They believe that whatever happened inside escalated quickly, and then John was placed outside of the house, where he was then found dead in the morning.

Now, it's not uncommon for criminal cases to have a lot of gray areas, meaning the jurors are tasked with deciding the credibility of witnesses to figure out the full story, right? Maybe there's some conflicting eyewitness testimony, or in some cases, jurors must decide if they believe the defendant's testimony from the stand. But typically, this is coupled with some black and white hard facts. Surveillance video, DNA, digital evidence. All of this is pretty standard. We see this all the time, right?

Well, imagine a scenario that completely defies logic and just throws all of that out the window, and it turns what should be black and white into a massive gray area. And that's exactly what the Karen Reed case is, just a deep fog of gray. Now, the reason that this case is so polarizing with both sides having such strong beliefs stems from a few issues.

This case has forensic data as well as surveillance video, information typically seen as black and white. It either exists or it doesn't. The video shows something or it doesn't, right? Well, the defense and the prosecution believe that the same video shows two different things. Same with the digital evidence. I mean, the literal receipts. They can't agree on what that shows either. And it's kind of turned into this like battle of the experts on what the digital evidence actually says.

See, the defense is alleging a cover-up by the Massachusetts State Police, implying that multiple law enforcement agents are involved in a murder and that all of those officers have extremely close ties to a Massachusetts state trooper, the same trooper that led the investigation into Karen from the get-go.

There's a missing dog, there's missing flooring, and on top of that, the U.S. Attorney's Office of Massachusetts has launched a federal investigation into Karen's arrest and prosecution. Now you might be wondering, what are you even talking about, Annie? How on earth did we get here? So let me break it down for you because this is a pretty wild case.

Karen Reed is a 42-year-old finance professor from Mansfield, Massachusetts. Karen started dating John O'Keefe, a Boston police officer, back in 2019. They actually had first dated in their 20s before then later reconnecting. Now Karen has a home in Mansfield, but once she and John became more serious, I mean for the most part, she always stayed at his house, so it was almost as though they lived together. Now let's get right to the night in question, which is January 28, 2022. It

It was supposed to be a normal Friday night, typical, the normal kind of thing they would do. John and Karen planned to just go to some local bars, have some drinks, and meet up with some of John's friends, some of whom were also fellow Boston police officers.

And that's when the events in this case began to unfold. Do you remember the massive snowstorm that hit most of the U.S., but especially parts of the Northeast back on January 29th, 2022? This storm, it had it all. I mean, just insane amounts of snow, hurricane force wind gusts. And here along the coastline, just south of Boston, we had incredible waves that were banging up against this newly reinforced seawall and up and over this road and these homes completely entombed, encased.

in ice and it's just a surreal scene here. Storm after storm, single digit temperatures here again, but looking at this, just a surreal scene that highlights just how explosive and historic this storm was. Well, earlier that morning at 6:04 AM, a frantic police call came into the department in Canton, Massachusetts, a small suburb of Boston.

The caller on the other end said that a man, John O'Keefe, a Boston police officer, was lying in the middle of the street and not responsive, and that this was outside of a home at 34 Fairview Road. Officers Serif and Mulaney were then dispatched to the chilling scene. When they arrived, they were met with three distressed women in the front yard area of the house, waving desperately for attention.

Two of them were hunched over John, trying to revive him with CPR. The women were identified as Karen Reed, Jennifer McCabe, and Carrie Roberts. Officer Serif felt John's lifeless body, and he was cold and he wasn't breathing. Canton Fire and EMS arrived just moments later, and John was rushed to the Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton.

But despite all of their efforts, hours later, John O'Keefe was declared dead. So let's talk about John for just a minute here, because John was a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department. He was known for his dedication, not just to his work, but also to his family and his friends. Beyond his role as a police officer, he played a pivotal role in his personal life as the sole caregiver to his niece and nephew. And he was only 46 years old when he died.

His tragic death left not only his family, but many people in the community just shocked and completely devastated. And more than that, the night before, he was with Karen, and they had met up with John's friends, a huge group of people, which included many fellow Boston police officers, and some of their wives, some of whom were even related to each other. And the house where John was lying outside of where he was found was owned by another Boston police officer.

So how could this have happened? Who would do this? That's a pretty brazen move to kill a police officer outside the home of another police officer with a house full of more police officers.

So naturally, the next thing that the Canton police officers had to do was start their investigation and get to the bottom of this. Who was responsible? What happened? As other Canton officers arrived at the scene where John was found, they started sifting through the mounds of snow. They found a broken cocktail glass and there were splashes of red by the snow near it.

Thinking this was blood, officers began to process the cocktail glass as evidence. They began to question one of the women, Jennifer McCabe, who was one of the women at the scene when that 911 call came in. Jennifer said that the night before, she was at the Waterfall Bar and Grill with her husband, Matthew. Karen and John met up with them and with a group of friends, and they were all hanging out at the Waterfall around 11 p.m.

She said that there were several people in the group at the bar and later on at the home on 34 Fairview. She said that Karen looked fine and appeared to be happy. And she said they were acting very normal. They weren't arguing and nothing stood out to her. It wasn't just Jennifer who noticed this. Every witness that the troopers later interviewed echoed the same sentiment. The night was calm. It was friendly.

and everyone seemed to be in a really good mood. So as the bar was beginning to close around midnight, Jennifer invited John and Karen to continue the party over at her sister Nicole Albert's home, right there on 34 Fairview Road. As Jennifer was walking up to her car, she received a text message from John asking where to. This was at 12:14 a.m. Jennifer replied with the address of 34 Fairview Road.

At 1218 a.m., John called Jennifer to ask more specifically where the house was located on Fairview.

While inside the house, she looked out the window and saw a black SUV consistent with Karen's car, which is a 2021 black Lexus SUV, pull up in front of the house. Jennifer then texted John at 12:31 a.m., saying "Hello," and again at 12:40 a.m., saying "Pull up behind me," referencing to her vehicle's parking spot within the driveway to the home located right there on the right side of the property.

While looking out the window, Jennifer said she saw the black SUV shift from its original spot on the street near the driveway to the left side of the property, which is where John's body was found the following morning. At 12.45 a.m., Jennifer texted John again, saying hello, and shortly after, she saw the black SUV depart from the property.

Around 4.53 a.m., Jennifer got a call from Karen. Karen was searching for John. The call came in from John's niece's phone, though, because Karen asked her to call Jennifer for her. Jennifer picked up and chatted briefly with the niece, and then Karen got on the phone. Jennifer told the officers that Karen sounded extremely distraught and said that she was driving to Jennifer's house.

Apparently, she told Jennifer that her last memory of John was back at the Waterfall Bar. Jennifer corrected her by saying that she had seen them leave the bar together, and that she saw Karen's black Lexus outside the Fairview house.

Well then, being confronted with that information, Karen's story changed a little bit. Karen told Jennifer that the last time that she had seen John, maybe they had an argument. Karen made it over to Jennifer's place around 5:30 a.m. Shortly after she got there, Carrie Roberts showed up because she also got some frantic phone calls that morning from Karen, freaking out about not being able to find John.

So because of how upset Karen was when she arrived at Jennifer's house, Jennifer decided to drive Karen's vehicle back to John's house, with Carrie also following in her own car.

On the way to John's house, Jennifer said that Karen suddenly blurted out, Could I have hit him? Did I hit him? Then as they were pulling up to John's house, Karen mentioned a broken taillight on her SUV. And when they got out of the car, Karen was quick to show Jennifer the damage. Jennifer saw the right rear taillight was smashed and missing some pieces. Then the two of them hopped into Carrie's car to keep searching for John.

Karen squeezed into the back seat and Carrie took the wheel and Jennifer rode shotgun. Jennifer said while they were driving down Fairview Road, the snow was coming down very hard and the wind was no joke, making it very tough to see much of anything at that moment.

Just before they reached the street number 34 on Fairview Road, Karen shouted out that she saw John by a group of trees. This caught Jennifer and Carrie very off guard because neither of them could spot him in all of that snow. But without missing a beat, Karen was out of the car running straight to where John was lying, covered by about half a foot of snow. Karen then laid herself over him, trying to warm him up, and started doing CPR.

While Karen was frantic, Jennifer noticed John's phone just lying there underneath him.

Twice, Karen shouted at Jennifer, telling her to Google and look up how long do you have to be left outside until you die from hypothermia, or something along those lines. But Jennifer and her recollection couldn't be more specific. Troopers also interviewed Brian and Nicole Albert, the homeowners of 34 Fairview. Brian Albert is a fellow Boston police officer, just like John. Brian and Nicole confirmed that they had been out at the Waterfall Bar that night hanging out with friends and family.

They left around closing time and headed back home. They recalled seeing both John and Karen at the bar, but said that they didn't really know them all that well, and John and Karen had just joined their group for that evening. Brian and Nicole mentioned that after the bar, a bunch of people from their crew came over to their place and hung out for about an hour or so.

They mentioned that their nephew Colin Albert was home when they got back, but he had left way before the group from the bar showed up at the house. A couple of other people that were inside that home the previous night said the same thing.

Interestingly, Brian and Nicole said that they had no idea that John and Karen even thought about stopping by their house at all after the bars, but also said that if they had, it would have been no big deal and they would have been fine had they just shown up. Brian and Nicole had no idea what was going on outside their home or that John was lying outside until Jennifer let them know early that morning.

Several other people who were there at Albert's house that night were also interviewed. Another guy named Mr. Nagel was riding in a truck with his friend and his sister Julie over to the Albert's house to drop off his sister over at their get-together. They dropped Julie off and as they were leaving, he believed he saw a large black SUV pull up to the house right as he was leaving.

He said it didn't seem like the other driver put the SUV in park at any point, and he knew this because he could see that the rear brake lights were illuminated, specifically the third top center light. When they drove past the black SUV, he said the interior lights were on in the car, and he could see a white female in the driver's seat, holding the steering wheel at 10 and 2, and staring straight ahead of her.

Other witnesses were also interviewed about who was there at the home that night. And it seemed to officers that all of their stories were consistent with each other. And not one person said they saw John at all after Waterfall Bar.

Carrie Roberts told police that she got a call around 5 a.m. from Karen, who was frantic. Karen was saying, why hasn't John come home? I'm so scared. What if he's dead? What if a snowplow hit him? All of these things. So Carrie quickly threw on some clothes and drove over, meeting Karen at Jennifer's house. Carrie could see that Karen was acting weird, maybe even still a little bit drunk from the night before. She was repeating herself, saying she couldn't remember anything from the previous night.

and said, "I was so hammered, Carrie. I can't remember if we even went to your sister's." And Karen seemed to be stuck on one heart-wrenching question over and over. She asked everyone repeatedly around her, "Is he dead? Is he really dead?" At one point, she grabbed Carrie's arm and said, "Are they really trying to save him, or is he gone?" On January 30th, Trooper Proctor and another trooper interviewed Canton firefighter Katie McLaughlin.

She had been assigned to Station 1 on the 29th and indicated that at approximately 6 a.m., the police call came through. When she and her team arrived at the scene, she saw John lying in the snow. She said that his eyes were extremely swollen, there was blood on his face, and he had vomit stained on his lips. Katie said she approached a very distraught woman nearby, Karen, hoping to get some information about John and his medical history.

Karen gave John's name and date of birth. Katie also asked Karen if she knew where John had suffered the trauma to his face and his eye. And apparently, Karen turned around to one of her friends and repeatedly said, "I hit him. I hit him. I hit him." And this was just the beginning of a series of events that were about to spiral.

So following their initial witness interviews on January 29th, the same troopers went to Good Samaritan to view John's body. John's clothing consisting of blue jeans, an orange t-shirt, a long sleeve gray t-shirt, and boxer shorts were all soaking wet and saturated with blood and vomit. John also had one black Nike sneaker with a white Nike logo on the side of it.

On January 31st, a doctor from the office of the chief medical examiner's office conducted the autopsy. The doctor told troopers that she observed several abrasions to John's right forearm, the two swollen black eyes, a small cut above the right eye, a cut to the left side of his nose, an approximately two-inch laceration to the back right of his head, and multiple skull fractures that resulted in bleeding of the brain.

The doctor also said that John's pancreas was a dark red color, indicating hypothermia was a contributing factor to his death. From the autopsy, the doctor believed that the significant blunt force trauma injuries occurred prior to John becoming hypothermic, and this because of the hemorrhaging in his pancreas and stomach, and that when John arrived, his body temperature was reading in the low 80s.

From all of this, the doctor believed that the extensive blunt force trauma and brain bleeding likely made John incapacitated, and she said that she didn't see any signs of John being involved in any type of physical altercation or fight.

meaning that it's possible that John was still alive when he was left out in the cold but couldn't move. At approximately 4:30 p.m. on January 29th, the same troopers went to Karen's parents' house. Karen's Lexus SUV was outside, and they were able to see the rear light passenger side taillight was shattered and a large piece of red plastic was missing from that taillight.

They were invited inside the home, and Karen agreed to talk with them. So Karen said she dropped off John at the house on Fairview, but that she went home because she was having stomach issues at the waterfall. She told them that when she dropped John off, she made a three-point turn in the street and then left, and

and because of that, she did not see John enter the house. Karen first saw her broken taillight in the morning and did not know how she had broken it the previous evening. Karen was adamant that John was uninjured when she dropped him off at that house. She said that when she found John in the morning, he was lying face up, snow on his legs, his eyes swollen, and blood coming out of his nose and mouth. She stated that she began providing him mouth-to-mouth immediately.

Additionally, Karen said that she tried to get a hold of John throughout the night, calling and texting him numerous times, but that John never answered her. Karen's Lexus SUV was immediately towed from the driveway of Karen's parents' house, and it was towed to the Canton Police Department for them to process. Additionally, later on that day, on the 29th, the Massachusetts Police Special Emergency Response Team searched the vicinity of 34 Fairview Road.

There, they found another black Nike sneaker matching the one that John was wearing when he was found, and in the thick of the snow, the team unearthed two pieces of plastic fragments, one clear and one red.

They were the missing pieces from Karen's damaged taillight. On February 1st, members of the Massachusetts State Police Crime Scene Services Section, including a crime lab chemist and the Collisions Analysis Reconstruction Section, started processing the Lexus. They noted several pieces of evidence during this process.

broken glass fragments on the rear bumper, a shattered right passenger side taillight with missing red and clear pieces, and various scratches and dents. They also saw a large scratch and minor dent on the right side of the rear taillight.

and chipped paint above the rear bumper's small red light. They also ran tests on the Lexus to make sure that the rear backup camera system was working properly. They placed a life-sized, six-foot-tall figure behind the SUV and began filming as they reversed the vehicle toward it.

The Lexus' rearview camera kicked into action, displaying a clear 360-degree view on the dashboard screen. As the car got closer to the figure, warning alerts started playing, indicating that something was behind the car. On February 22, John's 10-year-old nephew, C.F., and 14-year-old niece, K.F. , talked at the Norfolk Advocates for Children Center in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

The niece said that Karen and John had been fighting a lot recently, like two to three times a week. About a week before January 29th, she was sitting on the stairs in the house and overheard them fighting. The niece heard John tell Karen that their relationship was over and that it wasn't good for them. But Karen didn't want to break up and wouldn't leave. On January 29th, troopers found John's phone and managed to get all of the info from it.

the texts, the calls, and the voicemails between John and Karen, specifically from January 28th to 29th, and it showed that there were big problems in their relationship. John wanted to break up, and Karen said that their relationship with the kids was toxic. On one of the voicemails from Karen on John's phone, she was yelling and saying that she hated him.

Also, on January 29th, Karen was taken to the Good Samaritan Medical Center. They took a blood sample for medical reasons, and an expert in toxicology from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab reviewed these results. So he estimated that Karen's blood alcohol level at the time that her blood was taken on the 29th was at about a 0.07% to 0.08%.

So then doing the math and looking back from there and backtracking, he estimated her BAC levels around at 1245 a.m. might have been between 0.13% and 0.29%.

And with that, Karen Reed was arrested in February of 2022. Prosecutors charged her with three crimes, manslaughter, motor vehicular homicide, and the crime of leaving the scene of a collision that caused a death. But things changed very quickly after a grand jury was presented more of the information that we just went through.

And Karen's charges were upgraded to second-degree murder. Since her initial court hearing after her charges were upgraded, Karen's defense team came out of the gate very hot with a lot of theories of their own. And since then, the case has become even more complex. In an interview with Dateline highlighting what has been going on in this case and the large group of supporters that believe Karen is innocent, here's what Karen had to say. Free Kerry! Free Kerry!

Outside this courthouse in Canton, Massachusetts, supporters swarmed around Karen Reid,

Charged with murder in January 2022 death, her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, Reid has strenuously denied the allegations. I did not kill John O'Keefe. I've never harmed a hair on John O'Keefe's head. Her defense, bare-knuckled and bold, is making national headlines. Her lawyers alleging in court documents that a fellow police officer was involved in O'Keefe's death and colluded with other people in a cover-up.

You're alleging that law enforcement officials in this state committed murder and that they're covering it up. Why would they want to be involved in this? Because he's dead. I think things went too far. It was late.

There was alcohol involved, but they're all family. And there's many of them involved. After posting bail, Reid has spent much of the past 18 months in and out of court awaiting a trial date. So let's break that down a little bit here and get into more of what Karen's defense has said in their motions and in court.

First, they insist that she is innocent. They claim she had no criminal intent and highlighted her ongoing medical issues, including multiple sclerosis, colitis, and a brain tumor. And now they suggest that John was definitely inside the house and was actually assaulted before being left outside, alleging foul play by other parties inside that house and including a potential cover-up involving state and local police.

So what does that actually mean? They used John's injuries as proof of an alleged beating that took place, coupled with the homeowner, Brian Albert's German shepherd attacking John. Both times I met Brian Albert, he seemed like the type of person that you'd be surprised he's out socially because he doesn't seem like he ever wants to be there. But at the bar, Reed says there was an invitation to continue hanging out at Albert's home. I said, can we make sure we're welcome here?

Nobody extended the invite to me. I didn't hear the invite extended to you. They drive to the Alberts house. What happens next is disputed. So I pull at the foot of the driveway. It's snowing. John has no coat on. It's windy. So I drop him off. He goes up the driveway and approaches the side door. And as I see him approach the door, I look down at my phone. Reid says after about

10 minutes of waiting in her car, she became irritated that O'Keefe still hadn't gotten in touch with her. And she drove back to his home where she continued calling him before she says she fell asleep around 1.30 in the morning. She then says she woke up before 5 a.m. He still wasn't home. She then started canvassing the neighborhood. I'm just going to...

drive around in the two square miles that we spent the preceding night. After 20 minutes of unsuccessful searching, she called John's friend, Kerry Roberts, and Jennifer McCabe, Brian Albert's sister-in-law, who was also at his house the night before. They also made claims from a search that they did of a cell phone that belonged to someone else at that house party. And they used this as proof, saying that the state police investigator in charge of the case had ties to the homeowner.

and said that people at the party coordinated to point and blame falsely at Karen.

Additionally, Karen had a much different story to tell about some of the arguments that John's niece and nephew reported. According to Karen, John had been relying more on her to take care of the kids, and he criticized some of the child care decisions that she had made. This included an argument on New Year's Eve in 2021. Karen said that John was incoherently drunk and left her with his niece and nephew, leaving her feeling like she was getting taken advantage of.

Karen said that later on, John profusely apologized for what had happened, but then said, "If you can't get over it, then you need to spend some time at your house. I can't keep apologizing. I don't want to keep rehashing this." There was another situation the day before John died. John's niece and nephew told investigators that John and Karen argued regularly, and John had actually expressed that he wanted to take a break from their relationship completely. But Karen said that that's not what happened.

and that the argument was over what she fed his niece for breakfast. Karen spoke out after one of her hearings. A reporter named Steve Cooper from Boston News 7 asked Karen, just to be clear, you didn't do it. And her response said it all. We know who did it, Steve. We know. And we know who spearheaded this cover-up. You all know. And no, she didn't do it.

No, she didn't do it. This is an innocent woman. We're not going to rest until we get to the bottom of exactly who's behind this cover-up. Because not just, not only Karen Reid deserves this. John O'Keefe. John O'Keefe deserves this. And has deserved this from moment one.

Reid's lawyers maintain O'Keefe was attacked by a dog and beaten inside the Canton home she dropped him off at before she drove away. Prosecutors say Reid ran over O'Keefe and left the scene after a night of drinking. And they say Reid's legal team is simply furthering a conspiracy theory. But Reid maintains her innocence. But it feels we're the only ones fighting for the truth of what happened to John O'Keefe.

And me and my family and my attorneys and my team have marshaled every resource to get to the truth. It just feels like no one else wants it. A lot of people have wondered how someone could hit another person hard enough to leave them seriously injured and not notice, even if they had been drinking. Would it not have shaken the car? Was there not a sound? We know that from law enforcement's testing that the Lexus SUV's rear camera system was working and that the car was beeping when an object was behind it.

Considering the evidence, there aren't any eyewitnesses who saw Karen hit John, and some legal analysts and law professors have described the evidence presented by the prosecution as pretty circumstantial.

However, prosecutors have also pointed to compelling pieces of evidence, such as the red plastic matching Karen's taillight that was found at the scene and shards of the cocktail glass embedded in the bumper. The red plastic bumper pieces found at the scene by Trooper Proctor have also been brought into question by many people online, though, as well as by the defense.

The main issue people were having is understanding how they could have found this evidence on the street after so much time had passed, especially given the weather conditions on the 29th and the fact that multiple snow plows may have already been through the area. Pieces of taillight where O'Keeffe was allegedly hit.

But the Reeds say it wasn't until after Karen's SUV was in the custody of law enforcement. State police reported towing the Lexus to the Canton Police Station at 5.30 p.m. Nathan Reed says daylight video from his dad's house shows the car was taken more than an hour before that. They confiscated Karen's car at my parents' residence in North Dayton.

at 4:16 p.m. and somewhere in the neighborhood of 535-45, Mass State Police search team comes back to the scene. They search the scene then with two feet of snow and pieces of a tail lamp are found on top of the snow. That, coupled with how crucial this evidence is in alleging Karen's involvement, has obviously raised questions. And don't worry, we are going to get deeper into that in just a minute.

But even if we can get past that, what about when John's body was discovered and Karen tells an EMS worker, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him? Well, Karen's defense says that that's not what happened at all and that she was posing that as a question instead of a statement.

And guys, things are about to get even crazier. But before we get into all that, we are going to take a quick break to have a word from our sponsors of today's episode. Okay, so as everybody's going to bat for Karen, some of the people saying she's guilty of it, a lot of conflicting opinions. Hearings start to begin.

The bottom line here, Your Honor, is that we've spent 15 months trying to uncover the truth. We are not afraid of whatever evidence is unearthed from whatever source, because for 15 months, every stitch of evidence has been consistent with my client's innocence. We are, as indicated in our papers, we are seeking summonses, and this is dealing with the animal control issue.

That Rule 17 motion, we're seeking summonses directed at two entities, the Canton Animal Control and the Canton Town Clerk, both. We believe they both have records. We know they both have records. These are records that we need, the defense needs, to shine a light on Karen Reed's innocence. These are records that are central to our theory of the case. And these are records that we have no other option to get but through a summons they've indicated to us. They have the records, but they need a court order. They need some sort of a summons.

Your Honor, in furtherance of this motion, I want to talk for a quick second about a couple of undisputed facts. Undisputed fact number one, on January 29th, 2022, Officer John O'Keefe was found dead in the yard of Brian Albert at his house at 34 Fairview in Canton. That is undisputed fact, where he was found dead and what the circumstances were surrounding that death are why we're here now.

Second undisputed fact: when John O'Keefe was found, he had this set of wounds on his right arm. The medical examiner indicated that these wounds were concomitant with his death in terms of the temporal, the time that he died. These were wounds that he suffered at or near the time that he died. And the Commonwealth looks at these wounds and says,

There's nothing to see here. Why are we looking at this? This is, you know, you're following a red herring, basically. This is just a road rash. This means nothing. It has no impact on our case one way or the other. This is, according to the Commonwealth, simply a set of injuries that John O'Keefe suffered at the hands of being struck by a moving vehicle. Well, first, I would ask the common sense question, does this look like a road rash?

I mean the court's got years, decades of experience, life experience and legal experience. Of course this doesn't look like a road rash. It's not a road rash that any of us have ever seen. Or does it look more like claw marks and bite marks from an animal? Which is exactly what they are. Second, if it was a road rash, where's the rest of the road rash?

Yann Coupe had one set of injuries like this: deep scratches, deep puncture wounds on his arm, on his right arm only, from mid-biceps to mid-forearm and no other place. For instance, mid-biceps and mid-forearm that you might put in front of your face or your body if a large animal was attacking you, resulting in these wounds.

Why are the wounds confined just to his right arm? What about all the other pointy bits of a human body if someone is rolled under a car or rolled in gravel because of the car? What about the shoulders? What about the knees? What about the ankles? What about the elbows? None of that exists. These are the only wounds that are confined to his right arm and they're deep scratch wounds, puncture wounds that are indicative of claw marks and bite marks from a large animal.

And third, what about the Commonwealth's own expert? She has to have opined about this, correct? She has to have said during the grand jury, I mean, this was a full-throated investigation surrounding the potential murder of a police officer. What does the Commonwealth's own expert say?

First of all, she was never asked by the Commonwealth during the course of the grand jury about the injuries. It took a grand juror actually asking the question of the witness, and she said, no, I cannot say that is a road rash. There's certainly not enough evidence to suggest that these wounds are consistent with a road rash. Well, she had to have at least talked about the fact that it was an animal, right? She had to. The Commonwealth had to have asked that question. She actually said nothing about

about whether or not that's consistent with an animal because the Commonwealth very particularly did not ever pose that question, but we did. We hired one of the preeminent medical examiners in the country, a doctor by the name of Sheridan, Frank Sheridan, and he wasn't some deputy medical examiner. Dr. Frank Sheridan was the medical examiner for San Bernardino County in California

with more than 12,000 autopsies under his belt, the supervising medical examiner for one of the largest counties in California, and he concluded to a scientific certainty that these wounds are from an animal attack. Period. Full stop. So, what do we know about animals and the albums? Which is exactly where Officer John O'Keefe was found dead.

In February of 2017, we know that the Alberts had a dog. There's a photograph of Brian Albert with a dog, Chloe in the foreground. By 2019, the Albert family had registered ownership of that German Shepherd. Moving on to 2022, in January of 2022, specifically January 29th,

John O'Keefe suffers these animal puncture wounds, these animal scratches, these animal bite marks that are heretofore and up to this date today completely unexplained by the Commonwealth. By May of 2022, Karen Reid's defense team starts asking questions about this animal, about these injuries, about the dog, about what dog existed at the Albers house, where is the dog? We started inquiring.

Pretty significantly, that same month, amazingly, the Albertson Forum, the Canton Animal Control, that the dog was remarkably and mysteriously rehomed. The dog was gotten rid of. And two days, the Commonwealth has yet, as my colleague just mentioned, has yet to release the tissue samples to us for DNA testing to determine if there's evidence in these wounds of a canine attack, which we believe there will be.

During that grand jury testimony, Brian Albert admitted to three things. Number one, he admitted that he owned a large German Shepherd. His words, not mine, a large German Shepherd. Number two, he admitted that the dog was at his home.

On the night John O'Keefe, early morning hours, John O'Keefe was killed on January 29th, 2022. And the dog, according to his own testimony, was inside the house and never in the front yard, which is where John O'Keefe's body was ultimately found. And the third thing that he admitted was that the dog was, quote, not great with strangers.

End quote. That's a dog owner's euphemism for the dog bites, the dog attacks, the dog is mean or can be mean. So why wouldn't the Commonwealth ask about these injuries? Why wouldn't the Commonwealth inquire, as we have been inquiring, about the nature of these injuries and their significance in terms of John O'Keefe's death? It's because they know that the answer completely obliterates their case.

their theory of homicide would fold if they got the true answers to these questions. The answer exculpates Karen Reid and the answer inculpates Brian Albert. That's because if that dog was inside the house that night, not on the front lawn, not in the front yard, but inside the house, and these injuries were suffered or sustained at the time John O'Keefe was killed,

then that means John O'Keefe was inside the house when he was killed. And it also means that his body was moved. That's consistent with the facts that we also know to be true, which is not one person, not one person that was in that house and ultimately exited that house from that party that night, not one saw John O'Keefe's body laying in the cold in the front yard.

and that's because he wasn't there yet. Multiple people walked out of the house, multiple people who would have no other reason, who would have no reason to lie about that. A 200 pound man, six foot two, lying in the front yard on a light dusting of snow in dark clothing. Not one person saw him. But if John O'Keefe was beaten unconscious in, for instance, the basement of that house and later moved to the front yard after the guests left,

There's your answer as to why no one saw him. And it also answers two other questions which are looming in this case. Why would Brian Albert rip out the floor of his basement months after John O'Keefe was killed? The second question, why would he sell his house? So in the months following John O'Keefe's death, the dog has been gotten rid of, got rid of the evidence in the basement, got rid of the house, the crime scene itself.

Your Honor, I would submit to the court that evidence is literally being destroyed right under our nose. It's been reported that the federal authorities have now gotten involved in the circumstances surrounding this case and have impaneled a grand jury, a federal grand jury, to investigate some of these circumstances. But Karen Reid should not have to wait for the feds to figure out which heads should roll.

Our understanding is, at least up to this point, is that the dog was not only rehomed, but rehomed out of state, out of the jurisdiction of this court,

and out of the reach of the defense, or at least that was the attempt. We need those records to find where that dog is. If the dog still exists, we need a saliva sample, we need a hair sample, we need something, and then we need the Commonwealth to give us the tissue samples that were taken at the time so that they can be compared. We know that he was beaten. We've got evidence that John O'Keefe was beaten, that he lay there unconscious, and we also have evidence that at the time he was beaten, facially,

and blunt force was used against the back of his head, he was also attacked by an animal. Well, Brian Albert, who's a known fighter, owns a 90-pound German Shepherd that has since been gotten rid of and had a skin-piercing incident as the excuse for having gotten rid of it. So we know that the dog attacks according to sort of uncontroverted evidence.

This is the first I've heard of the Commonwealth's new position after, what, 15, 16 months that somehow John O'Keefe was stabbed or cut up with a broken cocktail glass which would produce these injuries. That makes absolutely no sense. It just doesn't pass the surface. These are not from a cocktail glass. Who did that to him? Is there a new theory that Karen Reid got out of the car

broke a cocktail glass, then wielded an edge of that cocktail glass, cut up John's arm, then John stood there while she jumps in the car, slams it in reverse, then hits him with the car, with her tail light, in the back of the head. It makes absolutely no sense. That is the Commonwealth grasping at straws. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck.

Karen's defense team dropped even more bombs that some believe have changed everything in this case. They now claim that someone inside the home searched on Google for how long to die in the cold, and that this search was made at 2.27 a.m., hours before Karen is seen leaving John's house in the surveillance footage, and long before John was discovered. For instance, Jeff from K...

He said Jennifer McCabe was not up all night. There's no evidence whatsoever that Jennifer McCabe was up all night, except for her Apple Health data, which shows that she was up all night. We didn't make that data up. That data came right from a cell phone extraction that was conducted in no small part by their own expert, and then reconducted by our own expert. How about the fact that she was actually on the phone searching?

The Safari data establishes that not only was she up all night, but that the phone and Safari was being manipulated during those times at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock in the morning. Everything that we've suggested is supported by the data, the evidence, and the facts. The Commonwealth's theory is supported by conjecture and really bad policing.

Their expert, Mr. Garina, indicated, oh, well, you can't rely on the timestamp of how long to die in cold because that's the exact same time as the Ozark basketball webpage was brought up.

So something must have gone wrong. I don't really know what it was, but it must have been something. Well, what we would do, had we had an opportunity to cross-examine Mr. Burino, is perhaps explain to him that which he doesn't know, which is the following. More than one web page can be up and open on a cell phone at any given time. The court knows this. Everybody who owns a cell phone knows this. You can have multiple pages open.

One page is sitting on top of the other, and then there are multiple pages behind it. All those pages are still open and potentially running in the program in the iPhone. The 227, how long to die in cold search, was nanoseconds, milliseconds, before the Ozark basketball search page came up. How did Apple, Cocoa, CoreTime relate those two things?

events, those two artifacts on the phone. It happened like this. At some point, she searched, used her thumbs. The Apple iPhone doesn't coordinate the timestamp for when she's using her thumbs. People type faster, people type slower. It coordinates when someone exits out of a search. In other words, when you close that webpage. She obviously Google searched how long to die of cold. We know that because we found the search. The deletion

was not the deletion of the search, it was the deletion of the page. And as soon as that page was deleted, the other page behind it, "Ozark Basketball," was immediately populated. And when I say immediately, not at the same time. Nanoseconds behind it. So we know that she was Googling how long to die in cold at minimum, at minimum, three hours before John O'Keefe's body was ever found.

This is not some anomaly. It's not a question. It's not, as their new expert says, unknown why the Google search took place or the timestamp is what it is at 2:27:40. We actually know.

Rick Green knows, his colleagues know, and the scientific community knows. Who could have searched that? Was there a partygoer who searched that in the House? The prosecution has been adamant that Jennifer McCabe had that Google search of how long to die in the cold because she was directed to do so by Karen on the morning that they found John, and that this search was not done at 2.27 a.m., but actually done just after 6 a.m.,

Later on, surveillance video from the Ring cameras that showed the driveway of John's house and captured Karen backing up her car was released. So she's pulling out in the black SUV, and that's the victim's SUV parked.

And the defense says that she makes contact, hits the victim's SUV right there, damaging that back right passenger side tail light. And they also claim you can see the victim's SUV move, indicating that there was a collision. And then as she pulls away, they say that you can tell there's missing parts of the tail light coming out. Right, but it would have been missing if it was a result of striking Officer O'Keefe at that time also. Here's a closer look at it.

Once again, as we're backing up here, keep your eye and see if you see any movement here from the other car. It's very possible. It's very possible. If the whole case was how did the taillight get broken, you've got reasonable doubt right there. You've got reasonable doubt right there because you can't tell, but it's a very reasonable thing that at that point you could have broken that taillight. Okay. Wow.

As the defense's claims started to circulate around the internet, some people who fully believed the defense were said to have been harassing the allegedly involved individuals in this case, and finally the district attorney, said enough is enough and this needs to stop. These claims are absolutely baseless. This will be the first statement of its kind in my dozen years as Norfolk District Attorney. The harassment of witnesses in the murder prosecution of Karen Reed is absolutely baseless.

It should be an outrage to any decent person and it needs to stop. Innuendo is not evidence. False narratives are not evidence. However, what evidence does show is that John O'Keefe never entered the home at 34 Fairview Road in Campton the night he died. Location data from his phone, recovered from the lawn beneath his body when he was transported to the hospital, shows that his phone did not enter that home.

11 people have given statements that they did not see John O'Keefe enter the home at 34 Fairview that night. Zero people have said that they saw him enter the home. Zero. No one. Some have, without any evidence, pointed to 18-year-old Colin Albert, a nephew of the homeowner, and accused him of attacking John O'Keefe as he entered the home. But phone evidence shows O'Keefe never entered the home at all.

Testimony from witnesses tell us that 18-year-old Colin Albert had left his uncle's home before John O'Keefe and Karen Reid had arrived outside the residence. There was no fight inside that home. John O'Keefe did not enter the home. Colin Albert, the young man being vilified, was not present when Reid's vehicle and John O'Keefe arrived on the street. This is a false narrative. Colin Albert didn't commit murder. Jennifer McCabe.

Matthew McCabe and Brian Elbit. These people were not part of a conspiracy and certainly did not commit murder or any crime that night. They have been forthcoming with authority, providing statements and have not engaged in any cover-up. They are not suspects in any crime. They are merely witnesses in the case. To have them accused of murder is outrageous. To have them harassed and intimidated based on false narratives and accusations is wrong.

They are witnesses doing what our justice system asks of them. The autopsy of John O'Keefe was conducted by a forensic pathologist from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The doctor found that the injuries that left John helpless in the cold were not a result of a fight. She further found that the line of abrasions on his arm was consistent with blunt trauma, not an animal attack.

A grand jury of everyday citizens heard the documented evidence and testimony before making a decision. The subject of that murder indictment enjoys the constitutional presumption of innocence. Why should the witnesses who have committed no crime be afforded less by members of the community? They should not be harassed for telling the government what they heard or saw. I'm asking the Canton community.

and everyone who feels invested in this case to hear all the actual evidence at trial before assigning guilt to people who have done nothing wrong. And certainly before taking it upon yourself to harass citizens who evidence shows have done nothing in this matter but come forward and bear witness. We try people in the court and not on the internet for a reason. The internet has no rules of evidence, the internet has no punishment for perjury, and the internet does not know all the facts.

Conspiracy theories are not evidence. The idea that multiple police departments, EMTs, fire personnel, the medical examiner, and prosecuting agencies are joined in or taken in by a vast conspiracy should be seen for what it is: completely contrary to the evidence and a desperate attempt to reassign guilt.

Michael Proctor, the state police trooper being accused of planting evidence outside 34 Fairview Road, was never at Fairview Road on the day of the incident. Proctor and his state police partner traveled together the entire day while other officers were processing 34 Fairview. Trooper Proctor was not there and did not plant evidence at 34 Fairview Road. In addition to having no opportunity to plant the evidence as has been suggested,

Proctor would have no motive to do so. Trooper Proctor had no close personal relationship with any of the parties involved in the investigation and had no conflict. And he had no reason to step out of this investigation. Every suggestion to the contrary is a lie. This should be seen for what it is and not used as a pretext to attack and harass others. What is happening to the witnesses, some with no actual involvement in the case, is wrong.

It is contrary to the American values of fairness and the constitutional value of fair trial. It needs to stop now. Now, this is why the case has everybody split. On one hand, you have a snowplow driver who said he didn't see John's body. You have multiple people leaving the Alberts home that night after Karen left and also didn't see John's body. You have a missing dog, missing carpet that was cut out of the basement.

You also have the Alberts who sold their home on 34 Fairview. You have an alleged cover-up by Trooper Proctor and the Alberts. You have other people that drove dark-colored SUVs. You also have the surveillance camera of what some people believe shows Karen actually breaking her taillight on John's SUV when she was backing up in the driveway. You have Jennifer's Google search about how long it takes to die in the cold.

And the hair strand may be being human, maybe not, depending on whether you ask the prosecution or the defense.

And then on the other hand, you have Karen and she's drinking heavily on camera, at least seven drinks. You have surveillance footage from different buildings in the city that show a black SUV and Karen's phone activity placing her there. And then all of the witnesses testimony about Karen's behavior, her admission of saying that she was hammered and doesn't remember going to the Alberts home. You have John's niece and nephew saying that he wanted to break up with her.

You have the voicemails and the text messages between John and Karen, and the fact that Karen was talking about her taillight being broken. So much of this case has been a media sensation because of how many people outside the courthouse have rallied to support Karen.

Now, one of those people is a very confrontational blogger named Aiden Carney. He's also known as Turtle Boy. And I'm going to refer to him as Turtle Boy, even though I want to call him by his name Aiden. However, it's because all of these other media outlets call him Turtle Boy. So for the sake of not confusing you or thinking like that there are two different people down the road, if you begin following this case, we're just going to call him Turtle Boy.

But anyways, in October of 2023, he was charged with multiple counts of intimidation of a witness, juror or law enforcement official, and a single count of conspiracy. He has denied all of these accusations, though, and says that his opinions are protected by free speech, and also that he's being singled out since he's been extremely vocal and law enforcement isn't happy about that.

Later on, state police ended up seizing Karen's phones because police believed that she may be involved in this witness intimidation conspiracy through her communications with Turtle Boy. You were locked up for a while. How long were you locked up? I did 60 days, Vinny, 69 days. All right, now you're here tonight. So I've been reporting on a lot of allegations against you and about you. So I want to talk about some of those and have you respond. And I want to begin with,

the relationship between you and Karen Reid, what exactly this is about because in an affidavit that was filed by the Commonwealth, they are alleging that you made 189 phone calls to Karen Reid and you spoke to her in excess of 40 hours and then a woman named Jane who I believe is your ex stated that

You run everything by Karen Reid before you post anything, before you say anything. You run it by her and you two are kind of in cahoots together.

Well, first of all, I laughed out loud when you said that Signal is a terrorist app. It's one of the most commonly used encrypted apps for a reason, because people don't want big brother government coming into their homes with guns, taking their devices and reading all their text messages. That's why people use Signal. And the two sources that they have that the government is using, Lindsay and Natalie, are two of the least credible people on earth.

According to the search warrant to seize Karen's phone, Karen allegedly leaked information about the investigation to Turtle Boy. She did this using her friend from college as the middleman. She would do this by sending her friend a message in an encrypted messaging app called Signal. Then the friend would copy and paste or forward that message to Turtle Boy. Now, some of these leaks included a recorded 911 call.

It's not the actual recorded dispatch audio, but it's a recording of Jennifer McCabe on the phone with the police. It's really difficult to hear, but in the recording, you can actually hear Karen yelling in the background, and she sounds genuinely upset and shocked to find John there. However, other people claim that you can hear Jennifer McCabe whispering to her sister, Nicole Albert, to stay inside the house.

If true, I feel like this would be pretty suspicious, since a lot of people have questioned how in the world a body is found on the front lawn of somebody's home, and the homeowners don't even come outside to see what's going on. But more importantly, the defense asks an even bigger question here. Why did the police never go inside the house that day? Why was the investigation always pointing to Karen from the outset?

I'm going to be honest. Personally, the audio is too low quality for me to hear any whispering about staying inside of the house, and I've listened to it multiple times, but I'm going to play it, and you can tell me what you think. Yes, I need someone to be 34 years old. 34 years old, get a nap. Did they man-trap down in the snow? Yes.

I don't know why he's in there. I can't get there. Okay, let's go. I know. Where's my gift? I don't see Blake and Terry. I need to go right now.

I don't know. He went out of the car and could be an alcoholic. Is he carrying? Is he carrying?

I don't know.

So as Karen's trial was getting closer, a massive bomb was dropped.

And what happens next is truly wild. But we are going to take a final break to hear from our last sponsors of today's episode. All right, guys, so where was I? Let's jump back into this case. On December 5th, 2023, Boston 25 News reported that the U.S. Attorney's Office was conducting an investigation into Karen's arrest and prosecution. 25 Investigates has learned that

that the Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey sent a letter to the Department of Justice. Those are the feds folks, okay? So you've got the local prosecutor sending a letter to the feds requesting that the federal probe of the Karen Reid case be transferred out of Massachusetts. So in the middle of trying to prosecute someone for murder,

The feds are looking at the people who investigated the case and investigated Karen Reid.

Then, during a hearing on January 18, 2024, one of Karen's defense attorneys dropped another bombshell, that specifically, the district attorney in Karen's case, D.A. Morrissey, is the target of the investigation. However, the U.S. Attorney's Office said that they aren't targeting anyone. A few days later, several letters between the D.A.'s office and a U.S. Attorney's Office concerning Karen Reed's case were unsealed.

Some of these letters from the DA's office asked for the case to be transferred from the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's Office, which was ultimately denied. But what's crazy is that that specific letter dated back to August of 2023, but the communication about the federal investigation began back in May of 2023.

which is absolutely insane because there had been rumors and speculation for months about a federal investigation into the DA's office and into the state police because of this case. But the DA's office flat out denied it, outright saying it's not true.

But now we know that they were in communications with the U.S. Attorney's Office in regards to this case. They knew that there was an investigation, and they did not disclose that to the defense. And instead, they tried to hide the truth.

Maybe they thought that it would go away. I don't know, but it's definitely not a good look. Now, because of this and the fact that the DA went on record to tell the public and more so potential jurors that every single witness that has been named suspicious in this case is 100% not involved in any way, that there is no investigation into Trooper Michael Proctor, and all of those claims were unfounded,

And then for this to come out? I mean, it's clear that it's misconduct by the prosecution. And Karen's defense wants the DA's office thrown off this case. In February of 2024, Karen's trial was pushed back to April 16th. This was after the U.S. Attorney's Office sent over 3,000 pages of documents about their investigation into the case. The defense said that the new information, quote,

appears to be exculpatory, while the prosecution said it was, quote, about 90% consistent with what was already known. But nevertheless, the trial was postponed.

However, before this happened, the defense tried to get the indictment thrown out, which was denied. However, what some people say is damning evidence was included in the prosecution's response to the defense's motion. The prosecution highlighted the text messages that Karen sent John and also the voicemail that she left on the night that he died. In the voicemail, she was allegedly screaming and saying, "'John, I fucking hate you,' and she also called him a pervert and accused him of cheating while on a trip to Aruba."

And when John's niece and nephew, who lived with him, were interviewed, they said that John and Karen bickered constantly, that there was always kind of this sense of just like turmoil in the relationship. And in the filings, it says something very interesting about Karen. The man in question is Brian Higgins, who police said was friends with Karen and John, and was with them at both bars where they had been drinking the night that John died. And in

inside the house that Karen allegedly dropped John off to. She made one kiss. It's nobody's guess, guaranteed, until now. Prosecutors said that Karen was involved in a, quote, romantic entanglement with Brian, and that two weeks before John's death, Brian went to John's house to watch a football game, and Karen walked him out afterwards and then allegedly kissed him.

They also revealed that text messages between Brian and Karen, quote, acknowledged the kiss and were romantic in nature, though Brian declined an invitation to visit Karen at her house. That's a direct quote. So basically, the prosecution believes that this all played into her motive to kill John after a night of heavy drinking.

Well, Karen's defense had a very interesting response about Brian in court. They said that the federal probe into the investigation includes phone calls, which they believe paint a clear picture of a conspiracy to frame Karen. Those phone calls were from Brian Albert, who owned the home where John's body was found.

Also Brian Higgins, Kevin Albert, Brian Albert's brother, and the former Canton police chief Kenneth Berkowitz. They also said that Brian Higgins was asked about this by the federal grand jury looking into the case and that he denied any phone calls with Brian. But then when he was pressed further about it and was also told that they have proof that they did call each other at 2.22 a.m. on the night that John died, he said that they must have butt dialed each other.

Now when he was first confronted, Brian Higgins first tried to claim that it had to have been a butt dial. That term butt dial is used by many of the Commonwealth's witnesses to explain the many calls between them and among them. And I've never seen a case where there have been so many butt dials, to be frank. But Mr. Higgins was already locked in. He already testified his phone was on the bedside table.

His butt was in the bed, the phone was in the table. The two could not have met, Your Honor. There was no possibility of a butt dial. And then Higgins admitted that. And that wasn't Mr. Higgins leaving Brian Albert a voicemail. He also admitted under oath that the toll records would have reflected a voicemail if they went to voicemail. He admitted that to call Brian Albert back, he would have had to first reach for his phone,

then unlock it with the passcode or face ID, then he would have to press on Brian Albert's number. And that is exactly what he did. And he testified that that was what he did. He also testified that nobody from the Commonwealth, not Trooper Proctor, not ADA Lally, no one has ever asked him about that phone call from Brian Albert to Higgins or the return phone call from Higgins to Albert lasting 22 seconds.

Rather than get everyone's phone records, as this court knows, the Commonwealth has fought the defense at every turn in our quest to get the phone records. They've persuaded this court that we were previously on a fishing expedition. To the extent the court once thought otherwise, it is clear this is no longer a fishing expedition. We do not have to go fishing to wonder anymore whether calls were made.

We now know that someone who had been in that house when John O'Keefe arrived called the homeowner at 2:22 in the morning, three and a half hours before John O'Keefe's body was found on the homeowner's lawn. We learned that neither party to that call ever revealed to police, investigators or prosecutors that they connected by phone.

in those early morning hours, just like Jennifer McCabe never revealed that at around the same time she was Googling asking how long it took for someone to die in the cold. A search that the FBI confirms happened at 2:27 in the morning again about three and a half hours before John O'Keefe's body was found.

Now for his part, Brian Albert also first tried to claim that his phone call to Brian Higgins at 2:22 in the morning was a butt dial. He said that he was awake and watching TV, but he was called back to the grand jury to testify a second time. The second time Brian Albert changed his testimony to say that at 2:22 in the morning, he and his wife were in bed in an intimate situation.

He claimed that he had his phone with him in the bed. So now he's claiming that it was during that intimate situation with his wife that he supposedly butt dialed Brian Higgins. He had no explanation, however, for how his phone picked up when Higgins called him back 17 seconds later. He had no explanation for the 22 second phone conversation that followed.

And it's worth noting that Higgins testified he never heard any intimate noises on the other end of the line either. Brian Albert tried to maintain that he butt dialed Higgins, but again, that would mean that his butt also answered the phone when Higgins called back and it doesn't make any sense.

Now, why was this important? I'll tell you why. Because that is five minutes before Jennifer McCabe's disputed 2.27 a.m. Google search of, quote, Uh, guys?

Guys, that feels very, very coincidental to me. I don't like to be a conspiracy theorist, at least not on the reg. And if I am one, I try not to like publicly state my opinions. But to accidentally butt dial somebody while somebody's having sex at 2.22 a.m. in the morning, which...

How is it in your butt? Like if you're having sex, how is it in your butt? Abled it out? I don't know. But then to also have a Google search happening just a couple minutes later of how long to die in the cold, which why is somebody Googling that anyway? Which I will say this too. There was a typo in her search instead of H-O-W. It was H-O-S. But when you look on your keyboard on your phone, the S is right below the W. So I think it's pretty safe to say she was trying to Google how long to die in the cold. But...

The first question there, obviously, is why is somebody Googling that in the middle of the night or like in the early morning hours? But also now that coupled with the fact that it was just a couple minutes after this call that allegedly happened during a butt dial, which was they had tried to deny entirely before they were basically caught in their lie. It just isn't smelling right. And

Something we always say is, you know, where there's smoke, there is fire. And how many coincidences can really happen until you can't explain it away? And this just feels a little gross to me. Now, most recently, two hearings in this case had the mother of all bombshells. So let's go through them. One was the fact that an accident reconstructionist hired by the FBI found that John's injuries did not appear to be from a car strike. The federal investigators...

Hired independent of us, we had no idea, and independent of the commonwealth, hired a professional reconstructionist, three PhDs, to look into exactly this issue. Did Karen Reid's car, did her SUV make contact with John O'Keefe? And their conclusion to a person was his injuries were inconsistent with the damage on the car,

The damage on the car was inconsistent with having made contact with John O'Keefe's body. In other words, the car didn't hit him and he wasn't hit by the car. Period. Full stop. That's their independent expert. Not ours. Not somebody on our payroll like Mr. Whiffen or one of their experts or Trooper Guerrino.

who's an arm of the agency. This is an independent federal government witness or series of witnesses who say unequivocally that car did not hit John O'Keefe and John O'Keefe was not hit by that car.

Also, the fact that Trooper Proctor is under federal investigation. Massachusetts State Police confirming the lead investigator in the Karen Reed murder case, Trooper Michael Proctor, is under investigation for a potential violation of department policy. While they're not commenting on what may have sparked this internal investigation, and they say Proctor remains on active duty,

We know it came to light just one day after a bombshell hearing in the case against Reed. Reed's attorney alleged Proctor never fully disclosed his personal relationship with multiple people involved in the case. That includes the Albert family, who lived at the home on the property where O'Keefe's body was found. In fact, just days prior to O'Keefe's death, Proctor had allegedly asked the Alberts to babysit his child. Michael Proctor is so connected to the Alberts that he was entrusting them or willing to entrust the Alberts

to be caregivers for his toddler child. Text messages from three days after O'Keefe's death also allegedly show the Alberts offered to send Proctor a thank you gift quote when this is all over. So now we have the lead investigator from Massachusetts State Police literally discussing the exchange of gifts between the Albert family on the one hand and the Proctor family on the other hand as a thank you

Their words for helping the Alberts out of a jam. Criminal defense attorney Ben Urbella says with Proctor's ethics being called into question, the entire case will face additional scrutiny. Two years later to the day on February 1st, 2024. Now let's fast forward two years later. Now Michael Proctor finds himself on the witness stand in front of a federal grand jury. That grand jury was tasked with a singular crime.

and that was investigating crimes of public corruption by law enforcement in relation to this case. And he admitted to an AUSA under very intense questioning that not only does he know the Albers and does he socialize with them, does he drink with them, does he go to pool parties with them, but he told his partner, Yuri Bukhne, all of this before Yuri Bukhne testified at the grand jury and before he and Bukhne actually interviewed Chris Albers.

Why does that mean something? Why does that mean something to the court and to this argument? Because when Yuri Bukhnecht testified before the state court grand jury, he testified that, quote, following formal introductions, end quote, Julie Albert and Chris Albert provided their phone numbers. Following formal introductions. That was a clear deceit on the grand jurors.

Yuri Butnik knew, as did Michael Proctor. They didn't need formal introductions. Michael Proctor was considering having Julie Albert babysit his kid. Under additional intense questioning by the Assistant United States Attorney, Proctor was caught in his own web of deceit and testified as follows, quote,

So this is the AUSA talking or asking the question. So obviously we're asking questions about your relationship with Julie Albert, with Chris Albert and with Colin Albert. Do you understand that? Answer. Yes, sir. Question. And you're saying that you're minimizing, quote, minimizing your relationship to the grand jury. Correct. Answer. Yes. He finally understood.

The scrutiny of a federal grand jury admitted that he had been lying about his relationship to the Alberts, which means he lied to the grand jury, which means that evidence was distorted in front of the grand jury. Trooper Proctor's mother refers to the Albert family as the Proctor's second family. So one might actually ask Mr. Morrissey, who's actually lying in this case? Is it us?

We just presented the court with factual information that was procured off of social media that can't, it's unassailable. It cannot be assailed. Then that the taillight fragments have three sources of DNA, including John's. There is a DNA report in relation to the taillight or the defendant's vehicle. There are three possible contributors to that DNA mixture. One is positively identified as that of the victim, John O'Keefe.

to others are unknown. There's been rampant sort of speculation, accusations levied against these particular troopers in regard to contaminating evidence or planting evidence and things of that nature. And that Jennifer McCabe was photographed outside of Trooper Proctor's house for a quote special meeting that was never disclosed to the police. And this happened on September 25th, 2023. We find out during the pendency of this case.

on September 25th, 2023, that one of those family members, Jennifer McCabe, who's the subject of great interest in this case and a primary person of interest in this case, is invited to Trooper Proctor's personal home for some sort of off-the-books meeting. Do we know about this meeting? Because Trooper Proctor, upon learning this,

that Jennifer McCabe was coming to his house, ran back to the office and filed a police report, a supplemental report explaining this meeting, this off-the-books meeting. No, he never disclosed it. We found out about this because a concerned citizen happened to photograph Jennifer McCabe's car parked outside Michael and Elizabeth Proctor's personal residence in the evening after hours.

And the best that counsel for Elizabeth Proctor can muster in terms of an argument is to say, well, you know what, Your Honor, maybe he wasn't home. Maybe. Or maybe not. The suspicious part is Trooper Proctor isn't saying. And there's nothing in Elizabeth Proctor's motion to suggest that he wasn't home. Certainly his car was there. Elizabeth Proctor's car was there and Jennifer McCabe's car was there.

Was Trooper Proctor home? I guess I would answer that by asking the question, does it matter if Trooper Proctor was home? They've now admitted that Jennifer McCabe, a central character in the middle of this investigation, in the middle of this crime, was secretly meeting and or socializing with the lead investigator and or his wife in the living room of their home. And that, Your Honor, is a problem. And it shows more than a professional connection.

It shows a personal connection. And according to the Proctor family's own counsel, Elizabeth Proctor's counsel, the subject matter of that meeting was commiserating about this case. They weren't talking about sports. They weren't talking about the weather. They were meeting about this case. So how does that not show a bias? And how does that not implicate Karen Reid's constitutional rights to this information?

And to this day, the Commonwealth has yet to concede what obviously is now sort of front page news that there is, in fact, a personal relationship between the Proctors and their second family, the Albert McCabe family. All while the prosecution has said that none of these people knew each other, none of them socialized together, and the entire notion of a connection between the Alberts, the McCabes, and Trooper Proctor was not true in any way.

I mean, once again, guys, it's just not smelling right. So, Perrin's defense filed a motion for the judge to dismiss the case again, but the judge denied the request. And as of right now, the trial is scheduled to move forward on April 16th, 2024. So,

So what do you guys think about this case? And I'm actually going to put a poll over on Spotify. So if you're listening to this on Spotify, go answer there. Otherwise, let me know in the review section over on Apple Podcasts. But do you believe that Karen is guilty of hitting John on purpose? Do you think that it was an accident? Do you think that she purposely left him for dead in the snow then after accidentally hitting him?

Or do you believe the defense? Do you think that the Google search is a smoking gun? Or better yet, when was the last time somebody who was accused of murdering a police officer had crowds of people cheering in support of them being innocent outside of a courthouse?

I mean, the only time we really see things like that is when it's a celebrity on trial. But the fact that she's on trial for murder and murder of a police officer, no less, and she has so many supporters outside of the courthouse for every single court appearance,

I don't know, does that indicate something? This case is just insane. Also, if you've been following this podcast for a while, you know that last year we sent a team member to the Lori Vallow trial to do live coverage there. We did live tweets every single day, giving all of the updates as the trial was going on. Then we also did weekly episodes recapping the full trial. So...

We're trying to debate right now. We're thinking about going to the Karen Reid trial and doing live coverage from there. If that's something that you're interested in, please let us know because we're trying to determine what that coverage would look like. We definitely will update you again on this case, but we're thinking maybe we actually do a bigger deep dive and go to the trial, give you daily and week-to-week coverage. So if that's something you're interested in, definitely let me know. But in any event, we certainly will jump back on here and give you an update once the trial gets started.

So if you don't want to miss any of that, make sure you take a quick second on your podcast app wherever you listen. There should be like a little menu button or three dots in your podcast app where you can follow the podcast. Make sure you're following so that you don't miss when that episode gets uploaded.

Other than that, guys, if you are listening on Apple and have an extra 30 seconds to do a rating and a review, I would greatly appreciate it. And don't forget, like I mentioned in the top of this episode, there is a special code word or code words. And if you can decode it, submit your answers in the form in the show notes for a chance to win a $100 gift card. All instructions will be in the show notes. And...

Good luck. Happy anniversary to all of my serial sleuths, and thank you so much for being here with me. I am so grateful for all of your support. All right, guys, and don't forget to go pick up all of those amazing deals, snag the amazing offers from today's sponsors while they last. I will have all of it linked in the show notes for you. I will be back on the mic with you again on Thursday, where we are going over all of the updates this week in the true crime world, and then if you feel like you still need to

you know, a little more, a little more content to binge. We also have our bonus ad-free episodes every single Friday with exclusive case coverage. And you can get access to that either through Apple Podcasts or through Patreon, which I will also link in the show notes. All right, guys. Thank you again so, so much. And until the next one, be nice. Don't kill people. All right, guys. Thank you. Take care and happy anniversary.