Karen Read prosecutors want expert's opinion on Jen McCabe's Google search excluded from second trial
DEDHAM – Special prosecutor Hank Brennan, who was brought in for Karen Read's upcoming second trial, is asking the court to exclude testimony about witness Jen McCabe's "ho[w] long to die in cold" Google search that was a sticking point of controversy in the first trial.
Read is accused of hitting and killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, with her SUV during an argument after a night of heavy drinking in 2022. O'Keefe's body was found in the snow outside a home on Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts.
Jen McCabe's Google search
Read's attorneys argued in her first trial that McCabe, who was at 34 Fairview Road the night John O'Keefe died, searched "ho[w] long to die in cold" at 2:27 a.m. the night O'Keefe died. The information came from an extraction of McCabe's phone performed by defense expert Richard Green, and Read's attorneys allege that the timestamp on it proves a coverup and framing of Read.
McCabe testified in the first trial that the Google search actually happened at 6:23 a.m. at the urging of Read, as she was in the back of a car after they discovered O'Keefe's body in the snow.
"She grabbed my hands and she said, 'Google hypothermia, Google how long it takes to die in cold,'" McCabe testified in the first trial.
Evidence in Karen Read's second trial
Two experts who testified for the Commonwealth in the first trial agreed that the search happened in the 6 a.m. hour, not at 2:27 a.m.
Prosecutors, in a filing to the court on Thursday, allege that the 2:27 a.m. search opinion by Green lacks "any evidentiary support" and would mislead a jury, calling Green's testimony "an attempt to infect the jury with an inadmissible opinion."
Defense attorneys grilled McCabe on cross-examination in the first trial, accusing her of deleting the 2:27 a.m. search.
"Did you delete that search because you knew you would be implicated in John O'Keefe's death if that search was found on your phone?" defense attorney Alan Jackson asked McCabe, who replied that she did not delete the search.
Read's first trial ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury. Her next trial is set for this spring. An evidentiary hearing is scheduled for January 7, in which this request by prosecutors may be brought up.
