DAY 7: Karen Read Retrial

Was Attorney Jackson losing traction today when cross-examining Jen McCabe?

TESTIMONY of JEN MCCABE (2nd day on the stand)

ON DIRECT:

• Jen’s 911 call is played. Karen is heard screaming in the background.

• Video is played from police cruiser camera showing the moments when John was receiving emergency help, and being transported into the ambulance.

• Jen is shown photos of the outside of John’s house. Karen’s SUV is shown with the broken right taillight that morning (capture by a police cruiser camera). Jen confirms that’s what the taillight looked like that morning.

• Prosecutor Brennan asks Jen if she had ever googled about hypothermia prior to finding John on the lawn. Jen says, no.

• At one point Jen recalls hearing Karen tell a medic that she hit John. Jen thought it was just crazy talk because she was so erratic.

• After the medics were leaving with John, an officer tells Jen to wake up the homeowners at 34 Fairview.

• Jen enters the home, door is unlocked. She says she went up to the master bedroom and the door was closed. She entered and began trying to wake her sister and brother-in-law up. She didn’t want to startle them. Brian wakes up first and asks what’s going on. Jen relays the info.

• They all went downstairs and Officer Lank was already standing in the house.

• Jen remembers speaking with officers and family for the next few days. Her memories were flooding back from the events of that tragic morning. She had been in shock.

• She wanted to help however she could. She even turned her phone over to the police.

• At one point, John’s mom mentioned to her and Kerry that it would be a good idea to write the timeline of events down to remember them if needed.

CROSS EXAMINATION:

• Defense Attorney Alan Jackson asks Jen if she has talked with Kerry Roberts about the case at any point. Jen says, yes. “We went through trauma together.”

• Jackson asks Jen if the prosecutor asked her to be “softer” this time on the stand versus last trial. Jen says, no.

• Jackson has Jen clarify her family tree…

  • Brian Albert (Brother-in-law), Retired Boston Police Officer. Homeowner of 34 Fairview.

  • Nicole Albert (Sister), married to Brian Albert. Homeowner of 34 Fairview.

  • Chris Albert (Brian Albert’s brother), Canton Select Board Member (Currently, but not at the time of John’s death).

  • Julie Albert (Chris’ wife).

  • Kevin Albert (Brian Albert’s brother), Detective for Canton Police Department. (Not the investigator for this case)

  • Michelle (Jen’s sister), nickname ‘Shelly’.

  • Denise (Jen’s sister), nickname ‘Dee Dee’.

  • Tom Weekes (Jen’s father).

• Jen’s family is close knit. Jackson asks Jen if they spend holidays together, vacations, etc. Jen says, yes. Not typically with Kevin and Chris Albert, but her immediate family.

• Jackson asks Jen if she is aware that Julie Albert is best friends with Courtney Proctor (Investigator Michael Proctor’s sister). Jen says, no, she’s best friends with Julie’s sister, Julian.

• Jackson asks if Jen has a “connection” to the Canton Police. She says Trooper Kevin Albert is Brian Albert’s brother, but she doesn’t have a connection to the actual CPD.

Arriving at 34 Fairview

• Alan Jackson moves into the timeline of when she left Waterfall Bar and got to the Albert property. She says she turned onto the driveway. There was a parked Jeep (belonging to Brian Higgins) near the mailbox out front. It was very dark outside.

• At one point, she looks out the storm door window when looking for Karen and John and sees her SUV parked along curb area in direct line from the door viewpoint.

• Jen texted John. That text was followed up by several more over a span of 20-ish minutes.

(Here’s the call/text chart I shared yesterday if you need a visual of the times Jen texted John).

“I remember going to the front door [a glass storm door], seeing the car and texting ‘Here?’. When I went to the door the second time, the car had moved out towards the flagpole, and I texted pull behind me, because I thought, did they not know where to park? Did they think they were at the wrong house?”

• Jen says she recalls Karen’s SUV in three different places as she periodically looked out for them. “At first it was straight ahead, then it was at the flagpole, and then it was further up”.

• Jackson says the amount of times Jen says she looked out the window/door has changed. Jen says she can’t say for sure the number of times she glanced out of a window/door, she just recalls seeing the car in the 3 different locations, and then eventually it wasn’t there.

• Jackson asks Jen to explain where where Brian Higgins’ Jeep was parked when she saw Karen’s vehicle, as well as the location of Ryan Nagel’s truck. All she can recall is seeing lights of a vehicle to the left of her peripheral vision. Karen's SUV was straight ahead. She didn't take notice of any other vehicles.

• During this short window of time, Jen recalls Julie Nagel running outside to her brother’s vehicle and then coming right back inside to the home.

• Jackson asks if Jen ever saw John on the lawn that night, she says no.

• At some point after John had passed away, Jen asked Julie Nagel to send her a screenshot of the text conversation Julie had with her brother from the night in question because she wanted to see the timestamp of when Ryan texted he arrived to the property.

• Did you share this text with Proctor? Jen says, I don't know.

The Morning John was Found

• Defense Attorney Jackson questions Jen about the moment she woke her sister and brother-in-law up after John was found. Jackson inserts the dramatic semantics that Jen “climbed” up the stairs and “burst” into the room. She was “amped up”. She was “barking” at Brian Albert and Nicole Albert.

  Jen says she didn’t use those words to describe the moment.

  She says she went into the room and didn't want to startle Brian and Nicole too much so she was just calling their name to get a response.

• Jackson asked what the dog's reaction was. Jen says I don't recall the dog.

  You have no memory of the dog? No barking, no howling? Jen says, no.

• Jackson asks who was the last to leave that night at the end of the birthday get together? Jen believes it was Caitlyn Albert.

The Police Interviews

• As time began to pass, and the chaos settled, Jen was recalling more and more of the incidents of that morning.

• Jackson asks if Brian Higgins told Jen to call officer Lank to come back and tell him the other things she remembered. Jen is unsure if that was at Brian Higgins’ request.

• Jackson asks her if she was hanging out with her family to talk about their story and to coordinate statements. Jen said no. Her family was in shock and they were just hanging out together piecing information together and trying to figure out what had happened.

• Lank had separated the family for interviews. Jen needed to go home to her children. She asked Lank to come there. Brian Albert followed her to her house. He was present at the house, but was not in the room where she was interviewed. Investigator Proctor was there for the interview.

• Jackson asks if Jen was with Kerry before Kerry testified at the Grand Jury. Yes, they were in the waiting room.

The Federal Investigators

• Jackson brings up a time when an “independent agency” interviewed Jen. Jackson refers to them as the “agents”, and the judge sustains. (The Federal Investigation was not allowed to be discussed in front of the jury, but Alan Jackson slid it in anyways).

• The agency asked if they could interview her at her home, and Jen says, yes. She asks for 10 minutes to brush teeth, etc. When they interview her, they ask if she contacted anyone in the last ten minutes, and Jen tells them her husband and Kerry Roberts.

• Says she called Kerry to see if this agency had also reached out to her. Jackson asserts she did it to get their stories straight.

• Jackson asks if her motive was to know what Kerry said. Jen says her intentions were to see if Kerry also received a call from them. They were now friends, going through the same traumatic experience.

• Alan Jackson accuses Jen of lying to the officers because once the officers left her home, she called them back to let them know she also called Peggy O’Keefe and Brian Albert. Jen says she was talking with her husband and realized she forgot to mention those calls, so she reached out to tell them right away.

I HIT HIM. I HIT HIM. I HIT HIM…

“Every police officer that I spoke to, I tried to answer their questions the best I could. It took me hours and in some cases, days to remember all the things that Ms. Read had said. My mind, I was in a state of shock… But I… The minute I remembered, she said, I hit him. I hit him. I hit him. I called officer Lank.”

• Jackson asks if Jen ever mentioned in the Grand Jury proceeding that Karen said those words, and Jen says she’s not sure. There’s been several Grand Jury proceedings she has testified at and she cannot recall what was asked. However, she says she can say with 100% certainty that she heard Karen say those words to a first responder.

• Jackson says that in the 2022 GJ, Jen said that Karen actually stated, “Did I hit him? Could I have hit him?”.

  Jackson: “That's what you testified to under oath at the grand jury, isn't it?

  Jen: “Yes, because she also said that.”

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Jackson was periodically making snide and snarky comments throughout this cross-examination, and the judge had to remind the jury to ignore counsel’s statements. I’m not sure how it appears to the jury, but to me, it looked like the attorney was losing his cool because he couldn’t rattle Jen McCabe. Here’s a brief clip.

No trial tomorrow guys! See you Friday.:)