268: Karen Read Trial Recap Week 2: Jen McCabe Lied to FBI & Expert Admits John's Phone May Have Entered 34 Fairview

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Speaker 1 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny who infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 1 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 1 Why is Adam after the Tanner family? What lengths will he go to? One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 1 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video. Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCoveny, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 1 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny who infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 1 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 1 Why is Adam after the Tanner family? What lengths will he go to? One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 1 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 2 California has millions of homes that could be damaged in a strong earthquake. Older homes are especially vulnerable to quake damage, so you may need to take steps to strengthen yours.

Speaker 5 Visit strengthenyourhouse.com to learn how to strengthen your home and help help protect it from damage.

Speaker 8 The work may cost less than you think and can often be done in just a few days.

Speaker 6 Strengthen your home and help protect your family.

Speaker 9 Get prepared today and worry less tomorrow. Visit strengthenyourhouse.com.

Speaker 11 Karen Reed, accused of the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, has consistently asserted her innocence, alleging a concerted effort by law enforcement to frame her.

Speaker 13 Charged with hitting her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, with her SUV early Saturday morning and leaving him in a snowbank.

Speaker 12 The closely watched murder trial has ended in a mistrial.

Speaker 14 The prosecution is indicating that it will retry this case, and the question becomes one of how will they do it?

Speaker 1 Hey, True Crime Besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Asleep.

Speaker 1 Hey, everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly with me, Annie Elise.

Speaker 1 Today, we are doing our Karen Reed trial week two recap. I always have a tough time saying that.
It's like say five times fast.

Speaker 1 Karen Reed, retrial, week two, recap um no we're giving you the recap today like we do every friday and there is quite a bit that went down this week like last week i'm going to have elena our correspondent who is there in boston boots on the ground come in join us let us know firsthand what went down what happened this week in the trial and don't worry for those of you who listened to the recap last week we got elena a better mic we're working out some of the tech issues that was her very first time ever being on camera being on mic so i appreciate all the supportive supportive comments.

Speaker 1 We love Elena, guys. She's the best.
So thank you guys for being supportive as we work out any audio tweaks. But anyway, she's going to be joining us and letting us know what went on.

Speaker 1 But just to give you a little bit of like a taste for what we're going to be talking about, it was jam-packed this week.

Speaker 1 I mean, we had cell phone experts weigh in from Celbright where they had talked about

Speaker 1 where the phone was traveling, the movements that morning, if John's phone could have been inside the house, which, of course,

Speaker 1 a lot of that detail was not shared when it was direct examination.

Speaker 1 He was saying that his phone went all the way to the flagpole, that it never showed as going inside yet on cross when they brought up a diagram where it showed this like big white circle around the property.

Speaker 1 And they were challenged. And the defense team pushed back, saying, well, couldn't it be true that his phone could have been anywhere in this white circle, even on the edge, which is near the house?

Speaker 1 He says, of course, yes, and that he omitted that from his presentation that he gave the previous day because, again, he is only supposed to present his version of what fits with the state's point of view.

Speaker 1 So, there's a lot of interesting things we need to talk about regarding all of the cell experts' testimony.

Speaker 1 Then, Jen McCabe took the stand, the friend, the one who was there the morning they discovered John's body, the one who invited everybody back to Nicole and

Speaker 1 Brian Albert's house that evening. So, she takes the stand and

Speaker 1 feels very more emotional, like seems very more emotional than the first trial, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 A lot of people were suggesting that she was maybe coached, that she needed to look a little bit softer, that her appearance had even changed a bit.

Speaker 1 But she walks through the events leading up to the discovery of John's body, how Karen was acting. Something I did not like is that she kept calling Karen crazy over and over again.

Speaker 1 It was, she was acting batshit crazy. She was a lunatic.
She was unhinged. Like all of these things.
And I'm like, okay, it's not really freaking necessary.

Speaker 1 Like maybe it's authentic because she is trying to find her boyfriend who she loves and then she does discover his body. Like how is she, how would you expect her to act, right?

Speaker 1 So anyway, then on cross, it gets really interesting because the defense is going in hard. Alan Jackson is not holding back on this cross.

Speaker 1 And he basically, in my opinion, is trying to illustrate that Jen's credibility is not really there.

Speaker 1 Similar to what happened with Carrie Roberts last week, I think he was trying to catch her in a lie, and it got very heated.

Speaker 1 So much so that on Wednesday, Judge Bev kind of ended the cross a little bit abruptly. I mean, I know court was scheduled to end that day around that time anyway, but it was just very interesting.

Speaker 1 And what has come out a lot this week, more so than last week, but definitely not new information, is a lot of the people out there who are watching this trial go down are commenting on Judge Beverly Kanoni and how it seems that she is siding with the state much more often than the defense, that she is saying things to almost put the defense like not in timeout, but like shaming them for how they're approaching things, how they're asking questions, their behavior.

Speaker 1 And I'm even seeing legal commentators out there who have not chosen any side in the Karen Reed case commenting on Judge Bev's behavior, saying how it's unprofessional, how at times it borders on ethical.

Speaker 1 And that seems to be a theme that we saw a lot this week. So, definitely no shortage of the theatrics this week.
ARCA experts also have been now approved to be admitted.

Speaker 1 We'll get into more detail of that here shortly.

Speaker 1 But, what I did think was interesting too, and I'm sure Elena may touch on it, is that when Judge Bev was talking with the defense, first of all, she said, make your argument quick, like trying to like hurry them up because it was the end of the day, even though she just gave the state like seven minutes to explain their point of view.

Speaker 1 So, but and before she does that, she scolds them and she cites something that isn't even applicable in this scenario as to the signal chats and what was being held and what messages had been deleted.

Speaker 1 So then when the defense attorney is like kind of countering that, being like, well, actually, that isn't applicable to what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 It's almost, I don't know if she gets embarrassed or if she just like doesn't want to be called out that she knows she's wrong, but she kind of says, she's like, I know it doesn't.

Speaker 1 And don't worry, you don't need to argue this hard because I am going to approve it. Like you are going to win this motion.

Speaker 1 And it was just like, okay, then why did you have to give him this public scolding beforehand, right? And

Speaker 1 it's my personal opinion that the only reason she allowed this in is because she knows if they did not allow the ARCA experts in, that there would be grounds for appeal, that there would be appeals coming in, that she would not be, that Karen Reed,

Speaker 1 her being she, that Karen Reed would not have gotten a fair trial. So as much as I think it pained her to do it, she knew she had to do it.

Speaker 1 And I think that's why she did this public scolding because she was like doing this, like just gritting her teeth and not wanting to let the ARCA experts in, but knew she had no other choice.

Speaker 1 That's just my opinion. I'm not a lawyer.
I'm not an expert. I'm just a viewer.
And I'm here breaking it down for you and breaking down what I think.

Speaker 1 As a reminder, I know that these recaps are meant to catch you up on the full week of trial because a lot of us don't have seven hours to watch this trial every single day.

Speaker 1 But if you ever do find yourself wanting to watch live, if you're on your lunch break, if you have a free moment to yourself and you want to watch it live and watch it live with me on it, commentating, our live chat going, everybody commenting, you can do that over on my YouTube channel, 10 to Life, because we are live streaming it every single day.

Speaker 1 Just a little friendly reminder. Now I'm going to stop talking.
I'm going to let our amazing correspondent, Elena Johnson, come in.

Speaker 1 She is there in Massachusetts, breaking it all down for us, letting us know what's going on in court, out of court, what happened this week, the big takeaways.

Speaker 1 And we're going to start with just a very brief recap of what happened last Friday when the jury went out for jury view. All right, Elena, thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker 1 Tell us what went down this week.

Speaker 15 Hey Annie, before we get into the testimony, let's cover two updates in the case in general. This week each side got some good news and some bad news.
On Monday we learned that the U.S.

Speaker 15 Supreme Court declined to hear Karen's appeal.

Speaker 15 We know that Karen's team has previously petitioned the Supreme Court to have two of her charges, including the most important charge of second-degree murder, dropped on grounds of double jeopardy, but the court denied to hear her petition.

Speaker 15 This doesn't mean that they've ruled on the case at all or given their opinion, but rather that they're declining to review it altogether.

Speaker 15 On the other hand, on Tuesday, the judge made a very important ruling about the testimony of ARCA experts.

Speaker 15 These experts are expected to be very important to the defense's case because they testified in the first trial, but it was unlikely that John was struck by a car at all.

Speaker 15 The judge ruled that despite, quote, repeated and deliberate violations of rules about sharing evidence, she would allow the ARCA experts to testify.

Speaker 15 She agreed with the prosecution's arguments that they had been ambushed by the defense, but she admitted that, quote, the defendant's right to a fair trial is paramount to everything.

Speaker 15 So ARCA is in, and I expect this to be a big part of the defense's case. So now let's move on to the testimony.

Speaker 15 On Friday, April 25th, it was a short day for us because the jury, judge, and counsel took a trip to 34 Fairview, which is the Alberts residence and of course the scene of the alleged crime.

Speaker 15 We learned that Karen's old car, this infamous Lexus, of course the alleged murder weapon, would also be on site.

Speaker 15 And although the media wasn't allowed at the viewing, we did get to hear both the prosecution and the defense instruct the jury about specific parts of the viewing that they should take note of.

Speaker 15 The prosecution asked the jury to specifically note the height of the car's bumper, the height of the rear taillight, and also the ledge at the top of the car's hatch.

Speaker 15 The defense asked the jury to specifically note the distance between the second floor window of the house and the front lawn, as well as the distance from the flagpole to the front door.

Speaker 15 I think this is likely because the defense is going to make a point about how someone inside next to that window, maybe someone named Brian Albert, could have and should have heard this big commotion going on in the front lawn.

Speaker 15 After the jury returned from their viewing, we heard from the prosecution's ninth witness, Dr. Gary Fowler, who's a pathologist.

Speaker 15 During a direct examination, the prosecution established that Karen's blood alcohol level was 0.093 at around 9 a.m. on the morning of the incident, incident, while the legal limit is 0.08%.

Speaker 15 On cross-examination, Dr.

Speaker 15 Fowler said that his lab is not forensically accredited, and he admitted that the method that was used to test Karen's blood is not the same method that a forensic lab would use, but he argued that the method that he used should be equally accurate.

Speaker 15 We got into some very technical jargon, but to put it simply, he admitted that parents who have that patients who have MS, multiple sclerosis, like Karen does, they can have higher levels of a specific coenzyme called NADH in their blood.

Speaker 15 But he testified that this increase wouldn't be enough to cause a false positive in the blood alcohol readings. Now, I generally thought that Dr.

Speaker 15 Fowler held up well against cross-examination, certainly better than many of the Commonwealth's other witnesses that we've seen.

Speaker 15 And I'm interested to hear if the prosecution will do a retrograde extrapolation like they did in the first trial.

Speaker 15 This is basically a calculation that works backwards to say, well, if her blood alcohol level was 0.093% at 9 a.m., then it would have been blank at, say, 12.30 a.m.

Speaker 15 when the incident is alleged to have occurred. We then moved on to the 10th prosecution witness, Jason Becker, who's an EMT paramedic and firefighter.

Speaker 15 Jason is Daniel Whitley's partner, who we heard from a few days ago, and the two of them were on the scene as paramedics for Karen on the day of John's death.

Speaker 15 Jason's direct examination was short, and I didn't feel it added too much to the prosecution's case that we hadn't already heard from Daniel, except for a discussion that Jason apparently heard Karen say that that her last interaction with John had been a fight the night before.

Speaker 15 That brings us to Monday, April 28th, where we heard from Ian Wiffin, the 11th witness from the prosecution.

Speaker 15 He works for a digital forendics company, and he was in charge of analyzing the phones of John as well as Jen McCabe.

Speaker 15 He first walked us through the search history on Jen McCabe's phone the night of the incident.

Speaker 15 This testimony was again very long, filled with a lot of technical jargon, so let's see if we can break it down.

Speaker 15 The big question that both the prosecution and the defense are trying to answer is when did Jen Google, quote, house long to die in the cold?

Speaker 15 The defense is going to argue that Jen made that search between 2 and 3 a.m., well before John's body was found.

Speaker 15 And if that's true, that would definitely be suspicious because it would suggest that Jen knew John was outside in the cold well before anybody else did.

Speaker 15 But on the other hand, the prosecution is arguing that Jen made the search between 6 and 7 a.m. after she, Carrie, and Karen discovered John's body.

Speaker 15 And to support the prosecution's theory, Wiffin gave this timeline of events from Jen's phone.

Speaker 15 He said that at 2.27 a.m., a Safari tab was opened and showed a search for Hockamach Sports Scoreboard and Ozone Basketball.

Speaker 15 Then he said there was no new activity on the site, but the tab continued to operate in the background.

Speaker 15 Safari was then next used again at 6.23 a.m., at which point this same tab was used to search House Long to Die in the Cold.

Speaker 15 So in other words, his stance is that when Jen opened the old tab back up to make the Google search at 6.23 a.m., it actually registered the time from when the tab was originally opened, which was 2.27 a.m.

Speaker 15 To support this, he said, quote, it's not until you actually close the tab that the information gets written into the database.

Speaker 15 He also admitted that the search was deleted, and he couldn't explain how or why, but he said he was confident that it was deleted by what he calls a systems event, not by the user manually removing it.

Speaker 15 He also pointed out that there were thousands of deleted records from Jen's phone, not just this one. And I thought this is an interesting point because which is worse?

Speaker 15 Deleting only the one most suspicious search or having thousands and thousands of deleted phone records. After this, he walked us through data on John's phone the night of the incident.

Speaker 15 Just like with Jun's phone, I think it's really helpful to identify the overarching point that each side is trying to make.

Speaker 15 And here, the big question they're going after is, did John actually go into the house at 34 Fairview? We can expect the defense is going to say, yep, he went in and he ultimately died.

Speaker 15 While the prosecution is arguing, nope, he never even entered the house and instead, he died outside. To support the prosecution's claims, Wiffin gave us this timeline.

Speaker 15 He said that at 12.24 a.m., John's phone approached 34 Fairview, passed the end of the driveway, and stopped very close to the flagpole.

Speaker 15 Then a few minutes later, that phone received messages from Jen McCabe and Brian Higgins. At 12.23 a.m.
The phone then shows that 36 steps were taken.

Speaker 15 And a minute later, the phone was locked and not used again. At this point, Wiffin says the phone's battery was at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then at 6.15 a.m.

Speaker 15 the battery is then less than 40 degrees Fahrenheit. But Wiffin admitted that there was a large gap in temperature data from 1.30 to about 6 a.m.

Speaker 15 But still Wiffin said that together this shows that the phone stayed close to the flagpole from 1224 a.m.

Speaker 15 to when John was found, meaning that John, or at least his phone, never actually entered the home.

Speaker 15 Then on Tuesday, after more than three hours of direct examination, we then began cross-examination of Wiffin.

Speaker 15 Alessi handled this cross-examination for the defense, and I thought he was strong on cross.

Speaker 15 I think he has the ability to make some really compelling arguments without coming across as badgering, which

Speaker 15 someone like Jackson might come across as. So let's see if we can hit the key points covered.

Speaker 15 Remember, I'm trying to distill each day of testimony into just 10 or 15 minutes, so I won't be able to hit every detail.

Speaker 15 Starting with John's phone, we first learned that Wiffin included this quote in his final report.

Speaker 15 He said, quote, at 12.25 a.m., the device's bearing shifts to a westerly direction, as location records also show the device moving west from the roadside towards the house, but he admitted that he did not include that in his presentation to the jury.

Speaker 15 He further admitted, quote, it does appear that the device started to move towards the house, which contradicts his previous testimony that the phone only stayed close to the flagpole for the entire night.

Speaker 15 He also added that the location data from the time between 1225 and 1237 a.m.

Speaker 15 is not very accurate, but he admitted that this inaccuracy could be because the phone was entering a building, like say the Alberts house.

Speaker 15 Alessi then brought up Wiffin's testimony that the phone took 36 steps at 1231 a.m.

Speaker 15 Wiffin said that those 36 steps would amount to about 84 feet, and he admitted that that could place the phone within the house, since the distance from the flagpole to the house is only about 72 feet.

Speaker 15 After that, we moved on to the temperature data. The defense pointed out that Wiffin conducted tests where he placed placed his phone either outside in the cold or in a freezer.

Speaker 15 Ami's tests show that the phone battery drops by at least two degrees each minute.

Speaker 15 But Wiffin admitted that his data showed that the temperature on John's phone battery dropped at a much slower rate, less than one degree per minute.

Speaker 15 Now during redirect, the prosecution pointed out that maybe this difference is because John's warm body was laying on the phone.

Speaker 15 And that's fair, but I think the bigger issue that the defense showed that whatever those outside conditions were, Wiffin's test did not properly replicate them.

Speaker 15 Wiffin didn't test what the temperature would look like with the warmth of a body against it.

Speaker 15 And in fact, he couldn't really do completely accurate testing because he said he didn't even know the outside temperature in Canton that night.

Speaker 15 Then moving on to Jen's phone, Wiffin admitted that some previous versions of his company's own software have the search for how long to die in the cold marked at 2.27 a.m.

Speaker 15 And he said that other reputable software on the market also has the search time stamped at 2.27 a.m. So where does that leave us with Wiffin?

Speaker 15 I'll admit that after his direct testimony, I felt like the prosecution was in a pretty good place with establishing that John never entered the house.

Speaker 15 After the cross-examination though, I did feel like Wiffin lost some credibility.

Speaker 15 I don't personally think he was like outright lying, but I do think Alesi showed that Wiffin's original testimony was not the complete story and there might have been some cherry-picking involved.

Speaker 15 Remember, on cross-examination and even in the trial overall, it's not the defense's job to tear down the entire case or to present a different theory of what happened.

Speaker 15 All they need to do is poke enough holes in whatever the prosecution is serving to cast a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 15 To use an analogy, if the prosecution is bringing a balloon to the party, the defense doesn't need to give the jury a better balloon. All they need to do is give them the needle to pop it.

Speaker 15 And here, I did feel like Wiffin's balloon was popped. On Wednesday, we then moved on to the prosecution's 12th witness, much anticipated testimony from Jen McCabe.

Speaker 1 Get Ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCoveny, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 1 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny who infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 1 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 1 Why is Adam after the Tanner family? What lengths will he go to? One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 1 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 2 California has millions of homes that could be damaged in a strong earthquake. Older homes are especially vulnerable to quake damage, so you may need to take steps to strengthen yours.

Speaker 5 Visit strengthenyourhouse.com to learn how to strengthen your home and help protect it from damage.

Speaker 8 The work may cost less than you think and can often be done in just a few days.

Speaker 6 Strengthen your home and help protect your family.

Speaker 9 Get prepared today and worry less tomorrow. Visit strengthenyourhouse.com.

Speaker 15 I'll try to give a very brief overview of Jen's involvement in the case. She's kind of all over the case.

Speaker 15 But to summarize, she was a close friend of John's because her daughter and his niece were friends.

Speaker 15 Jen was also out at the bar with John and Karen on the night of the incident, and she's the one who invited them to the after party at 34 Fairview.

Speaker 15 34 Fairview is, of course, owned by Brian Albert and his wife, Nicole Albert. And Nicole is Jen McCabe's sister.

Speaker 15 Jen said that John never came to the party, but she said she did see a dark SUV in the driveway during the party.

Speaker 15 Jen says that the next day, Karen called her frantically saying that John never came home, and

Speaker 15 that's what began this search party of sorts by the trio of Karen, Jen, and Carrie Roberts. And we know they eventually found John's lifeless body in front of 34 Fairview.

Speaker 15 It's at this point at around 6.30 a.m. that Jen says Karen told her to Google hypothermia, which is in line with Wiffin's testimony about the time stamp for that search how long to die in the cold.

Speaker 15 Jen also testified that after discovering the body, body, Karen said, quote, I hit him three times to a female EMT on the scene.

Speaker 15 Now Jen admitted that she didn't report Karen saying this right away and she instead contacted Michael Proctor about it after the fact because she claimed she sort of like suddenly remembered that it happened.

Speaker 15 Now like I said last week, we can expect that the prosecution is going to call a lot of witnesses that claim that Karen said this and each time we can expect that the defense is going to do everything in their power to refute their testimony.

Speaker 15 Because in my opinion, this alleged admission is one of the strongest parts of the prosecution's case and the defense knows that so I would expect this to come up in cross-examination quite a bit.

Speaker 15 Then we also heard the 911 call that Jen made just after they found the body. Now a lot of the audience was sort of critical of Jen's very calm demeanor during this call.
I personally disagree.

Speaker 15 I think that judging people on their demeanor during emergencies isn't very accurate because we all react differently. So I don't personally think that Jen's tone on the call really means much.

Speaker 15 But what I did take from the 911 call is that you can hear Karen in the background with what I feel were very genuine screams of fear, terror, panic, all of it.

Speaker 15 After that, by mid-Wednesday, it was time for the cross-examination of Jen. This was done by Alan Jackson.

Speaker 15 I think we can expect that anytime a witness testifies to Karen saying, I hit him, Jackson will probably do the cross. I think that's how they've divided the witnesses up on the defense side.

Speaker 15 Now, I will say Jen is a little bit difficult to listen to on cross. She knows she's a prosecution witness and she really never wants to give the defense an inch.

Speaker 15 Often, when the defense asks her a question that she doesn't like, she'll give a sort of non-answer over and over again, or she'll ask her own question back.

Speaker 15 I don't necessarily think this means she's lying, but I don't think it's a good look either. I think if you compare her to someone like Wiffin, who in my opinion was forthcoming.

Speaker 15 coming across even if he wasn't thrilled about it. I think in comparison he comes across as more reliable than someone like Jen.
And actually, yesterday was Jen on her best behavior. She was much more

Speaker 15 combative during the first trial. We did see a little glimpse of the old Jen at the very end of the day Wednesday.

Speaker 15 If you watch the live stream, you'll know what I'm talking about because everyone was talking about it. But basically, that was how she behaved for the entirety of the first trial.

Speaker 15 And this time, for most of Cross, she was a little bit... calmer.
Now that I've given you the full Jen backstory, let's get to the content of this very important cross-examination.

Speaker 15 So first, Jackson established some of the connections that the Albert family has with different law enforcement agencies. To highlight a few, we have, of course, Brian Albert.

Speaker 15 He's the homeowner and Jen's brother-in-law. He has five brothers, including Chris Albert, a Canton select board member, and Kevin Albert, who is a Canton police officer.

Speaker 15 Now, here's another important connection. The lead investigator on this case was, of course, the now-disgraced Michael Proctor.

Speaker 15 He's married to Courtney Proctor, who's best friends with Jill Daniels, who's the sister of Julie Albert, who's the sister-in-law of Brian Albert. Did you follow all that?

Speaker 15 The first time around, I didn't either. But basically the point is that the Albert family is extremely well connected across various Massachusetts

Speaker 15 law enforcement agencies, including agencies that are very close to the case.

Speaker 15 After that, Jackson brought up an instance where Jen was interviewed by a law enforcement agency that was not the Massachusetts State Police or the Canton Police.

Speaker 15 So basically a separate agency not connected to her family. And he showed that she was seemingly a little bit untruthful.

Speaker 15 Jen admitted that in the 10 minutes between the agency calling her on the phone and eventually entering her home for this interview, she says she called her husband and Carrie Roberts, and she disclosed those calls to the agency.

Speaker 15 But she later admitted to making three additional calls that she didn't disclose to the agency, even when asked. Those calls were to John's mother, the district attorney's office, and Brian Albert.

Speaker 15 After that, Jackson asked a lot of questions about Jen's claim that she saw Karen's SUV in front of 34 Fairview on the night of the incident.

Speaker 15 She testified that when she looked out the front door of the house, she could see from right to left Karen's Lexus, a Jeep with a plow that belongs to Brian Hickens, and a truck belonging to Ryan Nagel.

Speaker 15 At first, she said the Lexus was, quote, straight out the front door.

Speaker 15 Then Jen returned to the door several more times and reported that she saw it move to the right towards the flypole, then again further up, and then it was finally gone sometime before 1 a.m.

Speaker 15 And interestingly, we have some record of exactly when she supposedly saw the car in each of these positions because each time she looked for the car, she sent a text to John, and those texts are time stamped between 12:27 and 12:45 a.m.

Speaker 15 Now, during Jen's unofficial lookout mission, she also observed tire tracks in the snow, but despite being able to see those clearly, she admitted that she never saw John's body, nor did she ever hear a struggle or a collision.

Speaker 15 She also admitted that when she left the house about an hour later and drove towards the flagpole, she didn't see John at that point either.

Speaker 15 Jackson then fast-forwarded to the morning after John's body was found, specifically the point when Jen went back into 34 Fairview to wake up Brian and Nicole.

Speaker 15 She said that she came bursting through their bedroom door, but she admitted she had no memory of hearing or seeing their German shepherd Chloe, despite the dog apparently usually sleeping in the bedroom with Brian and Nicole.

Speaker 15 Now at some point around this time, the judge made another slip. The judge called Jen Miss Reed.

Speaker 15 Between that and when she called Carrie Roberts Miss McCabe, I think the judge is doing more favors for the defense than she really intends to with these sort of Freudian slips.

Speaker 15 Now, the last important point of Wednesday's cross had to do with this all-important claim that Jen heard Karen say, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.

Speaker 15 Jen said this is very vivid in her memory, and Jackson calls it the cornerstone of her testimony. So if that's the case, then certainly it should have been in her testimony to the grand jury, right?

Speaker 15 So Jackson gives her a transcript of her testimony to the grand jury from 2022 and asks her to find where she said it. She looks at it and says, this document is 227 pages.

Speaker 15 And then Jackson says, take your time. Lo and behold, this quote is not in the transcript because she never said it.
Instead, she quoted Karen as saying, did I hit him? Could I have hit him?

Speaker 15 Is he dead? Is he dead? Is he dead?

Speaker 15 Jackson also brought up that reports of Jen's interviews with Proctor and Sergeant Lank from the exact day of the incident don't have this all-important I hit him quote. So is she lying?

Speaker 15 Did she mishear? Are all these reports wrong? Did her memory truly improve in the three-year since John's death? I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

Speaker 15 So that wrapped up court for Wednesday, but I don't expect that to be even close to the end of Jen's testimony, and I actually wouldn't be surprised if cross, redirect, recross, redirect, if all those take another full day.

Speaker 15 So I'm gonna reserve my full opinions on Jen until I see the rest of her testimony.

Speaker 15 For now, I will say I honestly think she's faring much better during cross than she did in the first trial, but I also think that Jackston probably has a lot more up his sleeve for her.

Speaker 15 To end this, I will leave you with the comments that Karen made outside the courthouse following Jen's testimony. She said, quote, another witness, another instance of perjury, or instances, I'd say.

Speaker 15 I wonder if the jury is feeling the same way or not. We'll have to see what happens next week.
Talk to you later, Annie.

Speaker 1 All right, guys, you just heard it all from Elena. And like I told you in the beginning of this episode, it was a big week.
This trial is slated to go six and a half to eight weeks.

Speaker 1 That was the original, eight weeks was actually the original estimation. I don't know if that's still on target or if they think it's going to be shortened up at all, but we are just getting started.

Speaker 1 We're literally going into week three now, and we're not even at the halfway point yet. So I think there is a lot to come.

Speaker 1 I also will be, it looks like, confirmed in Boston in about a week and a half here. No, about two weeks here in May.
So I will be reporting live from Boston as well.

Speaker 1 But we still have so much testimony to go over. I mean, we have Higgins and his messages with Karen, him at the Sally port, him leaving, him moving the cars, the butt dials of it all.

Speaker 1 We have the Michael Proctor of it all, not only his text messages and how he just like fumbled the case from the very get-go, but also now new in this trial that wasn't there before is how he's been fired.

Speaker 1 He's been disgraced. He was fired for misconduct in this investigation.
So now the jury is going to hear all of that. So we are just getting started.
It is going to be a wild one.

Speaker 1 So like I said, We're straight live streaming it every single day on YouTube. Otherwise, we will have these recaps prepped and ready for you every single Friday so you can keep up.

Speaker 1 And as we continue to work out the tech issues, we appreciate your patience, your feedback, and thank you for your support. All right, guys, have a great weekend.

Speaker 1 I will be back with you first thing Monday and until the next one. Be nice.
Don't kill people. Don't join any cults.
Definitely don't drive drunk.

Speaker 1 And maybe just stay away from the Canton Police Department for a hot minute if you live in the area.

Speaker 16 All right. All right.

Speaker 1 Bye, guys.

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