June 25, 2025 • 41 mins
Come and dive into the most polarizing murder trial in recent memory - Karen Read fighting for her innocence after the murder of her Boston Police Officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe.
Join me as i dissect the case from a forensic perspective, from the tailight fragments to the inconsistencies in injuries. We will walk through the major players and major conspiracies, as well as a bit of courtroom drama!
Want to test your personality type like me? Go to www.16personalities.com and let us know what you got!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:17):
Welcome to Exhuming the Truth, the podcast where we delve into
the mysterious worlds of cold cases, missing persons, true
crime, and the fascinating science that is forensics.
I'm forensic scientist and criminologist Asha Walther, and
I am so thrilled to have you with me on this journey as we
dance in the shadows of the world of crime, shining a light
(00:37):
on scientific discovery while becoming another voice for those
who need it most. So grab a drink and get
comfortable while we jump into this episode together.
This podcast is recommended for persons over the age of 18 and
contains explicit content not suitable for minors.
We will be covering sensitive content that can range from
sexual assault, physical, mental, social and emotional
(01:02):
abuse, suicide, homicide, murder, attempted murder, and
other violent crimes, including crimes involving weapons and
drugs. This often extends to drug
misuse and other harmful and illegal activity.
If you find any content to be distressing, I have listed a
number of resources that may be able to help you in the podcast
(01:23):
notes. I'd also like to remind our
listeners that all victims and all perpetrators are someone's
loved 1. So I ask that in any discussions
in our group or on our social accounts that you remain
respectful of that at all times.And by listening today, you
acknowledge that all persons of interest remain innocent until
proven otherwise. Hello, my beautiful squad.
(01:44):
Thank you for joining me today. There's a lot going on at
Exhuming the Truth right now andI'll share a little bit about
it. But I don't want to bore you too
much. But I wanted to say people keep
asking me what I'm watching. And I thought I'd say like I
have a few shows on the go. It depends on my mood to be
(02:06):
quite honest. I like to take out like my
emotions on like what I'm watching.
That makes sense. So if I'm sad, I'm watching
something sad so I can cry and like cover it up.
But I really like because of thework that I do and because it's
so emotionally intense, I like to watch things that I don't
really need to use my brain for.So that's usually like Wife Swap
(02:28):
or something like that. But I have to say that today on
Disney Plus, the new season, if the bear is out.
And I love that show so much. And I have waited for this day.
So that's what I'll be watching tonight.
I am nearly done with Yellowstone in regards to like
crime related shows. Actually on prime I'm watching,
(02:49):
can't remember what it's called,but it's Gordon Ramsay going
into a a bricks Brixton. Is that is that what it's
called? Brixton prison in England and he
is trying to teach a bunch of inmates how to cook and run
their own business service from the kitchen within the prison.
So I'm really enjoying that actually.
(03:11):
So there's that. That's what I'm watching.
What else is going on? I am about to start my masters.
So initially I was doing forensic research masters and I
love forensics so much, but I have like this sense of urgency,
like of doing something with a purpose.
And I just felt like a, the union is that I was not
(03:32):
supported at in any way, shape or form.
In fact, the people there were quite condescending.
They weren't very inclusive of people with disability and I
just didn't have a good experience at all really.
I had lecturers take my work andthings like that.
So I just felt really uncomfortable.
And in terms of the forensic research, I did love it.
(03:54):
But I thought, who's this helping right now?
And like, I could be doing otherthings that are helping people
right now and helping better society for when my kids are
adults so that they don't have to face, you know, all of the
adversities that we're facing systemically and in society.
So that's why I decided to drop that for those bunch of reasons
(04:16):
collectively and started exhuming the truth.
And I'll put everything into it,which I'll continue to do.
But on the side, I'm going to bestudying my masters of human
rights. And that is basically so I can
advocate better for you guys andfor families and for your rights
in knowing about forensic evidence and evidence to do with
(04:38):
cases and things like that, victim advocacy, policy reforms
and things like that. So I'm really, really excited
about that. And Curtain seems to be a really
inclusive university. So I'm really excited to give
those guys a go. So that's really exciting.
I feel really positive about that, which is kind of rare
because usually I get a bit in my head.
(05:00):
So thank you for the well wisheson that.
What else have I got? I did this personality test.
It's like, I think there's like 16 results.
I'll have to post it on social media.
You basically do like a quiz slash test and it asks you all
these questions about yourself and your thoughts on different
things. And it comes back with a
(05:23):
personality type. And I came back with INFJ, which
is the advocate. Yes, I had a little giggle,
which was quite funny because it's the most rare personality
type, I believe it said, which Ibelieve because I'm definitely a
weird person, but it really validated my career path.
(05:46):
Like I felt like, yes, I'm doingthe right thing.
And I've had so many of you be so positive and so nice about
the podcast and the work I'm doing.
And it just, it feels so nice. Like to have support, especially
from people that don't know you and they just reach out and
they're like, hey, like I reallyenjoyed this or good job.
I'm like, yes, like I love this so much.
(06:07):
So thank you so much for everybody for being so nice.
And I'm also interested to see like what personality types you
guys get. So I'll try and find the link
for that personality test and wecan get together and have a
little chat about that. I think that's really
interesting. But coming up in terms of
personal cases in Australia, we have Aaron Clear, who has been
(06:29):
missing since March 2020 in Belmont, NSW.
We're doing an episode there. We've got Tristan Griffiths,
who's been missing since January2025 from the Kalgoorlie region
in WA. Who else have we got?
We've got Luke Gilbert, who was shot and killed by Queensland
police. We have another gentleman named
(06:52):
Corey who also went missing. I believe the suburb or the town
was called Lehman, which is north of Perth.
He went missing apparently on his kayak, but there's a few
little inconsistencies with thatstory that we want to get out.
We have another gentleman who's missing in Albany, WA.
So there's a lot of cases comingup.
(07:13):
And the only reason it's taking me a little bit of time to get
to these is that I do go back and forward with the families to
make sure that all the details that I've put in are correct.
Because the last thing I want todo is like, represent a family
and get something wrong and likegive misinformation.
And unfortunately, a lot of the time, the information that's out
(07:34):
there, you know, on Google, fromthe media and from the police,
it's actually incorrect, particularly in the case of Erin
Clear. And there's a lot of
misinformation about, you know, the date he went missing, when
he was last seen and things likethat.
And those are really, really important pieces of information.
So I really like to go back and forward a couple of times and be
(07:55):
like, look, I know this is annoying, but please can you
triple check this? I don't want to present, you
know, your loved one's story incorrectly.
So that's what's taking me the time, but I am doing the work.
Trust me guys, I am doing the work.
I'm working full time hours trying to get all of this done
and out to you guys so we can get help.
While I'm on the topic of help, we still have an urgent call out
(08:16):
for Joshua Bishop. He is still missing in the
Sunbury area. It's been several weeks since
he's been missing. We have got a couple of people
who are interested in doing a search party, so I'm going to
start up a group chat with that.So if you're interested, just
get in contact and I'll add you to that chat and I might do some
aerial gridding for you guys to have a look in certain areas.
(08:39):
That's a really urgent one and his family are just so desperate
and I can't imagine what they'regoing through.
So any help and support and positive comments that you guys
can throw their way is really helpful.
And just continuing to share. I know it seems like not much,
but keeping his name out there and reminding everyone, hey,
like this man is still missing. It puts the pressure on.
(09:04):
And that's really important in missing persons.
So I'm going to stop waffling onnow because I know there's a
couple of people who are not enjoying these big long
introductions. But today I'm talking about the
Karen Reed case. If you're unfamiliar with it,
don't worry. I'm going to go over that.
And I really want to do this, even though it's an American
case, because it's very complex and it's very interesting.
(09:27):
And it falls under like a systemic barrier, I would say
basically of a corrupt system inwhat I certainly believe is a
corrupt system and a group of people of authority banding
together trying to pin somethingon an innocent woman who has
(09:48):
been proven innocent in the lastcouple of days.
So we're going to go through that.
It's a really interesting case. And I feel like this episode
might go for a little while. So get comfortable.
So Karen Reed was found not guilty of the murder of her
Boston police officer boyfriend,John O'Keefe.
(10:09):
This was January 29th in 2022. OK, Now there have been two
trials in this case. So just to summarise, Karen Reed
was charged with second degree murder among other charges.
I, I believe they were like drink driving related charges in
(10:30):
the death of her boyfriend, JohnO'Keefe, Boston police officer.
So the prosecution alleged that she actually hit him with her
SUV, you know, in the late to early hours, so around midnight,
and left him in the snow to die in January of 2022.
But her defence arguing that shewas being framed and it was a
(10:53):
cover up by other law enforcement figures.
So keep in mind, her boyfriend John was a police officer.
And the other people in questionin this story are also
colleagues of John. So they're also police officers.
So let's just do a little bit ofa who's who.
So we've got Karen Reed. OK, she's a private person.
(11:14):
She lived in suburban Massachusetts.
She was a finance professor, like a very intelligent woman,
and adjunct professor in financeat the Bentley University.
She worked in investment bankingand finance and had a background
in economics and finance. So, you know, plain and simple,
she was smart, educated, career oriented, had no children.
(11:36):
She didn't really have a desire to have children.
She was a very strong and independent woman.
She lived in Mansfield, MA and in was in a relationship with
John for about two years prior. She had no criminal history or
anything like that. Anyway, so then we've got John
O'Keefe who was the boyfriend who passed away.
(11:59):
So he was a dedicated Boston police officer.
Tragically, his, I believe it was his sister and his
brother-in-law, they passed awayand their two children were left
in John's care. So he was basically a father to
these two children. He had been in the Boston Police
(12:22):
Department for 16 years and he had served in numerous units
like the gang, investigations, narcotics, etcetera.
He was very hard working and loyal, Low drama, clean record.
Yeah. And as I said, his sister and
brother-in-law passed away in 2013, which left the two young
kids to him. So he was their legal guardian.
(12:45):
And he lived in Canton, Canton, Massachusetts.
Now, when Karen spoke about, like, the dynamics of their
relationship, like, she was so blunt and upfront.
And I think that's what rubbed people the wrong way.
Like, there's a lot of people who are on, you know, either
(13:06):
side of the fence here. If they're for Karen, they're
100% for her. And if they're against her,
they're 100% against her. I honestly don't know how anyone
could come to the conclusion to be against her, but that's their
prerogative. I honestly think it's probably
because of her demeanor. She is very confident.
She speaks well, she's intelligent, she's independent,
(13:28):
and she's all the things that, you know, us as women want women
to be but society are afraid of in a sense.
So she did speak about, you know, the troubles in their
relationship were very superficial.
She said that they usually argued because she would spoil
(13:50):
the children. She would spend quite a lot of
money on them. You know, I think in the more
recent times leading up to his death, she had bought the little
girl an expensive jacket. And he said that that was
spoiling her so they would have arguments over things like that.
She was so upfront and open. You can look at all of her
interviews, like she says, like,she's so black and white.
(14:12):
When she's irritated, she's irritated.
When she's not, she's not. And she just comes across as
someone who just really has nothing to hide.
And I really love that about her.
And even the videos they show, like home videos of her growing
up and she still had that same demeanour.
She was very confident. She spoke very well.
She knew what she wanted. And she was like pretending to
(14:34):
host TV shows in her home videos.
Like she was a confident woman. And I love that.
I love that about her and throughout this trial, I love
that about her. And also as somebody who sat
through a court case about me, Ican completely relate to her
when people are saying, you know, if she smiles when she's
(14:55):
in the courtroom, then she's fake.
And if she's not crying, then she's not remorseful and all
these things. And it's just not true.
Like when you've got all these eyes on you, particularly if
you've got your whole life on display and being filmed, you
can't. Like, it's so hard to know how
to act. And when you're in a courtroom
for some bizarre reason, you're not to show any emotion.
(15:18):
Like the lawyers don't want you to smile, they don't want you to
cry. Like they don't want any
emotion. And that's just not in the human
condition. It's not natural.
And it's actually quite difficult.
And a lot of the time, particularly with women, when
you're concentrating and you're trying not to show emotion, you
can get that resting bitch face kind of look and people think
(15:40):
that, you know, you're a certaintype of way.
And that was the kind of feedback she was getting like,
oh, well, you're not crying so you're not upset about this and
things like that, which is just totally ridiculous.
But I'm going to go into like a couple of the case conspiracies
because the Internet and TikTok have been hilarious in this case
with the conspiracies. And there's a couple of good
ones, but I'm going to go through them and you can have a
(16:02):
look and see which ones you kindof side with and see where
you're at at the end of the episode.
I'm really interested to know everyone's thoughts.
So this is just like a bit lighthearted and a bit of fun.
But these are some of the most common and wildest conspiracies
coming out of this case. So like I said, I'm going to
leave them with you. And before we get into the
details of the case, you can seeyour thoughts and then check
(16:24):
your thoughts after you've got all the facts.
I'll tell you which theories I side with as well and we can
compare and have a bit of a laugh.
But the big one is the cover up crew theory.
So this is centralised around Karen being framed by a
collective of fellow cops and investigators to protect someone
else, which likely is to be somebody else who was inside the
(16:46):
Albert household where John O'Keefe was allegedly dropped
off. The key players of the cover Up
crew, they are Brian Albert, whois a Boston cop and owner of the
Canton House, and he was also hosting the house party at that
residence that night. We have Colin Albert, who is
Brian's nephew. He is rumoured to have been at
(17:09):
the house party despite claims otherwise.
And we've got the state and local police investigators.
They're accused of botching and manipulating evidence.
We have the prosecution's team allegedly in bed with law
enforcement and not pursuing leads inside the house.
The cover up crew theory argues that John was beaten or killed
(17:31):
inside that residence, possibly by Colin or another guest, and
then was dumped outside to frameKaren Reed.
The next theory is the planted evidence theory.
The planted evidence theory essentially claims that physical
evidence was tampered with or staged.
(17:52):
So in this story you're going tohear about a broken tail light.
So the broken tail light pieces on Curran's SUV found near John
O'keefe's body as suggested to be planted days after the
initial search because it was actually a Blizzard at the time.
Snow patterns show the body should have been more buried by
(18:13):
plows of snow if it had been there all night.
The next theory is it was the dog.
And no, I'm not joking. There was a German Shepherd dog
inside the Albert residence thatwas said to be unfriendly and
with unknown guests. The dog's name was Chloe, bless
her soul. The injuries that John had could
very well be consistent with that of a dog bite or scratch
(18:35):
marks, especially the ones on his arm, up and down his arm.
The next theory is the deleted data.
There was a number of phones tied to the people inside the
Albert residence that were not searched at all.
So those those phones were actually disposed of in a
(18:56):
military base, red flags. And then the phones that were
searched had deleted data. So if this is true, that can be
called intentional obstruction or selective enforcement.
So that's an interesting one. The next theory is the small
town mafia. This is like a web sleuth theory
(19:19):
that basically says Canton, MA is run like a boys club where
law enforcement protect their own basically.
So investigators are insular andoutsiders like Karen Reed get
scapegoated. So this even extended to
assumptions of other cases that could have also been buried or
ignored to shield insiders. So insiders being law
(19:40):
enforcement with cases in the area that are unsolved being
questioned in support of this small town mafia theory.
And then we have Karen Reed AKA the Patsy.
So they are calling Karen Reed the full girl.
Think the emotional ex-girlfriend and outspoken.
Easy to blame during a chaotic investigation.
(20:03):
Easier to charge her than to blow up the careers of half a
dozen Boston cops. Theory.
Some of these theories actually hit the courtroom.
So I'm going to run you through this retrial.
No smoke, just full on fire. I'm going to take you to April
2024. This is the first trial.
Now, remember, at the start I said there were two trials, OK?
(20:24):
April 2024, the first trial began in Norfolk County Superior
Court in Massachusetts. So the first trial was actually
a hung jury. So they call that a mistrial,
and therefore they had to be retried.
So after deliberating for days, they were deadlocked and
couldn't come to a consensus andwere even instructed to try
again by the judge and they cameback with the same result.
(20:46):
So from here, the judge declaredthe case a mistrial and the
prosecutors in the case opted pursuing a new trial.
Smart move. So the judge declared a mistrial
on the 1st of July 2024. There are conflicting dates
online about that date, but it was around about July 2024 that
that was declared in his trial. OK the second trial began this
(21:08):
year. So January the 14th, 2025 was
the pre trial conference. January 27th, 2025 the retrial
was scheduled to begin on the 1st of April.
OK so come April we have the jury selection.
June the jury began the retrial and June 18th was the verdict
(21:28):
delivery. So what are the core
accusations? What the hell am I going on
about here? We have Karen Reed charged with
second degree murder, manslaughter, leaving the scene
of fatal accident and drink driving.
So the prosecutors allege. So these are the people trying
to put Karen Reed behind bars. So this is the cops essentially.
(21:49):
It's basically cops versus Karen.
OK, so the prosecutors allege inJanuary 2022, after a night out,
Reid allegedly struck her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, a
Boston police officer, with her SUV while dropping him off at a
colleague's house. They then allege she left him in
the snow unconscious, leading tohis death from hypothermia and
(22:11):
blunt force trauma from the vehicle.
OK that's in simple simple simple terms.
Now the defence has come back and their argument.
So this is Karens team are coming back saying Karen didn't
kill John. He was beaten inside the house
where the other cops were and dragged outside as part of a
cover up by law enforcement insiders.
(22:34):
Let me just mention my favorite part about this trial is the
autopsy results. John O'Keefe had injuries
inconsistent with being hit by acar.
His injuries were like assault injuries.
He had black eyes, he had scratches and he had blunt force
trauma to the back of his head. The house he was dropped to was
owned by Brian Albert. As I said, a fellow Boston, a
(22:58):
fellow Boston cop. I'm so sorry.
Accusing multiple officers and state investigators of being
involved in a conspiracy to protect the real culprits.
Suggesting Chloe, the German Shepherd dog in the house could
have contributed to O'keefe's arm injuries.
Now, the 24 hour period leading up to this is a dark rabbit
(23:20):
hole. A very dark rabbit hole.
But I've got the shovel and a torch to guide you through it.
So let's get digging because this gets so interesting.
OK? I'm going to try and make, like
a mind map to go with this so you don't get confused on the
who's who, but we're going to gothrough the key figures in the
trial. Just to refresh, we've got Karen
Reed. You know, she's the girlfriend.
(23:41):
You've got John O'Keefe, you know he's the boyfriend who got
killed, OK? We've got Brian Albert, the
retired Boston police officer and home owner of the residence
where John O'keefe's body was discovered.
OK. Then we have Michael Proctor.
Michael Proctor is the lead state police investigator who
(24:01):
was actually later dismissed foralleged misconduct during the
investigation. So red flag.
Then we've got the defense team and we have the judge.
So they're the main names you'regoing to want to keep in your
mind. So basically the story goes like
this. Karen and John had a
disagreement about Karen spoiling the children.
(24:24):
There was going to be a Blizzardthat night.
OK, Karen decided I'm going backhome.
They'd live separately but stayed together often.
So she thought I'm going to go back home.
When she got home, she thought, not if I'm going to be, you
know, trapped in a Blizzard, I'drather be with the kids and John
and having fun. So she decided to go back up
there, right? John actually had like work
(24:46):
drinks planned with his friends from the police, what would you
call it, Academy or whatever, and that was with the people
whose house they ended up at. So they went to a couple of
places drinking. Karen drove with John in the
passenger seat and Jen McCabe called.
So Jen McCabe, that's another name you're going to want to
(25:08):
remember. She was drinking with them.
And she's gone back to Brian Albert's house with the other
police officers. OK.
And she's called John, giving him the address, making sure
he's at the right place because it's a Blizzard.
They've been drinking. Karen was very aware she was
drink driving. She pulls up at the Fairview St.
(25:29):
address and she says, can you goout, go to the door and make
sure we're all good to come in because it was very late slash
early in the night slash morning.
And she wanted to be sure that they were OK because there was a
house party going on. John got to the front door.
She witnessed John go inside. OK, so it had been 5 to 10
(25:53):
minutes. She's thinking, what the hell?
She'd called him several times being like, hello, like, are we
good to come in? Like, why are you not coming
back out? She admits she's getting
frustrated. Like she's like, why did you
just leave me in the car in a Blizzard and just go inside the
house and like not tell me if we're welcome or not.
So she thought, fuck this, I'm going home.
(26:14):
In all honesty, I probably wouldhave done the same thing.
So she has driven home. She's woken up early hours of
the morning, I believe around 5:00 AM, and she is looking
frantically for John. He's not home.
She's freaking out. OK, so she's rings Jen McCabe,
who was at that address, and shesays, I can't find John.
(26:35):
I need your help. So she drives back over to the
Fairview St. address and she notices John's body on the front
lawn covered in snow. And she her first thought was,
I've hit him, I've hit him. So that's what she's yell,
yelling out at the time she's going.
I've hit him, I've hit him thinking that, you know, she
(26:59):
must have reversed and hit him as she left.
So from there, they are calling inside the house.
Let me just add inside the house, the owner of the house
and his wife. OK, One's a police officer,
one's a paramedic. They claim to not hear any of
(27:20):
this commotion out the front. The screaming, the yelling, the
ambulance coming, the paramedicscoming, nothing.
They claim to hear nothing. OK, even though there's a
paramedic inside, Jen McCabe does not go back inside and ask
for help and say come and help us.
John's unresponsive outside. No, no, no, they don't do that.
(27:41):
They just, you know, hang aroundoutside with Karen and waiting
for paramedics to arrive, OK. And all this time, Karen's
thinking, oh, my God, like, I'vehit him.
And she was the first to say that no one was like, you must
have hit him. She was like, oh, my God, I've
hit him. OK.
Now, when they come to trial, Jen McCabe's phone data comes
(28:04):
up. It is around 2:30 AM, OK?
It was around 12/1 when Karen dropped John O'Keefe at this
residence. OK, so Jen McCabe has googled
off her phone at 2:00 AM Hoss Long to Die in the cold AKA she
(28:27):
was trying to write how long to die in the cold at I believe it
was 2:37 AM. She had typed this into Google.
She'd obviously been drinking. And why is she Googling?
How long does it take to die in the cold at 2:30 AM while
Karen's back at her house asleep?
Well, does she know that somebody's outside?
I think so. When she gets on the witness
(28:49):
stand, she denies making that search at 2:37 AM.
And she says she made that search after Karen arrived at
the house, freaking out that she'd lost John.
And that she did that around 6:00 AM, even though her
cellular data, like her phone data and a phone specialist who
collected the data came out, waslike, this is at 2:37.
(29:12):
So that's that part of the story.
Now, once this is like all gone down, Karen's car was taken so
they could keep it for testing, OK.
And at this time, her rear tail light was not fully damaged when
they impounded her vehicle. But later on, the rear tail
(29:34):
light was fully damaged and pieces of that tail light were
found surrounding the area whereJohn's body was that they just
happened to miss upon the initial search.
Now, when they did the initial search and didn't find any of
this because it wasn't there andthey planted it there, they did
(29:55):
not search inside the house. No one went inside the house.
No one inside the house was questioned.
Nothing inside the house was tested, nothing like that, which
was like absolutely ridiculous. And then Brian Albert, who owned
that house and that house was actually in his family.
It was a generational home, passed down, passed down, passed
(30:18):
down weeks after John's found dead in the front lawn, sold the
house. Where's Chloe, the German
shepherd dog? They got rid of her.
Where's their mobile phones? They got rid of them at a
military base. So all of these things come
together quite nicely for Karen because like, I am 100% believe
her and believe that she is innocent.
(30:39):
And I think this is like a disgusting tactic by the
authorities and the controversy around the evidence collection,
just everything. It's so bad.
But Jen McCabe actually happily sat there and said, oh, like the
timing about searching, about dying from hypothermia was after
(31:00):
we found the body, not before, even though the evidence
literally said 2:30 AM. So she didn't mind lying about
that. Actually, you can watch, you can
jump on Law and crime to watch this trial, or you can also jump
on YouTube and watch it. The witness test testimonies are
like a lot and they're very interesting.
I highly recommend watching it. Court TV also covers it and you
(31:23):
can see photos of the evidence there.
But it basically took 21 hours of deliberation and the jury
acquitted Karen Reed of second degree murder and manslaughter
and they just found her guilty of driving under the influence,
which gave her a one year probation sentence.
Everybody is basically saying that there's no justice for John
(31:46):
O'Keefe here by Karen being acquitted.
So as Karen said, no one fought harder for John's justice than
she did. She was blamed straight away.
The family of John O'Keefe turned their back on her and
like, got like a restraining order against her.
(32:07):
So she couldn't contact the children or anything like that.
So she was going through like, insurmountable grief, losing her
partner, potentially thinking like, what the hell?
Like, how has this happened now?Now I can't contact the kids
that, you know, that have been in my life for two years and
then sort of piercing together what's actually happened here.
(32:28):
And like, she saw John go insidethat residence.
All of those cops are claiming he never came inside.
John never entered the residence.
Well, when you listen to Jen McCabe, I believe it's Jen
McCabe and her partner when theytestify, if you play those two
videos next to each other, they actually say the exact same
thing word for word in a couple of their answers.
(32:49):
So talk about rehearsing answers.
Then their daughter comes on, you know, after Jen McCabe and
her partner are saying, oh, no, John was never in the house.
John never came in the house. He never, you know, we never saw
John. The daughter comes to the stand
and she says she's talking aboutColin, and she says, oh, Colin
was never at the house when Johnwas there, which whoops.
(33:12):
Like, she just blurted out and when John was there.
So it's a lot of contradictions in this case.
I'm really glad that Karen got acquitted.
And I'm really disappointed in the state actually, for not
taking this further and, you know, making a new trial even to
find out what actually did happen to John O'Keefe.
(33:32):
Because forensically speaking, Idid make some notes.
I want to read them to you because I learnt quite early on
in forensics, there's a couple of things that you think you
know would be obvious, but but they're not.
And when you're looking at things like being hit by a car,
you're expecting certain types of injuries and, you know, bite
(33:54):
Marks and scratch Marks and certainly just not one of them.
So here's my notes here. They did a Q PCR on John's arm.
So that is like a quantitative scientific test to test for what
types of DNA have we got here? So essentially they're doing
(34:15):
this to test if there was canineDNA to say if he had been bitten
or attacked by a dog. So that came back positive for
pig. And you're probably thinking
what the hell? But obviously dog treats,
canteen peak that could be lingering on the dog's teeth.
(34:36):
Also, there's a lot of limitations there with testing
for DNA because of the snow. Oh, I forgot to say that we do
have did have a civilian snow plow gentleman who testified.
He was a very credible witness. He came on and just basically
told what he saw when he went and plowed the snow at around
(34:57):
around the time when Karen was there.
And when Karen left, there was no body on the front lawn there.
And that was his testimony. So the dog's gone.
We can't test the dog to compareDNA there.
So that's a bit of a issue. I really loved Karen's dad's
speech, however, about women's support because and he spoke
(35:19):
about the adversity that women face in the legal system and
recognizing that not all people have the same support as what
they were able to give Karen. And in saying that, Karen lost
her home to fight for her own innocence, her father, like she
lost her jobs, she lost her home.
Her father was a university lecturer as well.
He lost his job all fighting forher innocence, which is very
(35:40):
sad. But as far as the eye socket
injuries, OK, so forensically, when you look at an autopsy and
somebody's got black eyes, they didn't they didn't fall down,
OK. If somebody has got black eye
sockets, OK, that this is not aninjury where you fall down.
If you're falling flat on your face, you're injuring your
(36:02):
cheeks, your chin, your nose, your forehead, not your eye
sockets, OK, The presence of bilateral periorbital
ecchymosis. So that is basically bilateral
is both sides peri orbital around the eyes, ecchymosis
bruising. So that is black eyes.
Black eyes are not consistent with injuries typically
(36:22):
sustained from being struck by avehicle.
In high impact incidents like a pedestrian and vehicle
collision, initial contact oftenresults in trauma to like
protruding facial structures like I said.
So like the nose, chin, forehead.
And that's due to the sudden momentum when you are impacted
(36:43):
by a vehicle or hitting the ground.
Black eyes result from a direct symmetrical bruising around both
eyes consistent with blunt forcetrauma.
So that is trauma that can be delivered intentionally or from
a fall that results in forceful impact to the mid face.
So like if you're falling on like a rocky surface and it's
(37:04):
gone into your eye socket. But obviously in this case, he
was falling onto a front lawn ofsnow.
So notably, such bruising is often associated with direct
stripes to the face or trauma tothe nasal bridge, rather than
the type of trauma expected froma vehicle impact.
So again, you get a black eye from being punched in the face,
(37:27):
you get a black eye from gettinga footy to the face, that type
of thing. You're not getting a black eye
from being hit by a car and falling down.
So these forensic findings basically suggest that the peri
orbital injuries or the injuriesaround the eyes are indicative
of intentional force or an isolated fall onto a flat
surface rather than an accidental contact with a moving
(37:50):
vehicle. So he could have been in, it's
very, very likely he was in a fight inside that house.
The injuries on his arms can tell us a, those are dog injury
wounds or dog inflicted wounds. There was a specialist who
testified this and she had done hundreds of vehicle cases and
(38:12):
said that she can confirm with 100% certainty that that is not
caused by a vehicle. So whether the dog had anything
to do with the death or not, thedog has something to do with the
arm. OK, so that's a we have the eye
soccer injuries. He was either punched, assaulted
or hit in the face and see he had blunt force trauma to the
(38:35):
back of his head. And this type of trauma is from
an intentional blow or strike with an object, you can say like
a hammer, a baseball bat, thingslike that.
So if I was pulling up this caseand just looking at the autopsy
on its own, not knowing any other facts, which is typically
what I do if I'm working a forensics case and they say,
(38:57):
hey, can you do a forensic report?
I'm not reading everybody's statements because I don't want
to know. I just want to look at the
scientific facts. And I'm going to tell you what I
think this is from. And then they will say, oh,
could it have been from a vehicle?
And I'd be saying, hell no, it could not have been from a
vehicle. No way, Absolutely no way.
I have no doubt in my mind, likeI can say with 100% confidence
(39:21):
that those injuries were not inflicted by a vehicle
forensically. So that is a little bit of
forensic info for you and my little point of view.
But yeah, you can watch this in more detail.
Like I said, court, TV, law and crime, YouTube, they broadcasted
the whole thing was fantastic. I really enjoyed it.
(39:44):
Let me know what you think. And also if you're interested,
interested rather in doing that personality test, please do
because like I really enjoyed that.
And it was so mean to AT like tells you like if you're
introverted or extroverted or both and you know your career
path. Because sometimes I really
question myself because I love forensics and crimes so much,
but I also love to help. And I also love work with a
(40:06):
purpose. And I'm like, am I doing the
right thing? And like when I did that, it was
like, you're an advocate. I'm like, Oh my God, yeah, I am.
Master of human rights. But yeah, OK, that's going to be
all. I'm going to end that there.
If you want more on that case, I'm happy to go into it because
I've been watching it every night and re watching it because
I really enjoyed it. There's a lot of other bits and
pieces like the police officer who got stood down because he
(40:30):
was calling Karen SCUNT looking for nude pictures of her and all
this horrible stuff. So the case is really quite
twisted. But yeah, that's all for today.
So thank you for being here and for allowing me to waffle on
about this case because I have been really deep into it since
(40:52):
it began in 2022. So I hope you've enjoyed it and
I will chat with you shortly. Thank you so much for joining me
and I hope you enjoyed it here. If you have, you can subscribe
to stay up to date on new episodes or you can find us on
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.Please feel free to jump onto
our Facebook group to join in onthat case discussions.
(41:14):
You can find the link to our group in our podcast notes.
As always, stay curious, stay informed, and until next time,
trust your instincts and keep seeking the truth.
Welcome to Exhuming the Truth, the podcast where we delve into
the mysterious worlds of cold cases, missing persons, true
crime, and the fascinating science that is forensics.
I'm forensic scientist and criminologist Asha Walther, and
I am so thrilled to have you with me on this journey as we
dance in the shadows of the world of crime, shining a light
(00:37):
on scientific discovery while becoming another voice for those
who need it most. So grab a drink and get
comfortable while we jump into this episode together.
This podcast is recommended for persons over the age of 18 and
contains explicit content not suitable for minors.
We will be covering sensitive content that can range from
sexual assault, physical, mental, social and emotional
(01:02):
abuse, suicide, homicide, murder, attempted murder, and
other violent crimes, including crimes involving weapons and
drugs. This often extends to drug
misuse and other harmful and illegal activity.
If you find any content to be distressing, I have listed a
number of resources that may be able to help you in the podcast
(01:23):
notes. I'd also like to remind our
listeners that all victims and all perpetrators are someone's
loved 1. So I ask that in any discussions
in our group or on our social accounts that you remain
respectful of that at all times.And by listening today, you
acknowledge that all persons of interest remain innocent until
proven otherwise. Hello, my beautiful squad.
(01:44):
Thank you for joining me today. There's a lot going on at
Exhuming the Truth right now andI'll share a little bit about
it. But I don't want to bore you too
much. But I wanted to say people keep
asking me what I'm watching. And I thought I'd say like I
have a few shows on the go. It depends on my mood to be
(02:06):
quite honest. I like to take out like my
emotions on like what I'm watching.
That makes sense. So if I'm sad, I'm watching
something sad so I can cry and like cover it up.
But I really like because of thework that I do and because it's
so emotionally intense, I like to watch things that I don't
really need to use my brain for.So that's usually like Wife Swap
(02:28):
or something like that. But I have to say that today on
Disney Plus, the new season, if the bear is out.
And I love that show so much. And I have waited for this day.
So that's what I'll be watching tonight.
I am nearly done with Yellowstone in regards to like
crime related shows. Actually on prime I'm watching,
(02:49):
can't remember what it's called,but it's Gordon Ramsay going
into a a bricks Brixton. Is that is that what it's
called? Brixton prison in England and he
is trying to teach a bunch of inmates how to cook and run
their own business service from the kitchen within the prison.
So I'm really enjoying that actually.
(03:11):
So there's that. That's what I'm watching.
What else is going on? I am about to start my masters.
So initially I was doing forensic research masters and I
love forensics so much, but I have like this sense of urgency,
like of doing something with a purpose.
And I just felt like a, the union is that I was not
(03:32):
supported at in any way, shape or form.
In fact, the people there were quite condescending.
They weren't very inclusive of people with disability and I
just didn't have a good experience at all really.
I had lecturers take my work andthings like that.
So I just felt really uncomfortable.
And in terms of the forensic research, I did love it.
(03:54):
But I thought, who's this helping right now?
And like, I could be doing otherthings that are helping people
right now and helping better society for when my kids are
adults so that they don't have to face, you know, all of the
adversities that we're facing systemically and in society.
So that's why I decided to drop that for those bunch of reasons
(04:16):
collectively and started exhuming the truth.
And I'll put everything into it,which I'll continue to do.
But on the side, I'm going to bestudying my masters of human
rights. And that is basically so I can
advocate better for you guys andfor families and for your rights
in knowing about forensic evidence and evidence to do with
(04:38):
cases and things like that, victim advocacy, policy reforms
and things like that. So I'm really, really excited
about that. And Curtain seems to be a really
inclusive university. So I'm really excited to give
those guys a go. So that's really exciting.
I feel really positive about that, which is kind of rare
because usually I get a bit in my head.
(05:00):
So thank you for the well wisheson that.
What else have I got? I did this personality test.
It's like, I think there's like 16 results.
I'll have to post it on social media.
You basically do like a quiz slash test and it asks you all
these questions about yourself and your thoughts on different
things. And it comes back with a
(05:23):
personality type. And I came back with INFJ, which
is the advocate. Yes, I had a little giggle,
which was quite funny because it's the most rare personality
type, I believe it said, which Ibelieve because I'm definitely a
weird person, but it really validated my career path.
(05:46):
Like I felt like, yes, I'm doingthe right thing.
And I've had so many of you be so positive and so nice about
the podcast and the work I'm doing.
And it just, it feels so nice. Like to have support, especially
from people that don't know you and they just reach out and
they're like, hey, like I reallyenjoyed this or good job.
I'm like, yes, like I love this so much.
(06:07):
So thank you so much for everybody for being so nice.
And I'm also interested to see like what personality types you
guys get. So I'll try and find the link
for that personality test and wecan get together and have a
little chat about that. I think that's really
interesting. But coming up in terms of
personal cases in Australia, we have Aaron Clear, who has been
(06:29):
missing since March 2020 in Belmont, NSW.
We're doing an episode there. We've got Tristan Griffiths,
who's been missing since January2025 from the Kalgoorlie region
in WA. Who else have we got?
We've got Luke Gilbert, who was shot and killed by Queensland
police. We have another gentleman named
(06:52):
Corey who also went missing. I believe the suburb or the town
was called Lehman, which is north of Perth.
He went missing apparently on his kayak, but there's a few
little inconsistencies with thatstory that we want to get out.
We have another gentleman who's missing in Albany, WA.
So there's a lot of cases comingup.
(07:13):
And the only reason it's taking me a little bit of time to get
to these is that I do go back and forward with the families to
make sure that all the details that I've put in are correct.
Because the last thing I want todo is like, represent a family
and get something wrong and likegive misinformation.
And unfortunately, a lot of the time, the information that's out
(07:34):
there, you know, on Google, fromthe media and from the police,
it's actually incorrect, particularly in the case of Erin
Clear. And there's a lot of
misinformation about, you know, the date he went missing, when
he was last seen and things likethat.
And those are really, really important pieces of information.
So I really like to go back and forward a couple of times and be
(07:55):
like, look, I know this is annoying, but please can you
triple check this? I don't want to present, you
know, your loved one's story incorrectly.
So that's what's taking me the time, but I am doing the work.
Trust me guys, I am doing the work.
I'm working full time hours trying to get all of this done
and out to you guys so we can get help.
While I'm on the topic of help, we still have an urgent call out
(08:16):
for Joshua Bishop. He is still missing in the
Sunbury area. It's been several weeks since
he's been missing. We have got a couple of people
who are interested in doing a search party, so I'm going to
start up a group chat with that.So if you're interested, just
get in contact and I'll add you to that chat and I might do some
aerial gridding for you guys to have a look in certain areas.
(08:39):
That's a really urgent one and his family are just so desperate
and I can't imagine what they'regoing through.
So any help and support and positive comments that you guys
can throw their way is really helpful.
And just continuing to share. I know it seems like not much,
but keeping his name out there and reminding everyone, hey,
like this man is still missing. It puts the pressure on.
(09:04):
And that's really important in missing persons.
So I'm going to stop waffling onnow because I know there's a
couple of people who are not enjoying these big long
introductions. But today I'm talking about the
Karen Reed case. If you're unfamiliar with it,
don't worry. I'm going to go over that.
And I really want to do this, even though it's an American
case, because it's very complex and it's very interesting.
(09:27):
And it falls under like a systemic barrier, I would say
basically of a corrupt system inwhat I certainly believe is a
corrupt system and a group of people of authority banding
together trying to pin somethingon an innocent woman who has
(09:48):
been proven innocent in the lastcouple of days.
So we're going to go through that.
It's a really interesting case. And I feel like this episode
might go for a little while. So get comfortable.
So Karen Reed was found not guilty of the murder of her
Boston police officer boyfriend,John O'Keefe.
(10:09):
This was January 29th in 2022. OK, Now there have been two
trials in this case. So just to summarise, Karen Reed
was charged with second degree murder among other charges.
I, I believe they were like drink driving related charges in
(10:30):
the death of her boyfriend, JohnO'Keefe, Boston police officer.
So the prosecution alleged that she actually hit him with her
SUV, you know, in the late to early hours, so around midnight,
and left him in the snow to die in January of 2022.
But her defence arguing that shewas being framed and it was a
(10:53):
cover up by other law enforcement figures.
So keep in mind, her boyfriend John was a police officer.
And the other people in questionin this story are also
colleagues of John. So they're also police officers.
So let's just do a little bit ofa who's who.
So we've got Karen Reed. OK, she's a private person.
(11:14):
She lived in suburban Massachusetts.
She was a finance professor, like a very intelligent woman,
and adjunct professor in financeat the Bentley University.
She worked in investment bankingand finance and had a background
in economics and finance. So, you know, plain and simple,
she was smart, educated, career oriented, had no children.
(11:36):
She didn't really have a desire to have children.
She was a very strong and independent woman.
She lived in Mansfield, MA and in was in a relationship with
John for about two years prior. She had no criminal history or
anything like that. Anyway, so then we've got John
O'Keefe who was the boyfriend who passed away.
(11:59):
So he was a dedicated Boston police officer.
Tragically, his, I believe it was his sister and his
brother-in-law, they passed awayand their two children were left
in John's care. So he was basically a father to
these two children. He had been in the Boston Police
(12:22):
Department for 16 years and he had served in numerous units
like the gang, investigations, narcotics, etcetera.
He was very hard working and loyal, Low drama, clean record.
Yeah. And as I said, his sister and
brother-in-law passed away in 2013, which left the two young
kids to him. So he was their legal guardian.
(12:45):
And he lived in Canton, Canton, Massachusetts.
Now, when Karen spoke about, like, the dynamics of their
relationship, like, she was so blunt and upfront.
And I think that's what rubbed people the wrong way.
Like, there's a lot of people who are on, you know, either
(13:06):
side of the fence here. If they're for Karen, they're
100% for her. And if they're against her,
they're 100% against her. I honestly don't know how anyone
could come to the conclusion to be against her, but that's their
prerogative. I honestly think it's probably
because of her demeanor. She is very confident.
She speaks well, she's intelligent, she's independent,
(13:28):
and she's all the things that, you know, us as women want women
to be but society are afraid of in a sense.
So she did speak about, you know, the troubles in their
relationship were very superficial.
She said that they usually argued because she would spoil
(13:50):
the children. She would spend quite a lot of
money on them. You know, I think in the more
recent times leading up to his death, she had bought the little
girl an expensive jacket. And he said that that was
spoiling her so they would have arguments over things like that.
She was so upfront and open. You can look at all of her
interviews, like she says, like,she's so black and white.
(14:12):
When she's irritated, she's irritated.
When she's not, she's not. And she just comes across as
someone who just really has nothing to hide.
And I really love that about her.
And even the videos they show, like home videos of her growing
up and she still had that same demeanour.
She was very confident. She spoke very well.
She knew what she wanted. And she was like pretending to
(14:34):
host TV shows in her home videos.
Like she was a confident woman. And I love that.
I love that about her and throughout this trial, I love
that about her. And also as somebody who sat
through a court case about me, Ican completely relate to her
when people are saying, you know, if she smiles when she's
(14:55):
in the courtroom, then she's fake.
And if she's not crying, then she's not remorseful and all
these things. And it's just not true.
Like when you've got all these eyes on you, particularly if
you've got your whole life on display and being filmed, you
can't. Like, it's so hard to know how
to act. And when you're in a courtroom
for some bizarre reason, you're not to show any emotion.
(15:18):
Like the lawyers don't want you to smile, they don't want you to
cry. Like they don't want any
emotion. And that's just not in the human
condition. It's not natural.
And it's actually quite difficult.
And a lot of the time, particularly with women, when
you're concentrating and you're trying not to show emotion, you
can get that resting bitch face kind of look and people think
(15:40):
that, you know, you're a certaintype of way.
And that was the kind of feedback she was getting like,
oh, well, you're not crying so you're not upset about this and
things like that, which is just totally ridiculous.
But I'm going to go into like a couple of the case conspiracies
because the Internet and TikTok have been hilarious in this case
with the conspiracies. And there's a couple of good
ones, but I'm going to go through them and you can have a
(16:02):
look and see which ones you kindof side with and see where
you're at at the end of the episode.
I'm really interested to know everyone's thoughts.
So this is just like a bit lighthearted and a bit of fun.
But these are some of the most common and wildest conspiracies
coming out of this case. So like I said, I'm going to
leave them with you. And before we get into the
details of the case, you can seeyour thoughts and then check
(16:24):
your thoughts after you've got all the facts.
I'll tell you which theories I side with as well and we can
compare and have a bit of a laugh.
But the big one is the cover up crew theory.
So this is centralised around Karen being framed by a
collective of fellow cops and investigators to protect someone
else, which likely is to be somebody else who was inside the
(16:46):
Albert household where John O'Keefe was allegedly dropped
off. The key players of the cover Up
crew, they are Brian Albert, whois a Boston cop and owner of the
Canton House, and he was also hosting the house party at that
residence that night. We have Colin Albert, who is
Brian's nephew. He is rumoured to have been at
(17:09):
the house party despite claims otherwise.
And we've got the state and local police investigators.
They're accused of botching and manipulating evidence.
We have the prosecution's team allegedly in bed with law
enforcement and not pursuing leads inside the house.
The cover up crew theory argues that John was beaten or killed
(17:31):
inside that residence, possibly by Colin or another guest, and
then was dumped outside to frameKaren Reed.
The next theory is the planted evidence theory.
The planted evidence theory essentially claims that physical
evidence was tampered with or staged.
(17:52):
So in this story you're going tohear about a broken tail light.
So the broken tail light pieces on Curran's SUV found near John
O'keefe's body as suggested to be planted days after the
initial search because it was actually a Blizzard at the time.
Snow patterns show the body should have been more buried by
(18:13):
plows of snow if it had been there all night.
The next theory is it was the dog.
And no, I'm not joking. There was a German Shepherd dog
inside the Albert residence thatwas said to be unfriendly and
with unknown guests. The dog's name was Chloe, bless
her soul. The injuries that John had could
very well be consistent with that of a dog bite or scratch
(18:35):
marks, especially the ones on his arm, up and down his arm.
The next theory is the deleted data.
There was a number of phones tied to the people inside the
Albert residence that were not searched at all.
So those those phones were actually disposed of in a
(18:56):
military base, red flags. And then the phones that were
searched had deleted data. So if this is true, that can be
called intentional obstruction or selective enforcement.
So that's an interesting one. The next theory is the small
town mafia. This is like a web sleuth theory
(19:19):
that basically says Canton, MA is run like a boys club where
law enforcement protect their own basically.
So investigators are insular andoutsiders like Karen Reed get
scapegoated. So this even extended to
assumptions of other cases that could have also been buried or
ignored to shield insiders. So insiders being law
(19:40):
enforcement with cases in the area that are unsolved being
questioned in support of this small town mafia theory.
And then we have Karen Reed AKA the Patsy.
So they are calling Karen Reed the full girl.
Think the emotional ex-girlfriend and outspoken.
Easy to blame during a chaotic investigation.
(20:03):
Easier to charge her than to blow up the careers of half a
dozen Boston cops. Theory.
Some of these theories actually hit the courtroom.
So I'm going to run you through this retrial.
No smoke, just full on fire. I'm going to take you to April
2024. This is the first trial.
Now, remember, at the start I said there were two trials, OK?
(20:24):
April 2024, the first trial began in Norfolk County Superior
Court in Massachusetts. So the first trial was actually
a hung jury. So they call that a mistrial,
and therefore they had to be retried.
So after deliberating for days, they were deadlocked and
couldn't come to a consensus andwere even instructed to try
again by the judge and they cameback with the same result.
(20:46):
So from here, the judge declaredthe case a mistrial and the
prosecutors in the case opted pursuing a new trial.
Smart move. So the judge declared a mistrial
on the 1st of July 2024. There are conflicting dates
online about that date, but it was around about July 2024 that
that was declared in his trial. OK the second trial began this
(21:08):
year. So January the 14th, 2025 was
the pre trial conference. January 27th, 2025 the retrial
was scheduled to begin on the 1st of April.
OK so come April we have the jury selection.
June the jury began the retrial and June 18th was the verdict
(21:28):
delivery. So what are the core
accusations? What the hell am I going on
about here? We have Karen Reed charged with
second degree murder, manslaughter, leaving the scene
of fatal accident and drink driving.
So the prosecutors allege. So these are the people trying
to put Karen Reed behind bars. So this is the cops essentially.
(21:49):
It's basically cops versus Karen.
OK, so the prosecutors allege inJanuary 2022, after a night out,
Reid allegedly struck her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, a
Boston police officer, with her SUV while dropping him off at a
colleague's house. They then allege she left him in
the snow unconscious, leading tohis death from hypothermia and
(22:11):
blunt force trauma from the vehicle.
OK that's in simple simple simple terms.
Now the defence has come back and their argument.
So this is Karens team are coming back saying Karen didn't
kill John. He was beaten inside the house
where the other cops were and dragged outside as part of a
cover up by law enforcement insiders.
(22:34):
Let me just mention my favorite part about this trial is the
autopsy results. John O'Keefe had injuries
inconsistent with being hit by acar.
His injuries were like assault injuries.
He had black eyes, he had scratches and he had blunt force
trauma to the back of his head. The house he was dropped to was
owned by Brian Albert. As I said, a fellow Boston, a
(22:58):
fellow Boston cop. I'm so sorry.
Accusing multiple officers and state investigators of being
involved in a conspiracy to protect the real culprits.
Suggesting Chloe, the German Shepherd dog in the house could
have contributed to O'keefe's arm injuries.
Now, the 24 hour period leading up to this is a dark rabbit
(23:20):
hole. A very dark rabbit hole.
But I've got the shovel and a torch to guide you through it.
So let's get digging because this gets so interesting.
OK? I'm going to try and make, like
a mind map to go with this so you don't get confused on the
who's who, but we're going to gothrough the key figures in the
trial. Just to refresh, we've got Karen
Reed. You know, she's the girlfriend.
(23:41):
You've got John O'Keefe, you know he's the boyfriend who got
killed, OK? We've got Brian Albert, the
retired Boston police officer and home owner of the residence
where John O'keefe's body was discovered.
OK. Then we have Michael Proctor.
Michael Proctor is the lead state police investigator who
(24:01):
was actually later dismissed foralleged misconduct during the
investigation. So red flag.
Then we've got the defense team and we have the judge.
So they're the main names you'regoing to want to keep in your
mind. So basically the story goes like
this. Karen and John had a
disagreement about Karen spoiling the children.
(24:24):
There was going to be a Blizzardthat night.
OK, Karen decided I'm going backhome.
They'd live separately but stayed together often.
So she thought I'm going to go back home.
When she got home, she thought, not if I'm going to be, you
know, trapped in a Blizzard, I'drather be with the kids and John
and having fun. So she decided to go back up
there, right? John actually had like work
(24:46):
drinks planned with his friends from the police, what would you
call it, Academy or whatever, and that was with the people
whose house they ended up at. So they went to a couple of
places drinking. Karen drove with John in the
passenger seat and Jen McCabe called.
So Jen McCabe, that's another name you're going to want to
(25:08):
remember. She was drinking with them.
And she's gone back to Brian Albert's house with the other
police officers. OK.
And she's called John, giving him the address, making sure
he's at the right place because it's a Blizzard.
They've been drinking. Karen was very aware she was
drink driving. She pulls up at the Fairview St.
(25:29):
address and she says, can you goout, go to the door and make
sure we're all good to come in because it was very late slash
early in the night slash morning.
And she wanted to be sure that they were OK because there was a
house party going on. John got to the front door.
She witnessed John go inside. OK, so it had been 5 to 10
(25:53):
minutes. She's thinking, what the hell?
She'd called him several times being like, hello, like, are we
good to come in? Like, why are you not coming
back out? She admits she's getting
frustrated. Like she's like, why did you
just leave me in the car in a Blizzard and just go inside the
house and like not tell me if we're welcome or not.
So she thought, fuck this, I'm going home.
(26:14):
In all honesty, I probably wouldhave done the same thing.
So she has driven home. She's woken up early hours of
the morning, I believe around 5:00 AM, and she is looking
frantically for John. He's not home.
She's freaking out. OK, so she's rings Jen McCabe,
who was at that address, and shesays, I can't find John.
(26:35):
I need your help. So she drives back over to the
Fairview St. address and she notices John's body on the front
lawn covered in snow. And she her first thought was,
I've hit him, I've hit him. So that's what she's yell,
yelling out at the time she's going.
I've hit him, I've hit him thinking that, you know, she
(26:59):
must have reversed and hit him as she left.
So from there, they are calling inside the house.
Let me just add inside the house, the owner of the house
and his wife. OK, One's a police officer,
one's a paramedic. They claim to not hear any of
(27:20):
this commotion out the front. The screaming, the yelling, the
ambulance coming, the paramedicscoming, nothing.
They claim to hear nothing. OK, even though there's a
paramedic inside, Jen McCabe does not go back inside and ask
for help and say come and help us.
John's unresponsive outside. No, no, no, they don't do that.
(27:41):
They just, you know, hang aroundoutside with Karen and waiting
for paramedics to arrive, OK. And all this time, Karen's
thinking, oh, my God, like, I'vehit him.
And she was the first to say that no one was like, you must
have hit him. She was like, oh, my God, I've
hit him. OK.
Now, when they come to trial, Jen McCabe's phone data comes
(28:04):
up. It is around 2:30 AM, OK?
It was around 12/1 when Karen dropped John O'Keefe at this
residence. OK, so Jen McCabe has googled
off her phone at 2:00 AM Hoss Long to Die in the cold AKA she
(28:27):
was trying to write how long to die in the cold at I believe it
was 2:37 AM. She had typed this into Google.
She'd obviously been drinking. And why is she Googling?
How long does it take to die in the cold at 2:30 AM while
Karen's back at her house asleep?
Well, does she know that somebody's outside?
I think so. When she gets on the witness
(28:49):
stand, she denies making that search at 2:37 AM.
And she says she made that search after Karen arrived at
the house, freaking out that she'd lost John.
And that she did that around 6:00 AM, even though her
cellular data, like her phone data and a phone specialist who
collected the data came out, waslike, this is at 2:37.
(29:12):
So that's that part of the story.
Now, once this is like all gone down, Karen's car was taken so
they could keep it for testing, OK.
And at this time, her rear tail light was not fully damaged when
they impounded her vehicle. But later on, the rear tail
(29:34):
light was fully damaged and pieces of that tail light were
found surrounding the area whereJohn's body was that they just
happened to miss upon the initial search.
Now, when they did the initial search and didn't find any of
this because it wasn't there andthey planted it there, they did
(29:55):
not search inside the house. No one went inside the house.
No one inside the house was questioned.
Nothing inside the house was tested, nothing like that, which
was like absolutely ridiculous. And then Brian Albert, who owned
that house and that house was actually in his family.
It was a generational home, passed down, passed down, passed
(30:18):
down weeks after John's found dead in the front lawn, sold the
house. Where's Chloe, the German
shepherd dog? They got rid of her.
Where's their mobile phones? They got rid of them at a
military base. So all of these things come
together quite nicely for Karen because like, I am 100% believe
her and believe that she is innocent.
(30:39):
And I think this is like a disgusting tactic by the
authorities and the controversy around the evidence collection,
just everything. It's so bad.
But Jen McCabe actually happily sat there and said, oh, like the
timing about searching, about dying from hypothermia was after
(31:00):
we found the body, not before, even though the evidence
literally said 2:30 AM. So she didn't mind lying about
that. Actually, you can watch, you can
jump on Law and crime to watch this trial, or you can also jump
on YouTube and watch it. The witness test testimonies are
like a lot and they're very interesting.
I highly recommend watching it. Court TV also covers it and you
(31:23):
can see photos of the evidence there.
But it basically took 21 hours of deliberation and the jury
acquitted Karen Reed of second degree murder and manslaughter
and they just found her guilty of driving under the influence,
which gave her a one year probation sentence.
Everybody is basically saying that there's no justice for John
(31:46):
O'Keefe here by Karen being acquitted.
So as Karen said, no one fought harder for John's justice than
she did. She was blamed straight away.
The family of John O'Keefe turned their back on her and
like, got like a restraining order against her.
(32:07):
So she couldn't contact the children or anything like that.
So she was going through like, insurmountable grief, losing her
partner, potentially thinking like, what the hell?
Like, how has this happened now?Now I can't contact the kids
that, you know, that have been in my life for two years and
then sort of piercing together what's actually happened here.
(32:28):
And like, she saw John go insidethat residence.
All of those cops are claiming he never came inside.
John never entered the residence.
Well, when you listen to Jen McCabe, I believe it's Jen
McCabe and her partner when theytestify, if you play those two
videos next to each other, they actually say the exact same
thing word for word in a couple of their answers.
(32:49):
So talk about rehearsing answers.
Then their daughter comes on, you know, after Jen McCabe and
her partner are saying, oh, no, John was never in the house.
John never came in the house. He never, you know, we never saw
John. The daughter comes to the stand
and she says she's talking aboutColin, and she says, oh, Colin
was never at the house when Johnwas there, which whoops.
(33:12):
Like, she just blurted out and when John was there.
So it's a lot of contradictions in this case.
I'm really glad that Karen got acquitted.
And I'm really disappointed in the state actually, for not
taking this further and, you know, making a new trial even to
find out what actually did happen to John O'Keefe.
(33:32):
Because forensically speaking, Idid make some notes.
I want to read them to you because I learnt quite early on
in forensics, there's a couple of things that you think you
know would be obvious, but but they're not.
And when you're looking at things like being hit by a car,
you're expecting certain types of injuries and, you know, bite
(33:54):
Marks and scratch Marks and certainly just not one of them.
So here's my notes here. They did a Q PCR on John's arm.
So that is like a quantitative scientific test to test for what
types of DNA have we got here? So essentially they're doing
(34:15):
this to test if there was canineDNA to say if he had been bitten
or attacked by a dog. So that came back positive for
pig. And you're probably thinking
what the hell? But obviously dog treats,
canteen peak that could be lingering on the dog's teeth.
(34:36):
Also, there's a lot of limitations there with testing
for DNA because of the snow. Oh, I forgot to say that we do
have did have a civilian snow plow gentleman who testified.
He was a very credible witness. He came on and just basically
told what he saw when he went and plowed the snow at around
(34:57):
around the time when Karen was there.
And when Karen left, there was no body on the front lawn there.
And that was his testimony. So the dog's gone.
We can't test the dog to compareDNA there.
So that's a bit of a issue. I really loved Karen's dad's
speech, however, about women's support because and he spoke
(35:19):
about the adversity that women face in the legal system and
recognizing that not all people have the same support as what
they were able to give Karen. And in saying that, Karen lost
her home to fight for her own innocence, her father, like she
lost her jobs, she lost her home.
Her father was a university lecturer as well.
He lost his job all fighting forher innocence, which is very
(35:40):
sad. But as far as the eye socket
injuries, OK, so forensically, when you look at an autopsy and
somebody's got black eyes, they didn't they didn't fall down,
OK. If somebody has got black eye
sockets, OK, that this is not aninjury where you fall down.
If you're falling flat on your face, you're injuring your
(36:02):
cheeks, your chin, your nose, your forehead, not your eye
sockets, OK, The presence of bilateral periorbital
ecchymosis. So that is basically bilateral
is both sides peri orbital around the eyes, ecchymosis
bruising. So that is black eyes.
Black eyes are not consistent with injuries typically
(36:22):
sustained from being struck by avehicle.
In high impact incidents like a pedestrian and vehicle
collision, initial contact oftenresults in trauma to like
protruding facial structures like I said.
So like the nose, chin, forehead.
And that's due to the sudden momentum when you are impacted
(36:43):
by a vehicle or hitting the ground.
Black eyes result from a direct symmetrical bruising around both
eyes consistent with blunt forcetrauma.
So that is trauma that can be delivered intentionally or from
a fall that results in forceful impact to the mid face.
So like if you're falling on like a rocky surface and it's
(37:04):
gone into your eye socket. But obviously in this case, he
was falling onto a front lawn ofsnow.
So notably, such bruising is often associated with direct
stripes to the face or trauma tothe nasal bridge, rather than
the type of trauma expected froma vehicle impact.
So again, you get a black eye from being punched in the face,
(37:27):
you get a black eye from gettinga footy to the face, that type
of thing. You're not getting a black eye
from being hit by a car and falling down.
So these forensic findings basically suggest that the peri
orbital injuries or the injuriesaround the eyes are indicative
of intentional force or an isolated fall onto a flat
surface rather than an accidental contact with a moving
(37:50):
vehicle. So he could have been in, it's
very, very likely he was in a fight inside that house.
The injuries on his arms can tell us a, those are dog injury
wounds or dog inflicted wounds. There was a specialist who
testified this and she had done hundreds of vehicle cases and
(38:12):
said that she can confirm with 100% certainty that that is not
caused by a vehicle. So whether the dog had anything
to do with the death or not, thedog has something to do with the
arm. OK, so that's a we have the eye
soccer injuries. He was either punched, assaulted
or hit in the face and see he had blunt force trauma to the
(38:35):
back of his head. And this type of trauma is from
an intentional blow or strike with an object, you can say like
a hammer, a baseball bat, thingslike that.
So if I was pulling up this caseand just looking at the autopsy
on its own, not knowing any other facts, which is typically
what I do if I'm working a forensics case and they say,
(38:57):
hey, can you do a forensic report?
I'm not reading everybody's statements because I don't want
to know. I just want to look at the
scientific facts. And I'm going to tell you what I
think this is from. And then they will say, oh,
could it have been from a vehicle?
And I'd be saying, hell no, it could not have been from a
vehicle. No way, Absolutely no way.
I have no doubt in my mind, likeI can say with 100% confidence
(39:21):
that those injuries were not inflicted by a vehicle
forensically. So that is a little bit of
forensic info for you and my little point of view.
But yeah, you can watch this in more detail.
Like I said, court, TV, law and crime, YouTube, they broadcasted
the whole thing was fantastic. I really enjoyed it.
(39:44):
Let me know what you think. And also if you're interested,
interested rather in doing that personality test, please do
because like I really enjoyed that.
And it was so mean to AT like tells you like if you're
introverted or extroverted or both and you know your career
path. Because sometimes I really
question myself because I love forensics and crimes so much,
but I also love to help. And I also love work with a
(40:06):
purpose. And I'm like, am I doing the
right thing? And like when I did that, it was
like, you're an advocate. I'm like, Oh my God, yeah, I am.
Master of human rights. But yeah, OK, that's going to be
all. I'm going to end that there.
If you want more on that case, I'm happy to go into it because
I've been watching it every night and re watching it because
I really enjoyed it. There's a lot of other bits and
pieces like the police officer who got stood down because he
(40:30):
was calling Karen SCUNT looking for nude pictures of her and all
this horrible stuff. So the case is really quite
twisted. But yeah, that's all for today.
So thank you for being here and for allowing me to waffle on
about this case because I have been really deep into it since
(40:52):
it began in 2022. So I hope you've enjoyed it and
I will chat with you shortly. Thank you so much for joining me
and I hope you enjoyed it here. If you have, you can subscribe
to stay up to date on new episodes or you can find us on
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.Please feel free to jump onto
our Facebook group to join in onthat case discussions.
(41:14):
You can find the link to our group in our podcast notes.
As always, stay curious, stay informed, and until next time,
trust your instincts and keep seeking the truth.
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