Part Two | Did She Do it: The Investigation Into Karen Read - Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast By Kelly Jennings

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell
stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering how is this
even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,
and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator,

(00:28):
dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so
evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended

(00:52):
for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm
not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's
kJ You're back for another episode of Unspeakable? Are you
ready for part two of this Karen Reid saga? Are
you ready? Well? Before I get into it, I need
to remind you of a few things. Listen. Local people
have messaged me about my merch. I'm wearing my shirt

(01:14):
right now too, the I'll Fight you shirt. You're watching
me podcast. It's so cute. Anyway, you can pick up
this merch locally if you're nearby, at Sport and Center
in Denim Springs. There's no shipping costs. They've got everything
in stock. The backstock is in the back and so
you can ask for Danielle she knows me, and she's
got all my stuff and you can go pick it
up there, save you a few bucks. Also, y'all, don't

(01:35):
forget to go look at Crime Wire Weekly, which is
now on its own feed. It's its own show, and
that's where me and Jim, Jim and I, however you
want to say it, we break down current true crime
stories for you. And it's stories from all over the US,
the good, the bad, and the ugly. So y'all go
check that out. It'll give you something extra to listen to.
So let's jump into this episode now. When I left

(01:55):
off with you last episode, John and Karen had been
out for drinks and Karen then dropped him off at
the home of who I have now started to refer
to as the in law Albert's home. Real quick. This
is a part two episode. Disclaimer. This is a part
two episode, so if you have not listened to part one,
now's your chance to stop go back and listen to

(02:17):
part one so that this one will make sense. It
will not make sense if you haven't listened to part one.
All right, So she dropped off John and then next
thing you know, she left the house to go home. Well,
as the story progressed. Police were now responding to that
in law Albert home where John was found on the ground,
and it was in the very early morning hours. He

(02:37):
was near frozen, taken to a hospital because he'd been
laying out in blizzard like conditions that basically the entire night. Now,
the biggest question in your mind probably is why were
the three women who did not even live at that home?
Why were they the ones outside of that home in
those early morning hours with John on the ground. Well,

(02:59):
investigators would need answers to this question as well, And
so to explain this to you in a clear way,
I'm gonna have to back up. Now. If you've been
following this case, then you off the top already understand
why I'm breaking this down the way that I'm doing it.
But if you have not, I want to warn you
You've got to pay attention. There's so many characters that

(03:20):
are going to come into play in this story. But
I've got to back up a little bit for you
to understand why those three women were even outside of
that home. So most obvious to ask in the moment
is how was John even found out in the snow? Well?
The three women that were at that home in those
early morning hours. It wasn't their house. Remember, I want

(03:42):
to remind you who those three women were. Number one,
it was John's girlfriend, Karen Reid. Number two it was
new neighbor wife Albert. And then it was old family
friend of John, Carrie. So it's Karen, the new neighbor
of John's wife and Carrie. So asking questions as to

(04:06):
this situation right in that moment initially would be very
difficult because John's girlfriend, Karen was having a complete and
total meltdown. She was emotionally unstable. She was not dealing
well with the fact that John was now declared dead
at the hospital, and she was doing so bad with
this information, so much so that she had to be
brought to the hospital as a psych patient or this

(04:30):
was considered a psych situation because she is threatening to
kill herself if John was dead. She simply just could
not handle it, and so she was taken to the
psych portion of the hospital. She didn't want to change
into the clothing that is always given to these psych
patients at the hospital. She was being a little difficult
to deal with in the moment. She was very emotionally dysregulated.

(04:52):
She refused to give them a urine sample for testing.
She didn't want to do that, but she would later
have a reason for why she didn't want to give
that you're in sample, which was indeed validated, And I'm
gonna go ahead and tell you what that is. Karen,
when she was at the hospital, was on her period
and she did not have supplies, nor did she have

(05:13):
a tampon in So her thing was, I don't want
to pee in front of anyone, because this is this
is humiliating, is this is not cool Because psych patients,
if you don't know this, they're never left alone at
the hospital ever. In that room, there's gonna be someone
with eyes on them at all times, including whenever they
go to the bathroom. So she didn't want to pee

(05:34):
in front of anybody. Regardless, though Karen was eventually able
to say to the investigators that she went out drinking.
They are together, they all went out drinking and then
John didn't come home and they found him there the
next morning. Neither Karen nor the people at the Albert home,

(05:56):
the in law Albert home, none of them had any
clear exit explanation as to why John, though was out
in the front yard, so police would need to back
up even further to determine the last known steps of
John and to try to determine how did he even
get there. So the previous night, John and Karen had
been out drinking with all of the friends, so police

(06:18):
wanted to look a little more closely into exactly what
went on that previous night in question. So backing up
when John is alive now, the previous day, John and
Karen had been texting throughout that day and it appeared
in their text message exchanges that they had gotten into
a little bit of an argument about their relationship and

(06:39):
the kids that John now had custody of. The argument
basically was that John felt Karen was spoiling them and
that she was spending too much money on the children,
things like expensive clothing and treats that John felt were
really extravagant in his opinion for the kids. But they
also continued to text and communicate about how they agreed

(07:03):
parenting is hard. Neither one of them had their own children.
They were together trying to handle taking on these kids,
and John flat out set at one point that he
wasn't built for this. He was stressed, and they were
together struggling with this entire situation. They also discussed whether
they should even hang out together that night, because Karen's

(07:24):
feelings were hurt from this previous fight about the kids,
and she was kind of expressing that maybe we shouldn't
even see each other tonight. Eventually, though, John told her
that he was going to go have some drinks with friends,
and they kind of were back and forth about whether
she should come and meet up with him with the
other people that night. It does go back and forth.

(07:47):
My personal opinion about all the text messages, and I'm
not reading all these text messages, that's the gist of it.
My personal opinion here is that I feel like, in
the moment that these texts were going back and forth,
Karen was just really wanting to hear John say that
he wanted her okay, but he wasn't really giving her
that in the moment, he was frustrated and he was just,

(08:09):
in my humble opinion, being a guy. It was nothing
bad either, I want to be very clear, nothing bad
about that. It's just a guy who understandably was dealing
with a whole lot on top of now his woman
being needy emotionally, and that's what it felt like. It
wasn't aggressive, It wasn't I hate you anything like that.
It was just an argument and her feelings were hurt.

(08:31):
And he wasn't like, I love you, please come back,
let's make up. It was more like, nah, I'm gonna
go hang out with the guys.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Now.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Remember John's niece and her best friend had just gotten
news that they had gotten into that private school together. Well,
bestie's dad, his name is Michael, and John decided to
go have some drinks and hang out together at a
bar called C. F. McCarthy's. This is also where they
had called and wanted to invite another friend named Kurt

(09:00):
Roberts to come and join them. So Kurt, in this conversation,
didn't want to go at first, but John and Michael
had started kind of picking on him about staying at
home and being like, what's the problem, dude, matter of fact, again,
this is kind of funny. But Michael at some point
called Kurt a pussy and said, all right, whatever, pussy,

(09:22):
don't come out. Well at that point Kurt was like, well,
I can't let that happen. You're not gonna call me one,
and so he decided, all right, fine, I'll come out
just for a little while, and he went and met
them at the bar at c F. McCarthy's. Now for reference,
so you will understand who who Kurt is. Kurt is
married to carry one of the women that found John

(09:44):
in the front yard with Karen. Okay, So I'm hoping
this is all making sense. Everybody's kind of intertwined here. Now.
Video at the bar shows the guys just being guys.
They show up, they're storytelling, they're slapping each other on
the shoulders, they're laughing throughout the conversations. Everyone's drinking beer,
and it's just a good relaxed time at this location.

(10:06):
And Karen would eventually come and meet up with them too,
but at the moment, she was having these water heater
issues at her own home and she was having to
get that resolved, and so it was this back and
forth about that. So, picking up around nine o'clock that
night of January the twenty eighth, that is when Karen
met up with John and the other guys at c. F.
McCarthy's bar. Now, to give you a little visual about

(10:28):
the bar, the bar is narrow, and John is seated
about midway on the bar stools, and he's up at
the bar, which the bar is packed, like, all the
seats are taken, all the bar stools are taken. People
have to literally squeeze past one another to get from
point A to point B. It's just a very very
narrow area. And Karen walks up. When she walks up,

(10:49):
John puts one arm around her and they kind of
share a kiss at the bar, and he then lowers
his hand down to her lower backside and he's rubbing
her real comfortingly. And it's a part of the bar
where only your lover or your spouse would be allowed
to place their hand on that lower back area. So
John was drinking this long neck beer while Karen she

(11:10):
really preferred these cocktail style drinks, so she was ordering drinks,
and so it's the guys and Karen kind of mingling together.
The bar though, wasn't making the drinks to Karen's liking
as far as strength the wind. So what she started
doing she would kind of drink the drink. She didn't
feel it strong enough for her buck, so she would

(11:32):
then order an extra shot and then would mix that
in her full drink, basically making it a double if
it was even really a full single to begin with.
She felt like it wasn't. So from what I gather
at this point, it seems like Karen and John drank
more often than not, and so it really does seem

(11:53):
to me, based on how they were, that she had
a higher tolerance for this amount of liquor. Then I'll
tell you I probably would, because you know, I don't
drink liquor every day. I don't drink liquor often really,
it's just whenever I'm out in social settings or whatever.
That said. Neither is falling down drunk. Both appeared to

(12:15):
be very with it. They are relaxed. You can tell
that she's really chilled or smiling and chatting with everyone.
But there's no fall down drunk, stumbling bumping into people
type of situation. Well, about an hour later, this would
be around ten pm, Michael, who was the best friend
of the niece's dad, he got a call and he
had to leave the bar because his son was playing

(12:38):
hockey with a friend at the house and he knocked
his tooth out playing hockey. That's so cliche, But when
he got that phone call, he's like, oh shit, I
gotta go, guys. You know, my son got hurt. And
so he says his goodbyes, and he left the bar.
When he left the bar, he went and picked up
his son, and then he drove to John's house because

(12:59):
his daughter was there with the niece because they were besties.
He picked up his daughter from John's house, and then
the three of that little family went home to their
house for the night, leaving John's niece at his home
alone for the time being. But again, she's a teenager.
It's not like she's a young kid or anything. At
that same time, Kurt decided that he too wanted to

(13:19):
get home because the snow was starting to fall. Remember
there's a big blizzard that's coming. So between nine and ten,
Karen is served roughly five drinks. It's a combo of
drinks and shots. Now, this is going to later be
argued in this story of whether of exactly how many
drinks that she got. But for your intents and purposes

(13:41):
right now, let's say she had a combination of drinks
and shots, a total of probably five drinks. Based on
how much liquor and how many shots she's had, I
personally believe that she is intoxicated. Okay, now she's intoxicated,
but she is functioning very well in the videos. So

(14:01):
it's kind of like tomato Tomato. Is she drunk or
is she intoxicated? And I mean neither here nor there. Okay,
she is obviously had plenty to drink. So during this
same time frame at c F McCarthy's that all of
this has gone on that I'm telling you about John's
new neighbors, Jennifer and Matt McCabe. They arrived at the

(14:21):
Waterfall Bar and Grill. They're having drinks, and then about
an hour after that is when in law Brian Albert.
The in law Alberts Brian met up with them as
well at the Waterfall Bar. So after the two friends
left John and Karen at c F McCarthy's, that's when

(14:42):
John and Karen made their way to the Waterfall Bar
and Grill because old neighbor Chris Albert had texted John
and said that they were at the Waterfall Bar and
that they should come over there and meet them there. Now,
for reference, old neighbor Chris, he owns a a pizza
shop in this sub it's like a pizza and sub

(15:03):
sandwich shop. Well, he had seen John earlier in the
day because John had dropped in to the pizza shop
to get his nephew some pizza, and so they had
kind of chit chatted earlier in the day, so that's
why you know they were still texting or river. So
this meant that the old neighbor Chris Albert and the
in law Alberts were now at the bar, the Waterfall

(15:26):
with Karen and John. So the couple on this surveillance
photo at the new bar, the Waterfall Bar, they are relaxed,
they're loving, they're having a good time. Old neighbor Julie Albert,
she's married to Chris. She left because she started to
get a migraine and she just was ready to take

(15:47):
it to the house. Chris decided to stay a little
while longer, but then he too would leave a little
bit later and he walked home because it was a
short enough distance that he could just walk to the house.
Everyone else at the bar is continuing to have a
good time and drinking and laughing. But around midnight, last
call would go into effect at the Waterfall Bar and
it was going to be closing.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Well.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
I mentioned last episode that the in law Alberts invited
everyone back to their home to continue the party. So
investigators now wanted to know what exactly happened after everybody
left the bar, so phone records would come into play here.
Phone records would show that at twelve fourteen midnight, new

(16:34):
neighbor Jennifer McCabe called John O'Keefe's phone and she gave
him directions to the in law Albert's home. They didn't
know how to get there. So it's at this point
that this investigation is about to go kind of haywire
and things are about to get really really squirrely in

(16:57):
my storytelling. But that's because that's how it went in
the real life situation. See, when John was found outside
of the in law Albert's home, investigators never knocked on
the door of the home to speak to the homeowners. Now,
in the spirit of being fair officers, at that moment,

(17:20):
when they found John, they really didn't have probable cause
to search the home in any way because there really
wasn't a link yet to the actual home yet. Okay,
So I want to be fair there. They didn't go
knock on the door or search the home because they
really just had a body in a front yard that
maybe he had been hit by a car, or he

(17:42):
odeed or whatever. They didn't quite know. But That was
until everyone on scene that showed up to respond was
notified that the guy on the ground was John O'Keefe.
He was a fellow Boston police officer, and they knew
they found out from the women at the scene that

(18:04):
he had been out drinking the night before with the
very people whose yard he was found in. So at
that point, I want my listeners to understand, at that point,
there is clear pressing interest to make contact with those
homeowners and ask some questions. You see, there's a link there. Now,

(18:28):
Now I need to talk to these people because in
an investigation, you've got to be completely objective. You have
to be taking anything into consideration, especially when a body
is found in a front yard. I'm going to pause
that discussion though, for the future in a little bit
when I speak about that. But in that same spirit
of curiosity of this connection, what if I told you

(18:51):
the homeowners, the in law Alberts, never came outside to
see what was going on in their front yard. Never, never,
during any of this. Now that's really really strange. Considering
in law Albert, the homeowner, Brian Albert. Guess what, he's

(19:14):
a Boston Police officer himself, So like something of this
magnitude is happening outside of your house, in your front yard,
with fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, crime tape, and you
never thought to go outside and check and see what's happening.

(19:39):
It's fair to say that at minimum, that's really fucking weird.
Can we all agree on that that's strange. If I
hear a weird noise in the night, I go outside,
you know what I mean? Like if I see or
hear a fire truck in my neighborhood, I go outside
because I'm wondering what's happening. Nothing. So back to the

(20:00):
night that John had died. At this point, I'm going
to mix in facts and data with what witnesses would
say as police questioned them about the night of John's death.
All Right, and this is going to be really important
as I'm trying to lay out the story in timeline.
And that's why I'm going to be very meticulous in
how I do this. All Right, So, like I already
told you, at twelve fifteen, new neighbor Jennifer and Matthew McCabe,

(20:24):
they had made it to the in law Albert's home
to continue the party, and Jennifer had been texted John
at twelve twenty seven, so she had spoken to him
on the phone a few minutes earlier, about two or three,
that's probly ten minutes later. About ten minutes later, she
texted John and said here question mark. Two minutes later

(20:46):
Jen and Jen then called John. He answers the phone
where they spoke on the phone, and about the same
time that that is happening, another guy, his name is Ryan,
he arrived at the in law Albert's home. Now, this
guy's a little cutie. I'm not gonna lie to you.
He's a little cutie in his twenties. Who is Ryan? Well,

(21:10):
Ryan had been at c. F. McCarthy's, the bar, with
his sister and a few others, having some drinks. His
sister left earlier in the night, and she ended up
at the in law Albert's home because drum roll please,
she was friends with the son of the in law Alberts.
And just to make this story more confusing than it

(21:32):
already is, guess what the name of the in law
Albert's son is. It's also Brian Albert, so I'm gonna
call him Brian Albert Junior. All right, So why was
she there at the house? As well well, the son
in law, Albert Brian was having a birthday get together
because it was his birthday and he had people over

(21:53):
and they were kind of having a party at the
house while his parents were out drinking at the bar. Well,
when Ryan left c. F. McCarthy's with another friend. His
name's Ricky, it doesn't even matter, okay. When he left
the bar and they were going to go head home.
This was around midnight, his sister texted him and said, hey,
will you come pick me up at the Albert's home.
Ryan had never been there before, and so she gave

(22:16):
him directions and he arrived shortly thereafter. When this guy
Ryan arrived at the in law Albert's home, he said
that Karen's vehicle was there. Karen's vehicle, that suv with
John and Karen. That vehicle was stopped in front of
the Albert's home. Now, Ryan was in a different vehicle, obviously.

(22:41):
He stopped right outside of the driveway okay, where the
garage would come down to the street, and so he
sat there in the vehicle. He didn't get out, but
he opened the door which would have been the passenger
side door, and he spoke to his sister who came
out to the car. She says, wait a minute, maybe
y'all should just come in and we can have some
more drinks instead of leaving. Now, Ryan's like, my sister's

(23:03):
a fricking pain in the ass because we just drove
to go pick her up. Now she's inviting us to
go back into the house. But they didn't want to.
The brother didn't want to, and so they talked for
a minute or two outside and then Ryan was like whatever,
and she says, I'll just stay then, and he says, okay, fine,
I'm going home.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
So they're in their twenties. Shit doesn't make sense, all right,
So whenever the sister goes back up to the house,
that's whenever Ryan they start driving past Karen's vehicle parked
in front of the Albert home. When he passed, he
noticed that the car that Karen's car was roughly one

(23:38):
car lengths distance away from the flagpole. As they drove past,
he also noticed that her dome light was on in
the front of the suv, and he said that the
brake lights were lit up like she was just parked
foot on the brake. He never in that timeframe saw
anybody get out of Karen's suv. He never saw anybody

(23:59):
walk from the house to the suv nor from the
suv to the house. Basically it remained parked but running.
The snow had just started to fall, it had not
yet accumulated on the ground, and both Jennifer McCabe, which
is the new neighbor Jennifer who was texting and calling John,
and Ryan Nagel both said they saw Karen's vehicle pull

(24:20):
up outside of the Albert residence. Now, during that time
that Ryan was talking and waiting for his sister, Jennifer
McCabe texted John's phone and said, pull behind me. Her
car was already in the driveway instead of being in
front of the house. She wanted John to pull behind

(24:41):
her in the driveway. At that exact same time that
all of this is going on, another young person would
leave that home. This guy's name is Colin guess what
Albert Okay, and Colin Albert is not the on of
the home that he's at, in law Alberts. He is

(25:03):
the son of old neighbor Alberts, Chris and Julie. So
basically the home that he's at, he's their nephew, so
he goes and he leaves the house. Well, there was
no answer to that message that Jen McCabe sent John
about pulling behind me. So nine minutes later, at twelve forty,
Jen mcab again texted Hello, question mark. There was no answer,

(25:27):
and again she texted him two more minutes later, where
are you? No answer? Five minutes after that she texted
again Hello. None of those text messages would ever be
answered by John. So at one thirty am, that's whenever
new neighbor mccab's decided that they were going to leave

(25:50):
the in law albert residence with a girl. Her name
was Julian and they were going to bring her home.
She was another kid that was at the party, so
they gave that that girl a ride home before they
went home themselves between one point thirty and two am.
In law Alberts they have a daughter named Caitlin. She

(26:11):
leaves the home as well for the evening. My point
is lots of people were leaving this house throughout the
night in the early morning hours, so as all of
this is going on, multiple hours are then going to
pass and the cold blizzard gets really intense. This is
one of the worst blizzards they've had in a while.

(26:35):
So it was after four am when Karen Reid woke up.
She was at John's house and rolled over and realized
John had not come home from the party at the
in law Alberts. So she got up, she searched the house.
She could not find John anywhere. She was still a
little bit affected from the drinking the night before, and

(26:55):
so she was a little woozy, but and she couldn't
quite remember what had happened, like what all went on.
She was kind of, you know, freaking out that John
wasn't there, clearly had never arrived home, and the fact
that this was completely out of the ordinary. This isn't
John didn't just go out and not come home at night.
That wasn't what they did. Karen then ran into John's

(27:18):
niece's room, panicked in a full on panic, checked on
her and made sure that she was okay, and then
was like, oh my god, John, he didn't come home.
John's not home. She grabbed the niece's phone and she
called John's new neighbor and party friend, Jennifer McCabe. This
was at five am, and she's asking her, do you

(27:39):
know where John is? He didn't come home, And she
says I don't know where he is, so she hangs up,
and she then calls John's longtime friend Carrie Robert's When
the phone rang at Carrie's house at five o'clock in
the morning, Carrie certainly wasn't expecting it, and it was
completely out of the norm for her relationship with Carrie

(28:00):
and Read. They weren't tight like that, and they certainly
didn't call at five o'clock in the morning, so she
was kind of confused. She picks up the phone and
she answers it, and her husband Kurt, who had also
been out the night before with John, he can just
hear yelling through the phone, really loud, yelling, so loud
that it actually roused him from his sleep. So whenever

(28:22):
she had answered the phone, it was Karen on the
other line, screaming through their phone Carrie, Carrie, Carrie, and
so Kurt was startled and he rolls over and it's like,
who is that yelling? And Karen then explains that or
excuse me, Carrie explains that Karen thinks John may have
been hit by a snowplow or something because he never

(28:43):
came home, and John would have never just left the
niece home alone good thing that Karen went home, you know,
and happened to stay there, but she was just panicked
because John wasn't there. And Karen then asks Carrie, hey,
can I come to your house and you go with
me and let's go. Let's go. Look, I'm freaking out.
I don't know where where he is. So she agrees.

(29:04):
Carrie says, yes, you can come here and I'll go
help you look for him. So at five oh seven am,
John had a ring camera on his house, and that
ring camera shows Karen get in her vehicle. She backs
her SUV up, so she backs out of the driveway
or backs out and then turns and drives out of
the driveway to head to Carrie's house. So Carrie got

(29:27):
on her clothes, she got dressed, and she goes and
she jumps in her car, gets it running and is
waiting for Karen to arrive. Well, while she's waiting for
Karen to arrive, Carrie's kind of thinking about him. My god,
you know, maybe maybe he something happened to him, if
he was hit by a car, or maybe he got arrested.
Who knows, I mean, he just doesn not come home.

(29:47):
So she decides, well, let me just go ahead and
call up to the police department and see if he's
been picked up or if anybody knows where he is
or are there any you know, rescues that have gone
on or anything like that. So she and when she calls,
obviously this is recorded. It's a very lighthearted kind of talk.
She even chuckles, figure and well, he must have just

(30:09):
drank too much and crashed on someone's couch. Maybe he's
sleeping it off. I want you, though, to give the
call a listen yourself, and I want you to listen
to Carrie Roberts calling and inquiring in reference to John
while she's waiting for Karen Reid to show up.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Can't please start and good?

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Hi, My name is Carry. I'm calling because my friend
boyfriend did not come home last night. They were at waterfalls,
and now she is calling me hysterical because she doesn't
know where he is. You didn't pick anybody up by
the name of John o'keith, did you, John o'kete. Yeah,
he's a box and crops and it would be on

(30:51):
sut But no, he probably got a ride and passed
out at someone's house.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
I don't know, but yeah, but no, we didn't walk
anybody up or anything like that. And where does he live?

Speaker 3 (31:06):
He lived on meadow they're at the present.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
He lives on meadow off a pleasant Okay. And where
where is the white home? You said your girlfriend with
his girlfriend?

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah, they were out having drinks and then she laughed
and expected him to come home at some point and
he never did yep. And so I said to her,
you know, I have been had been out with him
earlier in the night, but then he obviously he came home,
and she he had cut to be with Nisa nephew
because their parents passed away.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
And so she's home with the Nisa and nephew and
they're old enough to be home. It's just she's nervous,
says he never even called the nias.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
So she's like, I feel like something happened, And I said, okay, Well,
so he called the area hospital, but nobody happened. I
personally think he probably some one probably picked him off
in a casta.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
I don't I don't know. Yeah, where did he did
he He didn't drive last night?

Speaker 3 (32:01):
No?

Speaker 2 (32:01):
No, okay? Well I mean yeah, I mean well again,
it's more it would be turned by you. She would
have to you know, call in, come the station and
talk to us. But I mean, as of right now,
it's more. You know, he just didn't come home last night.
Is this is this common sometimes?

Speaker 3 (32:23):
No? No, no, no, that's why that's since she didn't
he didn't tell his knees, that's kind of why she's
more freaking out. So I think I called the area hospitals,
I said, of recall chant and police, just to make
sure he didn't get picked up. And like I said,
he's bounce some police office. I know, the bunch of people,
anybody could have kicked him out. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,

(32:43):
freaking it out. Okay, apparently they were having a pleasant
entirety of some Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
No, no, no, unfortunately I wasn't there. I was stuck here,
but we haven't. We didn't get any calls anything like that.
Nobody was arrested or anything like that, you know. Alrighty, well,
thank you, I had no problem, good luck. That's all right.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
So as you can tell, the police say, no, not
that they knew of that. They didn't have any record
of John being picked up. So Karen just continued to
wait in her vehicle. The weather was still really bad
and it was still really dark outside. But Karen never
showed up to the house because she actually went to
Jen McCabe's house. So the women all kind of get

(33:28):
on the phone and there and they're talking together, and
so Carrie says, look y'all just wait there and then
I'll just come meet up with you at the house.
So the new plan is now that Jen McCabe is
going to drive Karen's SUV back to John's house and
then they're all going to ride together to go look
for John with Carrie. So when Carrie pulled into John's

(33:54):
driveway behind Karen's vehicle, she then noticed that Karen's tail
light was broken. And she noticed it because the light
was shining through and it looked kind of it looked
different because it was like someone had their foot on
the brake, and so it just caught her attention that
the tail light looked different to her. This whole time

(34:15):
that Carrie is driving to go meet up with the
other two women, they stayed on the phone together and
they just kind of communicated between the two vehicles, and
at one point Karen says to Jen McCabe, I left
him at the waterfall bar. I don't, I don't. I
don't know why he wouldn't have come home. But Jen

(34:37):
McCabe says, no, you didn't. I saw you pull in
front of my sister's house. And Karen says, oh, okay,
kind of confused. No, she was drinking right, so she
she must have forgot that part. So all three of
the women once, once Carrie arrives, all three of them
go inside John's house and all together they go to

(34:57):
make sure that he's not actually at the house and
she didn't miss him. Jen McCabe and Karen searched the
upstairs while Carrie searched the downstairs. Well, he's not there.
So as all of the women walk out of John's house,
Karen pointed to her tail light and said, oh my god,
my tail light is broken. And so all the three
of the women are looking at it, and Karen says,

(35:19):
oh my god, I wonder if I hit him. Could
I have hit him? Well, Carrie goes up and she
looks closer and kind of commented, well, I don't know,
but just be careful because there's a jagged edge on this,
on this broken light, someone might cut themselves or you know,
your your shirt might get caught on it, so be careful.
And so it was the real the rear passenger tail light.

(35:42):
But considering John was missing, I mean, that was such
a leap for Karen to say, do you think maybe
I hit him? It was just absolutely like ridiculous, you
hit something, okay, but you didn't hit him. Get in
the car. And she's kind of like, why would you
even think that. Get in the car. Let's go. So
Karen wanted to go back to Jen McCabe's sister's house, which,

(36:03):
as a reminder here, that's the in law Albert's house.
Jen McCabe the new neighbor. Her sister is married to
in law Albert Bryan, so it's her sister's house that
they're heading to to look for John. So Carrie drove
and Jen mccab gave directions from the passenger seat because

(36:25):
Carrie didn't know where to drive, she didn't know how
to get to the house. So Carrie, Karen, and Jen
McCabe start talking about how the in law Albert's home
is near another woman's house that John used to date,
and I don't know why that came up. They're just
kind of talking about it, and Carrie kind of in

(36:46):
the back of her mind wandered, I want to ife
ended up there or something. You know, people don't just
go missing. Maybe he ended up back of the ex's house.
Who knows, but that was just kind of a fleeting
thought in her mind. So as they're driving to the
in law Albert's house, they're looking out the windows. All
the women are looking out. They're trying to see if
they see John out somewhere. They didn't, and Carrie at

(37:08):
one point ends up getting aggravated with Karen and yell.
She yells at her just shut up, be quiet, because
Karen at this point was damn near yelling. She was frantic,
she was freaking out. It was just making the whole
situation completely stressful, and she's just like, be quiet, just
shut up. We're gonna go find him. We're going to
the house. It was about six am when they pulled
up to the in law Albert's home, which was on

(37:31):
Fairview Drive. Now, the house was on the left hand
side as they are pulling up, meaning the driver's side
as they're pulling up would be on the side of
the house. So Karen is just becoming increasingly worried. As
more time has passed and as they get closer to
the house and they pull up right to it. Karen

(37:51):
starts screaming, there he is, Oh my god, there he is.
Let me the fuck out of this car. And she
starts trying to like jump out of the vehicle, almost
kicking at the door, trying to get the door open.
So she runs over to just snow. So Carrie and
Jen McCabe kind of look at each other like, what
the fuck is she talking about? And Carrie even said

(38:13):
she's crazy as they both watched her run over to
the snow, but neither woman in the car realized it.
But when Karen ran up to that snow at that moment,
they realized, oh my god, it's like a body outline
in the snow, but you could not see a person.
So Karen runs over. She starts immediately like moving snow

(38:35):
and jumps on top of him, trying to warm his
body almost and she's like in his shirt. She's trying
to warm his body. And then she jumps up and
she starts giving him mouth to mouth, trying to give CPR.
I don't know that it was effective CPR, but she
was completely freaked out and was trying to give him
him CPR. So Karen runs over, or Carrie runs over

(38:59):
at this point, and she starts digging at the snow
in front of the guy's face. And now at that
point she didn't actually know if it was John or not,
but when she brushed the snow back, she could definitely
see that this was John. It was absolutely John laying
in the snow, and in that moment that they're looking
at him, John's left eye seemed to be fine. It

(39:20):
was his right eye that was completely swollen. There was
blood coming out of his nose and his mouth as
well as there was blood in the snow from the
back of his head, but the blood wasn't gushing and
he was freezing. So Karen and Carrie kind of they're
going back and forth here, but Carrie starts trying to

(39:41):
do chest compressions on John, and while she's trying to
do these chest compressions, she yells out at Jen McCabe,
call nine one one, Call nine one one, and then
she's screaming at her, there's blankets in the back of
my car, Bring me those blankets, Bring me the blankets.
I know that seems kind of silly in the moment,
but she was just desperate to try to t anything
to warm John up, and so she took those blankets

(40:03):
and towels and she kind of wrapped them around John's head,
just trying to warm him up as best she could.
And that is the moment when that nine to one
one call was placed that you heard in episode one
of this story. So Jen McKay then runs over after
the nine one call, she takes over compressions. At that point, well,
Karen is now up. She's running around completely panicked, and

(40:25):
she's just screaming the women's name, just has her hands
on her head and she's like, you know, Carrie, Carrie Jin,
Oh my god, carry Jin because she just doesn't know
what to do with herself. That's when two Canton police
officers show up. There are officers Sarah and uh mulaney.
They show up at the scene, followed by emergency Services.

(40:47):
It's gonna be about six point twenty four when a
sergeant Michael lank Now arrives on scene. So when he
gets there, EMTs arrive and they report basically that when
they got there, they report that Karen was yelling did
I hit him? Did I hit him? Is he dead?

(41:08):
What's happening? And she's you know, kind of tripping out
from that point further. You know what happened with John
from episode one about him going to the hospital and
everything that that happened. But after John's body was taken, Okay,
Carrie walks over there and she starts to pick up
her blankets, and that's when she saw that John's cell

(41:31):
phone was on the ground. It had been I guess,
under his body. So she picked it up and she
put it in her pocket, and later on she handed
it to a first responder before she jumped in her
car and she went to go get John's parents to
bring them to the hospital. Okay, at this point, I'm

(41:51):
gonna pause for a second, and I want to tell
you about the evidence collection that took place still at
the scene after John and the women had left for
the hospital. And I'll tell you, y'all know I'm pretty
transparent here. I did a lot of research on this
because admittedly I am not a snow expert. I am
in South Louisiana, but I do understand evidence collection and procedure,

(42:14):
just not necessarily in blizzard conditions. So I really wanted
to educate myself to give my best interpretation of what
was going on here. So first thing I will tell
you is There is absolutely no zero okay, none, no
black and white procedure for collecting blood in snow. There

(42:35):
is no step one, step two, step three, step four.
There are best practices, but everything within the best practices
seems to be general suggestions on what needs to be done,
what needs to be done, more than how to do it. Okay,
And I know right now someone's screaming, no, there's a
way to collect it in the snow. I understand that,

(42:56):
but there's no one way to do it, and you
have to take into totality the actual weather conditions in
that exact moment as well. Okay, but what I can
tell you is a tent is usually suggested in snowy conditions. Why, well,
the life saving measures at the scene for John really

(43:17):
left the scene completely trampled, for lack of a better word.
There was blood in the snow, but there's people that
had run all in trying to save them and whatever.
And I've got pictures of all this. I'm gonna post
it on Patreon for you so you can go look
and see and follow along with what I'm saying. But
the crime scene in and of itself, or the scene
really wasn't that extensive. Because it had been snowing for
hours before John was found, which meant there could still

(43:40):
be evidence beneath the snow. But there really was just
that small area of blood where John's body was and
then a blanket of snow. So police did have a tent, okay,
But the problem with the tent was that the wind
was whipping and blowing in every direction per consistently, which

(44:01):
made it nearly impossible for them to keep the tent
in place and serve the purpose that it would have
been serving. It was a lieutenant Paul Gallagher, He actually
had a personal eight by eight tent in his vehicle,
but they didn't use it. But they had a reason
they didn't use it. It wouldn't have stayed in place.
It was blowing everywhere, and it just wouldn't have preserved

(44:21):
a calm scene where they're just trying to keep more
snow from falling. So I hope that kind of puts
a picture in your mind. They did put up crime
scene tape, but that really was serving no purpose. It
was blowing all over the place, and the only people
that were at the scene at that point were law enforcements,
so it wasn't like they were trying to keep anybody back.
They were in the middle of a fucking blizzard. There's
nobody out. Homeowners didn't come out either. So there's also

(44:47):
a video of this, which I will I'll put on Patreon,
but I watched it, and they came up with a
way that they thought that they might could kind of
blow snow off the surface in sections to kind of
see what was beneath. And what they came up with
was that they wanted to basically get a blower, like
a handheld blower you would blow leaves with or snow

(45:09):
or whatever, and they wanted to kind of blow it away,
which sounds ridiculous to some people. I'm about to stand
on business unpopular opinion, but I think that it actually
was a pretty decent idea for the moment that they
were in. So I watched the video, like I told you,
and there's an officer, he's got the blower. He is
lightly blowing across the top of the snow. He's sweeping

(45:32):
in a small back and forth motion, and they cleared
a roughly i'd say seven by seven foot maybe ten
x ten foot area and guess what they found a
whole bunch of nothing. They just found snow and then
the blood that was where John was. It really was
not that fruitful of collection and they blew y'all. I mean,

(45:57):
they just didn't find anything. There was nothing there but snow.
So the issue now is that the lieutenant that was unseen.
This is the Gallagher. Lieutenant Gallager. This was the first
time that he had ever done evidence collection in his
career in this type of situation as far as weather went,
I know, it gets snowy there, but this was the

(46:18):
first time he had ever had a blizzard going on
during evidence collection, and so he would be the one
with the blower that would go back and forth. But
eventually he would uncover a drinking glass with the leaf blower,
and that drinking glass or a broken drinking glass was
located right next to where John's body was laying before

(46:41):
they had taken it. The glass, by the way, very
similar to the one that John had carried out of
the bar whenever they closed at midnight. So blood samples
now became the other issue, or collecting blood samples now
became the other issue for the police that were on
the scene. So Gallagher, Lieutenant Gallagher's perception of what was

(47:06):
going on is that swabbing the blood with the swabs
would not really do well, he said, because of the
frozen nature of the snow and the conditions that they
were in. They decided they would rather just take the
whole section of snow rather than try to swab the
frozen blood in the snow. So what they did was

(47:28):
they got six solo red solo red solo cup. You
don't know that song, all right? They filled Let's have
a party, all right. They decided to fill up the
red solo cups and take the samples in these red
solo cups back to the station as their evidence. Now,

(47:50):
where did they get the cups? This is going to
become a part of contention here. They got the cups
from a neighbor's house. His explanation and the lieutenant's explanation,
is that they got the cups from the neighbor's house
because they were improvising, because they did not have any
containers to do what they were trying to do. There's
a problem with this, and I think we all know

(48:12):
this as true crime, you know, fans, those cups aren't
sterilized in any traditional way. His thoughts were that the
crime lab could just take the whole snow section extract
the DNA as they best saw fit, and so he
would just bring it all to them. So they scooped
up the cups of bloody snow. They put them into

(48:34):
an evidence bag and like a brown paper bag, and
then they sent that to the police department for it
to be turned over to the crime lab. Once they
got them there, the crime lab was waiting at the
station and they took possession of the samples from there.
I will add this in all fairness, Okay, the police
agency that was doing this collection is rather small. Okay,

(48:57):
there's only about forty five people in the entire police department.
Because it's so small, I would like to give you
this information. The smaller the department, the more limited in
tools and supplies and resources compared to larger agencies that
are probably funded better. These officers, though, even though it's

(49:17):
a small agency, still have a job to do. They
should have basic evidence collection skills even if you're a
small agency. I don't agree with what they did at
this point because in my humble opinion, what should have
been done is they should have then if they realized
they didn't have the collection tools or the containers that
would they needed. All hed to do was radio or
call a neighboring agency that was larger and have them

(49:42):
bring in what would have been needed. And considering that
this lieutenant had thirty years on the force, he should
have known that he should have thought that one through.
I don't think that. Maybe in the moment he thought
it was the most horrible idea what he did. But
in my opinion, this was some shoddy police work. And
when you don't do thorough in good police work, it's

(50:04):
just gonna lead to more questions than anything. What you're
gonna find out here in a little bit. Now back
to John. At the same time all that was happening,
John was pronounced dead at roughly eight am at the
Good Samaritan Hospital. So at nine am, though about an
hour before that, Karen Reid's blood was drawn at the hospital,
and when the results came back, it was pretty eye

(50:26):
opening because her blood alcohol content at nine a m
was point oh eight. That'll get you a DWI in
the great State of Louisiana and pretty much anywhere else
you go. This also means that back when she dropped
John off, she was drunk. Okay, because a toxicologist would

(50:47):
review all of this and say if she still had
a point oh eight at nine o'clock in the morning,
she was between point one three and point two nine
at twelve forty five, Okay, So sure was drunk, y'all.
So I want to give you a little reference point here.
Someone that has a blood alcohol content of point two okay.
Even if this is someone who drinks daily, they're still

(51:08):
going to experience significant impairments in their reflexes. And that's
according to the University of Central Florida and this whole
study that they did on it. So the basics here
is that while tolerance to alcohol can develop with regular drinking,
it doesn't change the fact that there's a primary effect
on how impaired you will be. It may change how

(51:33):
intoxicated the person feels, but it does not change the
objective level of the impairment. So also, the National Institute
of Health says that a blood alcohol content above point
three is life threatening. So anybody that has basically a
point one six to a point three would indicate severe impairment.

(51:54):
And the reason that I'm telling you this is that
I like to look at information and combine it with
but I'm told are the facts of the case, and
it looks like she was pretty fucking toasted when she
was driving to the Alberts the previous night, which makes
sense as to why she may not have remembered it
if she, in fact you drove there. So to this point,
I want to make you just understand that Canton p

(52:16):
D is who did the evidence collection and the initial investigation,
and they are a very small department. Well around eleven
am the day you know, John had just died previously,
Massachusetts State Police would start being involved in this case
and they wanted to interview the in law Alberts at
their home. Now, it's at this point it's really important

(52:38):
for me to tell you something that you need to know.
The lead investigator for Canton p D that could have
been the lead on this case was problematic. That's why
state police was here. Okay, why was he problematic? Because
are you ready? His name was Kevin Please Albert. Every

(53:03):
fucker in his story is last named Albert at this point,
and it's making storytelling difficult. That's why I'm working so
hard to break it down for you. Okay, But yes,
Canton p D's lead detective guy is the third Albert,
brother of in law Albert, Brian and old neighbor Chris Albert. Okay,
so this is the third brother to the three brothers,

(53:25):
So it would be a huge conflict of interest for
a brother to investigate a death at his own brother's house,
don't you think, well, Canton P. D agreed. Especially, let's
add to this that the other brother's wife was one
of the women that found the body. Are you following
this intricate web of all of these Alberts, Okay, So ideally,

(53:48):
what would happen here? Ideally you would think that the
agency that's gonna have the conflict of interest would invite
in state police just to keep things transparent, and they
would investigate alongside each other, just for checks and balances,
because it's kind of difficult to investigate yourself, Okay, considering
who all was involved, So having state police come in

(54:10):
was a great idea at this juncture, in my opinion.
So Massachusetts State Police has a trooper named Michael Proctor.
Michael Proctor is supervised by Sergeant Uri Bucknick. Those two
arrived to conduct interviews with the occupants at the in

(54:30):
law Albert home where John was found. The overall statement
of everybody that was in the home was that John
never came in the house, although he and Karen had
been given instructions of how to get there. At Jen
McCabe's house, that's new neighbor of John. Her sister, by

(54:51):
the way, is who's married to in law Albert Bryan,
where the body was found. Jen mccab's house was also
a that they wanted to go speak with. So they
arrived at her house and they went and knocked on
the door and they asked, are you Jennifer McCabe and
she told them no, I am not. So the police

(55:12):
officers or the troopers went back to their car and
then placed a phone call to her and they said, look,
this is Massachusetts State Police. We need to speak to you.
And she said, oh, oh, okay, I need you to
give me ten minutes or so to get dressed. So
what she would explain was that when they first came

(55:32):
up and knocked on the door and asked if she
was Jim mckabe, the reason she said no is she
thought that they were selling something and she didn't want
to deal with it whatever. So when she asked for
those ten minutes to get dressed, then the police came
up to do the interview. But in the ten minutes
that she needed to get dressed, she made two phone calls.

(55:53):
She called her husband, but she also called Carrie Roberts,
the other woman that was with her when they found
John's body with Karen. So the police then show up.
They're asking some questions and they directly asked her have
you spoken to anyone in the last ten minutes before

(56:14):
we got here, and she told them no. But then
she goes, well, hang on, actually I did call my
husband and I did call Carrie Roberts. And they're like,
all right, is that all that you called, because it's
a crime to lie to us, you know, while we're
here asking you questions. So she's like, no, I didn't

(56:36):
call anybody else. So they asked questions, they do their thing,
and then they handed her their card and they left
the house. Well, shortly after they left the house, she
called them back. She said, wait a minute, I actually
need to clear something up. And they're like, okay, Well,

(56:57):
I said, I called my husband and I called Carrie,
but I forgot that I called a couple other people
too in that ten minutes. And it's kind of like,
in ten minutes, you forgot ten minutes ago or right
before we walked in the door. You forgot that you
called other people. And she's like, yeah, just you know,

(57:18):
there was a lot going on, but I did call
some other people, so I wanted to let you know.
And they're like, okay, well who did you call? And
she says, well, it's more like I actually called five people,
not too so who all did she call in that
ten minute span that she needed to get dressed? She
called Peggy O'Keefe, which is John's mom. She called the

(57:41):
District Attorney's office, and she called Brian Albert, her brother
in law, aka the homeowner where John's body was found,
aka a thirty year Boston police detective. So it's kind
of curious that you called five people in ten minutes,

(58:03):
right when the police say that they need to ask
you some questions. It's curious, Okay, she says, oh, well,
I called the DA's office because that's where my witness
advocate was. Okay, well, it doesn't explain why you called
other people though. All right, hours later after that, this
is around four thirty that same afternoon, both of those

(58:25):
same state troopers went to Karen Reid's parents' home where
Karen was and they interviewed her about what had happened
the night before. Karen explains, the same thing. We went
out drinking, I dropped John off at the in law
Albert's home, and then I went to his house. She
had previously thought she dropped him off the bar, but
she now realizes, oh, I dropped him at John's house.

(58:48):
The thing is, I'm sorry at the new Albert's house.
The thing is the overall statements from all parties did
not line up. Nobody's statements were lining up. One of
them seemed to know what happened to John, and none
of them would affirm that they ever saw John at
the in law Albert's home, not even Karen. Karen never

(59:11):
saw John walking back and forth from her vehicle. She
just dropped him off. But what was said, though, if
you remember, was those first responders that were there said
that they overheard Karen saying I hit him. I hit him.
Both Carrie Roberts and Jen McCabe said Karen said she

(59:33):
hit him, So the police were now wondering if Karen
was trying to minimize her role in John's death. Carrie
and Jen McKay both also said they saw Karen's broken
tail light on her car, which suggested that she had
in fact backed into John and hit him. So was
it possible that Karen hit him and then drove off.

(59:55):
But if that's the case, there were a total of
twelve people. I haven't listen did every name because a
lot of them didn't really matter. But there was a
total of twelve people at the in law Albert's residence,
coming and going throughout the night, and none of them,
not one of them saw John outside when they left
that party. Not one saw John out there. So it's like, Okay,

(01:00:20):
were they fighting? Were John and Karen fighting? No one
ever said that they were fighting. You know, Karen had
said we had a disagreement about the kids. But there
was no fighting. There was no none of that. So
the police decided to look at Karen's vehicle. When they
did that, that's when they took possession of her Lexus
SUV and they impounded it at the Canton Police Department

(01:00:44):
in their sally port as evidence. Now, when the vehicle
first got there, it was not photographed when it got
to the Sallyport, but they did want to get to
work removing the tail light in question. So when this
they go to remove the tail light. They start having

(01:01:04):
a lot of trouble getting the tail light out of
the I'm gonna call it a socket. I don't know vehicles, Jim.
What's it called a tail light, whole, socket, vestibule, whatever
it is. Okay, So they're trying to get the light out.
They're having trouble doing that. So that's when Lieutenant Gallagher,
the guy with the tent, the one that did all

(01:01:24):
the evidence collection on the scene, he called over another
Canton Police Department officer. This is the guy that worked
on their fleet vehicles. It was like their fleet maintenance guy,
and he said he can probably assist you in getting
the light out of the vehicle. Regardless of all of that,
police believed that they had pieced together what happened. After
a night of drunken partying. Karen brought John to the

(01:01:45):
in law Albert's. I said John, like, I'm from Boston.
I almost had a Boston accent there. I can't nail
that one. But they say John different than I do.
I'm like Dan, all right, But Karen brought John to
the in law's Albert's home. They must have gotten into
an argument. She said they were arguing at one point
and so she backed over him in a fit of
drunken rage. So a few days after John died on

(01:02:07):
February first, to be specific, new neighbor Jen McCabe contacted
investigators to tell them something else that she forgot to
tell them. She now remembered that Karen had asked her
to google something that morning when they found John. Specifically,

(01:02:30):
Jen told these investigators Karen asked her to google how
long do you have to be left outside to die
from hypothermia? Now, this is rather huge, considering John had
been left outside and indeed did die from complications including hypothermia.

(01:02:50):
This though, after already being questioned and everything that's already
gone on, she forgot that she googled how long before
someone dies in the cold of hypothermia? You'd forgot that?
That seems huge considering what all was going on. But

(01:03:11):
investigators added that to the other working theory that they have.
They felt like they had enough, and they in fact
arrested Karen Reid that same day, on February first. They
charged her with manslaughter. They charged her with leaving the
scene of a motor vehicle collision causing death and a
motor vehicle homicide. The next day, she had formally pled

(01:03:31):
not guilty, and she posted a fifty thousand dollars bond.
That seems clean cut, doesn't it? Some questions? But clean cut? Well,
this is where I have to give you some more information. Remember,
the crime scene at this point had already been processed.
The snowblower, the cups of bloody snow, all of that

(01:03:53):
had already been done well around five thirty that evening.
The Massachusetts State Police, they have a special emergency response team,
they went back to the scene to go process it,
even though it had already been processed, and there when

(01:04:14):
they got there they would be able to find a
bunch of evidence that nobody found. They found two red
plastic tail light pieces, they found one clear plastic tail
light piece, and they found a Nike shoe matching the
one that John was wearing whenever he was found. This

(01:04:37):
is awesome, right, that's great. The more evidence the better, right,
Except for the fact that the scene had already been processed,
the snowblower, the area was photographed, nobody found anything, and
it kind of begs the question, how did no one
else ever see that evidence? It had been snowing. Also

(01:05:00):
since at least midnight The night before when John was
believed to be injured. So the evidence that Massachusetts State
Police found was on top of the snow. This is
evidence that no one had seen. No responders had seen
any of this, broken tail light pieces, no Canton PD

(01:05:21):
had ever seen any of this, the shoe, none of it.
Nobody found any of that. So something at this point
seems kind of sketched to the average joe, including me,
and I'm thinking you as you listen to this. So
February third, Trooper Proctor from the State Police he alleges

(01:05:43):
he finds more plastic light pieces at the scene. This
is the next day, February fourth, the day after that,
the Canton Police chief, his name is Kenneth Berkowitz, he
allegedly finds more plastic pieces resembling tail lights on the

(01:06:05):
street outside of the in law Albert residence. So this
is where this is kind of confusing. The crime scene
was processed, nobody found anything, nothing. Then hours later that
night or evening, State police all of a sudden finds
more evidence, and then they find more evidence, and then

(01:06:28):
the former police chief or the police chief who, by
the way, Canton had already recused themselves from the investigation Remember,
because of the brother being involved, Canton had recused themselves.
And now the police chief of Canton's finding police evidence.
What is that about. That's not even that's not what
you're involved in doing. So I don't know something about

(01:06:49):
that seems just really strange. All of this plus so
much more guys has yet to be uncovered, has yet
to be uncovered yet. Karen Reid has already been charged
with the death of John. Now, remember Trooper Proctor with
the State Police was the lead investigator. Now in this case,

(01:07:10):
his supervisor was that Sergeant Buchanic. You're a Buchanic, Okay, Well,
Sergeant Buchanic decided to call the Medical Examiner's office to
get some insight to John's injuries. This was the morning
of John, right after he died. Okay, so I know
I'm kind of going all over the place here. But
on January twenty ninth, the morning of John's death, at

(01:07:33):
ten forty one am, Sergeant Buchanic he called and spoke
to the Medical Examiner's office and he advised them that
John may have been hit in the face with a
cocktail glass and he may have been in a physical confrontation.
Just as a point of reference for them as they're
doing the autopsy on John O'Keeffe. Well, when the autopsy

(01:07:54):
results would come back. They are interesting to say the
least because based on the medical examiners autopsy of John O'Keefe,
these were the findings and opinions that were presented. The
cause of death of John was blunt impact injuries or
blunt force injuries to the head and hypothermia, which was
a complication with blunt impact injuries being the primary cause

(01:08:16):
of his death. His head injuries were significant. They included
a laceration on the back of the head, skull fractures,
and bleeding on the brain. He had other head and
facial injuries, including elaceration on his eyelid. He had abrasions
on his nose, and he had swelling around the eyes.

(01:08:39):
They noted that his body temperature was very low whenever
he came to the hospital and that's why they thought
hypothermia contributed to his death, but it was unclear whether
the hypothermia would have been fatal on its own or not.
Other injuries that were noted now, there were injuries on
his arm. Those are the ones that I had told
you about, his hands and his knee, He also had

(01:09:01):
rib fractures. The medical examiner's opinion, though, was that this
might have been from resuscitation efforts on him when they
were doing CPR. The toxicology showed he did have alcohol
in his system, he had no prescription or illicit drugs
whatsoever in his system. So the overall opinion of the
medical examiner was the manner of death was undetermined. They

(01:09:24):
didn't feel like they knew what exactly had happened to
him because they had a lack of compelling evidence. The
head injury was consistent with falling backward onto a hard
surface like frozen ground, but other causes could have done
this too, like broken glass or being hit with a

(01:09:44):
baseball bat, something along those lines. The other thing here
is that while hypothermia was noted, there was hemorrhaging in
his pancreas and there was hemorrhaging in his stomach, which
again they didn't know if we suscitation had caused that
type of injury or if something else had. But what

(01:10:04):
they overall found was there was no evidence of a
motor vehicle impact on John O'Keeffe's legs that would have
been expected if he had been slammed into by an SUV.
There were no impact from a vehicle on the legs. Basically,
the medical examiner didn't think John had been hit by

(01:10:25):
a car. So looking at the wounds, which I've posted
on patreons, you can look at him. I swear to you,
they look like a dog attack. They look like a
dog attacked him. It does not look like a vehicle
hit him. So I want you to hear me out.
And I did a ton of research on this, even
though I'm not gonna take much time, but I took

(01:10:46):
a ton of I did a ton of research on
dog attacks, and overall, this is what experts on dog
attacks put number one. Dogs that are attacking to kill somebody,
they usually go for the throat, the head, or the face.
It's different than dogs that are acting more in like

(01:11:08):
defensive purposes. When they're going for defensive purposes, like they're
alarmed and they're scared and they're trying to like get something,
someone to get back or something, they tend to go
for the butt or the extremities. And when they do that,
they tend to shake their heads back and forth, which
will tear the skins off in strips. Now, keeping that

(01:11:31):
in mind, I was curious. What if a body was
out in snow and a dog came upon that body
in the snow or sniffed and smelled that body down
in the snow. Well, they addressed that in this In
this document, I was reading dogs that find somebody okay,

(01:11:54):
and they're trying to rouse that person, or they're trying
to wake them up or alert them. Dogs will often
dig and scratch at a person, and they even tend
to bite. At times. They'll bite out of either excitement
or nervousness, but they'll scratch and then they'll bite, and
they also will lick at those wounds on the person.

(01:12:17):
This is the common behavior. There's not a lot of
bleeding when they do this type. It's not like a
shred and tear type thing, and it's more of trying
to get the person to move or wake up. And
what was interesting to me about that was that everyone
that responded to John said that his wounds on his arms,
which I'm telling you, look like a dog attack. They

(01:12:38):
weren't bleeding excessively either, So why do I bring this up?
Surely it wouldn't matter at all except for the fact
that the in law, Alberts, owned a German shepherd known
for biting people. And y'all know all of animals, Okay,
but I have to bring miss Chloe up. I have

(01:13:00):
to talk about her. Chloe was a German Shepherd mix.
She was a big dog. She was seventy pounds or so,
so she's big. And she was home with them the
night of John's death. But this was never really looked into.
Even when the medical examiner did not agree that John
had been hit by a car, it was never looked into.

(01:13:22):
It was really starting to look like the police may
have had blinders on as to the reality of what
actually caused John's death. Supervisor Buchanic okay with the Say police.
He never conducted a search of the Albert's home ever.

(01:13:42):
Matter of fact, no one searched the Albert home. Nobody,
even though there was a link between in law Albert
Brian and all of them being out drinking with the
very guy that was dead in their front yard. That's
piss poor work police work right there, to say the least,

(01:14:03):
no one even looked into it. The only interviews that
were done between Buchanic and Michael Proctor, who was the
lead investigator. They talked to Jennifer and Matt McCabe, which
are the new neighbors, and they spoke to Brian Albert
in law Brian Albert the homeowner where John was found.
But hear me out where they interviewed them. Is interesting

(01:14:26):
because while they were interviewing the mccabs guests who showed
up at their house during this police interview. Brian in
law Brian the homeowner showed up during the police interview.
They never separated any of them. They're all related, you

(01:14:47):
understand this, They're in laws of each other, and they
never separated them to get a story from them independently.
It is extremely strange to have extra witnesses or potential
witnesses i e. They could also be potential suspects. If
you're being objective, it's really weird to have that extra
witness show up and then stay and listen to other

(01:15:09):
potential witnesses i e. They could also be suspects explain themselves.
Especially if you're of any intelligence, you know that people
will lie if they if they feel like they need
to save themselves. So, if you're being objective and open
minded to all possibilities, what could have happened to John
and you're listening to the medical examiner say he was

(01:15:29):
not hit by a car. Then this is very compromising
to this case, extremely compromising. It was after that that
they went and they talked to Karen Reid. So he
and Proctor then went to the hospital at some point
and they collected John's clothing from the hospital as evidence.

(01:15:50):
Around ten pm that night that John had died, they
brought that clothing to the police department and they hung
it up or laid it out to dry in a
special room. Everyone didn't have access to it. You had
to have special key card access to get to it.
Regardless of all of that, though, Karen had already been charged,
so while she's preparing for trial, her defense team is

(01:16:12):
kind of starting to have some questions about this case
as it's laying out. For example, why was all of
that evidence that was found later on that was found
those days after in February, after John died. Would you
be interested to know that there were no reports written
on it, none until November of twenty twenty three. Why

(01:16:37):
would you The purpose of a report is to document
everything as it is, as it was, so you're fresh,
you don't have to memorize all of this. It's why
you write a report. Why would you wait from February
to November to write reports on evidence found? Seems sus
as the kids would say. So far, I've told you

(01:17:00):
that state police interrogated everyone in the in law Albert
home as part of the investigation, but something else would
also be realized. What if I told you that a
Canton police officer had interviewed them all and by himself,
before any formal interviews were done, and that meeting wasn't

(01:17:24):
documented nor recorded. Okay, some mistakes maybe were made here.
I mean, it's a Canton p D officer in questioning
a Canton police officer in his home, and he never
told anybody much about it, and it wasn't written down,
it wasn't recorded, and it was before the official interrogation

(01:17:44):
of state police. Why would he do that they had
recused themselves at some point? Anyway? Well, what if that
very Canton officer that I'm discussing, his name is Sergeant Lank.
What if you then found out that that guy, that
officer was very close friends with the in law Alberts,
but would tell everyone who asked that he didn't know them.

(01:18:07):
It was merely professional. Oh and by the way, he
was also good friends with the mccabs, the new neighbor mccabs.
You know Jen who found the body, who is the
sister in law and sister of the in law Alberts,
but he tells everyone that they're not. Also, what special
interest in Karen Reid's ass did State Trooper Proctor have

(01:18:30):
and how would that come into play in this case
about murder proc proctology. I don't know why would Karen
Reid's ass play any role in a murder investigation? Also,
what if it's now realized that Karen left some less
than savory voicemails on John's phone after she left the

(01:18:51):
in law Albert's house because I thought they weren't really fighting,
but now there's a lot of arguing, And was there
possibly another man that works for law enforcement involved with Karen?
All of this had yet to even be found. If
you have more questions than answers about this episode that

(01:19:11):
I just gave you, then welcome to why this case
is so huge in the current news and in the
final episode next week, I'm gonna tie it all up
with a pretty messy bo for you. A lot of
people started wondering if maybe there was a cover up
going on in canon and I'd have to say to
this point there was a lot of problematic behavior all

(01:19:34):
around this investigation. For now, all I can say is
that justice is meant to be blind, okay, and in
this case, apparently deaf, dumb, and really good at manipulating
camera footage. I don't know, though, maybe the police misheard,
because serve and protect really does sound similar to lie
and deflect.

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Part Two | Did She Do it: The Investigation Into Karen Read

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Part Two | Did She Do it: The Investigation Into Karen Read