Karen Read has spoken out about the moment that bombshell evidence came to light that she claims proves her innocence in the death of her Boston cop boyfriend – and instead proves a sprawling police cover-up.
The accused killer told ID in its upcoming series ‘A body in the snow: The trial of Karen Read,’ in an exclusive clip obtained by DailyMail.com, that a cellphone expert had unearthed a ‘highly incriminating’ Google search on another individual’s phone.
‘Hos long to die in cold,’ it read.
The Google search, according to the defense team’s cellphone expert Richard Green, was made on Jennifer McCabe’s phone at 2.27am on January 29 2022.
Hours later, at around 6am that morning, Read, McCabe and a third woman found Read’s boyfriend John O’Keefe lying in the snow in the middle of a blizzard outside the home of Boston Police Officer Brian Albert.
In the ID series, which was filmed during Read’s first murder trial, the suspect says the timing of the Google search is ‘highly incriminating,’ furiously telling the camera: ‘You get that I’m p*ssed?’
‘I’m on trial for my life right now,’ she says.
‘They want you to believe that I killed John but their rush to prosecute me will bite them in the a**.’
Karen Read has spoken out in a new ID docuseries about the moment that bombshell evidence came to light that she claims proves a sprawling police cover-up of her boyfriend’s death
John O’Keefe and Karen Read pictured together. Read is due to go on trial a second time in April
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend O’Keefe by drunkenly ramming him with her SUV outside the Albert family’s home and leaving him to die in the snow on the lawn.
An autopsy found he died from blunt impact injuries to the head and hypothermia.
Read was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene where there has been personal injury and death.
Her first trial ended in a mistrial as the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict.
Her second trial is slated to begin on April 1, after Read tried unsuccessfully to strike two of the charges.
On the night of January 28, Read, O’Keefe and a group of friends including members of the Albert family and Jennifer and Matthew McCabe had gone out drinking in bars in Canton during the blizzard.
The group was planning to continue the party at the Alberts’ home and Read had driven with O’Keefe to the property.
Prosecutors allege that Read drove into her boyfriend and left him for dead in the snow, pointing to a crack in the tail light of her car and testimony from witnesses claiming she admitted on the scene: ‘I hit him. I hit him.’
Meanwhile, Read claims she dropped O’Keefe off at the home and saw him go inside the house.
She claims she flew into a rage when he failed to come back out and get her, and so she left him there, drove back to his home and fell asleep.
She left him a furious voicemail message at around 1am where she shouted: ‘You are a f***ing loser, f*** yourself’ and ‘John, I f***ing hate you.’
Waking a few hours later, she claims she realized he wasn’t home and called McCabe and another friend to help her look for him.
The three women drove back to the Alberts’ home where O’Keefe was found in the snow.
Read’s defense has claimed O’Keefe was actually killed by someone inside the Albert family home and his body dumped in the yard.
Her high-profile legal team claims Read was then framed for the murder by corrupt law enforcement officers in a wild, far-reaching conspiracy.
Albert and several of the individuals at the home were police officers.
One of the key pillars for this theory centers on the bombshell Google search found on McCabe’s cellphone several hours before the victim’s body was found.
Karen Read and her attorney, Alan Jackson, laugh in the courtroom at her first trial at Norfolk County Superior Court in Dedham on May 2
Karen Read supporters outside the courthouse during Karen Read’s murder trial in June 2024
In the exclusive clip from the new series, Read reveals the moment that crucial piece of evidence was uncovered by her defense team.
‘I received this in my email on a Sunday morning. I think the date was March 5,’ she says.
‘The email had come in from our cell expert Rick Green at 5am. He had been up all night.’
She continues: ‘He saw this, what he called an artifact which is the footprint on a cellphone of a Google search conducted on Jennifer McCabe’s phone.’
Read shows up a board detailing the exact time, date, content and other data about the search.
‘It says January 29 2022 at 2.27am and 40 seconds: “hos long to die in cold,”’ she says.
‘And if that search was deleted by the user you get a red yes flag in this column,’ she says, pointing to a column on the chart.
It shows a red tick in the deleted box.
In the new series, Read points to cellphone data showing a ‘highly incriminating’ Google search on Jennifer McCabe’s phone, reading: ‘Hos long to die in cold’
‘I’m on trial for my life right now,’ Read says in the new series ‘A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read’
‘This would indicate that it was deleted,’ she explains.
‘If Jen McCabe knew at 2.27am that John was about to be or was placed in the cold, that’s highly incriminating,’ she says.
At her first trial, the defense and prosecution sparred over this Google search evidence.
The defense claimed the data proved that McCabe knew that O’Keefe was dying in the cold around three-and-a-half hours before he was found.
They claimed this proved that McCabe was part of a group helping to cover up what really happened that night.
But an expert witness for the prosecution refuted this version of events.
Instead, the witness said that the search was actually made at 6.23am just after she and Read arrived outside the Alberts’ home to look for O’Keefe.
The search was made on a tab that had first been opened at 2.27am, they argued.
Pictured: Boston police officer John O’Keefe died from blunt impact injury to the head and hyperthermia
O’Keefe was found in the snow outside the Alberts’ home in Canton, around 12 miles from Boston, in the early hours of January 29 2022
McCabe was grilled about the search when she took the stand at Read’s trial and testified that she carried out the search after they found O’Keefe’s body because Read asked her to look up how long it takes to die in the cold.
She told the court that she had been researching a basketball team for her daughter at 2.27am on the tab.
‘I did not make that search at that time,’ McCabe testified adamantly.
‘I never would have left John O’Keefe out in the cold to die because he was my friend that I loved.’
Now, prosecutors – lead by newly-appointed special prosecutor Hank Brennan who used to represent notorious mobster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger – are seeking to exclude Green’s testimony from Read’s second trial.
The new ID series follows Read’s first criminal trial, featuring interviews with Read, her legal team as well as O’Keefe’s friends.
It showcases the circus surrounding the case as ‘Free Karen Read’ supporters showed up outside the courthouse dressed in pink to protest her going on trial.
The high-profile case was also rocked by a scandal involving the lead investigator on the case, Trooper Michael Proctor.
Dashcam footage shows the moments after John O’Keefe’s body was found in the snow
In a shocking moment in the courtroom, Proctor was confronted with his texts calling Read a ‘whack job’ and a ‘c**t’ and referring to her as a ‘babe’ with ‘no a**.’
He also joked about searching her cellphone for nude images.
The new series comes as Read is preparing to go on trial a second time this April.
On Thursday, the 45-year-old was dealt a major blow to her case when a federal judge refused her request to throw out two of the three charges against her.
Read’s legal team had argued that the second-degree murder and leaving the scene of an accident charges should be tossed because of comments made by jurors after the trial, claiming it would amount to double jeopardy.
A federal judge dismissed her request, paving the way for her to stand trial on all the same charges.
The ruling comes just days after the judge also agreed to issue a gag order to limit what Read and her lawyers can say outside of the courtroom.
Immediately after that ruling, Read vowed she wouldn’t be silenced, saying: ‘I like talking. I like to reveal the truth.’
ID’s A BODY IN THE SNOW: THE TRIAL OF KAREN READ will premiere across three-nights beginning Monday, March 17 at 9/8c on ID. Episodes will be available to stream on Max.
