S3 Ep257: John O'Keefe: Commonwealth vs Karen Read (Part 3)

In the early morning hours of Saturday, January 29th, 2022, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe was found dead in a snowbank outside a home in Canton, Massachusetts. According to the medical examiner, O’Keefe had died from blunt force trauma and hypothermia. At first it seemed like a tragic accident, maybe a slip on the ice, a fall that ended in death. But as investigators dug deeper, things became far more complicated and Karen Read, O’Keefe’s girlfriend, became the center of the investigation. Evidence that there had been trouble in paradise in the romantic relationship began to surface, but so did other disturbing possibilities. What seemed like a domestic tragedy was quickly clouded by allegations of police corruption and cover-up, and an investigation that many believe was compromised from the start. What if the very people tasked with upholding the law were covering up the truth? Was John O’Keefe’s death a result of an angry lovers rage- or the collateral damage of a police force protecting its own? In this case, the line between justice and corruption becomes confusingly blurred. Evidence disappears, witnesses are silenced, and as the truth slowly rises to the surface, it may reveal a web of lies that’s more dangerous than anyone could have predicted. Was Karen Read the scapegoat in a larger cover-up? And what role did corruption within the police department play in distorting facts. This may not be just a story of love gone wrong, it may in fact turn out to be a story of power, deceit, and the price people will pay to keep the darkest of dark secrets buried. Join us as we delve deep into the case of John O’Keefe and Karen Read, and help us see if we can get closer to the truth. Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:1. LiquidIV.com - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get 20% off your first order!2. SkyLightFrame.com/Weekly - Get $20 off your SkyLight Frame!3. EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping!4. DraftKings Casino - Sign up with code CRIMEWEEKLY and get $100 instantly in Casino Credits with a $10 wager!5. Masterclass.com/CrimeWeekly - Get up to 50% off!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  When your workday is constantly disrupted, your workflow isn't flowing. It's come to a grinding halt. You don't need an assistant. You need superpowers. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, is built for how you actually work. No new tabs, no switching apps, no losing your place. Go handles busy work like finding documents or summarizing email threads, so you can focus on the work only you can do. Try Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 0:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:46Derrick Levasseur?

  And I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, so today we're diving into part three of the John O'Keefe and Karen Reed case. I know before we get into the episode, there's a few things Derek wants to talk about, so take it away.

• 1:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes, if you watch Crime Weekly News, you can probably skip this first part if you haven't. Big announcement. We have funded our second case for Criminal Coffee. Right now, we're calling her Carolyn. And that's a name that we're coming up with. It's not like Preble Penny, where there was already a name established. But essentially, it's been a long time coming. I mentioned on Crime Weekly News, there's much more to the story that maybe one day we will share. Maybe we'll do an entire episode on it. But it was very difficult to not only find a case to fund, but find a case where we could track it, be involved, and hold people accountable to make sure that the money was being utilized properly and that this doesn't just sit on a shelf somewhere for six months. So fortunately, we have some good partners. I want to mention them. Moxie Forensics, shout out to them

• 1:44Derrick Levasseur?

  for being willing to open up this case to not only Criminal Coffee, but also Break Investigative Group, my company. I have two genealogists, Jeremy and Ryan, who will be working hand in hand with Moxie Forensics on the investigative genetic genealogy portion of this investigation. Intermountain Forensics, that's a familiar name for you guys. They did Preble Penny. They will be doing the DNA sequencing on this case to see. If they can develop a profile that can be examined. Also want to give a shout out to Dr. Julie Feishman from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science. She was the one who originally had this case. And a little backstory on Carolyn, just so you guys have it, I'm also going to include some links if you want to look into it further again.

• 2:28Derrick Levasseur?

  There's not much out there. It's not like Preble Penny. And that's part of the reason we're covering it, but I'll mention that in a minute. So on September 8th, 1992, the remains of a 20 to 30 year old woman. She was identified as white Caucasian, was found decomposing in the woods by a passerby. The woman was established to be 5'1" and suffered scoliosis of the lower spine. She had brown hair, which was eight inches in length. And she had an artificial upper front tooth or teeth, which was held in place by a temporary bridge. That's really all we know about this case. And so I'm going to include some links from the Doe Network and Namus. But basically talking to Dr. Julie Feishman. She was concerned that because there wasn't a lot of information about this case. It would be extremely difficult to get it funded.

• 3:13Derrick Levasseur?

  And I agree with her. There's more popular cases out there that people are pushing for. And there's not enough money to go around. So as soon as we heard this, we're like, we're in. And what's interesting about this case is we don't know much right now. Number one priority is giving Carolyn her name back, her real name. But the circumstances in which she was found decomposing in the woods in Houston is a little odd to just find a body out in the middle of Houston, Texas, deceased. We don't know what happened there. So the number one thing is to figure out who she was. Give her her name back and then find out why she was there. And find out who she was last with. This could be something that turns out to be a self inflicted case. It could be an accident. Or it could be something where this foul play involved.

• 3:57Derrick Levasseur?

  We don't know until we figure out who she was. Once we do, we can determine how she went missing. And then we take it from there. We do the reverse engineering. So extremely excited about this. This is what Criminal Coffee is all about. We will keep you updated on it. We're going to update the Criminal Coffee website with the limited information that we do have. And I will tell you that this case is already underway. We've already cut the check. It's already been cashed. We donated $5,850 to fund the entire medical lab process. And like I said, we're going to be doing the sequencing and the genetic genealogy with Moxie and Brake. Jeremy and Ryan, they're doing it pro bono. They're not being paid for it. They just want to do it. They want to help out.

• 4:41Derrick Levasseur?

  So no cost there. And we're hoping we have an update relatively soon. It's already underway. And if we do, you guys will without a doubt be the first to know because we couldn't do it without you. This is why we started Criminal Coffee, and we're hoping this becomes more frequent.

• 4:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know Jeremy, who works for you.

• 4:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Stud, he's great.

• 4:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's awesome. You have a good team there.

• 5:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Ryan's awesome.

• 5:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  I did meet Ryan once.

• 5:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes, you did.

• 5:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  These people that really care and want to donate their time and their energy to helping people, like they are the real heroes. And it was very hard to find a case to fund. We're not sitting here just taking the money.

• 5:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, you can donate the money, but they want you to donate the money and just shut up about it.

• 5:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 5:22Derrick Levasseur?

  You know, hey, put on your website, you donated, and that's your flag.

• 5:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Listen, we're a little salty about it, so.

• 5:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, no, that's your flag. You just donate the money, and whether it gets solved or not, that it really doesn't matter. It's just about showing your philanthropic efforts. That's not what it's, we want to solve the cases. We want to solve them. And so we don't want the money to just go into the wind and end up not being utilized properly. So accountability is hard for some people, but Olivia over at Moxie was great. We have more cases we're already talking about. So like I said to her, let's solve, let's give our best effort to this one. And regardless of the outcome, we'll know it wasn't for lack of effort, and then we can move on to the next one. But we're going to keep doing what we have to do on our end. And I'm hoping that we have positive news very soon. That's the hope.

• 6:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, absolutely. Thank you guys so much for being patient with us. We will. We will never take advantage of that.

• 6:14Derrick Levasseur?

  No, absolutely, absolutely. It was a long time coming, but we got it done.

• 6:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right. So before we dive into today's episode, Derek has something he would like to say. And he and I sort of went back and forth. I didn't want to talk about it today because I have a very specific outline for how this series is going to go. But he wants to talk about it and so he's going to talk about it.

• 6:37Derrick Levasseur?

  But we compromised. I had a, I have a whole sheet in front of me, two pages. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to trust you that you're going to bring it up again and we'll go into more detail. So don't come for us yet. We're going to discuss it. So there was a couple of house cleaning things. First off, Stephanie accidentally said first degree murder for Karen Reed. It's second degree murder. We're aware of that. Obviously that changes the circumstances completely. We'll dive into that more. We're not lawyers, but we will get into obviously intent versus, you know, not needing intent. We know that it was second degree murder that Karen was charged with, not first degree. The second thing that we got a lot of comments on, and I even got a few emails on it, was the 227 search by Jen McCabe that said, you know, how, what was the exact words?

• 7:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  How's long to die in the cold?

• 7:21Derrick Levasseur?

  How's long to die in the cold? I'm not going to go into it right here. Stephanie has a lot. She said she still wants to cover about it. I have found some things that suggest that that timestamp is not accurate. And many of you brought it to my attention. There's a whole video by a YouTuber, who's a software engineer and also a streamer named Veritas. He's got a ton of followers. It was a 36 minute video. I'll have that. I'm going to save that link until, you can go look it up, but we'll save it until Stephanie has a chance to elaborate on it. But there were two things in question. The deletion of that search and the timestamp behind it. And Stephanie had mentioned one side of it and I said, well, Stephanie, this, the whole Celebrate report that basically this, the report that's developed

• 8:04Derrick Levasseur?

  for these searches by these digital forensic experts. The Celebrate report, the Commonwealth brought two experts and one of them worked for Celebrate. And he stated under oath that these timestamps are not accurate. They're grossly miscalculated. In fact, Celebrate has updated their System to not show timestamps at all going forward. And there was a back and forth with the courts on this. Obviously, you had the experts for Commonwealth, which were Jessica Hyde and Ian Whiffin, I believe it was. Ian Whiffin actually works for Celebrite. And he also created the software RX. And what was interesting is the expert for the defense, Richard Green. He actually used RX, which was developed by Ian Whiffin to do this, but Stephanie has a, has all the details on this.

• 8:49Derrick Levasseur?

  She's like, Derek is screwing up my timeline. We're going to do a whole section on this. So just save it. So I have a ton of stuff to go over. Just bear with us. We're gonna get there. Now that we're up to this part in the story. Yes, our format is Stephanie's telling me the story. I'm writing notes, but then as an investigator, I'm doing my own research based on what she's telling me. So up to the point, I do have some opinions on this, uh, this timeline, this, this, uh, search. But I'm going to save it till we get there because Stephanie's saying, hey, I got you. We're going to get there. I just touched upon it. I didn't hit on it fully. And just bear with us because up to this point in the story, before we start episode three, here's where I'm at. Three scenarios. Karen intentionally hit John.

• 9:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Karen accidentally hit John, didn't even realize it. Or there's this scenario with the Alberts where basically John went into the house. Something happened in there and there's this huge cover up.

• 9:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think there could be a, another scenario too. It could be another car. It could be, he could have been hit by.

• 9:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Someone else when she left.

• 9:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Someone else. You know, there was, there was, it was snowing and visibility was bad. Like there's a lot of scenarios, but. And I, and I don't want anybody to think that I just blindly believe everything the defense says. There's evidence that they're going to present in this video that we're going to, we're going to do today that I'm like, uh, this is a stretch, you know? So.

• 10:10Derrick Levasseur?

  We're going to get there.

• 10:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Derrick Levasseur?

  And I don't want anyone thinking, oh, he's already, he's already disputing the whole police corruption thing. I'm not. Because it could still be true, but for the sake of thoroughness and being completely transparent. I want to vet all sides and just because one thing doesn't line up, it doesn't make the whole thing debunked. So I have a lot more to talk about with it. I'm excited to. Talk about it, but I don't want to screw up where Stephanie's going with this. And if it's not brought up, I'm sure you guys will let us know. So that was all I had. Thank you. Was that a fair enough compromise?

• 10:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, cool. Cool. All right, cool. I'm ready to go then. Let's do it.

• 10:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, let's dive in. All right, so today we're discussing the timeline of the early morning hours of January 29th. And we are talking a few hours here, right? From around midnight to 2 a.m. And you would think this should be a pretty easy timeline to create, but it wasn't mainly because of changing stories, changing timelines, conflicting expert testimony in court, witnesses whose memories suddenly began to fail them, et cetera, et cetera. However, we're going to do the best we can. And I do believe that many answers lie within this tangled web of a timeline. Derek, get your notebook out. Make sure you're ready because you're going to be making a lot of notes. I want to be very, I kind of want to put this out there right now.

• 11:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  The prosecution contends that Karen's SUV shows her traveling backwards for 60 feet at 24 miles per hour at 12:45 a.m. This is the time they claim that Karen hit John. This is the time they claim that John O'Keefe, he was struck by a vehicle 12:45 a.m. I want you to keep that in mind.

• 11:53Derrick Levasseur?

  12:45 and how fast was she going 24 miles per hour?

• 11:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  And she backed up 60 feet. 12:45 a.m. So yeah, I think we're going to really need to break this down. This is the crucial time period where allegedly John was killed. But since we are going to start discussing some serious evidence, before we dive in today, I want to quickly discuss the federal investigation, which has run parallel with the Karen Reed investigation and trial.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Tonight, multiple sources confirmed to 25 investigates that federal authorities were already looking into the Karen Reed murder case in Canton before the public movement to Freer began.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  As investigative reporter Ted Daniel shares, it's the latest twist in this incredibly high-profile case. Most murder cases don't have a basis for federal jurisdiction. The feds do have the power to investigate the investigators. Sources tell me this probe is being run by the US Attorney's Public Corruption Unit in Boston, and we've learned the Norfolk County DA is privately pushing back. April 12th, Karen Reed's lawyers announced a dramatic turn in her murder case. They claim new evidence establishes her innocence in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe. Pointing the finger at witnesses in this case. It would be the first time the public would hear allegations of cover-up, but not the US Attorney's Office.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  Two days before, on April 10th, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to people connected to the case, according to a source with direct knowledge of the proceedings.

• 13:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, so Massachusetts is kind of a mess over here. It kind of seems like...

• 13:32Derrick Levasseur?

  I was getting some DMs, I won't say their names, but some people from Massachusetts were hitting me up and being like, "When you get done with Karen Reed, you have to look into this case, this case." And I literally wrote back, I'm sure the person who was in my DMs is laughing right now, I was like, "What the bleep is going on with Massachusetts? I'm staying on my side of the line." Because I didn't realize it was this, it was this screwed up over there. I didn't know.

• 13:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  There's another case that I covered on my channel, a young woman who was part of the, it's like the police...

• 14:00Derrick Levasseur?

  What's the name?

• 14:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Her name's Sandra Birchmore.

• 14:03Derrick Levasseur?

  That's the one she mentioned!

• 14:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 14:05Derrick Levasseur?

  That's the one she mentioned!

• 14:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  She was in the Police Explorers program, and she had basically been groomed by multiple police officers from the time she was 13 years old. She got pregnant by one of these police officers, then he murdered her. And then the police department, which was Canton, there was a few police departments involved, but they ruled it a suicide, even though it obviously wasn't. So now they're being investigated for this, so... Yeah, it's pretty bad, right? Pretty bad in Massachusetts. But this specific federal probe is highly unusual. And it marks the first time in recent memory that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts convened a grand jury, a federal grand jury, to investigate

• 14:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  the state's handling of a murder prosecution while the trial was pending. So according to Brian T. Kelly, a former federal prosecutor who served as chair of the Public Corruption Unit at the Boston U.S. Attorney's Office, although it is highly unusual, it, quote, "doesn't mean they don't have the power and right to do it if they think there are federal crimes occurring," end quote. And since the investigative body they're investigating is the one handling the Karen Reed trial, of course, they're going to want to sort of get ahead of this. Now, this is important for a lot of reasons, but mainly because Karen Reed's attorneys were able to use evidence gathered by federal prosecutors in an attempt to challenge the credibility of some of the state's key witnesses during the trial.

• 15:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  It was disclosed during proceedings in the case that all of the people who were inside the Albert home around the alleged time of John O'Keefe's death were subpoenaed to testify before the federal grand jury. And during one of the pretrial hearings, Karen Reed's defense attorney, David Yanetti, he mentioned that federal authorities had hired crash reconstruction experts who had concluded that John O'Keefe's injuries were not consistent with being hit by a car. And the defense would now be allowed to call these witnesses to the stand during Karen's trial, which they did. And when I say these witnesses, I mean the federal investigators. They were, they would be allowed to call them to the stand. So Reed's attorneys also used evidence uncovered by federal investigators that they said had

• 16:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  been ignored by state prosecutors, specifically phone records seized by federal authorities, which showed, quote, unquote, "suspicious contact between witnesses in this case." For instance, Brian Albert and ATF agent Brian Higgins. At the end of the day, what the federal investigation uncovered would only help the defense and continue to make the prosecution and the investigation in general look shady and unreliable. So let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to dive into the timeline.

• 16:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  When your workday is constantly disrupted, your workflow isn't flowing. It's come to a grinding halt. You don't need an assistant. You need superpowers. Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly is built for how you actually work. No new tabs, no switching apps, no losing your place. Go handles busy work like finding documents or summarizing email threads, so you can focus on the work only you can do. Try Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 17:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  We're back. So let's go over the timeline thoroughly and through the changing stories and inconsistencies, try to make heads or tails of it. First, some background, because we're going to introduce a lot of people we haven't talked about up until this point or that we've only mentioned briefly. So we have Brian Albert and Nicole Albert, right? These are the homeowners of 34 Fairview. Brian Albert is the Boston PD cop. This couple has three children, and we're going to talk about two of them, Brian Albert Jr. and Caitlin Albert. We also have Brian Albert Senior's brother, Chris Albert. Remember, he's the Canton Select Man. He owns a pizza shop in Canton. And then we have his wife, Julie Albert. They have two children, one of which we're going to talk about.

• 18:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  His name is Colin Albert. Now Colin lived with his parents on Maple Ave in Canton, but they moved there recently. And before that, they had lived at Seven Meadows Ave on the same street as John O'Keefe. He lived at One Meadows. So reportedly, there had been some issues with Colin Albert, the son of Chris Albert and Julie Albert, maybe not being so respectful of John O'Keefe's property. So he would cut across John's lawn on his way home from school. He would sometimes leave like trash or beer bottles on the lawn, allegedly. And this caused John, I guess, to have some words with young Colin, who at the time of John O'Keefe's death, Colin's in his early twenties.

• 18:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now apparently, this caused some tension, but then John apologized to Colin and his parents. And from then on, the Alberts had... A running joke where they would call John O'Keefe Mr. Nebbercracker. This is a reference to the 2006 animated horror slash comedy film Monster House. Amazing movie. I know it's a cartoon, but it's great. So in the film, Mr. Nebbercracker is a crotchety old man. He lives in this big rundown scary house. And he's well known to the neighborhood children as being very aggressive and hostile to anyone who steps foot on his property.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  And then the second is a continuation of that if not, I'm going to fuck up your lawn, correct? So you mean that's to tell him to come over to the waterfall? Right. Okay, I just didn't understand what you meant. That's fine. So you're telling John O'Keefe this, correct? Yeah, I'm telling him to come over and meet us. All right. And that little emoji, that face emoji after if not, I'm going to fuck up your lawn, that's... Yeah, it's a laughing face. Right. It's a joke. You know, you're cracking up. Yeah, it's a joke. One at a time. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. You would agree with me that there was a time when John O'Keefe was not home, that you and your wife Julie went to his house? That is correct.

• 20:06Speaker 04

  And you entered onto his property, correct? On his front, um, property, yes. And you had drinks in your hand? Correct. And you thought it would be funny to have a photo taken of you and your wife with drinks in your hand on his property, correct? Correct. And you knew it would be funny because you knew it would annoy him, correct? Jackson, you're on.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  You can go ahead. Can you answer that?

• 20:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was actually asking us to watch his house while he was away. Right, but that doesn't answer my question, which was you, he didn't ask you to go onto his property with drinks in your hand and take a photo, correct? He asked us to watch his property. Okay, but again, in answer to my question, the answer is no. He did not ask us to go on his property and take pictures of ourselves with drinks in our hand, correct? Yeah, he didn't ask me to...

• 21:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Send him a photo. Okay, so what do you think of that interaction?

• 21:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, so you can look at this a few different ways. The defense is trying to build a narrative right now because later they're going to bring up Colin Albert. There's a lot of, like I said, inconsistencies with the timeline where everyone at the house is like, oh, Colin Albert left long before John O'Keefe and Karen got there. Colin left at 12:10. However, maybe that's not when he left. You know, they're saying, the defense is saying he was at the house when John was there and because John and Colin had had words before, it's possible that Colin may have had something to do with his death. Colin was an athlete.

• 21:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  He played football all throughout high school. He was a boxer. And a little bit after John O'Keefe's death, there's a picture of Colin and his knuckles are all scraped up and bloodied and bruised. He says he fell, you know, things like that. We're going to get into the specifics and the details of this.

• 22:05Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, just hearing that, I've been witness to many fights where someone gets cracked in the face and they hit their head on the sidewalk as they go down. And if you can disprove the fact, like you were saying in that previous, they were saying in that previous clip that John wasn't hit by a car, that does make a lot of sense, whether it's Colin or someone else that could, John could have been approached or encountered the wrong person.

• 22:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, so that's

• 22:30Derrick Levasseur?

  So I see the narrative they're building, but what'd you think of that interaction?

• 22:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  The interaction, so for me, it's funny because when I look at all of the Alberts on the stand, I find Chris Albert to be likable.

• 22:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Same, same.

• 22:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  I like him, I like him.

• 22:44Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't know anything about him, that's why I didn't know if I could say it, but I found him

• 22:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  But just first impressions, right?

• 22:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now Julie Albert, we're gonna see some of her testimony next episode, that's Chris's wife, I find her to be not so likable.

• 22:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay.

• 22:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  And on the other hand, when we go to Brian Albert and Nicole Albert, I find Brian Albert to be kind of defensive and not so likable, and I find Nicole Albert to be, you know, pretty likable. So, does that mean that what Chris is saying is more true? No, I'm just saying in general, he seems like a genuine guy. I think it's a funny kind of joke, like Mr. Numbercracker, you know, there's a picture

• 23:17Derrick Levasseur?

  I think he found the whole thing comical.

• 23:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 23:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Because, because I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be honest with you, and I've been on the, I've been that guy in that, in that booth numerous times, I've been on the stand hundreds of times, and, you know, A lot of the times I know what the lawyers trying to paint, the picture they're trying to paint. And they're just, in some cases, it's asinine. And they're trying to show something and they're beating around the bush and I'm like, yeah, and I'm smiling or whatever, because I know where they're going. But to me, this right here, I heard two people making a joke using this cartoon character. I didn't know this Nevercracker. I didn't know this was-

• 23:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, you haven't seen Monster House? You gotta watch it with your kids. It's a great movie.

• 23:54Derrick Levasseur?

  So like, do I know people and have I done things where we've made fun of neighbors and given them nicknames? Absolutely.

• 24:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Totally. We do this, we do this with our friends. It's ribbing. I, I think it's, it's perfectly fine.

• 24:05Derrick Levasseur?

  And then as far as on the property, what I took away from it is, yeah, John asked us to go over there. There had been a problem in the past. And I will tell you, us Northeast guys, this is, we'll make fun of like shitty situations where we'll go back to something that we might have screwed up in the past and we'll, we'll make light of it. And so I could see a world where they're on the property, they're watching the property for John. And they're like, hey, let's send him a picture of us on his lawn. Cause remember when we had that beef back in the day over the lawn? It'll be funny. We're busting his balls.

• 24:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. So they sent this picture. It's Julie-

• 24:36Derrick Levasseur?

  No, he didn't ask us to send the photo. That was the point. It was a joke.

• 24:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's Julie and, and Chris and they got drinks and they're like kinda hanging over his fence and they're like, hey, hey, we're on your lawn. And then-

• 24:46Derrick Levasseur?

  They didn't do that to instigate him, I don't think.

• 24:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then maybe they did it to instigate him, but when you're friends, you, you fuck with your friends. Yeah. So, um, and then the text you were seeing at the beginning of that exchange was that night of, of John's death where they're like, hey, get your ass over to the waterfall or we're gonna go on your lawn, you know?

• 25:04Derrick Levasseur?

  And he put the laughing emoji. He was, oh, we're gonna fuck with your lawn. Yeah, yeah.

• 25:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, did John find it as funny as Chris and, and Julie Albert? Maybe not.

• 25:13Derrick Levasseur?

  The reason I brought up what I was saying about me is I understand what the defense is trying to do here, but I will tell you, there are many times in my personal experience where they're grasping at straws. Like they're just like trying to find something that sticks. And to me- I know where they're going and Chris clearly knows where they're going. They're gonna try to build something later, but it's like it's comical sometimes. Now, that doesn't mean there's not some truth to it, but I think the examples given were poor examples by the defense as far as like, oh, here you are instigating him, busting his chops. Clearly there was problems. You can tell at this point, at least what they showed, most of it was in good fun. From what I, that's what I interpreted as.

• 25:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  I agree. Now, did John think it was as funny as they did?

• 25:58Derrick Levasseur?

  He's not here. Yeah, we don't know.

• 25:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  We don't know, but I would have, you know, if these are people are my friends, like we're messing around with each other, I could take a joke. Some people are more sensitive with that. We don't know how John was. So, the night of January 28th was apparently Colin's cousin, Brian Albert Jr.'s 23rd birthday. And remember, Brian Albert Jr. is the son of Brian and Nicole Albert of 34 Fairview. This is the house that John O'Keefe's found dead outside of. So that night, Brian Jr. had some friends over to his house, his parents' house, to celebrate his birthday. And we're going to introduce some of those friends along with their testimony today. So we have Sarah Levinson and Julie Nagel. They were dropped off by Julie's father between 7:00 and 8:00 PM that night. And the girls said

• 26:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  that when they arrived, Brian Jr. was there along with his sister Caitlin, his mother Nicole, and his aunt Julie. Now, the three women were making plans to go out that evening, as we know, they went to the waterfall. And they left about 15 minutes after Sarah Levinson and Julie Nagel arrived. Now, we know that they were at the waterfall bar and grill by 8:45 PM because Julie Albert texted John O'Keefe at that time, telling him where they were and to get down there. This was while John was still at CF McCarthy's and Julie Albert texted John about six minutes before Karen Reed showed up to CF McCarthy's. Nicole Albert would later testify that they met Caitlin's boyfriend Tristan Morris at the waterfall around 7:30 PM.

• 27:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Sarah Levinson further testified that she and the other young people, they hung out at the Albert's house in the kitchen and the living room for a bit. Some more friends were dropped off between 8 and 9 p.m. These friends were Courtney Elba, Catherine Duty, Emily Fabiano, and Mary Kent. So they all hung out, they drank, right, alcohol. They played music for a few hours before the last four friends to arrive all left before midnight. Now Brian's cousin Colin Albert claims that he arrived to 34 Fairview to celebrate Brian Jr.'s birthday with him around 10:30 p.m. But he would be picked up by Allison McCabe around 12:10 a.m. And she dropped him off at his house just a few minutes later.

• 28:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Allison McCabe is the daughter of Jennifer and Matt McCabe. Additionally, Brian and Nicole Albert are Allison's aunt and uncle.

• 28:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, can we, can we pause real quick? Cause my head's about to explode with all these names. I'm writing down as fast as I can. I'm gonna probably screw these up, so I warn you guys. I just wanted to point out one thing that you mentioned in all that that I found interesting, especially based on the back and forth we just witnessed. Julie, Chris's wife, called John. Say, hey, we're over here. So, so, so on one hand, we could say, oh, there might have been some dissension over this front lawn. But literally the night that John's whole incident happened, Julie was texting him saying, hey buddy, where are you?

• 28:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  So was, so was Chris, right?

• 28:47Derrick Levasseur?

  So, so I just want to point that out, that it appears they were on good terms, at least at that point.

• 28:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  And also, Chris and Julie Albert are not at 34 Fairview that night.

• 28:56Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay.

• 28:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay.

• 28:57Derrick Levasseur?

  But you have, you have Colin there, though.

• 28:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  You do have Colin there, yes.

• 29:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay. And then, you know, that doesn't go hand in hand. Colin could have a problem with John and, and Julie and Chris don't.

• 29:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly.

• 29:07Derrick Levasseur?

  So that, that is something to differentiate, but.

• 29:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, Colin's young, maybe when John said something to his parents about him throwing beer bottles, he got in trouble, so maybe he's like kinda pissy, he's full of piss and vinegar, yeah.

• 29:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Alcohol's involved.

• 29:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 29:19Derrick Levasseur?

  And that changes everything. I've seen best friends beat the shit out of each other.

• 29:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  And alcohol was involved.

• 29:24Derrick Levasseur?

  We know that, exactly.

• 29:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's Brian Jr.'s birthday.

• 29:26Derrick Levasseur?

  John had a glass in his hand, allegedly.

• 29:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  John, that all the adults are drinking at the bar, all the kids are drinking. They're not kids, they're in their twenties, but all the kids are drinking at the Albert's house. Everybody's drinking and driving around town, by the way.

• 29:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's a whole different can of worms.

• 29:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it's bad. It's bad. It's a bad look for the law enforcement body, right? So Julie Albert testified that she left the Waterfall Bar and Grill before everyone else. Around 11:10 PM, she had a bad migraine. At 11:58 PM, Brian and Nicole Albert, along with their daughter Caitlin, left the bar as well. Remember, they were headed back to 34 Fairview to keep the party going. Now, the first person to get to the Fairview house was ATF agent Brian Higgins. And his movements, once he got to the house, specifically where he parked his Jeep, that's going to be important.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  You said you were the first one back to Brian Albert's house, correct? Yes. Safe to say you were one of the first ones to leave? First one to leave? Waterfall. The waterfall, probably. If you're the, you know, if everybody's hurting out and you're the first one to get there, you're probably among the first to leave, correct? Most likely. Okay. You've indicated that you took your Jeep, your personal vehicle with the plow on it, over to 34 Fairview, correct? Yes. And you were among the first to arrive because you were doing that thing with the, sort of playing around by plowing his driveway? It was a sweep of the driveway, yes. And then you indicated that you parked in front of the house, correct? I did. I know you've been over this before, but I'm going to ask you one, sort of one final time so it's completely clear.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  Exactly where was your Jeep in front of that house? By the mailbox. This is a graphic representation of 34 Fairview.

• 31:09Speaker 04

  Not a photograph.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  Just to orient you, do you see what's depicted in, is it 66? Yes. Do you recognize it? I do. Do you see the mailbox, which is about right there? Yes. Okay. Where was your Jeep in relation to that mailbox? So the back end of the Jeep, the rear, would have been about, around equal

• 31:36Speaker 03

  With the mailbox and I was not blocking the driveway. Okay, so the front of the Jeep was facing the flat bowl. Towards Chapman Street, correct. And the rear of the Jeep was basically even with the mailbox strut or stanchion? It was definitely past the driveway, yes. Okay, you indicated the plow was a six foot what inch plow? I think it was a six eight. Six eight, meaning the width? Meaning the width, yes. How deep is that plow? How deep? Like? Two foot, three feet, six inches? I mean, it's probably a few inches. Okay. It's light, it's light duty, it's on a Jeep. Okay, and it's obviously curved and canted to the right?

• 32:20Speaker 03

  No, it was, it wasn't canted at all, it was straight down.

• 32:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  So those listening on audio, they can't see, but they're gonna pull up this visual representation of the Albert's house multiple times from multiple witnesses.

• 32:32Derrick Levasseur?

  If you're really invested in this case, you gotta go watch, you gotta see that, you gotta see that photo at least.

• 32:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  And, and so what Brian Higgins is saying is he arrives to the Fairview home, nobody's there yet. I mean, the kids are inside, right? But nobody's there yet. He does a few like passes around the Albert's driveway with his plow. And then he sees Brian and Nicole Albert pulling up. And so he parks on the street, so he's not like, you know, blocked into their driveway. So he parks on the street and he's saying he's facing Chapman Street, which if you're looking at the house from the street, Chapman Street would be to your left. And, and so he's facing to the left and the back of his Jeep is butted up against the driveway, where the driveway would start, and he's parked by the mailbox.

• 33:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, he's parked in the, if you're listening on audio, he's parked in the road. But his, his, his passenger side tire would be facing the house. So he's, he's pointing away, so his passenger side is facing the house. He parked in front of the house, just not in the driveway.

• 33:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Not in the driveway.

• 33:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Not left wheel to curb, which would have been illegal.

• 33:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes. I don't think it matters because he was

• 33:41Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, they're committing crimes all night.

• 33:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Driving after and being intoxicated, but

• 33:43Derrick Levasseur?

  He's driving, plowing. Yeah, I mean, that's, yeah, it's the least of his concerns, but he was parked the way you would park if you were visiting a friend in the road.

• 33:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm. So, uh, Brian Higgins gets there and then Brian Albert and Nicole Albert show up. They're gonna walk into the house together. Now, Brian Albert testified that he arrived home around 12:10 a.m. And as he was getting there, his nephew Colin Albert was just leaving. Remember that. So Brian Higgins, Brian Albert, and Nicole Albert all go inside. They see Brian Jr. Hanging on the kitchen with two female friends. These friends would be Sarah Levinson and Julie Nagel. They're still there. The other friends that arrived after them have already left. At the same time, 12:10 a.m., Karen Reed is seen on surveillance leaving the waterfall. And then at 12:11 a.m., John O'Keefe also leaves the bar, still holding a cocktail glass in his hand.

• 34:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Chris Albert had decided he did not want to continue the party at his brother's house. You know, he's, uh, he worked at the pizza shop all day. He's tired. He's been drinking all night. He's like, it's about to snow. I'm all set. So he left and he walked home. And this is just about a five to seven minute walk to his house. Chris Albert would initially testify that he got home at around 12:10 a.m. He went inside, took his clothes off, he got right in bed. And then about 10 minutes after he got home, his son Colin also arrived home and entered his parents' bedroom to let them know that he was there. However, on cross-examination, Chris was questioned about his timeline and then shown video surveillance from the waterfall, which proved he could not have been home by, uh, 12:10 a.m.

• 35:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because he hadn't even left the bar until almost 12:14 a.m.

• 35:26Speaker 04

  Uh, Ms. Albert, you would agree with me, this was clearly the end of the night? Sure. The lights are all on at this point? Yes. The bar appears to have largely emptied out? Yes. Okay, continue, please. Uh, do you know who that person is who's leaving the bar at this point at 12:13 and 43 a.m.? I believe it's Having now viewed that video with the timestamp of 12:13 and about 43 seconds or so, does that refresh your memory as to when you left the waterfall?

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  That would mean it would have been impossible for you to get home to Maple Street by 12:05 or 12:10, correct?

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 36:12Speaker 04

  Now, it was about a, maybe a seven-minute walk home, would you agree with me?

• 36:19Speaker 03

  From waterfall to Maple? No, I said seven minutes from D and E to waterfall. Waterfall to Maple is probably less than five minutes.

• 36:27Speaker 04

  So now, if you're leaving the bar like close to, you know, 12:14, as indicated on the video, you're getting home somewhere around 12:19, 12:20, correct?

• 36:40Speaker 03

  Roughly, yeah.

• 36:41Speaker 04

  Now, when you came home, you would agree with me that your son Colin Albert was not home, correct?

• 36:47Speaker 03

  Not when I first got home.

• 36:49Speaker 04

  And in fact, I think your testimony was that 10 minutes after you got home, he opened the bedroom door?

• 37:00Speaker 03

  I think that's what I said, yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 04

  Do you want to stick with that?

• 37:04Speaker 03

  I'm just trying to recollect what I, you know, thinking it over, so obviously it was a little bit longer.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  Because you actually woke up when he opened the bedroom door, correct?

• 37:19Speaker 03

  I don't think so.

• 37:21Speaker 04

  Did you not just testify before this jury just, I don't know, maybe an hour ago, that you fell asleep and that your son Colin opened the bedroom door and woke you up to say goodnight?

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess that's what I said.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Okay. And when you testified to that on direct examination, that was when Mr. Lally was asking you questions, correct?

• 37:49Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 37:50Speaker 04

  And you knew that you were under oath at that time, correct?

• 37:53Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  And you were trying to be as accurate as possible, correct?

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Trying to be, correct.

• 37:57Speaker 04

  All right. So in terms of the timing of this,

• 38:03Speaker 04

  assuming that he opened the bedroom door after you already fell asleep. If you're getting home upstairs to your bedroom around 12:20 and it takes you 15 minutes to go to bed, and that's around 12:35, then sometime after you're asleep, after 12:35, that's when Colin opens the bedroom door, correct?

• 38:26Speaker 03

  I don't remember exactly.

• 38:28Speaker 04

  Well, it's difficult for you to remember how long you'd been asleep for when Colin opened the bedroom door, correct?

• 38:37Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  You don't know if it was five minutes, 10 minutes, or long, correct?

• 38:43Speaker 03

  I don't know exactly.

• 38:44Speaker 04

  Right. But it was sometime after you fell asleep.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  To the best of my recollection.

• 38:49Derrick Levasseur?

  All right, I got some opinions about this video, but let's take a break. We'll be right back.

• 39:29Derrick Levasseur?

  I get what the defense attorney is doing here and I don't disagree with it. He's trying to establish that Colin, the time in which he left the Alberts, which is approximately 12:10 PM, and the time that Colin got home was a much bigger duration, a much bigger window than what was originally reported, which would give him a window of opportunity where Colin could have seen John, something could have gone down, and then he still gets home. I get what he's trying to do here. It's obvious. And Chris knows that as well, right?

• 39:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Of course.

• 39:56Derrick Levasseur?

  So, you're trying to hold this guy to what happened that night. Obviously, when you're half asleep, things could happen where you don't... I understand. Regardless, it's a much bigger window than was initially reported. He's established that. How big of a window? We don't know. If I had to guess, just my own experience falling asleep, more than likely it was, I don't think Chris was in like a deep sleep and Colin came in and said, "Dad, dad, dad, I'm home." It was more than likely while Chris was dozing off. But either way, you're talking 12:35, 12:40, and so it's a 30-minute window of when Colin is unaccounted for.

• 40:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, here's the point. What the defense is trying to show, and they never, I don't believe, there's so much trial, I don't believe they ever actually say this directly, but what they're trying to show is, nobody that's testifying here is actually testifying to real timelines. What they were doing, because they had plenty of time before, after John O'Keefe died and before they were interviewed, to get their story straight, is everybody's sort of just going by this timeline they've all agreed upon. Colin Albert left at 12:10. Okay, well, if Colin Albert left at 12:10, and he got home within, you know, 10 minutes of Chris Albert getting home, then Chris Albert must have let the waterfall at 12:10.

• 41:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  And Brian Albert comes home, and it's 12:10, and Colin's leaving. Ally McCabe says she picked him up at 12:10, drove him right home. That's only a few minutes. So, everybody's following this timeline, simply because that's the thing they agreed to do before they were interviewed by the police. And then they testified to this in front of a grand jury, and now they're sitting in front of this jury, and they're being cross-examined by the defense, and the defense is going to put holes in this timeline. Reasonable doubt.

• 41:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Let me preface it by saying, I'm just, I'm just going with my gut here and half the people, half the audience won't like this, but it is what it is. I don't, you know, I'm going to speak my truth. Ultimately, here's what I take away from it. What you just said could absolutely be possible. It's also possible that Chris was 10 minutes off with his timeline because he was shitfaced and he was coming home that night. For example, I've been out many times and six months later, I'm asked about it, or maybe even sooner than that. Could be the next day when they're like, hey, what time did you leave the bar, Derek? And I'm like, ah, around 12:15. Now, then somebody could pull up the video surveillance and say, but here you are, leaving the bar at 12:19. Isn't that correct? And I'm like, yeah, you got me. I was five minutes off. I didn't look

• 42:30Derrick Levasseur?

  at my watch as I was walking out the door.

• 42:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's not the point. It's that everybody gave that 12:10 time, that specific 12:10 time. Colin Albert wasn't like, oh, maybe I left around like 12:13. Brian Albert wasn't like, oh, you know, I got home maybe like 12:15. I saw, it's, everybody said 12:10, 12:10, 12:10, 12:10.

• 42:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, they're all going off a faulty estimation.

• 42:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  They're all going off of whatever timeline they sort of agreed upon before being interviewed by police.

• 42:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's even go down that road. It still could be because they're telling the truth. It also could be because something bad happened and they're trying to cover it up. But I,

• 43:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or it could be because none of them fucking remember.

• 43:09Derrick Levasseur?

  That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. They genuinely don't know.

• 43:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  And they're like, and they're like, hey, guys, what time, what time did I leave? Or what, what time are we saying? Yeah.

• 43:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Because guess what? They don't have access to the video surveillance. They don't, they can't go, hey, can we double check what time it was? And so, but here's what's important. They're establishing that the timeline's off. That's obviously important, but more importantly, what they're establishing through this whole case is what? Two words.

• 43:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Reasonable doubt.

• 43:37Derrick Levasseur?

  That's it. They're showing that there's multiple scenarios that are plausible here other than Karen Reed killing her husband.

• 43:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that's all they have to do. That's all they have to do.

• 43:47Derrick Levasseur?

  That's all they gotta do. They're showing other, that's all his job is to show other theories and how viable they are.

• 43:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  As far as reasonable doubt, just in the, the small amount of trial we've watched, there's been plenty of it.

• 43:57Derrick Levasseur?

  No doubt, no doubt. Of course. I can't, I have no dispute to that. There, this, there's no, it's 100% accurate.

• 44:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  It varies. So Jennifer McCabe, her cellphone showed that she too left the area of the waterfall around 12:13 a.m. At 12:14 a.m., John O'Keefe texted Jennifer McCabe saying, "Where to?" And also at 12:14 a.m., Jen called John. He answered. The conversation lasted 44 seconds. According to Jen, she was giving John directions to the Albert home, and this is when she told him to drive past Bella's house. Remember we talked about this last episode? Bella is a girl that's around Ellie, Ellie Albert's age, or Ellie McCabe's age, in her early twenties. John dated Bella's mom. Okay, so the call would be deleted from Jen McCabe's phone, allegedly.

• 44:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  At 12:15 a.m., Karen Reed's black SUV is captured on surveillance, driving down Washington Street. And two minutes later, at 12:17, the SUV drives past the Beth Abraham Temple at the intersection of Washington and Dedham, driving towards Fairview. Jennifer McCabe would testify that she and her husband Matt arrived at 34 Fairview at 12:18 a.m. And seconds after arriving, she got another call from John that lasted 36 seconds. Once again, this call would be deleted from Jen's phone. At 12:19 a.m., John O'Keefe's cellphone pinged in the neighborhood of Cedar Crest and Dedham. And a minute later, when his phone showed he was outside of 138 Dedham,

• 45:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  John entered the Fairview address, 34 Fairview, into his Waze app. At 12:20 a.m., Brian Higgins, ATF agent, texted John O'Keefe, and he claimed he asked where John was, like, "Where you at? When you gonna get here?" We don't actually know what was said. Because Higgins would go to some great lengths to destroy his cellphone and his SIM card. More on that later.

• 45:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Jesus.

• 45:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know, I know. He literally drove to a different state to get rid of it, just gonna say that.

• 45:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 45:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  And this is what I'm saying, if these, if these people are innocent, the actions they took in the aftermath of John O'Keefe being dead are suspicious. So like,

• 46:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Agreed.

• 46:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's bad.

• 46:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Agreed. Okay, I don't have no dispute. Some would, some will say, and I'm not saying this, some will say they, they were concerned how it could look, even if they weren't involved in something, so they went to these lengths. But I will advise everyone in the future, don't do that. You're only gonna make it worse.

• 46:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  But as law enforcement agents, wouldn't you understand how bad that looked? Or were you,

• 46:30Derrick Levasseur?

  I got no excuse.

• 46:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Were you relying on your boys in blue to have your back even if it looked bad, right? Which we can look at Proctor's statements like, oh yeah, Brian Albert's not gonna face no heat. He's a Boston police officer. Maybe this is the idea that like, it doesn't matter how suspicious it looks, because who's investigating this isn't gonna come after me.

• 46:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, that is absolutely a scenario. It's, it's the truth. I, I will say that it's not always the case. I was involved in a police shooting and the state police investigated my case and I will tell you guys, they treated me like shit. And I love the Rhode Island State Police, but I, I got to a point during my interview, my initial interview, where my captain stepped in and goes, hey, guys, this happened an hour ago. The kid's traumatized. Can we give him till the morning? It's 2 o'clock in the morning and you're interrogating him right now. Ask him how many bullets he has left in his magazine. So there's, there's, there's all different scenarios. It depends on the officer, but you're not wrong. I'm not gonna sit here and, and tell our audience that it's not, it hasn't happened thousands of times where

• 47:35Derrick Levasseur?

  brothers protect brothers, end quote, right? You know, that's the way, but it also can go the other way. So you just don't know and at the end of the day, whatever happens, if you, if you're not involved in something that you shouldn't be, you leave everything as is and it'll work itself out. So the fact that they went to these lengths, regardless of the reason behind it, it was stupid.

• 47:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  And if you genuinely cared about John O'Keefe and you wanted whoever killed him to face justice, you'd probably wanna be above board with your actions because now in a trial, all your shady shit is what's going to raise, where you can go out. So you destroyed everything.

• 48:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, no, I agree.

• 48:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  You messed it all up.

• 48:16Derrick Levasseur?

  But at the end of the day, they're worrying about themselves, right? It's all selfish reasons. It's all like, hey, how do I protect myself?

• 48:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but why are you worried about protecting yourself if you haven't done anything wrong?

• 48:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, that's my point is that it could be because you did something wrong. Then you have a reason why you would want to do it. It also could be because you know how things can look. And now, oh, my God, I was texting. I was doing this. I gotta get rid of my shit, which only makes it worse.

• 48:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now I'm gonna drive.

• 48:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, it's stupid.

• 48:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  To a different location and get rid of my phone and car.

• 48:43Derrick Levasseur?

  I got no excuse. It's stupid.

• 48:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, he has a reason, but like I said, we'll, we'll talk about that. All right, so we're gonna go back to midnight. This is when Julie Nagel, who remember is a friend of Brian Albert Jr. She's at his house for his birthday party. Julie Nagel texted her brother Ryan Nagel and asked if he could pick her up from Chris Albert Jr.'s house. So Ryan would be interviewed by Michael Proctor on February 7th. Ryan said that he'd been with his girlfriend Heather Maxson and his friend Ricky D'Antonio at the Hillside earlier that night. The Hillside's a bar. And when Julie had texted.

• 49:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Love that bar.

• 49:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, do you?

• 49:17Derrick Levasseur?

  No, I've never been there.

• 49:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, dude, I told you.

• 49:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Keeping you on your toes. I knew where to get you.

• 49:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, that's where Brian Higgins met John O'Keefe.

• 49:25Derrick Levasseur?

  It sounds like a bar I'd like to visit, the Hillside.

• 49:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that's where Brian Higgins and Brian Albert were at earlier the night before they went to the waterfall. After they drove back from New York City for the funerals of those fallen officers, remember? So it's very small town. Everybody hangs out at the same places.

• 49:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Everybody, that's the one thing I've taken away. Everyone knows everyone in this community.

• 49:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  So they're at the Hillside earlier that night. When Julie texted him at midnight, he left to go pick her up. Now, the Hillside is located at 2 Royale Avenue in Canton. It's about a nine minute drive to 34 Fairview. So even though Ryan would testify that they had arrived to the Albert home between 12:15 and 12:30 a.m. We can expect they probably arrived closer to 12:15 a.m. And there's gonna be other reasons why we think they arrived closer to that 12:15 a.m. time. But they drove Ricky's Ford F-150 pickup truck. Ryan was in the front seats. Ricky was obviously driving and Heather Maxson was in the back. In his police interview, Ryan said he remembered driving down Cedar Crest. And as their truck approached Fairview, he saw. set of headlights coming from a black SUV driving the opposite direction down

• 50:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Cedar View coming towards them. So Ricky yielded to the SUV, allowed it to make a right-hand turn onto Fairview before them, and then their truck followed it, making a left-hand turn onto Fairview. Ricky then stopped the truck directly in front of the driveway at 34 Fairview. And Ryan remembered the SUV stopped alongside the right-hand curb towards the left side of the property as you look at the house from the street. So the SUV is in front of them, parked on the street outside of 34 Fairview. At 12:23 a.m., Ryan Nagel texted his sister Julie that he was there, and then they waited for her to come out. Now Julie did come out, and she basically ran up to the truck, and

• 51:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  she's like, "Hey, I kinda wanna stay here. Like, do you guys wanna come in and also hang out?" And the others, Ryan and Heather and Ricky, they were like, "Nah, we don't wanna come inside." They eventually left. Now after-

• 51:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, didn't she just text them to come pick her up?

• 51:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, at 12-

• 51:23Derrick Levasseur?

  I would've been pissed.

• 51:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. So, so after Julie returned to the house, Ryan noticed that the SUV had pulled up a few feet to the edge of the property line between 34 Fairview and the neighboring property where the flagpole and some bushes were located. Remember, this is where John O'Keefe's body is gonna be discovered hours later.

• 51:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep, the black SUV and the flagpole, if you were looking at the video earlier, you could see where the flagpole is in relation to the opposite side of the property where the driveway is.

• 51:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, exactly. So the driveway and the mailbox, and then-

• 51:55Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep, on one side.

• 51:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then further up, there's the flagpole in the bushes.

• 51:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep, closer to Chapman or Chapel. What was the name of that street?

• 52:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Chapman.

• 52:02Derrick Levasseur?

  Chapman, closer to Chapman.

• 52:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  And closer to the neighbor's house. Alright, so Ryan would also state that in no time did he believe the driver of this SUV placed the vehicle into park, because he said the rear lights were illuminated to include the third top center light-

• 52:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep, foot on the brake.

• 52:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  -at the initial positioning and after it had pulled up. So the entire time, this vehicle's not placed in park. He also said he never heard screams, never heard arguments, never heard any sounds coming from the SUV or from outside his vehicle. So at the time, when you were in the truck, still stationary-

• 52:37Speaker 04

  That SUV had pulled ahead of you at least three car lengths, correct? By the end, yes. Okay. You've already indicated, but I want to make sure I'm clear about this. Did any car pull in between Ricky's truck and the SUV when you were sitting behind the SUV? No, sir. You didn't see a Jeep? No, sir. With a big ol' snowplow on the front of it? No, sir, I did not. That car was never between your car and the SUV, was it? I never saw any other vehicle in between us. Alright, fair enough. When you got to the location, you indicated that you had texted your sister that you were arriving. Correct, sir, yes. How long before she came out the door to meet you at the car?

• 53:17Speaker 04

  Sense, like the text, you mean? Correct.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  Two minutes, because we were coming down Cedar Crest and I texted saying we're almost there. You talked about whether or not she wanted to get in the truck and leave. I asked if she was coming, yes. You also talked about whether or not you would come in the house and stay. She asked that, yes. Okay, so there was a conversation back and forth about either you staying at 34 Fairview or her leaving 34 Fairview and getting in the car. Correct, sir. There was also a conversation about whether or not you guys needed to give her a ride then or if she could get a ride on her own after you guys left, if she wanted to stay. Correct, sir, yes. When you pulled away, you didn't speed away, correct? Correct, sir. Gradually, slowly pulled away and out and around the SUV that was in front of you. Correct, sir, yes.

• 54:02Speaker 04

  So y'all made up the distance at that point, after you had this maybe five-minute conversation with your sister, you made up the distance and got up to the SUV that was in front. Yes. All her taillights, all the taillights, were intact? To my acknowledgement, yes. I mean, as you sit here... I mean, like, may I? Of course. I mean, I'm not there to, you know, look at a car and be like, "Oh, is there any damage on a vehicle?" It's 12:30 at night. Obviously, I had a few drinks, I'm not looking for that. I just noticed that the brake lights were on, so... Right. But the point is, as you sat there, and you testified about this before, you noticed no damage on any of the taillights? Not to my acknowledgement, no. Okay. There's three taillights, one to the left, one to the right, and one center top. Correct, sir.

• 54:44Speaker 04

  And you didn't notice or note anything out of the ordinary with regard to the rear of that truck? No, like I said, it was dark out. At any point, did you see that SUV in front of you? Drive up 50 or 60 feet, slam into reverse, and then drive backward? No. At any point, did you see that SUV reverse and hit a pedestrian? Jackson. I'll allow that. You didn't see that, right? No. At no point, did you see a person laying on the lawn? No, but I also wasn't looking. But you didn't see it? No. And you did see the truck in front of you? The SUV, yes. Sorry, the SUV in front of you? Correct.

• 55:25Speaker 04

  All right. You didn't see a person standing or lying on the ground anywhere around that SUV, did you? No. And it's not just that you didn't see that SUV hit a pedestrian. That did not happen while you were sitting there, did it?

• 55:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Jackson. You can go ahead and answer that.

• 55:41Speaker 04

  No, I did not.

• 55:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, so that was a lot from Ryan. We're gonna, we're gonna talk about that in a minute. Should we take a quick break and come back?

• 55:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes, let's do it.

• 55:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back.

• 55:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay.

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• 56:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  So what did you take from Ryan's testimony?

• 57:02Derrick Levasseur?

  To me, it's pretty self-explanatory. We know now that SUV was Karen Reed's SUV. Kind of assumed that, right? And, and the defense is just trying to establish that his client isn't responsible for this. And Ryan's pushing back and basically saying, listen dude, I wasn't there for that. You know, I would think if the taillight was broken, even though it was dark, he probably would have noticed. If you've seen a broken taillight before, the bulbs inside the taillight, unless I have to look at this vehicle specifically, but you know, if it's a halogen bulb, you, if the taillight's broken, the red plastic surrounding it is, you know, gone and you see the white bulb, but it's pretty obvious.

• 57:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 57:41Derrick Levasseur?

  But if this is like an LED taillight, it might be different. I'd have to know that information. But yeah, I mean, the defense is doing what he's doing, basically showing my client didn't, at this point, at 12:30, 12:45, there's no damage to the car. And, at that point, John O'Keefe is not in the snowbank or on the sidewalk. So they're basically saying, okay, something else happened.

• 58:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's gonna be more of like, okay, he, he gets there around 12:23, 12:24, he's out there talking to Julie, his sister, let's say five minutes, that puts it around like 12:30 ish. But what did you make of Ryan saying they pulled up and parked in front of the mailbox when, when Brian Higgins said he parked his Jeep in that exact same spot?

• 58:26Derrick Levasseur?

  That, that, that didn't make sense to me. I was, I know that he was asking about the Jeep and it being parked in between them or behind them. I don't have an answer for it. It doesn't make sense. Again, it could go back to the timelines being off and maybe they're already out of there before Brian Higgins pulls up, or maybe Brian Higgins is lying.

• 58:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Brian Higgins got there first before anybody else.

• 58:46Derrick Levasseur?

  That's what he's saying.

• 58:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  And Brian and, and Chris, Brian Albert and Nicole Albert also say this. So does Jennifer McCabe. We're gonna talk about that in a second, right? So where the hell is this big ass Jeep with the plow? Because not any of those three people in that car saw it. And they would have been, what, parked on top of it?

• 59:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. One other, one other observation that I have, and it's speculative on my part, but it's something that I just noted, was Karen Reed's car not being put in park and just continuously moving up. Maybe this is coming from anecdotal experience. I don't know, but you've been in situations where you're having a heated discussion with someone and you're not sure if you're going to get out or not, and the person has their foot on the brake and they might lose sight of their foot being on the brake for a second. They crawl up a couple of feet continuously because the car is not in park. Maybe they're making a decision of, are we getting out or are we not getting out? Are we staying or are we not staying? And the car is moving up three car lengths. So that's what I took from that, that maybe something was being discussed in the car that was maybe

• 59:46Derrick Levasseur?

  heated and Karen wasn't sure if she was the one driving. She wasn't sure if she was staying or not. I don't think she was intentionally rolling up about three car lengths intentionally. I think it was her losing track or sight of her foot being on the brake for a second and the car creeping up a little bit. That's what I took from it anyways.

• 1:00:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  So she was the one driving and more than one person has testified to the fact that the SUV, Karen's SUV, pulled up more than once, right?

• 1:00:13Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, there was something going on.

• 1:00:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Jen McCabe is also going to say this, but Jen McCabe is going to say that as she's texting John, which we're going to get to in a second, she sees Karen Reed's SUV outside. And so when she sees the SUV pull up, she texts John. And then she sees the SUV pull up a little bit more. She texts John again. And then she sees the SUV pull up a little bit more. She texts John again. And she's saying that she is witnessing this. She's got eyes on it. And every time she gets up and walks to the door or the window to look, she's seeing that the SUV has moved.

• 1:00:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, so that's good. We have two corroborating statements as far as Ryan. And Ryan's a great witness because Ryan doesn't, so to this point, have any vested interest in lying. So.

• 1:00:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  The time periods, though, of when Jen McCabe says she sees the car moving and what we see from Ryan, which is that the SUV gets there, stops at an initial spot, and then he sees it move up once. Not super cooperative.

• 1:01:10Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm going to keep saying this and you guys might hate me for I don't care. We're talking about a lot of people drinking here too. All of these times when they're on the stand talking about it and they're asking for references in their reports. When I'm looking at these videos, that's what I'm saying. The timeline is the timeline. It's going to be based on the text messages. Those are indefensible. That's what they are. So as far as what you're, where you're going with it, I get where you're going with it. As far as Jen saying that she saw those things, but it doesn't align with when Ryan's saying he saw, and we have text messages that dispute what they're saying they saw when they saw it. So the, the reason behind why they're wrong, I don't know. I'm just putting it out there that one of those reasons could be that they truly didn't remember.

• 1:01:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Or to whatever, you know, a lot of people think is that this was a deliberate attempt to throw off the timeline, to maybe decrease any type of skepticism that may be surrounding it. So I'm just, it's tough. A lot of people drinking who shouldn't be. And this whole, this whole case so far is just ugly.

• 1:02:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's a cluster.

• 1:02:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Everyone's drunk. Everyone's breaking the law. Everyone's using their position of authority to basically, this is the wild west where because they have a badge, they can do what they want. And then you have other people who aren't police officers, like I said, drinking and it's just a cluster.

• 1:02:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Driving to police officers' houses.

• 1:02:30Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm just, it's just, the whole case is embarrassing to me. Maybe people are going to be mad at me for saying that. Just the whole thing. People drinking, driving, people arguing, just a sloppy case.

• 1:02:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. All right. So after Ryan and Ricky and Heather, they, they get ready to leave. They passed the SUV and Ryan noticed the interior dome light was on. And he said he saw a woman with long hair sitting in the driver's seat, her hands on the steering wheel at 10 and 2, staring directly forward. He said he did not see anyone else in the SUV at that time. Now Ryan's girlfriend, Heather Maxson, would testify that when both the Ford and the SUV were pulling up to the house, she saw a female in the driver's seat and a male in the passenger seat. Now, when they left 34 Fairview, the SUV remained in its same position. It was running and the lights were on, including the interior dome light. And when they passed, Heather said she saw only the woman in the driver's seat and no passenger.

• 1:03:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Ricky DiAntonio didn't recall seeing anyone inside the SUV when they passed, but he said he wasn't really looking because he was driving. Good for you Ricky. Thank you. So none of these three people recalled seeing any damage to the back of the SUV or the taillight, and they sat there for a good several minutes with their own headlights focused on the back of the SUV. None of them said they heard anything. They didn't see the SUV back up or hit anybody.

• 1:03:48Derrick Levasseur?

  No commotion, no arguing.

• 1:03:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  By the way, during that testimony, it was kind of weird when the defense attorney was like, "And you didn't see the SUV hit anybody?" And then the prosecution's like, "Objection." And then the judge is like, "You can answer that. You didn't see that, did you?" That was kind of weird for a judge to say, "You didn't see that, did you?" I don't know, right? Why couldn't she just say, "Answer the question"?

• 1:04:09Derrick Levasseur?

  I agree with you, but I'll also say-

• 1:04:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'm sure it wasn't a fair, it just stuck out as weird for a judge to say.

• 1:04:14Derrick Levasseur?

  I think that the judge made a guess, an educated guess there that if he had seen someone get hit, we probably wouldn't be at trial.

• 1:04:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Correct, but a judge shouldn't be asking leading questions.

• 1:04:26Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm with you. I'm with you. You're definitely nitpicking there, but you're not wrong.

• 1:04:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's just, I've never heard a judge do that before, and I've watched a lot of trials.

• 1:04:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, they have.

• 1:04:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  Really?

• 1:04:36Derrick Levasseur?

  I've had a judge look at me and go, "Derek," or, you know, "Detective, you didn't pull your gun and put it in their face, did you?" That's what they're asking you. Like, even if I did, now that didn't actually happen before everyone gets in the comments, but something so obvious where someone, if I had done that, I'm not gonna sit up here and say it. It can get a little casual sometimes, but you're not wrong. You're not wrong.

• 1:04:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  It was just weird. It stuck out to me.

• 1:04:59Derrick Levasseur?

  You're not wrong.

• 1:05:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Julie Nagel initially testified that when her brother had texted her to tell her that, you know, he was there, she went outside. But she said she left through the front door, while Ryan said she came out the side door. Julie also said that she had looked outside prior to Ryan arriving, and at that time, she had seen a black SUV, but when she went out to talk to him, she did not see the SUV. Now Julie's testimony is very confusing, because at first, she said she saw the SUV when she went outside. But that a few minutes later, she said she was sitting in the dining room table, and she looked outside, and that's when she saw the SUV pull up near the mailbox, and then it pulled up a little bit in front of the yard where it stopped, before pulling up again near the flagpole. Now she said that as she watched the SUV, she didn't see anyone get out of the vehicle,

• 1:05:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  but she also didn't remember seeing anyone inside the vehicle. Now this is funny to me, because there's all of these bunch of people, Julie Nagel, Jen McCabe- Who say they saw Karen Reed's SUV pull up and they continued looking outside enough to see it move twice more after it initially stopped. And yet, nobody saw her hit John and nobody saw a body in the yard, even though they kept looking outside and the yard would be directly between the SUV and the house that they were looking outside of.

• 1:06:14Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't want to get ahead in the story, but this is a relatively new case. They didn't have any cameras on this house?

• 1:06:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, they did. They weren't working that night.

• 1:06:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay.

• 1:06:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  And you know what? The, the-

• 1:06:24Derrick Levasseur?

  How about a Ring Doorbell?

• 1:06:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, it's just not working. They, it's just not working that night. Um, also, the police officer, remember where they got the red solo cups directly across the street from Brian Albert?

• 1:06:34Derrick Levasseur?

  His cameras were out too.

• 1:06:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  His cameras were not working either.

• 1:06:36Derrick Levasseur?

  How convenient. Yeah.

• 1:06:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, yeah, interesting. Now, on cross-examination, obviously, it came out that, you know, Julie had, had quite a bit to drink that night.

• 1:06:47Derrick Levasseur?

  No!

• 1:06:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. Maybe she had a hard time remembering the details, right? Yeah.

• 1:06:52Derrick Levasseur?

  You get them saying about the, I feel like people are going to be mad at me, but I'm just talking in general, this whole case.

• 1:06:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but here's the problem. You don't remember stuff because you were drinking, but yet you have these accurate recollections of seeing the SUV pull up and stuff. It's because you all got your story straight, is what the defense is trying to say.

• 1:07:10Derrick Levasseur?

  There's no doubt in my mind that happened. The question for all of us is, why? Because it happens all the time.

• 1:07:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  And you could just say you don't remember.

• 1:07:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Even if you're in a car accident and Allstate's about to call the four people in the car and interview them, it's common sense that you're all talking to each other to me. Even if you're in the right, hey, you know, we're all, this is what happened, we're good, and then the appraiser or the interviewer will call from Allstate and you interview. Like, it's okay to do that, but the question is, why did they do it? Is it because they were nervous about being inaccurate, or were they trying to cover something up? That's the million-dollar question.

• 1:07:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, because why couldn't Julie just say, "I, I was drunk, guys. I don't remember."

• 1:07:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  And now you're not even on the stand because you ain't got nothing.

• 1:07:54Derrick Levasseur?

  If they're not guilty of anything, even if they are guilty, that's what they should have said.

• 1:07:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  I agree, but- Instead, it looks like they all sort of, you know,

• 1:08:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Tried to get their story together, yeah.

• 1:08:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Which is weird. So Julie decided she was gonna stay, and she would be brought home later by Jen and Matt McCabe, and they would leave the Alberts at 1:47 a.m. So Julie testified in court that as Jen McCabe's car pulled away from 34 Fairview, she saw what she described as a dark blob in the yard near the flagpole. And that dark blob was five or six feet long. On cross-examination, the defense called Julie out for never having remembered these specific details before that day in court.

• 1:08:38Speaker 04

  You claim now to have seen a black object in the snow, correct? Yes. Object is the term that you use when you were finally interviewed about this matter, correct? A black object, yes. Right. You never before ever told any investigator that what you actually saw was a black blob, correct?

• 1:09:09Speaker 04

  I don't remember. And you also never, ever told any investigator that this black object that you described was actually five feet or six feet long, correct? Correct, yes. The very first time you're now mentioning this testimony that this black object, as you describe it, was actually five or six feet long was just today, after 12 noon on May 14th of 2024, correct?

• 1:09:53Speaker 04

  Um, Lally asked me how big it was, so I just told them right now, yeah. Yeah, Lally, when you say Lally, you mean Mr. Lally. Yes, Mr. Lally, correct, yes.

• 1:10:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Once again, this could just be a weird thing, like, oh, she didn't think about it until that day. Maybe she was never asked that specific question.

• 1:10:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  So why would she say it? But why, why wouldn't you be asked that specific question, though? When you're initially being questioned and you're like, oh, yeah, I saw a dark object on the lawn at 1:47 a.m. when we were pulling away. And then that, that, that guy who's invest, who's asking you questions, who's Michael Proctor, isn't going to be like, what did the blob or the object look like? He's just gonna be like, okay, you saw a dark object, cool, let's move on to the next question. Like, this is pretty important. She's the only person who claims she saw a dark object.

• 1:10:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Which would have been John O'Keefe.

• 1:10:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right, and, and he, and he, she's not being asked clarifying questions about that dark object, size, shape, anything like that. They're just like, dark object, cool, let's move on.

• 1:10:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Instead of me trying to just, because I can see where this series is going for me, um, it seems, I can tell, I can hear myself, I got these headphones right here. Sounds like I'm just like defending everything, a- and it's not meant to be that way, it really isn't, because I don't have any skin in the game. I can't explain why, other than saying stupidity. Yes, as Stephanie just pointed out, it all could be a conspiracy, right? It could be that she's saying it now to make the case stronger against Karen Reed, and it's a complete, flat-out lie. I don't know this woman, I've never met her before, probably will never talk to her. It sounds to me like she's just doing the bare minimum. If she's asked a question, she answers it. And I don't know why that is, I don't know why she wasn't asked those questions by the

• 1:11:33Derrick Levasseur?

  investigators, but even there's moments where you can just tell, she's, she's not, she's not the brightest bulb, just gonna put it out there. I mean, there's even a point where the defense attorney says, oh, you mean Mr. Lally, right? Like, he's, he's defending the Commonwealth's prosecutor now, like...

• 1:11:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, no, I think, I think it's because she's using, kind of, she's like, being, she's kind of being like familiar, like, like familiarity, because they all know each other, right?

• 1:11:55Derrick Levasseur?

  I get what she's doing, like, I get what she's doing, and he's correcting her. It's a game, it's a game, guys, you have to experience it. There's some passive aggressiveness there on the part of the defense attorney. It happens with all of them. The prosecutors do it as well. Why she wasn't asked this before? I don't know. It's she should have been, should have been a more detailed interview taken from her. And basically what the defense is doing here, which is what they should do is they're pointing out, oh, now you remember seeing John O'Keefe in the snow after Karen Reed pulled away. How convenient. So he's just basically trying to dispute it and trying to poke holes in it, which is 100% his job. I leave it to you guys. You gotta listen to the tape or watch the video.

• 1:12:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Do you believe this woman? Do you not believe her? That's up to you to decide.

• 1:12:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  So I don't, I don't believe her, but also, but also I will say, I don't necessarily even think it's an admission or a sign of guilt. It could be that all of these people are like, we know we didn't do anything. We 1 million percent believe Karen Reed did something and we're, we're family. We're all friends. We're all close. We all know each other. We're all related and we're going to close ranks and we're going to come up with a story that we can all stick to because we 100% know we didn't do this and we 100% believe she did.

• 1:13:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Can I point out something else, though? Isn't it human nature that if you know the defense is trying to paint a picture that your family, like you just said, everything you just said, I don't want to be redundant. They're, they didn't do anything. They're a close knit family and they know the defense is bringing up a theory that they were somehow responsible for his death. Wouldn't it be human instinct to close ranks and be defensive?

• 1:13:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  It, it might be human instinct to do that, but logically and intelligently, you should know that if you're randomly making things up to make the defendant look more guilty because in your head, you 100% believe she is, that is wrong.

• 1:13:51Derrick Levasseur?

  We're on the same page there.

• 1:13:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  And it's going to make you look shady and it's going to bring up reasonable doubt and you're going to end up losing this case and John O'Keefe is not going to get the justice that you believe he deserves.

• 1:14:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, there's, there's already reasonable doubt here. We're not, we're in episode three. I mean, there's enough of that and that's what the defense is doing. And this all comes back to really one main thing. It's the law enforcement agency.

• 1:14:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  It doesn't matter what the motives are to sort of start adding details.

• 1:14:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Like, yeah, the blob being five to six feet long.

• 1:14:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:20Derrick Levasseur?

  That, that piece of information, a normal person with half a brain should know that would be something that even if not solicited by an interviewer, you should probably bring it up, knowing the circumstances of why you're being interviewed. Hey, I know why I'm being questioned by the police. Maybe I should mention at the time of being interviewed, I did see a black figure that was five to six feet in length in the snow.

• 1:14:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, like a human shaped blob, yeah.

• 1:14:47Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't know if that's valuable to you, but considering we're here for the death of a guy who was found right in the proximity of where I saw that blob, maybe I should bring it up, even if it's not asked. So I'm with you. I'm with you.

• 1:15:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  So that's why I don't believe that Julie actually saw a five to six foot blob, but I'm not also saying that she's lying intentionally to cover up the real murderers.

• 1:15:11Derrick Levasseur?

  No, but you're saying she's lying about it. You're saying she didn't see a blob.

• 1:15:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  I, I am. I am saying that I believe that she's lying. She could have seen a dark spot, but this girl was drunk. She can't even remember when she saw the SUV or what happened. You know what I mean? So it's like she's texting her brother, come pick her up. He's there within a few minutes. And she's like, I'm gonna stay.

• 1:15:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, that right there, I mean, that was odd, too.

• 1:15:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  You're not a reliable witness, dude. So, no, I don't believe that.

• 1:15:33Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a fair assessment. Yeah, of course.

• 1:15:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right.

• 1:15:36Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm interested to see how, I think I know, but I'm interested to see where people fall on this whole thing. And after seeing these videos, if there's someone who hasn't already made up their mind, uh, where, where they fall on all this.

• 1:15:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, according to cell phone data, John O'Keefe's phone first pained at 34 Fairview or in that area at 12:24 a.m. And so the testimony of Ryan Nagel and his friends is problematic for the prosecution since they would have been parked there behind Karen's SUV for a good amount of time as she was parked outside of the Alberts and none of them remember seeing a man in the passenger seat or a body in the yard next to the SUV. And if what Karen is saying is true, which she pulled up, so they saw a man in the passenger seat when she's driving up, but when they pass her car, he's no longer in the passenger seat. And Karen Reed testified or told the police that when she pulled up, John got out of the car and she was waiting for him in the car to come back out of the house.

• 1:16:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that, that, yeah, that's, and that's what the picture they're painting here. When you drove, that's why they keep emphasizing it. When you drove past, it was only Karen in the car. Therefore, creating an opportunity that John could have been inside the house at this point.

• 1:16:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, they also never saw her throw her car into reverse. They never saw her hit someone as they sat there. This time period is going to become very important. Now, let's turn to Jennifer McCabe's testimony. Because at 12:27 a.m., she texted John, "Here?" ? And this is when she claims she first saw the black SUV pull up outside 34 Fairview.

• 1:17:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  During the trial, Jennifer McCabe testified that when she arrived at the house earlier that night, she saw, which is just actually like 10 or 15 minutes before this 12:27 part, but she saw Brian Higgins' Jeep parked by the mailbox. But she had told Michael Proctor on January 29th that she had seen Karen's SUV initially at 12:27 pull up and park in that same spot. As a heads up, getting testimony on cross from Jennifer McCabe is like pulling teeth. She's very, very defensive.

• 1:17:37Speaker 04

  And the rear end of that Jeep would be a budding, a budding up against the driveway? Yes. Or at least the line of the driveway, correct? Yes. That's quite a bit of detail about where that Jeep was. Would you agree? No, because I drove down the street and I took a left into the driveway and there was a Jeep there. Okay. What I'm asking is, you didn't just say, your memory was not just somewhere in front of a house. It's literally right in front of the mailbox, the line of it adjoining the line of the driveway, correct? Yes. That, that detail obviously stuck out in your mind. It did, because I was wondering whose Jeep it was. Did you discuss that detail with your husband at any point? Not sure. You're not sure?

• 1:18:22Speaker 04

  Do I have? I'm not sure if I said, "Whose Jeep is that?" No, I don't mean then. I mean, between then and now, have you and Mr. McCabe ever discussed where that Jeep was? Your memories of where that Jeep was? Possibly. You're aware that he put the Jeep in the exact same place that you did? Check. Are you aware of that?

• 1:18:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  I am. Oh, wait, no. Excuse me. Repeat the question?

• 1:18:48Speaker 04

  You're aware that he puts the Jeep in the exact same spot you just put the Jeep, right in front of that mailbox, right?

• 1:18:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know he knows where the Jeep was. I'm not aware what he said in here.

• 1:18:59Speaker 04

  Does he know where the Jeep was because you told him what to say about the Jeep?

• 1:19:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Absolutely not. It's because we drove together in the car. And I asked. I possibly could have asked.

• 1:19:11Speaker 04

  One at a time, please, ma'am. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to step on your words. I thought you-

• 1:19:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's okay. You can continue.

• 1:19:15Speaker 04

  Thank you. Appreciate that.

• 1:19:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  I did not need to tell Matt where the Jeep is/was. He knew because we were in the car together.

• 1:19:23Speaker 04

  But you two discussed it.

• 1:19:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  When are you asking?

• 1:19:26Speaker 04

  At any time between January 29th and today.

• 1:19:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'm sure we have, yes.

• 1:19:33Speaker 04

  You were also interviewed by Trooper Proctor on January 29th, 2022, correct?

• 1:19:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 1:19:41Speaker 04

  And you were asked a series of open-ended questions. What did you see and where did you see it, correct?

• 1:19:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 1:19:48Speaker 04

  Did anybody put any words in your mouth?

• 1:19:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  No.

• 1:19:52Speaker 04

  Did anybody tell you what to say at that time?

• 1:19:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  No.

• 1:19:55Speaker 04

  And you told Trooper Proctor that when you arrived at the scene, after you got there, you, quote, "first observed the vehicle," meaning Ms. Reed's SUV, parked on the street, by the driveway, facing the direction of Chapman.

• 1:20:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Can I? Do you have something I can look at to refresh my memory?

• 1:20:14Speaker 04

  Sure. Does that refresh your recollection?

• 1:20:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, I know. I told-

• 1:20:18Speaker 04

  I'm asking you. I'm so sorry to do this. I don't mean to be rude. I'm just asking you, does that or does that not refresh your recollection?

• 1:20:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Regarding?

• 1:20:26Speaker 04

  What you said to Trooper Proctor on the 29th?

• 1:20:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, I know what I said to Proctor Trooper on the 29th.

• 1:20:32Speaker 04

  Okay. I have to do it this way. I have court rules. Does that help you with your recollection of what you told Trooper Proctor?

• 1:20:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  I didn't tell Trooper- I told Trooper Proctor the car was outside the- when I looked at the front door, it was straight outside. I did not say this to Trooper Proctor, no.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  It doesn't help you?

• 1:20:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  No.

• 1:20:50Speaker 04

  So you did speak to Trooper Proctor on the 29th, correct?

• 1:20:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Correct.

• 1:20:55Speaker 04

  And Trooper Proctor asked you some very specific questions about where things were, correct?

• 1:21:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Correct.

• 1:21:01Speaker 04

  Focused on Ms. Reed's SUV, didn't he?

• 1:21:07Speaker 04

  Asked you questions about where Ms. Reed's SUV was.

• 1:21:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  Can you show me in the report?

• 1:21:12Speaker 04

  Just read it.

• 1:21:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  So just off of what I just read, is that what you're going off of? Yes?

• 1:21:19Speaker 04

  I'm asking for your memory, your testimony.

• 1:21:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, so my memory is exactly where the car was.

• 1:21:25Speaker 04

  Hold on. So it's very important that both of you, one person at a time, speaks.

• 1:21:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay.

• 1:21:31Speaker 04

  Did you talk to Trooper Proctor about where the S U D was?

• 1:21:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 1:21:37Speaker 04

  Thank you. And he asked you questions about where it was situated outside, correct?

• 1:21:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 1:21:42Speaker 04

  And you told him that you first observed it parked on the street by the driveway, facing the direction of Chapman, correct?

• 1:21:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  I told him that when I looked out the front door, the car was straight ahead. And yes, it was facing up Chapman.

• 1:22:02Speaker 04

  And you left out a little part by the driveway, correct?

• 1:22:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  That could have been his interpretation, or an error on his part.

• 1:22:11Speaker 04

  I see. So Trooper Proctor is wrong about what you said.

• 1:22:15Speaker 05

  Objection.

• 1:22:17Speaker 04

  No, I'll let him have it. Do you think he's wrong about what you said?

• 1:22:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  I 100% said it was straight out the front door.

• 1:22:23Speaker 04

  Okay, next question, please. Thank you, Your Honor. And during the course of that conversation, you never once, Ms. McCabe, not once, mentioned a several-ton Jeep with a snowplow attached to it, did you?

• 1:22:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'm not sure if I did or not.

• 1:22:42Speaker 04

  Let's take another look at the report. Would that refresh your recollection to see the report?

• 1:22:47Speaker 05

  Objection.

• 1:22:50Speaker 04

  Do you think that will help you?

• 1:22:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  I'll take a look at it.

• 1:22:54Speaker 04

  Okay. May I?

• 1:22:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 1:22:56Speaker 04

  That looks like a report from Trooper Proctor of your interview, correct?

• 1:22:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Correct.

• 1:23:00Speaker 04

  That interview was taken on January 29, correct?

• 1:23:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Correct.

• 1:23:04Speaker 04

  That interview was taken just a few hours, about days or weeks, hours after the events in question, correct?

• 1:23:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Correct.

• 1:23:10Speaker 04

  And you were asked what you saw, what you observed in front of 34th Fairview on that morning, correct? I'm sorry, the night before, correct?

• 1:23:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  He asked specific questions about Ms. Reed's vehicle.

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  Okay. And when you said where you remember Ms. Reed's vehicle being, you placed it in the exact spot where you're now saying there was a Jeep with a snowplow on it, correct?

• 1:23:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Incorrect. I never placed Ms. Reed's...

• 1:23:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Car in the spot where Mr. Higgins' vehicle was.

• 1:23:43Speaker 04

  So as Trooper Proctor was taking notes about what you were saying, he just got it wrong.

• 1:23:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  You'd have to ask Trooper Proctor.

• 1:23:50Speaker 04

  I will. And you never mentioned, according to that report, not one word about a Jeep, right?

• 1:23:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  I was, I may never have been asked about a Jeep.

• 1:23:59Speaker 04

  Ah, so if you weren't asked about a Jeep, you also weren't asked about a Nissan Altima. Mention that?

• 1:24:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  No.

• 1:24:08Speaker 04

  Right. Following the events of January 28th, 29th, you spoke extensively to Chris and Julie Albert, correct?

• 1:24:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  What do you mean by extensively?

• 1:24:20Speaker 04

  Um, did you speak at all?

• 1:24:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, we did.

• 1:24:23Speaker 04

  Between now and, between then and now, to Chris and Julie Albert?

• 1:24:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Do I speak to Chris and Julie Albert?

• 1:24:30Speaker 04

  Have you spoken to them about these events between then and now?

• 1:24:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  About this case? Is that what you're asking?

• 1:24:38Speaker 04

  Yes, Mr. Cave, I'm asking about this case.

• 1:24:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Of course, I speak to them all the time about the vicious harassment we are all receiving.

• 1:24:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's take a break. We'll be right back.

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• 1:25:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, yes, we don't have much to talk about as far as Jen McCabe's testimony here. Once again, it's just changing stories.

• 1:26:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Very combative.

• 1:26:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and she initially told Trooper Proctor this, and then she changed her story later. She's putting Karen Reed's vehicle right where she already testified that Brian Higgins Jeep was. Once again, that's not possible. And she is very, very defensive, yes.

• 1:26:19Derrick Levasseur?

  There's another observation to be taken from this, and I'm extrapolating here a little bit, but I think it's becoming a theme, and it's probably accurate. When this case initially happened, there's no doubt that Trooper Proctor and the rest of the people involved, whatever their intentions were, I can't speak to their intentions, the reason behind it, they focused on Karen Reed. They were building a case against Karen Reed. Why they were doing that, you guys can decide. But they were building a case against her, and that's why their questioning was focusing on Karen Reed, her vehicle, where she was. Now, that could be, there could be something more there. We're going to get into that, obviously, as far as corruption and all that stuff as we need to. But at minimum, there's tunnel vision on Karen Reed. And the questioning was around that.

• 1:27:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, we know that because they never even went inside the Albert's house.

• 1:27:05Derrick Levasseur?

  They never went in Albert's house. They, I have no doubt in my mind, he asked her a million questions about Karen Reed and her vehicle, and probably didn't say, because when we start a statement, an interrogation, an interview, whatever, what I always started with is, hey, tell me everything you remember. Just everything. It's a blanket statement. Just tell me everything you remember, everything that you think is important. Then I'll get into the specific questions that I had to ask, or maybe new questions that were derived from what they said. That's how you always start it. It's a big summary, a big synopsis, and then you start to dive into the details that you want to know about. But at minimum, that's what I'm taking from all of this witness testimony, is that the questions were around Karen Reed's vehicle, and her, and everything else, and they were building that case against her.

• 1:27:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Clearly, they ended up charging it, right? Now, as far as her defensiveness here, I've said it a couple of times, I won't say it again. Everyone's doing it. The prosecution's doing it, the defense attorneys are doing it, and some of the witnesses are giving it back. There's nobody here who's gonna tell me, as great as this defense attorney is, I really do like his style. He's an asshole in his own right. They all are. That's their job.

• 1:28:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's smug.

• 1:28:13Derrick Levasseur?

  He's smug. Perfect, perfect word. Thank you.

• 1:28:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  And people don't like smugness.

• 1:28:17Derrick Levasseur?

  No, no, and listen, I have been that guy, I have been her on the stand, where they're asking me stupid questions.

• 1:28:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Have you also been the smug person?

• 1:28:25Derrick Levasseur?

  I've been the condescending smug person responding to them. Like, you know, something like with the police officer, the last episode. Yeah, I know what a steak is. You know, those are, it's the back and forth passive aggressive thing that they're doing, you know. Well, you got to ask Proctor about that. I, oh, I will. It's, it's, you know, it's a pissing match, right? They're all, it's an ego competition to a lot of, to a certain degree.

• 1:28:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  Here's the thing that bothers me about Jennifer McCabe specifically, because I've had to watch a lot of her testimony. You know what happened. What happened is what happened. The fact that you have to continue asking the defense attorneys in the court to show you reports, so you can read your own words back. So you can have a better idea of how to answer these questions is concerning to me. Because you've changed your story and added details and taken details away so many times that you now have to continue asking to see the reports and to see the grand jury testimony that you made, so that you don't perjure yourself. That's a problem.

• 1:29:29Derrick Levasseur?

  There's no doubt in the theme of what I just said, she's being a jerk and an asshole to him as well. She's, she's gonna hold him to every single word in a report. She's not being cooperative.

• 1:29:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's trying to hold her.

• 1:29:40Derrick Levasseur?

  He's trying to hold her accountable, and she's...

• 1:29:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  She doesn't even remember her own words.

• 1:29:45Derrick Levasseur?

  No, she does remember it. She's being an asshole.

• 1:29:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, she doesn't.

• 1:29:48Derrick Levasseur?

  She's being, I think she's doing it, oh, it's in the report.

• 1:29:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  There's so much space that I've had to cut out because I can't just have dead air. But he'll ask her a question, and then there'll be a good 10 to 12 seconds where she just looks completely confused. And then she's like, uh, can I check that? So she literally doesn't remember what she said to the grand jury, to Proctor. Like, she has to look at it and read her own words back, so she knows how to answer these questions.

• 1:30:13Derrick Levasseur?

  And you have, you have a problem with that?

• 1:30:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, I, I have a problem with it as in, there's one story. So answer the question.

• 1:30:20Derrick Levasseur?

  But, but he's not asking that question though.

• 1:30:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Did you or did you not tell Trooper Proctor that when you looked directly outside, you placed Karen Reed's, you placed Karen Reed's SUV in the exact same spot that you're now telling me Brian's, Brian Higgins Jeep is?

• 1:30:32Derrick Levasseur?

  And what does she keep saying?

• 1:30:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Uh, can I see where I said that?

• 1:30:34Derrick Levasseur?

  No, what was the other thing she keeps saying?

• 1:30:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Uh, that's not what I said. She's, she's claiming Proctor misinterpreted.

• 1:30:40Derrick Levasseur?

  She keeps saying, "I 100% said the Jeep was in front of the door." So, all I would say, and I don't like the way she's testifying here, I'm not a defender of her. What I'm saying is, you just framed it perfectly. The lawyer's asking her, "Did you say this to Proctor?" And she's not remembering that, which, you know, take what you want from that. And that's why she keeps going back to what she does remember saying. Now, should she know everything she said to Proctor six months, a year prior? That's up for you to decide.

• 1:31:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, we're, we're moving forward. John O'Keefe's phone recorded an eight-second call from Jennifer McCabe at 12:29 a.m., as well as several calls afterwards. Now Jen claims she does not remember making these calls. She says she never deleted them from her phone before she handed it to the police for extraction, even though that extraction report showed that those messages, I mean, those calls, were deleted from her phone.

• 1:31:36Speaker 04

  You saw in his extraction report that all of those calls after 12:18 were missed calls, correct?

• 1:31:49Speaker 00

  In the, his report that you showed me?

• 1:31:51Speaker 04

  Correct. In other words, the only two calls that were answered were the 12:14 and 12:18. Everything else was a missed call.

• 1:31:58Speaker 00

  I believe so. I would have to refer to it again because I've seen so many reports.

• 1:32:04Speaker 04

  And Ms. McCabe, according to the extraction reports that you've seen this morning, comparing yours to his, every single one of those calls was deleted off your phone, correct? According to the reports?

• 1:32:21Speaker 00

  According to that report, yes.

• 1:32:24Speaker 04

  Let me ask you another question.

• 1:32:27Speaker 04

  Have you ever misplaced your phone?

• 1:32:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:32:30Speaker 04

  Just in, in, in life. Everybody does it, right?

• 1:32:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:32:33Speaker 04

  What's one of the first things you do if you're with your daughter, or your husband, or a friend, and you're, in your house and you misplaced your phone? What do you do?

• 1:32:43Speaker 00

  Oh, I'll ask.

• 1:32:44Speaker 04

  them to call my phone. Right. Even over and over and over, right? Correct. Could be as many as five, six, seven times. Usually I hear the first or second time. You're looking for a buzz or a ring, isn't that right? Correct. And you might do that if you're searching for a missing phone, correct? Correct. With regard to the calls that were deleted from your phone, you were asked about this under oath at another proceeding, weren't you? Correct. And you claimed at another proceeding that you had an explanation for all these

• 1:33:22Speaker 04

  missed calls, starting at 12:29, 12:41, 12:41, 12:43, 12:46, 12:47, 12:50. You had an explanation for that, right? Can I see the report? I'm asking you about your prior testimony. And I'm asking- About these calls. Yes, I'm asking, can I see it, please? I'm asking you a different question. At your other, at this other proceeding, which was under oath. Yes. Right? You explained that these calls were what? These missed calls, incessant missed calls. What were they? You used a word. Matter of fact, it's two words. I believe I used the word butt dials. You claimed that every one of these calls was a butt dial. Is that right?

• 1:34:07Speaker 04

  Yes. So according to you, you literally butt dialed John O'Keefe's phone six times in the span of 19 minutes. Is that right? I don't remember making any of those calls, so my assumption is I put my phone in my back pocket and that was it. When you dial someone by mistake, you hit a button, set your phone down, the phone has to be open, you'll agree to that, right? Correct. It can't be locked, because it takes several iterations of movement to get a phone open, face ID or password, right? Correct.

• 1:34:48Speaker 04

  So when you hit the button by mistake, walk away, that's a butt dial. People call butt dials. What happens with the call? I assume it goes to voicemail. Good assumption, because that's exactly what it does, isn't it? You've had a phone for a lot of years, right?

• 1:35:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:35:04Speaker 04

  It rings and rings and rings until it goes to voicemail.

• 1:35:06Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:35:08Speaker 04

  So in order to hang up that butt dial,

• 1:35:11Speaker 04

  you have to interact with that phone yet again, don't you?

• 1:35:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:35:15Speaker 04

  So if you had six butt dials,

• 1:35:19Speaker 04

  I think it's seven butt dials, you'd not only have to interact with the phone once to butt dial John, you'd then have to interact with it every single time to turn off that phone ringer so it doesn't go to voicemail, wouldn't you?

• 1:35:35Speaker 00

  I suppose.

• 1:35:37Speaker 04

  Which makes 14 interfaces with that phone over the course of 19 minutes. Is that right?

• 1:35:48Speaker 00

  I mean, I guess I don't have it all right in front of me, but there were also text messages I was sending, so again, maybe I said, "Oh, shoot, I called them," and then I turned it off.

• 1:36:00Speaker 04

  But your claim is you don't remember those incessant butt dials and those incessant hang-ups at all, correct?

• 1:36:07Speaker 00

  I honestly don't.

• 1:36:08Speaker 04

  That means you would have to interact with that phone 14 times over the course of 19 minutes at the exact timeframe that the Commonwealth suggests John O'Keefe lost his life. Objection. Sustained. You can ask that differently, and this will be your last question for today, please. The period between 12:29 and 12:50, which is the exact period that you were, quote, "butt dialing John multiple times." That's also the exact period that John O'Keefe was rendered incapacitated. Isn't that right? Objection. That's sustained.

• 1:36:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  We'll start up again tomorrow, okay? All right, so you understand what, what he's saying here, right? That Jen McCabe called John O'Keefe all of these times, says she doesn't remember that they were butt dials, but in order for those to have been butt dials, you would expect that every time she called, not knowing that she was calling, there would be an associated voicemail on John O'Keefe's phone. But there wasn't, which meant she called and before or when it went to voicemail,

• 1:37:13Derrick Levasseur?

  She hung up.

• 1:37:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  She hung up.

• 1:37:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 1:37:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Which, that can't be a butt dial.

• 1:37:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Correct.

• 1:37:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Jennifer McCabe also claimed that she had looked outside of 34 Fairview multiple times after midnight on January 29th and saw a dark SUV. She'd seen Karen's SUV, Ryan Nagel's truck and Higgins Jeep. And in court, she confirmed that she had a clear view of the SUV across the front lawn, which remember is where John O'Keefe's body would be found hours later. Basically, in her testimony, she's asked many questions about her field of view. They're saying, hey, if you kept getting up and walking to the door of the window and you saw the SUV, you saw it arrive, you saw it move up a few times, and then you saw it leave, right? Allegedly at 12:45, you saw it leave. At no time, even though nothing was obstructing your field of view between yourself and the SUV,

• 1:38:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  did you see a body laying on the, on the lawn? Nor did you see this, you know, backing up of Karen's SUV, of her going, throwing her car in reverse, of her hitting John, and you never saw a body? And she's like, well, I wasn't looking at the ground. You know, so basically that's her, her explanation there. Now, we know that Karen Reed's cell phone and vehicle connected to the wifi at John O'Keefe's house at 12:36 a.m. This is not in question. The information came from a prosecution witness and even a neighbor on John's street said he saw headlights pulling into John's driveway around that exact same time. So this is not in question. Information came from a prosecution witness. Now Jennifer McCabe testified that she first saw the SUV at 12:27 when she sent the "here" text.

• 1:38:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Then at 12:31, Jen texted John O'Keefe, "Pull behind me." And she claims at this point, she saw the SUV move up a bit. At 12:40 a.m. Jen says she saw the SUV move again up by the flagpole and she texted hello. At 12:42 a.m. Jen texted John, "Where are you?" And she says that the SUV was still there. Jennifer McCabe says that Karen Reed and her SUV left 34 Fairview at 12:45 a.m. At which point Jen texted John at that exact same time saying hello and then John O'Keefe never came inside. Here's the issue with this timing. It is a six-minute drive on a good day from 34 Fairview to One Meadows Avenue where John lived. So if Karen was back

• 1:39:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  at John's by 12:36 a.m., which is not in dispute, she would have had to have left Fairview no later than 12:30 a.m. That means that all the texts Jen sent after 12:30, which she claimed she sent as she would get up and look outside to make sure the SUV was still there, were sent when the SUV was not actually there, which is problematic for obvious reasons.

• 1:39:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I can see that. 12:40, like you said, just not to be redundant here, 12:40 she's sending, "Hello, 12:42, where are you?" At that point, Karen Reed's SUV is already home.

• 1:40:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  It was done, been home. She got to John's at 12:36, but Jen's saying, "I sent those texts as I got up, walked to the door, and saw the SUV there." Even the "pull behind me" text, which she claims she saw the SUV move up a little bit and she thought they were trying to figure out where to park, and so she's like, "Hey, pull behind me in the driveway." There's no possible way that Karen Reed and her SUV were there unless she transported herself in her car in the matter of seconds. Six-minute drive on a good night and this was snowing.

• 1:40:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. Yeah, so it might have taken a couple of minutes longer, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the only thing that would have been more advantageous for Karen Reed's defense would have been if during, let's just say at 12:31 or at 12:40, when she said, "Pull behind me," if you just put "K" or something like that, because that would show Karen Reed's back at the house in the SUV and John O'Keefe is still alive. But unfortunately, he never responded. So for the people who are on Karen Reed's side, this is great. This is great for her. It lines up because again, Jen McCabe is a terrible witness and is an absolute nightmare for the prosecution and her timing's all off.

• 1:41:18Derrick Levasseur?

  And regardless of what the truth is, her timing's off. Just leave it at that. So with her timing and what she's adamant about, she's wrong. There's no doubt about it. At minimum, she's wrong. Worse, she's lying. She's doing this deliberately. But you would think if she was gonna lie, she would have a better story because obviously through GPS and cellphone data, they're gonna be able to discredit her statement. So yeah, this is great for Karen Reed, obviously, because Jen is adamant about the fact. Now, if she came back and said, "I'm sorry, I was wrong. The car wasn't there when I was texting that. I knew Karen was guilty of this and I was trying to build a stronger case against her because we all know she did it."

• 1:42:01Derrick Levasseur?

  That would be more believable. But she's dying on this hill and technology is proving her wrong.

• 1:42:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that's kind of what the defense is trying to say. The defense is trying to say, "No, no, man. You didn't get up and look and see the car every time you texted, okay? You're just saying that because in the aftermath, y'all got together, and you got together with Trooper Proctor and the state was like, "Hey, we think," because it was that 12:45 time that the reconstruction of Karen's vehicle shows it backing up and going, you know, 80 feet or whatever. And that's when the state says Karen Reed killed John O'Keefe, 12:45. There's no possible way she could have been at 34 Fairview at 12:45. So Jen McCabe built her testimony based on the state's case, which she knew through her close relationship with the police officers who were investigating the case.

• 1:42:52Derrick Levasseur?

  So what's the prosecution's counter to that? They stuck with the 12:45 killing? So how did they dispute that?

• 1:42:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  They had to because of the reconstruction of the SUV.

• 1:43:01Derrick Levasseur?

  So then how did they explain away that her car is in the driveway at 12:36? There's no explanation for that?

• 1:43:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  They didn't, dude, no.

• 1:43:07Derrick Levasseur?

  They just said, "We know the car's in the driveway, but we're still sticking with the fact that it's 12:45."

• 1:43:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's, they don't really have an answer for that.

• 1:43:15Derrick Levasseur?

  So anybody who's on the side that Karen Reed is guilty. You guys have been good about quote unquote correcting us or coming back with new information to dispute certain things. From what I'm hearing, there's proof that Karen Reed was home by 1236, and yet the prosecution is sticking with this 1245 timeline. If we're wrong, let us know because that doesn't add up. John O'Keefe would already have to be at least struck by the car at that point. And I'm not saying he's dead. I think there's a strong argument that regardless of what happened to him, as we know from the autopsy, he died from hypothermia. He died from being out in the cold. So

• 1:43:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  And the blunt force trauma.

• 1:43:51Derrick Levasseur?

  And the blunt force trauma. So there was a combination there, but he might not have died instantly. So he could still be alive at this point. But regardless, whatever happened to him, if Karen Reed's responsible for it, it already happened at this point. But how could that be true? How could they stick with the 1245 timeline as far as when he was struck by the vehicle? When the vehicle has already been gone for almost 15 minutes?

• 1:44:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  And how could it be true when we got all these people looking out, looking out, looking out?

• 1:44:19Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a different conversation. Those, I already said Jen's horrible. Jen's horrible, and her time's off, and she's killing the prosecution. I want to know what the prosecution response, because we know what the defense is, what they're painting here. They're saying her car was no longer there when the prosecution is saying she was, John O'Keefe was struck by the car. Did that change? Did they have an explanation for it? Did they find a way to dispute the fact that Karen's car was already back at the house by 1236, you said, 1236?

• 1:44:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  1236 is a prosecution witness that gave that time.

• 1:44:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, 1236, that they're home. Is that time wrong? We need to know. We need to know. So, yeah, this is all, it's all messed up. But I keep coming back, and I know we're getting ready to wrap this episode up soon. Here's where I'm at, just as we're getting ready to close down part three. Just like many of the cases we have, there's, you can't answer everything with one question. When you're talking about this case, what I've come to at this point is you have to ask compartmentalized questions. The first being, did Karen Reed kill John O'Keefe? That's the first question. Or at minimum, did she strike him with the car? Okay?

• 1:45:31Derrick Levasseur?

  The second question you have to ask, which is completely separate from the first, should she be found guilty of a crime? Two different questions because you can say that you believe she struck him with the car and still answer absolutely she not she should be charged with a crime and that would be okay. So that's just two of the main questions you have to ask here. If you say, oh, yep, it's all one, just round it all up and it's a yes or a no, you're already starting with a shitty foundation because it's impossible in this case. It is true that someone could commit a crime and yet because of how botched the initial investigation was and how how inadequate they were as far as following policy and procedure and then

• 1:46:15Derrick Levasseur?

  not asking the right questions and then having witnesses who are uncooperative and at minimum, at minimum, not being forthright for whatever reason. And it's a horrible case. We're three episodes in and I would as a prosecutor, I'm just like, what are we doing here?

• 1:46:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  As a jury member, what are you doing?

• 1:46:36Derrick Levasseur?

  As a jury member, I'm like, I'm ready. I'm ready to make my decision. I don't need to hear anything else. Regardless of what I personally believe, I could be sitting in that jury box going, it's possible she hit him with the car and didn't know it. It's possible, right? But guess what? That's not what you're telling me here. And the defense has done a great job of showing multiple ways that that could not be true.

• 1:46:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:47:01Derrick Levasseur?

  So I know we got more to go. I know we got more to go. And I think as we go forward and you're the storyteller here, I think it almost transitions from, is this an accident where you have people believing they know what happened and they're lying to support that narrative? Or as we go on in the series and you've alluded to multiple times, is it way worse than that? Is it, is it an effort by the state police and the Canton Police Department and BPD and the Alberts and other members to create this narrative against this woman and frame her? Which many people believe that's not a crazy idea I'm throwing out there. And I think that's where the progression of this series is going. Because I think at this point, it's very obvious that she should be found not guilty of any crime, just based on what I've heard so far.

• 1:47:46Derrick Levasseur?

  I hope I'm not burying the lead here, but that's the truth.

• 1:47:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, yeah, I agree. So we will continue. Um, next episode's gonna be pretty evidence heavy. Apple Health data, forensic, stuff like that. Um, I would like you, Derek, to kind of look into the Apple Health data controversy before we meet again next week because

• 1:48:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Let me guess, there's gonna be two experts who disagree.

• 1:48:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, of course. There's several experts that disagree. Uh, it gets complicated. It's complicated for me. I do not have a technical brain. I know your brain is far more technical. So maybe you can make heads or tails of it and you can give a better explanation when we talk about it next week.

• 1:48:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, no, there's a lot to cover, but I, I think that's where I am right now. And I, I'm not sitting here for storytelling purposes, not telling you guys, that's where I fall. Like, I'm not 100% convinced that Karen didn't accidentally hit John with the truck. And these timelines are off and that's why it sounds crazy, but she accidentally hit him with the truck. I don't know if I can get to the point where she intentionally did it. She was, and I want to go back to something. When we go, when we talk about the messages in the phone call she was making after, if she did hit him, that does not sound like a person who intentionally hit someone and is covering up for herself.

• 1:49:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, I agree.

• 1:49:01Derrick Levasseur?

  And I said it in episode one where if she did do it and she was trying to create an alibi, would you create an alibi that makes, gives you motive as to why you would do it?

• 1:49:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, and the prosecution uses those to be like, see, she's full of rage. She's so angry. It's like, yeah, she's full of rage. Like, like we've all been at our significant others from time to time, but this is not how you would be acting.

• 1:49:21Derrick Levasseur?

  But those calls were way after he would have already been hit.

• 1:49:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. Why would you want anyone to think you were full of rage at that point?

• 1:49:28Derrick Levasseur?

  That's what I'm saying. Like, if she was gonna create an alibi, it would be something more along the lines. It's not that three dimensional where she's so smart and so above it where she's like, I'm actually gonna make calls and make everyone believe that I'm super pissed at him because that's exactly what a guilty person would do. It doesn't make sense. So I'm not completely off that path that she could have still been responsible for it in some way. Like I said, an accident, you know, everyone's drunk. I've said that a million times this episode and that's still in, that's still in play here. But there's also a lot of other things in play, but at minimum, leaving episode three, we're over six hours into the series. I don't need to hear anything else. As a jury member,

• 1:50:08Derrick Levasseur?

  let's, let's, let's convene and let's come to our decision. Prosecution, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, appeal it. Try again next time because you lost me. Your witnesses were not prepared. They were argumentative. They were combative and regardless of their reasons for it, like they were being attacked and harassed. I'm not doubting that. I've seen the stuff online, but they were not prepared. They weren't familiar with the reports. They weren't familiar with their statements and the defense attorney is eating their lunch.

• 1:50:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, yes. It's pretty, pretty hard to watch, actually.

• 1:50:40Derrick Levasseur?

  And that 1245 thing, I still want to know about that. Like I want to understand, is it not that they're disputing the 1245? It's that they're disputing the 1236. That's possible. That could be the angle of attack. So anything else before we close this up?

• 1:50:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Nope, that's it.

• 1:50:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Guys, this is a, uh, an emotional roller coaster. It's, I'm a little heated and I think I'm heated for probably different reasons than many of you. I'm pissed off because I already know between the lines here, how bad of a police investigation was conducted and that's, that's on the low end of the spectrum.

• 1:51:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think a lot of people in Massachusetts.

• 1:51:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Feel that way and they feel worse. Like we're gonna, you got a lot more to go and it's gonna be, we haven't even talked about Proctor and I had looked up where he is currently as far as his status in the police department. Spoiler alert, he ain't working. So I'm already upset because this is a, this is a black eye on all of law enforcement and this is what I try to combat. So this right here is just a really, really poorly done investigation and it looks negative for not just the Massachusetts State Police, not just the Canton Police Department. It looks negative for all of us, including myself, because it looks like I'm trying to defend them. So it frustrates me that I have to come on here and try to make sense of something that's indefensible. So that's where I'm at. So if I'm a little irritated, that's why.

• 1:51:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  And trying also to show that like, not everybody is like that in a situation where it seems like everybody sucks.

• 1:52:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Exactly. Exactly. And I'm, you know, it's tough. It's a, it's a lose, lose, but yeah, I'm leaving part three. Karen Reed, without a doubt acquitted on all charges, second degree murder included. Uh, you didn't prove anything lesser than that. And with all the questions that we have here and all the different players and all the inconsistencies in the statement, there ain't no shot in hell that a jury's finding her guilty of second degree murder.

• 1:52:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, they actually, they didn't.

• 1:52:30Derrick Levasseur?

  They didn't. That's what I'm saying. But now they're going to appeal it and try again.

• 1:52:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, they're going to try again, but that's kind of double jeopardy considering.

• 1:52:36Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't even know how they are able to try again because whatever the statements were.

• 1:52:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  We're all very confused.

• 1:52:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I don't see it, but that's where I'm at. I feel that way about the second question. The first question as far as what actually happened to John O'Keefe, which is the most important thing. I don't know yet. I don't know yet. So we'll keep it going. We appreciate you guys being here. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you next week.

• 1:52:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.

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