Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - FRAME JOB OR DEADLY ROMANCE: DID KAREN READ MOW DOWN LOVER?

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Boston PD Officer John O’Keefe, 46, finds love with financial analyst Karen Read, 44, who lectures at Bently University while also working for Fidelity Investments. Read moves into O’Keefe’s home during their two-year relationship, but it’s not always smooth sailing for the couple. O’Keefe’s niece and nephew hear loud arguments between Read and their uncle with increasing frequency. Friends who join the couple on a trip to Aruba report a blow-out fight between Read and O’Keefe during the vacation. On a snowy January evening, John O’Keefe and girlfriend, Karen Read have dinner in downtown Canton. Around 10:45 the couple walks down the street to Waterfall Bar and Grille to meet up with friends. The group has several rounds at the bar until its midnight closing. As the group shuffles outside, Brian and Nicole Albert invite the group back to their home, where their son is celebrating his 23rd birthday with friends. John O’Keefe and Karen Read plan to join them. With a cocktail glass still in his hand, O’Keefe gets into Read’s car with her. On the way to Brian Albert’s after party, Karen Read and John O’Keefe are locked in an intense argument. The couple sits in Read’s car outside the Albert’s home fighting, and they decide to part ways for the evening. Karen Read lets John O’Keefe out of the car, and heads back to their house, expecting her boyfriend to find his own way home.  Just before 5 AM, Karen Read wakes up and quickly realizes boyfriend, John O’Keefe isn’t in their home or answering his phone.  Read paces down a hallway while she speaks with Jennifer McCabe and O’Keefe’s friend Kerry Roberts. O’Keefe’s niece overhears Read ask, ‘What if I did something? What if a snowplow hit him?’ Read tells Roberts, ‘I don't remember anything from last night, we drank so much I don't remember anything.’ How did John O'Keefe die?  JOINING NANCY GRACE TODAY   Tim Jansen - Criminal defense Lawyer and Former Federal Prosecutor; Legal Analyst for Tallahassee Democrat’s Newspaper, www.jansenlawoffice.com  Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills); X: @DrBethanyLive/ Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall; Appearing in “Paris in Love” on Peacock; BOOK: “Deal Breaker: When to work on a relationship and when to walk away”  Sheryl McCollum – Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder; Host of Podcast, “Zone 7 “ Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth) and Lecturer: University of Texas Austin and Texas Christian University Medical School Lauren Conlin – Investigative Journalist, Host of The Outlier Podcast, and also Host of “Corruption: What Happened to Grant Solomon; X- @Conlin_Lauren/ Instagram- @LaurenEmilyConlin/YouTube- @LaurenConlin4   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Is it a framed job? Is there a big conspiracy? Was he set up? Or is it a deadly romance? Did Karen Reid mow down her lover, John O'Keefe, after a boozy argument? Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

Taking several pieces of plastic found on John O'Keefe's clothing, Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab forensic scientist Ashley Vallier shows how she was able to fit the pieces together and using tape to hold the pieces together creates a larger piece that fits into the taillight housing from Karen Reed's SUV. Wow, there's a big conspiracy. So I guess that means the police are in on it. That includes the crime lab scientists. I have a very hard time believing that Ashley Vallier from the crime lab is part of a big conspiracy to frame Karen Reed. But there are a lot of problems with the state's case. I've never gotten so much hate mail online since I said OJ Simpson did it. I'm trying to understand what's happening in the courtroom. A vast police conspiracy. Who? Who's part of this conspiracy? Or did Karen Reed mow down her lover? Their relationship fraught with volatile arguments. What happened? Now, remember,

if we're not sure, if we can't determine what happened, if the evidence is tainted in some way, then the jury's duty will be to acquit. It's the state's duty to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt, not to a mathematical certainty such as two and two equals four, but beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, this science lab professional, Ashley Vallier, puts taillight pieces back together again. Pieces of a taillight. She tapes it back together. And guess what? It fits into Karen Reed's missing section of her SUV taillight. Okay. It's going to take a lot of convincing to make me believe that a crime lab scientist is part of a plot. But first of all, who is the victim in this case, regardless of how he was killed. He was killed and not by natural causes.

So who is he? Listen. John J.J. O'Keefe grows up in Braintree, Massachusetts, with dreams of one day becoming a police officer. O'Keefe graduates from Northeastern University and pursues a master's degree in criminal justice from the University of Massachusetts. O'Keefe moves to Canton and becomes an officer with the Boston PD, serving on the force for 16 years. When O'Keefe's sister, Kristen, and her husband, Stephen Furbush, pass away within two months of each other, O'Keefe takes in their two young children. Wow. Okay, hold on just a moment. Let me understand something. Guys, we have an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. I've got a criminal defense attorney who's a former federal prosecutor. I've got a renowned psychoanalyst to help me wade through this.

I've got a forensic expert, the director of the Cold Case Research Institute. I have one of the most renowned medical examiners in our country, Dr. Kendall Crowns. But first, let me understand something. Going out to Lauren Conlon, who's joining us at the courthouse, who's been in the middle of all of this, host of the Outlier podcast. Lauren, did I hear that correctly? John O'Keefe took in his niece's nephews when his siblings died? Yes, Nancy, you're correct. Officer John O'Keefe is such a stand-up man. His sister passed away,

and then a few months later, her husband passed away. So he legally adopted their children and essentially acted as their father ever since. Oh, my stars. This is a stand-up guy, and that's putting it mildly. Lauren Conlon, I appreciate you joining us from the courthouse. Yeah, because I'm telling you, this case is explosive. When I said, hey, didn't Karen Reed say I did it? Did I hit him? And didn't the tail, the broken taillight pieces fit into her car? And did she have an incredibly over the limit blood alcohol that night?

And weren't they arguing that night? And didn't she know exactly where to go look for his body? Didn't all that happen? That sounds like she's guilty. I've never gotten so much hate since the time I said, yeah, Simpson did it. Obvious. So I'm missing a lot, obviously. And I've been looking at the evidence and there are problems with some of the evidence, specifically Ellie. Law enforcement got on the stand and it came out that he had said very disparaging things about the defendant, Karen Reed.

Now, that's bad, but does that make her innocent? Oh, we've got so much to wade through, guys. Everybody listen to this. Boston police officer John O'Keefe finds love with financial advisor Karen Reed. Reed, 44, lectures at Bentley University while also working for Fidelity Investments. Reed moves into O'Keefe's home during their two-year relationship. But it's not always smooth sailing for the couple. O'Keefe's niece and nephew hear loud arguments between Reed and their uncle with increasing frequency. Friends who join the couple on a trip to Aruba report a blowout fight between Reed and O'Keefe during the vacation.

Wow. If you can't be happy in a tropical paradise, can you be happy anywhere? OK, that's a whole nother can of worms. I want to get to the evidence. Joining me at the courthouse, Lauren Conlon. Lauren, tell me what's happening right now. So right now, during this crazy trial, Nancy, and I'll tell you, it's crazy. We just left off with the lead investigator, Trooper Michael Proctor, yesterday, who was cross-examined and a lot of bad text messages came out. And look, I agree with you.

That doesn't mean that Karen Reid is guilty per se. But again, this is going to the credibility. Now, also on the stand yesterday where we left off was Lieutenant Brian Tully. So he will be finishing today with ADA Lally, and then we'll see the cross-examination. But evidence so far, it's a little bit nuanced. I don't know if you want to get into it yet, Nancy, but I can point out a lot of things that you said. I can point out the other side, the other argument. Tim Jansen joining me, high profile criminal defense attorney, and for my purposes, this is very important, former federal prosecutor,

legal analyst for the Tallahassee Democrats newspaper at JansenLawOffice.com. Tim, thank you for being with us. I want you to jump in because I can't think of a reason that all of these police would get together and agree to frame somebody and not one cop would break ranks and say, listen, that's not what happened. This other cop did. I find that really hard to believe, but it may not take a ton of cops. It might take two cops, three cops that are very good friends that join together to cover something up. But why would a cop kill their friend? Nancy, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I don't think it was a conspiracy of everybody involved. I think you had an investigator who didn't go to the crime scene, who was biased, had a relationship with these people. He said in his text message, something

stinks. I think when he got this case, there were things that didn't add up. One, the injuries do not add up with someone getting backed up by the injuries. The injuries look more like somebody punched him. He might have fallen and suffered these injuries and the body might have been moved. He also had what appeared to be dog bites. The dog of the owner got rid of the dog. They cleared the floor and sold the house $50,000 less than what its value was. Jennifer McCabe, the sister-in-law, at 2.22 a.m. Googles, how long does hyperthermia take place? She then deleted that.

Now, this is before the body was found. So when Proctor comes onto the case, he's only getting what he's told, and he never went to the crime scene. I want you, if you don't mind one more time, Tim Jansen, to go through what you're saying, because does this mean she's innocent? No, it does not. But does it cast doubt on the state's case to the extent there will be a hung jury or an acquittal. And I want to tell everybody that's beating me up online, number one, don't care. But number two, I don't have a dog in this fight. I care about one thing, a true verdict. The case laid out by the state, in my mind, is overwhelming. but I also believe the defense is making major headway in what they're doing with all the cross-examination and all of the points they are making. I think it's very,

very compelling. I want to know the truth just like everybody else. I want the right person to go to jail for life. That said, Tim Jansen, you're right about these problems in some of the state's evidence. I want you to go through it one more time. And I'm going to clear up one thing. It's my understanding and everybody on the panel, for Pete's sake, jump in. Okay. We're not giving a speech at Harvard Law graduation. You can break in, especially about that Google search that was conducted. Now, you do know that witness says the Google search was at the behest of Reed, but continue. Take it from the top, Tim Jansen. All right. So the injuries, in order for a shoe to come off a person when they're hit by a car, it usually has to be a high level speed, usually 50 miles per hour or more.

The car was only going 24 miles per hour when she backed up, according to the black box of the car. Now, those injuries are inconsistent. Where did that dog bite come from? from. And I suggest to you that the rear taillight, that was not found until afterwards in the custody of the police. And then it was found later, not that night, later. So it opens up an argument that that might have been planted, like the Mark Furman glove was planted. Okay, let's just follow what you're saying. And I love how defense attorneys will just throw something out. Let's follow it through to its natural and logical conclusion. You're saying the taillight wasn't found that night in the dark in the snow.

Okay, understandable. It was found later and it was in police custody. So the conclusion, the logical conclusion to what you're saying is that the police used that tell, this tell like pieces to frame Karen Reed, that they all got together and they framed Karen Reed. Is that believable? Is that what you're saying? What I'm saying is there's a possibility that the people in the house who are law enforcement people may have moved evidence, changed evidence. We know that McCabe lied about the Google search, right? We know about the dog. They got rid of the dog after this incident. And it looked like a bite mark on the victim's body.

Well, I guess they did. And you were mentioning the sale of the home. They sold the house for $50,000 and they cleaned the floor up downstairs. They removed the whole flooring. Question to you, Lauren Collin, what's happening at the courthouse right now? So while you guys were talking, Karen Reed, Alan Jackson, and David Yannetti just walked by. Everybody was cheering and shouting, free Karen Reed. Nancy, if you don't mind, I just want to clarify about the taillight and why that seems to be so contentious. So the crime scene at 34 Fairview, it was never, ever closed off. Civilians were walking around, pulling up in the driveway by 8 a.m. And the whole thing is

the taillight pieces were not found until after Trooper Proctor and Bukinick showed up at Karen Reed's parents' house in Dighton, towed the car to the Sallyport. While it was at the Sallyport, about, I want to say, it took about maybe 45 minutes to get the CERT team back to 34 Fairview, and that's when they pulled the pieces of the taillight out and the shoe. And there's tons of pulled the pieces of the taillight out and the shoe. And there's tons of snow on the ground. And I think that is where people were like, well, wait a minute. They didn't pull the taillight out until after Trooper Proctor got ahold of the vehicle.

And then the other thing is that Officer Nick Barrows of the Dighton Police, who has no connection whatsoever, testified a few days ago that when he saw the taillight at Karen Reed's parents' house, it was only cracked, not shattered, cracked, and a small piece was missing. Jennifer McCabe calls John O'Keefe shortly after leaving the bar with directions to her brother-in-law, Brian Albert's home. At 12.15 a.m., McCabe and several other partygoers see Reed's black SUV parked outside. When the couple has not come in 15 minutes later, McCabe texts, then calls John O'Keefe to confirm they arrived. McCabe texts four more times after the call, but O'Keefe doesn't respond. McCabe assumes the couple

decided to skip the party. Between 1.30 a.m. and 2 a.m., after-party attendees clear out of the Alberts' home. Wow, okay, more. On the way to Brian Albert's after-party, Karen Reed and John O'Keefe are locked in an intense argument. The couple sits in Reid's car outside the Alberts' home fighting, and they decide to part ways for the evening. Karen Reid lets John O'Keefe out of the car and heads back to their house, expecting her boyfriend to find his own way home. At 1 a.m., Reid leaves O'Keefe a voicemail before she goes to bed.

In the message, Reid tells O'Keefe he's a f***ing loser and quote, I f***ing hate you, John. Wow. Okay. Dr. Bethany Marshall joining us, a high-profile psychoanalyst joining us from L.A., author of Deal Breaker, went to work on a relationship and went to walk away. Very important for today's analysis. You can find Dr. Bethany Marshall dot com. Dr. Bethany, with their volatile history, their argument just before he's killed. Of course, they're looking at her. Of course, Nancy. And as you know, and I know, over 50 percent of all domestic violence occurs after one or more members of the couple have been drinking. And in this case, both of them were drinking. And alcohol makes people extremely dysregulated. They lose perspective. They get paranoid. They begin to develop very intense hatred towards

their partners. And Karen Reed may be suffering from something called borderline personality disorder. And what we see with borderline is that there are fractured relationships, explosive outbursts, impulsivity. And if she was really angry at him and she was drunk, I can see her stepping on the gas pedal. I can see her throwing it in reverse. And this idea about the sister-in-law looking up hypothermia, Nancy, you know, because you were a prosecutor, how common it is for people who commit a crime to start frantically calling all their family members. And then the family members start to concoct this big lie to cover up for the crime. They panic instead of thinking. So I think

the right wing, the big conspiracy is actually amongst Karen Reed's friends, not amongst the police. And in terms of the jury, Nancy, you know that when people become paranoid and believe in conspiracies, any evidence to the contrary of what they already made up their mind about just solidifies their own beliefs. So I think it's a losing case from that perspective. If the jury thinks, you know, that there's this conspiracy, they're not going to listen to the evidence. It's all going to just, you know, calcify and reinforce what they already think about the case. Cheryl McCollum joining me, Cold Case Foundation founder and forensic expert.

Cheryl, I want you to take a listen to this. Just before 5 a.m., Karen Reed wakes up and quickly realizes boyfriend John O'Keefe isn't in their home or answering his phone. Reed wakes O'Keefe's niece and asks her to call him while she contacts people they were with last night. Reed paces down a hallway while she speaks with Jennifer McCabe and O'Keeffe's friend, Carrie Roberts. O'Keeffe's niece overhears Reed ask, what if I did something? What if a snowplow hit him? Reed tells Roberts, I don't remember anything from last night. We drank so much, I don't remember anything. You know, Cheryl McCollum, a guy's founder of the Cold Case Research Institute and star of Zone 7 podcast. Cheryl, I think I've detailed several times for you an evening when my husband David had to go out of town for work and he always texts me when

he lands, when he goes to supper, when he leaves supper and before he goes to bed. He didn't text. He didn't text after he landed. And that's uncharacteristic. I was up till 3 a.m. calling hospitals. I made D, who you know, my colleague, help me. We were both up till 3 in the morning trying to make sure David Lynch had not had a heart attack or gotten whopped on the head. I never said the words, what if I did something? Correct. Nancy, there is so much with this case. If you follow her actions, her wording, when she decided to go back to look for him, where she pointed out, you know, exactly where she dropped him off the last time she saw him, that's bad. But here's the other thing. Every single time this case tells you to go right,

it forces you to look left as well. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Friends gather at a Massachusetts bar on a Friday night as a heavy winter storm rips through the town of Canton. John O'Keefe and his girlfriend Karen Reed agree to meet friends back at their house on 34 Fairview Road, but they never arrive. Friends inside claim to see a black SUV pull up to the driveway, but neither O'Keefe or Reed joined the party inside. Okay, back to Cheryl McCollum joining us. Cheryl, I want you to also hear what else has been testified to

that Karen Reed said. Listen. At 5.07 a.m., Karen Reed backs out of John O'Keefe's driveway in her SUV and hits his car in her haste to look for her missing boyfriend. Reed doesn't stop and meets Carrie Roberts and Jennifer McCabe at McCabe's home. Roberts gets behind the wheel of Reed's SUV and drives to Brian Albert's home where they partied the night before. On the way, Reed mentions her taillight is busted and voices

concern she may have hit O'Keefe. As the women drive down Fairview Road, Reed spots Joan O'Keefe's body lying crumpled in the snow outside Albert's home. Listen, I want to believe everybody's innocent, as does the Constitution. But how, why would you say, what if I did something? I can't remember. Like I was telling you earlier, I didn't say that the night I couldn't find David. What if I did something? I assumed he had a car accident or some other horrible event had occurred. And now she says her taillight is busted and she knows where to find his body. That's bad. Nancy, the whole thing is bad. Hit the car in the driveway. As of right now, we don't know. We don't know how the man died. And again, I've said it's like Casey Anthony. Everybody had a theory that the baby drowned, the baby got the mama's drugs, whatever. Right now, we do not know how John O'Keefe was killed. We don't know. You've got an officer

that is the lead detective that did not go to the crime scene. He's got a void of time on the phone when he towed her car. He is seen at the back taillight. You've got injuries to his arm that it doesn't line up to me with one taillight. Also, the other injuries of the car are his ribs busted. Is his abdomen bruised? Are his legs, you know, filled with road rash? No, a lot of this is not making sense to us. Wait a minute, Cheryl. None of that is, that does not necessarily apply because why would he have road rash when you're dragged along asphalt? Because he wasn't dragged along asphalt. According to the state, he was hit when Karen Reed was backing up and he fell and he died of hypothermia. So road rash has no place in this

analysis. However, the other injuries to his body. Joining me, Dr. Kendall Crowns, chief medical examiner, Tarrant County, that's Fort Worth, Lecturer at Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. Dr. Crowns, thank you for being with us. I've got a question to you about those apparently bite marks. I don't know what they are, but they are purported to be bite marks. Dr. Crowns, when you are bitten, let's just pretend he was bitten. Let's go with that. Can you, a doctor, look at the injury on the arm and determine how long it has been healing? In other words, did those bite marks occur that night or are they from an earlier incident?

And if they did occur that night, in what scenario? We know nothing about him being exposed to the dog that night but that aside can you look at injuries such as these and determine the time they occurred so you can look at injuries and you can note whether there's a healing occurring like scab formation also you want to look for hemorrhage because it could be post-mortem. So if you have no blood associated with the wounds or no vital tissue reaction then you're kind of dealing with wounds that occurred after death. But if you look at them and they're fresh there's no scab formation. They probably occurred at or around the time the individual died. And looking at those wounds on the forearms with the paired kind of abrasion marks that you're seeing, especially on the one forearm picture, those are very interesting to me because they

do look like those paired wounds from canines. But they are talking about a German Shepherd. So usually German Shepherds have a really good bite grip and they'll dig in and they'll tear chunks out. So those wounds, if they are from a dog, they're very superficial. And they also, some of the wounds are the way that the canines would be paired. Some are closer than others. So it doesn't quite fit with it being the same dog if they are indeed bite marks. Wow. Dr. Kendall-Crowns, it's amazing the way you analyze that. Would you agree that they look like dog bites or do you disagree?

So in the pictures that I've been able to see, the canines are the ones that usually cause those paired scratch marks. And then usually the incisors are between those two canines. So you'll get the paired bite marks, but with the centralized incisors in between them scratching along. So when you have those kind of superficial scratches from the canines, you also get the in between the canines, you'll get the incisor scratching as well. So looking at those, they do look like paired, parallel incised or abrasions, but then there's no incisor wounds between the canine wounds. So they're interesting. They have the appearance of dog bites, but I don't think they are

because they're plus you've got differences in the pairings as well. You have some that are wide, some that are close. So it's it's odd. It doesn't look like a dog per se to me. Now that you're saying all that, I understand by looking at these photos. I didn't know what to make of it. I didn't have a trained eye looking at it. I hear you. We keep hearing Cheryl McCollum stating that we don't know cause of death. We don't know cause of death. We do know cause of death. Blunt force trauma and hypothermia.

We do know cause of death. So I don't know why you're saying that, but I do want to address the dog bites, the alleged dog bites. From what I'm hearing from our expert, Dr. Kendall Crowns, they may or may not be dog bites. Some evidence suggests they are. Some evidence suggests they're not. However, I don't have a time. And those are not the cause of death.

Did the dog bites, the alleged dog bites, did they happen the day before? Did they happen two days before? Did they happen day of? What about that, Cheryl? Well, here's what I noticed. There are patterns and they're going in somewhat different directions. They are spaced out very odd. They're different sizes. They're different widths. They're different lengths. That's like a magical taillight. If they're trying to tell me that's what happened here. That doesn't make any sense. And what I mean by we don't know how he died, I mean the injury to the back of his head. Where did that come from? They haven't told us yet. Where did he get from outside the vehicle into the snow? We don't know how that happened. Did it happen because he was hit by a car? Did it happen

because he was hit with the machine that moves the snow? Or did somebody toss him there? We don't know. We know that most of the time, if somebody's hit going 24 miles an hour, they don't come out of their shoes. We know that when people first saw him, they said, well, it looks like he got beat up. I mean, there's, we have not heard any evidence of this is the injuries that line up with the vehicle. This is how the injury to the back of his head occurred. We don't know that yet. We hadn't heard it. An urgent search ensues, but Officer O'Keefe is shortly found dead in the freezing snow.

Girlfriend Karen Reed is heard saying, hit him I hit him I hit him is that true did she say I hit him I hit him I hit him okay joining me an all-star panel but straight back out to Tim Jansen criminal defense attorney former federal prosecutor there are multiple reports of her saying, I hit him. There are reports from O'Keefe's niece, must consider the source. Did I do something? What if I did something? I can't remember. We keep getting from different sources that Karen Reid intimated she hit O'Keefe. Now, if it was just one source, I could discredit it. But if it's from multiple sources that are separate in time and space, not connected to each other, then it's hard to discount Karen Reid saying, I hit him. What if I hit him? And taking,

going directly to where his body is, knowing where his body is. That's bad. Nancy, I have a theory that fits all the evidence in this case. Brian Higgins was flirtatious with Karen Reed sending text messages. Her boyfriend and Karen Reed found out about it. They had a bad argument about it. They were arguing about the text messages to Brian Higgins. Brian Higgins is a huge man, bigger than Proctor. O'Keefe gets dropped off. He decides he's going to confront Brian Higgins in the house. While he's in the house, there's a fight ensues. He punches and knocks out O'Keefe. He goes down and the dog attacks him. And while he's attacked down there,

Reed is already gone. The body is carried out to this location is how one shoe probably came off. That's how that fits the whole scenario, the fight, the injuries. Okay, Cheryl, that's a great story that he just told. But where is it coming from? I mean, I could argue, hey, I think I know what happened. A little green man from Mars zoomed in. He clunked O'Keefe in the head and threw him in the snow and then he bit him in the arm and then went back to Mars. Yeah. Is it possible? I guess. Is it probable? No. Do I have any shred of evidence to support that? No. But it's a theory. So all of these theories amount to nothing. I can't go to trial with a theory. I've got to have evidence. Remember

that evidence? Well, let's talk about the evidence, how it was collected, when it was collected and by who? You're talking about somebody that found the headlight or the taillight that we know lied on the stand, lied under oath about knowing the evidence. You've got somebody that did not go to the crime scene, but then suddenly finds the biggest piece of evidence that supposedly came from there. It is the most poorly worked criminal investigation that I've seen of a death of a police officer. You've got police in the home that knew this man that never came outside. Well, that don't look good.

You've got a police officer that knows these people that were in this case and made a decision in 16 hours without going to the crime scene, without interviewing any more than three people. Okay, I've got a problem with the lead investigator not going to the crime scene. A big problem. Joining me now outside the courthouse, I think we've got Lauren Collin up. Lauren, I'm trying to figure out all the times that Karen Reid intimated she hit John O'Keefe. And again, I don't have a dog in the fight. I want the truth. I don't care if she did it or didn't do it. I want the right person to go to jail. I don't know her. I wouldn't know her if she bit me in the neck. But that said, she,

according to multiple witnesses, stated, I hit him. I hit him. What if I did something? Can all of those statements be discounted? Yes, Nancy. Well, the defense is explaining it as she simply asked a question over and over. And I want to point out that during Jennifer McCabe's grand jury testimony, she spoke of Karen Reed asking the question, could I have hit him? Over 11 times and not once did Jennifer McCabe state in the grand jury testimony, Karen Reid stated officially, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him. So I think that is where a lot of people are confused. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace to dr bethany marshall joining us renowned psychologist joining us out of la

dr bethany again when i couldn't find david the night he was out of town i never said what if i killed him what if that thought never occurred to me to say that right so whether she said what if I killed him what if that thought never occurred to me to say that right so whether she said what if I did it what if I hit him how did she even know he was hit how did she know how did she know he didn't wasn't in a car accident or didn't die of alcohol poisoning how did she even know he was dead how did did she know he was hurt? Why did she keep saying, what if I hit him? To me, that means I hit him. It's like OJ Simpson writing the book, If I Did It, right? It has similar overtones. Nancy, we have to recognize that the brawl, the fight that went on between the two of them probably went on for hours, maybe even days.

There was a lot of alcohol involved. And so there will be a lot of unexplained injuries because that's probably not the only place that they had an altercation, right? They may have been fighting at the home before they even got to the bar. Secondly, when she says, what if I hit him? What if I hit him? She probably was extremely inebriated at that point. So she wasn't safeguarding what she was saying to other people. But as she starts to sober up, as her blood alcohol level drops, now she says that she can't remember what happened. So she's beginning to malinger amnesia. That's very, very common for criminals to say, well, I can't remember what happened.

So they're kind of trying to come up with a medical diagnosis of amnesia in order to cover their tracks. So let's think about the blood alcohol level dropping as her exclamation start to change. Well, there is more hard evidence. Listen. Data from Karen Reed's SUV shows the vehicle outside Brian Albert's home until about 1245 a.m. While outside the home, the vehicle data indicates that the Lexus travels backward for 60 feet at 24 miles per hour. The SUV's taillight is broken and pieces of the light are found outside Brian Albert's home. Testing shows O'Keefe's hair is found on the bumper of Reed's Lexus and his DNA is found on the taillight. Investigators find remnants of a cocktail and bits of a broken drinking glass on the SUV's bumper.

Hold everything. Lauren Conlon, DNA leads. You can't fight with DNA. He didn't tell me his DNA is on the taillight and his hair is on her car bumper so to further the big police conspiracy i would have to believe police actually got one of john o'keefe's hairs and put it on her car bumper and somehow got his dna on her tail light really the hair test it has not come back additionally there was actually no blood found on the tailillight either. So I want to also point out this hair that was found on the car, that car traveled 30 miles from Canton to Dighton and then back to Canton. Conspiracy theories are not evidence. The idea that multiple police department, EMTs, fire personnel, the medical examiner,

and prosecuting agencies are joined in or taken in by a vast conspiracy should be seen for what it is completely contrary to the evidence and a desperate attempt to reassign guilt dr kendall crowns i'm trying to determine the truth just like everybody else is if his dna is on her bumper, be it his hair, his blood. To believe there was a cover up, someone would have had to have gotten O'Keefe's DNA and put it on her bumper. That is a heck of a cover up. How could that even be done?

Dr. Kendall Crowns, the same thing was argued in OJ Simpson. How could it have been done? To get his hair or his blood or DNA samples onto the broken taillight onto the bumper of the car without it having been from him being hit by the car, it would have to have been taken. It would be a multi-factorial cover-up involving multiple individuals. They would have to get samples from the medical examiner or a crime scene personnel that they would then take and smear onto the bumper and onto the taillight. It would be multiple individuals working together, coordinated to be able to pull that off. when it appears to me like he got hit by a car and then just got run over by it. Guys, what are the arguments on both

sides? Listen. The prosecution asserts that after an intense argument, a drunken Karen Reid intentionally reversed into her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, and left him in the snow to die outside Brian Albert's home. Reid's defense says Reid dropped O'Keefe off at a party with three people in attendance who had motive, opportunity, and means to attack John Keefe. The defense attributes O'Keefe's injuries to a beating and bites from the Alberts' aggressive German Shepherd. They say that any evidence suggesting otherwise is part of a cover-up orchestrated by the many law enforcement officials present that night. Much has been made by crime sleuths regarding the so-called mirror image of Karen Reid's car. Many claims that video has been edited. Listen.

Video of Karen Reid's Lexus from inside the Canton Police Station garage is shown in court, but it has an anomaly. The video is inverted, a mirror image, making the driver's side appear to be the passenger side on the video. However, the timestamp on the video is not a mirror image. Defense attorney Alan Jackson claims this is proof police manipulated the video to help their case. Police say the vehicle was never touched after being brought into the garage. But the defense claims the mirror video is proof the police can't be believed. Lauren Collin, what is the argument about a so-called mirror image of the Lexus? Karen reads Lexus.

Because I wasn't super concerned with the fact that it was inverted. I was more concerned with the fact that it was not addressed by the prosecution. And then Alan Jackson had to ask Officer Bukinick, hey, why is this video skipping? Why does it appear to be inverted? And he said, oh, oh, it's just motion censored. That's why times are missing. That's why it did that. And to me, that just looked a little odd.

Why not address that right away? Okay, so I'm trying to determine if there actually is any evidence that a mirror image had been edited. But what I'm hearing is no. I imagine the defense will argue that and bring on evidence regarding that in their case. Right now, the trial rages on in a court of law. And we wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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