Commonwealth v. Read — Trial ArchiveDay 15 - May 21, 2024
Judge Beverly J. Cannone · Trial 1 · 1 proceedings · 1,850 utterances
Alan Jackson cross-examines Jennifer McCabe, systematically dismantling her credibility through deleted phone records, prior inconsistent statements, and evidence of witness coordination.
Full day summary
Key Moments
- McCabe acknowledges she looked out the front door with a clear view five or six times during the critical window and saw no body on the lawn.
- Jackson confronts McCabe with phone extraction data showing every call to O'Keefe from 12:14–12:50 AM was deleted before she surrendered her phone to police.
- Jackson demonstrates that McCabe described Karen Read's statements as questions ('could I have hit him') twelve separate times in grand jury testimony — never as the declarative confession she asserts at trial.
- Jackson introduces group chat messages showing McCabe told Brian and Nicole Albert that Kerry Roberts 'is telling them everything' while Roberts was being interviewed by police.
- McCabe admits she never mentioned Brian Higgins's Jeep in her January 29th police interview or her April 2022 grand jury testimony.
Notable Quotes
Jennifer McCabe
“I'm not sure if it's in this document, but I can tell you — Today, with 100% clarity, she said 'I hit him, I hit him, I hit him' on that morning.”
McCabe's insistence on a declarative confession at trial — directly contradicted by her own prior sworn testimony — is the day's central impeachment moment.
Jennifer McCabe
“She is telling them everything”
The group chat message reveals real-time coordination among Albert-McCabe family members during a police interview, anchoring the defense's witness-coordination theory.
Alan Jackson
“So according to you, you literally butt-dialed John O'Keefe's phone six times in the span of 19 minutes.”
Jackson reduces McCabe's explanation for six deleted calls in 19 minutes to its logical absurdity, undermining her account of that critical window.