Day 8 - May 2, 2025

Defense counsel continued cross-examining Jennifer McCabe about her observations of the SUV, her early-morning calls, and differences between her present recollection and prior reports or testimony. McCabe acknowledged that phone records showed a 5:07 a.m. call to Nicole Albert but said she did not speak with her then. The defense introduced texts between McCabe and Nicole Albert as Exhibit 47 and a group chat involving McCabe, Nicole Albert, Brian Albert, and Matt McCabe as Exhibit 48. The judge instructed that the messages could be considered only for McCabe's state of mind, not for the truth of their contents, after jurors first found the claimed participants sent or received them. The court also told jurors to disregard counsel's characterization of the messages as witness collusion. A map/GPS location-data printout was marked for identification; McCabe identified locations and times shown on it but said aspects of her January 30 travel recollection were foggy.

Jackson continued cross-examining Jennifer McCabe with phone records concerning calls with Michael Proctor and John O'Keefe. McCabe said she did not remember the timing of some calls and suggested missed calls to O'Keefe may have been inadvertent. After reviewing a Cellebrite record, she agreed it reflected a Google search at 2:27 a.m. and that a record contained the phrase "hos long to die in cold," but maintained she did not recall making a search at that time and said the hypothermia search occurred after O'Keefe was found at Read's request. The court restricted questions that contrasted McCabe with reports or another witness's testimony and kept a disputed screen display from being shown. Exhibit 4 dashcam video was played as McCabe identified herself speaking with law enforcement and explained why she remained outside to help O'Keefe rather than enter 34 Fairview.

Counsel addressed proposed clips from Ms. McCabe's testimony. The defense said clips 13 and 15 were incomplete and offered longer alternatives; the judge allowed the Commonwealth to play its selections and directed the defense to provide its materials for weekend review. The Commonwealth indicated it could hold the disputed clips until the following week.

Brennan's redirect returned to Jennifer McCabe's observations at Fairview, her contacts with police, and her account that Read asked her to make the hypothermia-related Google search after O'Keefe was found. McCabe said she testified from her own memory and described text messages and calls as reflecting efforts to find O'Keefe and her distress afterward. After a sidebar over the proposed text-message context, the court instructed jurors to consider the messages only if they found the claimed authorship more likely than not and only for McCabe's state of mind, not for their truth. The court later deferred a decision on the prosecution's request to admit all of McCabe's text messages, subject to redactions.

Jackson questioned Jennifer McCabe about emergency lights, vehicle noise, and shouting around Fairview; she qualified where vehicles were located. He also asked about her initial interview with law-enforcement agents, which she said she stopped to seek counsel before later meeting with them again. The examination closed with questions about a private group chat involving McCabe, Brian Albert, Nicole Albert, and Matt McCabe, contrasted with her other text-message contacts.

Hannah Knowles, a Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab forensic toxicologist, described her qualifications and the laboratory's serum-conversion and retrograde-extrapolation methods. Using a Good Samaritan Medical Center serum alcohol result of 93 milligrams per deciliter collected at 9:08 a.m., she calculated a whole-blood range of 0.078 to 0.082 percent at collection and a range of 0.14 to 0.28 percent at 12:45 a.m.; she said the latter time came from the district attorney's request.

Defense counsel questioned forensic toxicologist Hannah Knowles about crime-laboratory accreditation and the distinction between forensic and hospital laboratory standards. Knowles said her laboratory's accreditation did not cover the Good Samaritan Hospital testing or its quality-control procedures, and she could not independently assess the accuracy or reliability of the hospital result used in her calculations.