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252. Karen Read and the Death of John O'Keefe Part 1 of ? -- Dirty Water

252. Karen Read and the Death of John O'Keefe Part 1 of ? -- Dirty Water

Released Tuesday, 18th June 2024
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252. Karen Read and the Death of John O'Keefe Part 1 of ? -- Dirty Water

252. Karen Read and the Death of John O'Keefe Part 1 of ? -- Dirty Water

252. Karen Read and the Death of John O'Keefe Part 1 of ? -- Dirty Water

252. Karen Read and the Death of John O'Keefe Part 1 of ? -- Dirty Water

Tuesday, 18th June 2024
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little time. Episode

1:54

of Nighty Night. Every Tuesday wherever

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you get your podcasts. This

2:00

episode of the prosecutors is brought to you by

2:02

Huggies Little Movers. Get your baby's

2:05

butt into Huggies Little Movers. We got you,

2:07

baby. I'm

2:17

Brett. And I'm Alice. And

2:19

we are the prosecutors. Today

2:32

on the prosecutors. When

2:34

a Boston police officer was found dead in the

2:36

snow, an apparent victim of a hit and run,

2:39

suspicion fell on his girlfriend, Karen

2:41

Reed. But did she do it or

2:44

was she framed? Hello,

3:10

everybody, and welcome to this episode

3:13

of the prosecutors. I'm Brett,

3:15

and I'm joined as always by

3:17

my divisive co-host, Alice.

3:22

Well, there you go. At least it

3:24

wasn't homely. That's all I have to

3:26

say. That

3:28

would be devices. That would be

3:30

divisive, but maybe I'm not

3:32

the divisive one, but boy, oh,

3:35

boy, is this case divisive. I

3:37

will confess, Brett, when this case

3:39

started going to trial, very

3:42

recently, everyone was asking us our opinions.

3:44

And I was like, you

3:46

know, we cover a lot of cases. We

3:48

prosecuted. I did. You do a

3:51

lot of cases. I read about a lot of cases. And

3:54

upon first glance, I was like, why

3:56

is everyone focusing on this particular case?

3:58

It did not. not strike my fancy

4:00

to begin with, which is why we

4:02

didn't cover it in real time. But

4:05

because we listened to you guys and

4:07

because it has become so divisive and

4:09

are we about to uncover some massive

4:12

conspiracy or are we going to be

4:14

cold water prosecutors? This is going to

4:16

be divisive. I think whichever way we come out on this,

4:18

there will be people who will have lots of opinions on

4:20

it and I'm here for it. And

4:22

I'll say this, I'm actually kind of glad we

4:25

didn't cover it before because going into the trial,

4:27

I didn't really know a whole lot about it.

4:30

I knew sort of the basic storyline. I

4:32

knew that Karen Reed was accused of murdering

4:34

her boyfriend. I wasn't even really sure how

4:36

she was accused of doing that. I knew

4:38

there was a lot of craziness

4:40

in the media and online. I knew

4:42

that at least one blogger had been

4:44

charged with a bunch of felonies for

4:46

possibly committing witness intimidation and all

4:49

sorts of other stuff. But

4:51

we sort of dodged, I think,

4:54

the drama that maybe you've seen with

4:56

Delphi. One problem with being with

4:58

Delphi this whole time is this whole run up

5:00

to the trial in Delphi has just been, it

5:03

has been wild. And I

5:05

think people who followed this case from the

5:07

beginning have experienced a very similar roller coaster

5:09

with the Karen Reed case, but we're coming

5:12

into it without a whole lot of that

5:15

baggage, I'm going to say. And

5:17

we're going to look at this case through the lens of the trial.

5:19

We're going to do this the way we did the Murdoch case, which

5:21

was another one that frankly, I didn't know a whole lot about until

5:24

we did the trial. Derek Chauvin case. I

5:26

mean, I think those are the two cases that

5:28

we sort of covered in real time. As

5:30

we record this episode, the trial is still

5:32

ongoing. It is an incredibly long trial. We

5:35

could do illegal briefs on the trial because it's a very

5:37

weird the way they're doing it. Though

5:39

I will just say, guys, state cases,

5:42

sometimes you see this. There's the Young Thug

5:44

case. I think that's his name. Sorry, I'm

5:46

not very hip. In Atlanta, that's

5:49

been going on for forever and has like

5:51

all these weird breaks. In this

5:53

case, there most days they're

5:55

doing half days. They only do

5:57

in trial through like noon. And then they break for

6:00

the day and sometimes they do have they have trial

6:02

like one or two days a week And then they

6:04

will have trial so it's been going on for a

6:06

long time at this point We're far enough along that

6:08

we hope that we can finish

6:13

Sort of either as the trial is

6:15

finishing or after it's finishing and not

6:17

sort of catch up and not be

6:19

able To do this, but given that

6:21

we've released these weekly, I think we'll

6:24

be fine at this point But it's been

6:26

going on for a while the Commonwealth's case

6:28

because this is in Massachusetts Has

6:30

a lot of witnesses and there are

6:32

a lot of people involved in this

6:34

story and that's part of what makes

6:36

it so interesting because a lot of

6:38

these people are a keys to being

6:41

part of a cover-up or a Conspiracy

6:43

to frame Karen Reed for the murder

6:45

of John O'Keefe and that is not

6:47

an exaggeration I'm not

6:49

using hyperbole here as you're going to

6:51

see probably today because we'll almost certainly

6:54

Maybe get to the opening

6:57

statements The defense's

6:59

opening statement the very first words out

7:01

of their mouths the very first thing

7:03

the jury hears from the defense Is

7:06

that Karen Reed was framed and that

7:08

is such a strong claim It's

7:10

not just we're gonna put forward evidence that

7:12

maybe she was framed. Maybe that's one possibility

7:16

but they are going all in on this

7:18

idea of as we've said before the

7:20

best story wins in creating a story

7:22

and Selling out to try and

7:24

convince the jury that not only is there reasonable

7:26

doubt But that she was framed for

7:29

this crime. Yeah, those are some bold words You

7:31

know when we started researching this case to cover

7:33

it The first thing I did was to actually

7:35

just pull up the opening statements and the defense

7:37

one I listened to first because I want to

7:39

hear what their defense was and when

7:41

the first words out of the defense counsel's mouth Was

7:43

Karen Reed was framed I kind of gasped a little

7:45

bit because I didn't know anything about this case Because

7:48

we've talked a lot about the best story

7:50

wins We've also talked about how the defense

7:52

doesn't have the burden to tell you another

7:55

story They just have to show that there's

7:57

reasonable doubt not to convict their client to

8:00

You say that Karen Reed was

8:02

framed, and not just framed by

8:04

anybody, framed by the police, is

8:07

a very tall order to fulfill, especially

8:09

in your opening statement. Those

8:11

of you who've followed us for a while know

8:13

that the difference between opening statement and closing statements

8:16

is that in opening, you're not supposed to argue.

8:18

You're supposed to tell them what they will expect

8:20

to hear in evidence. It's not supposed to be

8:22

argumentative. Closing arguments are

8:24

where you get to take your

8:26

spin on the evidence that's been

8:28

presented and make your best argument

8:30

from those pieces of evidence.

8:33

To state affirmatively from the

8:35

beginning she was framed is

8:39

a bold move, not one that you

8:41

see often. Let's go ahead and dive

8:43

into the story here. For those

8:45

of you who, like me, have

8:47

been living under a rock and didn't really

8:49

know what this case was about, or maybe

8:51

you're blessed to live in a different country

8:54

where this case has not been

8:56

on the headlines. If you live in

8:58

Boston right now, and my favorite part about

9:00

this case, by the way, is we're going to Boston. I'm

9:03

very excited to go back to Boston, to go home to

9:05

Boston, my second home, my first home in my

9:07

heart. Are you going to say

9:09

all the names right? Actually I probably can say

9:12

all the names right. I'm not going

9:14

to lie. I looked up a lot. There's like a

9:16

Bostonpedia where you get to ... It's a YouTube page

9:18

where you get to put in all the different towns

9:20

and things and they tell you how to say it,

9:22

so I was practicing. Not

9:24

... Anyways. Not Warchester. Not

9:27

Warchester. Okay. There

9:29

was nothing particularly interesting about Karen Ray's life,

9:31

it seems like, to me, up until January

9:33

29th, 2022. She

9:36

was a 41-year-old financial analyst and

9:38

a lecturer at Bentley University, and

9:40

she had met a man named

9:42

John O'Keefe in her younger years.

9:44

They lost touch. They dated for

9:46

a little while, but they lost touch. But then

9:48

in the middle of the pandemic, like so many of

9:50

us, they reconnected. Sort

9:53

of interesting how the distance and

9:55

the break in your life could bring back old relationships,

9:58

and they hit it off. John

10:01

was a Boston police officer, a 16

10:04

year veteran of the force. Although

10:06

he didn't have any children of his own,

10:08

the 46 year old became the guardian of

10:10

his niece and nephew, his 14 year

10:14

old niece and 11 year

10:16

old nephew when he died. When

10:18

his sister died in 2013 and

10:20

her husband died shortly thereafter, which let me just go ahead

10:22

and say, the

10:24

tragedy that those kids have gone through, like I can't even

10:26

imagine. And a lot

10:28

of things get lost in the shuffle in

10:31

this case, but man, take a moment

10:33

to say a prayer for those kids, because to

10:35

lose their parents the way they did, and then

10:38

they have John who steps in and fills that role,

10:40

and I think that says a lot about him and

10:42

who he was, but then to lose him, and to

10:44

lose him like this, and

10:47

now to be subjected to this and eventually to be

10:49

witnesses for the commonwealth in

10:51

this case, I can't imagine. There

10:55

are a lot of heartbreaking things about this case,

10:57

but he's really raised his niece and nephew since

10:59

they were babies, since his

11:02

sister and her husband passed away, and

11:04

he was really their father for all

11:07

intents and purposes, and

11:09

they are still young here. They'll come into

11:11

play throughout this trial. You'll see they are

11:13

privy to the relationship and they'll have things

11:16

to say about it, but I

11:19

think he has another brother who is also

11:21

the guardian and now really the sole guardian,

11:24

but the amount of loss this family

11:26

has gone through, especially these young children

11:28

who are still minors, is not to

11:30

be lost in all of this, especially

11:32

because remember when we talk about

11:35

conspiracies, we talk about wild theories, whether they're rooted

11:37

in truth or not, we're not getting to that

11:39

yet. They have real effects

11:41

on real people, and in this case, they have real

11:43

effects on minors as well. So

11:46

depending on who you asked, the relationship

11:48

between Reed and O'Keeffe was at times

11:50

loving and at times rocky, probably

11:53

not unlike most relationships, frankly. There

11:56

were some accusations of infidelity at

11:58

various points in time. time, the

12:00

two were known to fight with

12:02

some frequency, though some of Reed's

12:04

friends, and frankly, even some of

12:07

John's friends, would dispute

12:09

the allegations that the two weren't

12:11

generally happy together. Like

12:13

every case where you have a relationship that

12:15

ends with someone dead, a lot

12:18

of times things can get blown out of proportion.

12:20

You'll have one person saying, either

12:22

way, one person saying they were the most

12:24

loving couple ever, and somebody else is like,

12:26

no, they fought all the time, they hated

12:29

each other. And then other

12:31

people who are more in the middle with,

12:33

no, they were kind of normal. They loved

12:35

each other most of the time and they

12:37

fought other times. Obviously, all this will be

12:40

important as we're trying to figure out exactly

12:42

what happened to John O'Keefe,

12:44

and all of this would come

12:46

to a head on January 29th,

12:48

2022. Before

12:52

we dive into the timeline, as we typically

12:54

do, we're going to do something we don't

12:56

do in all our cases, but I think

12:58

this case calls for it. And

13:00

that's to introduce kind of the cast

13:02

of characters that you're going to learn

13:04

about, hear from, hear about

13:07

in this trial. And

13:09

there's a lot of them. Keep this

13:11

in mind, because the kind

13:13

of allegation of Karen Reed being framed

13:15

involves a lot of people. So

13:18

if you can remember to come back to this episode,

13:20

if you ever get lost who the characters are, we

13:22

hope to give you kind of a contents

13:24

of who the players are.

13:27

First, you've heard of John O'Keefe. He

13:29

is the victim and he's Karen Reed's

13:32

longtime boyfriend. He's been

13:34

described as a good and decent

13:36

man who is a dedicated cop,

13:38

and generally well loved by the

13:41

people in his community, not really someone that

13:43

people had beef with, or he himself wasn't

13:45

really a divisive person. He was well liked

13:48

by the people he worked with and also

13:50

his family and his community. One

13:53

of the things about this case that's interesting is pretty

13:56

much everyone agrees that John's a good guy, that a

13:58

fan so often call him this good man. I'm gonna

14:00

say things like that. But

14:02

you have to build some sort of story about

14:04

what happened here. Remember, I think this is important

14:06

to remember, we're gonna come back to this. You're

14:08

gonna get sick of me saying this. The

14:12

theory here in this trial is

14:14

either that Karen Reed hit

14:17

John with her car and left him to die

14:19

in the snow, or John

14:22

was involved in some sort of

14:24

altercation with basically everyone we're going

14:26

to tell you about here, and

14:29

anyone he wasn't involved in an altercation

14:31

with is involved in the coverup

14:33

of that fact. So it's

14:35

funny because on the one hand, the state's trying to

14:37

show how rocky

14:40

this relationship was and how they fought all

14:42

the time. And you're going to hear testimony

14:44

through us, unless you're watching the trial. They

14:46

actually know, they were kind of fine. And

14:49

then on the other hand, the defense is

14:51

going to try and convince you that this

14:53

group of people decided either in a rage

14:55

or maybe planning ahead to

14:58

attack John so viciously that

15:00

he would die. And

15:02

then you've got to kind of figure out why would they do that? And

15:05

much like with the relationship between Reed and

15:07

John, you start hearing the testimony and you're

15:10

kind of like, I don't really seem like

15:12

anybody dislike this guy. So there's motive here

15:14

is one of those things that is,

15:17

I think both sides are striving to prove

15:19

motive. One thing that's fascinating about this case,

15:22

because it's just not your typical defense case.

15:25

Both sides are trying to show motive and they're struggling

15:27

to do so. Karen Reed,

15:29

the subject that we've been talking

15:31

about, she's the one in trial.

15:33

She's accused of hitting John with her car.

15:36

Karen had been, as we said, in a long-term

15:39

relationship with John. And

15:41

as we will hear more and more

15:43

about, they either had this fantastic relationship

15:45

or they were on the rocks. And

15:47

it depends on who you ask. And

15:50

listen to all the different testimony as we

15:52

start to go through it, because honestly, it

15:54

sounds like a lot of relationships, right? It

15:57

probably wasn't completely black or white. It was

15:59

somewhere on the spectrum. as most relationships are.

16:03

Brian Albert. So Brian

16:05

Albert owned the home where people

16:07

gathered the night of John's death.

16:09

John would be found in the

16:11

yard of his home near the

16:13

curb in the far corner. Brian

16:16

is a retired Boston police officer

16:18

and he had served on the

16:20

force with John. Kevin

16:24

Albert is Brian's brother and he's

16:26

a Canton police officer and

16:28

detective. Tim

16:31

Albert, he's another one of the Albert

16:33

brothers, so related to Brian and Kevin

16:35

and he lives across the street from

16:37

the Canton Police Department. And if you're

16:39

already picking up on this, there are

16:41

a lot of cops involved in this

16:43

case and that's one reason

16:45

the police conspiracy angle has come up. We

16:47

are gonna talk about a lot of police

16:50

officers, including the victim, but also

16:52

pretty much everyone else who's involved. Not surprisingly,

16:54

the victim, who's a cop, knows a lot

16:56

of cops and is friends with a lot

16:58

of cops. And like most families in the

17:01

Northeast, being a cop runs in

17:03

the family. So the Albert family, for instance, has

17:05

a lot of police officers in it and they

17:07

know a lot of police officers. So you're gonna

17:09

hear about a lot of police officers through this

17:12

as we talk about the case. As Chris

17:14

Albert, who wasn't a cop, but

17:16

he was another of the Albert brothers,

17:18

he actually owns a pizza shop often

17:21

visited by John. I guess

17:24

it's pretty popular. He's owned it for like 20 something

17:26

years. He and John, he says, were

17:28

friends. And he also

17:30

is a town selectman in Canton,

17:32

Massachusetts, which is the city, the

17:35

town, where all of this is going

17:37

to take place. Canton, by the way, for those of you

17:39

who don't know, is 15 miles

17:42

south of Boston. It's part of the Boston

17:44

metropolitan area. I think it's south. It's sort

17:46

of in the Boston greater

17:48

metropolitan area. If you've lived in

17:51

Boston, you know, like Braintree, Cambridge,

17:53

like all those places are these

17:55

little towns that are, you know,

17:58

if Boston is the hub. all

18:00

these other towns are on the wheel and they

18:02

all surround Boston and Boston in a

18:05

way that frankly you don't

18:08

see a lot of places. Boston

18:10

dominates New England like nothing else.

18:12

I mean, people in Maine, Vermont,

18:14

New Hampshire, obviously Massachusetts are

18:16

all about Boston and Boston is

18:19

everything. And then as she goes south, it

18:21

starts to transition into New York.

18:23

Providence, Rhode Island has a little bit of a rivalry

18:25

with Boston, but whatever. Providence is a beautiful town, by

18:27

the way, love it, but either way. So

18:29

Canton is close to Boston. So you got

18:32

some Canton police officers we've been talking about.

18:34

John is a Boston police officer, just a

18:36

lot of cops in this area and go

18:38

Celtics. Okay. So Brian

18:41

Higgins, Higgins is friends

18:43

with the Alberts and he is an

18:45

ATF agent with an office at the

18:48

Canton police department. He was reportedly at

18:50

the home the night of John's death.

18:52

This is not unusual, by the way.

18:54

ATF agents work very closely with local

18:57

police to prosecute gun crime. Almost always

18:59

when you have a firearm, machine gun,

19:01

whatever, it's almost always going to be

19:04

discovered initially by local police who are

19:06

then going to work with ATF to

19:08

prosecute that case federally. So it's

19:10

not unusual that Higgins would have

19:12

this close relationship with

19:14

the Canton police department. Then

19:17

you have Brian Albert Jr.

19:20

Jr. So

19:23

he is, not surprisingly, Brian

19:25

Albert's son. And in fact,

19:27

it was his birthday the

19:29

day John died and there

19:31

were people over at the

19:33

Albert's house celebrating his birthday,

19:35

including Colin Albert. Colin

19:38

Albert is Chris Albert's son.

19:41

Colin was over at Brian Albert's

19:43

home earlier in the evening celebrating

19:45

Brian Jr's birthday. Colin Albert, by

19:48

the way, is one

19:50

of the people that the defense has

19:52

posited as a possible attacker

19:55

of John. So he is somebody they

19:57

point to as a possible hothead, that

20:00

could have gotten into it with John, gotten

20:02

into a fight with John, fatally injured him, and

20:05

then the rest of the Albert family has to

20:07

cover it up. So his presence

20:09

there and how long he was there

20:12

will become important in the case.

20:15

So, so far with this cast of characters,

20:17

if you're following along, it's a

20:19

big family gathering and they're close

20:21

family friends, essentially. And they all

20:24

live together, work together, eat together, right? Pizza

20:26

shop owner. They live near the

20:29

Caton Police Department. They've served together. They're all

20:31

different kind of law enforcement officers. In

20:33

these towns, you work across, whether

20:36

it's Canton or Boston

20:38

or ATF, they hang out

20:40

together a lot. But so

20:42

far, we're hearing about nothing

20:44

unusual in terms of the

20:46

people who are together. So

20:48

another important player in this

20:50

case is Chloe

20:53

Albert, I guess I'll say. Chloe

20:56

is a German shepherd. And

20:59

according to the defense, Chloe

21:01

may have attacked John while he

21:04

was over at the Albert's home,

21:06

could be responsible for some of

21:08

the injuries that John suffered, could

21:11

have been partially responsible for his

21:13

death. Chloe will be rehomed by

21:15

the Alberts a few months

21:17

after John's death, which obviously has led some people to

21:20

speculate that the reason for that was that the dog

21:22

was vicious, couldn't be trusted, had already killed one person,

21:24

and, you know, maybe was gonna kill again. So they

21:26

sent the dog, I think, to Vermont, I think is

21:29

where the dog ended up. By

21:31

the way, having been a German shepherd

21:33

owner, it's a real cheap shot

21:35

to always go for the German shepherd. Right? The

21:37

German shepherds are typically police dogs. They are very

21:39

smart, obviously. They're used as canines

21:41

for police forces. And even if

21:44

they are the sweetest, most trained

21:46

dogs, because they are known to

21:48

be canines and police force dogs,

21:50

and they can be very powerful

21:53

as canines, this

21:56

will not be the first time that a

21:58

German shepherd will be accused of... causing

22:00

death to someone. We're not talking

22:03

about a little Yorkie. I

22:05

was three, a German Shepherd tried to kill

22:07

me. I still bear the scars from that

22:09

attack. Having had a

22:11

German Shepherd, they're terrifying. You know, mine was like

22:13

120 pounds and

22:15

she was lovable as all get out, but when

22:17

she got really excited, she would knock me over.

22:19

So these are real things. But I'm

22:21

also pointing to the fact that this is

22:23

a large German Shepherd and German Shepherds have

22:25

been known to attack people in

22:27

their job as part of their profession

22:30

and also when they are not properly trained. Moving

22:35

on, we have someone whose last

22:37

name is not Albert, but they're

22:39

still related to the Albert family.

22:41

Jennifer McCabe. McCabe is Brian Albert's

22:43

sister-in-law, his wife Nicole's

22:46

sister, and she

22:48

was out drinking with the group the

22:50

night that John died. She

22:52

invited John and Karen back to

22:54

the Albert house and was with

22:57

Karen when John's body was found.

23:00

So she's essentially one of the first on

23:02

the scene along with Karen. Michael

23:05

Proctor. He is the lead state

23:07

police investigator on this case. And

23:10

it's come out that Proctor had known Chris

23:12

Albert for about 15 years. It's

23:15

been reported that Proctor is currently

23:17

under internal investigation for some undisclosed

23:19

violation of department policy. That

23:22

could literally be anything. It might be

23:24

related to this case. It might be

23:26

completely unrelated to this case. It might

23:28

not exist at all. This

23:30

is undisclosed and typically these types of things

23:33

won't be disclosed until there is a

23:35

conclusion and a conclusion of finding usually wrongdoing

23:37

because if it's closed and there's nothing, then

23:40

they won't disclose anything. I'm

23:42

gonna go on a lemon say it probably is related to this case.

23:44

Proctor is sort

23:46

of your nightmare cop. If you're a

23:49

prosecutor, he liked to send text messages.

23:51

It said really terrible things about the

23:53

defendant, which have now

23:56

become part of this trial. And

23:58

when you're, prosecutor and you

24:00

see something like that, you just want to bang

24:02

your head against the table because whether or not

24:05

it has anything to do with the case, it

24:07

absolutely is going to be introduced by the defense

24:09

and it absolutely is going to make some jurors

24:12

shake their heads. So Michael Proctor, he is going

24:14

to come up a lot as

24:16

we talk about this case. We're nearing the end of the

24:18

list of cast of characters. I think we'll add to it

24:20

as the trial goes on. We will. There

24:23

really are so many people that testify. I was like, oh,

24:25

this is a relatively short list for the number of people

24:27

who will testify. This

24:29

will get you started on the

24:31

trial. Kenneth Berkowitz. So Kenneth is

24:33

now a retired Canton police chief

24:36

and he found a piece of broken

24:38

tail light at the scene a few

24:41

days after John's death. Berkowitz

24:43

also knew the Alberts and

24:45

had appeared at a fundraiser

24:47

for Chris's political campaign. Their

24:49

kids played sports together and Chris called

24:51

him a friend. So they were close

24:54

by all accounts. Their kids played together.

24:56

They knew each other. And then he,

24:58

of course, finds kind of a key

25:00

piece of evidence that points

25:02

towards Karen's potential

25:05

guilt in this case. And

25:07

as Alice said, we could go on and on

25:09

and on with people in this case because everyone

25:12

plays an important role. I mean, ordinarily, there

25:16

are really only a few

25:18

key witnesses. Usually most witnesses

25:20

are kind of non-controversial.

25:24

They're just not controversial. Either side, the

25:27

prosecution puts them on to sort of set

25:29

the scene. The defense may do some minimal

25:32

cross-examination, but then that's it.

25:34

Right? And then you move forward.

25:36

In this case, so many people are important because

25:39

essentially what you're going to see here and we're about to

25:41

get into the timeline is

25:43

you have this man found

25:45

outside in the cold during

25:48

a blizzard. He's got some

25:50

sort of wounds, it's unclear

25:52

exactly how that happened. And as

25:55

you're going to see, in order for this

25:57

to work, you really need all... three,

26:00

I'm going to say three of the

26:02

important defense strategies to come together. So

26:04

if you're a defense attorney and

26:07

you're defending somebody, there are a few different

26:09

ways you can attack a case. You can

26:11

attack a case through incompetence. You

26:13

can say, look, the police are just

26:16

incompetent. They did a poor job

26:18

securing the scene. They did a poor job

26:20

gathering evidence. They zeroed in on my client.

26:22

If only they looked a little harder, they

26:24

would have found all this evidence of

26:27

someone else. Uh, think of Leo Schofield,

26:29

right? The police have

26:31

those fingerprints in the car, but rather

26:33

than running them against known offenders

26:35

in the area at the time of the murder, they're

26:38

so focused on Leo. They don't even think about it.

26:40

And, and that's a problem, right?

26:42

That's, that's some deep tunnel

26:45

vision and incompetence. That's one thing

26:47

you can say. Second thing you can say is some other guy

26:49

did it. There's somebody else who did

26:51

it and they're the person

26:53

who's responsible. And maybe they

26:55

even acted to make it look

26:58

like my client is responsible. The

27:01

other thing you can say is the police

27:03

framed me. So this might

27:05

be your sort of ad non-Sayed type

27:07

thing where the police have decided they've

27:09

got to solve this case. They've got

27:11

a pendant on somebody. They pick a

27:13

target for whatever reason, and then they

27:16

begin to plant evidence to make it

27:18

look like that person is guilty. They

27:20

pressure witnesses, they falsify physical evidence, whatever,

27:22

to try and move this case forward.

27:24

In this case, you need all three

27:26

of these, all three of these

27:28

things have to come together. The people who are

27:30

not involved in the conspiracy have to be incompetent.

27:33

And the people who killed

27:36

John O'Keefe have to be working to frame Karen

27:41

Reed. At the same time, they have

27:43

to have allies in the police who

27:45

are not only incompetent and tunnel vision,

27:48

but are actively framing Karen Reed

27:51

by doing things like planning evidence.

27:53

We just talked about chief

27:56

Berkowitz. You know, the theory

27:58

here is he didn't find that. piece of tell

28:00

that it was planted there either by him or

28:02

someone else for him to find so that

28:05

this, this could work. Right?

28:08

So all of these things have to come together. And

28:11

that's why the cast of characters is

28:13

so long because so many different people

28:15

are involved from the Canton fire department

28:17

to the police department, to the state

28:19

police, to the Alberts, to

28:21

the McCabe's, to the dog. They're

28:23

all in this together. And

28:26

that's why it's important to remember these names. And

28:29

hopefully you can keep them straight. It is not easy to

28:31

do. We're going to try and keep, remind you of who

28:33

these people are as we talk about them. But just know

28:35

this is going to be a little bit of a struggle

28:37

is to move through this. Okay.

28:39

The timeline. So like every case we do, we

28:42

want to orient you with a timeline. So the

28:44

way we've done this timeline is we kept it

28:46

pretty short. And basically

28:48

this is a high level timeline, just to

28:51

give you some general idea. It

28:53

is based on public reporting. A lot of

28:55

it is based on what the prosecution says

28:57

they can prove some of it based on what

28:59

the defense says. So just know that we're going

29:02

to give you this, but don't consider this gospel.

29:04

Don't get mad if we say something. And then

29:06

in a week, there's some testimony that

29:08

undermines it. This is just to give you a general

29:11

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there anything more satisfying? Remember,

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trial's still going on. So this happens

32:35

where you call witnesses to rebut, you

32:37

know, what the prosecution says or what

32:39

the defense says. And so

32:41

I expect that this timeline may

32:43

change as trial progresses. So this

32:46

is Friday, January 28th, heading into

32:49

Saturday the 29th, 2022. So

32:55

this is the eve of a nor'easter is about

32:57

to hit Boston. It's going to dump a couple

32:59

feet of snow onto the city. Everybody knows that.

33:01

And so what do you do when a nor'easter's

33:03

coming? You go out and drink. There's nothing better

33:05

than drinking before a blizzard because what are you

33:07

going to do the next day? You're

33:09

going to lay around, wait on the blizzard to die down so you

33:11

can dig yourself out. This is a great

33:14

thing to do. And around 7.30, John,

33:16

along with a group of friends, are going to

33:18

go to a strip on Washington Street in

33:21

Canton. Canton, as I said before,

33:23

is a suburb of Boston lying

33:25

15 miles southwest of

33:27

downtown. Canton was named

33:29

after Canton China because they thought

33:32

it was antipodal, I think is the

33:34

word, to Canton. So they

33:37

thought it was literally like on the other side

33:39

of the earth. It is not. That's what they

33:41

thought. Canton, China, by the way, is now known

33:43

as Guangzhou, which is a small

33:45

Chinese city of only 20 million people. By

33:47

the way, great pronunciation. Not

33:50

just of Canton, but Canton

33:52

is not how you say it in Chinese. But Guangzhou is

33:54

really good. Oh, there you go. Do it again. 851

34:01

PM. Karen is seen on video

34:03

entering CF McCarthy's local

34:05

pub. According to prosecutors, Karen did what she

34:08

would expect a person to do at a

34:10

bar. She drank. So

34:12

according to prosecutors at 858, Karen is

34:14

going to get a drink from the

34:16

bartender. It contains a clear liquid with

34:19

a lime in it. Obviously that could

34:21

be water. I've often gotten sparkling

34:23

water with a lime in it. There's going to

34:25

be testimony about this that it was vodka, but

34:27

as the defense is going to point out, there's

34:29

no real way to know whether or not she's

34:31

mixing, you know, getting a vodka

34:33

tonic and then getting a water. And she's, she's

34:36

getting a lot of drinks. So 915, she's

34:38

back for another drink, 920, another drink, 933, another

34:40

drink, 957, another drink. But this time

34:45

she also gets a shot of clear liquid that

34:47

probably is not water, 1022, another

34:50

drink. So there

34:52

are a lot of drinks happening here. The exact

34:55

number is hard to say because we don't know

34:57

exactly what she had, but a

34:59

number of drinks. People are having a

35:01

good time. They're having some drinks. Everybody's

35:03

in a good mood. So far, nothing

35:06

unusual has happened. So at 1040 PM, John

35:08

and Karen leave the bar. Karen still has the

35:10

last drink that she got at 1022 with her.

35:14

At 1054, the two

35:16

head to the waterfall bar and

35:19

grill in Canton. So they're kind

35:21

of moving along the strip. At

35:23

1210 AM, Karen and two other

35:26

women leave through the front door.

35:28

John follows behind carrying a drink.

35:30

John and Karen walk together towards

35:33

Washington street. After a

35:35

night of drinking, Karen did the thing

35:38

that other people do after going out to a bar. She

35:41

drove, right? You're not supposed to, we all know,

35:43

you know, fed a drink. If you

35:45

even think you're buzzed, don't drive, don't drink and

35:47

drive. We see all those signs everywhere. But

35:50

in reality, the number of people who do

35:52

drink and drive who are above the legal

35:54

limit is astronomical.

36:00

There's one thing that I think we can say for certain, I

36:02

don't know if the Canton Police Department is corrupt, the Boston

36:04

Police Department is corrupt, but there's a lot of people in

36:06

the Canton and Boston Police Department who drink and then drive.

36:09

You're going to see a lot of that in this

36:11

case. And in the Boston area as well, which

36:14

is also known for drinking and drive. And

36:16

remember, this is January, which means

36:18

it's real cold. There's the

36:20

Northeastern, but generally, Boston area

36:22

in January is incredibly cold. You don't want

36:25

to be standing outside waiting for an Uber,

36:27

especially when your car is already on kind

36:29

of like the busy street. You don't have

36:31

to figure out the next morning

36:33

having to come and get your car back.

36:35

I'm not justifying drinking and driving. I'm just

36:38

telling you what people think about in their

36:40

heads and why they end up drinking and

36:42

driving. So

36:44

Karen does just that. She gets in the

36:46

car and she drives. And the

36:48

plan was to drive back to the home of

36:51

Brian Albert, another Boston cop, what we talked about

36:53

earlier, where there was

36:55

an after party planned at

36:57

12, 14 a.m. John

37:00

texts the group and he says, where to? There's

37:02

a response in that text chain and it says,

37:04

go to 34 Fairview Road. According

37:09

to prosecutors in between the bar

37:12

and the Albert's house, something went

37:15

wrong. Everyone left a

37:17

voicemail to John that said something

37:19

among other things like, quote, parents

37:22

who are listening with their children. There's going to be for the

37:25

sake of our for the sake of our our writing. Why

37:28

don't you? Yeah, I'm not going to

37:30

say it. But I also if a

37:32

child is listening, I'd like them to know that

37:34

I'm about to bleep out words that they can

37:37

really easily figure out what it is. And

37:39

by the way, in trial, you say all these things. So we

37:42

don't censor within trial because you need to know exactly

37:44

what was said. So this

37:46

voicemail to John says, quote,

37:48

you are a effing loser.

37:50

F yourself. And John, I

37:52

effing hate you. These

37:55

are the kinds of things you really

37:57

hope you don't say to someone. especially

38:00

on a recording the night that

38:02

they happened to die. But

38:04

clearly, it had been a night with probably

38:07

a lot of drinks, don't know what

38:09

happened, but it was an

38:11

impassioned voicemail with a lot of F-bombs

38:14

directed at the person who's going to

38:16

end up dead. And it's recorded. This

38:18

is not great for Karen. And let's

38:20

just say, I mean, if you're a defense attorney,

38:22

I think you can spin this another way, which

38:24

is if she

38:27

just killed the guy, like

38:29

if she knew that she just

38:32

hit him and left him for dead, it's weird

38:34

to leave him a voicemail and say

38:36

that. So you could say, look, this is evidence

38:38

that they did get in a fight for some

38:40

reason, but maybe it was because he wanted to

38:42

go to this party and she wanted to go

38:44

home. And she was like, well,

38:48

then fine, you can go. Right? And

38:50

she drops him off. He goes into the

38:52

party. She fires off some mean voicemails, speeds

38:55

home, goes to bed and doesn't realize anything's

38:57

wrong until later. So that's the great thing

38:59

about trials. That's the great thing about evidence

39:01

is you can spin things all

39:04

these different ways and shade them depending on

39:06

the argument you're trying to make. So

39:09

around 1240, according to witnesses, Karen's

39:12

black Lexus pulls in near a

39:14

flagpole and a fire hydrant on

39:16

the sort of far left side of this

39:19

property. So if you imagine this property, it's

39:21

a home, nice home. There's

39:24

on the right side of the property, there's a

39:26

driveway, there's a road running in front of this

39:28

property as there are in front

39:30

of most properties. And then there's a

39:32

flagpole sort of in the corner. And

39:34

then on the near

39:37

the curb, there's a fire hydrant. So

39:40

apparently she pulls in to this

39:43

area about five minutes later, she

39:46

drives away at around 130

39:49

and then later on it to

39:51

people who are at this house

39:53

are starting to leave. They're getting

39:55

a ride home. One of them

39:57

will later report seeing a dark

39:59

object. and near this sort

40:01

of flagpole fire hydrant

40:03

area, but she doesn't know what it

40:05

is and she doesn't really think that

40:08

much about it. Now it's January in

40:10

Boston and there is

40:12

a nor'easter coming, so unsurprisingly by this

40:14

point it has started to snow. It

40:16

starts to snow around midnight. As the

40:18

night goes on, the snow gets heavier

40:20

and heavier and heavier. The

40:23

temperatures are dropping into the teens

40:25

and this blizzard that is bearing down on

40:27

the city would last most of the next

40:30

day. At 227, this

40:32

is a key point. This may be one of

40:34

the most important points in the entire case and

40:36

whether or not this actually happened at 227 is

40:39

a matter of contention. But

40:41

according to the defense, Jennifer McCabe,

40:43

who you may remember, Brian Albert's

40:45

sister-in-law, and

40:47

another friend who was at the house

40:49

that night searches, she means

40:52

to search how, but she searches

40:54

H-O-S, long to die in

40:56

cold. Obviously,

40:59

if she's searching this at 227, unless

41:02

there's a major coincidence here and everybody's just curious, man,

41:04

it's cold outside. I wonder how long it takes to

41:06

die and she's like, well, I'll search it. That

41:09

would not be great given that someone is going to

41:11

die in the cold that night. Kind of like we

41:14

were saying about if you're Karen, you don't wanna have

41:16

left those voicemails when someone just so happens to die.

41:18

And for Jennifer, you don't want to have searched for

41:20

this the night someone dies. But it's not as simple

41:22

as that. The defense says it happened at 227. The

41:26

prosecution will say that this search

41:28

happened at 623. And

41:31

this is gonna be a battle of experts things

41:33

with people looking at this data and trying to

41:35

determine when exactly this search

41:37

happened. If it happened at 227, it's bad.

41:41

It's bad for Jen. If it happened at 623 and it's at

41:43

the behest of Karen, then

41:47

it's probably, well, it's not as bad

41:49

for Jen, obviously. And

41:52

questionable how significant it is because by

41:54

that point, they have found John and

41:56

you can imagine just trying to figure

41:58

out exactly what's going on. and

42:00

exactly how bad it is. Yeah, very,

42:02

very big difference between kind of the four

42:05

hours of when this would happen. And just

42:07

for those of you wondering, there is a

42:09

typo and instead of how it's HOS. So

42:11

for those of you in the chat who

42:13

are laughing about

42:15

maybe she just wanted to search for

42:17

hoes instead of how, that's a possibility

42:20

too. Hoes long to die. Hoes long

42:22

to die. Hoes to die in the cold. But

42:25

by the way, this is relevant

42:27

though, because obviously we all text

42:29

with typos. You can't change texts

42:31

to enter them into evidence. And

42:34

so these are things that people fight about

42:36

in trial as well. When there are typos,

42:38

when there are kind of differing, something that

42:40

doesn't say exactly that you want

42:42

it to say. So we'll come back to that

42:44

obviously. Okay, going

42:47

back really quick to the party. So we'll

42:49

talk more about what this driveway looks like, what

42:52

people can and cannot see. But the time they're

42:54

leaving is pretty typical.

42:57

That's when a lot of bars close

42:59

down. So 1.30 to 2 AM, people

43:01

leaving, getting in cars. It's been

43:03

snowing for a couple of hours at this time.

43:05

It's dark outside. Keep all

43:07

this in mind. We're not leaving in

43:09

broad daylight where you may have unobstructed

43:11

visibility. Keep in mind

43:13

the time of day and also the environment

43:16

around them as people are leaving and whether

43:18

they can see something there or not. At

43:22

2.30, because it's been snowing for a couple hours and I

43:24

will say this much, Massachusetts, you guys know

43:26

how to do snow. You have to start

43:29

plowing immediately. You can't wait till the morning

43:31

once kind of the snow has accumulated to

43:33

really plow. So at

43:35

2.30, a snow plow driver is

43:37

plowing because that's when the snow

43:39

is fresh and that way you

43:41

don't have to plow feet of

43:43

snow later. And he

43:46

will say as he plows near this

43:48

house, he did not

43:50

notice a body lying in the

43:52

yard. Now you would think that

43:54

the plow driver is keeping his eyes on the

43:56

road, that his job is to plow the

43:58

snow. So he's very aware, unlike maybe

44:01

the guests who are leaving at 1.30 or

44:03

2. Things to think about in

44:05

terms of credibility and who you believe. And one other

44:07

thing I'll point out about this, and we'll see whether

44:09

or not this comes to fruition.

44:11

This is what the defense says is

44:14

going to happen. But if the timing is correct

44:16

here, then that means that

44:18

John is not in the

44:20

snow at 2.30, which would

44:22

also mean that you would believe that

44:25

when Jen McCabe searched

44:27

that, this was a very premeditated

44:29

act. They

44:31

are going to put John out there

44:33

in the cold sometime after the snowplow

44:36

goes by for the purpose of killing

44:38

him. So this wasn't a, they

44:41

beat him up and threw him out of the

44:43

house. And then he stumbled and collapsed in the

44:45

snow and died. This is, we're going to

44:47

kill him. How long does it take to

44:49

die in the snow? Okay, that seems good. Let's throw

44:51

him in the snow. I mean, that's essentially, I think

44:53

what you have to believe is happening here. I'll just

44:55

tell you, the snowplow drivers in Boston, I

44:58

mean, they pay attention to like cars on the

45:00

side of the road for the purpose of either

45:02

running into those cars on purpose or covering them

45:05

in snow. But I don't know how observant

45:08

they actually are of anything else. So we'll

45:10

see what ends up being testified to about

45:12

this. But it's an interesting point in the timeline.

45:15

At 4.53 AM, O'Keefe's niece, the

45:19

one that he's the guardian of,

45:21

called Jennifer McCabe. Karen, she said,

45:24

was distraught. John had never

45:26

come home and he wasn't answering his

45:28

cell phone. In fact, Karen was screaming,

45:31

John didn't come home. We had a fight.

45:34

So this is clearly the middle of the night.

45:36

She's 14, probably.

45:38

I'm going to guess that she's typically not awake

45:40

at 4.53 AM. She's probably

45:42

woken up by the distraughtness of Karen

45:44

screaming. He didn't come home. We

45:47

had a fight. And so

45:49

she's trying to seek answers, reaching out to a

45:51

friend who may have been with him that night

45:53

to try and find out what's going on. At

45:55

5 AM, Karen calls another friend,

45:58

Carrie Roberts, and says, will

56:00

text a friend, he's dead. As

56:03

the day continued, the police are

56:05

searching through mounds of growing snow

56:07

during this ongoing blizzard. They

56:10

will find a broken cocktail glass

56:13

and pieces of taillight at the

56:15

scene. They also find a shoe

56:17

matching the one that John was

56:19

missing. According to the prosecution, the

56:21

taillight pieces will later be found

56:23

to have John's DNA on them.

56:25

After the snow melts some more,

56:27

even more taillight pieces will be

56:29

found. According to the defense, these

56:32

pieces were planted to help bolster

56:36

this case. The DNA, there

56:38

will be accusations by the

56:40

defense that essentially evidence

56:42

that was collected during this period was collected

56:44

in a way that would not have secured

56:47

that evidence and would have allowed someone if

56:49

they so desired to plant

56:51

DNA on these pieces of

56:54

taillight and on Karen's SUV.

56:57

One thing to note here is that these

57:00

taillight pieces are found really

57:03

within hours of when

57:05

you think, let's

57:07

go back to about midnight, 1230 when Karen

57:09

drives away. So really within six hours. So

57:12

if there was a conspiracy to

57:16

make it look like Karen was the one who

57:18

hit him with a car, this all had to

57:20

be fabricated pretty early on because we, yes, we

57:22

know that taillight pieces were found later on when

57:24

the snow melts, but there's also taillight pieces found

57:27

at the time of this blizzard. Those of you

57:29

who've been through a blizzard know that this is

57:31

no joke. When there is a blizzard and there's

57:33

snow literally rising and covering up things, that is

57:35

not an environment I would like to have to

57:38

search. So the fact that they found

57:40

anything at all honestly is kind of amazing

57:43

because this snow is still coming down

57:45

at the time. So I'm

57:47

not saying conspiracy is not possible, but think of the

57:49

timeline in which this had to happen. This wasn't something

57:51

that kind of came to fruition

57:53

a couple of days later. This had to have been

57:56

done basically at the same time that whoever you think

57:58

planted the body had to be killed. plant these pieces

58:00

at the same time. Yeah.

58:02

And like the broken cocktail glass was

58:04

found very early on. And

58:07

we know for a fact that John

58:09

left the bar with the cocktail glass.

58:12

And yeah, I mean, the wheels

58:14

had to start turning pretty soon. Basically

58:16

what you have to think is happening is while he's

58:18

laying out there in the snow, calls

58:21

are being made, texts are being made,

58:23

whatever, to various people in various organizations

58:26

to begin this cover up, to call in a

58:28

lot of favors. To

58:30

make this happen. And then either

58:32

at the time or subsequently, additional

58:34

people are added into this conspiracy,

58:36

including first responders, members of the

58:38

fire department to bolster

58:41

what's going on here. And you'll see that

58:43

as we go through the witnesses, there

58:46

are a ton of them. And the prosecution made

58:48

a very conscious decision about how to present

58:50

their evidence. They're doing it in chronological, basically.

58:52

So the first few witnesses,

58:54

the first lot of witnesses are

58:56

the scene. So

58:59

you see initially it's all the people at

59:01

the scene who were showing up, finding

59:04

the body, the first responders, the police on the

59:06

scene, you know what I mean? Those people, they

59:08

are the initial witnesses. And then they sort of

59:10

go back a little bit to that night and

59:12

they're calling people who were at the bar and

59:14

they were calling people who were at the Albert's

59:16

house and they're going to move

59:18

through it like that. And every single one

59:20

of these witnesses on cross, the

59:22

defense is starting to try and build

59:25

this theme that somehow. These

59:27

people were involved in this conspiracy. It's

59:29

a fascinating thing to watch. And if

59:31

you are not watching this trial, it

59:33

is worth watching. And in, unlike

59:35

some trials, it is televised. So you can watch

59:37

every single second of it if you want to.

59:39

So at 9 0 8 a.m. Reed's

59:42

blood is drawn. She's actually, we're going

59:44

to talk about this some, but she's,

59:46

she's saying things that some

59:48

members of her family and some police officers think

59:51

may be suicidal. So she's

59:54

actually in, we'll

59:56

have the exact term when we get to the

59:58

witnesses, but basically a mental health hold. put on

1:00:00

her, she's taken to the hospital. In addition to

1:00:02

other things, her blood is drum. Her

1:00:05

blood alcohol level at the time is .07 to .08. So

1:00:09

she is legally drunk at the time

1:00:11

of this. It's nine o'clock in the

1:00:13

morning. It's like eight hours after she

1:00:15

leaves the Albert home. Right,

1:00:18

and according to a witness who is going

1:00:20

to sort of do this backwards, right? I

1:00:22

mean, which is an inexact science. But if

1:00:24

she stops drinking at that

1:00:27

point, so she drops John off, goes

1:00:29

home and goes to bed, that would

1:00:31

put her BAC at between .13 and

1:00:33

.29 around

1:00:36

the time of the supposed strike. Like

1:00:39

I said, that's a huge range.

1:00:42

And it is a testament to how

1:00:44

your body processes alcohol and how everyone

1:00:46

is different in how they process alcohol,

1:00:49

that that range is so massive. Now,

1:00:51

Karen, she's not a big person. She's

1:00:53

a woman. Typically, women

1:00:56

don't process alcohol or handle alcohol as

1:00:59

well as men. Not saying that

1:01:01

there aren't women out there can drink men under the

1:01:03

table, absolutely. Don't be offended. But because

1:01:05

of sort of her body type, you would expect that

1:01:08

if she drank as much as the prosecution's gonna

1:01:10

say, that number is probably closer to .29 than

1:01:12

it is to .13. I

1:01:16

mean, it's striking alone that eight hours

1:01:18

after she last left the house, she

1:01:20

is still legally drunk. That

1:01:23

is the fact we have. So

1:01:26

of course, there's going to be an autopsy done on

1:01:28

John's body. And on January 31st, the

1:01:30

autopsy finds that John died of

1:01:32

blunt impact injuries to the head

1:01:35

with hypothermia as a contributing factor.

1:01:38

The medical examiner finds no obvious signs

1:01:40

of an altercation or fight though. On

1:01:43

February 2nd, 2022, just a couple of days after

1:01:46

the autopsy comes back, Karen is

1:01:48

charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide,

1:01:50

and leaving the scene of a

1:01:52

motor vehicle collision. Four days later

1:01:54

on February 6th, hundreds

1:01:56

of officers lined the streets for

1:01:59

O'Keefe's funeral which is also attended

1:02:01

by the mayor of Boston, Michelle

1:02:03

Wu. So he has served on

1:02:05

the force for 16 years. He

1:02:08

is seemingly a

1:02:10

very well-liked man in his community,

1:02:12

within his workplace. And it is

1:02:14

not unusual, of course, when a

1:02:16

fellow officer is fallen, that you

1:02:18

pay your respects by

1:02:20

lining the streets, attending, et cetera.

1:02:24

And this one really draws out everyone. He doesn't

1:02:26

die in the line of duty, but he dies

1:02:28

kind of in his prime. He is a young

1:02:30

man. He's only 46 years old, he's

1:02:32

already served on the force for 16 years. And

1:02:35

this draws a lot of attention, of

1:02:37

course, to Karen Reed, who just days

1:02:39

earlier had been charged with his death.

1:02:41

On June 10th, 2022, Karen is indicted.

1:02:46

So she was charged previously, right,

1:02:48

with the manslaughter, motor vehicle charges,

1:02:51

essentially. These charges are

1:02:54

essentially elevated to a higher

1:02:56

crime on June 10th when

1:02:58

she's indicted on second-degree murder,

1:03:00

manslaughter while under the influence

1:03:02

and leaving the scene. This

1:03:05

is not that unusual. We've

1:03:07

talked about this before, especially when

1:03:09

you have enough evidence to charge

1:03:11

something, like it's clear something has

1:03:14

happened. Then you can go ahead

1:03:16

and charge the lower crime and as your

1:03:18

investigation progresses, the autopsies come back, et cetera,

1:03:20

et cetera. You read text messages, you get,

1:03:22

and you think you can charge something higher

1:03:24

and prove it. You can come

1:03:26

back and enhance those charges. And that's exactly

1:03:28

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And you got to remember the

1:08:07

grand jury is hearing the prosecution's

1:08:09

story without the benefit of

1:08:11

the defense story. And

1:08:13

I mean, I think everyone could

1:08:16

agree that the prosecution's story without

1:08:18

the conspiracy, if you

1:08:20

assume the police are not planning evidence, if you

1:08:22

assume you can believe the first responders, you

1:08:25

can see why the grand jury would reach

1:08:27

the conclusion it did. Obviously that

1:08:29

is going to be disputed at trial and that's what

1:08:32

we're talking about now. Initially,

1:08:34

the defense's position is kind of what

1:08:36

we said earlier. It's like, look, this

1:08:39

is horrible. They vastly overcharged her. This was

1:08:41

an accident. She didn't even know she hit

1:08:43

him. Said sort of that line of things.

1:08:47

But by May of 2023, that story has changed.

1:08:51

Nell Reed's defense team is alleging that

1:08:53

in fact, John was involved in a

1:08:56

fight inside the Albert home. After

1:08:59

he was beaten, his former friends dumped his

1:09:01

body in their front yard. The

1:09:04

defense even claims, as we said earlier, that

1:09:06

the wounds to John's arm were created by

1:09:08

an attack by the Albert's dog, Chloe. The

1:09:11

defense will claim, quote, that every

1:09:14

single one of the

1:09:16

people in the house that night, including Brian

1:09:19

Albert, Jennifer McKay, various other

1:09:21

people were involved in John's

1:09:23

murder and coverup in some

1:09:26

way. The coverup also

1:09:28

included the Canton police department,

1:09:31

first responders, people

1:09:33

in the state police, a vast

1:09:35

swath of people in Canton are

1:09:37

involved in this. The

1:09:39

reason for this is because the Alberts

1:09:41

were pillars of this community and if

1:09:43

they needed help, the community was going

1:09:45

to come together and help them to

1:09:48

Karen Reed's detriment because she was an

1:09:50

outsider. She was not part of this

1:09:53

community. But one thing in

1:09:55

this change story from the defense, we're hearing a

1:09:57

lot about who is doing the

1:09:59

conspiring. But you may all be thinking,

1:10:01

what is the mayor of Boston who showed up to the

1:10:03

funeral have to do with this? A city

1:10:05

select councilman, you know, people who ran

1:10:08

campaigns for them. Who

1:10:10

is John O'Keefe? Why

1:10:13

is the entire city of Canton conspiring

1:10:16

to kill him? That is

1:10:18

not something we've heard yet back in

1:10:20

May 2023. And that's an important question

1:10:22

to ask because kind of like in

1:10:24

the Adnan case, conspiracies exist. We're not

1:10:26

saying people are not capable of conspiracies.

1:10:29

But I think an important counter, kind

1:10:32

of part of the story is why?

1:10:34

Why all of this conspiracy

1:10:36

for this particular person? Yeah. And

1:10:39

I think it's a really good point. Alice

1:10:41

has put her finger on and it's something

1:10:43

to remember. The reason the defense will say

1:10:45

is because the Alberts were cops and

1:10:47

cops protect cops. But the weird

1:10:49

thing about this conspiracy, John's a

1:10:51

cop too. And cops

1:10:53

don't like it when cops get killed. And

1:10:56

you would think there would at least be

1:10:59

divided loyalties in the various police departments and

1:11:01

state police and everywhere else. And some people

1:11:03

who really wanted John to

1:11:06

get justice, even if it meant

1:11:08

another cop was going to go down because he

1:11:10

killed him. But you have to believe

1:11:12

that, that this really is sort of, they

1:11:14

had to pick. You know, John's dead. It's sort

1:11:17

of one of those, look, he's already dead. We

1:11:19

can't do anything for him. We'll honor him at a

1:11:21

funeral. We'll all show up in our dress blues and

1:11:24

march down the streets of Boston. But

1:11:26

then we got to protect our other

1:11:29

police officer friend. Even though he's responsible

1:11:31

for John's death, we have to protect

1:11:33

him. And if that means framing an

1:11:35

innocent woman, so be it. We

1:11:37

have to do that. And that's sort of what

1:11:39

you have to believe. And at the same time

1:11:41

that the defense is coming out with this, a

1:11:43

blogger named Aiden Kearney, who had to his credit

1:11:46

done some good work on uncovering

1:11:48

police corruption through his postings on Turtle

1:11:50

Boy News. Was

1:11:52

engaged in what he would describe as an

1:11:54

attempt to uncover this conspiracy against Karen Reed.

1:11:57

The prosecution didn't see it

1:11:59

that way saying that. that instead

1:12:01

Kearney was harassing and intimidating witnesses.

1:12:03

He'd eventually be arrested on October 11th, 2023 and charged

1:12:05

with at least 16

1:12:08

felony charges related to these claims.

1:12:10

Things would get worse for Kearney

1:12:13

when his bail was revoked over

1:12:15

charges. He had assaulted his ex-girlfriend.

1:12:17

He'd spend two months in jail

1:12:19

until released. Again, for his part,

1:12:21

Kearney claims he is the victim

1:12:23

of persecution for exercising his first

1:12:25

amendment rights. He has been attending

1:12:27

the trial to some extent. I

1:12:29

believe he's excluded whenever someone testifies

1:12:31

that he's accused of harassing and

1:12:34

he's been in there. Otherwise there have

1:12:36

been accusations that he's doing things like filming

1:12:38

the jury and other stuff, no idea if

1:12:40

any of that's true. He

1:12:42

has a very controversial figure.

1:12:45

So on March 12th,

1:12:47

2024, the defense claimed,

1:12:50

and this is like a weird, just curve

1:12:52

ball in all this case, which has led

1:12:54

to some really great conspiracy theories. The

1:12:57

defense claimed that the FBI working as

1:12:59

part of a federal investigation into the

1:13:01

Karen Reed case concluded that the damage

1:13:04

to the SUV was inconsistent with hitting

1:13:06

John's body. And this would become sort

1:13:08

of a thing in this case, that

1:13:10

in fact, the FBI and the US

1:13:12

attorney's office in Massachusetts was

1:13:15

investigating this case from a different angle

1:13:17

that at any moment, the FBI was

1:13:19

going to show up in the courtroom

1:13:22

and arrest everyone that maybe the trial

1:13:24

itself. Was actually a front

1:13:27

to get all these people to

1:13:29

go on the stand and purge of themselves and then they're

1:13:31

all going to be arrested for perjury. And then this case

1:13:33

is going to be removed to federal court. Just some wild

1:13:35

stuff. I'm not exactly sure what

1:13:37

all is going on with the FBI and the US attorney's

1:13:39

office, but one thing I can say for certain is the

1:13:43

FBI is not going to raid this trial. It's

1:13:45

not the way this goes. So you can put

1:13:47

that aside, but it's funny because at one point

1:13:50

this trial is constantly interrupted by sirens because

1:13:52

it's near, I don't know if it's near

1:13:54

the police station or what, where the courthouse

1:13:56

is, but there was a while where

1:13:59

every time there was a siren. People would be like,

1:14:01

is that it? Is this, it's FBI? Are they here?

1:14:03

Are they raiding the courthouse? Not going

1:14:05

to happen. Let me just tell you, the FBI, for

1:14:08

some reason, that was going to happen. The

1:14:10

FBI would like to talk to the judge and

1:14:13

be like, this is what's going to go down.

1:14:15

We're not going to call the entire press and

1:14:17

the gallery in and all the jurors who are

1:14:19

like innocent bystanders. We're not going to have this

1:14:22

public takedown where all these innocent people will be

1:14:24

at risk, right? When you have a takedown, those

1:14:27

are, you try to control those environments

1:14:29

as much as possible. That's why takedowns

1:14:31

of America's Most Wanted don't happen in

1:14:33

crowded restaurants. They happen at the person's

1:14:35

home at 3 AM to catch them

1:14:37

surprised. So I'm just giving you a

1:14:39

little bit of background. I'm not giving

1:14:41

great state secrets over here. It's just

1:14:43

the truth. There is no way, if

1:14:45

there was a takedown, the FBI would

1:14:47

do it in a room full of

1:14:49

innocent citizens. Not to mention, can you

1:14:52

imagine a plan where we're

1:14:54

going to let this woman be tried for

1:14:56

murder? And then at some point in

1:14:58

the middle of the trial, that's when we're going to

1:15:00

spring our trap. That's

1:15:03

something, particularly given that all these people have already testified in

1:15:05

front of grand jury. So if you were going to get

1:15:07

in for perjury, you can already get in for perjury because

1:15:09

it does find grand jury, but I

1:15:12

don't know. We'll see what happens, I guess. Maybe I'll be

1:15:14

proven wrong. I guess we're just,

1:15:16

we're being cold water prosecutors already. It's

1:15:18

just some of these things. This is damaging, right? We

1:15:22

shouldn't be watching a trial waiting for the FBI

1:15:24

to bust in and arrest everybody or like have

1:15:26

a shoot down because guess what? You're not

1:15:28

going to arrest people about guns. This is what

1:15:30

I mean when I say they're not going to

1:15:33

put all these innocent lives at risk because entire

1:15:35

SWAT teams come in with massive artillery to

1:15:37

protect the FBI when they do a takedown. It's

1:15:39

not going to happen in this courthouse. Nothing

1:15:42

couldn't happen in general. It's just not going to happen

1:15:45

in the middle of trial. On

1:15:47

March 13th, Massachusetts State Police opened

1:15:49

an internal investigation into trooper Michael

1:15:51

Proctor, someone we noted earlier was

1:15:53

the lead investigator on the Karen

1:15:55

Reed case. The police

1:15:57

do not say what prompted this investigation. and

1:16:00

he remains on full duty, which probably means

1:16:03

it's still pending, that they haven't concluded

1:16:05

anything yet. The defense would

1:16:08

allege that Proctor hid personal ties to

1:16:10

people involved in the case. Now

1:16:13

Proctor did send a lot of text

1:16:15

messages and unfortunately you never want

1:16:17

to be part of a

1:16:19

case that you're investigating or prosecuting, but

1:16:21

his text messages become a major part

1:16:24

of Karen Reed's case. In

1:16:27

April, the court denies both a defense's

1:16:29

motion to dismiss and a prosecution

1:16:31

motion to prevent Karen Reed's defense from

1:16:33

making the some other dude did it

1:16:36

defense. So kind

1:16:38

of a loss and a win for

1:16:40

either side, right? You would expect the defense to file

1:16:43

a motion to dismiss, essentially saying she hasn't

1:16:46

been properly charged, there's not enough evidence, all

1:16:48

these things, we don't even go to trial

1:16:50

judge, just kick it out on the papers.

1:16:52

Judge said, no, that's not surprising by the

1:16:54

way. These types of cases, very rarely, there's

1:16:57

going to be a defect

1:16:59

in the indictment for the motion to dismiss to

1:17:02

succeed. Shout out

1:17:04

to legal briefs, by the way. Another

1:17:06

dude did it defense. The Saudi defense,

1:17:08

some other dude did it. And you

1:17:10

should listen to

1:17:12

it as well. Our other podcast where we talk

1:17:14

about the some other dude did it defense, because

1:17:17

some of you have asked before, when

1:17:19

can you as a defense

1:17:21

argue, he did it, somebody did it, doesn't

1:17:24

matter who, just not me. Well,

1:17:27

you can't just assert these things that there's no evidence. And so that's

1:17:29

what the prosecution was trying to do here.

1:17:32

They knew that because of the kind of

1:17:34

public statements that the defense had made, they

1:17:36

were going to say that Karen Reed was

1:17:38

framed. So like the ultimate

1:17:40

some other dude did it, right? And

1:17:42

so they tried to seek to keep it

1:17:45

out and say there wasn't evidence to suggest

1:17:47

that type of theory. The judge said, no,

1:17:49

I'll allow it. After those two major

1:17:51

rulings, which was a loss and a win

1:17:53

for both sides, April

1:17:55

29th of this year, the

1:17:58

trial began news

1:18:00

as of us recording this first episode. Yeah.

1:18:03

And we're in June, so that just gives you

1:18:05

an idea. It's a long trial. How long this

1:18:07

trial has been going. As we speak, the prosecution

1:18:09

is still presenting its case. The

1:18:11

defense says it's going to have a case. So

1:18:14

this one could be going on for quite some

1:18:16

time. We're going to try and be with you

1:18:18

the whole time. Case

1:18:20

will probably be decided before we finish up, but we'll

1:18:22

tell you at the end what we think should have

1:18:24

happened and we'll tell you what we think actually happened

1:18:27

that night. And look, I think this is,

1:18:29

this is an interesting case. I mean, I

1:18:31

will be completely frank with you. As

1:18:34

I have said before, when you make extraordinary

1:18:36

claims, I need extraordinary evidence. So if I'm

1:18:39

going to believe the coverup, I'm

1:18:41

going to need to see a lot from the defense over these

1:18:43

next few weeks to prove that to

1:18:45

me, the better question I think

1:18:47

is the weird thing about

1:18:49

this is I want to say, can they get

1:18:51

to reasonable doubt, but the way that offense has

1:18:53

structured their defense, you almost either have to believe

1:18:56

that Karen did it and she's guilty. Or

1:18:58

that the conspiracy is true. Like they haven't left

1:19:00

a whole lot of room in the middle. There

1:19:03

is still room in the middle. You could have

1:19:05

a jury that says, look, we thought the defense

1:19:07

was full of crap, but when we looked at

1:19:09

what the prosecution put on, they didn't meet their

1:19:11

burden. That would be a really savvy, good jury.

1:19:13

I mean, that would be a jury that really

1:19:16

understands its role. Usually

1:19:18

when the defense is leading you down a

1:19:20

certain path, it's the jury is going

1:19:22

to either follow that path or they're going to go with

1:19:24

prosecution. So we'll have to see what happens. It'd

1:19:26

be fascinating to see. I think there's a

1:19:29

lot of really interesting stuff between Karen Reed

1:19:31

committed second degree murder, which

1:19:34

as we talked about before was

1:19:36

second degree murder, second degree murder

1:19:38

is not first degree murder because

1:19:40

first degree murder requires premeditation. So

1:19:43

that you have to decide you're going

1:19:45

to kill someone and make it happen.

1:19:49

It is worse than manslaughter,

1:19:51

which involves negligence or some

1:19:53

sort of. Gross negligence.

1:19:55

It's in the sort of fuzzy gray

1:19:57

area where you do something that.

1:20:00

you should have known was

1:20:03

incredibly dangerous and you do it anyway. So

1:20:05

the example people often use is firing a

1:20:07

gun into a crowded room. You're not trying

1:20:09

to hit anybody, you don't care if you

1:20:12

hit anybody, you certainly not aiming at anyone,

1:20:14

but it's such a dangerous thing to do.

1:20:16

It's such a reckless disregard for human life

1:20:19

that if you do hit someone we're going

1:20:21

to punish you worse than just manslaughter. In

1:20:23

this case I think what you would have

1:20:25

to believe is that Karen

1:20:27

Reid did not intend necessarily to

1:20:30

hit John or maybe she

1:20:32

did intend to hit John but she did

1:20:34

not intend to kill him but she hit

1:20:37

him on purpose or she left him in

1:20:39

the snow on purpose and

1:20:42

then drove away and that that action was

1:20:44

such a reckless disregard for his life that

1:20:46

when he then subsequently died she was guilty

1:20:48

of the crime. I think that's what you

1:20:50

have to believe to get to second degree

1:20:53

murder. There are sort of lesser included here.

1:20:55

The lesser charge of

1:20:58

manslaughter due to intoxication is basically this was

1:21:00

an accident, she was really drunk, she hit

1:21:02

him, probably didn't even realize she hit him,

1:21:04

drove home. The left the

1:21:06

scene of an accident is sort of the same thing.

1:21:08

If she was so drunk she didn't realize it, that's

1:21:11

enough to get there. She doesn't have to have intended

1:21:13

to leave it. So there's sort

1:21:15

of gradations of what you could see here.

1:21:18

You could see the prosecution winning a clean

1:21:20

sweep, losing a clean sweep, or something

1:21:23

in the middle and we'll be

1:21:25

with you every step of the way. Okay

1:21:27

Alice, before we do a question tonight, is

1:21:29

there anything else you want to say about

1:21:31

this case? There's a lot

1:21:33

to say but we'll leave it at the first episode

1:21:36

because there really is a lot more to say

1:21:38

but I hope you are hearing our

1:21:40

skepticism not necessarily. Look there's a lot more to

1:21:42

the trial to come. There are a lot more

1:21:44

people to testify but these are questions that you

1:21:46

should be asking all along the way. You should

1:21:49

have skepticism as you listen to these witnesses. A

1:21:51

lot of people say, well wait until you hear

1:21:53

all the evidence. No, it's completely okay to ask

1:21:55

these questions as you are presented with the evidence

1:21:58

and it's something that you should do.

1:22:00

and it's part of critical thinking along the way.

1:22:02

So these questions that we have may be answered

1:22:04

by subsequent testimony in the trial. It doesn't mean

1:22:06

we shouldn't be asking them now. So

1:22:09

don't view trials as, well, I have

1:22:11

to just accept everything that's told to

1:22:13

me and sit back until I hear

1:22:15

all the evidence at once. No, your

1:22:17

ability to reason and critically

1:22:19

think isn't suspended just because

1:22:22

the full evidence hasn't been

1:22:24

presented. If something smells funny

1:22:26

as someone's testifying, that's okay to point

1:22:28

out. And if that question's not

1:22:30

answered at the end, then that's a problem. That

1:22:32

goes to the credibility of whether you should believe

1:22:34

that witness and that line of argument. Yeah,

1:22:37

I'm just gonna agree with everything Alice just

1:22:39

said. And once again, not to dwell on

1:22:41

this, but ordinarily the defense has no burden.

1:22:44

The defense cannot ask, they can choose not to ask

1:22:46

a single question of any witness. They

1:22:48

can choose not to put on a single witness.

1:22:50

They can choose to waive their opening and their

1:22:52

close. They can do all

1:22:54

those things and still the defendant be acquitted.

1:22:57

The prosecution doesn't meet their burden. And

1:22:59

I'm not trying to burden shift here. I'm not trying

1:23:01

to put a burden on the defense, but the defense

1:23:03

in a real way has taken on

1:23:05

a burden here. I was gonna say they created

1:23:08

their own burden. They really did. You know, we

1:23:10

always say in opening statements that essentially what you're

1:23:12

doing is you're building the shelf. You get to

1:23:14

build the shelf as the prosecution and the defense.

1:23:16

It could be a T-shaped shelf. It could be

1:23:19

a round shelf. It could be a shelf with

1:23:21

no shelves. You actually get to

1:23:23

decide what the story will look like and

1:23:25

what that shelf is going to do is

1:23:27

hold the evidence you're going to present. When

1:23:30

I say no shelves, I mean, you don't

1:23:32

have to present any evidence. That's completely valid.

1:23:34

You can present an invisible shelf as

1:23:37

the defense and say simply, there's no

1:23:39

evidence, period. That is

1:23:41

actually a very, very common

1:23:43

strategy. But what they've

1:23:45

done, the defense by saying, Karen

1:23:47

Reed was framed within the first sentence of the

1:23:49

opening statement, is to

1:23:51

build a very complex shelf

1:23:54

with a lot of intricacies that they have

1:23:56

to fill with evidence by their own words.

1:23:58

That's not burden to me. shifting that's them building

1:24:00

a shelf that they're going to have to now fill

1:24:02

okay we can't wait to hear what you guys think

1:24:05

about this case you've been asking for us to do

1:24:07

this case we're gonna do it I know this case

1:24:09

is incredibly divisive

1:24:12

and that's fine half of you are gonna hate us

1:24:14

when we finish it hopefully half of you still love

1:24:16

us I don't know our goal is to lose all

1:24:18

our listeners at some point so that's just what we're

1:24:20

trying to do we try to be divisive we don't

1:24:22

we try to be divisive all the time so yeah

1:24:24

I mean at least you know we're not just telling

1:24:26

you what you want to hear so be

1:24:28

with us stick with us let us

1:24:30

know what you think at prosecutors pod

1:24:32

for all your social media prosecutors pod@gmail.com

1:24:35

if you want to send us an

1:24:37

email go to prosecutors podcast our website

1:24:39

for various things of randomness including a

1:24:41

lot of links look great cover to

1:24:43

this case the Boston Globe been

1:24:45

doing yeoman's work on this really

1:24:47

excellent stuff great resource

1:24:50

you can watch every single episode

1:24:52

episode day of trial

1:24:54

which seemed like episodes on

1:24:57

YouTube of various different sources

1:24:59

do it go to the source as we always say because I

1:25:01

will tell you this is a case where

1:25:04

having watched a lot of this trial we're gonna tell

1:25:06

you how this goes and

1:25:08

we're gonna tell you what witnesses say credibility

1:25:10

in this one matters so much and hearing

1:25:13

these people tell the story it is so

1:25:15

different from reading it on the

1:25:17

dry page or on Twitter or wherever you are so

1:25:19

if you really want to know don't

1:25:21

listen to us watch the trial

1:25:23

so but also listen to us because we

1:25:26

like it when you listen us thank you

1:25:28

to our patrons so glad you guys are here tonight hope

1:25:30

you'll be with us throughout this case

1:25:32

okay all that all the business aside

1:25:35

let's do a question we've run a little long so

1:25:37

we'll do one but we'll do one this

1:25:40

is a good one okay so

1:25:43

this is from Missy Lexi

1:25:45

and Missy Lexi wants to know Allison

1:25:48

Brett if you could have any animal

1:25:50

in the world as a pet what

1:25:53

would it be we're going through this fight right now

1:25:56

with my kids They've

1:26:00

asked for a rattlesnake. They've

1:26:02

asked for a manatee. The

1:26:06

list can go on. Let

1:26:08

me just say, that question kind of hits a sensitive nerve

1:26:10

because I've said no to a lot of animals

1:26:13

that I say we cannot have. First

1:26:15

of all, because a lot of them would be illegal

1:26:17

to have. So I'm not just a mean person. But

1:26:19

I'm a dog lover. I'm a dog lover. I

1:26:22

was going to say. I love dogs. There's

1:26:24

nothing else I want. I want dogs. Dogs

1:26:26

are the best. They are the actual best.

1:26:28

I think people, okay, number one,

1:26:30

I think if I'm,

1:26:32

if I want an animal that's not a dog, then

1:26:34

we're going to have to create miniaturization. If I

1:26:37

can have a miniature elephant or

1:26:39

a miniature giraffe, I'm

1:26:41

talking like a little, like what I can hold in my hand,

1:26:43

that would be pretty cool. But

1:26:45

otherwise, if it's in the realm of,

1:26:47

of actual animals, give me a dog. You

1:26:50

know, 10,000 years, dogs and mankind have

1:26:53

been together like fighting together to survive

1:26:55

in this harsh world. We love each

1:26:57

other for a reason. There's no connection

1:27:00

like between men and dogs.

1:27:02

Like they are our best friends for a

1:27:05

reason and do not shun them for

1:27:07

some other animal. That would be cool to have a cheetah. A cheetah

1:27:09

would be fun. But I want a dog. I'm going with the dog.

1:27:13

Yeah. Glad we agree. Okay.

1:27:17

Well, now that we've brought

1:27:19

everybody together before tearing everyone

1:27:21

asunder, we'll go ahead

1:27:23

and say good night for

1:27:25

now. But we will be back next

1:27:28

week. Probably there'll have been at

1:27:30

least two days of trial between now and then. Next

1:27:33

week with more on this

1:27:35

case. But until then, I'm

1:27:38

Brett. And I'm Alice. And

1:27:41

we are the prosecutors. I'm

1:28:00

going live. I'm going live. Oh,

1:28:02

the things that people don't hear you

1:28:04

say. I'm going live. Going live.

1:28:07

We're doing it live. We're doing it live.

1:28:09

Going live. Doing it live. Woo woo. Doing

1:28:12

it live. Someone has to murder Joe first so

1:28:14

we can cover. Oh

1:28:19

my goodness. Oh

1:28:21

my goodness. Anyways.

1:28:23

Okay. You ready?

1:28:25

You want to just. Heck yeah. Let's

1:28:28

do this. Let's elevate this. Let's elevate

1:28:30

it. Let's elevate it. There you go. Sorry

1:28:33

guys. Inside joke. Okay.

1:29:28

Okay. Thank

1:29:38

you Mallory for recognizing I am my

1:29:40

own greatest fan for jokes. If

1:29:45

you don't laugh at your own jokes, you

1:29:48

know, double the fun you can

1:29:50

tell it and laugh at it. The word I'm

1:29:52

going to use to describe you.

1:29:54

It's not a pun, but it is more

1:29:56

related to the case than to say don't

1:29:59

be insulted. It's

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