The Megyn Kelly Show - Breaking Down Every Angle of the Karen Read Case and Trials： Crime Week Begins, with Peter Tragos ｜ Ep. 1218

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00:00:25.960 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:40.040 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly and welcome to Crime Week here on The Megyn Kelly Show,

00:00:45.200 or as we like to call it, True Crime Christmas, because nothing says Christmas like true crime.

00:00:50.140 All week we are bringing you deep dives on some big legal cases you likely know well

00:00:54.800 and others you might not know much about.

00:00:57.160 We're talking to a lawyer, a private eye, the woman at the center of a shocking fraud case,

00:01:01.460 and our good pal Maureen Callahan on a serial killer case she covered extensively.

00:01:06.840 But we begin Crime Week with a crime and trial that has captivated the country for years now.

00:01:13.480 Karen Reed's courtroom drama has sparked intense debate,

00:01:17.220 raised questions about police conduct, and fueled fierce divisions online.

00:01:21.360 And the legal saga is far from over.

00:01:23.880 In fact, there is a new development just this month, not just one, actually more.

00:01:29.580 Peter Tragos, attorney and host of The Lawyer You Know on YouTube, he's so good on this.

00:01:34.920 He's covered every twist and turn of this case.

00:01:37.340 You will love listening to this conversation, and he joins me right now.

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00:02:43.860 So let's just start back at the beginning for people who may not be as up to speed on this case as you are.

00:02:49.260 Karen Reed was who?

00:02:51.660 She's living her private life in Massachusetts.

00:02:53.600 Who was she before all this happened to her?

00:02:56.080 She was a single woman dating a law enforcement officer, had a great job in finance,

00:03:02.460 and her family was a close-knit family, loved each other for all intents and purposes.

00:03:07.220 When she reconnected with this boyfriend who was an officer, and they go out for a night on the town,

00:03:14.120 they had a bit of a tumultuous relationship.

00:03:16.500 And then that night, after some drinking at the bar, hanging out with a bunch of friends,

00:03:21.220 everything changed forever.

00:03:22.140 So the prosecution, which would ultimately be charging her,

00:03:28.460 alleges that they left this bar, they drove over to a friend's house, another cop,

00:03:35.840 and that her boyfriend got out of the car, that he then walked up to the front door of the friend's house,

00:03:47.780 and went, sorry, this is what she alleges. 0.99

00:03:52.000 She alleges he went to the front door of the house, he went inside, and something terrible happened to him.

00:03:57.180 The prosecution said, no, he got out of your car, he never made it inside, because you ran him over.

00:04:04.400 You backed up into him at something like 24 miles an hour, hurting him, casting him into the snowbank,

00:04:13.000 where he then later died from blunt trauma and hypothermia.

00:04:16.920 Is that the basics?

00:04:18.580 Yeah, I mean, it turns on what happened after they got to 34 Fairview.

00:04:23.080 Everybody's basically on the same page.

00:04:24.680 They went to a couple bars, they were hanging out together, they were drinking together.

00:04:28.320 Karen Reed is driving her Lexus, nobody disputes that.

00:04:30.980 John O'Keefe, who was her boyfriend and the victim in this case, sitting in the front seat.

00:04:34.820 They drive to 34 Fairview to hang out with the McCabes and the Alberts,

00:04:38.640 who are all connected to law enforcement and connected to people in Canton.

00:04:43.060 She drops him off, he gets out of the car.

00:04:44.660 There also seems to be third-party witness testimony that he gets out of the car.

00:04:48.640 After that, that's where the stories kind of turn.

00:04:52.120 If you believe the prosecution and the witnesses inside 34 Fairview, he never makes it inside the house.

00:04:57.340 She backs up, hits him with her Lexus because she's angry at him about, you know, a multitude of things,

00:05:02.300 and they're fighting, and she wanted to end his life, I guess, is their point of view.

00:05:06.900 If you believe Karen Reed, she said he walked in towards the house, she didn't see John O'Keefe again,

00:05:11.060 he stayed inside, he was supposed to come back out, kind of tell her what's going on.

00:05:15.080 She gets pissed off, drives back to his house, calls him, leaves him all these angry text messages,

00:05:19.880 and he never comes home.

00:05:21.080 That's Karen Reed's story. 0.84

00:05:22.520 Mm-hmm.

00:05:22.940 And it wasn't until the wee hours of the next morning, you know, like 5, 6 in the morning,

00:05:27.840 that she and another then start searching for him.

00:05:31.140 Like, what happened to him?

00:05:32.080 Where's John?

00:05:32.720 And, oh, wow, he's dead in the snowbank.

00:05:34.920 How'd that happen?

00:05:35.820 Now, there are two competing facts that I want to ask you about as I was just listening to this,

00:05:41.580 because I didn't follow this case as closely as you did at all, but as I was listening to it,

00:05:45.760 the best fact, well, there's two, that I think the prosecution has are as follows.

00:05:51.840 Number one, that she allegedly said, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, and that an emergency worker, 0.98

00:05:59.740 like a paramedic, heard that.

00:06:02.080 Now, she denies that, but you've got a third-party witness saying she said that.

00:06:06.860 So that's a very good fact for the prosecution.

00:06:09.120 And they also have tailgate plastic in his clothing, like from where her tailgate of her 0.99

00:06:17.660 Lexus hit him.

00:06:19.140 So it doesn't look like he got beaten up inside.

00:06:21.540 It looks like he got hit by her car.

00:06:23.740 Not just any car, but her car.

00:06:25.340 So those are very good facts for the prosecution.

00:06:27.100 On the other side, for Karen Reed, the best fact I saw for her defense, because, again,

00:06:34.540 her defense is, no, he walked into the house.

00:06:36.500 I didn't run him over.

00:06:37.240 He went into the house, and then there was some cop-on-cop violence.

00:06:42.200 Some old score got settled, and they beat him.

00:06:45.360 They beat him to death and then threw him in the snowbank and tried to say that I ran him over.

00:06:50.100 And the best evidence I saw for Karen Reed's theory was that someone inside that house

00:06:58.100 allegedly Googled something to the effect of how long can you be out in the snow before you die

00:07:05.840 before they found the body, before they found the body, you know, before she even had allegedly

00:07:13.460 hit him.

00:07:14.180 And that would certainly suggest the people inside the house were up to no good.

00:07:17.760 Now, at trial, they disputed that piece of testimony.

00:07:20.680 So can you walk us through that evidence?

00:07:23.400 Do I have, like, the best facts on both sides, or have I missed something critical?

00:07:27.560 Yeah, honestly, there's just so much.

00:07:28.840 So we'll go with what you're asking, because it's really fascinating for somebody who's kind

00:07:32.280 of followed it from a cursory point of view.

00:07:34.080 And maybe, you know, you've heard some of the highlights or seen some of the shows reporting

00:07:37.300 on it, because it was fascinating.

00:07:39.000 And it's really a case unlike any other I've tried personally myself or followed even, you

00:07:44.100 know, since I've been following these cases in the media.

00:07:46.320 And you've brought up some big points of contention.

00:07:49.340 And the prosecution absolutely pushed the I hit him comments as a confession.

00:07:54.780 That's what they continue to call it, a confession.

00:07:57.420 She confessed to law enforcement, to EMS, right there on the scene.

00:08:02.940 Karen Reed's team cross-examined those witnesses and said, if you had somebody that confessed,

00:08:07.280 why didn't she get arrested? 0.94

00:08:08.580 Why wasn't that immediately the investigation?

00:08:10.920 And they knew exactly what happened.

00:08:12.300 Why was there any unknown?

00:08:13.520 Why wasn't the investigation and the crime scene taken as they knew exactly what happened,

00:08:18.140 that she hit him with her Lexus?

00:08:19.800 And Karen Reed's team responds with, it was, did I hit him?

00:08:23.700 Could I have hit him?

00:08:24.780 Which there are some other people that say that could have been-

00:08:26.180 Stand by.

00:08:26.500 Let me just play that, because she spoke to Dateline. 0.99

00:08:28.800 She didn't testify at her trials, but she did speak to Dateline.

00:08:31.860 Here's Karen Reed trying to clarify that point in SOT 51.

00:08:34.840 I said, could I have hit him?

00:08:38.800 Did I hit him?

00:08:40.480 How could that have been?

00:08:41.640 I mean, you dropped him off at the house.

00:08:42.660 I don't know what else could have been.

00:08:44.300 It was howling wind.

00:08:45.800 I had YouTube blasting on the stereo.

00:08:48.260 And I thought, did he somehow try to flag me down, which was the reaction I was hoping 1.00

00:08:53.120 to garner as I slowly pulled away from the house.

00:08:56.120 Did he come out and maybe trip or bend over to pick up his cell phone?

00:09:00.720 And I ran over his foot and then he passed out drunk.

00:09:04.560 I mean, I didn't think I hit him, hit him, but could I have clipped him?

00:09:09.440 Could I have tagged him in the knee and incapacitated him?

00:09:13.100 He didn't look mortally wounded as far as I could see, but could I have done something

00:09:18.660 that knocked him out and in his drunkenness and in the cold didn't come to again?

00:09:25.820 And just to be clear, Peter, this was after, so the night goes on, you know, she allegedly 0.97

00:09:30.460 hit him around right just after midnight.

00:09:32.720 But according to her testimony, she didn't hit him.

00:09:35.240 She waited for him to come back out of the party.

00:09:36.880 He didn't.

00:09:37.360 She got mad.

00:09:37.960 She went back over to his house.

00:09:39.440 And then by the next morning, by like 5 or 6 a.m., she and this other gal were like

00:09:43.960 looking for him.

00:09:45.000 And lo and behold, there he was dead in the snowbank at the location of the party.

00:09:48.480 So go ahead.

00:09:50.180 Right.

00:09:50.620 And that is one of the big points of contention.

00:09:52.680 And as you know, one of the big things now that there's competing civil lawsuits that

00:09:57.220 we may talk about later, when we're talking about the criminal case and you're saying

00:10:00.560 here's the best evidence for one side and here's the best evidence for the other, the

00:10:03.920 prosecution in this case has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what happened that night.

00:10:07.000 And that was one of the big difficulties when you have maybe some EMS and some people said,

00:10:11.240 she said, I hit him.

00:10:12.160 Some people said, did I hit him?

00:10:14.160 Based on her conversations and a lot of what else happened that night, maybe it wasn't as

00:10:18.000 clear of a confession.

00:10:18.700 And nobody seemed to think that at the time that it was a clear confession.

00:10:22.800 And then when you flip to, um, his injuries, which you mentioned them as kind of good evidence

00:10:28.380 for both sides that her taillight pieces were, you know, on him in his sweater, um, kind

00:10:33.740 of attached to him.

00:10:34.500 How would they get there unless she hit him with her Lexus? 0.93

00:10:37.060 And then she says his injuries match a fight getting beat up by cops inside.

00:10:41.780 You know, as he had raccoon eyes, he died from hitting the back of his head.

00:10:45.320 And, you know, the, the evidence shows maybe it was on a ledge and not a flat ground.

00:10:49.580 You know, that was a little, who was actually going to prove what injury was the cause of

00:10:53.500 death and how he got it.

00:10:54.820 So that was a big point of contention throughout.

00:10:57.280 And if you looked at a lot of the medical evidence and the accident reconstructionists,

00:11:02.540 to me, that's really where Karen reads.

00:11:05.340 Yes.

00:11:05.780 That was a good fact for her.

00:11:06.840 The fact that the Lexus like expert at, at a trial that said there was nothing recorded

00:11:14.300 on this car of hitting somebody of going 24 miles an hour or whatever it was and running

00:11:19.840 over another person like that, that he would have expected something to register in the

00:11:24.180 car's brain and nothing did.

00:11:26.400 Yeah.

00:11:26.760 And that's one of the problems with so many facts in this case is there was kind of competing

00:11:29.440 theories on that, where if you hit a man, that's 200 pounds, maybe that's not going

00:11:33.880 to be enough to register an event when you have, you know, a very heavy Lexus like that.

00:11:38.160 Um, and then there were some people that said, well, maybe it should have, and there's nothing

00:11:41.100 on here that actually did register it, but even more so Karen Reed had accident reconstructionists 0.99

00:11:46.960 that were actually hired by the FBI while they were investigating this investigation,

00:11:51.340 which we'll get into the shady stuff happening there as to why the FBI would even get involved.

00:11:55.720 But Karen Reed ends up hiring those guys as her experts, and they do all sorts of different

00:12:00.900 testing and they can never create the same action where something hitting that taillight

00:12:06.780 would explode out into the yard and on John O'Keefe, the way that the prosecution said it

00:12:12.820 happened in that case.

00:12:13.900 It just wouldn't happen, especially with some of the videos and pictures where the taillights

00:12:18.740 are still working without busting those little actual light bulbs inside.

00:12:23.340 It was really fascinating.

00:12:24.100 Which was the case here?

00:12:26.040 Correct.

00:12:26.900 The lights were still working.

00:12:29.180 So in other words, this was faked.

00:12:31.560 In other words, the point is those guys killed him inside.

00:12:34.780 They brought him out and then they were the ones who hit her car to make it look like

00:12:40.400 it had bumped into him.

00:12:43.180 So partially, they somewhat point the finger at the guys inside the house for beating John

00:12:48.540 O'Keefe to death and leaving him on the lawn, but they allege that law enforcement actually

00:12:52.680 cracked the taillight, placed the pieces there, mixed everything together so it would look like

00:12:57.980 that taillight hit John O'Keefe.

00:12:59.900 And they went so far as to Alan Jackson, one of the defense lawyers in this case, had a

00:13:04.840 chart of all the glass that was found at the scene.

00:13:07.280 And there was a cocktail glass that was found on Karen Reed's car that was found nowhere

00:13:12.140 else at the scene.

00:13:13.380 So how really would it have gotten there but for somebody placing it on the bumper of Karen

00:13:19.120 Reed's car, which was driven away from the scene, driven around the next morning, put on

00:13:24.020 a tow truck, driven back.

00:13:25.560 And we're supposed to believe that some of this cocktail glass stayed on there and there

00:13:28.620 was one hair that stayed on there that they said was John O'Keefe's hair.

00:13:32.100 Things that just were really hard to believe that the Commonwealth was trying to explain

00:13:35.760 to a jury in this case.

00:13:37.480 Okay.

00:13:38.020 So what the theory of the prosecution is easy to understand that she and John hadn't really

00:13:43.540 been getting along.

00:13:44.940 He had talked about possibly breaking up with her.

00:13:48.420 She was very angry that night.

00:13:49.720 She was drunk.

00:13:50.400 And in her drunken anger, she ran him over. 0.57

00:13:55.220 And there was some debate about whether they overcharged the case.

00:13:58.200 Should they have just charged it as a manslaughter?

00:14:00.440 They went for murder too, which definitely raised the stakes for this jury.

00:14:03.580 Like it was intentional.

00:14:04.800 She wanted to kill him as opposed to just like heat of passion. 0.97

00:14:08.120 She did something crazy.

00:14:11.160 But the defense had a totally different version of events.

00:14:15.320 And so for the clueless juror just walking into this case, why would John O'Keefe's fellow

00:14:22.100 cops want him dead?

00:14:25.820 It's a great question.

00:14:27.040 And if you look at the two criminal trials, because this went to trial twice, the first

00:14:30.900 one was a hung jury.

00:14:31.740 The second one was a not guilty verdict on all of the charges dealing with ending John

00:14:35.380 O'Keefe's life.

00:14:36.200 She was convicted of OUI operating under the influence.

00:14:38.940 But the big difference in the theme and theory of the defense case from trial one to trial

00:14:43.840 two was this was a big conspiracy in trial one.

00:14:47.380 Everybody was involved.

00:14:48.740 The people inside the house ended his life.

00:14:50.820 The cops covered it up.

00:14:52.300 And there was a hung jury.

00:14:53.580 In the second trial, it's you can't prove anything.

00:14:56.420 This investigation was so bad.

00:14:58.320 These cops didn't do the interviews properly.

00:15:00.200 They didn't record them.

00:15:01.160 They didn't secure the scene properly.

00:15:02.860 This evidence doesn't make sense.

00:15:04.180 It looks like it could have been planted.

00:15:05.760 These guys have been terminated.

00:15:07.200 These text messages are disgusting how they talk about Karen Reed and other people.

00:15:11.040 And that was a not guilty verdict that they couldn't prove the case.

00:15:14.280 So two very different theories.

00:15:15.820 But when they were trying to prove that somebody inside the house killed John O'Keefe, it was

00:15:19.960 based on jealousy because somebody inside the house had been texting flirtatious text with 0.96

00:15:25.060 Karen Reed, had kissed Karen Reed. 0.98

00:15:27.220 And the defense was trying to use some videos in one of the bars as if these two guys were

00:15:33.060 grappling and, you know, play fighting.

00:15:35.420 But they were kind of getting in the mood to fight, I guess.

00:15:37.960 Some of it was, you know, a little bit of a reach.

00:15:40.420 But they were trying to say that they looked over across the bar and pointed at John O'Keefe

00:15:43.940 and told John O'Keefe to come to 34 Fairview because basically they wanted to fight.

00:15:48.580 And that was kind of their theme and theory of why somebody, what the motivation for somebody

00:15:53.340 being wanting to kill John O'Keefe inside that house.

00:15:55.960 When would the defense have posited, if they did, that law enforcement broke her taillight

00:16:03.260 to make it look like it was Karen Reed?

00:16:05.280 Because under this scenario, he goes inside the house, he gets murdered.

00:16:09.900 But we've already talked about how she took off.

00:16:12.340 She was there for a short time.

00:16:13.620 Then she left with that SUV.

00:16:15.560 Did they posit that her taillight was broken later when she drove back in the morning and

00:16:20.300 found the body?

00:16:20.940 So this taillight, there was so much litigation about this taillight.

00:16:25.600 First, the defense says there was a video that shows she backed up very slowly into John

00:16:30.500 O'Keefe's car at John O'Keefe's house.

00:16:33.100 And that's how she cracked her taillight. 0.99

00:16:35.060 And there was just a little crack in it.

00:16:37.020 Not when she hit John O'Keefe.

00:16:38.620 The prosecution says, no, it was totally damaged, destroyed.

00:16:41.460 And they had in 46 different pieces.

00:16:43.360 But what made the taillight so interesting is it was towed to the sally port where law enforcement

00:16:48.340 is.

00:16:48.720 And when they tried to show when the SUV was dropped off, they showed an inverted video,

00:16:53.960 a flipped video.

00:16:54.860 And they were like, hey, nobody even went near this taillight.

00:16:58.080 But then when you realize it's a flipped video, which they did in the middle of trial, then

00:17:02.400 you realize there are people that walk by that taillight.

00:17:04.660 And when you look closer at the entire time it was in the sally port, there are blips and

00:17:09.360 cuts in and out and huge chunks of time missing where you don't see what's going on with

00:17:15.200 that Lexus.

00:17:16.220 And the defense said, well, where are those chunks?

00:17:18.540 And the Commonwealth says, well, you know, it's motion activated, so it might not be

00:17:22.200 there.

00:17:22.700 And then when they secured the crime scene the first day, they found a couple pieces of

00:17:27.620 taillight in the yard, right?

00:17:29.280 Where John O'Keefe's body was found.

00:17:30.800 But days and weeks and months went by and they continued to find taillight piece after

00:17:36.260 taillight piece after taillight piece in this front yard that they didn't find the first

00:17:40.880 time they went, the second time they went, the third time they went.

00:17:43.020 They just happened to be driving by and they'd find another piece of taillight.

00:17:46.120 Very sketchy.

00:17:47.060 Unlike just about every investigation you've probably ever seen.

00:17:50.720 So what does that imply?

00:17:53.160 So they're implying that they would go back to the yard, put the pieces in the yard after

00:17:57.320 they busted it at the sally port and they would find it every day.

00:18:00.180 More and more pieces of taillight that they didn't find the first day, the first week.

00:18:03.860 And they just kept planting pieces of taillight and going and getting it to make sure there

00:18:08.080 are text messages that said, we're going to pin it on the girl and we're going to make 0.97

00:18:12.140 sure that nobody in the house catches any crap. 0.98

00:18:15.080 We're going to make sure he's a Boston cop. 0.98

00:18:16.860 So we're not even going to look into him.

00:18:18.400 So there were all kinds of text messages that the defense made look like they were trying

00:18:22.000 to protect the people in the house and make sure Karen Reed caught charges for this.

00:18:26.380 Oh, well, that sounds really bad.

00:18:27.740 I actually hadn't realized that there were explicit text messages saying we're going to pin

00:18:31.060 it on the girl.

00:18:31.700 That's from cops?

00:18:32.500 That's from the people inside the house, from people inside the house, inside 34 Fairview.

00:18:38.220 Some of them are cops or related to cops.

00:18:40.640 And they said they would make comments like, oh, she did such a good job explaining this

00:18:44.760 or make sure they're getting all their testimony straight to say, make sure we all say the guy

00:18:49.620 never came in the house.

00:18:51.180 You know, they were making sure they were all staying consistent there.

00:18:53.920 They weren't necessarily being forthcoming with who was actually in the house that night.

00:18:58.380 It was just what happened.

00:19:00.600 I don't think we'll ever know because the investigation was so bad.

00:19:03.080 And the lead investigator ended up getting terminated because he was found to have shown bias in

00:19:08.120 this case, sending some of the most disgusting text messages you would ever think about a defendant

00:19:13.700 that you are doing an investigation on supposed to be protecting and serving and being an unbiased

00:19:18.520 party.

00:19:19.220 Just doing your investigation and going where the evidence leads you.

00:19:22.620 I mean, these text messages were so horrible.

00:19:24.480 He had supervisors thumbs upping those text messages.

00:19:28.320 It was just a good old boys club that looked really, really horrible.

00:19:31.900 How bad were they?

00:19:32.980 The ones I heard about were he was saying like, I'm looking for nudes now on her phone.

00:19:38.320 That was about as racy as I heard.

00:19:40.200 But I was listening to Dateline.

00:19:41.860 They don't tend to go to the fully R-rated place.

00:19:44.260 But yeah, I mean, they were talking about there are certain things that, you know, we

00:19:48.680 would probably both condemn, but that were not necessarily as bad as some of the biased

00:19:52.180 ones where is she hot? 1.00

00:19:53.700 Yeah, she's kind of hot, but no ass. 1.00

00:19:55.480 She has, you know, this Boston accent or whatever. 0.99

00:19:57.640 They were objectifying her, which is one thing doesn't necessarily mean they're going to pin

00:20:01.480 some crime on her. 0.98

00:20:02.360 But then they started to say that we're going to make sure the owner of the house doesn't 0.99

00:20:07.500 catch any shit. 1.00

00:20:08.560 He's a Boston cop. 1.00

00:20:09.580 That's a quote from the text messages.

00:20:12.560 And they would talk about how she had a balloon knot because she had some, you know, surgery

00:20:18.460 or issues, gastro internal issues.

00:20:21.140 They would talk about how she had leaky poo.

00:20:23.680 They would talk about how she, you know, some of the text messages with the person that she

00:20:28.700 was having the affair with were back and forth and racy and talking about John and how we

00:20:32.760 need to hide this from John.

00:20:33.920 And then that person went to the police station that night at 2 a.m.

00:20:40.040 and said he was moving cars around, but was instead moving bags back and forth between

00:20:45.320 different cars, going inside the police station with his hood up and just sketchy thing on

00:20:50.240 top of sketchy thing from all these law enforcement officers involved.

00:20:53.320 Wow.

00:20:54.140 So listening to you, Peter, I feel like you, you may believe that Karen Reed is

00:20:58.660 actually innocent, factually innocent, not just found not guilty, which she was, but

00:21:04.560 may in fact truly not have done this.

00:21:07.420 You know, it's really hard for me to say, like beyond a reasonable doubt, I don't think

00:21:12.260 either side would ever be able to prove this.

00:21:14.400 And because of that, and because the investigation was so horrible, and I just don't feel like

00:21:17.780 I can trust anything the cops say or did in this case, you'd never get a conviction.

00:21:21.600 This is a case I would never want to try.

00:21:23.500 I prosecuted cases.

00:21:24.560 I would never prosecute this case.

00:21:25.920 Um, this is just not one you can, I would have felt ethically comfortable with putting

00:21:30.020 in front of a jury on the civil side.

00:21:32.120 Will they be able to get enough to prove to a jury by the greater weight of the evidence?

00:21:37.640 51%.

00:21:38.520 I think it's possible, but it's just so hard to know what happened inside that house of

00:21:43.660 34 Fairview.

00:21:44.500 So while I, if I had to choose, is she factually innocent or is she factually guilty?

00:21:49.420 I would choose that she's factually innocent.

00:21:51.740 I'm just not overly confident of that.

00:21:54.340 I don't think I would be able to say that beyond a reasonable doubt because I really don't

00:21:57.880 think anybody's ever going to be able to prove what happened that night.

00:22:02.260 Okay.

00:22:02.820 Let's talk about the civil suit.

00:22:04.060 So she was found not guilty.

00:22:05.840 First, there was a hung jury.

00:22:07.220 Then I guess we'll play it because there was a, an extraordinary moment on June 18th, 2025,

00:22:11.640 when she was found not guilty and you could hear the crowd cheering outside.

00:22:15.900 She had quite a groundswell of support, um, that had begun in the beginning of the first

00:22:20.540 trial.

00:22:21.060 Here's that moment in top 53.

00:22:23.900 Zero, zero three.

00:22:24.940 What say is the defendant at the bar leaving the scene after accident resulting in deaths

00:22:29.500 defendant, not guilty or guilty.

00:22:32.060 So say you Mr.

00:22:33.060 Foreman.

00:22:33.940 So say you all.

00:22:35.840 Juris, hearken your verdict as the court records it.

00:22:38.020 You upon your oath say the defendant on zero, zero one is not guilty.

00:22:41.640 And zero, zero two is guilty of operating in the influence of liquor and zero, zero three

00:22:46.540 not guilty.

00:22:47.900 Thank you.

00:22:49.640 All right.

00:22:50.700 Juris, everybody, please be seated.

00:22:53.640 Juris, we thank you for your service.

00:22:57.260 And the crowd support for her, Peter would be relevant because the prosecution witnesses

00:23:04.440 and the family of the victim really object objected and felt this colored their right to a fair

00:23:12.060 trial.

00:23:13.560 Yeah, I, it's, it's brutal to think about the victim's family and this, the, the O'Keefe's

00:23:17.700 and all of this, um, regardless of what happened and who did what inside 34 Fairview or law

00:23:22.940 enforcement, they lost John O'Keefe.

00:23:24.400 And that family has gone through.

00:23:25.620 I don't know if you know any of the backstory of that family, they have gone through more loss than

00:23:30.640 most people would in their entire lives.

00:23:32.820 Um, and you know, to continue to feel that way and not get justice, they clearly believe Karen

00:23:37.840 Reed is guilty.

00:23:39.000 They clearly believe the witnesses in the inside 34 Fairview.

00:23:42.460 They've all gotten a lot closer as this litigation has continued.

00:23:45.840 So I feel horribly for them.

00:23:47.980 Um, but I think that the fault lies with law enforcement, the fault lies with the prosecutors

00:23:53.820 in how this case was prepared, how this case was investigated, how this case was litigated.

00:23:58.820 Some of the other text messages with the cops were basically guaranteeing that Karen Reed

00:24:02.500 is guilty the next morning before an investigation had even taken place.

00:24:06.160 And then, you know, you have just that confirmation bias where you want, you, you want to be correct

00:24:11.640 and you're going to do everything you can to make sure you're correct.

00:24:13.640 And that's what it felt like more to me than maybe a big conspiracy to cover it up and protect

00:24:18.480 the people inside the house.

00:24:19.660 But I mean, we've seen cases where law enforcement gets locked in on somebody and they're going

00:24:23.240 to make sure that's the right person.

00:24:24.760 And they start, you know, getting to know the victims and it's so sad and you want to

00:24:28.380 bring justice and you think you're crossing a line for the right reason.

00:24:31.660 And it just blew up in their face in this case.

00:24:34.540 That item that I asked you about before.

00:24:36.740 So when she went back and she was looking for, um, John's body or John,

00:24:43.260 and then stumbled upon his body, this is around 6am and, um, there, there was her friend last

00:24:50.800 name McCabe and that person Googled hose, meaning how she, she used an S instead of a W and in 0.65

00:24:59.140 typing how long to die in cold.

00:25:02.540 And that to me seems like it should have been known very clearly what time she Googled that

00:25:11.460 because if she Googled that before she knew she like her, like basically, uh, they were

00:25:19.420 saying, well, I only did that, her, her defense to Karen saying that the people inside the house 0.77

00:25:25.100 had killed him.

00:25:25.600 And look, here's evidence.

00:25:27.760 You knew he was dead.

00:25:28.960 You Googled that before I even came back.

00:25:32.040 And, but her, her defense was, I didn't Google that when I was alone inside the house before

00:25:37.300 you came back.

00:25:37.940 I Googled that with you.

00:25:40.120 Once we realized that you'd hit him and he was in the snow and we were trying to figure

00:25:44.960 out whether he was dead or alive.

00:25:46.660 Right.

00:25:47.140 Is that basically how this McCabe defended that?

00:25:49.860 But like, why isn't that just totally knowable?

00:25:52.980 What time she Googled that, that the whole case should rise or fall around that Google.

00:25:58.980 Yeah.

00:25:59.480 The way you explained it is exactly how kind of the arguments went on both sides.

00:26:02.620 Was it at two o'clock in the morning or six o'clock in the morning?

00:26:04.960 Cause that makes all the difference in the world because nobody knew he was dead at two

00:26:08.200 o'clock in the morning.

00:26:08.920 So how are you possibly searching that unless you're the person that put him out in the cold

00:26:12.780 and you're wondering how long it would take.

00:26:14.700 Um, and yeah, it was again, unlike any other case I've seen, uh, celebrate said,

00:26:19.700 one time and actually everybody agreed at one point that it showed that it was at two

00:26:24.080 27 or something in the morning.

00:26:25.580 And then they got celebrate involved.

00:26:27.940 Celebrate's like, well, that's not actually correct.

00:26:29.540 That's when the tab was open.

00:26:31.720 Sorry.

00:26:32.880 What's celebrate.

00:26:34.140 So celebrate is like the program that they download the phone and it tells you, here's

00:26:37.920 all the Google searches.

00:26:38.980 Here's the time each Google search was made.

00:26:41.140 And that report said two 27 AM.

00:26:44.280 And then there's another, uh, different program called axiom that does basically the same

00:26:48.520 thing that said two 27, 7 AM as well.

00:26:51.400 But then celebrate had, well, maybe it was at six Oh four is it is two 27.

00:26:56.020 The time she opened the tab and she was searching some sports team, Hockamock sports.

00:27:00.140 And when she was in bed at night, going to bed at two o'clock in the morning, and that

00:27:03.800 tab was left open.

00:27:04.960 And then when she searched at six AM, it was showing the time she originally opened the

00:27:09.240 tab.

00:27:09.740 So there were competing experts saying the search was at six o'clock.

00:27:13.520 The search was at two o'clock.

00:27:14.660 And once again, like so many other facts in this case, it felt impossible to prove beyond

00:27:19.900 a reasonable doubt, which once again should be held against the prosecutor and not the

00:27:25.040 defendant.

00:27:25.680 That's so frustrating.

00:27:26.760 As soon as I heard that piece of it, that somebody was Googling how long to take, to

00:27:32.160 die in cold.

00:27:33.220 And it happened at two in the morning before they found the body.

00:27:35.660 I was like, Oh, the people inside the house definitely did it.

00:27:37.680 Karen Reed did not do this. 0.99

00:27:39.180 That's that's as good as evidence as you're ever going to get.

00:27:41.460 And then I read that thing you just said about how they were like, well, it might've been

00:27:45.120 the time to two AM might've been the time she opened the internet for a search that came

00:27:50.700 many hours later.

00:27:51.480 And as somebody who always has tons of tabs open on my phone, I can understand that happening

00:27:56.900 very easily that you just use a tab that's already open to search something many hours

00:28:01.160 later.

00:28:01.380 So unfortunately that's not as clear as we would like.

00:28:04.120 Yeah, absolutely.

00:28:05.080 And it's like you, I've handled trials that have celebrate reports.

00:28:08.420 I'm sure you've seen other trials with celebrate reports.

00:28:10.660 I've never seen them attacked like this as just a report that they put out as a time

00:28:14.440 that seems very simple is just absolutely completely wrong.

00:28:17.400 And this is something I'm going to keep an eye out now is this are more defense attorneys

00:28:20.920 going to attack this.

00:28:22.140 And how often does axiom and celebrate give completely different reports like they did

00:28:26.240 in this case, because axiom, if you run a report right now on her phone still says the

00:28:30.440 search was at two 27 AM.

00:28:33.280 Wow.

00:28:33.720 The other question about, we spent some time in the taillight.

00:28:36.240 There was a question about whether this Lexus, it was an SUV, right?

00:28:39.960 Like, yes, it was like, okay, whether this, well, anyway, whether this Lexus SUV, even

00:28:46.840 at whatever it was, 24 miles an hour, let's say, whether it would, whether the taillight

00:28:51.300 would break upon hitting a man and that, that this was, they couldn't replicate this, the

00:28:57.340 defense as they tried over and over and over to recreate the scene of this alleged incident

00:29:03.220 that the prosecution said happened here to take his life.

00:29:07.000 That makes some sense to me too.

00:29:08.620 I don't know.

00:29:09.160 Like that a man made of flesh and bone might not be enough force to, to take out the taillight

00:29:16.680 on an SUV backing up into him.

00:29:18.620 What was, what was the back and forth around that?

00:29:21.400 Yeah.

00:29:21.600 And you know, Megan, it's impossible to really fully dig into each one of these individual

00:29:25.940 aspects in just an hour or six hours.

00:29:28.940 But if I showed you his body, so, so I'm a personal injury lawyer.

00:29:33.160 Now I handle a lot of truck accidents, car accident case, pedestrian accident case.

00:29:36.500 So a person that gets hit by a car.

00:29:38.500 And we all kind of know what that looks like, especially if somebody gets hit at 24 miles

00:29:42.280 an hour, I have had clients die at 24 miles an hour, getting hit by a car, but do you know

00:29:47.100 what they look like?

00:29:47.800 They have broken bones.

00:29:49.280 They've got internal bleeding.

00:29:50.800 They've got serious head injuries.

00:29:52.940 They've got injuries below the waist.

00:29:55.040 John O'Keefe had none of that, no broken bones, no bruising anywhere on his body, the back

00:30:00.060 of his head, hitting the ground basically, or hitting a ledge was the cause of his death.

00:30:05.960 And one of the fatal flaws of the prosecutor's case the second time around is their expert

00:30:10.620 showed an example of another pedestrian getting hit by a car and they passed away.

00:30:15.720 And they're saying, see, look, this can happen.

00:30:17.620 The problem is the report on that person had broken bones, internal damage, exactly what

00:30:24.440 you would expect for somebody that got hit by a car.

00:30:26.820 And the ME, who was not hired by either side, could not determine that he died as a result

00:30:32.580 of a car accident or that it was a homicide.

00:30:35.200 It was undetermined.

00:30:36.600 And she did not see evidence that this was a result of a car accident.

00:30:39.720 No experts did, really.

00:30:42.160 Gosh, that's so tricky.

00:30:43.380 We did pull some sound from a couple of the jurors after the not guilty verdict.

00:30:49.060 It's always fascinating to listen to them if they'll talk.

00:30:51.560 In this one, you're going to hear first.

00:30:52.960 It's the jury foreman, Charlie Deloach.

00:30:56.000 Take a listen to SOT 55.

00:30:57.140 It was intense because before I got to the last not guilty, the crowd erupted.

00:31:06.860 It was already cheering like it was a basketball stadium outside.

00:31:10.600 I didn't take one note.

00:31:11.940 I didn't have to after the first witness.

00:31:14.740 It was just like, oh, OK, I see where this is going.

00:31:18.660 During the trial, I just was waiting and just looking for that aha moment.

00:31:24.400 And there was none to to make her guilty at all. 0.99

00:31:30.400 It was just always like, oh, that witness sucked. 0.99

00:31:34.360 I was open minded. 0.98

00:31:35.520 I was willing to listen to both sides if she hit him or if there is corruption.

00:31:41.900 And then the corruption outweighed her getting hit, her hitting him with the car.

00:31:47.560 The case was it was leaning one way and it kept on leaning one way and up until the very end.

00:31:54.660 One more to play for you.

00:31:56.040 This is juror number four speaking out.

00:32:02.000 Jason, the jury found Karen Reed not guilty on murder and manslaughter.

00:32:08.560 Was it because they had reasonable doubt or because they thought she was innocent?

00:32:17.560 So I think for the jurors, there's a mix of some people thinks that she was definitely innocent.

00:32:24.660 And and the other people, there was a lot of reasonable doubt, at least to where you can't.

00:32:30.020 We didn't want to convict her.

00:32:31.240 I mean, I can only speak for myself.

00:32:32.880 I think that she was innocent.

00:32:34.920 It's hard to it's hard to tell exactly what people think deep down.

00:32:38.700 There was a lot of things thrown at us.

00:32:40.460 Do I think it was a corrupt police investigation?

00:32:42.540 I don't know.

00:32:45.320 There's no way for me to know.

00:32:47.080 I can't.

00:32:48.040 I wasn't there.

00:32:49.400 There was just there was holes in the case that left for reasonable doubt.

00:32:53.780 I think they could have checked some boxes or, you know, done some things differently.

00:33:00.080 But do I know that they were corrupt?

00:33:02.480 Absolutely not.

00:33:03.340 I don't know that there was any corruption going on.

00:33:06.280 But do I know that there wasn't enough proof or evidence secured by the police to convict Karen Reed?

00:33:15.680 Absolutely not.

00:33:17.160 There was no there was not.

00:33:19.880 Very interesting, Peter, that he's saying that we were between actual innocence and just not guilty, but did not speak of any holdouts saying, no, I think she did it.

00:33:28.220 Yeah, and I think that really goes to the investigation and the way that this case was presented.

00:33:35.320 There was holes everywhere, no matter where you want to look.

00:33:38.320 If you want to compare the experts, if you want to compare the medicine, if you want to compare the car data, if you want to compare the credibility of witnesses, because that was a really big thing.

00:33:45.760 If you noticed, juror number one, the foreperson said after the first witness, I was like, oh, wow.

00:33:50.440 And he still kept an open mind.

00:33:52.440 But so much of these trials is the jury looking at each individual witness and judging their credibility.

00:33:57.820 Are they telling the truth?

00:33:59.100 Are they being honest?

00:34:00.160 Do they have something to gain or lose by this testimony?

00:34:02.680 Does it make sense in the context of the rest of the testimony?

00:34:05.660 And I just think that their credibility was hurt throughout the trial by the cross-examination and the other evidence presented by the defense.

00:34:12.900 Do we know who the first witness was?

00:34:14.740 It would have been for the prosecution since they go first.

00:34:16.740 And my understanding is when they went back for the second trial after the first jury was hung, they eliminated some of their more problematic cops, like the guy who was like, let's see the nudes and referring to Karen Reed in those disgusting terms you mentioned.

00:34:31.500 He did not get called by the prosecution a second time, so they learned.

00:34:35.100 So I would imagine they would have, you know, you always want to start with your best foot forward, your best witness.

00:34:40.600 Yeah, I think they started with an EMS person who I actually like.

00:34:44.620 I thought he was a good witness.

00:34:45.560 Um, I thought he was trying his best.

00:34:47.680 He made a mistake.

00:34:48.980 I believe it's him that said, uh, John O'Keefe had like a really big jacket on and he didn't.

00:34:53.100 He just had like a short sleeve or a long sleeve thin shirt that you probably wouldn't be wearing out in the snow, but I don't know.

00:34:58.520 Boston guys are probably tougher than me in the snow.

00:35:00.700 Um, but I think that's what the defense was trying to, uh, I was in Colorado, almost died from the snow there.

00:35:06.420 But, um, so, you know, so they were trying to say, you know, you didn't even remember those details.

00:35:11.360 So, and they were trying to say that that shirt would be more likely something that he had on inside versus outside and they dragged him outside and through it.

00:35:18.320 So there were all these little details, but I didn't think the first witness was that bad, honestly.

00:35:22.120 And the way that the prosecution pared down the case from trial one to trial two was amazing.

00:35:27.840 They got a special prosecutor who's a big criminal defense lawyer there that they brought in specifically just to hire this case.

00:35:33.620 Nobody from within their office, um, a much better at his presentation.

00:35:37.640 But I think he missed the boat a lot with the way he presented the case.

00:35:40.740 And one thing he did was he did not call Proctor, who was who you were referencing before, who was the lead investigator in the case.

00:35:46.860 They tried to pretend like he didn't exist.

00:35:49.120 And you can imagine the defense did not like that.

00:35:51.280 And they did not let that go quietly.

00:35:53.100 And they highlighted his name and said his name and besmirched his name as much as they possibly could.

00:35:57.840 And they didn't call him either.

00:35:59.100 So he was kind of like the boogeyman.

00:36:00.640 Why wouldn't they call the lead investigator?

00:36:02.640 You really want to side with them.

00:36:03.760 You can really trust this investigation.

00:36:05.160 They don't even trust their own guy.

00:36:06.480 It was not a good way to do it.

00:36:08.280 No, one would think you'd call him.

00:36:09.640 You'd just front it all.

00:36:10.920 You'd have him do a full mea culpa. 0.99

00:36:12.600 I was a douchebag. 0.96

00:36:13.580 I've been fired. 0.99

00:36:14.620 So humiliated.

00:36:16.180 My wife, you know, she's forgiven me. 0.99

00:36:18.120 But I just was acting like an ass. 0.95

00:36:20.340 But it doesn't mean I was corrupt. 0.99

00:36:21.640 I certainly wouldn't corrupt a murder investigation.

00:36:23.880 But like to not call him.

00:36:25.160 I mean, hindsight's 20-20.

00:36:26.340 Obviously, I'm sitting here and this come from my studio.

00:36:28.240 Not like the prosecutor who actually had to get this done.

00:36:31.360 Okay, so now let's talk about the civil suits.

00:36:34.020 Because this is pretty extraordinary.

00:36:36.600 It's not extraordinary to me that John O'Keefe's family is now filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Karen Reed.

00:36:45.020 That happens, you know, not infrequently.

00:36:48.160 It's like what Ron Goldman did to OJ after he was acquitted.

00:36:51.400 You do have to testify as the defendant in this posture once you've already been acquitted and you get sued civilly.

00:37:00.500 So like he is going to have to she is going to have to testify in this case.

00:37:03.340 But what's extraordinary is there's there's lawsuits going the other way against her by whom exactly.

00:37:15.480 So there are lawsuits against her and the bars by the O'Keefe family for wrongful death.

00:37:21.260 Like you said, that's normal, different burden, civil court versus criminal.

00:37:25.060 Sorry, I meant to say the opposite lawsuit by her against others.

00:37:28.240 Yes, which is weird.

00:37:29.660 So she has also filed a lawsuit against the aforementioned Michael Proctor, who is the lead investigator on the case.

00:37:35.240 Yuri Buchanek, who is another trooper who was Proctor's supervisor.

00:37:38.340 And then everybody's supervisor, Brian Tully, another law enforcement officer.

00:37:42.980 And then the five people in the house that she basically thinks are responsible for John O'Keefe's death.

00:37:47.840 Brian Albert, Nicole Albert, Jennifer McCabe, Matthew McCabe and Brian Higgins.

00:37:52.400 Higgins is who she had the affair with.

00:37:54.360 The Alberts are who owned the house.

00:37:56.240 McCabe is who searched house long to die in the cold.

00:37:58.560 So those are the people that she's suing for basically conspiring to pin this on her, violating her rights, civil conspiracy, trying to pin it on her and literally ruining her life.

00:38:10.220 That's crazy.

00:38:11.440 You never see that.

00:38:13.160 Never.

00:38:13.820 Because let's face it, nine times out of ten, more than that, the defendant actually is guilty, maybe got off on a technicality like O.J. or jury nullification in O.J.'s case.

00:38:24.660 And the last thing they want to do is go back into court with anybody.

00:38:28.500 You know, it's like, they know they kind of got away with it.

00:38:30.300 It's like, okay, I'm out of here.

00:38:32.020 But she is not in that posture.

00:38:34.620 She's like, let's go.

00:38:36.080 Now, she also appears to need money, because I'll tell you, we invited her to come on this show, and she wanted tens of thousands of dollars, and we told her, goodbye, madam. 0.78

00:38:47.600 We're news people.

00:38:48.520 We don't pay for news, which does make me question how she wound up talking to Dateline and others, because NBC is also not supposed to pay for news.

00:38:56.800 In any event, she clearly is hard up for cash, so maybe it's just a money grab. 0.96

00:39:01.800 I don't know.

00:39:02.300 What do you make of it?

00:39:04.160 There was a lot there.

00:39:05.320 There was a lot there.

00:39:06.080 First, I disagree with some of your percentages, but we don't need to get into that, how many of them are actually not guilty.

00:39:11.280 But I do agree with you that most of the time, once it's over, they want it to be done, and they don't want to keep rehashing this.

00:39:16.000 Also, millions, millions of dollars in attorney's fees and costs.

00:39:22.000 She sold her house.

00:39:23.300 She's lost everything.

00:39:24.540 She was unhirable for all of these years, so I'm sure she is in need of money, and I think she's entitled to get whatever money she deserves in the civil process. 0.77

00:39:32.700 It doesn't bother me one bit.

00:39:33.980 I don't know her personally.

00:39:35.100 I've never spoken to her.

00:39:36.980 So, you know, this is nothing like I know what kind of person she is or anything like that.

00:39:41.160 But if this is true, what she's alleging, then she does deserve to be compensated for it, in my opinion.

00:39:48.140 And I agree with you that she is standing on business basically at this point saying, I have the truth because she's been threatened and is going to be sued if it hasn't happened already for defamation, saying that she's defaming all these people, lying about them, creating this false narrative, which was one of the allegations in the O'Keefe complaint, in the wrongful death complaint.

00:40:06.280 They also sued her for intentional infliction of emotional distress, saying she created this false narrative and pushed it out there in the media, and that they were injured because of that, and she caused them damages.

00:40:17.400 So, truth is an ultimate defense to defamation, and that's what she's standing on, that she has the truth.

00:40:22.900 She can prove it.

00:40:24.640 You know, she's got some gumption. 1.00

00:40:26.520 She's not afraid.

00:40:27.620 Her lawyers are not afraid.

00:40:28.760 They're sticking with her and pushing forward on this case.

00:40:31.660 And sometimes it's a money grab either way, right?

00:40:34.160 Like, when you have a criminal case that you lost as a victim, I know you're not technically a party, but, and you still go forward on a civil litigation, you can still get a settlement.

00:40:42.340 Often that's what would happen.

00:40:43.520 You wouldn't even go to trial.

00:40:44.920 And from her perspective, too, if she just needed money and she's going to file this lawsuit and just get some money out of it, fine. 1.00

00:40:51.060 It doesn't seem like that's what it is.

00:40:52.740 And if this ends in a settlement, I'm going to assume it was a huge amount of money.

00:40:56.080 Hmm.

00:40:57.460 So, have those parties that she's now suing cross-filed against her for defamation yet?

00:41:04.680 Because right now, I thought the only lawsuit she was actively facing was John O'Keefe's family suing her for wrongful death.

00:41:12.240 But have those other parties that she's now messing with cross-filed against her for defamation yet?

00:41:16.500 And they have come out and said publicly that they are going to file defamation cases, but the way it works in these civil courts is she files a complaint, they file their motions to dismiss first, and then if they can't dismiss her lawsuit, then they would file their answer and their counterclaims.

00:41:31.440 So, that's coming in due time.

00:41:33.340 I would expect that it is going to come, though.

00:41:35.480 It's so interesting because the burden of proof is so much lower in civil court, as you point out, 51% more likely than not.

00:41:41.960 And now it's really on.

00:41:45.160 You know, in a way, we heard from the jurors, it was kind of easy for them because they were like, my God, they haven't come anywhere near this very high standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.

00:41:54.240 But the prosecution may have come near 51% more likely, 49% less likely that she did it, or the other way, could go the other way.

00:42:04.800 I don't know.

00:42:05.920 Like, how do you see this going?

00:42:07.840 What's really interesting is, you know, you mentioned what you would do if you were a proctor.

00:42:11.300 You put him on the stand, you just eat it, right?

00:42:13.500 They did that the first trial.

00:42:15.040 They also had a much more boring prosecutor, but just kind of a normal prosecutor who put everybody up there and was like, tell us what happened.

00:42:22.560 They repeated the same facts a million times.

00:42:24.600 And while reports from that jury room where they were all not guilty on second-degree murder, there was a split, and the majority thought that she was guilty of manslaughter or at least taking his life in some sort of way with the car in that first round of trial.

00:42:39.480 But it ended up being a split verdict and a hung jury.

00:42:42.080 And everybody changed their way.

00:42:43.680 And I think the defense was much more successful round two.

00:42:47.060 I think they would have won regardless round two because they didn't try to prove the conspiracy within that criminal trial, which can be very difficult.

00:42:54.420 It can kind of burden shift and confuse the jury.

00:42:57.180 But just like you're saying, there were some jurors that thought that she did hit him with her car throughout the first trial.

00:43:04.880 So there's obviously the possibility that that could be proven in a civil court, but you would be amazed and appalled at the discovery that was not turned over in the first trial that was turned over before the second trial.

00:43:18.880 At the discovery they're going to be able to get in this civil litigation that they did not get their hands on in the criminal case.

00:43:24.360 I think there are going to be so many added factors and facts during the civil process that I'm not sure we know exactly what it's going to look like yet.

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00:44:52.840 We mentioned a couple of these witnesses who were inside that house, the Alberts and the McCaves.

00:45:00.640 They spoke out after the not guilty verdict in June.

00:45:04.220 Let's take a listen to what they sounded like.

00:45:06.040 Ben, Sot56.

00:45:08.220 People turned this thing into a tailgate party, it looked like, some days.

00:45:12.240 Board games, cornhole, cookouts.

00:45:14.900 This is a guy that was murdered, and it's atrocious for that family.

00:45:18.720 What they've done is they've dehumanized us to the sense where we're not real people.

00:45:24.820 We're almost like caricatures.

00:45:26.480 We're just, we're pawns.

00:45:28.440 Have each of you been called murderers?

00:45:30.400 Like actual murderers?

00:45:31.340 Oh, yeah.

00:45:32.040 On a daily basis.

00:45:33.280 Anybody who's touched this case has been called a murderer at some point.

00:45:36.400 And anyone who's friends with us support cop killers.

00:45:38.960 They, the name Turtle Boy comes up a lot when you talk about what was happening outside the courthouse

00:45:48.000 and the generation of a groundswell of opposition to the people you just saw on camera there,

00:45:55.020 the people who are inside the house, including cops and their wives and so on.

00:45:59.060 Who's Turtle Boy?

00:46:00.200 So first, just to comment on what they're saying, I think it's horrible that people's lives get ruined

00:46:06.360 and people get accused of things like this with very little evidence and, you know, go after their kids

00:46:11.060 and their livelihoods and things like that.

00:46:12.900 I also think that there are some fair criticisms like the Alberts who lived in the house never came outside

00:46:18.540 the entire morning when there were all these EMS people and witnesses and everything outside

00:46:22.220 and their friend is dead on their front lawn.

00:46:24.880 They never come outside to try to help.

00:46:26.300 They both have emergency or I know he has emergency training, was former law enforcement.

00:46:30.460 That stuff is really strange to me and hard for me to get over.

00:46:32.820 And the way they spoke about John O'Keefe, somebody that was supposed to be their friend.

00:46:36.180 It is, there's just so much strange stuff going on.

00:46:38.640 Turtle Boy is a journalist who looked into this case, found witnesses nobody knew about,

00:46:46.400 like a tow truck or a plow driver that potentially had evidence that could help Karen Reed,

00:46:51.620 that held everybody's feet to the fire, that was very loud with a megaphone about it,

00:46:55.380 that had his specific crass way of doing things.

00:46:59.760 And, you know, he's almost like a caricature where he says the most hyperbolic thing he possibly can.

00:47:04.700 He calls everybody every name in the book.

00:47:06.380 He uses language that, you know, would make sailors probably turn red.

00:47:10.580 And he does it a certain way and a lot of people don't like it.

00:47:14.380 And he has caught some witness intimidation charges because the statute is really kind of weird there in Massachusetts with that.

00:47:22.440 But he has uncovered so much evidence that people did not know about.

00:47:27.500 And people know about Karen Reed's case exponentially more because of Turtle Boy.

00:47:33.420 So it's kind of like a love him or hate him, he is who he is type of scenario for him.

00:47:38.260 What you're saying is, God forbid I ever get accused of a crime, I want Turtle Boy on my side.

00:47:45.000 I would say he's a pretty good ally to have until he's not.

00:47:48.360 Okay.

00:47:49.520 And he was at both trials.

00:47:51.820 Yeah, I think he's been at everything, you know.

00:47:54.000 And his whole case people are now following as well, his criminal charges that are going on.

00:47:57.840 I've actually gotten to know his lawyer, one of his lawyers a little bit, Mark Bedrow, who's an amazing lawyer.

00:48:02.760 Awesome guy.

00:48:03.300 I've talked about this Karen Reed case a lot with him, so I know he's got great representation and they've already won.

00:48:08.520 A couple of the criminal cases have been dropped because the DA and the law enforcement there just can't get out of their own way.

00:48:13.900 They have all these prosecutors that are conflicted off cases.

00:48:17.440 Nobody could end up prosecuting one of Turtle Boy's cases, so they just had to drop it.

00:48:20.940 So it's a whole other separate saga himself.

00:48:23.760 So if you're teaching this class in a law school, Peter, what would you say this case is about?

00:48:28.780 Oh, how not to investigate and prosecute a case.

00:48:34.780 I think I could do a lot of sessions on the appropriate way, what ethics look like.

00:48:39.540 Even if you think somebody is guilty, if you can't put the lead investigator on and you can't put out your evidence on because you don't trust it yourself, maybe you shouldn't be prosecuting this case.

00:48:47.820 And not staking your career and risking it all on one case and realizing mistakes will be made in life and we just have to let the chips fall where they may.

00:48:56.260 As a criminal defense attorney, you learn to fight, to dig, even if the judge sometimes can be very difficult, even when it seems like everything is stacked against you.

00:49:05.220 It's also a lesson in PR, like the way the defense attorneys have done their interviews and set up Karen Reed to do interviews in ways that I disagree with.

00:49:13.260 I would never have had Karen Reed do any interviews.

00:49:15.820 They have.

00:49:16.460 They said they welcomed them being played at trial.

00:49:18.720 So it could be some lessons on that, some great lessons on cross-examination, some great lessons on civil litigation, how to try to get federal documents where you request them from the federal government,

00:49:28.940 and then try to show them as unbiased third party, bringing experts into the case, investigating an investigation.

00:49:35.760 So many interesting nuances to this case that law students could learn from, but you don't always want to learn from the exception, right?

00:49:43.760 Well, you know, what you said about the star witness reminded me of something.

00:49:47.200 When I was a young lawyer, I tried a civil case in upstate New York, and we were so clearly in the right on this civil case.

00:49:53.620 It was just so obvious that our guy was telling the truth and the other party wasn't, because we knew our star witness very, very well, and we knew his entire employment history and all this stuff.

00:50:05.660 But the judge has always tried to push a settlement in a civil case, and in a criminal case, too.

00:50:10.440 They try to push you to take a plea if you're at all open-minded so they don't have to try it to verdict.

00:50:14.140 It's a much better resolution where it's agreed to.

00:50:18.220 And he was looking at the other side, pointing out, like, all the evidence that they were in the wrong.

00:50:22.520 And then I said, what's he going to say when he looks at us?

00:50:24.560 Because we're in the catbird seat here.

00:50:26.300 And he said, how do you like your lead witness?

00:50:29.740 And the judge was exactly right, because even though the facts were totally on our side, our star witness was not likable.

00:50:38.380 And the judge knew it, and we stuck by him.

00:50:43.120 Of course, we were like, oh, he's good.

00:50:44.180 He's fine.

00:50:45.360 He wasn't.

00:50:46.480 The jury didn't like him.

00:50:48.040 And they found against us.

00:50:50.680 We got it reversed on appeal.

00:50:51.680 But he wasn't wrong.

00:50:53.960 Like, having a bad chief witness can make or break your case.

00:50:59.180 And in this case, the prosecution had, it sounds like, a terrible chief witness, whether it was just juvenile talk on those texts or not.

00:51:07.380 The reason he got fired is because he cost them this investigation.

00:51:11.840 Yeah, and it wasn't just the text message.

00:51:15.260 There's just so much more than that.

00:51:16.540 But, you know, the number one thing is probably the roles of each job of a lawyer, because you just described the civil situation.

00:51:23.620 And as a criminal defense lawyer, the way you want to look at it and what your duty is and how you try a case, how you handle a case, all of those roles are incredibly different than a prosecutor who is only there to find truth and justice.

00:51:36.400 And sometimes that's making hard decisions and letting people you think might be guilty go and not prosecuting those cases because you have all the leverage, all the power to ruin people's lives.

00:51:45.840 There's very little repercussion when you lose, and that's a very big responsibility and power that you have as a prosecutor that makes that job very different than a criminal defense lawyer or any type of civil lawyer.

00:51:57.380 And that, to me, was where this case could have been handled more appropriately.

00:52:02.780 It's crazy to me that there was no ring camera on anybody's door, you know, like everything's on cam these days.

00:52:09.920 Yeah, I mean, there was some talk that there was a ring camera and then there wasn't.

00:52:13.380 And maybe somebody accessed the ring camera, and maybe they didn't.

00:52:16.600 And somebody across the street had a ring camera.

00:52:17.520 Or even on your car.

00:52:18.580 Doesn't your car have one of those things?

00:52:19.840 Like, there's a camera on my car now that shows me what's happening behind me.

00:52:23.620 Yep.

00:52:24.200 Yeah, absolutely.

00:52:24.880 There's cameras all over the place.

00:52:26.240 But somehow, during that period of time, there was no camera on any house in that neighborhood that could have caught it or even back at John O'Keefe's house.

00:52:35.860 There was some ring camera, but not that could show anything that we needed to show to prove the accident.

00:52:40.860 This case is a mystery.

00:52:44.140 I'd love to know the truth.

00:52:46.080 You know, it's like, usually I hear these stories and I'm like, I have a pretty good idea what happened.

00:52:49.980 This one, I remain uncertain.

00:52:52.440 Really don't know.

00:52:53.560 And, I mean, I don't think, I haven't been persuaded by anything I've heard that she intentionally killed him.

00:52:57.860 I am open-minded to the theory that in her anger, she backed up too quickly and ran him over and either didn't realize it or did and didn't care.

00:53:08.080 But I haven't heard anything that would lead me to believe she's an intentional murderer who would just take out her anger by killing somebody. 0.98

00:53:14.260 That was just a mistake.

00:53:15.940 For them to even go for that was such a mistake.

00:53:17.780 They were never going to be able to prove anything like that.

00:53:19.660 And I'll tell you, the number one thing, and again, it's probably based on my experience, what I do so much of seeing injuries in these pedestrian accidents,

00:53:25.680 it is just so far from anything I think is remotely, scientifically, or physically possible for that Lexus to just break on the taillight,

00:53:33.980 not have any other dents and damages on it, and then the injuries that corresponded to John O'Keefe.

00:53:39.180 And we didn't even get into the bite marks versus scratch marks or any of that.

00:53:42.380 Right, right.

00:53:42.840 An animal may have attacked him.

00:53:45.080 Yeah.

00:53:45.500 They just don't line up to me, the injuries, for it to be a car accident the way that the prosecution described,

00:53:50.760 and that's so hard for me to get over.

00:53:53.160 Wow.

00:53:53.760 All right.

00:53:54.200 Thank you so much, Peter Drago.

00:53:55.320 So good to see you again.

00:53:56.480 This has been the most clear, easy-to-understand explanation of a very complex case I think I've ever heard.

00:54:04.200 It makes me miss you all the more.

00:54:05.620 Thanks for being back with us.

00:54:07.400 Thanks for having me.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - December 29, 2025

Breaking Down Every Angle of the Karen Read Case and Trials： Crime Week Begins, with Peter Tragos ｜ Ep. 1218

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