The Murder of John O'Keefe

[00:00:00] We are super excited to shout out our sponsor, Via Hemp. Their gummies deliver great results, no matter what mood you're trying to create. I find that Ani and I can have trouble winding down after a day running around reporting, podcasting, and getting embroiled in cereal-related capers.

[00:00:17] That's where Via Hemp comes in. They offer a range of gummies of the THC and THC-free CBD and CBN varieties. They are delicious and legal to ship all 50 states. The folks at Via Hemp craft

[00:00:32] each gummy based on a mood or goal. Try them now to improve your sleep, recovery, focus, pleasure, or creativity, or just to enjoy and vibe. I really love their THC-free CBD, CBN, and CBG gummies.

[00:00:47] Specifically, Zen is a nice blueberry treat that also helps me relax and rest at the end of the day. For anyone looking for other sleep-focused Via options, their new Dreams formulations also allow for a fully customizable sleep journey featuring 2, 5, and 10 milligram options.

[00:01:05] Head to viahemp.com and use the code MSHEET to receive 15% off plus one free sample of their award-winning gummies, if you're 21 and older. That's V-I-I-A hemp.com and use code MSHEET at

[00:01:20] checkout. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Get the rest you deserve with Dreams from Via. Again, head to viahemp.com and use the code MSHEET to receive 15% off plus one free sample of their award-winning gummies.

[00:01:36] Content warning. This episode includes discussion of murder, violence, stalking, and the sexual harassment of minors. It also includes the mention of profanity. John J. O'Keefe was left out in the cold in the early hours of January 29, 2022, with a blizzard raging around him.

[00:01:58] That is how he died, battered and freezing in the snow. Now he has been left out in the cold in a different way. The murder trial for his case has become overrun with all sorts of speculation

[00:02:10] and toxic behavior. In some ways, it's like the man at the center of this mystery has been lost. So who was this man? O'Keefe was 46. A Boston police officer, he served on the force for 16

[00:02:24] years. He was raising his orphaned nephew and niece. He was close to his family and had a lot of people who cared about him. So what happened? How did O'Keefe come to succumb to blunt

[00:02:35] force trauma and hypothermia? So close to a party at a house in Canton, Massachusetts, where some of his friends were gathered just after getting out of an SUV driven by his girlfriend, Karen Reed. Well, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, represented by Norfolk District Attorney

[00:02:53] Michael W. Morrissey and Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally, has put forward a theory that comprises their case at trial this year. They have argued that somebody close to O'Keefe killed him. They say that person is Reed herself, that she hit him with her car and then fled,

[00:03:11] that she pretended to be concerned and even returned to the Canton property to search the following day, that when she and two other women seemingly found O'Keefe in the snow, unresponsive, fatally injured, she already knew what had happened. Accordingly, she was indicted

[00:03:29] on charges of motor vehicle manslaughter, leaving the scene of a collision, and second-degree murder. So what does Reed have to say? Well, her defense team has claimed that she is as much a victim as

[00:03:42] O'Keefe. They say she's being framed for murder and that a police conspiracy is at play here, involving dozens of people. They say that it was actually the group of people inside the house who killed John O'Keefe and that Reed has just been left to take the fall.

[00:03:57] In this episode, we'll discuss some of the facts of this case. People tend to feel quite strongly about it. That's okay. Conformity is not required. Not on our program. We have too many hot takes for that. We cover plenty of cases that are controversial, that elicit strong emotions.

[00:04:16] Opinions are good as long as discussion around them is respectful. But one thing we also hope to focus on here is something we feel is important and newsworthy, that has no bearing on whether or

[00:04:28] not Karen Reed is guilty or innocent of murder. Notably, the culture of harassment, abuse, and mind-numbing true crime takes that have developed around the case is a sort of a cottage industry. Hopefully, a statement like, victims' families should not be harassed and taunted under

[00:04:47] any circumstances is uncontroversial, something we can all get behind. So we believe that that is important to talk about as well. Today, we'll talk to a guest named Julie Carpenter. She is an online commentator. We personally feel she has strived to inject a dose of reality into

[00:05:05] the Reed case. But whether or not you agree with her opinions, we think it is commendable that she's largely tried to keep the focus on John O'Keefe and his family members. So, she has a

[00:05:15] perspective we wanted to hear from, given that that side of things seems to be getting lost in all the noise. Julie told us she has a personal connection to crime that motivates her to stand up for victims' families. Much like Virgil leading Dante through the circles of hell,

[00:05:31] she will now lead us through this case and its online fallout. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:05:49] We're The Murder Sheet. And this is The Murder of John O'Keefe.

[00:06:38] Before we get into how crazy it got, can we go back to the beginning? Sure. Who is Karen Reed? Who's John O'Keefe? What does the Commonwealth say happened? Okay, so Karen Reed, he is an equity analyst,

[00:06:53] and she was an adjunct professor at Bentley University. She was dating John O'Keefe. John O'Keefe was a Boston police officer. His sister had two children, and she was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she died. So John was helping his brother-in-law take care of the two

[00:07:12] small children. And I think it was a few months after his sister died, the brother-in-law also died of a heart attack. So these two children were all orphans. So John was a bachelor, changed his entire life, took these two children in. And so he was dating Karen,

[00:07:29] I think they started dating right around COVID. He had sent her a message on Facebook, according to Karen, he sent her a message and they started dating. They were dating throughout COVID. Let's return to the snowy night of January 28, 2022, back to the streets of Canton, Massachusetts,

[00:07:46] a town that is part of the greater Boston region. They had been arguing during the day. There was an argument about the children during the day. I'm not really clear on exactly what that was. My understanding, it was that she took the

[00:08:01] niece to dumping donuts and John didn't want the kids to be spoiled. So they had an argument over that. And so they were arguing all day. They just went through some of the text messages.

[00:08:11] So they're going back and forth and they're basically telling each other like it's toxic. At one point in the text messages, Karen had said, you know, with the four of us, meaning John and the two children and her, you know, it was just a toxic

[00:08:24] situation and she just wanted to limit it maybe to just her and John. So he had gone out that night with a friend. She ended up as they're arguing all day, they finally resolve it.

[00:08:35] She ends up meeting him up there. Reed and O'Keefe started the evening at C.F. McCarthy's bar. Then they went to another bar, Waterfall, around 11 p.m. for about an hour. They were drinking with

[00:08:46] Brian Albert, Jennifer McCabe and others. Karen had nine drinks and her imbibing was captured on video. There's more people there. So Brian Albert is there. His wife, Nicole, is there. Chris Albert is there. His wife, Julie, was there, but she left. And John lived down the street from

[00:09:03] Chris and Julie Albert. So that's how he knew them. And John had taken the nephew into Chris's pizza shop that day and he said, hey, we're going to be out, whatever. So there's some text messages

[00:09:13] going back. So Karen and John go over to this other bar. And as they're leaving, as the night is ending, people are invited back to Brian Albert's house. Now, from what everyone said the entire time,

[00:09:25] you know, that entire evening, there were no fights between Karen and John. They were getting along. Everyone seemed to be getting along. Are you trying to lose weight and feeling like you're getting absolutely nowhere? Well, weight loss can be a uniquely challenging goal, one that leaves

[00:09:40] many of us feeling isolated and frustrated. The good news is that our sponsor Rowe can help you achieve your weight loss goals. Over 200,000 people who've tried it can attest to this. Now, remember, when you support our sponsors, you're also supporting our show directly. To start, Rowe gets

[00:09:58] you access to one of the most popular and effective weight loss shots on the market. Next, through its special RoweBody program, you can tailor a weight loss system that works for you, figuring out your

[00:10:08] own unique diet and exercise regimen. Rowe even gets you weekly one-on-one coaching sessions with a registered nurse. Lose the pounds and keep them off with Rowe. Now, Murder Sheet listeners get a special deal. With Rowe, the average weight loss is 15 to 20 percent in one year with healthy lifestyle

[00:10:28] changes. BMI and other eligibility criteria apply. Go to rowe.co.msheet. Sign up today and you'll pay just $99 for your first month and $145 a month after that. Medication costs are separate. That's ro.co.msheet.

[00:10:50] So they go over to the Alberts' house and Karen pulls up and a car pulls up behind her, which is the brother of someone who was in the house. So Brian Alberts, and I know this gets really kind

[00:11:05] of like kind of crazy, but Brian Albert Jr. was having a birthday party. So apparently he has a problem with an anxiety. I think it was his 23rd birthday. And instead of going out, he decided to

[00:11:16] stay at home with his friends. So that was the reason everyone was going to go over to Brian Alberts to have a drink with his son for his birthday. And so Karen had pulled up with John and this car

[00:11:28] had pulled behind them. The people in the car, two of them say they never saw John anywhere. They didn't see him in the car. They didn't see him out of the car. One person said that they saw him

[00:11:39] out of the car. So that car pulls away and within minutes, and Jennifer McCabe and Matt McCabe are watching from the window because they see that this car is out there, but they're not,

[00:11:49] you know, they're not sitting there staring out the window. They're looking out every once in a while. And the car moves up and the car moves up. And in a matter of minutes, this had to happen,

[00:11:58] probably seconds. The assumption is they were arguing in the car on the way over there and Karen reversed and hit John. Karen's story is that she dropped John off at the house. She's had a

[00:12:11] couple of different stories where she said she saw him go in the house and she didn't see him going in the house. But what their story is, is that he came into the house. He was immediately

[00:12:21] attacked by Brian Albert and Colin Albert, which Colin Albert wasn't even there when John arrived. Colin had been there earlier in the evening and the dog. So who is this dog? She is named Chloe and she's a German shepherd mix. Chloe used to belong to the

[00:12:38] Alberts. She was aggressive and ultimately had to be rehomed. Part of the defense's theory is that Albert and the others sicked Chloe on O'Keefe when he first came into the house. You've probably seen so-called experts on social media gawking over O'Keefe's autopsy photos and debating whether or

[00:12:58] not O'Keefe's injuries came from a car or a dog. Of course, this is why we have actual experts testify at trials. Anyways, at trial, it came out that there was no dog DNA on O'Keefe. The defense

[00:13:12] countered that the samples must have been too degraded. But that runs counter to all we've been hearing about this allegedly brutal dog attack. There is DNA in this case, though. The broken

[00:13:23] taillight on Karen Reed's car had human DNA on it. DNA from three people was on the taillight. None of it matched to investigators. One sample was a match for O'Keefe. During the trial, the defense attorneys seemed to indicate that they felt that was planted. That being said,

[00:13:38] one perplexing element of this case is that no one saw O'Keefe lying there in the snow until the next morning. What's more, the defense put on their own experts before resting. Those experts say that there's no way that O'Keefe's injuries could have come from a vehicle.

[00:13:52] They also pointed the finger at Chloe as the possible cause of some of O'Keefe's injuries. But those same experts indicated under cross-examination that they were not aware of the presence of O'Keefe's DNA on the car. On top of that, what the defense wants people to believe

[00:14:07] is that this all happened and not everyone in the house heard it. So just a few people hear it, just a few people know about it, all these people end up leaving, and then sometime in the night,

[00:14:20] they drag John's body out and put it on the front. We should say here that candidly, we find the defense's theory of the case very hard to believe. Meanwhile, there are Reed's statements after the discovery of O'Keefe. Witnesses, namely the paramedics and first

[00:14:35] responders, heard her say, I hit him multiple times. Defense countered that one of the paramedics knew the Albert family well, Jen McCabe and Carrie Roberts, a woman who came out to help

[00:14:46] search for O'Keefe, who did CPR on him. Heard Reed say, did I hit him? Could I have hit him? There were certain pieces of evidence Julie very much wanted to hear about. When we talked to her, the testimony about O'Keefe's phone had not happened yet.

[00:15:00] Since then, the state has argued that O'Keefe's phone was situated in the Albert's yard, starting at around 1225 AM. Now, the location data is not exact. The state notes that there were a few seconds where the phone's location could have theoretically been in the Albert home

[00:15:19] itself. We are talking seconds here. That being said, as we've discussed in other cases, pinpointing locations using mobile devices is not necessarily an exact art and can be up to interpretation. Another wrinkle here is that the Commonwealth experts had Reed's phone

[00:15:38] connecting to O'Keefe's home Wi-Fi at 1236 AM. She left O'Keefe some eight angry voicemails, but that seems to contradict the prosecutor's opening statement about the timeline. Still, it seems reasonable to say that a good amount of evidence points firmly toward Reed.

[00:15:58] It is up to the Commonwealth to convict her beyond a reasonable doubt, but thinking there is not enough to convict someone is not the same as thinking someone is factually innocent. Our system is unbalanced on purpose to protect our individual rights and liberties.

[00:16:13] The well-known quote from famed English politician and jurist Sir William Blackstone is, It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. It is a cliche at this point, but it is an important belief that belongs at the heart of our system.

[00:16:31] All that being said, while we have seen many commentators adhere to that maxim or note that they remain unconvinced, that does not necessarily explain the current moment. We were curious about how exactly Reed and her team came to convince such a large group of people that her frankly

[00:16:49] hard-to-believe defense must be true, that there is indeed a widespread conspiracy amongst authorities to frame her. Because that's a very different thing than simply believing her innocent or feeling that the Commonwealth does not have enough evidence. Fortunately,

[00:17:06] Julie has also been following another separate case that may have some answers. There was an old college friend of Karen's that was kind of helping her with stuff and they were watching social media. My understanding of Karen is that she's a social media fanatic. She watches

[00:17:24] everything on social media, she watches all comments. And they noticed this woman and her name was Jennifer Altman and she kept commenting on things in support of Karen. So the friend, Natalie, reached out to Jennifer Altman and Jennifer Altman said,

[00:17:41] hey, I know this guy. He has a blog. His name is Aiden Carney and maybe he could write a story about you. Maybe we could get something going. So in April of last year, sometime mid-April,

[00:17:56] Aiden wrote the first story. And if you were to go back and read that story, there's so many errors in that story and conclusions that he draws. But for whatever reason, people believed it and believed it to the point where they've created this just massive witch hunt.

[00:18:14] In the face of all this chaos, we wanted to know how Julie came to be a voice of reason in the case. You may not agree with her, but we found her takes to be reasonable and her participation

[00:18:24] in conversations around a heated topic to be measured. I'm pretty new to Twitter. I think I've been on Twitter for about two years. I had started with Murdaugh. I became interested in

[00:18:34] that story at the same time that Murdaugh was going on. My son's friend was murdered, so I had some personal experience with it. Then one day she came across a video by Carney, the blogger we

[00:18:47] mentioned earlier. He was following people around. He was calling them cop killers. Julie would later learn that his quarry were witnesses in the case. It was kind of interesting, but then when I looked

[00:19:00] at it, none of it made sense. What he was screaming, what he was saying was the story was it really didn't make much sense. That was probably in May of 2023. So I just walked away from it. But Julie

[00:19:11] wasn't done, not by a long shot. Not after she saw another video. This time the video showed the family of John O'Keefe. And then a few months later, a friend that I have on Twitter that is

[00:19:22] very victim-focused sent me a video of the O'Keefe family walking into court, into a pre-trial hearing, being booed by the crowd. So that kind of set me on a path to try to find out what was going on.

[00:19:38] I started reading the court documents and realizing that a lot of the things that were being pushed out onto basically social media, because at that time the media, like our mainstream media, wasn't really picking that story up. They were picking it up mainly in Boston, but

[00:19:55] they weren't going into depth on it. So the only thing that you really had was this social media. As Julie can tell, the media push started with Kearney. We'll get more into him later.

[00:20:07] He has a very dedicated fan base and then it just started to grow, right? So you had more of these YouTubers coming in and they were latching on. And because that particular fan base is very

[00:20:22] loyal and they wanted to hear that story, then their audiences would grow and grow. And then other people would pick it up. But there was no focus, number one, on the O'Keefe's. They've suffered tremendously. Peggy O'Keefe, John's mother, has been hounded and called the C-word.

[00:20:37] Paul O'Keefe, John's brother, was smeared and accused of helping to murder his own sibling. As for John O'Keefe's teenage niece and nephew, who he took in to help raise, Julie heard through the community that they reside next to a neighbor who tilts

[00:20:51] hashtag free Karen Reid signs toward their house just so they can view it. They live surrounded by shows of support for the woman accused of murdering their uncle and guardian. This family has just been through probably what I would consider the worst possible nightmare.

[00:21:06] Number one, you've lost somebody you love tremendously. And then you have this almost witch hunt and these rumors and this conspiracy being grown. And there's an article I'll send you. It was in the Boston Magazine.

[00:21:23] It was from one of John's previous girlfriends, and they had remained friends for a long time. And there was a quote from Paul O'Keefe in it. And he said, you know, the hardest thing about this is that the real victim, my brother, is being lost.

[00:21:37] And the person accused of killing him is being treated like the victim. Julie was struck by what she found when she dug deeper into the case. When you start to really get into it, and if you don't believe in the conspiracy,

[00:21:49] and if you start reading the documents and you start learning about the Commonwealth's case, you realize that these witnesses have been put through just absolute hell. I mean, I can't imagine. Take Colin Albert, for instance. As a reminder, Colin is Brian Albert's nephew. He is one of the

[00:22:07] people that Reid's defense team has accused of murdering O'Keefe. He was a teenager when O'Keefe died. Videos of him scrapping with other teenagers at school made it into this murder trial. According to testimony from Colin and his friend Allison McCabe,

[00:22:22] Colin departed from the house at 1210 a.m. Allison is Jen McCabe's daughter. She wept on the stand while recounting the vile harassment her family and the Albert family have received over this case.

[00:22:37] You know, Colin Albert, when you think about that kid, he woke up one day, he was 18, 19 years old. He went to bed one night. He wakes up the next morning and people are calling him a murderer.

[00:22:47] And he wasn't even in the house when John was there. So you've got, you know, Colin Albert, whose life was ruined. He had to leave school. Then there's Brian Albert, Colin's uncle and

[00:22:57] the owner of the house where all of this happened. He served in the Marines and as a member of the Boston police force. You've got Brian Albert, who had a wonderful career of

[00:23:08] public service. He was in, I can't remember if it was in Marines, but he served. He was in the Iraq war and then he was a Boston police officer. So here's this person who's dedicated his entire life

[00:23:19] to public service that's being called a murderer. Also take Jennifer or Jen McCabe. This is a woman that Kearney and his followers refer to as the evil ringleader behind O'Keefe's murder.

[00:23:31] And she was really the one for me where I was like, this is ridiculous. I don't know if you saw her testify, but she really is just your basic suburban soccer mom, right? She's got four

[00:23:40] daughters. She's a stay at home mom. And she's supposed to be the person orchestrating all of this and doing this 227 search that they debunked. But their lives have been turned completely upside

[00:23:52] down. And to see people suffer like that is very difficult for me. So I have been one of a few where we're much smaller voices, but very vocal voices on social media to try to kind of dissuade

[00:24:07] some of the bigger ridiculous things that are happening. In the service of avenging Karen Reed, the online harassment in this case has spilled over into real life incidents. Chris Albert, who is Callen Albert's father, has a pizza shop. It's called D&E Pizza. And shortly before the

[00:24:26] trial started, it was sometime in April, people had taken these rubber ducks, which apparently Aiden Kearney likes these rubber ducks. And they took stickers that said Callen did it and they threw them in front of the business. They then during the trial, Kaitlyn Albert, who is Brian

[00:24:42] Albert's daughter, after she testified, someone threw the same ducks all over her lawn. I mean, what's gone on? I think if there was an interest in this case, if people knew what had actually

[00:24:54] happened, I think people would be outraged. I think a lot of people are kind of staying off to the side because it's just so dramatic and it's so divisive. We personally remain unconvinced by the defense's theory. For us, the evidence around the DNA in the plastic remains the

[00:25:09] most convincing. The defense's experts were not as compelling to us because they seem fully unaware that O'Keefe's DNA was on the tail light and that fragments of the tail light were on his clothing.

[00:25:22] Those pieces of evidence seem like pretty big factors for the defense to leave out when talking to their experts. We would have preferred for those experts to offer explanation. That being said, it is fine to disagree. And in our opinions, from observing the trial, we aren't certain that

[00:25:40] the prosecution has sold the jury on its case. There seems to have been some issues that people have been confused about or not felt that the prosecution sufficiently set up or explained. We suppose that all that remains to be seen. Ultimately, it matters most what the jury thinks

[00:25:58] and the burden of proof is on the commonwealth, not the defense. To us in the true crime space, behaviors matter more than opinions. People of diverging opinions can respectfully disagree, but bad behavior, regardless of motivation, is never acceptable. Unfortunately, one creator

[00:26:19] has attracted quite a lot of attention and his brand is anything but respectful. We'd probably think of him as a sideshow, but recent revelations have raised all sorts of questions about his role

[00:26:32] in the case. Out of all the true crime creators, Kearney has one of the loudest voices and we are going to continue to refer to him as Kearney, not his ridiculous internet nickname.

[00:26:43] I want to tell you all something. A listener reached out to us a long time ago with a kind message. They appreciated our coverage of the Delphi murders and compared us to Kearney. They meant that as a compliment. I imagine they made the comparison because we are also

[00:26:57] independent of any larger corporate media structure. We've also attracted some controversy at times. But when we looked Kearney up, we were pretty horrified. We did not find the comparison complimentary, not in the least. Kearney's devoted fans hold him out as a roving,

[00:27:12] investigative journalist. They say he's asking tough questions and uncovering a whole plot. Sure, maybe some conceit is a little unpolished, even boorish, maybe even belligerent to the point of being unprofessional and unfair. Plus, his political bent is divisive. But they say,

[00:27:29] look at all the good he's done on covering this conspiracy, broken clocks, etc., etc. If you consult Massachusetts specific social media spaces, you'll find that locals seem to have a very different idea about Kearney. Social media spaces dedicated to the Boston area carry

[00:27:46] all sorts of comments indicating that locals feel that he is an anti-social grifter with a history of accusations of harassment against women and girls and documented instances of hounding and shaming anyone who runs afoul of him. For some reason, when it comes to these amateur online

[00:28:04] sleuths, there tends to be an overly forgiving attitude from true crime consumers. Sure, people say, this sleuth called the victim's mother the C-word and stalks witnesses and is accused of harassing a teenage girl and doing all manner of vile things. But take the good with the bad.

[00:28:21] No, if someone behaves this way, they should not be taken seriously. A broken clock may be right twice a day, but that doesn't mean you need to walk around with a busted watch or drive with a

[00:28:30] car clock that's on the fritz, because the vast majority of the time you'd be left without a clue of what time it actually was. The broken clock analogy is a fallacy. The baby in the bathwater

[00:28:41] analogy is also of no use to us when it comes to people we are trusting to be truthful. If someone is not above lying or exaggerating to manipulate the public, they are not worth your

[00:28:51] time. There is no baby with online cranks, just a pool of stinking dirty bathwater. Dump it out and move on. Kearney's main appeal seems to be that he provides an outlet for people to get out

[00:29:04] their aggression, to laugh along with him as he punches down, to leer at and smear his targets, to join in the hunt. It is blood sport posing as citizen journalism. Anyone trying to rationalize

[00:29:17] this is deluding themselves at best. Let's get back to Julie. She gave us some more information on Kearney's background. He was a high school teacher and apparently he couldn't follow the

[00:29:30] rules. He had had some problems with the rules for a teacher in a school and he had gone to the story that I understand the reason why he ended up resigning his position was he had gone

[00:29:42] to a Patriots game. He'd gone to a football game and I'm assuming there was alcohol involved and he was harassing a young girl. Well, the young girl was a teenage girl. He may not have realized how

[00:29:55] young she was but he was harassing her in a way that someone shouldn't harass a young woman. An adult man should not harass a young woman like that. The school found out about it and he had

[00:30:06] already had several problems so he ended up resigning his position and he started this blog. The blog, if you go back, it's basically the guy that falls asleep drunk in the park and he's

[00:30:21] making fun of him. That's what the blogs were. He had a couple blogs where investigative stories and that's kind of how he got a little bit of acceptance with people. He had broke a story

[00:30:33] about the state troopers. There was a woman that had been in trouble with dealing drugs. Her boyfriend was a drug dealer years ago when she was 18. She somehow got a job as a state trooper

[00:30:46] and he kind of broke that for you. That's when people kind of started to listen to him. Karen Reid, I think is his biggest story, gotten him the most attention that he's ever gotten. He has this

[00:30:59] fan base and it's something to study because these people always look at him like he's a messiah. Whatever he says is the gospel truth and they are so loyal and so they will do things that normal

[00:31:15] people wouldn't do, a normal fan wouldn't do. We wanted to know more about the kind of harassment and intimidation that Kearney has spurred on and engaged in himself. In July of last year,

[00:31:28] he got together his followers. There was probably like 100 cars, 100 people and they went to the town of Canton and they went to these witnesses' homes. They were outside their homes calling them cop

[00:31:41] killers. One of the girls that was in the house who's not accused of doing anything, she was a young nurse. Her name was Sarah Levinson. They went to her house and they spit on her driveway.

[00:31:50] They went to the lead investigator's house and said he was covering up for cop killers. I can send you that. I think it would be his probable cause for the witness intimidation that Rowling really is something I've never seen anything like that. He also just kept putting out

[00:32:11] there in social media that these people were murderers. Then people would call them and harass them. Can you imagine a 19-year-old kid and at 12 o'clock at night your phone rings and they're calling you a murderer and telling you you should die and all these horrible things

[00:32:27] that they did to these people? We've seen some really bad behavior, appalling behavior in the Delphi case, but nothing to the degree of that rally, I'll be honest. We've seen in real life harassment, certainly people taking things too far, but that is unique. I'm curious in your

[00:32:43] sort of study of this fan base of this community, what is driving this? Why are adults fully cognizant with their own faculties treating a random blogger like he is somebody that they should do crimes on behalf of? What is going on here? It's really interesting. You're talking

[00:33:02] about this community that he has built has really been built out of shame, public shame. Once you are in that community, if you speak out against him or even if you're not even in that

[00:33:14] community, if you speak out against Aiden Caron, he will write a blog on you. If he has to make things up, he will make things up. It's a culture of shame. You're talking about people when you

[00:33:27] listen to them, they call themselves a movement. These are people looking for something to fill that void in their life. Almost like you would see religious fanatics, that's how these people

[00:33:42] behave. I don't understand it. I don't need that in my life, but obviously this is some kind of void that is filled for these people. We know from our coverage of the Delphi case that some people look

[00:33:55] for any excuse to get involved in a group or movement that is selling them nonsensical conspiracy theories. Still, we felt like there must be some sort of evidentiary underpinning that bolstered Kearney's claims. What sort of evidence did he offer that these people were guilty of these

[00:34:13] heinous crimes? None. None. So really what it hinged on was that 2 27 AM Google search where they say that Jen McCabe Googled Haas Long to die in the cold. Wow. So Julie is saying that Jen McCabe

[00:34:31] searched Haas Long to die in the cold, which seems to be a misspelling of how on a night where a would-be fellow party guest of hers died in the cold? Seems pretty interesting until you look

[00:34:41] closer, according to Julie. If you read the actual filing and you don't get the full report, right, you just get snippets. But if you read what Richard Green said, and Richard Green is the

[00:34:53] defense expert, the way he came up with it, he misinterpreted the data. And that's what we found out this week. You know, this Commonwealth had two experts and he basically misinterpreted it.

[00:35:04] The way the field was labeled could get people to believe that it was true that she had done that. I can't remember if it's like date last, like time last, whatever. I would have to go back and look.

[00:35:18] But the way the field is labeled is basically a misnomer. It doesn't mean what the field says, but because it's in there like that and people are reading it, they're assuming that it's true. And so it was really that Google search that got people to believe, because

[00:35:34] why would you search that at 2 27 a.m.? You know, why would you do that? So what ultimately accounts for this bizarre search? So her daughter was playing in a basketball tournament and she was searching the basketball

[00:35:47] tournament. So it was Haga Max works or something like that. And it had to do with the tab closure. When she searched it again in the morning, Karen asked her to search it and she was,

[00:35:58] you know, they're in the freezing cold and she's trying to do it. She misspells it. The searches happened at 6 23 and 6 24. There's no way around that. It did not happen at 2 27. Richard Green misinterpreted that data. And the interesting thing about Richard Green

[00:36:14] is if you try to find Richard Green, he's a ghost. You can't find anything on him. So he's got a company that he says that he started. So he founded this company. It's called U.S. Forensics. So it looks like a government name.

[00:36:26] You can't find him as a witness in another case. You can't even find a picture of this guy. So, you know, in the back of my head, I just wonder if he wasn't hired on purpose

[00:36:39] to find this anomaly in this strange field that could be exploited. Now, do I know that for a fact? Of course, I don't know that. But it's very interesting to me that this particular person has absolutely no history. Reid's defense attorneys, David Yanetti and Alan Jackson,

[00:36:56] have been familiar figures within the media coverage around this case, which has certainly brought them much fame and praise from the online contingent. Jackson is also the same attorney who previously represented Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. So he is well accustomed to controversy.

[00:37:11] But for one of the central figures in this story, this case represents a new brush with infamy, plus some pretty serious allegations of witness intimidation. So we were curious to learn if Kearney is facing any repercussions for his behavior.

[00:37:26] Well, it turns out he is. In February, Kearney was arrested after allegedly threatening his ex-girlfriend. The alleged reason? He warned her against spilling his secrets to a grand jury. He has since been charged with witness intimidation and wiretapping.

[00:37:41] In January 2024, Massachusetts State Police seized Reid's phone. What they found proved how Karen Reid engineered positive press in order to sway public opinion on her case. I think Aiden will go to jail for at least a couple of years. I don't...

[00:38:00] He's on video, right? He videoed himself saying, we're getting to your jury. So he's videotaping himself saying that he basically tampering with the jury. So I mean, and unfortunately for him, because he does these YouTube shows, right? So he does

[00:38:19] two public ones a week and he can't not talk. So he tells on himself. So he will admit things on camera. So there's no way for him, there's no defense for him because he's admitted it.

[00:38:38] So last fall, there were texts that leaked after he was charged with witness intimidation before, and I don't know if you're aware of this, but they also confiscated Karen's phones in January as part of the witness intimidation. So there were these texts that started to leak

[00:38:53] and they were from the intermediary between Karen and Aiden initially. So there was a person, that Natalie person was in between them before Karen and Aiden just started talking directly. Someone started to leak these texts, right? And so you see them on Twitter and you don't know for

[00:39:10] sure if they're authentic or what they are. So I kind of paid attention, but also I wasn't retweeting them because I wasn't sure. And then Aiden gets on his live and he authenticates them.

[00:39:25] He authenticates the text. So I mean, I don't even know what to say to that when you're telling on yourself. And I think for him, there's such a need for attention. I think there's definitely

[00:39:39] a narcissistic component there where he needs that attention. And the other thing, you had asked me why do people follow him? And as much as I will say some of the things he's done just morally

[00:39:51] are difficult for me to accept, he is very charismatic. I mean, if you watch him on camera, he's very charismatic. So I could see why he's appealing to people, but because he can't get out

[00:40:03] of his own way, he's constantly telling on himself. So as far as your applications for Aiden, I think that court case is going to go forward. I think it's going to be a really interesting case

[00:40:15] for people to watch. I really hope people take an interest in that. I hope it's televised because when you think about it, let's just say for a second this works, right? So we've got

[00:40:27] defense attorneys that maybe don't have the ethics that we would hope that they would have, and they decide they're going to hook up with a blogger and they're going to flood social media. Julie thinks that a good example of this cycle comes from the revelations over a federal

[00:40:42] investigation into the case. In a rare move, the United States Attorney's Office in Massachusetts brought together a grand jury to dig into the state's handling of the case, despite the fact the trial still hadn't happened yet at that point. The target of this investigation and the reasons

[00:40:58] why it kicked off remain unclear. Karen leaked that to Aiden, that there was a federal investigation so that he would print it in his blog so then Jackson could get up at the next pre-trial

[00:41:11] hearing, put it in a motion and say it's been reported in the media. So think about that for a second. If you have attorneys starting to do that and they're using these bloggers as social media

[00:41:21] and then they're able to pull that into their court filings, that's a scary thing. That's not justice anymore. That's not what that looks like. Can you tell us about her defense attorneys and about their connections to Kearney? The first attorney was Yannetti. Karen hired Yannetti.

[00:41:39] There is an email that got leaked as well where she decided, I think in August of 2022, that Yannetti was not the right person for what the case needed. So that is why Jackson was brought on. But what of

[00:41:52] any connection between Karen Reed's lawyers and her pet blogger? Julie says that Yannetti has made interesting claims about Kearney. Supposedly what David Yannetti says is that he did not talk to Aiden Kearney until after the first blog. There's no way to prove right now when they first started

[00:42:13] conversing, but within a commonwealth filing, right before the trial started, the commonwealth confirms that there are communications between Yannetti and Kearney and Jackson and Kearney. So they were in communication. They were leaking information to Aiden, right? So one of, I think,

[00:42:31] the worst things that they did was the colorized autopsy photos. So those were filed with the court. They weren't appropriately impounded and then they leaked them to Kearney and Kearney published them. They are all over the place, these pictures of John. And so there are some Facebook messages

[00:42:48] between John's brother and Aiden Kearney where Paul is basically saying, please stop. Please stop publishing those pictures. Julie says the defense also leaked information about the federal investigation to Kearney. The federal investigations had a big impact on the case, dredging up Trooper

[00:43:07] Michael Proctor's private texts. In those texts to friends, relatives, and in one case, a colleague, Proctor used inappropriate, horrible, and sexualized language to talk about Reed. Proctor was the lead investigator on the case. Julie says there's no excusing what Proctor wrote.

[00:43:25] We wholeheartedly agree. We won't repeat these vile words, but using gendered slurs like the C word or ableist slurs like the R word are unprofessional and unacceptable. The public should be able to rely on law enforcement investigators to be professional and even-handed,

[00:43:39] and such revelations undermine all of that. Julie is concerned, though, about federal investigators seizing texts from case witnesses. It's been specifically said that the witnesses aren't targets, which makes you wonder, then why would the federal government go and get their texts?

[00:43:56] It seems like an invasion of privacy to me. Meanwhile, for Julie, the text between Reed and Kearney raised questions about how much this murder defendant knows about the federal investigation. You've got to ask yourself, you know, either Karen is lying to Aiden in her text,

[00:44:17] she's just outright lying, or there's questions there because why is a U.S. attorney discussing an investigation with someone accused of murder? Again, despite much speculation, no one seems to know how this federal investigation got started exactly. Yanetti even made some

[00:44:37] confusing comments about how a specific private investigator tipped things over, but those have come into question. But what Yanetti said was he had a private investigator come to him and this man's name was Scanlon, and Scanlon told him that something happened in that

[00:44:52] house and that Brian Albert and his nephew beat up John. So Yanetti gets up in court, he puts this in a motion, he gets up in court, in open court and states this, and then we find out in Aiden's

[00:45:06] witness intimidation case, because one of the other things that he's being charged with is wiretapping, he taped Scanlon and Aiden asks him about this story that he supposedly told Yanetti and Scanlon's like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know who any of those

[00:45:20] people are. Like, I know Brian Albert. I never even heard the name Colin Albert. So obviously someone's lying, either Scanlon's lying or Yanetti's lying. It sure doesn't seem like it's

[00:45:31] Scanlon because he didn't know he was being taped and he was like, I don't even know who that person is. You know, it seems like these defense attorneys have sort of been rewarded for some

[00:45:40] of this behavior and sort of their teaming up with social media influencers. Kearney does this full time. He has like sponsors and this is his full-time job. Yes, he does this and I don't

[00:45:52] think he was doing all that well. There is a question about, here's another, I mean, it's another thing where it's like your mind's blown. Terrence's brother works for a Lexus dealership and Aiden, after he started reporting this story, somehow was able to afford a $60,000

[00:46:11] Lexus. So there are questions as to whether or not the Lexus made its way to Aiden as some sort of payment from the Reed family for his reporting. Good lord. I mean, one thing, it sounds like he's

[00:46:27] a big instigator of a lot of this, but has there been a cottage industry that has grown up around it? We've seen a lot of people who I think are doing horrible things in the Delphi case sort of

[00:46:36] gravitate over to Karen Reed. So are we seeing more people throw their hat in the ring, so to speak? So you'll get the YouTubers, right? So Aiden started it and I think there's like five or

[00:46:47] six now that are pretty big in the Karen Reed case. But I think the bigger issue here is we're seeing it start, right? You're seeing it in Delphi. You're seeing it in this case and if it is

[00:47:00] successful, you will see it again. And I think that's why the legal community in Massachusetts is very serious about this because you can't allow this to happen again. And just as Paul said,

[00:47:15] you know what happens is the victim and the victim's family just completely gets lost in all of it. And it's difficult enough if you've ever lost somebody and you've been through a court

[00:47:26] case like that. That whole process is difficult enough. Now imagine this circus, and I don't know if you've seen any of the footage of what goes on. Have you seen any of it? What goes on outside

[00:47:37] the courtroom? A little bit, yeah. Yeah. You know, they have the tailgate, they show up with pom-poms, they all wear pink, and it actually was Karen's directive. Karen got into, right before the trial started, Karen got into one of the Facebook groups, the Justice Facebook groups,

[00:47:52] and told everyone to wear pink. That was a directive directly from Karen Reed. So that's why those people are out there in pink. It's just shocking to me. I don't know that I've ever seen

[00:48:02] a case where you've got an accused murderer shows up for trial and you've got a crowd cheering. It's shocking to see it. And they're having tailgates and they're, like it's a football game. Yeah,

[00:48:17] it's a fun party for them. So that's fun. Let's find meaning in our lives by making other people miserable for no reason. How has this impacted O'Keefe's family and friends? From what I hear, it's been a nightmare for them. It's been so upsetting for them.

[00:48:37] I personally can't imagine. We've got a couple quotes from Paul, especially that one that was very poignant where he said, here my brother who is the victim is forgotten and the person who's accused of killing him is being treated like she's the victim. That's got to keep you

[00:48:55] up at night. There was a horrible, horrible rumor that was started. Karen was paying for, and this came out in the witness intimidation case too, she was paying $3,000 a month to some

[00:49:06] kind of PR. The people have never been named. I think some of them might be on Twitter, but that's just my personal thought. But anyways, there was this horrible rumor that started when the defense

[00:49:18] released their witness list, they put John O'Keefe Sr. on their witness list, which I thought was a dirty trick. And then later that afternoon, this rumor came out from a person who seems to be doing

[00:49:33] a lot of PR for Karen. That's the only reason why he's on Twitter and it's the only reason why he's on YouTube. And he said that Mr. O'Keefe, John's father, wanted to sit with the Reeds

[00:49:44] during the trial. I can't imagine any, I mean, what a cruel lie to come up with to say that. And then of course the trial starts and Mr. O'Keefe is sitting with his wife, Paul and his

[00:50:00] wife, not with the Reeds. And there's still a YouTuber and she's doing her show and she's telling her audience that she heard that Mr. O'Keefe actually wanted to sit with the Reeds. The

[00:50:14] cruelty in that statement. Think about this for a minute. Let's just think about this from Mr. O'Keefe's perspective. Think about how you would feel if your child died and that you and your family believed that someone that was supposed to have loved them actually killed them and left

[00:50:33] them to die in the cold. Now, think of a bunch of fools attempting to make their names off of the case. We're talking about how you were throwing in your lot with the accused killer's family.

[00:50:45] Based on nothing, based on absolutely nothing other than the fan fiction these people are writing in their heads. They're truly delusional or based on what they think will garner the most clicks if they're more money oriented. And this is not organic. This is not something that cropped

[00:50:59] up naturally. Karen Reed's legal team, public relations team and team of devoted fans have cultivated all of this, regardless of whether you agree with the defense or the prosecution or whether you're frankly undecided. Hopefully we can all agree that this is not right. This

[00:51:14] case has become a circus and it is disturbing to witness it so negatively affect O'Keefe's family. That YouTuber that I was just talking about, what the Reed family has been doing is they have been

[00:51:25] inviting these content creators. So they have so many seats in court and so they're inviting the YouTubers and the content creators that are doing the most positive things for Karen's side. They're giving them seats in court. So what they do is they invite them to court.

[00:51:41] They give them a seat in court. They do like a, and this is insane to me, they do like a meet and greet where they talk to these people and thank them for all the things they're doing for the

[00:51:50] quote unquote movement. I've never heard of such a thing. Can you imagine if Brian Koberger is going to do meet and greets before every day before trial, what that would be like for those families?

[00:52:03] Frankly, it wouldn't surprise us if Koberger did do meet and greets if he were allowed to do so. What's the harm in it from his perspective? There was a subsection of the true crime audience that

[00:52:13] would treat him like a rock star, like a hero. My question for you is, have you gotten attacked? Yeah. So that's the reason why my comments are sent set to followers only people that I follow.

[00:52:27] Those are the only people that can comment. Last fall, I would get, I mean, I would get called names on a daily basis, but if they couldn't find a tweet that had something to do with Karen Reed,

[00:52:37] then they would just go to any other tweets and write horrible things. So that's when I started limiting it. In December, because I had a couple of YouTubers that actually mentioned me by name

[00:52:49] to their audiences. And so then of course you get attacked. It's like a dog whistle. They come to Twitter and they attack me. So in December, I got to a point where I was a little like,

[00:52:59] God, this is too much. But then you think about the O'Keefe's and you think about these witnesses and everything that are going through. And I know I would want someone to stand up for me.

[00:53:09] Right. I mean, and really on most platforms, the conspiracy nuts are the bigger crowd, right? You have more people that are attracted to a conspiracy than something that is just a domestic violence

[00:53:25] hit and run. People don't find if they should care that there was a life loss, but they would rather go for this salacious conspiracy with all these people involved. I think at this point, we're up to, there would have to be at least 52 people involved in the conspiracy.

[00:53:41] And the conspiracy has no basis, right? So there's no underlying crime. There's no money being changed hands. There's nothing to form the basis for the conspiracy. So why would all these people

[00:53:52] do this? So they never explained why these 52 people would attack him and then cover it up and drag it around? Yeah. So what they came up with, and it was funny testimony. So what they came up

[00:54:04] with, Karen came up and Karen was the one scouring social media. So there's an article that came out in Boston magazine last fall where Karen explains to the reporter that she went through, like she

[00:54:18] stayed up and she went through like 1300 photos on Facebook until she could find one photo with one of the investigators and somebody from one of the families. And so they use these pictures.

[00:54:31] And one of the pictures, they had Michael Proctor and there were two little girls in the background and they insisted that they were Jen McCabe's children. And we found out of course in court

[00:54:42] that those are not Jen McCabe's children. Those are his like nieces or cousins. They're not related to Jen McCabe at all, but they use those things. At one point, they even tried to have the judge

[00:54:54] recuse. They accused her of being in on it. There was a series of messages between Aiden Carney and Jen McCabe's brother-in-law and Aiden was going out and he was asking people to find pictures

[00:55:08] of Jen's daughters. Now these are minor children that he's asking for pictures of. So this uncle gets upset and he starts messaging him. And you can tell when you read the messages that

[00:55:22] he's being sarcastic and he's angry. And so he says something and he calls the judge Auntie Bev. So then the defense has Aiden Carney write an affidavit saying that this Sean McCabe called her Auntie Bev and there's a relationship between the McCabes and the judge. I mean,

[00:55:45] and people actually believe that. People not only believed it but repeated it. And when I read the messages, I was like, this is, it's obvious. This is an angry uncle. You're asking for pictures

[00:55:58] of, you're asking the public to give you pictures of minor children. It's understandable. And he's being sarcastic. There was nothing about that that was actually true. I have a question. Are there any

[00:56:11] sane people covering this case at all? There is one person that has been there from the beginning. There's a couple now, but there's one person. His name is Kevin Linehan. Kevin Linehan of

[00:56:21] Yellow Cottage Tales. If you listen to him and you can go back, he's got tons of material on Karen Reid. He was basically the only one that was standing up against these people. And you have to

[00:56:33] understand Kevin started out believing in the conspiracy. So he had started out thinking that it actually was a conspiracy and the more that he got into it. And I think really what set Kevin

[00:56:46] up was that rolling rally that happened in the summer. Because at that point you realize you crossed a line of decency when you're going to people's homes and you're spinning on their driveways and you're calling them murderers. And Kevin started to push back and Kevin really

[00:57:02] took a lot of heat for it on Twitter, everywhere. I mean, he was attacked relentlessly, but he really stuck with it and he's still doing the same coverage. And he's fair. If the common law

[00:57:13] says something that doesn't make sense, he'll say that doesn't make sense. He goes on court TV, usually. He's on court TV most nights. And the other person they have go on court TV,

[00:57:24] his name is Nick Rocco and he owns a hair salon and he does the fundraising for Karen Reid. And there are a lot of pictures of the Roccos, Nick and his wife with Jackson and with Karen.

[00:57:36] And I think basically Nick is going on there and saying whatever Jackson tells him to say. But the one thing that Nick did over the past few days, which was just, I don't, it's like read the room,

[00:57:47] buddy, to raise money. And they can't do this in Massachusetts. It's illegal. So they're running illegal raffles and fundraisers for this defense. But he did an alcohol giveaway. Oh my God. I'm not kidding. An alcohol giveaway with all. And I'm thinking like, I can't possibly think

[00:58:05] of a poorer idea than giving alcohol away when one of the charges is manslaughter and OUI. What are you thinking? Yeah, he did an alcohol giveaway. We were curious to see what Julie's experience has been on social media,

[00:58:19] taking flack from creators who cater to internet cranks and conspiracy theorists. One thing you've, you know, in your kind of discussions and sort of tweeting about things and going on social media, you run afoul of some of these folks. I think specifically we saw one

[00:58:35] exchange between you and Bob Mata, who called you the, I believe the chief of police or the morality. Mayor of morality. Okay. Mayor. I'm sorry. Madam Mayor. Tell us about that and what he meant by

[00:58:50] that. You know, Bob had supported Aiden Carney initially. So last August, September, October, I think Bob kind of distanced himself a little when Aiden got arrested. Not so much because

[00:59:04] initially he was really, you know, he was calling him a legend and it was going to be great for Aiden. What I think is unfair is, you know, Bob is saying that he's approaching this trial, like,

[00:59:15] just with the trial. But what I know is that Bob has been following this all along and Bob has been, I mean, Bob went onto a stream and he called Brian Albert a murderer. Just flat, flat out said

[00:59:29] it. And then like, you know, maybe three, four or five minutes later, he says, well, you know, it's just a theory, whatever. But what if someone turned that stream off before he gave that

[00:59:38] disclaimer. Right. So he's called this guy a murderer. And then he was doing things like, you know, with Jen McCabe and this poor woman has been through so much. He had put out a video

[00:59:48] and said, I think the lead on it was like, is Jen McCabe lying like a rug? I mean, a very sensational kind of lead in. Right. And again, we're talking about someone has someone has lost their life.

[01:00:02] Right. We don't need to sensationalize that anymore. There's enough there that people should pay attention to it. But yeah, it was this very sensationalized thing. And I've commented to Bob and it hasn't gone well for me. We obviously don't agree. I think he's being

[01:00:18] disingenuous. I know that he followed the case beforehand. And I think keeping from your audience the fact that there are these other things that are going on and I understand they can't be introduced into the trial, like the witness intimidation. If a if a witness is testifying

[01:00:36] and it spontaneously comes as part of an answer, the judge will allow it in. But you can't mention it. The lawyers can't mention it. Federal investigation cannot be mentioned. But Bob is aware of those things. And I think keeping your audience in the dark over those things

[01:00:53] then allows you to grow this conspiracy side. And I think it's unethical. I think it's horribly unethical. Julie does not claim to be an unbiased voice. She believes the prosecution's theory and sees herself firmly positioned on the side of the victim's families. She appreciates when defense

[01:01:14] cited commentators present cogent takes, even those that contradict her opinions. She believes it's necessary for true crime viewers and listeners to consider all perspectives. And therefore, in the public space, it is good to have people presenting factual reality based

[01:01:31] arguments in favor of the various sides of a case. Healthy debate in a case can be great and clarifying. But some of the toxic behaviors online have really impacted people who don't deserve it

[01:01:41] in real life. That is not OK, regardless of whether you agree with the premise of those doing their harassing. If you strongly agree, then you should recognize that vigilante justice has no place in

[01:01:52] our system. If you disagree or are unsure, then there exists the strong possibility that innocent people are being smeared and tormented for no reason. So I'm going to ask you, Julie, a pretty

[01:02:02] broad question. I personally feel and I think you agree with me. I personally feel like this stuff is going to tank true crime as a genre in the future. Basically, being into true crime will

[01:02:10] be synonymous with this rather than actually educating people. So how do we save true crime from this? OK, here and here's the thing, and this is probably why I'm vocal, even though I get

[01:02:22] a lot of pushback and I mean harassment is you have to have people with ethics stand up and say this is not OK. There is nothing you can do with these people. There's no they don't have to follow

[01:02:36] ethics, right? They don't have a professional body above them to do that. So it has to be people on platforms and they have to speak up. I'm hoping that more people start speaking up.

[01:02:52] I kind of, you know, after what I've been through and Karen Reid, I don't know if I can do this again in this way. I think that there might be someplace else for me that might be a little

[01:03:03] more positive to get change. But you've got to get people to realize that it's not entertainment. One of the things that and this may seem minor, but it was a YouTuber content creator who

[01:03:16] they make jokes and they have these tallies and their reasoning behind it was, you know, this is really heavy stuff and it's so much for us and we've got to have a way to have an outlet.

[01:03:28] Well, do you understand how difficult it is for the family? So if it's so heavy for you that you have to make fun of things, then maybe it's not the right space for you. Agreed. But don't don't drag it down into clownery. Is there anything we didn't

[01:03:44] ask about that you wanted to mention? You know, I can't think of anything. I am nervous about the outcome of this particular case. I think the Commonwealth made some mistakes with the accident reconstruction.

[01:03:57] I'm hoping that the medical examiner can come on and kind of fix that and come with some strong testimony. I think with Karen Reed, before the trial even started last fall, I had wondered what

[01:04:11] the Commonwealth would do, how they would present their case. And so what they did do is they brought in all these witnesses first, which confused a lot of people. They didn't understand

[01:04:20] what was going on. And now we've finally gotten to the evidence. I don't know if it was the right way to present the case. I don't know that there was any right way to present

[01:04:29] this particular case. But after what I've seen in this case, I hope that people stick around. I hope they watch that witness intimidation case. I hope people get outraged at what happened

[01:04:40] so that it doesn't happen again. My biggest fear is if there is success with what was done here, we're going to see it again. And that's too big of a toll for families that have already lost

[01:04:54] something so irreplaceable as a loved one. And then to have to deal with a circus like that. What happened here can never happen again. Thanks to Julie for her time and for her insight. We appreciate her passion for uplifting victims'

[01:05:10] families and how she directs that passion in a respectful and measured way. You can follow her on the service previously known as Twitter, where her handle is juliacar94. Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of

[01:05:29] the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities. If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com

[01:05:49] slash murder sheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murder sheet. We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet.

[01:06:10] And who you can find on the web at kevintg.com. If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and

[01:06:25] reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. you