Brian Albert tells ABC News he would've ‘taken a bullet' for John O'Keefe
At both of Read's trials, her lawyers stressed that Albert did not go outside to investigate what was happening outside his house when law enforcement and paramedics arrived there early on Jan. 29, 2022, amid heavy snowfall, after Read, Albert's sister-in-law Jennifer McCabe, and another woman, Kerry Roberts, found O'Keefe's body on Albert's front yard on Fairview Road.
Albert told ABC that McCabe had burst into his room that morning and told him and his wife that O'Keefe was lying dead on the lawn.
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He said O'Keefe 'was already gone' to the hospital by that point and 'there was nobody to save,' adding that police were in his home when he came downstairs.
'That's the most ridiculous question that people always ask,' Albert told ABC. 'It makes zero sense. What am I supposed to do, run out front in my underwear and start running yellow tape around the fire hydrant?'
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Albert spoke to ABC News with his wife, Nicole Albert; her sister, Jennifer McCabe and McCabe's husband, Matt McCabe; and Chris Albert, Brian Albert's brother.
They all testified at one or both of the high-profile trials in Norfolk Superior Court.
At Read's retrial, jurors on Wednesday cleared Read, 45, of killing O'Keefe, her boyfriend, rejecting the prosecution's assertion that she backed her Lexus SUV into him in a drunken rage after dropping him off on Fairview following a night of bar-hopping.
Her lawyers said O'Keefe entered the property, where he was fatally beaten and possibly mauled by the Albert family's German Shepherd before his body was planted on the front lawn.
'You do realize for this conspiracy to be true, it would take 30 to 50 people,' Brian Albert told ABC. 'You'd have to have multiple cops in two different police departments, multiple civilians, the medical examiner, firemen, EMTs, you name it. That's how preposterous and silly this is. ... I don't understand how people bought this.'
At trial, the defense stressed that Read in the weeks leading up to O'Keefe's death had exchanged flirtatious text messages with ATF Agent Brian Higgins, who was at the
second bar with the group and later went to an afterparty at the Albert home.
The jury also saw surveillance footage of Higgins gesturing aggressively toward O'Keefe at the second bar before the afterparty, and additional footage of Higgins walking into the Canton police station, where he had an office, around 1:30 a.m., about an hour after authorities said Read struck O'Keefe.
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Higgins is seen walking inside the station before returning back to the parking lot, where he retrieves an empty duffel bag from a vehicle. He also retrieves a garden hoe from another area of the lot.
Higgins testified at the first trial that he went to the station to move cars due to the snowstorm. He also said he discarded his phone a few months after Read was charged with killing O'Keefe, because he learned one of his targets in an ATF probe had obtained his number online. He did not testify at the retrial.
The case also attracted the attention of the Justice Department, which launched a separate federal grand jury investigation into state law enforcement's handling of O'Keefe's death. No one was charged with any federal crimes.
Read attorney David Yannetti, during pretrial proceedings before the first trial in March 2024, said in court that text messages recovered as part of the federal case showed a rift between the Alberts and Higgins.
Citing one text sent to Higgins from Kevin Albert, Brian Albert's brother and a Canton police detective,
Brian Albert told ABC that his family feels let down by the legal system.
'The criminal justice system has let us down at every turn,' Albert said. 'And yesterday [Read's acquittal] was the final letdown. And that's why we're here, because there's nobody left to stand up for us.'
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Jennifer McCabe also addressed her disputed Google search during the interview.
She had testified at trial that she Googled on her phone how long it takes to die in the cold around 6:30 a.m. at Read's request, even though the search was timestamped at 2:27 a.m. on her device and later deleted.
Forensic experts testified for the prosecution at trial that McCabe appeared to have made the search at the later time on an old tab and that the deletion appeared to have been done automatically.
Read 'asked me to do it, at um, outside of Fairview at 6:20, whatever it was,' McCabe told ABC. 'Doesn't matter how much I say about it, people will not believe it.'
Her sister, Nicole Albert, offered advice to people drawn into criminal investigations.
'Think real long and hard before you're a witness in a case,' Nicole Albert said. 'Because no one protects you. And it's very, very sad.'
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at
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