Lawyers say new evidence will clear girlfriend of Boston police officer charged with his murder – The Boston Globe

Attorneys for a girl charged with hitting her Boston police officer boyfriend together with her SUV and leaving him to die throughout a snowstorm say they’ve uncovered new proof that may clear her title, whereas implicating two others within the dying of Officer John J. O’Keefe, in keeping with courtroom paperwork filed Wednesday.

Karen A. Learn found O’Keefe’s unconscious physique in a snowbank amid whiteout circumstances and freezing temperatures outdoors a Canton house at about 6 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022.

Learn had dropped her boyfriend, a 16-year-veteran of the Boston pressure, off to hitch an after-party on the house of one other Boston police officer, Brian Albert, at 34 Fairview Street shortly after midnight, courtroom data present.

In line with prosecutors, Learn made a three-point flip to reverse path, rammed into O’Keefe, and drove away.

Early the following morning when Learn started frantically texting and calling O’Keefe to determine why he hadn’t returned house, she instructed a pal she remembered little of the earlier evening — a night of bar-hopping that shifted to an after-party which Learn determined to not attend as a result of she was having abdomen points.

The brand new proof reveals that hours earlier than Learn discovered O’Keefe’s physique, another person who had attended the after-party was making suspicious inquiries on Google, in keeping with the newly filed protection movement.

At 2:27 a.m. Jennifer McCabe, sister-in-law to Albert, searched on her cellphone: “Ho[w] lengthy to die in chilly,” the movement stated.

“There’s merely no harmless clarification for McCabe’s search at the moment,” Learn’s protection crew stated in a press launch. “This proof unequivocally exonerates Karen, as a result of it establishes that people who have been in the home at 34 Fairview that evening have been conscious that John was dying within the snow earlier than Karen even knew he was lacking.”

A forensic evaluation of McCabe’s cellphone by protection consultants additionally confirmed that the Google search was deliberately deleted, as have been communications within the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022 amongst McCabe and Albert, and his spouse, Learn’s legal professionals wrote.

Albert couldn’t be reached for remark Wednesday evening.

McCabe declined to remark when reached by phone.

Learn’s legal professionals stated prosecutors withheld the proof for over a 12 months. The authorized crew, led by David R. Yannetti, in Boston, and Alan Jackson, in Los Angeles, is now requesting entry to Albert’s cellphone to allow them to analyze it.

“It’s unthinkable that the prosecution would have McCabe’s cellphone of their possession for greater than a 12 months, do a forensic evaluation on that cellphone, after which fail to show over this extraordinary exculpatory proof. However that’s precisely what occurred,” the legal professionals’ assertion stated. “It makes you marvel what else the prosecution has failed to show over to the protection. We won’t relaxation till we now have uncovered all of the proof, which can set up that the prosecution of Karen was a miscarriage of justice from the beginning.”

A spokesman for the Norfolk district legal professional’s workplace stated prosecutors will make a “formal and detailed response to the movement” in Norfolk Superior Court docket on the subsequent listening to, Could 3, or after.

“Whereas prosecutors are ethically constrained within the statements that may be made outdoors the courtroom, the Norfolk District Lawyer’s Workplace is in receipt of the movement filed at this time but it surely has not but been decided that protection has interpreted the uncooked information appropriately,” spokesman David Traub stated. “The Norfolk District Lawyer’s Workplace has requested protection repeatedly in the course of the pendency of this matter to offer any truly exculpatory proof to help their claims.”

Learn, who labored as an fairness analyst at a monetary agency and an adjunct professor of finance at Bentley College in Waltham, has pleaded not responsible to second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas inebriated, and leaving the scene of non-public damage and dying.

Tonya Alanez might be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Observe her on Twitter @talanez.