Dateline NBC
New evidence in Karen Read's retrial. Cold case arrest in Ohio. And a big ruling in Sean Combs case.
Thu, 1 May 2025
Listen to this week's episode of the Dateline: True Crime Weekly podcast with Andrea Canning. In Massachusetts, Karen Read's retrial continues with new evidence and an emotional witness. In Ohio, an arson plot involving a latex mask and a wig points investigators to a decades-old murder. Plus, the latest pre-trial rulings for Sean Combs and Bryan Kohberger. And a sheriff on keeping courtrooms safe.Find out more about the cases covered each week here: www.datelinetruecrimeweekly.comListen to Andrea's reporting on the Nevaeh Kingbird case here: https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/dateline-missing-in-america-podcast/dateline-missing-america-podcast-covers-october-2021-disappearance-nev-rcna86829
Chapter 1: What new evidence is being presented in Karen Reed's retrial?
As we head into a summer of big trials, Sheriff James Brown tells us what it's like trying to keep people safe inside and outside the courtroom.
You just have to have a lot of plans and flexibility to be able to address any threat that comes up.
Before all that, we've got the latest from Dedham, Massachusetts, and the retrial of Karen Reed.
Hey, hey, hey. All persons have any business before the Honorable Beverly Canody, Justice of the North, or Superior Court. The court is now open. You may be seated.
It's the start of another day in the second trial of the woman accused of drunkenly hitting her police officer boyfriend with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowbank three years ago.
All right. Good morning, counsel. Good morning, Ms. Reed. Good morning, jurors. Good morning. Good morning.
Karen Reed denies the charges against her and claims that after she dropped John O'Keefe off at a party, he got beaten up by some of the people there, attacked by a dog, and dragged onto the front lawn to die in a blizzard. Last summer, a jury deadlocked after five days of deliberation.
This week at Karen's retrial, the new prosecutor on the case painstakingly laid out a timeline of what he says happened the night John died. He introduced some fresh evidence and also brought back old witnesses. Here to tell us how that played out in the courtroom is Dateline producer Sue Simpson, who joins us now from Massachusetts to give us the latest.
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Chapter 2: How does cell phone temperature data impact the Karen Reed case?
And Sue, did you win the lottery this week and get a seat in court? I have not won the lottery yet, but there's always next week. Last week, you and I talked about how Hank Brennan, the prosecutor, promised to take the jury step by step through the events using data from John's and also Karen's phones. So what story is he telling?
So last week, Andrea, we heard investigators read text messages from Karen's phone establishing that John and Karen had a fight in the hours before John's death. Those text messages show that they made up, two of them made up, but the prosecutor wanted jurors to know that their relationship was far from perfect.
The prosecutor's next big witness on Monday morning was someone who could use John's phone to tell jurors what happened next in the timeline. The prosecution's version of events, of course.
You were talking about digital forensic examiner Ian Whiffen, and he's a witness we've been looking forward to because some of this is new testimony this time around.
Yes, yes. Prosecutor Brannon got Ian Whiffen to talk about the temperature of the battery in John's cell phone. something I honestly knew nothing about until this retrial started.
Yeah, me neither. And that was a big point during opening statements. Why does cell phone temperature matter?
So the prosecution's theory is that John O'Keefe was lying grievously wounded in a blizzard, so you'd expect his phone, if he had it with him, to get colder and colder and colder from the moment Karen drove away. Remember, this is the prosecution's POV. So apparently our phone batteries log their own temperature often. and that's to make sure they don't overheat.
Now, investigators can use that data to figure out how cold or hot it is outside where the phone is. So when Whiffen was on the stand, the prosecution had him walk the jury through a graph he'd created that showed John's phone getting colder on the drive to the party, from the bar to the after party, and then getting steadily colder and colder.
The prosecution argued this means that John's phone never went inside the house.
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Chapter 3: Who is Jen McCabe and what is her testimony in the retrial?
Right. And to remind everyone, Jen McCabe is the good friend of John O'Keefe's. She was also with Karen the next morning when they discovered John's body. So this is the second time that I have seen Jen McCabe on the stand.
And I did notice this time that she repeated again and again that there was a lot of screaming that morning, that Karen was screaming at phone calls, that Karen was screaming at her when they met.
I was downstairs making coffee. I go to my front door and I open it, and she's screaming, Jen! Jen! She screamed that three times.
Jen also testified that Karen did not remember going to the after-party house.
I had told her, Karen, I saw you guys outside. And then she told me she didn't remember being there. And then she started saying, could I have hit him? Did I hit him? Just all over the place, like screaming my name, screaming so many different things.
There were three women out looking for John O'Keefe early that morning in the dark, in the wind, in the awful snow. Carrie Roberts, another good friend of John's, Jen McKay, both in the front seat, and then Karen in the back. Remember, Karen was the first to see the body, and she basically kicked her way out of the car because the other women couldn't see this dark blob lying on the snow.
And all of a sudden, Karen's screaming from the back, there he is, or something, something to the effect of, there he is, let me out.
Did you know what she was talking about?
I had no idea. Like, she's batshit crazy.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the Google search 'how long to die in cold' in the Karen Reed trial?
Then I got out of the car, walked around the back of the car. And when Jen came around, she realized when she saw Carrie Roberts wiping the snow off John's face, she realized, that's my friend. That's my really good friend. And she got choked up on the stand for the first time.
Is that the first moment you realized that that was John O'Keefe on the ground?
Yes, it was.
What do you do?
I was frozen. I was shocked. I couldn't believe that was him just lying there.
That must have been very hard for Jen McCabe. Something that she, of course, was asked about by the prosecution was that infamous Google search, Haas long to die in cold, that was meant to be how long to die in cold. According to the defense, Jen made the search overnight, hours before Karen even knew John was missing.
So that goes to their theory of some kind of attack on John and then a cover-up by people at the party. Sue, what did we hear about that this time around?
Right. So Jen McCabe testified that she went home from the after party. She was in bed and it was 2.27 in the morning. And she was just Googling her daughter's sports teams and various things in that realm of her life.
Peaceful night? Yes. Did you go to sleep, Ms. McCabe? Yes.
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Chapter 5: What are the latest updates on the decades-old Ohio cold case arrest?
The weather's going to get better. But it was just a moment in time where I thought, yep, Things have changed.
Sue, thank you so much. Maybe next week you'll win the lottery. Thanks, Andrea. I sure hope so. Coming up, before he was arrested for the murder of his estranged wife, an Ohio man was accused of an elaborate plot involving a Mission Impossible-style face mask and arson.
On the evening of October 18, 2001, 25-year-old Regina Roe Hicks left her boyfriend's house in Huron County, Ohio, to pick up her son. She never arrived. A few days later, her body was found inside her car at the bottom of a pond. Her family was devastated. For years, they were tormented by unanswered questions. They were sure Regina had been murdered.
It was like gripping a piece of your insides out. And you ain't going to get that back.
Now, almost 24 years later, there has been an arrest in the case. And it's a name the family knows well. Regina's estranged husband, Paul Hicks. Hicks has pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and murder and is in jail awaiting trial. But that's not all. As it turns out, Paul Hicks is no stranger to law enforcement.
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Chapter 6: Who is Paul Hicks and what was the Mission Impossible-style arson plot?
In 2022, he pleaded no contest to charges relating to an elaborate arson scheme. Here to bring us up to speed is reporter Karen Johnson from our NBC affiliate WLWT in Cincinnati, who has been following this case since 2019. Karen, thank you for joining us. Yeah, thank you for having me, Andrea. Yeah, so take us back, Karen, to when you first heard about Paul Hicks.
This wasn't about murder initially. This was for a house fire.
Yeah, it was in 2019 is when the name Paul Hicks first came on my radar. And it was after the Claremont County, Ohio Sheriff's Office had released a video to us. of this massive fire inside a house. But what caught my attention even more was what we saw before the fire. And we saw two people, a male and a female, walking into the house. This woman had long curly hair. They had gas cans.
They started clearing the house, the electronics, the TVs. So it appeared maybe it was a robbery. Then they doused it and lit the house on fire.
So Hicks, who owned the house, actually reviewed the security footage with the police and said he recognized someone in that video.
He said, that's my ex-girlfriend. Looks just like her. The hair. And at first, investigators believed it was probably her. They questioned her. But there was far more to this than that. Oh, so much more. The ex-girlfriend is saying, absolutely not. You know, we broke up. I have no idea what you're talking about. I was not in his house. I had nothing to do with this. Okay, so they believe her.
And they start digging into this, and they come up with a completely different theory, which, you know, now points the finger at Hicks himself.
Yes. It took a lot of investigating, and it actually took a civil suit by all states. Their investigators did so much of the legwork on this and got subpoenas for cell phone records and talked to other associates of Paul Hicks, and they learned that there were some really bizarre purchases a short time before the fire started. What were these bizarre purchases?
One was a wig that looked identical to his ex-girlfriend's hair. They also noticed a purchase from a company called That's My Face. Oh, my goodness. OK, what is that's my face? Well, that is a company where you could send in photos of someone and you can have a mask made to look like that person. OK, this is crazy.
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Chapter 7: How did the investigation uncover bizarre purchases linked to the arson and murder case?
Chapter 8: What challenges do sheriffs face in keeping courtrooms safe during high-profile trials?
They learned that there were some really bizarre purchases a short time before the fire started.
In Dateline Roundup, we've got the latest on two blockbuster cases, the sex trafficking trial of music producer Sean Combs and the murder trial of Brian Koberger. And an unexpected development in the case of the Florida businessman accused of murdering his estranged wife in Spain. Some pretty shocking news. Plus, for the first time on the podcast, we're joined by a sheriff.
As we head into a summer of big trials, Sheriff James Brown tells us what it's like trying to keep people safe inside and outside the courtroom.
You just have to have a lot of plans and flexibility to be able to address any threat that comes up.
Before all that, we've got the latest from Dedham, Massachusetts, and the retrial of Karen Reed.
Hey, hey, hey. All persons have any business before the Honorable Beverly Canody, Justice of the North, or Superior Court. The court is now open. You may be seated.
It's the start of another day in the second trial of the woman accused of drunkenly hitting her police officer boyfriend with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowbank three years ago.
All right. Good morning, counsel. Good morning, Ms. Reed. Good morning, jurors. Good morning. Good morning.
Karen Reed denies the charges against her and claims that after she dropped John O'Keefe off at a party, he got beaten up by some of the people there, attacked by a dog, and dragged onto the front lawn to die in a blizzard. Last summer, a jury deadlocked after five days of deliberation.
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