Hey there. Good morning. You're listening in to Dateline's morning meeting in 30 Rockefeller Center. Do we still not have a trial date for that? Our editorial team is catching up on breaking crime news around the country. Have they named the boyfriend?

We think we know who he is. She said she did not believe it when her son confessed to the killings over the phone until he sent her photos.

I'm Andrea Canning. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly, the podcast where I get to dig into the stories making headlines this week. Every Thursday, I'll be talking to NBC news reporters fresh from the courthouse and Dateland producers on the ground. So let's get started. It's May 23rd, and here's what's on our docket this week. We've got exclusive Jailhouse recordings from Cori Richens, the widow who got famous for writing a book about grief before being arrested for her husband's murder wants to talk. She's got a lot to tell us.

You took a innocent mom away from her babies, and this means war.

And it's been exactly a year since Brian Kauberger was formally charged murdering four Idaho College students, and tensions are still running high in the courtroom. Kauberger's attorney accusing the state of hiding its entire case.

This is exactly the thing the defense will argue that they need.

At this rate, we may never get to trial. But for our first story this week, we're heading back to a Boston suburb and the trial of Karen Reid. Last week, we told you about the drama outside the Norfolk County Superior Court. Now, we want to tell you about drama inside the courtroom. As you may remember, prosecutors have accused Karen Reid of hitting her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow. Karen says that is not true. She says she dropped John off at a house party where some of the partiers beat him up and dumped his body outside. This week, the jury got to hear from a woman who was at that party, and she told a very different story. But it was what happened on cross that really seemed to grab the jury's attention. Dateline producer Sue Simpson is back to get us up to speed. Sue, how early did you get there this morning to make sure you got a seat?

Oh, gosh. Well, actually, I got there at 1:00 AM, and I was astonished to see that I was not number one, not number two. I was number nine, so I barely got in the court today.

You barely got in there. Okay, so tell us, who is Jennifer McCabe?

Jennifer McCabe is a friend of John O'Keefe's from way back. She was very important to him when he was raising his niece and nephew. She's also Albert's sister-in-law. Brian Albert is the Boston police officer who had the after-party, asked everybody to come back to his house after they had been at a couple of bars on the night John died. And she testified that she saw Karen's SUV, her dark SUV, parked in front of the house. She was texting and phoning John, You're here? Where are you? Come in. And then she testifies that John never came into the house. She wanted everybody in the house testify to the same thing, that John O'Keefe never did come into the house. And it was Jennifer McCabe who took a call at 4:53. She remembers the time exactly, 4:53 in the morning from John's niece, Kaylee. Kaylee said, I'm sorry to wake you up, but Karen can't find John. He hasn't come home. In that early morning phone call, according to Jennifer's testimony, Karen did not remember that she had gone to the party house. She thought that she and John got into an argument in the car after they left the bar, and she thought she left him at that bar.

So just for a moment, does that tell you that perhaps Karen was potentially very drunk if she's not remembering things?

Yeah. I mean, I do think that she had had a lot to drink. And Jen testified last week on Direct that she could hear Karen in the background shouting and screaming and being hysterical and saying, Could I I have killed him? Did I hit him?

Right. And she also testified that when they found John in the snow, and we're talking to paramedics, Karen said, I hit him. That's pretty damning for Karen.

I mean, listen, We'll get into that because Jennifer McCabe was back on the stand, only this time she was being cross-examined by Alan Jackson, a man of a very different style than the prosecutor.

Yeah. Karen's defense attorney is a big name who's had some really high-profile clients like Kevin Harvey Weinstein. That's who Jennifer was up against.

She walked in this week raced for what was coming. In fact, there was a sparring contest.

He testified on Friday that my client said at the scene, I hit him three times. She declared it, correct?

Correct.

I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, correct? Correct. Alan Jackson asked Jennifer to read over what she testified to the grand jury.

May I approach? Yes.

That's 12 times that you reiterated under oath, under penalty of perjury in April of 2022, what my client's statements were either at the scene or leading up to getting to the scene, correct?

Correct.

Every single one of those, twelve separate times, you indicated that she asked a question, something like, Could I have hit him or did I hit him? Correct?

Correct.

Not one time in that testimony did you say she declared, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.

Did you?

The questions that were asked was asked when she first called me, or when we were driving in the car, or when we were at John's house. Alan seemed to win the day in terms of the... It was a question, not a statement. I think the other thing that he wanted to illustrate to the jury, their theory, which is that this family and friends, a very tight-knit group had worked together, he says, the defense says, to concoct a story, to make Karen the killer. And Jen McCabe's absolutely came back saying, We did not do that. We did not. We were in shock. We had just lost a friend. And so there were moments It's a sense there of real feistiness.

Alan Jackson, by all accounts, it appears he's been very effective.

He's coming in with a very polished performance. I got to say this, Andrea, because I wonder every time I'm in that court, just what are these jurors thinking this high-profile LA attorney? He doesn't get how they speak. He doesn't necessarily understand how they deal in small towns with the police.

There's one moment with one of the EMTs early on when he says he didn't even understand the guy's Boston accent.

That was actually a funny moment. The word that you used was scratches.

Yes, they were like furrows down. Say that again? Faros, if you will. I don't understand that word.

Alan didn't get it for two three go-arounds and then had a good laugh at his own expense about being the outsider in the courtroom.

Yes, there you go.

Sorry.

Excuse my accent.

No, I'm on your turn. It's my accent. I'm I'm sorry. So once Jennifer McCabe got off the stand, the prosecution called another key witness.

The woman who organized this trip to Aruba, which for the prosecution is all important because there are witnesses to the fierce argument that John and Karen had there, and that was the Aruba vacation, New Year's Eve, 2021. Karen accused John of making out with another woman. So that testimony is the basis, the guts of the prosecutor's argument that this relationship was over, that John wanted out She didn't want him to go. It erupted again after they were drinking, and she had had it and hit him.

The juror's heads must be spinning. I can only imagine. Sue, thank you. As always, thank you for getting up so early. We absolutely Absolutely. We'll be checking back in with you for an update very soon.

Thanks, Andrea.

After the break, we've got the Dateline Roundup and this.

I'm anxious. I'm anxious to prove my innocence. I'm anxious to get to trial.

An exclusive Jailhouse message from Cori Richens, the widow who wrote a children's book about grief, only to be accused of murdering her husband. For true crime fans, nothing is more chilling than watching Dateline. Have you ever seen such a thing before? For podcast fans, nothing is more chilling than listening. What goes through your mind when you make a discovery like that? And when you subscribe to Dateline Premium, it gets even better. Excuse me, I sound a little skeptical. Every episode is ad-free. Oh, wow. So this could be your ace in the hole. And not just ad-free, you also get early access to new intriguing mysteries and exclusive bonus content. So what were you afraid of? Dateline Premium. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium. Com. You ready for what's coming? Welcome back to the show. My next guest is Dateline producer, Mario Garcia, and he's here to give us the Dateline Roundup. Hey, Mario.

Hey, Andrea.

So we're going to start with the Chad Daybell trial, which we've been keeping a close eye on.

Yes, there is an update in that trial of the self-reclaimed doomsday prophet. The defense called its first witnesses Chad Daybell's grown children. Remember, Daybell is charged with murdering their mom, Tammy, but they're very much standing by him. And contrary to what the jury heard from Tammy's friends earlier in the trial, Daybell's children saying that their mother had indeed been in bad health before she died.

Yeah, and remember, the coroner originally concluded Tammy died from natural causes, so the defense is trying to sow some doubt there for jurors. All All right. Our next story is one that you and I both know very well, having covered it for Dateline, and we're talking about Rex Huhermann and the Gilgo Beach murders. What is the news on that?

State police showed up Monday at Rex Huhermann's house to execute a search warrant, and they were seen carrying in boxes and bags, and the crime scene text went up and put up the tents again, and they were working around the house. Of course, Rex wasn't there because he's been in prison since his arrest 10 months ago. No telling what the investigators are looking for, Andrea, but the district attorney in the case, Ray Tierney, said that investigations evolved, to use his words, and that this case is still very much active. You remember that Rex Herrman has denied any involvement in all the charges.

Yeah, it feels like a case of deja vu. On to Sean Diddy Combs.

A lot of eyes on Sean Diddy Combs because CNN released a video last week, and it was showing Sean Diddy Combs violently beating up his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in a California hotel hallway back in 2016. After the video release, Diddy popped up on his own Instagram account owning up to his actions in the video and apologizing, but also, in his words, he admitted that the behavior was inexcusable. He went on to say that after the incident, he went to therapy and rehab. But the LA County district Attorney's office also issued a statement of their own saying they can't charge him with any crime in that incident because the statute of limitations have expired.

That doesn't mean he's not facing legal trouble in other ways. Just this week, a model named Crystal McKinney filed a federal lawsuit alleging did he drug and sexually assaulted her more than 20 years ago. He hasn't responded to this lawsuit. Thank you, Mario, so much for this week's Dateland Roundup.

You're welcome, Andrew.

I'm ready to get this one heck of a fight. You took an innocent mom away from her babies, and this means war.

That is the voice of Cori Richens on a recorded message she sent us from her cell inside the Summit County Jail. It's the first time she's talked about her case since she was arrested for her husband's murder in 2023. I've been silent for a year, worked away from my kids, my family, my life.

And it's time to start speaking up.

If you don't know Cori's name, she's a Utah mom who wrote a children's book about grief after her husband's sudden death in 2022 and was then arrested a year later for poisoning him. She has yet to enter a plea in the case. I did a Dateland episode about Cori that aired last year, and I've asked the producer, Karen Israel, to come on the podcast and listen with me as we play more of Cori's Jailhouse recordings. Thanks for being here, Karen.

Thank you. Nice to be here.

Let's just do a quick recap first. Break down the case for our listeners. What is this all about?

So Cori Richens was a mom of three living outside of Park City, Utah, and she had her own real estate business. Her husband, Eric, died suddenly in in 2022, and nobody knew what had happened.

It took a whole year, but then she's arrested. How do police say that she carried out this murder?

So the allegations are that she prepared him a Moscow mule and slipped fentanyl into that. When the medical examiner's report came back, he had five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his body.

Where did the police say that she got these drugs?

The allegation is that she purchased them from her housekeeper.

The prosecutors, they're saying that this was not an impulsive thing here, that this was premeditated murder, that Cori had planned this for a long time.

According to their allegations, she purchased multiple life insurance policies on him. She had attempted to purchase drugs from various people.

We have new information about one of the allegations from the prosecution. I am literally just hearing this for the first time. She was planning a life with her paramour, they say?

Yeah. Apparently, there are text messages the night Eric died to him. Let's say, I love you, with a kissy emoji.

The defense has pushed back from the get-go, saying the prosecution's case is completely circumstantial.

Yes. Probably one of the biggest arguments that the defense is going to have is that the housekeeper is not a credible witness because she had a reason to lie. She was trying to help herself, they might argue, in her own drug charges.

Let's talk about this statement that we've received from Cori.

This is a huge deal. The last time we've actually heard her say anything was when she went on TV to talk about her book.

Let's play another snippet from Cori's statement.

I've been incarcerated for a year. I've been in a timely trial, which hasn't happened. And although I am extremely disappointed where we're at right now with this case, I'm anxious. I'm anxious to prove my innocence. I'm anxious to get trial.

She's been in jail for a while now.

Yeah, it's been a year.

There was supposed to be a preliminary hearing last week. What happened?

The defense objected to, I believe it was 18 exhibits that the prosecution was trying to enter. And so they postponed the preliminary hearing. Then after that, all of a sudden, we see filings that the defense is trying to disqualify the prosecution. And then right on the heels of that was the real shocker that the defense team that's been working with her, even from before the criminal case, they said, We want off the case.

So let's I don't know what she has to say about that.

My defense team has been forced to withdraw from my case. Represented or not, we all know and should understand there's only so much I can say. But what I will say is this withdrawal was not my choice, and it was not a personal choice of any counsel on my defense team.

What happened?

We don't really know what is going on. Their motion to withdraw cited an irreconcilable and non-waveable situation that first emerged from the civil cases in which the firm has been representing Ms. Richens.

When you say cases, we're talking about multiple cases because we have the murder, but we also have cases that she's dealing with over Eric's estate. Some cases are related to her business. I mean, it's so much more than murder.

There's a lot of cases, a lot to keep track of.

This final bit of her audio is not the greatest quality, but we want everyone to hear it. So let's take a listen. I'm ready to move forward.

I'm ready to go to trial, and I'm definitely ready to prove my innocence.

She is ready to move forward, ready to go to trial, and ready to prove her innocence. Pretty defined for someone in jail without a defense attorney. What do you see happening next?

There is a hearing scheduled for this Friday morning. Maybe we'll hear more about her plans. I believe the preliminary hearing is still scheduled for June, but I have a hard time believing that could still happen in a few weeks now that her defense team is out of the picture.

Karen Israel, thank you so much. You have a lot of work ahead of you, figuring out what's happening.

I look forward to working with you on everything that's coming our way.

After the break, we'll hear from NBC News legal analyst, Danny Savalos about the latest on Brian Kauberger. Why is it taking so long to get to trial? Plus, an expert breaks down cell phone mapping and how it might help or hurt Kauberger's case. If you ever needed to be persuaded that bad things can happen anywhere, then take a journey with us. From compelling mysteries to in-depth investigations, our Dateline episodes are available as podcasts. Follow DatelineNBC now to get new episodes every Tuesday. To listen ad-free, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium. Com. Great storytelling with a twist from the true crime original. This week, the prosecution and defense teams in the Idaho Student murders case will be back in a Lata County courtroom, battling it out over points of law and evidence. It's the latest in a series of pretrial hearings that have at has gotten so heated, the judge has had to step in. You can argue all you want, but when it starts to be personal, it's destructive. Kauberger was arrested in December 2022 for the stabbing deaths of four Idaho College students, but there is still no trial date in sight.

The victim's families are exasperated. It seems like every hearing or every motion, there's continued delays. So what is going on? My next guest, NBC News legal analyst and defense attorney, Danny Sivalos, is here to explain why it's taking so long. Danny, thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me.

Tell us about the tone of these pretrial hearings. They seem to be getting really combative.

This is the most intense environment any of these attorneys have ever been in. It's expected that things are going to get heated because you feel like the world is watching and you get really emotional about it.

Right. The defense is accusing the prosecution of withholding evidence. What is going on with that?

They have a number of different claims, and some of them have some validity. But you start with, what are they owed? Contrary to popular belief, defendants don't get to ask for anything and everything under the sun from prosecutors. In state court, discovery is governed by statute.

Interesting. You always think that the prosecution has to give the defense everything they have.

Right. Of course, when you take a look at some of the demands that the defense has made here, you can see why there must be limits. They can't discover every disciplinary record of every police officer who's been tangentially involved with the case. Of course, there are limits on what they can get from the FBI or maybe from Pennsylvania law enforcement authorities.

We should say Pennsylvania comes into play because that is where Brian Kauberger's parents live, and that's where he went.

Exactly. The defense has asked for all the dash cam and body cam footage from when Kauberger was arrested. And of course, that's not something that the Idaho authorities would automatically have or even have access to.

The defense is accusing the prosecution of withholding cell phone tower data.

So when it comes to cell tower data, if the cell tower data is about Kauberger, that's the thing that as a defense attorney, I would think I should be entitled to. But if, for example, it's the cell tower data of everyone that pings off that tower during a particular time period, maybe the state has a better argument for withholding some of it. That's why a lot of these disputes, especially in a high-profile, complicated case like this, really come down to the judge.

In June 2023, six months after Kauberger's arrest, we found out that law enforcement used genetic genealogy to develop him as a suspect. How was genetic genealogy used in this case?

It was used by taking the DNA that was retrieved from a knife sheath left at the scene, and then it was uploaded to genealogical websites. From there, investigators used good old-fashioned investigative techniques to find people who would be distant relatives.

The defense is complaining that the prosecution won't give them access to information about how they did this.

The way prosecutors put it is all this did was point them in the direction of a suspect or really, arguably a group of suspects, which, by the way, is another reason the defense wants access to this, because anything that to another potential suspect is certainly something that they would want. The prosecution's argument is, we're just going to take the knife sheet DNA, take Kroberger's DNA, and show the jury that it's a perfect match. We shouldn't have to turn over how we got to that.

Let's talk about the judge, whose last name is actually Judge. So he is John Judge. It looks to us like he schedules a lot of hearings, but hasn't really made a lot of decisions.

Yes, I've watched this judge Judge, and one thing that strikes me about him is that he is friendly, he's fair. But sometimes the most civil judges are also the slowest because letting everybody speak can double or triple the normal time of a hearing. Look, state courts deal with more volume than federal courts, and this judge probably has an active docket, so getting to motions may take longer than it might say in a federal courthouse.

I think some of the family members are growing weary of just how long this is taking. They want this to be over.

Yeah, sadly, victims' families learn pretty quickly in the criminal justice system that they are not clients of the prosecution. Family members really don't get a say in how quickly a case is brought to trial.

When will the trial be? Do we have an idea?

I'd say 2025 is actually a real possibility. I know that sounds shocking, but I am familiar with just how court schedules can move along glacially and how just a single delay on one issue has a cascading effect as to every other calendar date.

All right, Danny Sivalis, thank you so much for all of your insight into this case that all of America is talking about.

Thank you so much for having me.

There was something else in the Kauberger case that made us curious this week, his alibi. According to a recent court filing, Kauberger's defense team plans to use cell phone mapping to prove he was nowhere near the crime scene when the murders happened. As you just heard Danny mention, prosecutors are also using cell phone tower data to build their case. So what is cell phone mapping and how does it work? We asked former cyber crimes Detective Cody Brunig, to to give us the low down. Cody, thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. All right, so let's just dive into the basics here. How does cell phone mapping even work?

When we come to cell phone mapping, there's two ways to map a cell phone. We can look at any type of location data that might exist on the cell phone itself from the actual handset, and then we can go to the call provider, and we can say, What data do you have about what cell phone towers this phone used on XYZ date or whatever time? I can then use that information to say that it's likely that this call came from this certain geographical area.

It doesn't pinpoint it exactly, but it can certainly put you in a certain area.

Absolutely. When I was in law enforcement work in these types of cases, those were fantastic investigative leads because I could go to all of the cell phone towers that would cover a particular address, and I would say, Give me all of the data from your cell phone towers that would cover this location at this time. Granted, I might get 2,000 numbers, but potentially a number of interest is in there.

Yeah, you can start narrowing things down, potentially.

Yeah, through cell phone mapping, you begin to see a story of people's movement.

With Brian Kauberger, his attorney filed a motion saying that cell phone tower data proved he was as much as 30 miles away from the house where the murders happened. Can the records ever be wrong, or is technology usually dead Come on.

Technology and the records are correct, but that doesn't mean anomalies don't exist. So maybe you're at your house, and the majority of the time, you might hit a certain cell phone tower. But in a certain instance, such as a rural location where there's a handful of cell phone towers, and there's mountains and things like that around there, cell phones and cell phone signals might skip in order to get a better service.

Could that come into play in the Brian Kauberger case? Because we're talking about rural Idaho, mountains.

It has to.

Prosecutors have their own cell phone tower data that they can lean on. According to the probable cause affidavit, before his arrest, the data showed that Kauberger was in the area of the murders, at least 12 12 times before the murders. That's correct. But Kauberger's phone was off or in airplane mode at the time of the murders. Right.

Or for whatever reason, the cell phone didn't connect to the cell phone tower. Where I would go for that is I would see, Has it been turned off in the past? Or suddenly this day when this horrendous incident occurred, it's now being shut off?

Yeah, I never turned my cell phone off. If my cell phone was turned off, then there's a reason for it. Are there any concerns about privacy with this? I mean, not anyone can get their hands on this data, right?

No, I can't go out and just get your information just because. You've got to have some court order, and we have to have somebody who says there's a reason.

Thank you, Cody, for all this fascinating information. We really appreciate you breaking it down.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

That's it for this episode of Dateland True Crime Weekly. Next week, we'll be talking about the grand Society of true crime cases. Scott Peterson is back in court. Will a judge allow new DNA testing in his case? And coming up on Dateland this Friday, when a beloved Florida doctor is murdered, investigators look to her husband and his doppelganger. Tune in Friday for an episode we're calling The Road Trip. That's 9:00, 8:00 Central on NBC or stream it Saturday on Peacock. Thanks for listening. Dateland True Crime Weekly is produced by Frannie Kelly. Our associate producer is Carson Cummins. Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Kurloff. Production and fact-checking help by Leslie Grossman, Keanny Reid, and Sara Kadeer. Veronica Mzezeca is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original Music by Jesse McGinty. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production, Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateland.

All right. Thanks, everybody.

Friday night on Dateland, a beautiful doctor murdered her husband, heartbroken.

Everyone just wanted to know who and why.

An investigation that takes one surprising turn after another. This is a case of who done it. Dateland, Friday at 9:8 central, only on NBC.