Following a tense back-and-forth between defense attorney David Alessi and prosecutor Hank Brennan regarding upcoming testimony , data expert Dr. Jessica Hyde was called to the witness stand.

In a hearing without the jury present, Alessi asked Judge Beverly Cannone to allow the defense to cross-examine Hyde on her use of a third-party software to investigate the timing of Jennifer McCabe’s Google search, “hos (sic) long to die in the cold.” Alessi argued that a Maryland court found Hyde’s methods to be unreliable in a separate case.

Cannone ruled the defense could cross-examine Hyde but cannot ask questions pertaining to the Maryland case.

Hyde began her testimony by explaining that McCabe’s web browser tab was opened at 2:27 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022.

“There is a timestamp for the search, ‘hos (sic) long to die in cold,’” Hyde said. “However, the timestamp isn’t about active searches. It’s about the time that a tab was either opened or moved to the background.”

Hyde went on to explain the software displays the most recent Internet search with the time the tab was originally opened.

“So the time in the instance of the ‘It's Raining Men’ video is the time that that video was moved to the background, and the new tab took over as the tab that's active,” Hyde said. “And [in] that tab, the last search done is, ‘hos (sic) long to die in cold.’ Because that database holds the current search, it constantly gets updated.”

Hyde testified that, to an untrained eye, the software may be confusing when trying to determine an exact time a search was conducted.

“There's a really scary danger that an examiner who has not dug into the artifact and tested it to see what it means may assume, erroneously, that that 2:27 a.m. timestamp is the time that what is there is searched,” Hyde said. “The search in that field of that artifact is going to always be the most recent search in the tab, but that timestamp actually means either the time that that tab was backgrounded - or if it's the first time the tab has been opened - when it was opened. So you could erroneously [imply] a search was done hours or even days before it actually occurred.”

In a heated hearing without the jury present, prosecutor Hank Brennan and defense attorney Robert Alessi sparred over the Commonwealth’s request to allow data expert Dr. Jessica Hyde to be called as a witness in Karen Read’s trial.

Alessi asked Judge Beverly Cannone for permission to cross-examine Hyde on her access to data from Apple and overall methodology. Alessi pointed to Hyde’s investigation into the timing of Jen McCabe’s Google search, “hos (sic) long to die in cold.”

The prosecution previously called data expert Ian Whiffin to testify on how he used Cellebrite software to uncover a software bug that explained the discrepancy regarding when the web browser tab was opened and when the search was conducted.

“What I want to do with regard to her 2:27 a.m. timestamp and her anticipated testimony on that,” Alessi said. “Where she uses a tool - Cellebrite - to determine and come to a conclusion about that timestamp. She is not using Apple’s source code to find out where [the data is] located specifically in the phone and what it means.”

Alessi went on to reference a decision from a Maryland court deeming Hyde’s report in a separate case as unreliable, citing her use of a third-party platform.

“I’m not looking to exclude [her testimony],” Alessi said. “I’m looking to cross her on her reliability for the conclusions I anticipate she’s going to make on [the Google search].

Brennan hit back, arguing that the Maryland case is separate from Karen Read’s trial and Apple’s source code is unavailable to all investigators.

“The opinion did not say she was wrong,” Brennan said. “It said that it was not admissible under [the Maryland case], unrelated. Nobody has the Apple source code, no expert can testify about Apple source code. It’s only owned by Apple.”

Following the back-and-forth, Cannone ultimately decided to allow Read’s defense to cross-examine Hyde.