WEBVTT - Chapter 2 | Jessica 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:07.320 Heads Up. This series contains graphic descriptions of violence. On 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:10.719 the morning of August first, two thousand, a teacher preparing 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.760 for the first day of classes noticed something on the 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.440 ground near the flower beds behind the Mayfield Middle School. 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.799 I saw this sandal laying right by the. 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:23.720 Door. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.599 There's a little concrete path there, and I saw the 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:28.960 sandal laying there, and I just thought, you know, I 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.000 wonder what that sandal's doing there. 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.479 As her sight shifted away from the sandal, scanning the 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:37.520 school grounds, the teacher saw something else. 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:42.239 And when I looked over to the left is when 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:46.159 I saw the body. 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.600 There's not a lot of bodies found in Mayfield, Kentucky. 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.280 When you heard there was on, what were you thinking, Oh, 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:58.320 our man was racing. 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.800 But you know, when you've never had nothing like this 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:08.760 happen before, it kind of gives you a little, you know, 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.800 a little thought that, no, it's not happening to me. 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:18.160 This is Joe Curran. For two days before Jessica's body 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:21.560 was found, he and his wife, Jean had been searching 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:26.720 for their eighteen year old daughter. The next day, police 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.039 identified the body with the help of dental records, and 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:36.440 Joe and Jan it was Jessica. They recognized the jewelry 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:37.920 on their daughter's hands. 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.440 It's the loneliest crime, saying, I'm ere saying, I've saying 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:41.759 a lot. 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.120 You met Dara, a woman on the last episode. Like me, 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.480 Dara has poured over pictures and video of the crime scene. 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:53.760 She just looked as if she had been tossed out 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:58.960 the back her. She was, you know, all the jewelryes 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.920 still honor and it was everything that she had that 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.520 she felt. It was a value she had on her still. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:12.520 But she was all by herself. It was just long ley. 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:18.640 According to police, Jessica's murder was the first in Mayfield 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.920 in over a year and a half. They told the 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.600 press that the school grounds appeared to be the scene 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.480 of the crime, that there were signs of a struggle 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:29.200 and then a homicide. 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:35.760 We're getting that information that she was beaten, strangled, staled 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.120 and burned. I don't know how I could get much worse, 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:42.760 and then her body was dumped behind the middle school. 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.040 I first met Joe Curran in twenty twenty three. He 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.520 was born in Graves County in nineteen fifty seven, just 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.679 a year after Mayfield started to desegregate its public schools. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.400 I'm kind of a country boy, and I went to 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.320 some few schools out in the county and they didn't 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.760 have any you know, black students at all. 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:08.840 You were the only black kid. 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.240 Yes, What was that like? Well, I mean, it's kind 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:13.639 of like most of my life. 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.360 Joe was among that first generation of black children to 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.600 study in what had been white only schools in a 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.919 county that has always been majority white ninety percent as 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.480 of the last census. This is the world Joe grew 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:28.880 up in. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.040 You know, I ride horses and go to rodeos and stuff, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.800 and a lot of places that I go basketball games 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.520 and football games, and it's a whole stadium full of people. 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.000 A lot of times, I'm only back person there. I 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:42.360 go to a lot of farmers meetings, three hundred people. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:44.160 I may be the only black person in the room. 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:46.760 So I mean, it don't mean anything to me. 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.400 And Joe learned to thrive in this world. He played 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.200 defense for the high school football team, the beloved Mayfield Cardinals, 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.560 worked as a bailiff, and ran his own business. 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.320 I'm a fish farmer, so I'm eight fish pond. 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:01.280 What kind of fish? 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.920 Catfish? 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.119 He became a lieutenant in the fire department and went 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:14.040 to church every Sunday. Joe Curran did write by Mayfield, 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.160 so when his daughter was brutally killed, Joe thought Mayfield 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.919 would do right by him. Instead, local police bungled the 0:04:23.960 --> 0:05:07.080 case and it went unsolved for years. This is Graves County, 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:20.440 Chapter two, Jessica. Depending on who you ask, there are 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.919 dozens of versions of what happened to Jessica between the 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.120 times she was reportedly last seen and the time her 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:31.719 body was found. You already heard one version last episode, 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.400 but that's different from the story about the final days 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.359 of Jessica Current's life that were first put on the record. 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.880 This is according to my team's own reporting, court testimony, 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.599 police interviews, and private investigator interviews, which you'll be hearing 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.719 throughout this episode, all of which have been edited for 0:05:52.920 --> 0:06:00.760 length and clarity. In July of two thousand, had a 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.599 seven month old baby named Zion. She was close with 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.279 her family, shared a room at home with Zion and 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.680 her baby's sister, but she wanted her independence, so Jessica 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.159 got her own apartment at an affordable housing complex in 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.279 the southeast part of town, so she was slow to 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:19.200 fully move out. 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.320 Joe says the first whole week she stayed at home. 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.440 In the second week, she moved out on Thursday. She 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.200 went to her house on Thursday, and she was there 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.080 on Friday and in Saturday. 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.760 That Saturday morning, Jessica dropped off Zion with her parents 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.440 and she went to hang out with some girlfriends, including 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:42.440 her boyfriend's cousin, Veneisha's Stubblefield. You heard her name last episode. 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.239 Vnesha and Jessica had become friends earlier that year. 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.400 Me and Jessica just started really actually hanging out. 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.200 In two thousand, she was going to a Duart Lunder 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.880 Center to get her ged form when she dropped out 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:57.240 of high school when she was pregnant. 0:06:57.839 --> 0:06:59.919 She went to the GD school. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:02.640 They crossed paths after class. 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:04.920 Well, she was coming from Gd's school when I was 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:05.920 coming from summer school. 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:10.440 Venetia, a wiry girl with giant eyes, was among the 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:19.600 very first people interviewed by police. She was sixteen at 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:25.920 the time. According to Venetia, she Jessica and a few 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.240 other girls hung out at a friend's house playing cards 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.840 and having drinks. That night, we all sat. 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:33.520 Third play ors listen to music. 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:36.720 We had a few drinks. 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:37.920 Wad it. 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.560 Meanwhile, in another part of town. There was a party 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.360 on a street called Chriss Drive. It's about a ten 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.440 minute drive south from where Jessica was hanging and a 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.320 little more rural, surrounded by fields hanging out or a 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.640 handful of locals and twenty four year old Quincy Cross 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.880 Quincy in Tennessee, but a friend had convinced him to 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.760 go to Mayfield and hang. He could even sell some 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:06.400 drugs there. 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.600 He was like, come on, man, if you go, we'll 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:09.840 bring you back later on. 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.320 Some partygoers say Quincy stood out that night, not just 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.960 because he was an out of towner, but because he 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.680 was rowdy. He kept wanting to play drinking games and 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.320 was fidgeting with his braided belt. 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.040 He had aided belt at home, and he was swinging 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:28.560 it around the night. 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:30.400 Because while he was talking to us in the living room, 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.640 he was flickering the end of it, kind of flicking 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:35.240 around while he was talking. 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.800 It stuck out in my mind because he had taken 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:43.440 the belt off and was like swinging it around and 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.719 wrapping it around his hands and making noise with it. 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.280 And I think at some point Ashley and I both 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.200 kind of looked at each other and thought, you know, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:56.720 that's annoying. 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.840 Meanwhile, back at the other gathering, the low key one 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.040 with the girls playing cards, Jessica decided to call it 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.160 a night around one or two am. Her friends tried 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.079 to get her a ride home, but no one was available, 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.000 so Jessica had to go back to her apartment on foot. 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.080 Venetia walked Jessica outside to say goodbye. 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:23.080 We stood there wait talk for a brief minute, then 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:24.680 she left the shoe. 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:25.240 Up by herself. 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:30.240 Venicia says she told Jessica to take care and watched 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:42.200 her disappear into the night. So this was the night 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.360 that we think everything happened. She leaves there and it starts. 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:47.600 She's walking somewhere along here. 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.640 I charted that walk with Joe Curran and a private investigator. 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.800 It would have been at least a forty minute journey 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:56.760 alone in the dark. 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.360 But that'd be a long walk for her at that 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:01.200 time of day. 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.320 Not that she wasn't capable of doing it, but I 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:05.880 don't know how smart that would be. 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.559 The middle school is halfway to Jessica's place, and it 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:12.000 would have been desolate. 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.680 This town pretty much dies at dark. 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.160 Back at the party on Chris Drive, Quincy asked to 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:27.640 borrow someone's car around daybreak. He says he wanted to 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:28.400 go find food. 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:30.640 I'm like, man, I'm hungry. 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.000 Now, I'm like, man, how do you get to town? 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:34.400 So he pointed in a direction. 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:35.760 I asked him, let me use his car. 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.800 But some of the other partygoers remember it differently. 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.400 He was on the phone quite frequently that night and 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.920 was calling back to university in different places, saying that, 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:47.960 you know, he found some women at a hotel or 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:48.600 something or other. 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:51.640 He recalls Quincy saying he wanted to get. 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:53.680 Some bitious, sorry, get some bitches. 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.800 So he borrowed the car and drove off. But remember 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.240 it's two thousand, he'd been partying. We didn't have Google 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.760 Maps or anything like that back then. So Quincy says, 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:08.040 he got lost on those rural roads. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.320 I can end up making a big loop, a big 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:12.040 old circle. 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.920 So when I do that, the car runs. 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:16.479 Out of gas. 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.000 It stalled about two miles from Chris Drive. That's when 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.520 a local jailer saw Quincy pulled over and asked if 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:24.400 he needed help. 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:26.400 I popped his trunk and this gas. 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:28.840 Can you know what I'm saying, It's in this trunk soul. 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.840 The jailer watched him put gas in the car and 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:33.160 spill some on himself. 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.440 He's standing right beside me, so he see me drunk, 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.080 a couple of trumps and gas on my parts. 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:40.920 Laid he seat me do it. 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.280 There's no disputing that the jailer found Quincy putting gas 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.720 in a car, but there doesn't seem to be a 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:56.479 consensus as to where exactly the gas can came from. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:58.560 Here's the car's owner at trial. 0:11:59.200 --> 0:11:59.840 Is that your gas? 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.079 No, sir, I didn't have a gas can my car. 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:05.319 Did mister crosstay where he got that? 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:06.040 Guess? 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.880 Said he stole it from building or something somewhere around 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:11.839 the road. He got the gas in my call or 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:12.840 try to get the gas station. 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.319 Either way. Around seven fifty am, a state trooper driving 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:21.760 by noticed Quincy right away. 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:23.559 He had no shirt on. 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:25.319 He could see multiple tattoos. 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.480 He had a pair of dark pants on with no belt. 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.600 Quincy quibbles with some of those details. 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:37.439 I had a key shirt on, he kept saying, I 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:39.040 didn't have no ke shirt on. I did have a 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:39.840 T shirt home. 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:45.080 But the trooper says he specifically noticed Quincy didn't have 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:45.720 a belt on. 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:48.040 The pants were drooping. 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.120 I could see his box or shorts. He kept having 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.240 to pull him up while we were having conversations. 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.040 The state trooper gave Quincy a ride back to Chris Drive, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.199 and when the trooper went to retrieve the stalled car 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.840 as he found marijuana seeds on the front seat and 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:07.960 a handgun in the glovebox. That gave him enough to 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.000 go back to Chris Drive and search all the party 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:16.160 goers for more drugs or weapons, and Quincy, along with 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.280 a few others at the party, ended up getting arrested 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:24.240 early Sunday for drug possession. One of the guys booked 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.760 with Quincy remembers the smell any. 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:29.439 Stong cup gasoline. 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.600 I mean it was just breaking on a smell I gay. 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.160 Later that Sunday morning, Jessica's parents, Joe and Jean, went 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.120 to pick up Jessica so they could all go to 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.400 church with Zion, but they didn't find her. At first, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.680 Joe thought she's probably still out with friends. When did 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:52.200 you realize something was really wrong? 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:58.840 Well, being working at the fire department in the shrif's department, 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.120 I knew that a person is a grown up at eighteen. 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.640 You can't really do nothing with a missing person until 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.400 so many hours, So I mean, we were already feeling like, 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.600 you know, something wasn't right, because she hadn't been calling. 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:18.800 Sunday went by, then Monday, and still no sign of 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:24.200 their daughter until the teacher found the body on Tuesday. 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.840 She'd been burned, part of her dress charred onto her body. 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.640 Her sandals were strewn as if she'd been dragged or 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:37.840 had run. Her underwear was found ripped into next to 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:42.080 her on the ground. According to the medical examiner, Jessica 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.200 appeared to have been hit in the head, her nose 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.400 was broken, she had some cuts around her face, and 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:52.600 what appeared to be stab wounds in her back. He 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:56.840 determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma plus 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:02.080 strangulation based on another piece of evidence found near Jessica's body, 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:08.160 the fragment of a black braided belt laying near her neck. 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:33.080 More after the break, for a brief moment in time, 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.440 Joe Curran had everything he wanted. He and his wife Jean, 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.520 got married young, and their plan was to have two 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.120 boys and two girls. 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.160 And I wanted boy first and girl second, and that's 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.640 the way we had. We had a boy and a girl, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:49.920 and then another boy and a girl. 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.160 All their names start with Jay. Is Jessica the. 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:55.680 Youngest, No, she's the second oldest. 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.120 Joe Curran is the kind of man who looks like 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.080 he carries the weight of the world. He stands tall 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.880 and proud with the build of a football player, but 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:10.800 his eyes are sunken and tired, revealing decades of pain. 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:17.560 And that's a picture of her, her older brother. 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.920 I'm sitting with Joe going through old family photographs. 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.240 This is a picture of my wife and she's holding her. 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.600 There a tiny Jessica in a frilly white dress and 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:33.440 white bonnet, probably going to church. Jessica was pretty, with 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:38.160 big brown, almond shaved eyes and a wide, perfectly white smile. 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:42.120 She looks like Joe, a spitting image of her dad. 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.160 She usually wore her hair in a cute short bob. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:46.560 And she was tall. 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:48.960 Yeah, she was about five nine fifteen. 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.480 Yeah, she's like a little string bean here, tall and skinny. Yeah, 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.040 and athletic. She ran track and she was a solid 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.880 nineties teen who liked Tupac and the X Files. 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.200 She was the only one that would watch the X 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.119 Files with me, and she could kind of keep up 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.520 with it. My wife gets lost on it and she can't. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:11.720 She can't keep she have the patience. 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.679 So Joe's wife, Jean isn't sitting with us. 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.600 I've apologize for my wife. She's still pretty shook up. 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:21.280 Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, So 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.240 you know why. While she's talked to press in the past, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.200 Jeane just isn't up for it today. I can't say 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:32.080 I blame her. After years of telling strangers about your 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:36.800 dead child, what else is there to say except I'm 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:38.520 in pain and I miss her. 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.840 I mean she still goes to the down to the 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.760 grave site at least once or twice the week sometimes. 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.399 I mean they were close. They were close friends. I 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.439 mean about as close as you could be for a 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.960 mother and a daughter, you know, daughter, Yeah, almost like 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.600 you know, two sisters. And it really really hurt her. 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.000 After two years of reporting on this case, I can 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:06.919 say that from all I've gathered, Jessica was sweet and loving, 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:09.879 but she was also feisty and brave. 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.800 Jessica cut a boy one time for calling her the Inward, 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:16.080 she pulled out a light and. 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.640 Cutting This is an old police interview of Jessica's best 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.120 friend seeing Jessica once pulled a knife on a boy 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:24.760 for calling her the n word. 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.880 If she had a problem, I mean she would I mean, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:32.600 hit you or whatever she felt necessary to defend herself. 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:41.680 Jessica Lindsay met Jessica Curran at Graves County High. 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.719 I've considered her one of my best friends. She was 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.840 a very outgoing person, very down to earth. What caught 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.600 my attention about her in school was that she stood 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:54.359 up for people, like when they would get picked on, 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.320 and she didn't allow that. If she's saying it going on. 0:18:58.440 --> 0:18:59.679 She would put a stop to it. 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.120 So, I mean she was just very you know, very 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.840 kind girl, very very kind girl. She would pretty much 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:09.280 do anything for anybody. 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.439 And she was also a teenager who in the summer 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.760 of two thousand was getting over a heartache. She had 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.160 her baby in December nineteen ninety nine, a little boy 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.320 named Zion, and Jessica thought that baby's dad was a 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:25.600 boy named Marcus. 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.200 She used to snake out her bedroom window and I'll 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:28.800 say him. 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.520 But after Zion was born, Jessica got the news. 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.440 She was trying to get child sport ordered for Marcus 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.960 or whatever, and they'd done a daneitis and it came 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.439 back negative or however they come back. It wasn't his. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:50.200 It hit her heart, especially when she realized that if 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.199 Marcus wasn't the dad, then it had to be a 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.920 local drug dealer named Jeremy Adams, a guy she barely 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.919 knew and didn't even like. According to her friend, they 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.399 had just hung out once and smoked some weed. 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:05.879 We all went. 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.520 Back to my house and we smoked a blunt and 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:16.159 hung out marijuana and we hung out or whatever. And 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:21.200 that night he kind of forced Lee took her around 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:22.960 the building and had. 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:23.760 Said they had sex. 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:25.840 It was like two. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:30.240 Seconds they were around there and came back and he 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:34.440 walked off and that was that. 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:34.840 That was that. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:37.480 A baby came nine months later. 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.880 She was very upset when she found out it wasn't Mark, 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:48.679 So she was very upset. This is after Zion was born. 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.040 She stopped messing with Marcus and she started messing with. 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:58.920 Lolo Carlos, Lolo Saxton, Venetia Stubblefield's cousin, and another local 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.840 drug dealer, a dreamy one at that a year older 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.879 with sad puppy eyes. They started seeing each other in 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:07.520 the spring of two thousand. 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.000 I mean she liked him, she really liked him. 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:14.800 It was panning out to be a good summer for 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.159 young Jessica, meeting a boy she liked, moving out on 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:25.639 her own so much to look forward to. In the 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.119 months that followed his daughter's killing, Joe walked around in 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:33.520 a daze, in a nightmare. He remembers sitting at a restaurant. 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:35.879 I was sitting at the table by myself, and this 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.879 waitress come over and said to me, you look like 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:43.359 you lost the last person in the world. It looked 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:44.840 like you y'all lost your best friend. 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:45.800 She didn't know, She. 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.440 Had no clue. She apologized later because she found out 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.919 what happened and she knew who I was, and she 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.639 apologized later. She said, I had no clue that you 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:58.040 know that was your daughter, because it just showed on 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:02.440 my face, me sating there by myself. We'd just show. 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.520 One of the few comforts the Kerran family had was 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:12.640 believing that soon, eventually they'd find whoever did this to Jessica, 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:16.720 and they'd be able to ask how and why, and 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:23.000 hopefully get some sense of justice. The man put in 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:27.320 charge of Jessica Kerrn's murder investigation was Tim Fortner, a 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:31.919 patrolman who had just been promoted to detective. This was 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:37.320 his very first murder investigation, and according to interviews, press reports, 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:41.600 and court filings, Fortner and his small town police department 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:47.679 were out of their debts. The problem seemed to have 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:48.760 started from the get go. 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.520 Here's Dara again, okay, So it took forever for them 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:54.600 to rope off the crime scene, right. 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:59.040 They didn't log who came and went or properly canvassed 0:22:59.080 --> 0:22:59.800 the neighborhood. 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.560 No statements were taken at the scene. 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:07.040 They also threw away the maggots they found on Jessica's body. 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.040 Maggots could have helped determine how long her body had 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:15.040 been decomposing. Without them, it was hard for the medical 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.479 examiner to determine an exact time of death. 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:22.800 In supplemental reports that I've read by the police, they're like, 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:24.160 do we keep her underwear? 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:26.520 What about the seven up bottle? 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.399 They threw away part of Jessica's dress and a couple 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.639 rape swabs from other crime scenes were mixed in with 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:36.119 the evidence boxes for Jessica's case. 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:41.200 So no one is in charge. It's the blind leading 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:42.240 the blind. 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:46.359 I found Fortner's number and called him to ask about 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:50.240 the investigation. Hello, Hi, I'm looking for mister Tim Fortner. 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:56.080 I interrupted his evening at home. Hi, mister Fortner, my 0:23:56.200 --> 0:23:57.159 name is Maggie Freeling. 0:23:57.200 --> 0:23:57.600 How are you. 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:00.000 I'm well, how are you? 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:03.600 He still lives in Kentucky as far as I can tell. 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:06.840