Speaker 1: Hey, it's Gilbert King, host of Bone Valley, and today
Speaker 1: we're bringing you something new, an introduction to Lava for
Speaker 1: Good's newest investigative series. It's called Graves County and it
Speaker 1: will be released right here in the Bone Valley Feed.
Speaker 1: You'll see it shown here as Bone Valley Season three.
Speaker 1: And while there are many familiar themes, this is an
Speaker 1: entirely new show told by a different host, Maggie Freeling,
Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and one of the hosts of
Speaker 1: Lava for Goods Wrongful Conviction. The story is about the
Speaker 1: murder of a young mother, Jessica Curran, in the small
Speaker 1: Kentucky town she lived in a place where it seems
Speaker 1: like everyone has a connection to this case. After four
Speaker 1: years of grossly mismanaged police investigation, a citizen sleuth named
Speaker 1: Susan Goalbrath stepped in and took the case in a
Speaker 1: new direction. She concocted a wildly complicated story, and the
Speaker 1: police decided to go along with it. Susan's version of
Speaker 1: events eventually led to at least eight different people being
Speaker 1: charged with Jessica's murder. Most of them have maintained their
Speaker 1: innocence from the beginning, and one of them, Quincy Cross,
Speaker 1: is still fighting for his freedom from behind bars. Graves
Speaker 1: County is a gripping, impeccably reported story of injustice that
Speaker 1: must be heard to be believed. Maggie Freeling brings urgency, compassion,
Speaker 1: and relentless journalism to a case that will stay with
Speaker 1: you long after the final episode. The first two episodes
Speaker 1: of Graves County will be out on July thirtieth, right
Speaker 1: here in the Bone Valley Feed. Subscribers to Lava for
Speaker 1: Good plus on Apple Podcasts will be able to listen
Speaker 1: to the entire series the same day. As an introduction
Speaker 1: to the new series, I sat down with Maggie for
Speaker 1: a Q and A about her experience of reporting this
Speaker 1: show for over two years and what she learned along
Speaker 1: the way. Maggie, is so great to see you, so
Speaker 1: great to speak with you again. I've been listening to
Speaker 1: Graves County. I'm like four episodes in it. I am hooked,
Speaker 1: and you've been working so hard on this. This is
Speaker 1: a huge investigation for you. I just can't wait to
Speaker 1: ask you a million questions about this.
Speaker 2: Ask away. I love talking about it.
Speaker 1: I can just walk us through the case, just to
Speaker 1: give us a general sense of what this case is
Speaker 1: really about.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, in the summer two thousand, Jessica Kern is
Speaker 3: an eighteen year old mom.
Speaker 2: She just had her baby, Zion, and she is found.
Speaker 3: Brutally murdered and burned, half dressed outside the Mayfield Middle School.
Speaker 3: And Susan Golbreath was just a woman in the town.
Speaker 3: Her life was not going great at the time. She
Speaker 3: needed purpose, and her purpose was I'm going to solve
Speaker 3: this case. That was around two thousand and four. After
Speaker 3: the police had initially bungled the case, they hired a
Speaker 3: rookie detective. They made some initial arrests and it went
Speaker 3: no So by two thousand and four, the citizen sluth
Speaker 3: gets involved. She involves a BBC reporter and they go
Speaker 3: on a hunt to solve the case. And what transpires
Speaker 3: is some of the craziest case solving techniques I've ever seen,
Speaker 3: the craziest quote journalism I've ever seen, and just some
Speaker 3: of the craziest investigating and policing I've ever seen. And
Speaker 3: it's all on tape and documented in emails and so
Speaker 3: it was it was pretty incredible to make this story
Speaker 3: and like have everyone's follies just right there, just documented
Speaker 3: so well.
Speaker 1: So Maggie, I just was really curious about Susan Goalbreth
Speaker 1: and she's, you know, the amateur sleuth who helped solve
Speaker 1: the eight year old murder of a teenage mom. But
Speaker 1: what drives an everyday citizen to get involved in a
Speaker 1: murder case like this? And obviously I think she passed
Speaker 1: away before you got to meet her, but you've obviously
Speaker 1: been studying her. Can you just talk about Susan and
Speaker 1: what motivated her to get involved in this case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Susan is fascinating when people hear this. I mean,
Speaker 3: she's a true character. She's you know, said that she
Speaker 3: was compelled by God to solve this murder. She was
Speaker 3: down the street eating lunch and she heard in this
Speaker 3: small town that they found a body and she went
Speaker 3: right to the scene and said God called her to
Speaker 3: solve this. What I think happened is so often we
Speaker 3: do see that when there is a void when police
Speaker 3: in this case, they bungled it, or they bungle it,
Speaker 3: or if they can't solve it, there is a void
Speaker 3: left and citizens, louths get involved. I mean we see
Speaker 3: it now on Reddit and all these crime pages. It's
Speaker 3: it's something that happens, and she was like a OG one.
Speaker 3: It was it was back in four she's an OG sleuth.
Speaker 1: How did like police law enforcement treat her like? What
Speaker 1: was their relationship like with her? They?
Speaker 3: I think they they found her annoying based on these
Speaker 3: phone calls. I think they just wanted her to go away. However,
Speaker 3: you'll see as a story goes on, they really legitimized her.
Speaker 3: They took tips and leads, and ultimately her theory of
Speaker 3: what happened is the theory that the prosecution went with.
Speaker 1: And she did have some tangential connections to people involved.
Speaker 1: Can you just talk about how she interacted with them
Speaker 1: and maybe used them as sources.
Speaker 3: So, Susan, she's a self described busybody, and she knew
Speaker 3: a lot of people in town.
Speaker 2: She had been there a while.
Speaker 3: She's originally from Chicago, but she had been in Mayfield,
Speaker 3: small small town for a long time.
Speaker 2: So she knew a lot of.
Speaker 3: The people involved in this case, these young folks, because
Speaker 3: she was friends with one of their moms, and she
Speaker 3: just she was friends with a few of these kids'
Speaker 3: moms that were involved. She used her relationships with these
Speaker 3: people to get information, and that came at a cost.
Speaker 3: I think these people eventually realized that she was taking
Speaker 3: advantage of them.
Speaker 1: Well, you've spent years, you know, covering the criminal justice system,
Speaker 1: and probably from all different parts of the country. I'm
Speaker 1: just curious, what about this case that stands out to you?
Speaker 1: What makes it different than a lot that you've seen.
Speaker 3: So when this case came to me, it came from
Speaker 3: Jason Flomm, and when it was presented to me, I
Speaker 3: was basically told cop corruption.
Speaker 2: I hear that all the time. You know what stood
Speaker 2: out was.
Speaker 3: The police legitimizing a citizen investigator, really using her, like
Speaker 3: wiring her.
Speaker 2: You'll hear that in the podcast. So that was fascinating
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: That was the first time I had really heard something
Speaker 3: like that where a citizen, someone who has no background
Speaker 3: in law enforcement, is wiring themselves up and giving police tape,
Speaker 3: giving police leads, giving them full theories, and they're running
Speaker 3: with it. And the other thing was how many people
Speaker 3: were wrapped up in this story and how many people
Speaker 3: were eventually convicted of this one murder. When you think
Speaker 3: of Okham's razor, it was certainly not the story that
Speaker 3: makes the most sense. It was just this wild story
Speaker 3: that implicated eight or nine people, and I mean more
Speaker 3: does it implicated countless people, but the amount of people
Speaker 3: abound to being convicted. I had not seen before five
Speaker 3: people we talk about in this story that were convicted
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: There's just like one mind blowing thing after another. I
Speaker 1: just heard that. You know, you talk to the lead
Speaker 1: investigator who basically says I didn't know what I was doing,
Speaker 1: telling everybody that I don't know what I'm doing, my
Speaker 1: tail in my head. I've never seen anything like that before. Like,
Speaker 1: what does that tell you when you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was one of the things that you
Speaker 3: know when they mentioned like this cop corruption. Okay, I'm interested,
Speaker 3: not unique, but that was unique about it was why
Speaker 3: did the assistant chief of police assign this case to
Speaker 3: a rookie? It seemed almost like you wanted this to
Speaker 3: be investigated poorly from the beginning if you're going to
Speaker 3: assign a rookie and not some of your best, which
Speaker 3: in retrospect to looking back, I don't know if Mayfield
Speaker 3: Police at some of their best. They were really embroiled
Speaker 3: with scandals and corruption. And you know that assistant chief
Speaker 3: of police. You'll hear in the podcast was pretty dirty.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to journalists because you do
Speaker 1: have this international presence, but you also have the local presence.
Speaker 1: And I'm just wondering if you can just talk about
Speaker 1: like the role that journalism plays in a wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: and what you know noticed in this part of Kentucky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it is so interesting getting to travel and
Speaker 3: tell so many different stories. I know you really specialize
Speaker 3: in Florida, which is so cool. I'm sure the amount
Speaker 3: of connections in Florida are amazing. This was my first
Speaker 3: time in Kentucky and I don't as a journalist, I
Speaker 3: don't like to just parachute in and then leave. So
Speaker 3: I've really been working the story for two and a
Speaker 3: half years, getting to know people, done multiple multiple trips there,
Speaker 3: and Kentucky is just a wild place. The lead prosecutor
Speaker 3: that convicted Quincy Cross in this case and the five
Speaker 3: other people she's been in office since the early eighties,
Speaker 3: I mean that is crazy to me. And now we're
Speaker 3: talking about five wrongful convictions from just this one case
Speaker 3: and you've been in office since the eighties. How many
Speaker 3: other people have you railroaded? So to me, that's just like, what,
Speaker 3: how is that, Okay, how is that possible?
Speaker 2: That is the context of this story.
Speaker 3: And that is so important to understand in order to
Speaker 3: understand Quincy and what happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, did you ever feel any resentment about there?
Speaker 1: Because you're down there? Obviously you don't have a deadline
Speaker 1: of tomorrow and then maybe the case you don't write
Speaker 1: it about it again, or maybe the cover of the
Speaker 1: trial in another year or something like that. You're actually
Speaker 1: doing like long points of time studying this case, investigating
Speaker 1: this case. One of the things I noticed is that
Speaker 1: sometimes the local press they're friends with the prosecutors. Those
Speaker 1: are the people that are given them the stories, given
Speaker 1: them access, and the journalism has kind of tainted. Did
Speaker 1: you find the same thing in.
Speaker 2: That part of Absolutely?
Speaker 3: I find that it's all tainted because in these small
Speaker 3: towns everyone knows each other. It is just like a
Speaker 3: spider web of people who know each other, people protecting
Speaker 3: each other. You know, all these shows about small, small
Speaker 3: southern town to talk about that, and it is so real.
Speaker 3: It's very different from being in New York, where yes,
Speaker 3: people they know each other. Of course there's quid quote pros,
Speaker 3: but it's a different kind of thing. It's not my
Speaker 3: family grew up with your family kind of situation, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure that exists, but the small town mentality, it
Speaker 3: really fosters an environment of secrecy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was thinking about that a lot while I
Speaker 1: was listening to this, and I was just curious, like,
Speaker 1: when you look at this whole Graves County story, do
Speaker 1: you see it as like a tragedy, a conspiracy, a
Speaker 1: cautionary how do you look at Graves County?
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's all three.
Speaker 3: I think it's a tragedy, a conspiracy, and what was
Speaker 3: the other one?
Speaker 1: Cautionary tale?
Speaker 2: Cautionary tale?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I think it's a tragedy because if you think of
Speaker 3: these five people whose lives were ruined that were convicted
Speaker 3: of this, each of those five people have family, Some
Speaker 3: of these people had kids, some of these people were kids,
Speaker 3: So just alone there, it's it's devastating.
Speaker 2: Definitely a conspiracy.
Speaker 3: There's some wacky stuff going on that you'll hear about.
Speaker 3: And I think it's a cautionary tale because it all
Speaker 3: started with just believing what we're told, you know, this
Speaker 3: like confirmation bias, and I think that is so much
Speaker 3: what happened in this Quincy was arrested and said he
Speaker 3: was an evil man, and from there on it was believed.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the things is that we
Speaker 3: see is an eighteen year old mother was murdered and
Speaker 3: people wanted justice, and it really was a cautionary tale
Speaker 3: of how.
Speaker 2: Far will we go to get that justice?
Speaker 3: How many people can we throw under the bus and
Speaker 3: railroad to close this one case? And we see that
Speaker 3: all the time in wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1: You know what I really love about it so far
Speaker 1: is You've made Graves County a character in the story,
Speaker 1: and I just love the way comes to life. You know,
Speaker 1: there's definitely colorful people and accents, of course, but you
Speaker 1: just you start to get a sense of the county.
Speaker 1: And it made me think, I wonder, like, do you
Speaker 1: think that this story would have looked the same if
Speaker 1: it was somewhere in like New England. What is it
Speaker 1: about Graves County that made this kind of story possible?
Speaker 3: I mean, Graves County is if you google it, it is.
Speaker 2: The heart.
Speaker 3: It is the almost the dead center of this country.
Speaker 3: When I was like looking at a map, I was
Speaker 3: trying to figure out, like where's the center of this country?
Speaker 3: And Graves County is really right there. It's kind of
Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere, and so secrets like that can
Speaker 3: really be kept closed, they really stay there. It was
Speaker 3: so surprising to know people in this state didn't even
Speaker 3: know about this case. I mean it and the fact
Speaker 3: that it wasn't as high profile as I thought it
Speaker 3: should be. There's maybe like two TV shows on it,
Speaker 3: and both of them again and just repeat the Quincy's
Speaker 3: a disgusting, horrible man, repeat the story that the police
Speaker 3: and prosecutors have been telling for years, despite the fact
Speaker 3: that he.
Speaker 2: Has innocence claims in.
Speaker 3: So no, I think it would have been different, but
Speaker 3: who knows, for better or for worse.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's happened when I'm listening to
Speaker 1: this is like it seems like every episode my jaw dropped,
Speaker 1: kind of drops, like I've never heard recordings of grand
Speaker 1: jury testimony before like played out and then this Susan
Speaker 1: Goberth's character, Like every every there's always some moment. I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering, for you, having studied this case and investigated,
Speaker 1: was there anything that made your jaw drop having seen
Speaker 1: everything involved in this case?
Speaker 2: Or you know, I think.
Speaker 3: I think this case for me, it was like a
Speaker 3: very clear how do you wrongful? Convictions happened? Because I
Speaker 3: lived this case for so long and watched every piece
Speaker 3: of tape, which was the most incredible thing to have
Speaker 3: every police interview. Let me say not every because we've
Speaker 3: discovered that some are quote missing can't be found, but
Speaker 3: most of the tape, and watch the stories change, Watch
Speaker 3: how they're doing the interrogations.
Speaker 2: They are like the.
Speaker 3: Ultimate super villains. My jaw dropped every time they spoke,
Speaker 3: just every time they asked a question.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a question.
Speaker 3: It was just like threats and interrogations and just really
Speaker 3: inappropriate things.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that happened that sort of change your
Speaker 1: outlook or your opinion of anything involved in the case
Speaker 1: as you dug deeper into it.
Speaker 3: Well, I think just exploring this idea of what is
Speaker 3: our role as journals and how do we tell these stories?
Speaker 2: It made me.
Speaker 3: You know, in episode one, I mentioned the one time
Speaker 3: when I very strongly believed in someone's innocence and got
Speaker 3: it wrong and I had to grapple with that, And
Speaker 3: I think as journalists we need to think about what
Speaker 3: we do. Part of our job when we become journalists
Speaker 3: is to do no harm. That's part of our rules
Speaker 3: and ethics guidelines do no harm. So it really put
Speaker 3: the light on myself and thinking about my reporting and
Speaker 3: that time I did do harm, not necessarily to the
Speaker 3: man that wound up being guilty, but to the victim
Speaker 3: because I brought that story up again. So that is
Speaker 3: something to think about when we do cover these cases
Speaker 3: of wrongful convictions. There are victims and victims families, and
Speaker 3: so I think it really helped me process this role
Speaker 3: of a journalist, especially when we do use emotion and
Speaker 3: empathy as a tool, and how we present that and
Speaker 3: use that in a way that is ethical.
Speaker 1: You know, that's interesting. I was listening to some of
Speaker 1: your you know, obviously there's people who didn't want to
Speaker 1: talk to you, and did you feel the presence of
Speaker 1: like being an outsider and like you couldn't penetrate.
Speaker 3: Because well, one of the things that we heard right
Speaker 3: away is, you know, this is a very rural southern town.
Speaker 3: It not necessarily segregated, but people often whites stay with
Speaker 3: the whites and they talk about it like that. And
Speaker 3: when we came in, instantly it was you're a white person,
Speaker 3: no one's going to talk to you. That is how
Speaker 3: that town is. I mean, so I really had to
Speaker 3: build relationships and make myself trustworthy. And these are people
Speaker 3: who have had the worst of the worst happen to them,
Speaker 3: be convicted of crimes, a horrible rape and murder and
Speaker 3: burning of a teenage girl.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was. I was very much an outsider,
Speaker 2: very much.
Speaker 1: Some people ask me about this, you know, when it
Speaker 1: comes to like Florida, you know, do you think this
Speaker 1: story will matter to people outside of Florida? And I
Speaker 1: have an answer for that, but I'm just curious what
Speaker 1: your answer. People who don't know Mayfield, Kentucky, why would
Speaker 1: they be interested in this? And can you explain?
Speaker 3: I think the thing that we loved the most when
Speaker 3: we first when Rebecca and I my producer Rebecca, were
Speaker 3: first talking about this. To us, it reminded us of
Speaker 3: like I never watched gossip Girl, but just the title
Speaker 3: gossip Girl. It was like all these teenage girls gossiping
Speaker 3: about what happened to their friend, and those rumors turned
Speaker 3: into this conviction. And that can happen anywhere when people
Speaker 3: start telling stories and spinning tales and gossiping. That can
Speaker 3: happen anywhere, not just small town Mayfield Kentucky, So I think, yes,
Speaker 3: it happened in a real small town, but it's emblematic
Speaker 3: of wrongful convictions everywhere.
Speaker 2: Really, people making up.
Speaker 3: Lies and blaming people, pointing the finger because we need answers.
Speaker 3: It's just like a human we need to blame someone,
Speaker 3: and the blame here everyone was just pointing fingers at
Speaker 3: each other. And that is why Susan came in, because
Speaker 3: there was a void.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: It was a prime situation to go wrong because the
Speaker 3: police got it wrong from the beginning. They bungled it,
Speaker 3: they messed it up from the beginning, so from there
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 2: Just a free for all.
Speaker 1: One of the other things I felt really moving was
Speaker 1: I'm just hearing from Jessica's father, and I'm just curious,
Speaker 1: like what your take on him was, because it just
Speaker 1: seemed like I could really relate to him as you know,
Speaker 1: a father and just what that would do to you.
Speaker 1: And I just found him very moving in the story.
Speaker 2: Current is a moving character.
Speaker 3: I mean, he grew up in the Jim Crow South.
Speaker 2: From a lot of his life, the only black guy.
Speaker 3: He grew up in this world of white people, and
Speaker 3: he did well in that world. In the Jim Crow
Speaker 3: South and then in segregation and Reese. He did well.
Speaker 3: He was a pillar in this town. And when his
Speaker 3: daughter was murdered, he thought all these people that he
Speaker 3: did good for and helped and was around and would
Speaker 3: do right by him.
Speaker 2: And they didn't. They absolutely didn't. They failed.
Speaker 3: Joe Kerran in every way possible. And I think that's
Speaker 3: what was so sad about it. It was a guy
Speaker 3: who did everything right and persevered through everything and then
Speaker 3: was just let down so badly. And I think you know,
Speaker 3: he knows he might never get those because with a
Speaker 3: story like this, where there is just so much bullshit,
Speaker 3: it might be lost.
Speaker 2: It might very well be lost.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. Is he like one of the people
Speaker 1: that you think about when you're trying to dig into
Speaker 1: this story, Like I just want to make him have answers,
Speaker 1: Like I would feel so motivated by the way he spoke.
Speaker 3: It's him and David, and I got closer with David
Speaker 3: because Joe dealt with another tragedy. One of his sons
Speaker 3: died while we were reporting this. I mean, the currents
Speaker 3: have just had loss after a lot, like we couldn't
Speaker 3: believe another son died, or son died, two kids so
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't get to build as close of
Speaker 3: a relationship with Joe that I did with David. But
Speaker 3: what it was so beautiful to me about Joe is
Speaker 3: that he was willing to listen to David and sit
Speaker 3: down with him, the man whose son is convicted of
Speaker 3: murdering your daughter. It's very like Jeremy Leo. He was like,
Speaker 3: I'll sit down and listen to your information. That brings
Speaker 3: up stuff for him, like looking at your daughter case file,
Speaker 3: looking at what was done to her.
Speaker 2: He suffered through all of that just to get answers
Speaker 2: he is. He's an incredible person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really comes across and I just the empathy
Speaker 1: and just I remember there's one like very casual comment,
Speaker 1: like a waitress says to him, like you look like
Speaker 1: you just lost your best friend something like that, and
Speaker 1: realizes what it's about. And I just found that so
Speaker 1: profound in the story.
Speaker 3: And he still he really does. Joe feels like he
Speaker 3: is carrying the weight of the world. You know what,
Speaker 3: We've met with a lot of victims families, and he
Speaker 3: is not someone that I that I can say, you know,
Speaker 3: is just moving on, like he really this destroyed him.
Speaker 3: You know, his wife wasn't there. She can't even talk
Speaker 3: about it, so I never met her, talked to her.
Speaker 3: She doesn't want anything to do with this kind of stuff, and.
Speaker 2: It's just too hard.
Speaker 3: It's too hard, and so for Joe to be out
Speaker 3: there been doing this, We've been wondering like, is Joe
Speaker 3: going to listen to this? Because the whole time, it's like,
Speaker 3: we want to make sure, you know, the father of
Speaker 3: Jessica is able to listen to this. We thought about
Speaker 3: him and we kind of were like, me, he might
Speaker 3: not really listen to this.
Speaker 2: That is just how could you? It's so hard.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people ask me like has this case changed you?
Speaker 1: And I'm just curious, like, going through this process, it's
Speaker 1: obviously very labor intensive, investigatively intensive. Did it affect you differently?
Speaker 1: Did you come away from this differently? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean as a journalist, it really made me look
Speaker 3: inwards because when we wanted to be reporting on all
Speaker 3: of these allegations against the police, we set out to
Speaker 3: do that, right, we were making an episode all about
Speaker 3: these allegations about the police, and then we thought, wait
Speaker 3: a second, but that's what Susan did, what the police did,
Speaker 3: and we looked at ourselves as journalists and storytellers and reporters,
Speaker 3: and said, what good would that do to report these
Speaker 3: allegations and potentially ruin people's names, drag their names for
Speaker 3: the mud if this isn't true, if we can't fundamentally
Speaker 3: confirm this, And so.
Speaker 2: That's what it did. It really just made me look again.
Speaker 3: At my role as a storyteller and a journalist and
Speaker 3: what we choose to present Again, do no harm. And
Speaker 3: even though I think a lot of these officers are
Speaker 3: the worst of the worst people things that we have
Speaker 3: found out about them, it's still my job to do
Speaker 3: no harm to everyone I report on.
Speaker 1: And just I'm curious what you like about this format
Speaker 1: telling stories through audio. I'm just curious. You know, you've
Speaker 1: come in from a print background, like just about everybody.
Speaker 1: What do you like and what do you see some
Speaker 1: of the limitations of it your storytelling?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've been into audio since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: I took a podcasting class on garage band in undergrad.
Speaker 3: So I've always loved it because I just find it
Speaker 3: so intimate. And for example, with season two when your
Speaker 3: season Bone Valley, when Gosh, who was reading the letter
Speaker 3: Jeremy was reading one of Justin's letters or vice versa,
Speaker 3: but it was very beautifully layered on top Justin playing
Speaker 3: with his kid in the background as the letters being read.
Speaker 2: And at first I was like, is that in my
Speaker 2: hotel room? Like where do I hear kids playing?
Speaker 3: Because it was so subtle, But then it was just
Speaker 3: this beautiful moment of like one of them talking about
Speaker 3: how well he's doing with his son, and then you can.
Speaker 2: Hear it at the same time.
Speaker 3: And that would have been visual in a TV show,
Speaker 3: but I like that I could imagine it myself because
Speaker 3: what I was imagining was the playing with the letter
Speaker 3: being and it was just so intimate and beautiful, and
Speaker 3: I think a visual would have taken away from that intimacy.
Speaker 1: That's a really great point. Yeah, there is something about
Speaker 1: just listening to a voice in your ear with headphones
Speaker 1: when you know that microphone's.
Speaker 2: Really close, because you know what it is.
Speaker 3: I find visuals very distracting in a way. I'm a
Speaker 3: visual learner, so I do like visuals, But in terms
Speaker 3: of storytelling, I find it works when you have, you know,
Speaker 3: visually wild characters, but I like to imagine what they
Speaker 3: look like. I you know, some people fixate on things
Speaker 3: about someone and instantly go, I can't look at that person,
Speaker 3: or I can't look what they're doing, or like Susan
Speaker 3: Gallbroth on the stand, I mean, if she was a
Speaker 3: character in a TV show, I would probably be fixated
Speaker 3: on her just gum chewing and maybe not even hearing
Speaker 3: what she's saying. So I just find that listening to
Speaker 3: it too, it's without the distractions. It takes away one
Speaker 3: level of distraction. Right then you're just thinking about what
Speaker 3: audio is distracting.
Speaker 1: Right. That's a really a good point because I noticed that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, when they did the twenty twenty piece on Leo,
Speaker 1: like the host has to ask the question did you
Speaker 1: kill your wife? And you know he says no, obviously,
Speaker 1: uh huh. But like I've had people concerns saying, you know,
Speaker 1: he kind of looked to the left and that's kind
Speaker 1: of something that guilty people do. And like it's just
Speaker 1: the visual part, like.
Speaker 2: It's all the context anything, I believe.
Speaker 1: So, and so I just think there's something about audio
Speaker 1: that's just almost more truthful in a way.
Speaker 3: I know, I think that visuals can be an you know,
Speaker 3: when we talk about this in you know, when I
Speaker 3: do stories as a journalist.
Speaker 2: Music can manipulate people's feelings too.
Speaker 3: We discuss what kind of music like, and there's just
Speaker 3: another layer to that with visuals. So I just it's
Speaker 3: like even more to get wrong, and it's I liked
Speaker 3: the simplicity of audio, yeah, yeah, and like conveying points
Speaker 3: that I want to in a very simple, easy, packaged,
Speaker 3: intimate way.
Speaker 1: I agree. I was just curious what you're thought. And
Speaker 1: really you started in two thousand and nine, though, that's amazing.
Speaker 3: Well, I was an undergrad and I took a podcasting
Speaker 3: class and garage band, which I I don't even know
Speaker 3: if garage band exists anymore, Like I don't think people
Speaker 3: will even use that. But yeah, it was a podcasting
Speaker 3: class and garage band, and then yeah, I started audio
Speaker 3: right in grad school.
Speaker 2: I've been doing it for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Do you remember a lot of the mistakes you made,
Speaker 1: like doing audio trying to figure out how do we
Speaker 1: do this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think some of a lot of the
Speaker 3: mistakes are just like to like overdoing the sound and
Speaker 3: like music. Like again, it was really learning like how
Speaker 3: music can manipulate someone's emotions, so like just being really
Speaker 3: careful with that, because if you're trying to tell a
Speaker 3: truthful story and you put in some music to make
Speaker 3: someone feel something, you are manipulat.
Speaker 2: You're telling them what to feel.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, my big was mistake was I just
Speaker 1: couldn't shut up when people were talking to I just
Speaker 1: keep going yeah huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still didn't know. Yeah, I still do that.
Speaker 1: That's a nightmare for the editors. Can you just give
Speaker 1: us an update on Quincy Cross?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so his case is moving. Quincy's just really hopeful.
Speaker 3: He's glad his story's out there. I mean, it's when
Speaker 3: you're put away in prison, you're meant to be forgotten about.
Speaker 3: They want you to be forgotten about. They don't want
Speaker 3: these stories coming out there, so they have to acknowledge
Speaker 3: what has happened, what they did wrong.
Speaker 2: So he's just really happy.
Speaker 3: That people got to hear his truth of the matter,
Speaker 3: that he's not a disgusting, savage, rapist, burner man, He's
Speaker 3: just he's a nice guy.
Speaker 2: You know. I hope that Quincy gets out.
Speaker 1: Does he have hope? Do you feel like you can
Speaker 1: feel it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I cried so much during this, but especially when David
Speaker 3: looked at us in the eyes and said, I'm.
Speaker 2: Afraid I'll die before he gets out of prison. They're
Speaker 2: both old. David's old, Joe is old.
Speaker 3: They're old men, and they both the same thing, and
Speaker 3: it's really sad that the law in Kentucky's denying these
Speaker 3: two men those answers.
Speaker 1: Well, Maggie, I just it's been a pleasure to talk
Speaker 1: to you. I cannot wait to hear the rest of
Speaker 1: Graves County. And I just really want to commend you
Speaker 1: on the work, because it's very hard to loop me
Speaker 1: in on these stories, but this one is just grabbed
Speaker 1: me from the start, and as I said, a lot
Speaker 1: of jaw dropping moments which must have been so much fun.
Speaker 2: For you to report on exactly. Thank you. It's always
Speaker 2: great talking with you. And maybe we'll get a drink.
Speaker 1: After that sounds good. The first two episodes of Graves
Speaker 1: County will be out on July thirtieth, right here in
Speaker 1: the Bone Valley Feed. Subscribers to Lava for Good plus
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts will be able to listen to the
Speaker 1: entire series the same in day