Speaker 1: Heads up. This series contains graphic descriptions of violence. There's
Speaker 1: a saying I heard on a recent trip to the South,
Speaker 1: A half truth is a whole lie. And if there's
Speaker 1: a place that breathes life into that proverb, it's the
Speaker 1: town of Mayfield in Graves County, Kentucky. A horrific murder
Speaker 1: went unsolved for six years in Mayfield, Kentucky, a town
Speaker 1: of ten thousand people. Then one local resident decided to
Speaker 1: take matters into her own hands. On August first, two thousand,
Speaker 1: the body of Jessica Current was found outside of the
Speaker 1: Mayfield Middle School. It appeared as though she'd been beaten
Speaker 1: and set on fire. Jessica was just eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: a new mom, and the daughter of a lieutenant with
Speaker 1: the Mayfield Fire Department, and her case would go unsolved
Speaker 1: for years.
Speaker 2: When police in Mayfield, Kentucky found a body, Susan Galbreth
Speaker 2: found a purpose. She had to know who murdered Jessica Current.
Speaker 1: Until a local homemaker and a handful of girls came
Speaker 1: forward with a story, a story that police would use
Speaker 1: to convict six people, lending Susan Galbreath in the newspapers
Speaker 1: and the radio and on national TV.
Speaker 2: Galbreath was a housewife, married three times and drifting. She
Speaker 2: had no law enforcement training and she'd never even met
Speaker 2: Jessica Current. But whatever grabbed her wouldn't let go.
Speaker 3: Somebody had to do something, and if somebody was me,
Speaker 3: so be it.
Speaker 1: Years later, the Kentucky Attorney General would even honor Susan
Speaker 1: with an Outstanding Citizen Award for finding the key witness
Speaker 1: in the Jessica Current case. It's a made for TV story.
Speaker 1: Ordinary woman, help solve murder, brings justice to a small town.
Speaker 2: Susan Galbreth was named Citizen of the Year, but a
Speaker 2: Kentucky Bureau of Investigation and to know.
Speaker 3: That I had just the slightest part and it just
Speaker 3: I feel like I was meant to.
Speaker 2: Susan Gallabreath has done more than just proved one person
Speaker 2: really can make a difference through sheer, persistence and nerve.
Speaker 2: This Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica.
Speaker 1: Cur Catnip for the press, and who could blame them?
Speaker 1: It's a good one, maybe too good to be true,
Speaker 1: because this story will go beyond one woman. It's about
Speaker 1: the lengths our legal system, our communities, and the press
Speaker 1: will go in order to find someone to blame. And
Speaker 1: it's about the tales we tell and choose to believe
Speaker 1: in pursuit of justice, the repercussions of which have uprooted lives,
Speaker 1: shattered families, and exposed a deep rought in Kentucky's halls
Speaker 1: of power. This is Graves County, Chapter one, Something Stinks.
Speaker 1: My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer winning journalist
Speaker 1: and producer who has spent years reporting on the criminal
Speaker 1: legal system. That's how I first heard about this case
Speaker 1: and about Susan Galbreath. I didn't get a chance to
Speaker 1: meet Susan in person. She died in twenty eighteen at
Speaker 1: the age of fifty eight. A lot of what I've
Speaker 1: learned about Susan comes from her interviews with the press
Speaker 1: and her own writings emails I've had the chance to review,
Speaker 1: and from her testimony in the trial for the murder
Speaker 1: of Jessica Curran.
Speaker 4: When I was a child, I either wanted to be
Speaker 4: a comedian or a police officer. So I don't neither,
Speaker 4: of course, but I've just always had a fascination with
Speaker 4: the law and things like that.
Speaker 1: Susan Gallbreath was born in Chicago, and moved to Mayfield,
Speaker 1: Kentucky in her early thirties. She liked living in a
Speaker 1: small town with a tight knit community, and she had
Speaker 1: a son she loved. But by the time her fortieth
Speaker 1: birthday hit, Susan was in a rut. A self described
Speaker 1: cigarette smoking, busybody. She was on her third marriage to
Speaker 1: a man who drank too much, and she'd lost her
Speaker 1: job from an injury. She was aimless. On top of that,
Speaker 1: she had a string of deaths in her family.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety nine. I had the death of my brother, father,
Speaker 3: and mother, so it was a real rough year for me.
Speaker 1: Here, she is talking to a local public radio station
Speaker 1: WKMS in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: And I think that I've always felt that I was
Speaker 3: meant to be there today that they've found Justica's body,
Speaker 3: and I often refer to it as through her, I
Speaker 3: somehow got my purpose back, because it was a real
Speaker 3: rough year in ninety nine.
Speaker 1: In her telling, Susan was sitting at a restaurant on
Speaker 1: a summer day when she overheard a waitress saying that
Speaker 1: police had found a body. What happened after that can
Speaker 1: only be described as spiritual, an epiphany of sorts. She
Speaker 1: just had to go to the scene of the crime
Speaker 1: and see it for herself, and what she found horrified
Speaker 1: and captivated her. She would spend every waking hour wondering
Speaker 1: what kind of monster could have done such a thing.
Speaker 1: But time passed and the case went unsolved, and after
Speaker 1: four years, the police had little to show for their
Speaker 1: work except for some failed leads and a string of
Speaker 1: rumors about what had happened to Jessica Curran. That's when
Speaker 1: Susan says her curiosity turned into an obsession. If the
Speaker 1: cops weren't going to crack the case, she would she'd
Speaker 1: play detective and string tidbits of information together chase leads
Speaker 1: find the truth. But this amateur sleuth needed help, so
Speaker 1: she started emailing people important, people like Oprah and Julia Roberts,
Speaker 1: anyone who could connect her to resources or give this
Speaker 1: case much needed attention, but she heard nothing.
Speaker 5: A federal investigation in Brooklyn, and.
Speaker 1: Then on TV one day she saw a British investigative
Speaker 1: journalist by the name of Tom mingled.
Speaker 5: Bobby revealing how they'd blind to see the manipulated the
Speaker 5: truth of forty years.
Speaker 1: So she wrote him as well.
Speaker 3: Date four four, two thousand and four from Susan g
Speaker 3: it chartered that net.
Speaker 1: This is Susan reading part of that email for a
Speaker 1: radio piece Tom produced for the BBC in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: It was a retrospective on the work Susan ended up
Speaker 1: doing for the case.
Speaker 3: Hello, mister Mangold, I am writing concerning a murder in
Speaker 3: a small town in the state of Kentucky here in
Speaker 3: the US. The victim a beautiful eighteen year old black girl.
Speaker 1: Tom flew to Kentucky about a month after getting that
Speaker 1: email in two thousand and four. It was the beginning
Speaker 1: of a year's long partnership with Susan and the launch
Speaker 1: of their investigation. They were an duo. Here are segments
Speaker 1: on how they describe each other in Tom's radio piece.
Speaker 3: When I first met Tom, I thought he was prim
Speaker 3: and proper, like he had to stick up his ass.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was just really formal, you know.
Speaker 6: When I first met Susan, I liked her on site.
Speaker 6: She's chubby, lively, great sense of humor, sexy, deep voice,
Speaker 6: and passionate about the one thing she needed to be
Speaker 6: passionate about the murder of Jessica current.
Speaker 1: Tom, then in his late sixties, said he brought his
Speaker 1: experience as a seasoned investigative reporter and taught Susan how
Speaker 1: to parse gossip from truth. They drank bottles of Sauvignon
Speaker 1: blanc together, Chase Leeds discuss theories, and eventually they pinpointed
Speaker 1: a local girl who turned out to be key to
Speaker 1: solving the case. Victoria Caldwell.
Speaker 7: Doris Victoria Conwell and what did people call you?
Speaker 3: Victoria?
Speaker 1: She came forward saying she was an accomplice to the crimes,
Speaker 1: and she ended up being the state's key witness.
Speaker 7: So in July two thousand, hour were here.
Speaker 1: Fifteen years old. Victoria's account about what happened to Jessica
Speaker 1: Curran would be the driving force in the conviction of
Speaker 1: her accused killers.
Speaker 3: Cavalovel Kersh's Quinsey Omar Crouch.
Speaker 1: This was the story Victoria told. We've edited her statements
Speaker 1: for length and warning it contains descriptions of physical and
Speaker 1: sexual violence.
Speaker 8: Vanda Victoria love Will.
Speaker 1: On a summer night in two thousand, Victoria says she
Speaker 1: was hanging out with a few kids from around town,
Speaker 1: including Jessica Curran and Venetia Stubblefield, all of them teenagers
Speaker 1: at the time. According to Victoria. They eventually ended up
Speaker 1: in a car with some older kids, all in the
Speaker 1: early twenties, including Victoria's cousin Tamra, Tamra's boyfriend Quincy Cross,
Speaker 1: and a guy they need from school named Jeff Burton,
Speaker 1: the only white person in the group.
Speaker 7: Wuency started passing out the drugs.
Speaker 9: Coke.
Speaker 1: She says. They did cocaine and other drugs in.
Speaker 7: The car, yes ecstasy.
Speaker 1: Tamra and Quincy were driving in the front with Jessica
Speaker 1: and they started touching her.
Speaker 7: Quincy and Tamra were rubbing on Jessica's legs. She was
Speaker 7: telling him to stop and no you did they stop? No,
Speaker 7: he didn't want that. Then when we got to the
Speaker 7: driveway of Jeff's house, Quincy he walked under the seat
Speaker 7: and he had a bat and he hit her in
Speaker 7: her head like a small, like little bat.
Speaker 1: She says. Quincy reached under this and then hit Jessica
Speaker 1: in the head with a souvenir bat.
Speaker 7: I'm not really, you're not to explain it.
Speaker 1: After that, they drove to Jeff's house and they carried
Speaker 1: Jessica's unconscious body inside. According to Victoria, Quincy and Jeff
Speaker 1: raped and beat Jessica with the help of Tamera, and.
Speaker 7: That's when Jessica started to wake up.
Speaker 1: Jessica was in and out of consciousness.
Speaker 7: Actually woke up. She was saying like she wanted to
Speaker 7: go home. She just wanted to go home to her son.
Speaker 7: She's getting her son, Zion's name.
Speaker 1: She was pleading for her life and calling out the
Speaker 1: name of her seven month old son.
Speaker 7: Quincy. He hit her.
Speaker 1: He hit her with a ratchet, and she just knocked
Speaker 1: back out. Victoria says. Quincy then started strangling Jessica with
Speaker 1: his leather belt.
Speaker 7: He was just choking her each other. She just kept pulling, pulling,
Speaker 7: pulling on it. What she was to like Carol, like
Speaker 7: gasping for air?
Speaker 4: Did she gasp?
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: But it didn't end there. Victoria says that after Quincy
Speaker 1: killed Jessica, he ordered the girls to have sex with
Speaker 1: her ravaged, lifeless body.
Speaker 7: That they had to do something.
Speaker 1: She describes the sexual acts in lurid detail, but I'm
Speaker 1: not going to share those specifics here. It's gruesome perform
Speaker 1: sexual acts on Jessica Current's body. Yes, according to the prosecution,
Speaker 1: this would implicate them all in the murder and ensure
Speaker 1: their silence. After it was all done, Victoria says they
Speaker 1: wrapped Jessica his body in a blanket and hid her
Speaker 1: in Jeff's garage for a few days until she started
Speaker 1: to smell. Then, she says, a few of them drove
Speaker 1: Jessica's body to the middle school, where they dumped her
Speaker 1: and set her on fire. Victoria says she took the blanket,
Speaker 1: Jeff poured the gas, and Venetia lit the match and
Speaker 1: then let.
Speaker 3: As the jury reached a birdie if he had handed
Speaker 3: to the by the place.
Speaker 1: On April eighth, two thousand and eight, after only three
Speaker 1: hours and forty five minutes of deliberating, a Kentucky jury
Speaker 1: convicted Quincy Cross on all charges we The.
Speaker 3: Jury found the defendant guilty of kidnapping, guilty of mark
Speaker 3: guilty of ripe, and the first guilty of abuse of
Speaker 3: the guilty of tampering with physical evidence of her instruction
Speaker 3: number fifteen.
Speaker 1: He was later sentenced to life in prison without the
Speaker 1: possibility of parole. Tamra and Jeff took please and were
Speaker 1: sentenced to ten and fifteen years, respectively. Venetia and Victoria
Speaker 1: got lighter sentences for cooperating with the prosecution. Remember, Victoria
Speaker 1: was the state's key witness. The case would make headlines
Speaker 1: because it took eight years to find and punish the
Speaker 1: accused killers, and because of Susan and Tom. Susan stayed
Speaker 1: on the case and Tom stayed on the story long
Speaker 1: after the convictions. In an email a few months after
Speaker 1: the trial, Tom informed Susan he was writing an article
Speaker 1: on her for the Times of London. He writes, quote,
Speaker 1: I'll make you famous yet, to which Susan responds quote,
Speaker 1: I couldn't be happier about this. I can only hope
Speaker 1: I don't let you down. Tom and Susan would appear
Speaker 1: in interviews like the one you heard earlier from a
Speaker 1: public radio station, celebrating their feet. Tom told wkm AS
Speaker 1: that he had received about fifteen film offers from movie
Speaker 1: studios interested in their story.
Speaker 5: And they were all interested in the relationship between an
Speaker 5: aging British hack and this lovely young lady originally from Chicago.
Speaker 1: He and Susan ended up signing a contract with BBC Films.
Speaker 5: Don't ask me who's going to play me? Because I
Speaker 5: wanted Brad Pitt to play That's.
Speaker 3: What I was thinking.
Speaker 5: He's far too old for me. I know the talk
Speaker 5: is of Susan sound and type actress to play Susan.
Speaker 5: It's an interesting story and we have had a remarkable
Speaker 5: relationship and one that has given me intense pleasure.
Speaker 1: In a perfect world where good guys win and the
Speaker 1: bad guys are punished, this is where the story would end.
Speaker 1: Role credits. To accept this pre call press one. To
Speaker 1: refuse this pre call Press two. Thank you for using securists.
Speaker 1: You may start the conversation now.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 1: Okay, hey, Quincy, Hey, how you doing. I'm well, how
Speaker 1: are you doing today?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 10: I'm just you know, still doing time as well.
Speaker 1: But then again, I wouldn't be here if things worked
Speaker 1: the way they should. Quincy, what is that like for
Speaker 1: the world to think here somebody as terrible as a
Speaker 1: as a murderer.
Speaker 10: It's painful. Yeah, it's very painful, and it's something it's
Speaker 10: and it's something that I've never adjusted to living back.
Speaker 1: To understand this story, you need to know the people
Speaker 1: accused and convicted of Jessica Current's murder.
Speaker 10: My story is not just about me, but it's about
Speaker 10: Jessica the victim, and it's about Camera and Jeff Burton too.
Speaker 10: All our story we was portrayed to be something that
Speaker 10: we not. So you know, the whole world looked at
Speaker 10: us different.
Speaker 7: We still do.
Speaker 10: So you know, my story is to, you know, to
Speaker 10: have clear all that up.
Speaker 1: I've gotten to know two of them well, Quincy and Tamera,
Speaker 1: and from the very beginning they have maintained that the
Speaker 1: story Victoria told at trial was a lie.
Speaker 8: People still talk about me to this day, but I
Speaker 8: don't care because I know I feel greated, like I
Speaker 8: know I didn't do anything. I know I didn't do
Speaker 8: a thing.
Speaker 1: Other people ensnared in this story have told me the
Speaker 1: same thing. They did not kill Jessica Current. That's after
Speaker 1: the break. Mayfield, Kentucky, is in the dead center of
Speaker 1: Graves County, tucked away in the southwestern corner of the Commonwealth.
Speaker 1: There's more crops than people. Corn, soy and tobacco fields
Speaker 1: stretch as far as the eye can see, legacy of
Speaker 1: a time when African people were bought and sold like
Speaker 1: chattel to cultivate these same crops. Alcohol laws in Graves
Speaker 1: County date back to the Dry Crusade or Prohibition era,
Speaker 1: so there's not many places to gather and grab a
Speaker 1: drink on a Friday folks in Mayfield are damn proud
Speaker 1: of their winning high school football team, the Cardinals, But
Speaker 1: other than game night, locals tell me there's not much
Speaker 1: to do. Just under ten thousand people live in Mayfield.
Speaker 1: The population hasn't grown in decades, and like in many
Speaker 1: small towns across the country, lack of activity or opportunity
Speaker 1: often leads to mischief and petty crime. A lot of
Speaker 1: it in the county is drug related, people selling or
Speaker 1: possessing drugs, and a lot of people have kids young
Speaker 1: in their teens and twenties. That was the case for
Speaker 1: Tamra called, well, so you were seventeen, you got pregnant,
Speaker 1: and was there any question about keeping the baby or
Speaker 1: were you Oh yeah, I'm keeping it. Tamar always knew
Speaker 1: she wanted to be a mom, so when she got
Speaker 1: pregnant as a teen with her first child, a boy,
Speaker 1: Tamora was happy. You're like, I'm ready to I'm read.
Speaker 11: Yep, I'm ready. I'm not getting rid of it. I'm ready.
Speaker 1: And when another baby, a daughter, came just two years later,
Speaker 1: and another one a few years after that, she knew
Speaker 1: she'd adore those little girls just as much. There was
Speaker 1: love to spare.
Speaker 11: I enjoyed being with my kids because they weren't my life.
Speaker 1: Tamarra also knew that she would didn't need a man
Speaker 1: to raise the kids, just like her mom and grandmother
Speaker 1: before her. Who is your dad?
Speaker 11: My mother is my dad. She's always been my dad
Speaker 11: and will always be like it.
Speaker 1: Men would come and go, but Tamer's family would stay together.
Speaker 1: That's not to say that some men didn't stay a
Speaker 1: little while. One of them was Quincy Cross. Before they
Speaker 1: were both accused of murder, their names tied to a
Speaker 1: brutal crime. There were just two kids in their early
Speaker 1: twenties who fell in love. Quincy was from a town
Speaker 1: just across the border in Tennessee, about a forty minute
Speaker 1: drive southwest of Mayfield. Quincy had the kind of swagger
Speaker 1: that comes from being a young man without a care
Speaker 1: in the world. Unlike Tamra, who says she's always been
Speaker 1: more of a homebody, content on the couch with her kids,
Speaker 1: watching soap operas or Jeopardy. Quincy was a boy getting
Speaker 1: in trouble.
Speaker 10: We was drinking and drugging, hear me.
Speaker 1: Quincy says he and his friends would run the streets.
Speaker 10: It was selling drugs. It was hanging out laid you know,
Speaker 10: it was you know, of hanging out with female, a
Speaker 10: whole bunch of female, different females all the time. It
Speaker 10: was it was, you know, kids, the whole bunch of kids.
Speaker 10: Things going on, you know what I'm saying. Like I said,
Speaker 10: drinking and drugging. Man lose most of the time doing
Speaker 10: it all man, doing what kids.
Speaker 1: Do, and those things usually landed Quincy in and out
Speaker 1: of jail. That's actually how Tamar and Quincy met. He
Speaker 1: was locked up in the same jail as Tammer's brother
Speaker 1: in Graves County, and in one of her visits, Tamer
Speaker 1: says she saw Quincy looking at her. He was cute,
Speaker 1: a little short. He's five to four, with big cheeks
Speaker 1: and a warm, dimpled smile, and she remembers thinking maybe
Speaker 1: to him. So she did, and he turned out to
Speaker 1: be nice as well. He was friendly, cute, friendly, and funny.
Speaker 1: Quincy was a comedy. Quincy was just a fun person.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed talking though him and Quincy enjoyed Tamra.
Speaker 10: Timber had a nice heart. Cama had a nice heart.
Speaker 10: Man Tampa was a friend before she was anything else.
Speaker 10: Man tim was. We was good to hang out with
Speaker 10: each other.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 10: She was a good person, man for real.
Speaker 1: Tamra was already pregnant when she got serious with Quincy.
Speaker 1: She didn't party, so they liked watching movies together, eating pizza.
Speaker 1: Quincy even moved in with Tamara and her mom for
Speaker 1: a bit. He was there when Tamara had to have
Speaker 1: an emergency c section and her youngest girl, Shade, was born.
Speaker 10: Before she did. Oh, man, I cried, I crad. I
Speaker 10: was soft man, I ain't on trip. I crad. I
Speaker 10: shed some teriars right there. That was a beautiful thing. Yeah,
Speaker 10: that was a beautiful thing. That would bring back some good.
Speaker 1: Memories right there, Tamra says Quincy. It was good with
Speaker 1: the kids. She even gave Shade his last name, even
Speaker 1: though he wasn't the biological dad.
Speaker 8: Even though he didn't have no kids, My kids were
Speaker 8: his kids.
Speaker 1: He didn't seem to mind the mess that comes with children.
Speaker 8: Literally before he got in the door, before he opened
Speaker 8: the door, he would change shirts because he knew that
Speaker 8: Beebe was gonna throw up.
Speaker 1: Yes Bvbe is Shade's nickname.
Speaker 11: With Yes, he was the best.
Speaker 1: Tamrosa's Quincy loved Bebe and her whole family He was
Speaker 1: even a pallbearer at her Grandma Doris's funeral. He was
Speaker 1: fully in her life.
Speaker 11: We were like best friends.
Speaker 1: But after a few years their relationship faded the way
Speaker 1: relationships do.
Speaker 10: I just had to go back home.
Speaker 1: Back home to Tennessee.
Speaker 10: I just want to go back home. Man, Makefield was
Speaker 10: Makefield is you have one minute left? Its corrupt down
Speaker 10: there as corrupt things long down now, and I figured
Speaker 10: it would time for me to come back home.
Speaker 1: Tamar and Quincy broke up around two thousand and five
Speaker 1: and lost contact for a bit, but he wasn't able
Speaker 1: to shake Mayfield off for long. A few years after
Speaker 1: the breakup, in two thousand and seven, he'd return to Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and even though he'd never get back together with Tamra,
Speaker 1: their names would be forever linked to each other and
Speaker 1: to Mayfield's most infamous murder.
Speaker 8: I got a pritty two that toil. Yeah, I was
Speaker 8: in there five years, late months. It's two days, five years,
Speaker 8: eight months and two days.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting with Tamra at her mom's house in Mayfield.
Speaker 1: She's bold and bright, with shimmery makeup and colorful braided hair.
Speaker 1: Tamra says, since she was a kid. She's always had
Speaker 1: colorful hair. Today it's blue, her favorite. But inside, Tamera
Speaker 1: is guarded, scarred by prison and the events that led
Speaker 1: her there.
Speaker 11: I used to be.
Speaker 8: Outgoing.
Speaker 11: I was always a positive one.
Speaker 8: Not no more, not like I used to.
Speaker 7: Not like it used to be.
Speaker 8: It won't never be like it used to be, because
Speaker 8: I can't get I won't never get that time back.
Speaker 8: I can't never get that time. I'm taking away from
Speaker 8: my family for something I can't even do. If I
Speaker 8: knew what I know now, then it's been a whole
Speaker 8: different story. It's crazy when you.
Speaker 11: Come home and your kids.
Speaker 8: Is something wrong with your kids? You can't do anything?
Speaker 8: Could you locked up? It's hard, but I had to
Speaker 8: keep the faith because I wanted to go home, because
Speaker 8: if I didn't keep the faith, I probably wouldn't even
Speaker 8: be here now.
Speaker 1: I've spent the last two years traveling to Mayfield, talking
Speaker 1: to people there, sorting through hundreds of hours of law
Speaker 1: enforcement interviews and interrogations, court transcripts, private investigator findings, and records,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out if there's any truth to their
Speaker 1: claims of innocence. What would it be like to have
Speaker 1: your conviction cleared for you were.
Speaker 8: Oh great, Oh a great deal. I can't even get
Speaker 8: a job because of my compection. What my charge is on. Yeah,
Speaker 8: I won't never get five years, eight months, and two
Speaker 8: days back. But I deserve something. I want my name clearly,
Speaker 8: and Jeff name clear and Quincy out of.
Speaker 1: Jail, out of prison.
Speaker 8: That's all I want, clear my name.
Speaker 1: Two years of sifting through lies, rumors, and stories, picking
Speaker 1: out any discernible bits of truth, trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how they were accused in the first place. At times,
Speaker 1: it's been almost impossible to discern truth from rumor, and
Speaker 1: it's made me question who can I trust when so
Speaker 1: many people obscure the truth. Now, over the course of time,
Speaker 1: I have grown to trust one woman in particular, and
Speaker 1: she warned me from day one that this case was
Speaker 1: going to be a hard one.
Speaker 9: Good luck deciphering the fucking lies in this case. My
Speaker 9: apologies for cussing, but that's what it is. There are
Speaker 9: so many lies.
Speaker 1: That's after the break. In two thousand and four, Susan Gallbreath,
Speaker 1: the Kentucky housewife who you met at the top of
Speaker 1: the show, wrote journalist Tom Mangold, asking for help solving
Speaker 1: the Jessica current case. Almost two decades after that, a
Speaker 1: woman named Darrel Woolman would contact me and my team
Speaker 1: saying the man in prison for the crime had been wronged.
Speaker 1: Much like Susan, Darah is not a detective or a lawyer.
Speaker 1: She's not even from Mayfield yet she has dedicated years
Speaker 1: of her life to this case. But if Susan helped
Speaker 1: put Quincy Cross in prison, Dara is dead set on
Speaker 1: getting him out.
Speaker 9: I don't believe he was there, and I don't believe
Speaker 9: that he did it, and I don't believe he had
Speaker 9: anything to cover up, and it's just a gut failing.
Speaker 1: Has your intuition ever led you astray?
Speaker 9: We I mean, look at the fuck towards updated. Yeah,
Speaker 9: absolutely sorry. My intuition has has led me a lot
Speaker 9: of times astray.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, she launched an endeavor aimed at
Speaker 1: helping people in prison.
Speaker 9: I started the Department of Collaborators. I really wanted to
Speaker 9: call it the Department of Correctors, but I thought like
Speaker 9: that was too county video. See, you know, I do
Speaker 9: not have a website. I do have a bank account.
Speaker 1: The Department of Collaborators a group of folks from all
Speaker 1: walks of life who volunteer their time to finding people
Speaker 1: they think have been wrongfully convicted and connecting them with
Speaker 1: folks like me who can give them a voice, a.
Speaker 9: Group of misfits that can't. I go to this case.
Speaker 1: Dearah got in touch with my colleague Jason Flamm, who's
Speaker 1: long worked in criminal justice reform, and he passed the
Speaker 1: case along to me. Darah has asked me point blank
Speaker 1: to not compare her to Susan Gallbreath, But the irony
Speaker 1: of it, all the similarities are not lost on me.
Speaker 1: I'd be crazy not to point them out. And one
Speaker 1: of them is that I am taken by Dara the
Speaker 1: way Tom was taken by Susan. Darah is a character.
Speaker 1: She's constantly calling and sending me voice messages at all hours.
Speaker 9: So anyway, again, I'm sorry for my monotone voice, talking
Speaker 9: like I have marbles in my goddamn mouth, but that's
Speaker 9: just the way I talk tonight.
Speaker 1: Darah is a born and bred Southerner who plays to
Speaker 1: every stereotype for laughs like these are the kinds of
Speaker 1: phrases signs off with God bless you, I say.
Speaker 9: And buck Nancy Grice.
Speaker 1: Darah grew up in Mississippi, but lives in a McMansion
Speaker 1: neighborhood outside of Nashville. Now. My producer, Rebecca and I
Speaker 1: went to visit in the summer of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 9: Welcome to the jungle.
Speaker 1: The jungle is a very nice jungle. Darah lives with
Speaker 1: her mom, son and Ludacris. Hi, Ludacris, you're so cute.
Speaker 1: A dog, not the rapper, A scruffy white terrier mutt
Speaker 1: who's always by her side.
Speaker 9: He doesn't identify as the dogs.
Speaker 1: Dara is a striking woman in her forties with icy
Speaker 1: blue eyes and long blonde hair. As we walk past
Speaker 1: the foyer into what appears to be the sitting room,
Speaker 1: there are three huge paintings on the wall.
Speaker 10: What is this?
Speaker 1: Just you oil paintings of Dara in a revealing mini
Speaker 1: dress that her mother painted but my baby really enhanced,
Speaker 1: Dearra says, the Southern blonde stick works. It leads people
Speaker 1: to underestimate her, but you shouldn't be fooled. She's tenacious
Speaker 1: and full of moral outrage over what she perceives as
Speaker 1: a deep injustice. And the proof of Dara's tenacity, where
Speaker 1: do you have all your documents and stuff. All them
Speaker 1: off is right downstairs. Oh that's your office, Okay, not
Speaker 1: meet you. Dara's home office is a bright room jam
Speaker 1: packed with tons of memorabilia from the years, like Dolly
Speaker 1: Parton figurines, Kate Moss's mugshot, and of course documents, filing
Speaker 1: cabinets full of papers, and binders of CDs containing hours
Speaker 1: of court proceedings, security footage, interrogations, interviews, everything like emails
Speaker 1: between Susan and Tom wondering how did someone get her
Speaker 1: personal emails? Who was who was able to get these?
Speaker 9: And some of its supposed to be part of discovery.
Speaker 9: I mean she was a witness, she does a witness.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, and she's giving me full access. Dara
Speaker 1: hasn't collected all of this alone. In the department of collaborators.
Speaker 1: There's a person who gathers all the data, one who
Speaker 1: organizes it, and there's Dara, the connector, staying in touch
Speaker 1: with everyone involved. And it's grown past a little volunteer job.
Speaker 1: Dearra says, it's become personal.
Speaker 9: The truth of the matter is is that I fell
Speaker 9: in love with Quincy's family. They've fallen in love with me.
Speaker 1: And with all the other people who've been touched by
Speaker 1: this case.
Speaker 9: Camera Jeffrey, you know, like that's the truth of when
Speaker 9: it comes to Quincy Cross's case, It's not about solving
Speaker 9: the murder of Jessica Kern because at the end of
Speaker 9: the day, too in that her think I can fucking
Speaker 9: solve it. I'm just trying to get a man I'm
Speaker 9: blame prison out and I'm trying to get his other two.
Speaker 1: Then it's exonerated. So that's what Dara wants, and what
Speaker 1: I want is to get it right. For a few reasons,
Speaker 1: I'm a white girl from New York parachuting into this
Speaker 1: community in the South where the victim and most of
Speaker 1: the accused are black. I'm painfully aware of the stereotype
Speaker 1: white lady saves the day, Susan Dara, and we've heard
Speaker 1: this from people in town who are wary of outsiders.
Speaker 1: I don't want to give them more reasons to distrust
Speaker 1: people like me. On top of that, a few years ago,
Speaker 1: I got it really wrong covering what I was convinced
Speaker 1: was a wrongful conviction out of Alliance, Ohio. I dedicated
Speaker 1: a year of my life and twenty podcast episodes trying
Speaker 1: to find out if a man was in prison unjustly,
Speaker 1: only to learn midway that he'd most likely done it
Speaker 1: and my instincts were wrong. A lot of listeners commended
Speaker 1: my honesty, but I also got slammed for hurting the
Speaker 1: victim's family by dragging all this up. I felt like
Speaker 1: a failure and went on hiatus for a few months,
Speaker 1: dug a hole and burrowed in it, licking my wounds.
Speaker 1: My mistake is always in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1: But I'm not the first journalist with doubts about their
Speaker 1: own work, and it turns out I'm not the first
Speaker 1: journalist with doubts about the convictions in this case. When
Speaker 1: Susan Golbreth died in twenty eighteen, Tom Mangled wasn't able
Speaker 1: to fly from England for the funeral, but he wrote
Speaker 1: Susan's family and email expressing his condolences. He called Susan
Speaker 1: a quote life force. He wrote that Susan's enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: the investigation infected him and eventually infected law enforcement, and
Speaker 1: it was quote wholly because of her drive and cunning
Speaker 1: that the perpetrators were caught and sentenced publicly. Tom was
Speaker 1: and continues to be certain that the case Susan helped
Speaker 1: bring forward and the one he covered for years was
Speaker 1: not only right but righteous. But privately I found a
Speaker 1: different story, one that plants the seed of doubt. This
Speaker 1: is from Susan to Tom and sitting with my producer Rebecca
Speaker 1: going through hundreds of pages of documents we got from
Speaker 1: Darra and from court filings. They include years of Tom
Speaker 1: Mangle's emails from Susan, law enforcement and many other people
Speaker 1: in Mayfield.
Speaker 3: This emails between Tom Mangel and Lazy Gates, a friend
Speaker 3: of Susan Gobreth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought she was again.
Speaker 2: Working with Mangled and Gabrit.
Speaker 1: These specific emails are from around the time Tom was
Speaker 1: preparing to release yet another piece on Susan, four years
Speaker 1: after Quincy, Tamra and Jeff were convicted. It's the radio
Speaker 1: documentary you heard earlier from the BBC titled Something Rotten
Speaker 1: in Mayfield. In it, he rehashes the story of Susan
Speaker 1: helping to find Jessica's killers, and he features Victoria Caldwell
Speaker 1: retelling her version of events. Yet this is an email
Speaker 1: he sent to Susan's friend a few months before the
Speaker 1: piece aired. Oh my god. This is from Tom to
Speaker 1: Lacey in twenty twelve. January twenty twelve, Lacy, I'm just
Speaker 1: being to wonder this is but a tiny worm of
Speaker 1: an idea in my wine soaked brain that there is
Speaker 1: a teeny weeny itsy bitsy chance that we've got this
Speaker 1: whole fucking murder story wrong and that there may have
Speaker 1: been a huge miscarriage of Justine, a renowned journalist talking
Speaker 1: about a case that he helped solve that went all
Speaker 1: the way to the Kentucky Attorney General, that sent six
Speaker 1: people to prison, and he's saying there's an itsy itzsy
Speaker 1: chance that they got this whole fucking murder story wrong
Speaker 1: this season on Graves County. I mean, you should.
Speaker 7: Hear all the stuff that goes around and you know something.
Speaker 7: It might be as true as it comes.
Speaker 1: You just can't never tell what's rammored and what's not.
Speaker 5: You look so for thin faking those kings rocking in
Speaker 5: the chair and telling their line.
Speaker 1: They accused a lot of incent people. They hurt their families,
Speaker 1: they hurt their friendships.
Speaker 3: Don't let nobody ever tell you get closure, because you'll
Speaker 3: gonna always miss a person like that the.
Speaker 7: Rest of your live.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like a lot of people have come
Speaker 1: forward saying I know who did this, but no one
Speaker 1: has said who did it. That's correct.
Speaker 2: Why I don't know some of them that I've dealt with,
Speaker 2: it's involved in this or perpetual liars.
Speaker 6: So I did not know her and I did not
Speaker 6: kill her or raid or burn or any of that
Speaker 6: other stuff that y'all said.
Speaker 1: Mark, y'all gotta work the hell up.
Speaker 5: Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
Speaker 1: Braves County is a production of Lava for Good in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number One. This show is written
Speaker 1: and produced by me Maggie Frielink and senior producer Rebecca Ibarra.
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Burtis are executive producers.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Martina abraham's Ilunga. Dania Suleman is our
Speaker 1: fact checker. Sound design and mixing by Joe Plord. Music
Speaker 1: created by Wrench. Our theme song is the Gangstagrass version
Speaker 1: of The One Who's Holding the Star by Leo Schofield
Speaker 1: and Kevin Herrick. Darrel Woolman is investigative producer. Our head
Speaker 1: of Marketing and Operations is Jeff Cliburn is Ismay Guaderama
Speaker 1: is our social media director and our social Media manager
Speaker 1: is Sarah Gibbons. Andrew Nelson is art director, with additional
Speaker 1: production help from Jackie Pauley, Kara Kornhaber and Kathleen Fink.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and
Speaker 1: threads at Lava for Good and follow me at Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: And we know there's a lot of names for you
Speaker 1: to keep up with in this series, so for a
Speaker 1: detailed list of characters, please go to our show notes