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Speaker 1: On the morning of August first, two thousand, a woman's

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Speaker 1: partially burned and decomposing body was found behind a middle

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Speaker 1: school in Mayfield, Kentucky. Eighteen year old Jessica Current had

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Speaker 1: last been seen playing cards with friends on the previous

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Speaker 1: Saturday night, leaving a nearly three day gap where no

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Speaker 1: one claimed to have seen her. The crime was investigated

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Speaker 1: by local and state police, but after a couple of

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Speaker 1: years the trail went cold. Then, prompted by his citizen's

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Speaker 1: investigation conducted by a local housewife, one of Jessica's friends

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Speaker 1: came forward with a bizarre tale. In it she and

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Speaker 1: a group of friends had partied with Jessica that night,

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Speaker 1: then kidnapped, beaten, and raped her, and finally killed her.

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Speaker 1: The ringleader, she told police, was Quincy Cross. Quincy had

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Speaker 1: been at a party in Mayfield that night, but he

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Speaker 1: claimed never to have met Jessica or any of the

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Speaker 1: others involved. Still at trial, when others testify to the

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Speaker 1: events of that night, they two pointed to Quincy as

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Speaker 1: the murderer. But this is wrongful conviction, So welcome back

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Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. I'm Maggie Freeling, host of wrongful conviction

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Speaker 1: with Maggie Freeling and I'm so excited to be sitting

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Speaker 1: in for Jason Flamm today and to share this story

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Speaker 1: with you today. I have Quincy Cross with me and

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Speaker 1: I also have Miranda Hellman, his attorney from the Kentucky

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Speaker 1: Innocence Project. Miranda, thank you for being here.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having us.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 3: Quincy, Hey, how you doing?

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Speaker 1: I am well. How do you feel about telling everyone

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Speaker 1: your story today? I know you haven't done that much.

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Speaker 3: It's a lot of things that I've been owing in

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Speaker 3: for a long time.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's get to it. I want to hear your

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Speaker 1: story in detail, and usually I just like to start

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Speaker 1: with your life growing up? What was that like?

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Speaker 3: I grew up with sisters and brothers on both sides

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Speaker 3: my family, my mom's side, you know, my dad's side,

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Speaker 3: on my stepmom's side. You know what I'm saying, very old,

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Speaker 3: protected by my sisters, all of them, provider, protector, somebody

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Speaker 3: that they can come talk to, have the conversations that

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Speaker 3: they can't have with other people. And they know that.

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Speaker 3: And uh, and we have real good times. You know,

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Speaker 3: as kids, we did other things together. We used to

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Speaker 3: catch turtles and snakes and all that. We used to

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Speaker 3: go frog gigg We used to have you know, just

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Speaker 3: do what young kids do. I grew up in Union

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Speaker 3: City and I grew up in Willer Mills, Tennessee. So

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Speaker 3: you know, I'm a country guy, all right.

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Speaker 1: You got to explain that to me, though, Quincy, I

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Speaker 1: grew up in New York City. What is growing up

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Speaker 1: in the country.

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Speaker 3: Like, Okay, country is a whole. That's a whole lot

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Speaker 3: of love in the country. You know. It's like we did.

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Speaker 3: We did small things like play tag and play baseball,

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Speaker 3: and you know, we just did it as a small community.

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Speaker 3: Then you got to tighten their family because it's a

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Speaker 3: lot of older people that raised you. They cooked for you.

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Speaker 3: You know, you wash their cars like more, their yaards

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Speaker 3: and things. Because we was tightening. There was a whole

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Speaker 3: lot of love in the community.

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Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Quincy, When you were younger,

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Speaker 1: what did you what did you want to do with

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Speaker 1: your life? What were your hopes and dreams?

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Speaker 3: Sports was my thing. I wanted to be a good

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Speaker 3: football player. That's what I wanted to do. I want

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Speaker 3: to go to college and play football and help the

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Speaker 3: older people in my community. Look up. You know what

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Speaker 3: I'm saying and say he did something with his life,

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Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: So what was going on in your life in two thousand?

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Speaker 3: It was up and down. Two thousand was up and

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Speaker 3: down because matter of fact, we had just had my

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Speaker 3: grandmama sueneral on Mother's Day of ninety nine, and I

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Speaker 3: went through a spiral after that, you know, because that

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Speaker 3: was that was my heart.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean by spiral? What did you what

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Speaker 1: was that like?

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Speaker 3: I got off in the drugs, basically got off in

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Speaker 3: the drugs and using the man telling them I was

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Speaker 3: doing both what.

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Speaker 1: Kind of drugs?

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Speaker 3: Cokaine?

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Speaker 1: So wondering if before the summer of two thousand did

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Speaker 1: you have any run ins with the law at all

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Speaker 1: when you were selling drugs, dealing drugs whatever it was.

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Speaker 3: Well, it was like small, small, petty client like marijuana,

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Speaker 3: ca you know, cocaine case some day wouldn't get you

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Speaker 3: no time, you know, some thirty day, ninety days, you know,

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Speaker 3: some smile like that.

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Speaker 1: So Quincy, that summer you were living in Union City, Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: just south of the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. But

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Speaker 1: the crime that you were ultimately convicted of occurred in Mayfield, Kentucky,

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Speaker 1: which is about thirty five minutes away by car. So, Mirinda,

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Speaker 1: can you tell us a bit about what Mayfield was

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Speaker 1: like in two thousands so listeners can kind of get

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Speaker 1: the feel for it.

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Speaker 3: Sure.

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Speaker 2: So, Mayfield, Kentucky was and still is a very small

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Speaker 2: town in rural western Kentucky, a very predominantly white community.

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Speaker 2: The black population and minority population live on one side

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Speaker 2: of town, where you know, the white population lives in another.

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Speaker 2: So the police and really the city government in Mayfield

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Speaker 2: has had a few scandals throughout its time. The one

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Speaker 2: that I think is most connected to this case would

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Speaker 2: be the assistant police chief, Ronnie Lear.

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Speaker 1: At the time of Quincy's drug arrest, Ronnie Lear had

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Speaker 1: already been under investigation for some time because of allegations

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Speaker 1: that he and some of the other police officers had

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Speaker 1: been selling confiscated drugs. Lear was later indicted for misconduct

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Speaker 1: charges after crack cocaine was found in his desk drawer.

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Speaker 2: He was fired essentially from the Mayfield Police department some

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Speaker 2: time after this case occurred, and it appeared to be

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Speaker 2: a theory of the defense at the time of Quincy's trial.

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Speaker 2: Even in two thousand and eight that Ronnie Lear was

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Speaker 2: just a crooked cop and that this may have been

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Speaker 2: connected to it in some way.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So Quincy, can you tell me about the night

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Speaker 1: of July twenty ninth, two thousand. Who were you with

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Speaker 1: and how why did you wind up in Mayfield?

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Speaker 3: Were in Yana City. We had a party set.

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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 3: We was conning the house up for this party, and

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Speaker 3: Travis Jackson, Carlos Saxton and Gregg Store had pulled up.

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Speaker 3: So I've been knowing Travis before he could walk. So

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Speaker 3: he come down there looking for some drugs. So I

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Speaker 3: told him, you know, I could help him out.

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Speaker 1: Quincy, Travis, Carlos, and Greg drove around for a while

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Speaker 1: looking to score and picked up some drugs near his

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Speaker 1: hometown of Woodland Mills around nine point thirty. They stopped

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Speaker 1: at a liquor store, then headed back to Union City.

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Speaker 1: On the way, Travis suggested they head up to Kentucky.

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Speaker 1: He knew some folks that could sell to in Mayfield,

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Speaker 1: just over the state line.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, man, I don't know nobody in Kentucky. Man,

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Speaker 3: I don't want to go to Kentucky. He was like,

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Speaker 3: come on, man, if you go, we'll bring you back

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Speaker 3: later on.

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Speaker 1: It took some convincing, but eventually Quincy agreed and they

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Speaker 1: headed up to Kentucky.

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Speaker 3: And the process to that, we hit these back so

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Speaker 3: many of these different back roads to where I don't

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Speaker 3: even know where we at.

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Speaker 1: We pop up in Mayfield around midnight. They ended up

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Speaker 1: at a party on Chris Drive, somewhere on the outskirts

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Speaker 1: of town.

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Speaker 3: They got their girlfriends or whatever hanging out out there,

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Speaker 3: so we selling drugs out there, that's all. I don't

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Speaker 3: know nobody out there.

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Speaker 1: I'll you here later on, a number of other people

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Speaker 1: who were involved in Quincy's case were alleged to have

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Speaker 1: been at this party on Chris Drive, including Carlos Saxton,

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Speaker 1: but the only one of them who was actually there

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Speaker 1: was Carlos. The night wore on and Quincy's friend showed

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Speaker 1: no sign of wanting to leave the party.

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Speaker 3: But I keep asking them to take me home. I'm like, man,

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Speaker 3: I'm ready to go home. So I've used the phone,

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Speaker 3: the hel phone, but I called him uponder them back in,

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Speaker 3: said letting them know that I'm trying to get home,

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Speaker 3: and I know they waiting on men. You know.

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Speaker 1: By now, the sun was starting to come up Quincy

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Speaker 1: was getting hungry, so he borrowed Greg's car to drive

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Speaker 1: into Mayfield to get something to eat, but he got

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Speaker 1: lost on the way downtown and ended up driving in

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Speaker 1: circles around the back roads. Finally, around seven in the morning,

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Speaker 1: he ran out of gas. Quincy found a gas can

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Speaker 1: in the trunk of the car and was about to

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Speaker 1: pour some into the tank when someone drove by and

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Speaker 1: stopped to help out. It happened to be the Mayfield

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Speaker 1: deputy jailer on his way to work.

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Speaker 3: This guy, he's standing right beside me, so he seen

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Speaker 3: me drop a couple of drops of gas on my

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Speaker 3: parents laid But he's in the hareway to get to

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Speaker 3: work because he's late. So stay Trooper with Mike Perkins

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Speaker 3: pulled up. So now he smelled the gas, but he

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Speaker 3: gave me a ride back to Chris Drag about a

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Speaker 3: mile up the street, and from now he dropped me off.

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Speaker 3: And then he said he went back to the car

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Speaker 3: and he's seeing marijuana, which was which was some some

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Speaker 3: black and mile and mile. It wasn't even marijuana, it

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Speaker 3: was black and man.

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Speaker 1: So you encountered Officer Perkins the morning of the thirtieth

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Speaker 1: and so when he found what he said was weed.

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Speaker 1: I know you said it was black and miles like,

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Speaker 1: which is like a cigar kind of thing. What happened

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Speaker 1: from there?

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Speaker 3: So he come back to the to the house asking

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Speaker 3: me if he can search a car, Tell him the

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Speaker 3: car ain't mine. Then I got two empty baggage in

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Speaker 3: my pocket that I meant to throw away but day

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Speaker 3: in my pocket and then stay of Kentucky two forms

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Speaker 3: of prayer for negative automatic possession. So and two empty

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Speaker 3: baggies is what got me arrested.

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Speaker 1: In all, ten of the people at the Chris Drive

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Speaker 1: party were arrested that morning for drug possession, including quincy.

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Speaker 1: He spent the next two years in the Kentucky Department

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Speaker 1: of Corrections as a result. So Miranda, this drug arrest

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Speaker 1: happened on the morning of July thirtieth. Meanwhile, a young

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Speaker 1: woman named Jessica Curran had been seen at a different

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Speaker 1: gathering with friends the night before, and then she went missing.

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Speaker 1: Her body was found a few days later, on Tuesday,

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Speaker 1: August first. So do we know what happened in the

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Speaker 1: time between.

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Speaker 2: The timeline is difficult to nail down, and we don't

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Speaker 2: have a time of death, even a day of death.

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Speaker 2: For Jessica, partly because of the mishandling of the crime

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Speaker 2: scene and the autopsy medical examination. So Saturday night, which

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Speaker 2: would have been July twenty ninth, was the night that

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Speaker 2: Jessica was last seen. So through looking at the witness interviews,

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Speaker 2: I have the most accurate account of her leaving a

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Speaker 2: small get together with her cousin Vnesha around eleven o'clock

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Speaker 2: that night on Saturday.

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Speaker 1: And according to the witness statements, this was just a

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Speaker 1: few women playing cards at one of their friend's houses,

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with the party on Chris Drive.

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Speaker 2: So we know for certain that evening she was alive.

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Speaker 2: She was in Mayfield, and she left a small get

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Speaker 2: together at a friend's house. No one aside from Venetia

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Speaker 2: and Victoria Caldwell saw her anytime after eleven o'clock.

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Speaker 1: But Venetia and Victoria Caldwell were to become major players

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Speaker 1: in Quincy's case. We'll hear more about that later. By

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Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon, Jessica's parents, who were watching her baby son, Zion,

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Speaker 1: were concerned. It wasn't like Jessica to not be up

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Speaker 1: and ready for chure. They started calling around, but they

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Speaker 1: didn't find anyone who had seen her since the night before.

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Speaker 1: By Tuesday, August first, nearly three days after Jessica had

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Speaker 1: last been seen, her parents filed a missing person's report

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Speaker 1: with the Mayfield Police.

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Speaker 2: So as the missing person's report comes in, it's almost

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Speaker 2: at the exact same time that the call that this

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Speaker 2: body's been found behind the middle school comes in. So

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Speaker 2: the Mayfield Police dispatch out the Assistant Chief, Ronnie Lear,

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Speaker 2: and then the lead detective in this case, Tim Fortner.

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Speaker 1: Tim Fortner was a beat cop who had just been

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Speaker 1: promoted to lead detective. This was his first day on

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Speaker 1: the job. He'd never investigated a murder before, and the

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Speaker 1: investigation was disorganized from the start. So, Miranda, can you

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Speaker 1: describe the crime scene? What did the investigators find?

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Speaker 2: So, Jessica's body was found pretty severely decomposed and burned.

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Speaker 2: She did not have clothing on. It was pretty clear

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Speaker 2: she had a dress on and just most of it

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Speaker 2: was burned off of the top, but there were pieces

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Speaker 2: of it underneath of her body. Her shoes were found

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Speaker 2: at the scene, but they weren't on her feet. She

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Speaker 2: had some jewelry on that was not burned off, and

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Speaker 2: that was actually how her mother identified from photos of

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Speaker 2: the jewelry that she was wearing.

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Speaker 1: Was there anything else found at the scene that they

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Speaker 1: thought was significant.

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Speaker 2: The majority of the items that they attempted to test

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Speaker 2: or to look for evidence on were just so badly burned.

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Speaker 2: The fire had basically burned out, so there was very

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Speaker 2: little left at the crime scene that wasn't you know, charred.

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Speaker 2: And then additionally, they decided at autopsy they wouldn't keep

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Speaker 2: her clothing and they said it was too badly burned.

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Speaker 2: There was a small piece of a braided belp found

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Speaker 2: pretty close.

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Speaker 1: To the body.

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess is about two to four inches long.

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Speaker 2: It's not on her, but it is in the grass

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Speaker 2: next to her, and it does have a buckle still

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Speaker 2: attached to it. So those were collected and still remain

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Speaker 2: in evidence.

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Speaker 1: So there were two things that were later alleged to

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Speaker 1: connect Quincy to the crime. First the fragment of braided

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Speaker 1: belt and buckle, even though that style of belt was

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Speaker 1: common at the time. And second, the fact that the

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Speaker 1: body had been found partially burned. Coupled with the smell

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Speaker 1: of gasoline that had spilled on Quincy's pants.

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Speaker 2: There was definitely an accelerant used and the police follow

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Speaker 2: the assumption that it was gasoline and they connected that

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Speaker 2: just by the word gasoline to Quincy, who was found

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Speaker 2: that next morning pouring gas out of a gas can

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Speaker 2: into the car that had no gasoline in it. The

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Speaker 2: deputy jailer saw that happen. He actually watched Quincy dump

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Speaker 2: the gas on himself and down the side of the car,

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Speaker 2: and that's why he pulled over and asked him for help.

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Speaker 1: While the police were attempting to collect evidence, the crime

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Speaker 1: scene was getting more and more chaotic.

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Speaker 2: Are really starting to show up at the middle school

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Speaker 2: where they put tape up. It still wasn't a super

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Speaker 2: secure scene. In looking at the video that they made

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Speaker 2: that day. People are really coming and going.

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Speaker 1: And one of those people was a local housewife named

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Speaker 1: Susan Galbreath.

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Speaker 2: She describes herself as an overweight stay at home Why

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Speaker 2: know who solved a crime? So Susan Gailbrith was at

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Speaker 2: the scene the day Jessica's body was discovered. From her

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Speaker 2: own writings, she says that she was at a diner

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Speaker 2: in downtown Mayfield having breakfaster lunch and that she felt

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Speaker 2: a higher power calling her to the middle school because

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Speaker 2: she felt that there was a tragedy there, so she

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Speaker 2: becomes essentially obsessed with this case.

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Speaker 1: Tim Fortner headed up the Mayfield Police investigation, working with

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Speaker 1: the Kentucky State Police. Initially, the authorities had two main suspects,

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Speaker 1: both of whom were arrested in two thousand and one.

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Speaker 1: One was Carlos sa one of the guys who had

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Speaker 1: been to the Chris Drive party along with Quincy and

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Speaker 1: who had been dating the victim, Jessica Currn around that time.

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Speaker 1: The other was Jeremy Adams, the father of Jessica's son.

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Speaker 1: Jeremy's mother was a close friend of Susan Goalbreth's, so.

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Speaker 2: Once Jeremy's arrested, Susan Galbreth turns into kind of a

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Speaker 2: private sleuth, wanting to put the case together and figure

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Speaker 2: it out. So she's I mean, she's deeply involved and

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Speaker 2: very intertwined in the story, to the point she's almost

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Speaker 2: acting as a fourth investigating agency, you know, alongside the

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Speaker 2: city police, the State Police, and the Bureau of Investigation.

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Speaker 1: And Susan was getting inside information from one of the

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Speaker 1: State Police investigators on the case.

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Speaker 2: That was Jamie Mills. They were exchanging information pretty freely,

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Speaker 2: so Jamie was actually giving this private citizen that wanted

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Speaker 2: to solve this crime information.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Jamie and her other connections, Susan had access

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Speaker 1: to not only the police files, but also to Jeremy

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Speaker 1: Adams's entire attorney file. And in one of the police

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Speaker 1: files there was a mention of the drug arrest on

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Speaker 1: Chris Drive.

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Speaker 2: There is a notation in Quincy's file about him being

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Speaker 2: booked in and him smelling like gas, and I think

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Speaker 2: she starts to weave the stories together. I believe that

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Speaker 2: that's why she started turning to Quincy. He was a

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Speaker 2: pretty easy mark as well. He was an outsider, which

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Speaker 2: I think is incredibly important to this case. He was

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Speaker 2: not from Mayfield, he had very few ties to Mayfield.

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Speaker 2: It was easy to point the finger at him because

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Speaker 2: he was kind of a nameless, faceless person that was

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Speaker 2: not her best friend's son.

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Speaker 1: So, Quincy, when did you first hear the name Jessica Curran?

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Speaker 3: First time I ever heard her name, I was locked up.

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Speaker 3: I was already locked up. We was in the back

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Speaker 3: of the jail and we ate bought a newspaper backer

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Speaker 3: and he found the body, a body behind the school.

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Speaker 3: I was like, man, that's bad. Man. How they did her? Man?

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Speaker 3: Somebody they need to convicte somebody.

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Speaker 1: While Quincy was still incarcerat in Mayfield on the drug charge,

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Speaker 1: he became acquainted with Tamra Caldwell, the sister of a

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Speaker 1: fellow prisoner. After his release in October of two thousand

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Speaker 1: and two, he began seeing Tamra and eventually moved in

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Speaker 1: with her in Mayfield. Tamra was the cousin of Victoria Caldwell. Then,

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Speaker 1: in February of two thousand and three, the two suspects,

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Speaker 1: Jeremy Adams and Carlos Saxton, both had their indictments dismissed

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Speaker 1: because of discovery violations by the Mayfield Police Department and

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Speaker 1: the local prosecutor. Although they had not been excluded from suspicion,

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Speaker 1: it was the police and prosecutor not responding to discovery

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Speaker 1: requests from their attorneys that led to their release. The

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Speaker 1: case went cold for a few years before it was

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Speaker 1: eventually picked up by the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation or KVII. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Susan Galbreath was still hard at work on her citizen's investigation.

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Speaker 1: She had teamed up with a TV documentary production company

348
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Speaker 1: and was still being fed information by Jamie Mills. She

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Speaker 1: had also started a MySpace page of the case, publicly

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Speaker 1: calling out some people she thought were involved, including Quincy Cross,

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Speaker 1: which is how she drew the attention of Victoria Caldwell.

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Speaker 1: Victoria told Susan Goalbreath that she knew who had killed

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Speaker 1: Jessica because she had been there when it happened. Victoria

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Speaker 1: and Venetia had never met Quincy until he began seeing

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Speaker 1: Tamra in two thousand and two. Yet the pair wove

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Speaker 1: a bizarre story that implicated Quincy, Tamra, and an acquaintance

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Speaker 1: named Jeffrey Burton, and that ultimately became the basis of

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Speaker 1: the States case against Quincy.

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Speaker 2: So the ultimate theory that gets presented at trial by

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Speaker 2: Victoria and Venetia is that they were walking around in Mayfield, Victoria,

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Speaker 2: Venetia and Jessica, and that a car picked them up.

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Speaker 2: The car changes, the driver changes constantly. It's very hard

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Speaker 2: to pinpoint who this was supposed to be in the car.

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Speaker 2: It's supposed to be jeff Free Tamara, Quincy, Victoria, Venetia

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Speaker 2: and Jessica, and that Quincy was like making advances on

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Speaker 2: Jessica and she was not wanting those advances, they end

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Speaker 2: up at the party at Chris Drive.

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Speaker 1: According to witnesses from the party, none of these people

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00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:20,800
Speaker 1: were ever at the Chris Drive party except for Quincy

370
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Speaker 1: and Carlos, who had driven up together from Tennessee. Yet

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Speaker 1: at some point Victoria and Venetia folded Carlos into their

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00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:32,000
Speaker 1: own narrative. Since those two were the people last seen

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Speaker 1: with Jessica, and since Carlos was seeing her at the

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Speaker 1: time and was a suspect in her murder, all three

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Speaker 1: of them had every motive to deflect suspicion from themselves,

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Speaker 1: which is likely how their stories ended up merging together.

377
00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:49,560
Speaker 1: Carlos Saxon later testified at the trial that at the party,

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Speaker 1: Quincy was seen swinging a brown braided leather belt around

379
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Speaker 1: like a rodeo writer, but this fact could have been

380
00:19:56,600 --> 00:19:59,159
Speaker 1: fed to him by the investigators to account for the

381
00:19:59,240 --> 00:20:03,399
Speaker 1: charred fragment belt found near Jessica's body and to fabricate

382
00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:08,760
Speaker 1: another connection between Quincy and Jessica. Victoria and Venicia's stories

383
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Speaker 1: get more outlandish from there.

384
00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:15,480
Speaker 2: Somehow they get from Chris Drive to Jeffrey Burton's house

385
00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:19,560
Speaker 2: back into town, and when they got there, Quincy knocked

386
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Speaker 2: Jessica out in the car, they carried her body in.

387
00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:26,240
Speaker 2: She was still alive, but they carried her body in,

388
00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:30,280
Speaker 2: put her in Jeffrey's bedroom, and they essentially had an

389
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,119
Speaker 2: orgy where everyone was kind of coming and going in

390
00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:36,479
Speaker 2: and out of this bedroom while Jessica was coming in

391
00:20:36,480 --> 00:20:39,880
Speaker 2: and out of consciousness on the bed. Then they say

392
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:43,280
Speaker 2: that some time after that, after she woke back up,

393
00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:47,520
Speaker 2: that Quincy hit her in the head. Again. They almost

394
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:51,480
Speaker 2: exclusively say it's with a baseball bat, like a miniature

395
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Speaker 2: souvenir baseball bat, until they can't find the baseball bat

396
00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:56,680
Speaker 2: and they find something else.

397
00:20:57,240 --> 00:20:59,840
Speaker 1: According to Victoria, she had buried the bat in her

398
00:20:59,880 --> 00:21:03,560
Speaker 1: sister of Rosy Christ's backyard, but when they searched the backyard,

399
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:08,320
Speaker 1: the investigators could not find it. Instead, they uncovered an old,

400
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:13,960
Speaker 1: rusty ratchet, and at that point Victoria's story suddenly changed.

401
00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:16,639
Speaker 2: And she says, Oh, it wasn't a bat, it was

402
00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:21,600
Speaker 2: a tool that makes a clicking noise. And they collect

403
00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:25,439
Speaker 2: the item and there's literally no evidence on it, nothing

404
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:27,639
Speaker 2: that connects to the crime at all whatsoever.

405
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:32,520
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, that item later showed up as evidence at trial.

406
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 2: Victoria gets on the stand and says, it's the murder weapon.

407
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:38,640
Speaker 2: I buried it in the backyard along with some clothing,

408
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:41,520
Speaker 2: and they never find the clothing. They never find the

409
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,200
Speaker 2: baseball bat. They only find this ratchet, and it becomes

410
00:21:44,280 --> 00:21:46,080
Speaker 2: a key piece of evidence against Quincy.

411
00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:49,960
Speaker 1: So, without a physical connection to the crime, and despite

412
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:54,200
Speaker 1: the cause of death being undetermined at autopsy, this ratchet

413
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:57,719
Speaker 1: was alleged to be the murder weapon based solely on

414
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:01,840
Speaker 1: Victoria's word. The theory became that Quincy had allegedly hit

415
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:05,720
Speaker 1: Jessica repeatedly in the head with not a bat but

416
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:10,680
Speaker 1: this ratchet, and Victoria and Venetia's absurd tail continues after

417
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:13,720
Speaker 1: Quincy supposedly delivered the final blow.

418
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:17,680
Speaker 2: They say that that final blow is what killed her,

419
00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:20,919
Speaker 2: and that they continued to have this orgy after she

420
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 2: had passed away, where Quincy forced everyone to perform sex

421
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 2: acts on Jessica after she had passed away. From there,

422
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 2: they say that morning broke they took her body and

423
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:35,479
Speaker 2: put it in the garage, wrapped in a blanket and

424
00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:37,399
Speaker 2: just left it there for a few days, and it

425
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:40,760
Speaker 2: wasn't until a smell started occurring that they decided they

426
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:42,360
Speaker 2: were going to move the body to the middle.

427
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:45,879
Speaker 1: School where it was found the following Tuesday morning, August first,

428
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:49,639
Speaker 1: and autopsy was performed on Jessica's body, but as with

429
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:53,919
Speaker 1: most of the investigation, it was badly botched and inconclusive.

430
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:58,040
Speaker 1: Because the body was so badly decomposed and burned, the

431
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 1: medical examiner was unable to determine when or how she died.

432
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:06,160
Speaker 1: In addition, items of her clothing had been discarded, and

433
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: no one thought to save a sample of her DNA

434
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 1: to potentially compare it with profiles found on other crime

435
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 1: scene evidence. So in two thousand and five, Jessica's body

436
00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: was exhumed and re examined. Kentucky State Police hoped that

437
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:24,880
Speaker 1: DNA samples would corroborate her alleged connection with Quincy, who

438
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,480
Speaker 1: is by now their main suspect.

439
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 2: One of the main pieces of evidence that they were

440
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:34,199
Speaker 2: looking for was something that would have her DNA sample

441
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 2: in it. They had all of these items from the

442
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 2: crime scene that they wanted to use to connect Jessica

443
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:43,120
Speaker 2: and Quincy together. They tried very hard, and they were

444
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 2: never able to do that.

445
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:48,440
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Susan Golbreath continued with her campaign to throw suspicion

446
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 1: off Her best friend's son, Jeremy Adams, and onto someone else.

447
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,080
Speaker 1: And by two thousand and seven, thanks to her citizen

448
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: detective theories, the weak threads of circumstantial evidence being used

449
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: to connect Quincy with the crime scene, combined with Victoria

450
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 1: and Venetia's absurd narrative, the state believed that they had

451
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 1: enough to make an arrest. By then, Quincy was living

452
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: with a woman named Melissa, who had two young boys.

453
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: One night, he and Melissa were lying in bed watching television.

454
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 3: In my face stop up on the news, said like newsworm,

455
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 3: I'm considered armed in dangers, so the first thing I

456
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,280
Speaker 3: think about is in keyds. So she gave me a

457
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 3: look like Babe, what you gonna do? I said, I'm

458
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:30,920
Speaker 3: gonna get the hell up out her here because I

459
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 3: don't want to bring no guns up here.

460
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:37,119
Speaker 1: When he sees it, Quincy's friends and family immediately started calling,

461
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,479
Speaker 1: urging him to get out of town. One friend offered

462
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: to drive him to California, another to Mississippi, but Quincy

463
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: didn't want to go on the run. He went to

464
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 1: his dad's house to find the police had already been

465
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 1: there looking for him.

466
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 3: So I tell my dad, I'm like, look, man, I'm

467
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:56,119
Speaker 3: going to tell myself he and iigman Kentucky because I

468
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 3: ain't gonna do no running because I ain't need nothing.

469
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 3: But they got me considered armed in dangers. I know

470
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 3: they won't try to kill me. I think that they

471
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 3: wanted me dead so they can try to er up

472
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 3: and close his tase so they can just say, well,

473
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 3: we got the person that did and he's dead. And

474
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 3: you know that's what I think. So these these guys

475
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,399
Speaker 3: from the so cappin Tucky brew up investigation on Lee,

476
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 3: Wires and O'Neill come to take me up from the

477
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 3: from the Apeman County jail and they take me to

478
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 3: a hotel room at the Duka and then Terry gave

479
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 3: me the whole time from about from about let them

480
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 3: that twelve that night till about sixty seven that morning.

481
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 3: When I keep telling them to take me to the jail, man,

482
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 3: I don't want to talk to y'all. Take me to

483
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 3: the jail.

484
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: Did you ask for a lawyer, Quincy, I did ask

485
00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: for a lawyer twice, and they never gave you a lawyer.

486
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 3: They never even act like they heard me say that

487
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 3: They had just told me that I was arrested anyway,

488
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:06,879
Speaker 3: That's what they were telling me. I was arrested for

489
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 3: the murder of Jessica Karring.

490
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 1: From the time that Jessica's body was found in two

491
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 1: thousand until Quincy was arrested in two thousand and seven,

492
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: the case went through several different investigations and a mind

493
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: boggling number of suspects. We don't have time to go

494
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: into all of that, but let's take a moment for

495
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: a little recap. So the case was investigated first by

496
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: the Mayfield Police Department, resulting in the arrest of Jeremy

497
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: Adams and Carlos Saxton. After their charges were dropped due

498
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: to discovery violations, neither suspect was ever recharged or went

499
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: to trial. When Susan Golbreth got involved, working with Jamie

500
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: Mills and the Kentucky State Police, she was the one

501
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: who pushed Quincy forward to the exclusion of Jeremy and Carlos,

502
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 1: as well as several alternate suspects. Then the KBI picked

503
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,959
Speaker 1: up the case, using Victoria and Venetia to solidify their

504
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 1: theory of the crime. This led them to Quincy, Tamra,

505
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey, who were all charged with kidnapping, rape, murder,

506
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: and abuse of a corpse.

507
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:16,239
Speaker 2: The prosecution's theory wasn't super clear. When you look at

508
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 2: this case. There are four different investigations that end in

509
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 2: four different outcomes with four different defendants, and so I

510
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 2: see why it was very difficult for them to figure out,

511
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 2: how are they actually going to try him for this

512
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 2: murder and let alone get a conviction.

513
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, the trial began in March two thousand and eight.

514
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 2: So for a capital murder case to go to trial

515
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 2: in less than one year is to me unheard of.

516
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 2: I don't see how anyone could be prepared to go

517
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,239
Speaker 2: to a capital trial in one year, especially in light

518
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 2: of the massive amounts of discovery that the prosecution was

519
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:49,440
Speaker 2: dumping on them continually.

520
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 1: The state, led by Special Prosecutor Barbara Waley, built its

521
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 1: case largely around the outlandish and inconsistent stories told by

522
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: Victoria and Venetia. Both women had pleaded guilty to corpse

523
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: abuse and evidence tampering, but as the prosecution star witnesses,

524
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 1: their sentencing was delayed until after they had testified in

525
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 1: Quincy's trial. After telling their stories in front of the jury,

526
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: Victoria Caldwell was sentenced to five years, but ultimately served

527
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: just under three months. Venisiha's Doublefield got a total of

528
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 1: seven years, but ended up serving only six months. Along

529
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: with their trial testimonies, which was the only direct evidence

530
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: against Quincy, the state presented a diary that Victoria had

531
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 1: supposedly written during the time of the murder, in which

532
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: she implicated Quincy.

533
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 2: So this diary is supposed to be a document that

534
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 2: helps lend some truthfulness to the story that Victoria and

535
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 2: Venicia come up with. One of the entries essentially says

536
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 2: they found Jessica's body, Oh my god, what am I

537
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 2: going to do? And she says the phrase Q is

538
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 2: nowhere to be found.

539
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: Which is really odd. Remember, according to Quincy, Victoria did

540
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: not know him in two thousand. They didn't meet until

541
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: over a year later when Quincy was dating her cousin Tamra.

542
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 1: The prosecution also presented testimony from the medical examiner who

543
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,959
Speaker 1: had performed the autopsy. Despite the burnt and decomposed condition

544
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: of the body, he said that he believed the cause

545
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: of death could possibly have been either strangulation or blunt

546
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 1: force trauma, but his theory appeared to be based more

547
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: on the evidence presented by the prosecution the piece of

548
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: belt and the story about the ratchet than on actual

549
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: medical evidence. In defense, Quincy's attorney Vince Eustace brought up

550
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: the former Chief Medical Examiner, doctor George Nichols as an

551
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: expert witness, but his testimony was also inconclusive.

552
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 2: He essentially was just a witness to say they truly

553
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 2: can't say when this crime occurred. They can speculate as

554
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 2: to strangulation, they can speculate as to blunt force trauma,

555
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 2: but because of the decomposition the bach medical exam, together

556
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 2: with just the condition of the body, they absolutely, with certainty,

557
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 2: cannot tell you that this occurred here in this way

558
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 2: or that this was what actually caused her death.

559
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: There was no medical evidence that Jessica had even been raped.

560
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 2: There was no semen found anywhere, there was any any

561
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 2: other evidence of sexual assault. Maybe because it didn't happen,

562
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 2: maybe because of the fire, but we just certainly do

563
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 2: not know it.

564
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: Carlo Saxon testified about seeing Quincy swinging the belt around

565
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: at the Chris Drive party, and Victoria's sister Rosie Christ

566
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: took the stand for the prosecution to answer questions about

567
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: the ratchet found in her backyard.

568
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 2: She's very quiet. She answers yes and no, she doesn't

569
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 2: say too much. She's a prosecution witness, but not super cooperative.

570
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: And in fact, Rosie later returned to the stand to

571
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: testify for the defense, recanting her previous testimony.

572
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 2: Saying, they threatened me. They said they'd take my kids away,

573
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 2: I would go to prison for murder, and then they

574
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 2: paid me money to do it. And it really just

575
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 2: falls on deaf years and it gives us a little

576
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 2: bit of insight into exactly how the prosecutors and police

577
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 2: were treating the witnesses in this case, with their threats

578
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 2: and with their payments. And that was essentially the case.

579
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 2: Quincy did not testify. They they did very little to

580
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 2: cut a Victoria and Venetia's story and it just at

581
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 2: the end of the day, I don't think it swayed

582
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 2: the jury. It wasn't enough to show that what they

583
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 2: were saying was a lie and that it was a

584
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 2: provable lie.

585
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 1: Here's the question, Quincy, didn't you have an alibi for

586
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: the time she was killed?

587
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 3: Yeah? I did. My lawyer never used it. I was

588
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 3: on Qruze Draft. I never left Chris Draft that night,

589
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 3: and everybody in the house. They continued, I never left

590
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 3: that house, and it's all came up.

591
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: And then from Sunday morning on, you were in the

592
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 1: Mayfield Jail for weed possession. Correct.

593
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 3: I couldn't sort the records. That's what it say is

594
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 3: I was already locked up. The first time I heard

595
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 3: Justica's name, I was locked up.

596
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: I think some people might hear this. You didn't know Jessica,

597
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 1: you don't even know your co defendants, and some people

598
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: might just beel like how did this happen?

599
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 3: I still one of that, But I know how I know.

600
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 3: Now that I've been in concrated, you see a whole

601
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 3: lot of things that don't happen nowhere else but Kentucky,

602
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 3: in West Kentucky. Here. As long as I've been going

603
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 3: through from penitentiary to penitentiary, I've been letting other people

604
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 3: look at my paperwork, and they asked me the same thing, like, bro,

605
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:30,959
Speaker 3: how had you even walked up? Like how you locked up?

606
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 3: And I'm like, man, I can't even explain it because

607
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 3: I don't even know. I don't know how I'm locked up.

608
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: So when you're at trial Quincy, it's wrapping up. They're

609
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: given closing statements and then you you hear you're convicted.

610
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 3: I cried, man, I cried with my dad and I

611
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 3: kept telling my daddy, these people gonna have the audacity

612
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 3: to asked me to lie on camera. And Jeffrey, they

613
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 3: kind like they came to me with a deal. They came,

614
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 3: they came to me with a deal, a fifteen year deal.

615
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 3: I just told my do that I ain't that type

616
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 3: because because I know they innocent. The reason I know

617
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 3: they're innocent because I know I'm innocent. So I didn't

618
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 3: I didn't even ask him what they wanted me to say,

619
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 3: none of that, because I ain't that type of person.

620
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: So you were like, I will take a life sentence.

621
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie about these people, right.

622
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 3: You're exactly right, I will, And that's what I did.

623
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: Tamra and Jeffrey both took Alfred please and were given

624
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: ten and fifteen years, respectively, but Quincy refused to plead out,

625
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: and on May twenty first, two thousand and eight, he

626
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: was convicted of capital kidnapping, capital murder, rape, sodomy, and

627
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: abuse of a corpse. He was sentenced to life without

628
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole.

629
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 3: They rushed me straight out of the court room. They

630
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 3: had a race that a locked my leg because because

631
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 3: they thought I was gonna run. As soon as the

632
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 3: first person said guipy, I didn't even hear what all

633
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 3: the charges were. They rush They rushed me up out

634
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 3: of the court room. M hm. I was very very angry,

635
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 3: very very angry. It's just what can I do but

636
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 3: make my own time hard? Understand what I'm saying, because

637
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 3: there was a lot of different things going through my brain.

638
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 3: But I don't want to react to make everything harder

639
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 3: than it was. Man, it's it's it's it's it's hell

640
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:43,359
Speaker 3: for real and every in every aspect, any any any

641
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 3: person that you can think of that in hell. I'm

642
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 3: surrounded by them every day. But just imagine that. Imagine

643
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 3: being innocent and going through that though, imagine being an

644
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 3: innocent person going through the same going through hell. So

645
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:00,320
Speaker 3: now you got to adjust to it. I have to

646
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 3: adjust to it. So now I have to raise the

647
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 3: little help my fail in order to so for other

648
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 3: people not to bother me. I have to raid the

649
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 3: little hell of my fail because you got to adapt

650
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 3: to it. If you don't adapt to it, you know,

651
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 3: you become a man of a mouse. At that period.

652
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 3: Ain't nothing between in my world.

653
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: Over the next ten years, Quincy filed a number of

654
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: appeals with the trial court and with the Kentucky Supreme Court.

655
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 1: All were denied, and then in twenty eleven, he received

656
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: a letter from an unlikely source, Jessica's father, Joe Curran.

657
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 3: That he sent a message to me and told me

658
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 3: to write him a letter about how I was feeling

659
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 3: about everything that I was going through, and he wanted

660
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 3: to get with me, and he wanted to get a

661
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 3: better understanding about you know, what I'm going through and

662
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 3: what I feel because he knows that I'm in it him,

663
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 3: and he seemed the facts of the case, and he

664
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 3: knew that I didn't have nothing to do with it.

665
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 3: Because you want to the actual person that murdered his

666
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 3: daughter in prison, I will want him too. I want

667
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 3: to know who did it. I'm paid for it, but

668
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 3: it is. It's gonna haunt me to my grave if

669
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 3: I don't find that.

670
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: And Joe has continued to believe in Quincy's innocence and

671
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 1: to advocate for his release.

672
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a win for me though, by my fil

673
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 3: that's just from the outside, from the inside looking out.

674
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 3: That's a win right there period. So so that means

675
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:30,359
Speaker 3: he knows everything that I know, understand what I'm saying.

676
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: And Joe Current wasn't the only one who believed in Quincy.

677
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: The Kentucky Innocence Project had started to work on his

678
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: case in twenty thirteen, but unfortunately they had to shelve

679
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 1: it a few years later due to funding concerns. Then

680
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, Miranda Hellman joined the Kentucky Innocence Project,

681
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: right around the time that the country found itself in

682
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 1: the grip of a worldwide pandemic.

683
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 2: As COVID was hitting. I didn't have much else to do,

684
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,320
Speaker 2: so I just started going through old dusty box and

685
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:03,720
Speaker 2: I found this massive case. It had fourteen eighteen boxes

686
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 2: sitting on a shelf. It was very messy, it was

687
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 2: not in any order. I couldn't tell what I even

688
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,279
Speaker 2: had to look at. So I started digging, and I

689
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 2: think probably from the first thirty minutes and looking in

690
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,840
Speaker 2: the box and reading these memos from past staff, I

691
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 2: knew there was something to it.

692
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: So the KIP team began seeking out documents on the case.

693
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 2: It took us well over a year to get state

694
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 2: police documents and start to try to locate evidence. The

695
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 2: high profile nature of this case and the massive amount

696
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 2: of very well known and high ranking people that were

697
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 2: involved in it, from the investigation, through the prosecution, even

698
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 2: into the post conviction litigation made it very difficult for

699
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 2: us to get anything. So we fought for about a

700
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 2: year and a half to get records, and it's taken

701
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:53,800
Speaker 2: about two and a half years just to try to

702
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 2: lay my eyes on the majority of what we have.

703
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 2: The prosecution did what I would call in civil litigation

704
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 2: and a document dump, where they bury you in boxes

705
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 2: and boxes of paperwork so you can never get through it.

706
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 2: So we have about forty thousand pages of discovery from

707
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 2: the trial attorney file that we still to this day.

708
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 2: I go through every day just trying to pull out

709
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 2: what I think that we're going to need for post

710
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 2: conviction litigation.

711
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,320
Speaker 1: One detail that caught their attention right away was the

712
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 1: sketchy history behind Victoria's diary.

713
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:29,720
Speaker 2: So Victoria told the KBI officers that she kept diaries

714
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 2: her whole life, She wrote in them every day, and

715
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 2: she kept every single diary she ever wrote. So supposedly

716
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:39,879
Speaker 2: KBI found parts of these diaries in the trash can

717
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 2: behind her apartment that she was living in in California.

718
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 2: It's a spiral bound notebook written in a combination of

719
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 2: pencil and blue ink. They're dated in two thousand, and

720
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 2: they only give eleven pages of this time period exactly

721
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 2: when the crime happens, late July to early August of

722
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 2: two thousand, so she dates these as two thousand, but

723
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 2: there is one entry that looks as if it was

724
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,600
Speaker 2: two thousand and one or two thousand and seven that

725
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 2: she goes back and fixes and puts a zero over it.

726
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: It turns out that prior to trial, the prosecution sent

727
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,839
Speaker 1: the diaries to the Secret Service in Washington, DC for analysis.

728
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:20,399
Speaker 2: So the Secret Service comes back and says, we don't

729
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 2: have this ink in our library. So that means either

730
00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 2: it's a really rare ink that we just have never collected,

731
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 2: or it's so new we haven't collected it yet.

732
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: So it's not likely to be an ink that could

733
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 1: have been used in a two thousand diary entry. Yet,

734
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: despite its dubious authenticity, the diary was presented at trial

735
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 1: as evidence that Quincy was with Victoria and the others

736
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: that night.

737
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 2: So in post conviction, a motion that will be filed

738
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:52,399
Speaker 2: is a request of a reanalysis of that ink, either

739
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 2: by the Secret Service or by a private lab.

740
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: So we mentioned the diary. Is there anything else, you know,

741
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:02,640
Speaker 1: points that you guys are making out of these forty

742
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: thousand pages that you've read.

743
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 2: Well, somehow forty thousand pages didn't even tell the whole story.

744
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 2: So since I've come onto the case over the last year,

745
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 2: we've been able to obtain new documents that weren't part

746
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 2: of the original discovery or part of the initial investigation.

747
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 2: A lot of that is centered around Susan Galbrath. She

748
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 2: was communicating quite a bit with TV producers, friends, family,

749
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 2: and now we have those written documents, so we can

750
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 2: really show this missing piece. This investigation wasn't what it

751
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,480
Speaker 2: looked like, and here's why it ended up where it

752
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 2: ended up. She was the person who put Quincy Cross

753
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 2: in prison. She's the person who handed the police their theory,

754
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,280
Speaker 2: their investigation, and their star witnesses who had been prepped

755
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:46,839
Speaker 2: and paid to give the testimony she wanted them to give.

756
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:51,359
Speaker 1: So Rosie Christ wasn't the only witness who was being

757
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 1: paid for testimony.

758
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 2: Both Victoria and Venisia received money from the KBI out

759
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 2: of a state fund that is set aside for witness protection,

760
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 2: and Victoria was moved from California to North Carolina. Her

761
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 2: living expenses were paid for about a year, and then

762
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 2: she was brought back to Kentucky and basically traveled all

763
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 2: on the dime of the state. She had told many people,

764
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 2: including her sister and Venetia that all testified that she

765
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:25,959
Speaker 2: had said this, that they could make money by giving

766
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 2: these statements. So the combination of this payment to witnesses

767
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 2: how Susan was moving behind the scenes. We also have

768
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 2: a couple pieces of forensic evidence that could be tested

769
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,320
Speaker 2: today that were never tested at the time of trial.

770
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,359
Speaker 2: So that includes some items found at the crime scene,

771
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 2: some cigarette butts, a drink bottle that may or may

772
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,359
Speaker 2: not have had accelerant in it. But until we find

773
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 2: out if there's a DNA profile on any of these

774
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 2: items that were found with her body, we really can't

775
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 2: say for certain. So much like asking for the release

776
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 2: of the diary, we're going to ask for really of

777
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 2: items of evidence to do some DNA testing.

778
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: Miranda and the KIP team are hopeful that all of

779
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 1: the new evidence and information they're now presenting will spur

780
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:12,240
Speaker 1: the courts to take a look at what the jury

781
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: never got to see, and that.

782
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 2: Really is going to be the beginning of a new

783
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 2: chapter of litigation for Quincy.

784
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: So meanwhile, for listeners who want to know what can

785
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 1: they do to help, there are a.

786
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 2: Few petitions online that all support Quincy's innocence and call

787
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 2: officials to review the case, including the governor and the

788
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 2: Attorney General. I would strongly suggest anyone who wants more

789
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 2: information about the case look at those petitions. The information

790
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 2: that's been given.

791
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 1: Awesome, so we will link to those in the bio

792
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: so listeners can find them and also follow the case

793
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:52,800
Speaker 1: for any updates. So now is the part of the

794
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: show we call closing arguments. I want to thank both

795
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: of you guys for joining us. Quincy, thank you so

796
00:42:57,719 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: much for sharing your story and Miranda for being here

797
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: helping out to tell it. And we'd just like to

798
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:06,439
Speaker 1: ask your final thoughts, any takeaways, anything that you want

799
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 1: to share with listeners. Miranda, do you want to start

800
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:10,720
Speaker 1: off and then we'll let Quincy finish.

801
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 2: Quincy's case and the murder of Jessica Kurrn are some

802
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 2: of the worst examples of official misconduct that I have

803
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 2: seen in any innocence cases that I've worked on. I

804
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 2: think that what is so unique about his case is

805
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 2: the long investigation, the many people involved in the investigation,

806
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 2: and the mishandling by an ept and untrained police officers

807
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 2: that led to his arrest and ultimate conviction.

808
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: And Quincy, what about you? What do you want to

809
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: say to listeners?

810
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,800
Speaker 3: I want them to know an that I'm anything person,

811
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 3: you know, and I want them to look at the

812
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:54,280
Speaker 3: fag that again. I want them to look at everything,

813
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 3: everything about this case. And that's what I want the

814
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 3: world to be because you know, I don't been through

815
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 3: I don't been through some heal trying to get the

816
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,840
Speaker 3: truth out, and now that I got the opportunity to

817
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:09,480
Speaker 3: get it out, it makes everything a whole lot better. Yeah,

818
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 3: it makes everything a whole lot better for me. That's

819
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 3: what I want the world to know. That I'm a

820
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 3: bad plus I'm a better person, believe it or not.

821
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 3: For a prison made me a better person. I have

822
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 3: a whole lot of love in my heart. That's one.

823
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 3: That's the biggest thing I want to know.

824
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:31,359
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen

825
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,239
Speaker 1: to this and all Lava for Good podcast one week

826
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 1: early by subscribing to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

827
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,400
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank executive producers Jason Flumm, Jeff Kempler,

828
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wurtis for inviting me to sit in today,

829
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: and thanks to our production team Connor Hall and e Chelsea,

830
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 1: Lela Robinson and Kathleen Fink. The music in this production

831
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.

832
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:57,360
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms

833
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can

834
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at maggie Freelink. Wrongful

835
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in

836
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one