WEBVTT - #389 Guest Host Maggie Freleng with Quincy Cross 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.360 On the morning of August first, two thousand, a woman's 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.039 partially burned and decomposing body was found behind a middle 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:13.320 school in Mayfield, Kentucky. Eighteen year old Jessica Current had 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.440 last been seen playing cards with friends on the previous 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.480 Saturday night, leaving a nearly three day gap where no 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:24.400 one claimed to have seen her. The crime was investigated 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.200 by local and state police, but after a couple of 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.640 years the trail went cold. Then, prompted by his citizen's 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:35.880 investigation conducted by a local housewife, one of Jessica's friends 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.960 came forward with a bizarre tale. In it she and 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.520 a group of friends had partied with Jessica that night, 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:47.239 then kidnapped, beaten, and raped her, and finally killed her. 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:53.080 The ringleader, she told police, was Quincy Cross. Quincy had 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:55.240 been at a party in Mayfield that night, but he 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.560 claimed never to have met Jessica or any of the 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:03.080 others involved. Still at trial, when others testify to the 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:07.080 events of that night, they two pointed to Quincy as 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:26.320 the murderer. But this is wrongful conviction, So welcome back 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.760 to wrongful conviction. I'm Maggie Freeling, host of wrongful conviction 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.080 with Maggie Freeling and I'm so excited to be sitting 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.360 in for Jason Flamm today and to share this story 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.240 with you today. I have Quincy Cross with me and 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.480 I also have Miranda Hellman, his attorney from the Kentucky 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.600 Innocence Project. Miranda, thank you for being here. 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:46.440 Thanks for having us. 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:47.600 Welcome to the show. 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:49.120 Quincy, Hey, how you doing? 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.440 I am well. How do you feel about telling everyone 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.120 your story today? I know you haven't done that much. 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:57.160 It's a lot of things that I've been owing in 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:58.080 for a long time. 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:00.320 Well, let's get to it. I want to hear your 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.480 story in detail, and usually I just like to start 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.240 with your life growing up? What was that like? 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:09.600 I grew up with sisters and brothers on both sides 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.440 my family, my mom's side, you know, my dad's side, 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.160 on my stepmom's side. You know what I'm saying, very old, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.440 protected by my sisters, all of them, provider, protector, somebody 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.160 that they can come talk to, have the conversations that 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.280 they can't have with other people. And they know that. 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.040 And uh, and we have real good times. You know, 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.799 as kids, we did other things together. We used to 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:34.799 catch turtles and snakes and all that. We used to 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:36.800 go frog gigg We used to have you know, just 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.480 do what young kids do. I grew up in Union 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.079 City and I grew up in Willer Mills, Tennessee. So 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.040 you know, I'm a country guy, all right. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:45.880 You got to explain that to me, though, Quincy, I 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:47.960 grew up in New York City. What is growing up 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:49.040 in the country. 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.720 Like, Okay, country is a whole. That's a whole lot 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.120 of love in the country. You know. It's like we did. 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.520 We did small things like play tag and play baseball, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.919 and you know, we just did it as a small community. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.400 Then you got to tighten their family because it's a 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.440 lot of older people that raised you. They cooked for you. 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:08.880 You know, you wash their cars like more, their yaards 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:10.720 and things. Because we was tightening. There was a whole 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:11.919 lot of love in the community. 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.600 You know what I'm saying, Quincy, When you were younger, 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.040 what did you what did you want to do with 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:18.840 your life? What were your hopes and dreams? 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.880 Sports was my thing. I wanted to be a good 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:23.760 football player. That's what I wanted to do. I want 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.040 to go to college and play football and help the 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.040 older people in my community. Look up. You know what 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:30.799 I'm saying and say he did something with his life, 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:31.600 you know what I'm saying. 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.560 So what was going on in your life in two thousand? 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:36.960 It was up and down. Two thousand was up and 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.040 down because matter of fact, we had just had my 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.200 grandmama sueneral on Mother's Day of ninety nine, and I 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.840 went through a spiral after that, you know, because that 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:47.520 was that was my heart. 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:49.760 What do you mean by spiral? What did you what 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:50.360 was that like? 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.760 I got off in the drugs, basically got off in 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:56.800 the drugs and using the man telling them I was 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:57.920 doing both what. 0:03:58.000 --> 0:03:58.720 Kind of drugs? 0:03:58.960 --> 0:03:59.440 Cokaine? 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:06.520 So wondering if before the summer of two thousand did 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:08.400 you have any run ins with the law at all 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.240 when you were selling drugs, dealing drugs whatever it was. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.880 Well, it was like small, small, petty client like marijuana, 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.400 ca you know, cocaine case some day wouldn't get you 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.200 no time, you know, some thirty day, ninety days, you know, 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:22.159 some smile like that. 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.440 So Quincy, that summer you were living in Union City, Tennessee, 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.880 just south of the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. But 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.279 the crime that you were ultimately convicted of occurred in Mayfield, Kentucky, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.799 which is about thirty five minutes away by car. So, Mirinda, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.279 can you tell us a bit about what Mayfield was 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.720 like in two thousands so listeners can kind of get 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:42.400 the feel for it. 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:43.039 Sure. 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.919 So, Mayfield, Kentucky was and still is a very small 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:52.320 town in rural western Kentucky, a very predominantly white community. 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:57.320 The black population and minority population live on one side 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.920 of town, where you know, the white population lives in another. 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.800 So the police and really the city government in Mayfield 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.880 has had a few scandals throughout its time. The one 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.840 that I think is most connected to this case would 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.440 be the assistant police chief, Ronnie Lear. 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:17.960 At the time of Quincy's drug arrest, Ronnie Lear had 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.720 already been under investigation for some time because of allegations 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.720 that he and some of the other police officers had 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:29.040 been selling confiscated drugs. Lear was later indicted for misconduct 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.560 charges after crack cocaine was found in his desk drawer. 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.640 He was fired essentially from the Mayfield Police department some 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.240 time after this case occurred, and it appeared to be 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:43.599 a theory of the defense at the time of Quincy's trial. 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.719 Even in two thousand and eight that Ronnie Lear was 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.080 just a crooked cop and that this may have been 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:50.400 connected to it in some way. 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:53.599 Okay, So Quincy, can you tell me about the night 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.520 of July twenty ninth, two thousand. Who were you with 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.520 and how why did you wind up in Mayfield? 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.760 Were in Yana City. We had a party set. 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:02.919 Uh. 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.240 We was conning the house up for this party, and 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:10.120 Travis Jackson, Carlos Saxton and Gregg Store had pulled up. 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.160 So I've been knowing Travis before he could walk. So 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:16.960 he come down there looking for some drugs. So I 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:18.920 told him, you know, I could help him out. 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.599 Quincy, Travis, Carlos, and Greg drove around for a while 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.080 looking to score and picked up some drugs near his 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.480 hometown of Woodland Mills around nine point thirty. They stopped 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.120 at a liquor store, then headed back to Union City. 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.400 On the way, Travis suggested they head up to Kentucky. 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.599 He knew some folks that could sell to in Mayfield, 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:38.679 just over the state line. 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.440 I'm like, man, I don't know nobody in Kentucky. Man, 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.440 I don't want to go to Kentucky. He was like, 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.600 come on, man, if you go, we'll bring you back 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:46.239 later on. 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.120 It took some convincing, but eventually Quincy agreed and they 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:51.800 headed up to Kentucky. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.520 And the process to that, we hit these back so 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.800 many of these different back roads to where I don't 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:56.920 even know where we at. 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.000 We pop up in Mayfield around midnight. They ended up 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.240 at a party on Chris Drive, somewhere on the outskirts 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:04.679 of town. 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:07.440 They got their girlfriends or whatever hanging out out there, 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.000 so we selling drugs out there, that's all. I don't 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:11.920 know nobody out there. 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.240 I'll you here later on, a number of other people 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.080 who were involved in Quincy's case were alleged to have 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.520 been at this party on Chris Drive, including Carlos Saxton, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.960 but the only one of them who was actually there 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.200 was Carlos. The night wore on and Quincy's friend showed 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.560 no sign of wanting to leave the party. 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.680 But I keep asking them to take me home. I'm like, man, 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:36.760 I'm ready to go home. So I've used the phone, 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.560 the hel phone, but I called him uponder them back in, 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.119 said letting them know that I'm trying to get home, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:43.720 and I know they waiting on men. You know. 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.280 By now, the sun was starting to come up Quincy 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.320 was getting hungry, so he borrowed Greg's car to drive 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.840 into Mayfield to get something to eat, but he got 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.680 lost on the way downtown and ended up driving in 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.800 circles around the back roads. Finally, around seven in the morning, 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.200 he ran out of gas. Quincy found a gas can 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.040 in the trunk of the car and was about to 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.720 pour some into the tank when someone drove by and 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.680 stopped to help out. It happened to be the Mayfield 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:12.520 deputy jailer on his way to work. 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.240 This guy, he's standing right beside me, so he seen 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.160 me drop a couple of drops of gas on my 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.360 parents laid But he's in the hareway to get to 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.240 work because he's late. So stay Trooper with Mike Perkins 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.320 pulled up. So now he smelled the gas, but he 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.440 gave me a ride back to Chris Drag about a 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.080 mile up the street, and from now he dropped me off. 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:32.120 And then he said he went back to the car 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.520 and he's seeing marijuana, which was which was some some 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:37.800 black and mile and mile. It wasn't even marijuana, it 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:38.440 was black and man. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:44.160 So you encountered Officer Perkins the morning of the thirtieth 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.800 and so when he found what he said was weed. 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:49.400 I know you said it was black and miles like, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.720 which is like a cigar kind of thing. What happened 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:52.120 from there? 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.240 So he come back to the to the house asking 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:55.760 me if he can search a car, Tell him the 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.760 car ain't mine. Then I got two empty baggage in 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:00.800 my pocket that I meant to throw away but day 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.400 in my pocket and then stay of Kentucky two forms 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.120 of prayer for negative automatic possession. So and two empty 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:08.960 baggies is what got me arrested. 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.000 In all, ten of the people at the Chris Drive 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.880 party were arrested that morning for drug possession, including quincy. 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.679 He spent the next two years in the Kentucky Department 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:24.240 of Corrections as a result. So Miranda, this drug arrest 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.520 happened on the morning of July thirtieth. Meanwhile, a young 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.080 woman named Jessica Curran had been seen at a different 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.440 gathering with friends the night before, and then she went missing. 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.559 Her body was found a few days later, on Tuesday, 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.640 August first. So do we know what happened in the 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:42.360 time between. 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.080 The timeline is difficult to nail down, and we don't 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.920 have a time of death, even a day of death. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.679 For Jessica, partly because of the mishandling of the crime 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:58.440 scene and the autopsy medical examination. So Saturday night, which 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.160 would have been July twenty ninth, was the night that 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.320 Jessica was last seen. So through looking at the witness interviews, 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:11.720 I have the most accurate account of her leaving a 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:16.679 small get together with her cousin Vnesha around eleven o'clock 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:18.720 that night on Saturday. 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.760 And according to the witness statements, this was just a 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.440 few women playing cards at one of their friend's houses, 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.280 nothing to do with the party on Chris Drive. 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.520 So we know for certain that evening she was alive. 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:33.920 She was in Mayfield, and she left a small get 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.920 together at a friend's house. No one aside from Venetia 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.959 and Victoria Caldwell saw her anytime after eleven o'clock. 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.800 But Venetia and Victoria Caldwell were to become major players 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.520 in Quincy's case. We'll hear more about that later. By 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.520 Sunday afternoon, Jessica's parents, who were watching her baby son, Zion, 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.200 were concerned. It wasn't like Jessica to not be up 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.319 and ready for chure. They started calling around, but they 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.560 didn't find anyone who had seen her since the night before. 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.360 By Tuesday, August first, nearly three days after Jessica had 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.840 last been seen, her parents filed a missing person's report 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:15.120 with the Mayfield Police. 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.559 So as the missing person's report comes in, it's almost 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:20.640 at the exact same time that the call that this 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.480 body's been found behind the middle school comes in. So 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.720 the Mayfield Police dispatch out the Assistant Chief, Ronnie Lear, 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.800 and then the lead detective in this case, Tim Fortner. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.120 Tim Fortner was a beat cop who had just been 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.600 promoted to lead detective. This was his first day on 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.240 the job. He'd never investigated a murder before, and the 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:46.480 investigation was disorganized from the start. So, Miranda, can you 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.880 describe the crime scene? What did the investigators find? 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:57.240 So, Jessica's body was found pretty severely decomposed and burned. 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.320 She did not have clothing on. It was pretty clear 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.280 she had a dress on and just most of it 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.040 was burned off of the top, but there were pieces 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.080 of it underneath of her body. Her shoes were found 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.520 at the scene, but they weren't on her feet. She 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.560 had some jewelry on that was not burned off, and 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.720 that was actually how her mother identified from photos of 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:21.240 the jewelry that she was wearing. 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.240 Was there anything else found at the scene that they 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:25.720 thought was significant. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.640 The majority of the items that they attempted to test 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.520 or to look for evidence on were just so badly burned. 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.760 The fire had basically burned out, so there was very 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.600 little left at the crime scene that wasn't you know, charred. 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.719 And then additionally, they decided at autopsy they wouldn't keep 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.400 her clothing and they said it was too badly burned. 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.200 There was a small piece of a braided belp found 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:52.559 pretty close. 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:52.920 To the body. 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.760 I'm gonna guess is about two to four inches long. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.320 It's not on her, but it is in the grass 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.840 next to her, and it does have a buckle still 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.120 attached to it. So those were collected and still remain 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:04.920 in evidence. 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.360 So there were two things that were later alleged to 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.160 connect Quincy to the crime. First the fragment of braided 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.400 belt and buckle, even though that style of belt was 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.640 common at the time. And second, the fact that the 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.280 body had been found partially burned. Coupled with the smell 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.120 of gasoline that had spilled on Quincy's pants. 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:30.840 There was definitely an accelerant used and the police follow 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:35.319 the assumption that it was gasoline and they connected that 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:39.079 just by the word gasoline to Quincy, who was found 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.120 that next morning pouring gas out of a gas can 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.640 into the car that had no gasoline in it. The 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.600 deputy jailer saw that happen. He actually watched Quincy dump 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.840 the gas on himself and down the side of the car, 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.120 and that's why he pulled over and asked him for help. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.520 While the police were attempting to collect evidence, the crime 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.240 scene was getting more and more chaotic. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.400 Are really starting to show up at the middle school 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.640 where they put tape up. It still wasn't a super 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.679 secure scene. In looking at the video that they made 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:09.640 that day. People are really coming and going. 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.520 And one of those people was a local housewife named 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.000 Susan Galbreath. 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:21.320 She describes herself as an overweight stay at home Why 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.480 know who solved a crime? So Susan Gailbrith was at 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.920 the scene the day Jessica's body was discovered. From her 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.760 own writings, she says that she was at a diner 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.760 in downtown Mayfield having breakfaster lunch and that she felt 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.520 a higher power calling her to the middle school because 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.400 she felt that there was a tragedy there, so she 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.200 becomes essentially obsessed with this case. 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.360 Tim Fortner headed up the Mayfield Police investigation, working with 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:55.240 the Kentucky State Police. Initially, the authorities had two main suspects, 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:58.000 both of whom were arrested in two thousand and one. 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.640 One was Carlos sa one of the guys who had 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.400 been to the Chris Drive party along with Quincy and 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.600 who had been dating the victim, Jessica Currn around that time. 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:12.560 The other was Jeremy Adams, the father of Jessica's son. 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:17.400 Jeremy's mother was a close friend of Susan Goalbreth's, so. 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.920 Once Jeremy's arrested, Susan Galbreth turns into kind of a 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.440 private sleuth, wanting to put the case together and figure 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.520 it out. So she's I mean, she's deeply involved and 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.480 very intertwined in the story, to the point she's almost 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.960 acting as a fourth investigating agency, you know, alongside the 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.640 city police, the State Police, and the Bureau of Investigation. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.960 And Susan was getting inside information from one of the 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.920 State Police investigators on the case. 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.800 That was Jamie Mills. They were exchanging information pretty freely, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.720 so Jamie was actually giving this private citizen that wanted 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:55.240 to solve this crime information. 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.760 Thanks to Jamie and her other connections, Susan had access 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.640 to not only the police files, but also to Jeremy 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:07.120 Adams's entire attorney file. And in one of the police 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.600 files there was a mention of the drug arrest on 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:10.240 Chris Drive. 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:14.240 There is a notation in Quincy's file about him being 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.000 booked in and him smelling like gas, and I think 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.640 she starts to weave the stories together. I believe that 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.880 that's why she started turning to Quincy. He was a 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.640 pretty easy mark as well. He was an outsider, which 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:27.920 I think is incredibly important to this case. He was 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.680 not from Mayfield, he had very few ties to Mayfield. 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.160 It was easy to point the finger at him because 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.680 he was kind of a nameless, faceless person that was 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:38.280 not her best friend's son. 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:43.200 So, Quincy, when did you first hear the name Jessica Curran? 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:45.680 First time I ever heard her name, I was locked up. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:47.840 I was already locked up. We was in the back 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.080 of the jail and we ate bought a newspaper backer 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.640 and he found the body, a body behind the school. 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.160 I was like, man, that's bad. Man. How they did her? Man? 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.800 Somebody they need to convicte somebody. 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.960 While Quincy was still incarcerat in Mayfield on the drug charge, 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.480 he became acquainted with Tamra Caldwell, the sister of a 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:09.159 fellow prisoner. After his release in October of two thousand 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:12.520 and two, he began seeing Tamra and eventually moved in 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:18.160 with her in Mayfield. Tamra was the cousin of Victoria Caldwell. Then, 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.080 in February of two thousand and three, the two suspects, 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.200 Jeremy Adams and Carlos Saxton, both had their indictments dismissed 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.639 because of discovery violations by the Mayfield Police Department and 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.679 the local prosecutor. Although they had not been excluded from suspicion, 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.119 it was the police and prosecutor not responding to discovery 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.800 requests from their attorneys that led to their release. The 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:41.760 case went cold for a few years before it was 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:46.800 eventually picked up by the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation or KVII. Meanwhile, 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.480 Susan Galbreath was still hard at work on her citizen's investigation. 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.840 She had teamed up with a TV documentary production company 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:58.199 and was still being fed information by Jamie Mills. She 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.560 had also started a MySpace page of the case, publicly 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:05.760 calling out some people she thought were involved, including Quincy Cross, 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.359 which is how she drew the attention of Victoria Caldwell. 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.920 Victoria told Susan Goalbreath that she knew who had killed 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.480 Jessica because she had been there when it happened. Victoria 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.040 and Venetia had never met Quincy until he began seeing 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.320 Tamra in two thousand and two. Yet the pair wove 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:29.760 a bizarre story that implicated Quincy, Tamra, and an acquaintance 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.239 named Jeffrey Burton, and that ultimately became the basis of 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.200 the States case against Quincy. 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.160 So the ultimate theory that gets presented at trial by 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:46.480 Victoria and Venetia is that they were walking around in Mayfield, Victoria, 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:50.720 Venetia and Jessica, and that a car picked them up. 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.480 The car changes, the driver changes constantly. It's very hard 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.080 to pinpoint who this was supposed to be in the car. 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.880 It's supposed to be jeff Free Tamara, Quincy, Victoria, Venetia 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:07.280 and Jessica, and that Quincy was like making advances on 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:11.320 Jessica and she was not wanting those advances, they end 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:12.879 up at the party at Chris Drive. 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.359 According to witnesses from the party, none of these people 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.800 were ever at the Chris Drive party except for Quincy 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.680 and Carlos, who had driven up together from Tennessee. Yet 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.800 at some point Victoria and Venetia folded Carlos into their 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.000 own narrative. Since those two were the people last seen 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.399 with Jessica, and since Carlos was seeing her at the 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:37.720 time and was a suspect in her murder, all three 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.600 of them had every motive to deflect suspicion from themselves, 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.560 which is likely how their stories ended up merging together. 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.560 Carlos Saxon later testified at the trial that at the party, 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.639 Quincy was seen swinging a brown braided leather belt around 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.520 like a rodeo writer, but this fact could have been 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.159 fed to him by the investigators to account for the 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.399 charred fragment belt found near Jessica's body and to fabricate 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:08.760 another connection between Quincy and Jessica. Victoria and Venicia's stories 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:10.720 get more outlandish from there. 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:15.480 Somehow they get from Chris Drive to Jeffrey Burton's house 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.560 back into town, and when they got there, Quincy knocked 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.000 Jessica out in the car, they carried her body in. 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.240 She was still alive, but they carried her body in, 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.280 put her in Jeffrey's bedroom, and they essentially had an 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.119 orgy where everyone was kind of coming and going in 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.479 and out of this bedroom while Jessica was coming in 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.880 and out of consciousness on the bed. Then they say 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.280 that some time after that, after she woke back up, 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:47.520 that Quincy hit her in the head. Again. They almost 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.480 exclusively say it's with a baseball bat, like a miniature 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.560 souvenir baseball bat, until they can't find the baseball bat 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:56.680 and they find something else. 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:59.840 According to Victoria, she had buried the bat in her 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:03.560 sister of Rosy Christ's backyard, but when they searched the backyard, 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:08.320 the investigators could not find it. Instead, they uncovered an old, 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:13.960 rusty ratchet, and at that point Victoria's story suddenly changed. 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.639