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