Speaker 1: Either. This is Steve Fishman. It's been a minute, but
Speaker 1: rest assured. We've got three new series cooking and we'll
Speaker 1: be dropping them real soon. But today I want to
Speaker 1: introduce you to a podcast from our friends at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. It's called Graves County and I think Burden
Speaker 1: listeners will really enjoy it. Maggie Freeling, a Pulitzer Prize winner,
Speaker 1: is the host of Graves County, and I'm excited to
Speaker 1: say she's also the host of a show we'll be
Speaker 1: releasing this winner. Stay tuned on that. But first Graves County.
Speaker 1: It's season three of Bone Valley, which is that great
Speaker 1: hit show from a few years back. This season focuses
Speaker 1: on Maggie investigating a murder, and Maggie, who's nothing if
Speaker 1: not passionate, gets drawn in way in alongside a bunch
Speaker 1: of amateur sluice, one of whom turns out to be
Speaker 1: really interesting, which is all I'm going to say. Follow
Speaker 1: along as Maggie unravels the rumors and the line and
Speaker 1: perhaps even the truth. Today we're presenting a special shortened
Speaker 1: version of episode one. Listen to the entire episode of
Speaker 1: Bone Valley Season three, Graves County wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts and subscribe to Lava for Good Plus to hear
Speaker 1: the entire season ad free Enjoy.
Speaker 2: Heads Up.
Speaker 3: This series contains graphic descriptions of violence. There's a saying
Speaker 3: I heard on a recent trip to the South, A
Speaker 3: half truth is a whole lie. And if there's a
Speaker 3: place that breathes life into that proverb, it's the town
Speaker 3: of Mayfield in Graves County, Kentucky.
Speaker 4: Our horrific murder went unsolved for six years in Mayfield, Kentucky,
Speaker 4: a town of ten thousand people. Then one local resident
Speaker 4: decided to take matters into her own hands.
Speaker 3: On August first, two thousand, the body of Jessica was
Speaker 3: found outside of the Mayfield Middle School. It appeared as
Speaker 3: though she'd been beaten and set on fire. Jessica was
Speaker 3: just eighteen years old, a new mom, and the daughter
Speaker 3: of a lieutenant with the Mayfield Fire Department, and her
Speaker 3: case would go unsolved for years.
Speaker 5: When police in Mayfield, Kentucky found a body, Susan Galbrith
Speaker 5: found a purpose. She had to know who murdered Jessica.
Speaker 3: Current until a local homemaker and a handful of girls
Speaker 3: came forward with a story, A story that police would
Speaker 3: use to convict six people lending Susan Goalbreath in the
Speaker 3: newspapers and the radio and on national TV.
Speaker 5: Galbreath was a housewife, married three times and drifting. She
Speaker 5: had no law enforcement training and she'd never even met
Speaker 5: Jessica Current. But whatever grabbed her wouldn't let go.
Speaker 6: Somebody had to do something, and if it's somebody was me.
Speaker 4: So be it.
Speaker 3: Years later, the Kentucky Attorney General would even honor Susan
Speaker 3: with an Outstanding Citizen Award for finding the key witness
Speaker 3: in the Jessica Current case. It's a made for TV story.
Speaker 3: Ordinary woman help solve murder, brings justice to a small town.
Speaker 5: Susan Gallibreth was named Citizen of the Year by the
Speaker 5: Kentucky Bureau of Investigation.
Speaker 6: And to know that I had just the slightest part
Speaker 6: and it just I feel like I was meant to.
Speaker 5: Susan Gallibreath has done more than just proved one person
Speaker 5: really can make a difference through sheer, persistence and nerve.
Speaker 5: This Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Current.
Speaker 3: Catnip for the press, and who could blame them? It's
Speaker 3: a good one, maybe too good to be true, because
Speaker 3: this story will go beyond one woman. It's about the
Speaker 3: lengths our legal system, our communities, and the press will
Speaker 3: go in order to find someone to blame.
Speaker 2: And it's about the tales we tell and choose.
Speaker 3: To believe in pursuit of justice, the repercussions of which
Speaker 3: have uprooted lives, shattered families, and exposed a deep rought
Speaker 3: in Kentucky's halls of power. This is Graves County, Chapter one,
Speaker 3: Something Stinks.
Speaker 2: My name is Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 3: I'm a Pulitzer winning journalist and producer who has spent
Speaker 3: years reporting on the criminal legal system. That's how I
Speaker 3: first heard about this case and about Susan Galbreath. I
Speaker 3: didn't get a chance to meet Susan in person. She
Speaker 3: died in twenty eighteen at the age of fifty eight.
Speaker 3: A lot of what I've learned about Susan comes from
Speaker 3: her interviews with the press and her own writings, emails
Speaker 3: I've had the chance to review, and from her testimony
Speaker 3: in the trial for the murder of Jessica Currn.
Speaker 7: When I was a child, I either wanted to be
Speaker 7: a comedian or a police officer, so I'm neither, of course,
Speaker 7: but I've just always had a fascination with the law
Speaker 7: on things like that.
Speaker 3: Susan Galbreath was born in Chicago and moved to Mayfield, Kentucky,
Speaker 3: in her early thirties. She liked living in a small
Speaker 3: town with a tight knit community, and she had a
Speaker 3: son she loved, but by the time her fortieth birthday hit,
Speaker 3: Susan was in a rut. A self described cigarette smoking, busybody.
Speaker 3: She was on her third marriage to a man who
Speaker 3: drank too much, and she'd lost her job from an
Speaker 3: injury she was aimless. On top of that, she had
Speaker 3: a string of deaths in her family.
Speaker 8: In nineteen ninety nine. I had the death of my brother, father,
Speaker 8: and mother, So it was a real rough year for me.
Speaker 3: Here, she is talking to a local public radio station
Speaker 3: WKMS in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 8: And I think that I've always felt that I was
Speaker 8: meant to be there today, that they've found Justica's body,
Speaker 8: and I often refer to it as through her, I
Speaker 8: somehow got my purpose back, because it was a real
Speaker 8: rough year in ninety nine.
Speaker 3: In her telling, Susan was sitting at a restaurant on
Speaker 3: a summer day when she overheard a waitress saying that
Speaker 3: police had found a body. What happened after that can
Speaker 3: only be described as spiritual, an epiphany of sorts. She
Speaker 3: just had to go to the scene of the crime
Speaker 3: and see it for herself, and what she found horrified
Speaker 3: and captivated her. She would spend every waking hour wondering
Speaker 3: what kind of monster could have done such a thing.
Speaker 3: But time passed and the case went unsolved, and after
Speaker 3: four years, the police had little to show for their
Speaker 3: work except for some failed leads and a string of
Speaker 3: rumors about what had happened to Jessica Curran. That's when
Speaker 3: Susan says her curiosity turned into an obsession. If the
Speaker 3: cops weren't going to crack the case, she would. She'd
Speaker 3: played a techive and string tidbits of information together Chase
Speaker 3: Leeds find the truth. But this amateur sleuth needed help,
Speaker 3: so she started emailing people important people like Oprah and
Speaker 3: Julia Roberts, anyone who could connect her to resources or
Speaker 3: give this case much needed attention, but she heard nothing.
Speaker 9: A federal investigation in Brooklyn, and.
Speaker 3: Then on TV one day she saw a British investigative
Speaker 3: journalist by the name of Tom mingled.
Speaker 9: Bobbie revealing how they'd bled to see the manipulated the
Speaker 9: truth of forty years.
Speaker 2: So she wrote him as well.
Speaker 6: Date four four, two thousand and four from Susan g
Speaker 6: it chartered that net.
Speaker 3: This is Susan reading part of that email for a
Speaker 3: radio piece Tom produced for the BBC in twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: It was a retrospective on the work Susan ended up
Speaker 3: doing for the case.
Speaker 6: Hello, mister Mangold, I am writing concerning a murder in
Speaker 6: a small town in the state of Kentucky here in
Speaker 6: the US. The victim a beautiful eighteen year old black girl.
Speaker 3: Tom flew to Kentucky about a month after getting that
Speaker 3: email in two thousand and four. It was the beginning
Speaker 3: of a year's long partnership with Susan and the launch
Speaker 3: of their investigation.
Speaker 2: They were an odd duo.
Speaker 3: Here are segments on how they describe each other in
Speaker 3: Tom's radio piece.
Speaker 6: When I first met Tom, I thought he was prim
Speaker 6: and proper, like he had to stick up his ass.
Speaker 6: I mean, he was just really formal, you know.
Speaker 9: When I first met Susan, I liked her on site.
Speaker 9: She's chubby, lively, great sense of humor, sexy, deep voice,
Speaker 9: and passionate about the one thing she needed to be
Speaker 9: passionate about the murder of Jessica.
Speaker 3: Current, Tom, then in his late sixties, said he brought
Speaker 3: his experience as a seasoned investigative reporter and taught Susan
Speaker 3: how to parse gossip from truth. They drank bottles of
Speaker 3: s Sauvignon blanc together, Chase Leeds discussed theories, and eventually
Speaker 3: they pinpointed a local girl who turned out to be
Speaker 3: key to solving the case. Victoria Caldwell doors Victoria Caldwell
Speaker 3: and what did people call you?
Speaker 2: Victoria?
Speaker 3: She came forward saying she was an accomplice to the crimes,
Speaker 3: and she ended up being the state's key witness.
Speaker 4: So in July two thousand, how we're here.
Speaker 3: Fifteen years old, Victoria's account about what happened to Jessica
Speaker 3: Curran would be the driving force in the conviction of
Speaker 3: her accused killers.
Speaker 6: Comin Hell Ferci's Quincy Omar Crouch.
Speaker 2: This was the story Victoria told.
Speaker 3: We've edited her statements for length and warning it contains
Speaker 3: descriptions of physical and sexual violence.
Speaker 5: Holds Victoria.
Speaker 3: On a summer night in two thousand, Victoria says she
Speaker 3: was hanging out with a few kids from around town,
Speaker 3: including Jessica Curran and Venetia Stubblefield, all of them teenagers
Speaker 3: at the time. According to Victoria, they eventually ended up
Speaker 3: in a car with some older kids, all in their
Speaker 3: early twenties, including Victoria's cousin Tamra, Tamra's boyfriend Quincy Cross,
Speaker 3: and a guy they need from school named Jeff Burton,
Speaker 3: the only white person in the group.
Speaker 2: Well, Whency started passing out the drugs.
Speaker 3: Coke, she says, they did cocaine and other drugs in
Speaker 3: the car, yes, ecstasy. Tamra and Quincy were driving in
Speaker 3: the front with Jessica and they started touching her.
Speaker 2: Quincy and Tamra were rubbing on Jessica's legs.
Speaker 9: She was telling them to stop.
Speaker 5: And no did they stop?
Speaker 4: No, you didn't want that.
Speaker 7: Then when we.
Speaker 9: Got to the driveway of Jeff's house, Quincy he walked
Speaker 9: under the seat and he had a bat and he
Speaker 9: hid her in her head.