WEBVTT - Introducing - Bone Valley Season 3 | Graves County: Preview 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.360 Either. This is Steve Fishman. It's been a minute, but 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:07.680 rest assured. We've got three new series cooking and we'll 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.400 be dropping them real soon. But today I want to 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:13.039 introduce you to a podcast from our friends at Lava 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:16.600 for Good. It's called Graves County and I think Burden 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:21.400 listeners will really enjoy it. Maggie Freeling, a Pulitzer Prize winner, 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.479 is the host of Graves County, and I'm excited to 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.720 say she's also the host of a show we'll be 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:31.800 releasing this winner. Stay tuned on that. But first Graves County. 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.080 It's season three of Bone Valley, which is that great 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.920 hit show from a few years back. This season focuses 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:43.880 on Maggie investigating a murder, and Maggie, who's nothing if 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:48.280 not passionate, gets drawn in way in alongside a bunch 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.080 of amateur sluice, one of whom turns out to be 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.600 really interesting, which is all I'm going to say. Follow 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:01.160 along as Maggie unravels the rumors and the line and 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:05.000 perhaps even the truth. Today we're presenting a special shortened 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.240 version of episode one. Listen to the entire episode of 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.680 Bone Valley Season three, Graves County wherever you get your 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.880 podcasts and subscribe to Lava for Good Plus to hear 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.840 the entire season ad free Enjoy. 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:23.640 Heads Up. 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:30.880 This series contains graphic descriptions of violence. There's a saying 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.520 I heard on a recent trip to the South, A 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:37.880 half truth is a whole lie. And if there's a 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.640 place that breathes life into that proverb, it's the town 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.399 of Mayfield in Graves County, Kentucky. 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:51.040 Our horrific murder went unsolved for six years in Mayfield, Kentucky, 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.760 a town of ten thousand people. Then one local resident 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.240 decided to take matters into her own hands. 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.480 On August first, two thousand, the body of Jessica was 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.080 found outside of the Mayfield Middle School. It appeared as 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:09.480 though she'd been beaten and set on fire. Jessica was 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.799 just eighteen years old, a new mom, and the daughter 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.280 of a lieutenant with the Mayfield Fire Department, and her 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:18.959 case would go unsolved for years. 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.600 When police in Mayfield, Kentucky found a body, Susan Galbrith 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.960 found a purpose. She had to know who murdered Jessica. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:32.680 Current until a local homemaker and a handful of girls 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.880 came forward with a story, A story that police would 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:41.240 use to convict six people lending Susan Goalbreath in the 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.440 newspapers and the radio and on national TV. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.320 Galbreath was a housewife, married three times and drifting. She 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.680 had no law enforcement training and she'd never even met 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.440 Jessica Current. But whatever grabbed her wouldn't let go. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.799 Somebody had to do something, and if it's somebody was me. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:01.400 So be it. 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.920 Years later, the Kentucky Attorney General would even honor Susan 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.160 with an Outstanding Citizen Award for finding the key witness 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.680 in the Jessica Current case. It's a made for TV story. 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.919 Ordinary woman help solve murder, brings justice to a small town. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.639 Susan Gallibreth was named Citizen of the Year by the 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:25.440 Kentucky Bureau of Investigation. 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.519 And to know that I had just the slightest part 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.920 and it just I feel like I was meant to. 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.480 Susan Gallibreath has done more than just proved one person 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.440 really can make a difference through sheer, persistence and nerve. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.720 This Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Current. 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:53.520 Catnip for the press, and who could blame them? It's 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:59.960 a good one, maybe too good to be true, because 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.520 this story will go beyond one woman. It's about the 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.400 lengths our legal system, our communities, and the press will 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.640 go in order to find someone to blame. 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.600 And it's about the tales we tell and choose. 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.359 To believe in pursuit of justice, the repercussions of which 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:22.599 have uprooted lives, shattered families, and exposed a deep rought 0:04:22.720 --> 0:05:06.719 in Kentucky's halls of power. This is Graves County, Chapter one, 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:15.240 Something Stinks. 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:18.200 My name is Maggie Freeling. 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.719 I'm a Pulitzer winning journalist and producer who has spent 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.599 years reporting on the criminal legal system. That's how I 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.760 first heard about this case and about Susan Galbreath. I 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.320 didn't get a chance to meet Susan in person. She 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.160 died in twenty eighteen at the age of fifty eight. 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:37.960 A lot of what I've learned about Susan comes from 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.440 her interviews with the press and her own writings, emails 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.360 I've had the chance to review, and from her testimony 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:46.920 in the trial for the murder of Jessica Currn. 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:49.160 When I was a child, I either wanted to be 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.560 a comedian or a police officer, so I'm neither, of course, 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.400 but I've just always had a fascination with the law 0:05:58.440 --> 0:05:59.200 on things like that. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.839 Susan Galbreath was born in Chicago and moved to Mayfield, Kentucky, 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.279 in her early thirties. She liked living in a small 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.880 town with a tight knit community, and she had a 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:17.040 son she loved, but by the time her fortieth birthday hit, 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.800 Susan was in a rut. A self described cigarette smoking, busybody. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.480 She was on her third marriage to a man who 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.160 drank too much, and she'd lost her job from an 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.000 injury she was aimless. On top of that, she had 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.360 a string of deaths in her family. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.440 In nineteen ninety nine. I had the death of my brother, father, 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.120 and mother, So it was a real rough year for me. 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.239 Here, she is talking to a local public radio station 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.200 WKMS in twenty thirteen. 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.080 And I think that I've always felt that I was 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.719 meant to be there today, that they've found Justica's body, 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:54.479 and I often refer to it as through her, I 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.279 somehow got my purpose back, because it was a real 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:04.320 rough year in ninety nine. 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.479 In her telling, Susan was sitting at a restaurant on 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.360 a summer day when she overheard a waitress saying that 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.640 police had found a body. What happened after that can 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:19.880 only be described as spiritual, an epiphany of sorts. She 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.880 just had to go to the scene of the crime 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:27.400 and see it for herself, and what she found horrified 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:32.080 and captivated her. She would spend every waking hour wondering 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.400 what kind of monster could have done such a thing. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.520 But time passed and the case went unsolved, and after 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.760 four years, the police had little to show for their 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.800 work except for some failed leads and a string of 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.760 rumors about what had happened to Jessica Curran. That's when 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.760 Susan says her curiosity turned into an obsession. If the 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.400 cops weren't going to crack the case, she would. She'd 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.480 played a techive and string tidbits of information together Chase 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:08.640 Leeds find the truth. But this amateur sleuth needed help, 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.560 so she started emailing people important people like Oprah and 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:18.120 Julia Roberts, anyone who could connect her to resources or 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.240 give this case much needed attention, but she heard nothing. 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:26.880 A federal investigation in Brooklyn, and. 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.040 Then on TV one day she saw a British investigative 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.880 journalist by the name of Tom mingled. 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.760 Bobbie revealing how they'd bled to see the manipulated the 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:36.760 truth of forty years. 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:38.440 So she wrote him as well. 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:43.920 Date four four, two thousand and four from Susan g 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:45.160 it chartered that net. 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.640 This is Susan reading part of that email for a 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.240 radio piece Tom produced for the BBC in twenty twelve. 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.760 It was a retrospective on the work Susan ended up 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:55.760 doing for the case. 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.280 Hello, mister Mangold, I am writing concerning a murder in 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.520 a small town in the state of Kentucky here in 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.480 the US. The victim a beautiful eighteen year old black girl. 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.600 Tom flew to Kentucky about a month after getting that 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.600 email in two thousand and four. It was the beginning 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.240 of a year's long partnership with Susan and the launch 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:16.520 of their investigation. 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:23.200 They were an odd duo. 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.360 Here are segments on how they describe each other in 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:27.520 Tom's radio piece. 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.240 When I first met Tom, I thought he was prim 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.920 and proper, like he had to stick up his ass. 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.400 I mean, he was just really formal, you know. 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.280 When I first met Susan, I liked her on site. 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.480 She's chubby, lively, great sense of humor, sexy, deep voice, 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.080 and passionate about the one thing she needed to be 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.280 passionate about the murder of Jessica. 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.280 Current, Tom, then in his late sixties, said he brought 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.320 his experience as a seasoned investigative reporter and taught Susan 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.839 how to parse gossip from truth. They drank bottles of 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:05.000 s Sauvignon blanc together, Chase Leeds discussed theories, and eventually 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.680 they pinpointed a local girl who turned out to be 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:16.199 key to solving the case. Victoria Caldwell doors Victoria Caldwell 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:17.560 and what did people call you? 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:19.200 Victoria? 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.560 She came forward saying she was an accomplice to the crimes, 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.600 and she ended up being the state's key witness. 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.400 So in July two thousand, how we're here. 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.960 Fifteen years old, Victoria's account about what happened to Jessica 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.440 Curran would be the driving force in the conviction of 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:41.040 her accused killers. 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.200 Comin Hell Ferci's Quincy Omar Crouch. 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:48.080 This was the story Victoria told. 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.240 We've edited her statements for length and warning it contains 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:56.120 descriptions of physical and sexual violence. 0:10:58.640 --> 0:10:59.840 Holds Victoria. 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.559 On a summer night in two thousand, Victoria says she 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.880 was hanging out with a few kids from around town, 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:11.439 including Jessica Curran and Venetia Stubblefield, all of them teenagers 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.520 at the time. According to Victoria, they eventually ended up 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.040 in a car with some older kids, all in their 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:22.920 early twenties, including Victoria's cousin Tamra, Tamra's boyfriend Quincy Cross, 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.920 and a guy they need from school named Jeff Burton, 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:27.680 the only white person in the group. 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.520 Well, Whency started passing out the drugs. 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.839 Coke, she says, they did cocaine and other drugs in 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:42.240 the car, yes, ecstasy. Tamra and Quincy were driving in 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.160 the front with Jessica and they started touching her. 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.559 Quincy and Tamra were rubbing on Jessica's legs. 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.120 She was telling them to stop. 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.400 And no did they stop? 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:57.520 No, you didn't want that. 0:11:58.720 --> 0:11:59.200 Then when we. 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:08.559 Got to the driveway of Jeff's house, Quincy he walked 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.959 under the seat and he had a bat and he 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:12.760 hid her in her head.