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This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at. Don't sleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, A Medicine company.
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Hey, audiobook lovers. I'm Cal Penn. I'm Ed Helms. Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with our new podcast, Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Each week we sit down with your favorite iHeart podcast hosts and some very special guests to discuss the latest and greatest audiobooks from Audible. Listen to Hearsay on America's number one PODC podcast network, iHeart Followersay, and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.
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So, Quincy, I have a couple questions that are going to be difficult questions. It basically comes down to that night. Okay, okay. In one of my calls with Quincy Cross, I brought up the concerns you heard last episode about the gas, the belt and his demeanor the night Jessica went missing. These three things made citizen investigator Susan Galbraith home in on Quincy and make him suspect number one on her list. Not only that, prosecutors would use these details in their case against Quincy as proof of his guilt.
B
He was pouring gas into the car with Deputy her Confounding. And he didn't have a belt.
Or a shirt.
A
When I spoke to Quincy, his story remained relatively unchanged. He went to a small party, borrowed a car and left around daybreak to go find something to eat. He got lost and then the car broke down. Where did you get the gas can you?
B
Oh, I found it. I found that in a. It was a barn or something that was passing and I seen it just sitting out there.
A
He says he got the can and started filling the tank. Then a deputy jailer stopped by to help and saw him spilling gas on his pants. As far as wanting to find girls that night, he says, yeah, he brought that up at the party. It was full of guys like, you.
B
Know, a whole bunch of dudes talking about dude shit. I don't want anything.
A
So maybe that's what people at the party remembered. And the missing belt? He thinks maybe he left it at the house when he dozed off on the couch.
B
I kept done that morning to get it off the edge of the couch, but it was still on the couch.
A
These answers are unsatisfying and they don't look great, if I'm being honest. But they would concern me more if the. The case against Quincy weren't so flimsy.
Because when you look deeper into the actual evidence presented at Quincy's trial and the story the prosecution told about how Jessica was killed, these two details lose their damning power. And I'd go as far as saying they don't even matter at all.
This is Graves County Chapter 3 persons of interest.
After interviewing Quincy under false pretenses, Susan Galbraith was going to get him for Jessica Curran's murder. She knew it was him. The gas, the belt, it made too much sense. She just needed to figure out how, why, and with whom. One of the things Susan did next was find the names of exactly who all had been at the party at Chris Drive. The same one Quincy was at the night of the murder. It was a small gathering, but it was one of many on that street that night. So people came and went. Susan started by going over original police interviews from the days after Jessica's body was found on August 1, 2000.
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I immediately started laying out the transcripts, and if I'm talking too much, I apologize. I have a bad habit of it. But.
A
But during trial, Susan recalls that in the transcripts, partygoers mentioned two guests whose names remained a mystery.
B
These two white boys stopped by 597 Chris Tribe. So for some reason I thought they were. So they were important because they kept asking about him.
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One partygoer told police that the two guys had come from a nearby gathering.
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There was two guys walked down from.
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A neighboring house, but they only stayed for a minute or two and come.
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In and talk for maybe a minute or two.
A
Through some digging, Susan says she managed to identify them Then she called the Kentucky State Police.
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I called Sam Steger and I said, look, I said, I got the name of those two white boys was Jeffrey Burton.
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Jeff Burton, a scrawny guy from around town who was close to his mom, grew up going to church and playing baseball. Though like many in Mayfield, he went through a rough patch. He quit high school, got busted for drugs and got into fights. But by the time Susan found his name, he was in his mid-20s with a wife and three kids, getting his life together and mostly keeping to himself. In a 2007 email to journalist Tom Mangold, Susan reveals what had interested her about Jeff. A colleague will be reading Susan's emails. I had found out earlier that Burton's house was near the middle school. I quit focusing on what I already knew and went after what I didn't know. Jeff's house was close to the middle school where Jessica's body was found. Susan writes that she went to Jeff's house ready to knock on the door. She wanted to know what he was up to the night of the murder. Long story short, I finally found Burton's house. I was so excited, I pulled my. But when Susan arrived to the house, there was no one living there. It was completely abandoned. She writes Tom, as I walked around the house, I saw a garage. It was so eerie. I could see inside the house. She walks back to the garage. The air was still. There were houses close by, but it felt as though time stood still. The driveway and garage were totally surrounded by brush and foliage. She creeps closer. I crept over to the door and was overwhelmed with a feeling of dread. I didn't go in for fear of tainting the scene. I was so excited. I knew I had finally found where they had Jessica.
I knew this house was connected to her. It's hard to explain.
Another spiritual moment, perhaps.
Up until then, the police had maintained that Jessyca was attacked and killed at the middle school. According to records I've reviewed, Susan also had it as the crime scene in her murder theories. But in this email to Tom, Susan expresses that once she got to Jeff's house, she just knew it was connected to Jessica's death. I told Lee Wise about everything, and he told me he would check into it on his next trip into town. Susan shared her new theory with law enforcement and sure enough that winter agents also visited Jeff's house.
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We're in the city of Mayfield, Kentucky, present and the vehicle is myself, David James, agent Bob o', Neal, Agent Lewis.
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The agents recorded the visit, but by that time it had been Demolished, this.
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Would be the house where Jeff Burton resided. The house is now gone.
A
And what you hear in these tapes seven years after Jessica's murder, is a shift in the official murder theory. The crime scene is no longer the middle school.
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This is a house where they took Jessica to. She was allegedly killed also.
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Up until this point, the police didn't have a reason to believe Jessyca had been raped or sexually assaulted. They hadn't found any physical evidence of it, like trauma on her body that suggested assault or semen. But because her underwear was found ripped laying next to her, it was a possibility. One that Susan and Tom jumped onto and which you heard last episode.
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We were pretty certain by now that Quincy Cross, together with other accomplices, had murdered Jessica in a sex and drugs frenzy.
A
But they hadn't been able to corroborate their hunch. So in 2007, when Victoria Caldwell responded to Susan's friend request on MySpace, Susan was elated and let Victoria know. You just gave me goosebumps, hon. Of course I can help you, she replied to Victoria. I'll do anything I can for you, I promise you. I'm sitting here with tears rolling down my face. I had no idea. I have friends in high places, Hun, and I can probably help you a lot. In fact, I know I can.
Susan was convinced Victoria was the key to cracking the case against Quincy Cross, because Victoria had been tangentially involved in this case from the beginning.
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I'm at the Mayfair High School in the conference room outside the principal's office. President is myself, Detective Kim Fortner, and also Victoria Caldwell.
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Just days after Jessica's death, Victoria told police she heard people talking about killing Jessica.
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Let me out the car because I don't let go.
A
But then she moved to California and virtually disappeared from the case until 2006, when she emerged again.
First, she called the state police to say she'd overheard relevant information about the Jessica Curran murder. Then she made contact with Susan, saying she knew things that could put her in danger. By this time, a third investigative agency had taken over the case and the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation, or kbi. Susan built a rapport with them like she did with her predecessors. And on Susan's tip, the KBI traveled to California to interview Victoria Caldwell.
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Today's date is February 12, 2007.
Visit to Santa Maria.
To conduct this interview with Ms. Victoria Caldwell.
A
Victoria Caldwell sounds and looks like a young girl, even though she was 22 when the KBI first spoke to her. There's an innocence to her tone.
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Normally start from the beginning? Yeah. Okay.
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She has a bashful gaze and chubby cheeks that enhance her childlike features. During the interview, Victoria says she felt unsafe in Mayfield. She tells the KBI Quincy had threatened her over the phone to stay quiet about anything she may have overheard about Jessica's murder.
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Yeah, you know. You know, it was my belt around her neck. You know, it was. And I was just like, no, no, no. I don't know anything. And he just kept saying, you know. You know, he said, you know, I can make you disappear.
A
And I was like, okay.
B
Like, that's why I panic.
A
In this interview, Victoria told the KBI that he'd been threatening her for over a year. And even though she didn't have his threats on tape, there was a recording of her sister Rosie telling Victoria that Quincy was after her in May 2006.
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And then I told you, Quincy is trying to kill your motherfucking ass.
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Rosie is saying, quincy is gonna kill your motherfucking ass.
The KBI took these threats seriously, so the agents moved Victoria from California to North Carolina and into state witness protection. And soon after, authorities would blast Quincy's face and name in the local news as an armed and dangerous suspect wanted for the murder of Jessica Curran.
Hello, Mr. Stumbo. Good to see you.
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Hi, Maggie. How are you?
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I am well. So, like Rebecca said, my Internet's kind of slow over here, so I'm probably going to turn. The reason these state agents got involved in the first place was Greg Stumbo.
B
Mayfield's not known for having violent crimes, and it's a little sleepy town in Kentucky, or, you know, everybody sort of knows everybody. It's a farming community, and this type of crime was obviously not something that happens very, very often.
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Stumbo served 36 years in public office, including four as the Attorney General of Kentucky from 2004 to 2008. The years when Susan started looking into the case and working with the state police. While on the campaign trail, Stumbo met Jessica's dad, Joe Curran, at a political event.
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And Joe sought me out and told me about his daughter's tragic death. And it hadn't been solved.
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Joe had been marching and demanding that law enforcement solve his daughter's case.
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We went to see the county attorney, we went to see the police chief, we went to see the sheriff.
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And now he had the ear of the potential state Attorney general. Stumbo made a promise to Joe.
B
And I told Joe Kern that day, I said, if I'm elected, I will do my best to solve that case.
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Stumbo won, and he did exactly that.
B
This Guy decided to do something on it. So we would have regular meetings with my kbi. Commissioner David James.
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Stumbo revamped the investigative unit the Attorney General's office had at the time.
B
We changed the name. I like the name. Kentucky Bureau of Investigation. And make them a more effective investigating unit.
A
They tackled major crimes like drug trafficking, fraud and public corruption. The KBI wasn't formed to solve homicides, but Stumbo had made a promise to Joe Curran. The KBI was on it.
The man Stumbo chose to lead the agency happened to be black. And he thought it would be beneficial to send black agents to Mayfield. He figured black agents would have more success getting people to open up than the previous white law enforcement officers.
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It just so happened we had two very good African American agents. And they were big guys, you know, big impressive football guys. We sent them down there and sure enough, the local people in the African American community who had knowledge about that crime, who were afraid to talk to the Mayfield police about it or the Kentucky State Police officers began spilling the beans.
A
Like Victoria Caldwell.
B
They confronted her and she broke down, told the whole story.
A
The story that would end up implicating herself. Jeff Burton, Tamara Caldwell, Venetia Stubblefield and Quincy Cross.
But the agents had never investigated a homicide. They were two former narcotics cops who used a series of unorthodox tactics to elicit several confessions. And these tactics start with the place they conducted some of their key interviews.
B
We're presently located in the conference room of the Drury Suites, located in Paducah, Kentucky.
A
The Drury Inn and Suites in Paducah, Kentucky. Not a police station, but a modest hotel about 30 minutes from Mayfield. The kind of place with free hot breakfast, 70s style looking conference rooms and limited surveillance.
B
They never did read me my rights or anything. They just had me get in the car. I was like, well, where am I going? They would not tell me where I was going at all until I got there. I thought I was going to the police station.
A
Tamara Caldwell was among their persons of interest. She's Victoria's cousin, the homebody who never went anywhere without her babies and who dated Quincy Cross. He was great with her kids. Victoria had implicated both of them in her interviews with the kbi. And now they were being questioned by law enforcement, including two agents who made it clear that they already knew the truth. They just needed their suspects to confirm it.
B
Don't you know we already know what happened. I know y' all know what happened.
A
Lee Wise takes the lead, imposing and commanding.
B
You look so pathetic. Faking those tears, Rocking in that Chair and telling them, girl, look, I don't know.
A
Agent Bob o' Neal is mild mannered and more reserved.
B
Okay, Quincy, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in the court. With these rights in mind, do you wish to talk with us now? Sure. All right.
A
Quincy actually turned himself in after seeing his name and face on the news.
B
So, you know, and I ain't never been the type to run something I ain't do, so I better off turning myself in. You know what I mean? I'd rather come to you instead of having you look for me.
A
Quincy and everyone else who was taken to the Drury Inn in suites went willingly. No one was under arrest and no one had an attorney present. Tamara tells me she was questioned for hours on end.
B
Forever. I'm talking about like nine, ten hours.
A
The interviews turned interrogations are confusing, chaotic and taxing.
B
You hear what I said? You're crying, but your eyes shut evil. You're sitting there doing what you have done for your entire life. You're lying. And you're not accustomed to be held up to accountable for your actions.
A
In this clip, they're yelling at Tamara while she weeps. She's wearing a collared blue and white pinstripe shirt. Her hair is in a side pony, and she looks like a little girl. She's trapped alone in a hotel room with law enforcement 30 minutes from home and very few people. If anyone knows she's there.
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I was terrified. They were telling me, if you don't tell the truth, you're gonna get shipped up the river. You're never gonna get to see your kids graduate. You're never gonna amount to anything.
A
The KBI also brought in Rosie, Victoria's sister, as a corroborating witness against Jeff Quincy and Tamara. Rosie says they interrogated her for two days.
B
They told me I was lying, kept telling me to shut up, and then they told me that they could take my kids away from me.
A
And the line of questioning is also disturbingly focused on the women's sex lives.
B
What type of sex did he like? Or was he. Did he enjoy oral sex? Oral sex? Yes. What's your sexual preference? Are you bisexual? Are you lesbian?
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Especially about the women being lesbians.
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You consider yourself a lesbian? No. You don't? Why does everybody else. I think right after that, right after he asked me if I was lesbian, that's when he stuck his hand up on the table and was rubbing on my leg.
A
Jeff Burton was also brought in. The white kid, Susan Galbraith, had found.
B
I don't want to go to jail. You just started with three kids. I don't want to go to jail, but I don't want to sit here and listen to these lies. I don't want to listen to these lies, man. I don't want to.
A
And they squeezed him, all of them, for confessions.
B
It's gonna be your word against five or six other people. And you know what it takes? You know what it takes? All it takes is for a jury to either.
A
And that's fucked up.
B
That's fucked up the jury to believe what you say or what they say. That's messed up. That's messed up. If that's the case and that's how it goes down, then that is messed up to me.
A
It sounds like the agents learned how to be detectives from watching Law and Order.
B
And I hope you're a good surfer, baby. I'm giving you one wave and you better ride this wave until you done because you're not gonna get another wave from me, okay? Yes. So if you can't surf, you better lay down on that board and hold it.
A
In these KBI videos, only the interviewee is visible. All law enforcement are off camera. We don't know what they were or were not doing out of frame or who is in the hotel room. Think of videos you see in police stations. The camera is usually above. You can see the whole room, everyone in it. That didn't happen here. Plus, video and tape recorders were turned on and off frequently.
B
They would ask me questions and they would cut the recorder off. We're going to go off record for about 10 minutes and, and then go in this room and then come back in and unpause the recorder or whatever and start talking crazy to me.
And we're back on record.
A
At one point during Jeff's interrogation, Rosie is brought into the room to identify him.
B
Say it out loud. Jeff Burton. Jeff Burton.
A
If you know anything about witness identification or lineups, this is absolutely not how it's done. Looking back, Jeff says the whole thing was mind boggling.
B
I feel like they're telling me that, man, you know, we already got the proof. Just tell us. But I'm like, man, I didn't have anything to do with this stuff.
A
No.
B
Charge me with whatever you want to. I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said. This can't be real life. It can't be.
A
And I know that that right there.
B
Was a crock of shit that makes Me think that all this is freaking fake as hell, man.
A
But the KBI's tactics worked. After weeks of interrogations at the hotel and elsewhere, they got the confessions they were looking for. First from Victoria, who, over the course of at least six interviews with the kbi, goes from having only heard about the murder and possible suspects to actually witnessing the kidnapping, rape, and killing of Jessica and participating in the abuse of her dead body. Then Venetia. For seven years, Venetia told police that she did not see Jessica after they said goodbye that Saturday night in 2000. Now, after at least two separate days of KBI interrogations, her story resembles Victoria's.
B
He. Has Quincy done anything to Jessica?
A
She says she actually went looking for Jessica that night, then ran into Tamara, Victoria, Jeff, and Quincy.
B
He was rubbing on her and touching on her and stuff and told her she didn't cooperate. He was gonna put a gun to where he.
A
Venetia is slumped in her chair. She looks exhausted, shrunken. And you can hear her trying to find the right words.
B
Nobody struck her. Nobody did anything. Huh? Tamara hit her. Women. You didn't say that, though. I asked you. I asked you what happened to Jessica in that car.
A
Changing her answers according to. According to the response from Agents o' Neal and Wise.
B
You sure? Tamara struck her. Quincy struck.
A
She eventually says they did drugs and took Jessica to Jeff's house. Then Quincy and the others raped her.
But the agents are not satisfied with just saying rape. They need details, graphic details.
B
I want you to see it. What was he doing to her?
A
And they keep asking about semen.
B
How much semen was on her body? A lot. Who put it there? All of us.
A
I want to point out that this line of questioning might make sense in a rape case where a body was killed covered in fluids, top of her.
B
And everything, quenching and ejaculated all over her body. Right? And y' all still kissing on and rubbing on her, right? Am I right? Yes.
A
But in the case of Jessica Curran, there was no evidence of rape or a sexual assault on Jessyca's body, and especially no semen.
There are glaring inconsistencies in Victoria and Venetia's statements.
Like Venetia cannot confidently say if Quincy, Jeff, or Tamra struck Jessica with any object. But Victoria says Quincy hits Jessica in the head with a mini baseball bat while in the car. And they buried the bat in her sister Rosie's yard. But when the KBI went to search Rosie's yard, they only found a wrench. To which Victoria then changes her story. To add that Quincy also hit Jessica with a wrench in the house. The bat was never recovered.
A note on this timeline of the crime, though. Quincy had to have committed the kidnapping, rape and murder of Jessica Curran in the time he left the party at daybreak and when he was spotted by the deputy jailer around 7:40am Possible, sure, but very tight. And there are big holes in the KBI's theory that all these people assaulted and killed Jessica first. There were no fingerprints or DNA linking any of them to the murder. In fact, Quincy's DNA and clothing were tested shortly after Jessica's death in 2000, and nothing from Quincy matches the crime scene. On top of that, the only thing that links Quincy to the scene of the crime is the fragment of a braided belt found near Jessica's neck. Yet we don't know for a fact that's Quincy's belt. And investigators desperately tried to find evidence to prove their theory of the crime, searching everywhere from vehicles to houses. Law enforcement even exhumed Jessyca's body to retest for evidence. And nothing.
None exists matching any of these people to Jessyca's death or crime scene. And there's one other glaring red flag.
B
I didn't know Quincy until 2002, so how could I have something to do with it in this case happened in 2000?
A
Remember I told you Tamara and Quincy met while she was visiting her brother in jail. That was two years after Jessica's death. Quincy and Tamara maintain to this day they did not know each other in 2000.
B
And I still don't know Jeff Burton. Quincy Cross. I didn't know him, didn't hang around him.
A
Jeff says he had never even met Quincy and he only knew Tamara from school.
Despite there being no physical evidence, flimsy stories, inconsistencies, suspects not even knowing each other at the time of the murder, and adamant claims of innocence. The KBI brought that case to the Attorney General's office, and under Greg Stumbo's leadership, the state of Kentucky. Kentucky moved forward to try Quincy Cross as a depraved, evil man.
B
There's no doubt in my mind that we caught the right person. There's no evidence that would lead you anywhere else. I mean, you have a direct eyewitness account of what happened.
A
Seven years after Jessica Curran was killed. Venetia Stubblefield, Victoria Caldwell, Tamara Caldwell, Jeff Burton and Quincy Cross were arrested, charged and indicted based largely on the accounts of two girls and circumstantial evidence. That's it. That's all the prosecution had. And at trial, cracks in those stories start to split until the entire prosecution's case is left with gaping holes. That's after the break.
This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company. Protect your pet with insurance from Pets Best Plans start from less than a dollar a day. Visit petsbest.com Pet insurance products offered and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services LLC are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company or Independence American Insurance Company for terms and conditions, visit www.petsbest.com. policy products are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company, Independence American Insurance Company or Ms. Transverse Insurance Company and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services LLC. $1.00 a day premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans. Pets age 0 to 10 hello.
B
Hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast smart talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO, Arvind Krishna, and I asked him, how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them? Pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example, if anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today, with the goal of being 70% more productive. Yeah.
A
Wow.
B
So we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it. We say you can leverage what we did. We are happy to bring out all our learnings, including what needs to change in the process. Because the biggest change is not technology. It's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things. To listen to the full conversation, visit IBM.com smart talks.
All right, good morning. Let me go through the roll, make sure we've got everyone here that's supposed to be here.
A
Quincy was the first to go to trial in spring of 2008. By then, news of Jessica's death and the Salacious story behind it had spread through Graves County. So the judge agreed to move the trial to Hickman county to avoid any kind of bias the jury from Graves could have.
B
All right, is Commonwealth ready to proceed?
A
The small courthouse was full and it was tense. On one side there was Quincy's relatives sitting in complete disbelief that he was being accused of such crimes. And on the other, Jessica's loved ones with eight years of pent up frustration and pain.
B
Commonwealth like to make an opening statement. Yes, you, Honor.
A
The lead prosecutor on Quincy's case was Assistant Attorney General Barbara Maines Whaley.
B
But it took a long, long time to get people to talk about this.
A
Because of their fear. Whaley is a career prosecutor. She's been Assistant attorney general since 1982 and is said to be one of the most experienced prosecutors in the Commonwealth. Some people may know her from being one of the special prosecutors to investigate police officers in the 2020 killing of Brianna Taylor.
Whaley was seeking the death penalty against Quincy. His defense attorneys only had about a year to prepare and the prosecution didn't make it easy. They dumped thousands of documents on the defense in the run up to trial.
B
Where the dates of the items that they are giving us go back as much as seven years.
A
Quincy's attorney is complaining to the judge, but he says it's been virtually impossible to get through all the files to properly prepare for a death penalty case.
B
I don't know if it's Chinese water torture or death by 10,000 cuts, one of the two.
A
But the judge denied a motion for more time and the trial continued on schedule. And despite the advantage over the defense, Whaley knew this would be a hard case because of how many players and stories there were. In her opening statement, she prepares the jury for this.
B
Rumors built on rumors.
And more rumors.
A
And talk spread like wildfire at Mayfield.
But the agents with the KBI were allegedly able to find the truth that on the early hours of Sunday, July 30, 2000, Tamara Caldwell, Victoria Caldwell, Venetia Stubblefield, Jeff Burton and Quincy Cross picked up Jessica Curran and took her to Jeff Burton's house where they raped and killed her in a drug fueled haze. Quincy then forced the girls to have sex with Jessica's dead body. Then they stored her body in Jeff's garage until she was moved and set on fire.
B
Doused with gasoline and set on fire.
A
Outside the middle school a day later on the Monday following, she was found the following day. On Tuesday, one of the first witnesses Barbara Whaley calls is the state medical examiner at the Time of Jessica's death. He says besides being burned and there.
B
Were traumatic injuries on the head and face, and there were lacerations on the back of the head.
A
He says Jessica also had injuries similar to that of a stab wound, but he ruled her likely manner of death was blunt injury and strangulation. He admits there's no actual evidence of strangulation, but he says the other injuries on Jessica were not significant enough to cause death alone. Plus, the piece of belt found near her neck suggested strangulation.
B
Basically, when everything was completed and looked at, that I thought was very significant in her cause of death. All right, you call your next witness, please. Venetia Stubblefield.
A
Jessica's friends and family are called school personnel, investigators and locals from around town. They have partygoers from Chris Drive testify about seeing Quincy wave his belt around and talk about wanting to go find girls. But Victoria and Venetia are Whaley's star witnesses. And much like in their interrogations, their testimonies differ in key aspects at trial.
B
After that, we all got out the car and went inside the house.
A
In Venetia's story, Jessica walks in Jeff Burton Martin's house.
B
How did she get in the house? He made her walk in there.
A
Victoria, on the other hand, testifies that Jessica was knocked out and then carried inside the house. Quincy and Jeff carried Jessica's body through the side.
B
The side door.
A
Discrepancies are to be expected when a case is eight years old and the women testifying were teens at the time of the crime. But I will say messing up details like whether or not you carried an unconscious body inside the house is kind of major. But the prosecution had backup. They called Rosie to confirm what Victoria told the kbi, that Quincy threatened Victoria to stay quiet. You heard the call earlier.
B
I remember that. He said he was going to kill my sister. I remember that.
A
What's this?
B
Victoria.
A
And the prosecution had another key piece of evidence. A diary that Victoria allegedly kept where she detailed her life and the crime.
B
Now read August 1st.
What does it say?
A
It says, damn, they found the body.
I'm not sure what the other word says. I hope they don't find out it was us.
B
Man.
A
It says Q is nowhere to be found.
B
Jeff don't want to talk to me. This is.
Says I am out.
A
The defense strategy was to question the validity of everything from the diary to the prosecution's circumstantial evidence to witness testimonies. And they were successful in some areas, like poking holes in Victoria's numerous stories.
B
Were you telling the truth then?
A
On some parts, yes, some parts, no. The defense also called their own expert, the former Kentucky chief medical examiner, to refute the questionable findings of strangulation.
B
Are you able to provide to the jury a cause of death in this case? No, sir, I am not. There's no anatomic cause of death determined in this case. I can tell you that she could have been strangled, but there is no evidence that she was strangling.
A
The defense's medical expert explains that a telltale sign of strangulation is bruising and a broken hyoid bone in the neck, which there was not that there's no.
B
External documentation of any injury on the skin or the subcutaneous tissues deep to the skin that shows any evidence that trauma was applied, applied to the area. Now you can get strangulation injuries.
A
The defense wanted to make four main points. First, the only thing tying Quincy to Jessica's death in any physical manner is a belt. Yet there's no evidence it's Quincy's. It was an extremely common 2000s belt. Even a witness at trial is wearing a similar belt, and he points to it.
B
A braided bell? Yes, sir.
A
Second, if there's no certainty Jessica was strangled, then the jury cannot convict Quincy on the prosecution's theory of the case. Third, according to Victoria and Venetia, Jessica was killed early Sunday morning, and they put her body in Jeff's garage before driving her to the middle school and lighting her on fire Monday night. By the prosecution's own timeline, Quincy was in jail by the time they disposed and burned Jessica's body. He'd been arrested that Sunday morning on drug charges and stayed in jail for over a year. So their entire theory that Quincy smelling like gas linked him to Jessica makes no sense. In this timeline, him smelling like gas is meaningless.
And fourth, law enforcement coerced witnesses into lying on Quincy.
To prove that point, they called Rosie Kreiss, Victoria's sister and the prosecution's witness back on the stand, Rosie Price. The defense knew something important about Rosie that they wanted the jury to know.
B
I was trying to tell them that.
A
I didn't have nothing to do and.
B
I didn't know nothing about this case or nothing like that.
A
They told me I was lying before trial. Rosie says she tried to recant to law enforcement.
B
And you kept trying to tell them the truth and they wouldn't accept it? Yes.
A
She testifies that they made her lie, implicating Jeff Burton, her own cousin, Tamara Caldwell, and Quincy Cross.
B
Did Quincy Cross ever threaten you? No.
Ever threaten Victoria? Then you know. No. That's all I have.
A
When prosecutor Scott Sutherland counters, Rosie is defiant.
B
Oh, Ms. Christ.
Today I really don't care about going to jail, Scott. So you can ask me what you want to object. May we approach?
A
Rosie shifts in her chair, shakes her head and scrunches her face in anger. But she stands her ground.
B
So I'm gonna ask you again. Are you lying today or are you lying the other day? I lied the other day, and I'm not lying today. And I wanted to tell the truth all the time. You guys had to stop.
A
But in such a long trial, with so many facts and discrepancies, it becomes nearly impossible to follow what is going on, especially with so many objections, redirects and sidebars.
B
Objection. Objection.
A
With so much confusion, the prosecution knew to always direct the attention back to the belt.
B
A distinctive belt, not a unique belt by any means.
A
And the gas smelling strongly of gasoline. Don't look at the distractions, the different stories, the half truths, the recantation. Look here. Look at the guy who was talking about finding girls waving his belt around smelling like gas.
And so, after deliberating for only three hours and 45 minutes, 11 white jurors and one black juror found beyond a reasonable doubt that Quincy Cross murdered Jessica Curran.
B
Well.
I cried, man. I cried with my dad. They let my dad in.
In the room in the back, and I cried with my dad.
A
At Quincy's sentencing, assistant prosecutor Scott Sutherland asked the jury to show Quincy no mercy. He said, I would ask you to look at this heinous crime and ask yourselves, if not now, then when? If not Quincy Cross, then who? He deserves nothing less than the ultimate punishment in this case, a sentence of death.
B
I don't believe in the death penalty.
A
But that's not what Joe Curran, Jessyca's father, wanted.
B
I don't feel like a person should die killing another person because another person died. Don't bring back the person that died. If I kill somebody else and I bring my daughter back, I kill the first person I see because I want her back that bad. But it's not going to bring her back.
A
Ultimately, Quincy was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Quincy says before trial, prosecutors offered him a deal of 25 years. What did they want you to say.
B
To tell a lie on Tamara and Jeffrey? I didn't even ask him what they wanted me to say or none of that. So we didn't even get that far because I ain't that type of person.
A
And after trial, Quincy's attorney asked him if he wanted to see if the deal was still good, but he said no. So you were like, I will take a life sentence. I'm not gonna lie about these people.
B
Right? You're exactly right. I will. And that's what I did.
A
Tamara and Jeff were set to go to trial after Quincy, and they were scared.
B
You know, at first I was gung ho, like, yeah, you know, let's. They lying on me. All this stuff. I'm ready to face whatever. And then after that, it just broke my spirit. I'm like, oh, my God, they're gonna do the same thing to me. I ain't never gonna get out of here. I ain't gonna see my kids, ain't never all this different shit. You know what I mean? So now I'm, like, starting to question, man, even though you're innocent, you are fucking going to prison. It don't fucking matter.
So that kind of broke my spirit a lot. Like, it really took a lot out of me.
A
Jeff and Tamara decided to take plea deals to avoid a life sentence and possibly the death penalty. Jeff was sentenced to 15 years and Tamra 10. Victoria and Venetia pled guilty. Victoria was sentenced to a total of five years and Venetia seven. They only served a few months.
After years of fighting, Jessica Curran's family finally saw her accused killers punished. But instead of feeling a sense of relief, Joe Curran felt uneasy.
B
I felt in my gut that something wasn't right.
A
That's because something wasn't.
That's after the break.
This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company. Protect your pet with insurance from Pets Best plans start from less than a dollar a day. Visit petsbest.com Pet insurance products offered and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company or Independence American Insurance Company for terms and conditions, visit www.petsbest.com. policy products are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company, Independence American Insurance Company or Ms. Transverse Insurance Insurance Company and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC. $1.00 a day premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans pets age 0 to 10 hello.
B
Hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Smart Talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna and I asked him how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them Pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example, if anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today with the goal of being 70% more productive. Yeah. Wow. So we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it. We say you can leverage what we did. We are happy to bring out all our learnings, including what needs to change in the process. Because the biggest change is not technology, is getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things. To listen to the full conversation, visit IBM.com smart talks.
A
Do you ever have moments where you feel forget that this is part of your life?
B
No. Never. Never.
A
After the trial and conviction, Quincy's family was left to reckon with their own loss.
B
It's just like toting a 2,000 pound weight on your back every day. No, never forget it. Never off my mind.
A
On any given day, you can find Quincy's dad sitting on his porch. Posted behind where he sits is a sign that reads Private property Owner is too old to fight, too fat to run, too lazy to argue. The image is of two handguns. David Cross isn't fat or lazy, though old is fair. He's in his early 70s now, but his hair, styled in a flat top, is still perfectly jet black. David grew up here, right on Cross Street, 40 minutes outside of Mayfield, just over the border in a small town in Tennessee.
B
My grandparents just lived down at the end of the street.
A
David says Cross street is named after his family. They've been here for generations.
B
That was our schoolhouse right around the corner.
A
He points to an abandoned cottage down the little dirt road.
B
This was it, See, it was segregation back then, you know. This was the black school. This is where I went to school for eight years.
A
David raised his kids here. Quincy grew up roaming the fields, playing with tadpoles and snapping turtles. David Cross's boy, who he hasn't seen since before the pandemic. Quincy's in prison 450 miles away on the other side of Kentucky bordering Virginia. So getting there is difficult.
B
You can't imagine. You know, you just want to break down and cry, but it wouldn't do no good.
A
Instead, like Joe Curran, David Cross decided to fight.
He's spent thousands of dollars defending Quincy. He's hired lawyers and private investigators to try and prove his son is innocent. Dara Woolman, my trusted source, is one of the people David worked with to help clear Quincy's name. When Dara found Quincy's case, it came with his whole family, with loved ones who've stood by him through the years, which I can tell you from my experiences in this line of work. It's actually rare. Incarcerated people are usually forgotten. But instead, Quincy has gained new family.
B
She's really something special, I gotta say that. She's really something special. For over three years now, we've spoken literally almost every day. I won't say every day, but she's persistent.
I got a question. Wake your ass up.
A
If you're noticing it sounds like there's an audience, it's because there is. On one of these visits, I didn't just meet with David alone. On my first trip, he brought the whole gang. His wife Mary, Quincy's biological mom, Quincy's sister. I think an aunt and a cousin were there too. There were also at least two private investigators and. And Dara on the floor sitting cross legged, filming like a proud mom.
B
Hey, Dara, will you get a picture of us while we're all sitting here too?
A
And there was another person there. All right, so Joe, we're going to be over here. Joe Curran.
B
I'd like to think we got the right person because he's spending a lot of time in prison, but evidence don't show he's the right person. Mr. Karen. I knew he knew something was wrong. Him and his family knew something was wrong.
A
After trial, Joe Curran should have felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. His daughter's murderer convicted. But the nagging feeling wouldn't leave him.
B
Then when you start looking to the case, Quincy's from another town. He didn't know my daughter. You got to have a motive, you got to have an opportunity. You got to have like, it's five things or the case is not a case. Well, I just couldn't figure out five things on him that would make him from another town, hadn't been involved with her, didn't know her, but he's supposed to come up here and killed her.
A
Yeah. So early on you were like, this doesn't make sense.
B
It didn't make sense.
A
A few years after the conviction, David hired a private investigator and had him reach out to Joe. He wanted the investigator to show Joe some of the concerns he had about his son killing Joe's daughter.
B
So when we started sharing information and really looking at what the evidence really was, then I think we started talking.
A
You know, they would get together and go over everything. Would you say you're friends?
B
Yes. And a lot of people think that me and Mr. Caring are an odd couple. But here's the way I see it. Here's my definition of it. Me and Mr. Karen want the same thing.
Mr. Currant want justice for his daughter, Jessica, and I want justice for my son, Quincy Cross. If Quincy Cross didn't do this, he's the last person I want in there. And I don't want the others to have went through what they went through if they're innocent. So if he didn't do it, who did?
A
Over the years, Joe, David, and their team of PIs, including Dara, went back to the beginning, to the original investigation. And they think they pinpointed where things derailed.
B
I'm sure you done read a whole lot about Susan Galvan.
A lady with a big mouth that spewed nothing but lies.
A
They discovered Susan wasn't just a busybody housewife looking for something to do. I told you that. In the immediate aftermath of Jessica's death, Victoria came forward with a story different than the one she told at trial. But it wasn't just a different version of the trial story. She actually implicated two completely different people.
I've been told that the answers in this case are somewhere in the beginning, in the first cops to look into Jessica's death and the very first people arrested for this crime. But the investigation into those people ended when Susan Galbraith homed in on Quincy Cross.
B
She just kept writing scenarios till they thought it fit the scenario of how. How this thing played out.
A
And the KBI and prosecution ran with her stories.
B
What bothers me is it comes back to the fact the police, the Commonwealth, the State of Kentucky, they let her have all this power. As far as I'm concerned, Susan Galbraith ain't got a goddamn thing to do with fucking shit with this case. Other than being a roadblock for there to be actual justice.
A
Susan Galbraith also knew there were two people arrested in the initial Mayfield police investigation. And one of those people she had close ties to.
That's next Time.
Graves county is a production of Lava for Good in association with Signal Company Number One. This show is written and produced by me, Maggie Freeling and Senior Producer Rebecca Ibarra. Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler and Kevin Werdis, our Executive producer. Our editor is Martina Abrahams. Ilunga Dania Suleiman is our fact checker. Sound design and mixing by Joe Claude Music created by Wrench. Our theme song is the Gangsta Grass version of the One who's Holding the Star by Leo Schofield and Kevin Herrick. Dara Woolman is Investigative producer. Our Head of Marketing and Operations is Jeff Clyburn. Eastmani Guadarrama is our Social Media Director, Director and our Social Media Manager is Sarah Gibbons. Andrew Nelson is Art Director with additional production help from Jackie Pauley, Kara Kornhaber and Kathleen Fink. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Threadsavorgood and follow me at Maggie Freeling and We know there's a lot of names for you to keep up with in this series, so for a detailed list of characters, please go to our Show Notes.
B
With Venmo Stash A taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and more, pick a bundle with your go tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stashterms. Hey audiobook lovers, I'm Kalpen. I'm Ed Helms. Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with our new podcast, Hearsay. The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Each week we sit down with your.
A
Favorite iHeart podcast hosts and some very.
B
Special guests to discuss the latest and greatest audiobooks from audible. Listen to Earsay on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Earsay and start listening on the free iHeartradio app today.
A
This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.
Podcast: Bone Valley (Lava for Good Podcasts)
Host: Maggie Freleng
Date: September 24, 2025
In this episode of Bone Valley’s third season, Maggie Freleng takes listeners deep into the complex and controversial investigation of the murder of Jessica Curran in Graves County, Kentucky. The episode explores the dubious investigation and prosecution that led to the conviction of Quincy Cross and others, highlighting the questionable evidence, coerced confessions, and tangled personal stories that underpin the state’s case. Through interviews, trial tapes, and reflections, the podcast reveals how rumors, community pressure, and aggressive law enforcement tactics shaped the pursuit of justice—and possibly led to its miscarriage.
On the mishandling of confessions:
“It sounds like the agents learned how to be detectives from watching Law and Order.” – Maggie Freleng ([23:11])
On the loneliness of fighting wrongful conviction:
“You just want to break down and cry, but it wouldn’t do no good.” – David Cross ([55:40])
On seeking justice, not retribution:
“If Quincy Cross didn’t do this, he’s the last person I want in there.” – Joe Curran ([59:26])
The episode blends measured journalism, empathy, and mounting frustration at the system’s failings. Maggie Freleng’s narration is compassionate but unsparing in its critique, and the direct words of affected families convey heartbreak, resilience, and a shared hunger for truth.
“Persons of Interest” exposes the shaky foundation of the prosecution that convicted Quincy Cross for Jessica Curran’s murder. Through flawed investigations, coerced confessions, unreliable physical evidence, and shifting stories, we see a justice system driven more by the need to close a high-profile case than to discover the truth. The emotional journey of both Quincy's and Jessica’s families—toward each other and away from the official narrative—lays the groundwork for new questions about who actually killed Jessica Curran, and what justice in Graves County should really mean. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, hinting that the answers may lie in the long-ignored beginnings of the case.