My Mother’s Lies | 2. My Mom, Susan

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Binge Cases – My Mother’s Lies | Episode 2: "My Mom, Susan"

Host: Beth Karras (Narrator)
Guests/Featured Voices: Ray McCord, Alice Arnold, Miranda Hellman, John Poole, Donna Adams, and others
Date: April 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the personal and complicated story of Susan Galbreath, the mother of Ray McCord, and her involvement in the investigation of Jessica Currin’s 2000 murder in Mayfield, Kentucky. Through Ray's inherited box of files, listeners explore Susan’s true motivations, the controversy around her citizen sleuthing, and the unraveling of her supposed heroism. The episode raises questions about memory, motive, and the messy nature of justice in small towns.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Pandora’s Box Metaphor

• Host Beth Karras opens by drawing a parallel to Pandora's box, likening Ray’s discovery of his mom’s files to unleashing uncomfortable truths that can’t be forgotten.
  • “Once the man opened the box, there was no going back.” [01:44]

2. Revisiting the Past: Ray and Alice Examine Susan’s Files

• Producer Alice Arnold visits Ray to go through the inherited case materials: transcripts, photos, notebooks, and Susan’s meticulous notes.
• Old photos show Susan working closely with Mayfield police, raising questions about her level of access and influence.
• The files contain a mix of investigative notes, personal to-dos, and family mementos, highlighting Susan’s complex identity.
  • Ray: “I always loved her handwriting, too…she was meticulous.” [05:42-05:45]

3. The Deconstruction of the Hero Narrative

• Ray, who once admired Susan’s citizen heroism (she received a state award for her involvement), confronts evidence that challenges her motivations and integrity.
• Notably, Ray sees a pattern of shifting facts and possible self-serving lies in her investigation:
  • Ray: “As I started looking into her stuff … this wasn’t the case … I was learning in real time the lies. There was a lot of lies.” [06:51]
  • “She wanted it. She wanted fame. She was just money. Always, you know, just money, money, money.” [07:43]
• Ray now fears Susan could have contributed to convicting the wrong person and feels a duty to set things right:
  • “If it’s wrong, I should fix it, you know, or try to right it.” [08:07]

4. Susan’s Early Life and Personality

• The episode provides a detailed look at Susan’s background:
  • Born in Chicago (1960), middle child of nine, mother at age 15 to Ray.
  • Ray’s early years were marked by instability; separated from Susan, told by his father she was dead before reconnecting at age nine.
  • Eventually taken in by Susan in Kentucky, Ray recalls fondness mixed with her lack of steady work, reliance on disability, and diagnosed bipolar disorder.
  • Ray: “Everything was a hustle with her. It was always a hustle. Everything.” [12:35]

5. The Murder of Jessica Currin and Entry of Susan

• The case: Jessica’s murder in 2000, evidence mishandled by Mayfield police.
  • Attorney Miranda Hellman and investigator John Poole pointedly critique the evidence collection:
    • Miranda Hellman: “I’m seeing bottles everywhere, cigarette butts … none of that is in evidence.” [17:45]
    • “If I handed this case file to my grandma … she would know to at least start with the body…” [18:44]
  • Evidence contamination rendered forensics virtually useless, shifting reliance to interviews and circumstantial evidence.

6. Early Suspects: Jeremy Adams and Lolo Saxton

• Jeremy Adams (Jessica’s ex and father of her child) and “Lolo” Saxton, both rumoured to be involved in drugs and violence, were initially arrested; serious evidence included alleged confessions and witness statements but also hearsay and confusion.
• Local bias and the cloud of racial dynamics played into jury selection and public perception.
  • Concerns over trial location for Adams, who is white, versus the later trial of Quincy Cross, a black man convicted by a largely white jury.
    • News Reporter: “…the new location would not provide a fair trial in this case. Case of a white man accused of killing a black woman. Marshall County’s population is almost entirely white.” [27:37]

7. Donna Adams: The Other Citizen Sleuth

• Jeremy’s mother Donna Adams, fiercely protective, ran her own amateur investigation—taping witness interviews, even wearing a wire—before eventually recruiting Susan to help clear her son’s name.
  • Donna Adams: “I turned in 16 tapes at the Mayfield Police Department.” [31:01]
  • Donna and Susan were friends, “good friends by most accounts.” [32:31]

8. Susan’s True Motives: Justice, Money, or Fame?

• Susan’s involvement appears motivated by more than community spirit:
  • Close friendship with the suspect’s mother.
  • Actively cultivating contact with Jeremy in jail:
    • Miranda Hellman: “Her job, her goal, her mission, was to clear Jeremy’s name… It was just that she was going to clear his name.” [34:34]
  • A $9,000 reward (equivalent to $15,000 today) may have incentivized her actions.
    • Ray: “My mom let money cloud her decisions, cloud her thoughts.” [35:59]
• The episode raises the possibility that Susan’s citizen heroism may have been self-serving and contributed to a miscarriage of justice.

9. Ray’s Dilemma: Legacy, Guilt, and Hope

• Ray grapples with the burden of his mother’s deeds and his responsibility to seek the truth, even if it means disrupting her legacy.
  • “I think if she were alive, she wouldn’t want me cooperating… But I think … she would want to rest in peace.” [37:10]
  • The show returns to the idea of hope being what remains after Pandora’s box is opened.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“As I started looking into her stuff and started realizing like, this wasn't the case, I was learning in real time the lies. There was a lot of lies.”
— Ray McCord [06:51]

“She wanted it. She wanted fame. She was just money. Always, you know, just money, money, money.”
— Ray McCord [07:43]

“Everything was a hustle with her. It was always a hustle. Everything.”
— Ray McCord [12:35]

“I knew what was up. I had to do what I had to do. This was my kid's life, you know what I mean? So I went out, was wired. I turned in 16 tapes at the Mayfield Police Department.”
— Donna Adams [30:47]

“Her job, her goal, her mission, was to clear Jeremy's name.”
— Miranda Hellman [34:34]

“My mom let money cloud her decisions, cloud her thoughts. And she was very smart.”
— Ray McCord [35:59]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Pandora’s Box Introduction: [00:30]–[02:59]
• Alice & Ray Examine Susan’s Files: [04:48]–[06:49]
• Ray Confronts Mother’s Lies: [06:49]–[08:07]
• Ray’s Childhood & Susan’s Background: [09:01]–[13:10]
• Susan’s Disability ‘Hustle’: [12:01]–[12:40]
• Unreliable Crime Scene/Evidence Mismanagement: [17:01]–[19:07]
• Focus on Jeremy & Lolo as Suspects: [19:12]–[27:30]
• Donna Adams’ Citizen Sleuth Efforts: [30:21]–[32:21]
• Susan’s Motivation & Alignment with Donna/Reward: [35:08]–[36:55]
• Ray’s Moral Struggle & Concluding Thoughts: [36:55]–[37:37]

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Tone & Language

The episode is investigative and reflective, weaving together skepticism, emotional candor, and methodical deconstruction of previous narratives. Speakers, especially Ray, are candid, confessional, and not afraid to voice doubts about their own or others’ memories or motives.

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Looking Forward

The episode concludes by teasing Susan’s partnership with UK journalist Tom Mengo and hints at a new suspect, continuing the series’ unraveling of Susan’s complex role in the case.

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Summary Prepared For: Listeners seeking an in-depth, candid, and nuanced recounting of Episode 2 — ideal for those who want key facts, context, and emotional resonance without needing to listen in full.

Transcript

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[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Listen to every episode of My Mother's Lies ad free right now when you subscribe to the binge, you'll hear the entire series before anyone else, get exclusive bonus episodes and unlock more than 60 other true crime podcasts. Just head to the Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and tap subscribe or visit getthebinge.com to listen wherever you are. The Binge Feed your true crime obsession the Binge. There's an old Greek myth you might know the one where a woman named Pandora is given a tightly sealed jar by Zeus and told never to open it. All Pandora must do is keep it safe and leave well enough alone. But curiosity gets the better of her. She opens the jar and lets loose all sorts of evil, sickness, envy, death. The contents wreak havoc across the world, leaving misery in their wake. Pandora didn't open the jar out of malice or stupidity. She was curious. She simply wanted to know the truth, however uncomfortable. Well, the story I'm going to tell you across the course of this series is in part the story of a man who opened his own version of Pandora's box. Not a jar sealed by the gods, but a dusty box taken from his garage. Inside it are notepads, letters and dog eared photographs that belong to his mother. But these are not sentimental memories. This is a vault of clues and secrets. And just like Pandora, once the man opened the box, there was no going back. It's early November 2025. Just before Thanksgiving, Kentucky has been gripped by a cold front. Just outside of Mayfield, in a brightly lit hotel lobby, our producer, Alice Arnold, is meeting Ray McCord.

[Ray McCord]

Nice to meet you.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

As you heard last time, Alice is no stranger to the Jessica Curran murder, nor Susan Galbraith's role in solving it. Alice has been looking into this story for several years now, but today is the first time she's speaking with Ray face to face. You see, Ray knows a lot about the real Susan. He's Susan Galbra's son, her only child. At the time of Susan's sudden death in 2018, Ray and his mom weren't talking much. They didn't exactly leave things on good terms. So after he inherited a bunch of her belongings, Ray stashed the boxes in his garage. One of those boxes included Susan's research on Jessica Curran's murder. In 2021, Ray was contacted by producers from Blink, the British TV company who wanted to make a film about his mom. Their plan was to tell the heroic story of how a citizen sleuth, with the help of an international journalist, had solved a gruesome murder in Mayfield, Kentucky. The timing felt right for Ray to finally confront some of his feelings towards his mother. So Ray went into the garage and opened the box. That was four years ago. And Alice, now working with us, was one of the TV producers who first got Ray digging into his mother's story. Since then, they've both been on a journey of discovery. But today, they're finally going over it all in person.

[Alice Arnold]

Should we rifle through your stuff? And I'll come Show me what we've got.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Together, Alice and Ray go through his mother's files. Transcripts of police interviews, official court documents, the autopsy report. They pause on some old photographs Susan took of each of the members of the Mayfield Police Department. You see, she was a keen photographer. How does she have these?

[Ray McCord]

Because she was working with all of them.

[Alice Arnold]

But what? She asked them for pictures.

[Ray McCord]

Probably just what she knew, like just to get it. Just to have stuff documented.

Look, there's her at the.

[Alice Arnold]

Investigating the scene. He's a good.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Along with those case files, Ray also inherited a stack of Susan's notebooks. Inside, mixed in with grocery lists and doodles, are her notes about her own investigation into Jessica Curran's murder.

[Ray McCord]

I always loved her handwriting, too.

I thought she had pretty handwriting.

[Alice Arnold]

She does. Yeah. And she's meticulous.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

For all their problems, Ray had always believed that against all odds, his mom actually helped a family get justice for the horrendous murder of their daughter. Lots of people believe that story. As we said in the last episode, the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation even gave Susan an Outstanding Citizen Award.

[Alice Arnold]

So this is the. This is the award that's from Greg

[Ray McCord]

Stumbo, the Attorney Attorney General at the time. I was very proud of my mom for everything that she had done. And the award that she received. It was all it was. It was pretty cool.

[Alice Arnold]

How do you feel about this award now?

[Ray McCord]

It's obviously tainted.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Tainted is one word for it. That award was his mother's crowning achievement. A rare moment of triumph in the life of a woman looking for purpose. But when Ray finally started digging through his mom's Case file. That image of his mom and her triumph crumbled.

[Ray McCord]

Well, it's because I went through everything, you know, I had all this stuff on the walls and like the yarn that was going from this to that. As I started looking into her stuff and started realizing like, this wasn't the case, I was learning in real time the lies. There was a lot of lies.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

He saw how easily facts shifted to suit Susan's theories. At first, what seemed like inaccuracies or errors began to look more intentional. Was this outright deception or self delusion on an epic scale? Either way, Ray realized the public had the wrong idea about his mother. Susan Galbraith was no hero. She hadn't been hell bent to find Jessica's killer. She wasn't driven to give Jessica's grieving parents peace. She had ulterior motives.

[Ray McCord]

She wanted it. She wanted fame. She was just money. Always, you know, just money, money, money.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

These revelations set Ray on a journey to discover the truth. He lives with a fear that his mother helped put away the wrong and in doing so, kept the Currans from getting justice for Jessica's murder. It's something he now feels compelled to make right.

[Ray McCord]

If it's wrong, I should fix it, you know, or try to right it.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

From Sony Music Entertainment and Message heard. You're listening to my mother's lies. This is episode two. My mom, Susan. Ray is 50 years old now, and he's still got a lot of conflicting feelings about his childhood. When he looks back at family photos, sometimes he smiles, other times not so much. They might have ended up estranged, but on the whole, Ray remembers his mom fondly. She had a lot of dreams, but like many of us, lacked the follow through.

[Ray McCord]

My mom was so all over the place. She wanted to be a photographer. She wanted to be a jack of all trades, but a master of none. She had an idea for all kinds of stuff, but, you know, nothing ever panned out.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Susan was born in Chicago in 1960, the middle child of nine. By the time she was 15, she had given birth to Ray. Ray's father was even younger, but in spite of this, took full custody when Susan up and left for Kentucky.

[Ray McCord]

My dad was 14, my mom was 15. So you can see kind of like where the gap could come with our relationship. You know, how difficult it could have been for a young woman to mother, you know, a child when she's a child herself.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Ray was raised with a lot of help from his paternal grandmother. As he grew up, his dad struggled with alcohol and would leave Ray alone for days with no food at home. During these early years, Ray had no contact with Susan. His father made sure of it.

[Ray McCord]

My dad had told me she was dead, so I didn't even know she existed. And then when I was nine, she used to come up and visit me at school, and I didn't even know who she was. And so through that, we built a relationship. I found out she was my mother, and then I ended up running away with her.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

After years of neglect by his dad, Ray finally went to live with Susan in Mayfield, Kentucky. By that time, she was in her mid-20s and ready to take care of him.

[Alice Arnold]

Was she a good mom?

[Ray McCord]

Yeah. I mean, she did better than my dad. She fell short on some things, but I'm not gonna knock her as a parent at this point.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Susan paid attention to him, cared for him, bought him candy and presents, and made sure there was food in the house. It was a big change from his life in Chicago.

[Ray McCord]

I was growing up in the streets of Chicago. Mayfield was like heaven. Everything was just green and nice, and people were friendly, and they were waving it. You know, everybody waved at everybody, and that was just so foreign.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Unlike at his dad's place, Susan's was filled with noise and people and fun. She loved music. In the box of her things, Ray found a notebook filled with page after page of her favorite karaoke tunes.

[Ray McCord]

Her and her sisters had their own line dance that they created. And so usually if a couple of them got together and music came on, mostly like the song we are Family, yeah, they would, like, get up and dance to it, you know, and do their little line dance.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

One thing Ray doesn't remember his mom ever having was a job. She mostly supported him on her disability checks. Susan had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She had some good days and some bad, but on the days she went in for her disability assessment, she made sure she looked like she was really struggling.

[Ray McCord]

So my mom went with my cousin Jennifer to go be evaluated for her disability. A crazy check, she called it. So she goes in there with her hair disheveled, like she put on a show for them to get her check. She had her. Her shirt buttoned all wrong, different colored socks. She would cry in the. Like in an interview, and it was a fraud.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

But looking back, Ray feels like his mom knew what she had to do to get that check and did it to provide for her family. She was good at getting what she needed.

[Ray McCord]

Everything was a hustle with her. It was always a hustle. Everything.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

At the time of Jessica's murder in 2000, Susan's marriage was breaking up, and she was feeling unmoored and unmotivated. But this was the moment everything changed. Standing before Jessica Curran's body at the middle school, it seems Susan found the sense of purpose she was seeking. Although it would be another four years before she acted on it. As we mentioned last time, Susan is the only Mayfield citizen to appear on the police log for that day.

[Alice Arnold]

What do you know about your mom being at the crime scene and being in the crime scene log?

[Ray McCord]

That shouldn't have happened.

[Alice Arnold]

How did that happen?

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

What compelled her to physically step into the crime scene is still something of a mystery. Frankly, even trying to figure out what exactly brought her there is up for debate.

[Ray McCord]

There's four different stories. My aunt has a story that my mom told her. My aunt Judy, and then my aunt Pat has another story that my mom told her. I have a story that my mom told me, and then she's got a story that she told the news people.

[Alice Arnold]

I've got a restaurant story here.

[Ray McCord]

The restaurant story. So this would have been in the morning, right? The restaurant don't even serve breakfast.

[Alice Arnold]

Why do you think there are so many stories?

[Ray McCord]

Well, because, I mean, there's only. Logically, it's a lie.

[Alice Arnold]

Was your mom prone to lying?

[Ray McCord]

My mom used to tell me, I'm going to tell you something, but if you tell anybody, I'll tell them you're a liar. She would call me a liar if I told somebody something that she told me.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Susan told conflicting versions over the years, depending on whom she was speaking to. As her story evolved, the truth became more elusive. So over the course of this podcast, using the contents of Ray's boxes, Susan's emails, letters, and her interview recordings, we're going to try to unpack her story. We're going to try to figure out how a housewife who didn't hold a job, who had no experience or investigative training and was in the habit of lying ended up central to the state's prosecution to convict a man for Jessica's murder.

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[Orbit Media Narrator]

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[Ray McCord]

Where is this day going to end? Will I be in prison or will I make it million dollars?

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

I would go to a Chipotle and

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[Ray McCord]

I put the shotgun right behind his ear, he stiffens up and I pull the trigger.

[Orbit Media Narrator]

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[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Let's go back to the start, the place where it all began to go wrong. The crime scene evidence collection is something you have to get right immediately or it can hamper your investigation permanently. In this case, as we told you last time, the evidence was bungled from the start. But let's see exactly how it unfolded, how confusion turned to chaos, and how the void was created for Susan Galbraith to step into the now lawyer Miranda Hellman studied the police crime scene video from that day. She immediately identified a number of items that do not appear in the official evidence log.

[Miranda Hellman]

And so when I'm looking around the video, I'm seeing bottles everywhere, I'm seeing cigarette butts everywhere, I'm seeing trash everywhere. I'm seeing pieces of fabric kind of spread all around, not just really, you know, located on her body itself.

And none of that is in evidence.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Items like hair clumps, a plastic bottle apparently smelling of gasoline, part of a black braided belt and buckle could all be vital for DNA testing and forensic analysis. Whose hair? Whose belt? What type of gas? Not to mention fingerprints. Yet much of this evidence never made it to the police station. And the items that did, well, many were mishandled, mislabeled or misfiled. For instance, evidence boxes were logged incorrectly. And as a result, unrelated rape swabs were found in the current evidence boxes. A critical contamination error.

[Miranda Hellman]

You know, if I handed this case file to my grandma and said, grandma, go investigate a murder, I feel like she would collect the items of evidence on the body. She's played clue before, and she would know to at least start with the body. And if you see anything that looks like it could be a murder weapon or involved in, you know, here we're talking about a fire, we should collect those things, too.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

With the crime scene and evidence now contaminated, it would prove nearly impossible to rely on any forensics. From this point on, the Jessica Curran investigation would come down to other police work. Conducting interviews, identifying witnesses, and generating leads. A job lead Detective Tim Fortner was better equipped for. In the months following the murder, local police went house to house, talking to Jessica's friends and family, establishing her movements that day, which over time, led them to two suspects. In the last episode, you heard how the indictment against them was thrown out because of an inadvertent discovery violation on the part of law enforcement. But there's something we didn't tell you, that one of those two original suspects allegedly confessed to Jessica's murder. Those two suspects were Carlo Saxton, Jessica's new boyfriend, better known locally as Lolo. The second was the father of her child, Jeremy Adams. Both men were reported to be prone to violence. Lolo was said to be the jealous type, possessive, even. They were also both rumored to be involved in drug circles. But after sifting through the local gossip and hearsay, Mayfield cops focused on Jeremy Adams as their primary suspect. Here's attorney Miranda Hellman again. Remember, she would come to represent a different suspect years later in 2008.

[Miranda Hellman]

Jeremy, he has a fairly long criminal record. It's sort of well known, I think, in Mayfield, that he struggles with substance abuse and mental health. He was in and out of shelters and sort of living on the street. His arrest record kind of shows a lot of the same things. Some of it's violent. Some of it is domestic violence related.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

This view of Jeremy is shared by John Poole, a local private investigator who would also end up on the defense team for one of the accused.

[John Poole]

If you look into Jeremy's background, he has a real history of selling drugs, assaults, all sorts of things. From the interviews that I did with people that knew about him said he had a bad childhood, he had all kinds of. Of problems.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

And Joe Curran's opinion of Jeremy hasn't changed over the years either.

[Orbit Media Narrator]

He's kind of a wild guy. Most everybody is kind of scared of him because he's. He does crazy things.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Mayfield police detectives looked for someone with a reason, a motive to kill Jessica. According to some witnesses they interviewed, Jeremy didn't want his current girlfriend, net Todd, to find out he had fathered a child with Jessica. But Jessica was a single mom and needed government assistance. She had to name a father on the paperwork to get those benefits. Another piece of gossip was that Jessica might have been holding drug money for Jeremy and Lolo. And there's more. Remember Jessica's 16 year old cousin, Benisha Stubblefield? The one who told police that she last saw Jessica walking off into the night alone? Well, you're about to hear a tape of a police interview with two other Mayfield teens who claim that at the time of the murder, Benisha apparently admitted to knowing exactly what happened and who did it. Something she had not told police initially. According to these witnesses, Benisha told them that she and Jessica were walking home when a white car pulled over.

[Miranda Hellman]

She was telling me that that night it happened just before I got killed. She said she was there. They was walking.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

That old police tape is hard to hear, so I'll summarize what they said. They claimed Venetia had admitted to them that she had been sitting in the white car with Jessica, Lolo, Jeremy, and a man named Austin Leach. And that's when the men started beating Jessica. They parked the car by the middle school and got Jessica out of it. According to the tape, the young girls say Benisha told them she stayed inside and that she heard screaming, then silence before the men ran back to the vehicle. So, I mean, that's pretty explosive information if true. But here's the problem that the Mayfield cops were faced with. New names pop up and disappear. And these young girls are repeating something someone else told them. They don't witness it, so it's hearsay, but. But leads the police can follow up on. Also, the issue of the white car will be a point of contention and confusion throughout the case. So, to be fair, Mayfield police had their work cut out, trying to corroborate rumors, chasing gossip, and dealing with witnesses who are afraid to speak out. It was slow work, but over the course of two years, the witness statements kept stacking up. Here's a 2003 police interview with the then boyfriend of Jeremy's mother, Donna. He claimed Jeremy burst into their apartment in the hours after the murder in a state of panic.

[Donna Adams' Boyfriend]

Two, maybe three in the morning. Something like, that woke me and Donna. I'm laying in bed. Donna's like, come in here, man. Jeremy gonna talk to you, man. I better go to work, you know. Anyhow, he's paying some floor, man. He acted funny, you know. He just told me. He said, I think I up

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

again. Let me clarify. This guy is claiming to the police that Jeremy woke them up in the middle of the night, talking about how he'd screwed up. He didn't say what he'd done, just that he was going to go to prison for it anyhow.

[Donna Adams' Boyfriend]

Go to prison for shift. And he'd tell me what happened. It's just that he just kept moaning over and over that I fucked up. I'm off the crib.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

In that same interview, Detective Tim Fortner asks if Jeremy's mom, Donna Adams, knew anything about the crime. It seems to put Donna's boyfriend in an awkward position, but his answer is telling.

[Donna Adams' Boyfriend]

You think Donna knows anything? Yeah, she'll take it to her grave, too. Yeah, she loved that kid.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

For the Mayfield cops, the final piece of evidence were statements from Jeremy's own cellmates. You see, Jeremy was in and out of jail on drug charges in the years since the murder between 2000 and 2004. And various inmates reported similar things to the police. According to them, Jeremy outright confessed that he murdered Jessica.

[Jailhouse Informant]

He was worried that Annette was going to find out that he had a baby with her and that he had been cheating with Jessica. He said that she had. As they was arguing, he grabbed hold of her. I guess it had startled her or what have you. And she had struck him, and she struck him. He said that he lost control of himself and pick something up, he said. Described it as a piece of metal and struck her. She was running when he struck her,

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

and she had failed, he said.

[News Reporter]

Where he hit her at?

[Jailhouse Informant]

He said, in the back of the head.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Again, I mean, that's pretty compelling evidence, if true. Now, in fairness, we should note here that Jeremy's defense later claimed that these accusations were false and that any statement from a jailhouse informant came from both. Bad policing. Regardless, Mayfield police eventually charged both Jeremy Adams and Lolo Saxton with the murder of Jessica Curran. Not only did they feel they had probable cause based on circumstantial evidence and witness statements, but they also felt it was proof beyond a reasonable doubt sufficient to support a conviction at trial. But the defense attorneys were well prepared. Even before a trial date could be set, lawyers for Lolo and Jeremy got the case moved outside of Mayfield to a neighboring county. As the pretrial hearing approached, local news started circling.

[News Reporter]

The judge moved the trial of the accused, Jeremy Adams, to Marshall county because of pretrial publicity. Recently, the victim's friends and family pushed to reverse that decision. They argue the new location would not provide a fair trial in this case. Case of a white man accused of killing a black woman. Marshall County's population is almost entirely white.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

The suggestion that race might have played a part in the jury's decision is worth bearing in mind when we come back to the eventual 2008 trial of Quincy Cross, a black man who eventually is convicted of this crime by a mostly white jury. In the end, the concerns over where Jeremy's trial should take place were never put to the test.

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[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

In early 2003, after the cases against Jeremy Adams and Lolo Saxton were thrown out, the community was in turmoil. The mayor of Mayfield publicly demanded an investigation into his own police department. Tim Fortner was removed and then resigned before the Mayfield Police Department handed the case over in its entirety to the Kentucky State Police. Now, it's important to note here that the case against Jeremy and Lola was never heard. It was dismissed, but without prejudice. That means the same charges can be brought again, the same evidence presented, the same suspects brought to trial. So with her son still in the spotlight, Donna Adams was determined to see Jeremy cleared of suspicion. And as you heard from her ex boyfriend, Donna wasn't one to take things lying down. Over a decade later, she still seemed angry about her son being charged with Jessica's murder. You can hear how strongly she defends her son.

[Donna Adams]

Motherfucker. I may not have no money, but I'm gonna tell you something. You fucked with the wrong kid. Because he didn't do this. And it may take me 20 years and it may take kill me doing it, but I'm gonna clear my kids now.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Donna was something of a force of nature and really took matters into her own hands. With no experience or training, it seems like she started her own amateur detective agency.

[Donna Adams]

I knew what was up. I had to do what I had to do. This was my kid's life, you know what I mean? So I went out, was wired. I turned in 16 tapes at the Mayfield Police Department.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

You heard that, right? Donna Adams, the main suspect's mother, turned in 16 tapes to the police. Now she means audio tapes, as in interviews that she conducted on her own with witnesses and suspects of her choosing. Many of them, by the way, were covert recordings. She was basically going around wearing a wire. But that's legal in Kentucky since it's a one party consent state, meaning only one person to a conversation needs to consent to a recording. And of course Donna was consenting. Still, it's all pretty bizarre. And that's not all. Jeremy also got in on the act. During interviews with police, he let them know that he could help them find the real killer. It was a concerted campaign to clear Jeremy's name. Needless to say, the new investigators from the Kentucky State Police weren't having any of Donna's self serving investigation to clear her son. And they weren't about to start sharing information with their prime suspect and his family. So by 2004, Donna felt she needed help. She needed someone who could be seen as neutral, someone the police might listen to. As it happened, she had someone in mind. Susan Galbraith.

[Donna Adams]

Well, I'm sorry, but you fucked with the wrong bitch and the wrong kid. That's how I got sue involved.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

As it turns out, Susan and Donna were friends, good friends by most accounts.

[Miranda Hellman]

Once Susan Galbraith moved to Mayfield, Donna and Susan Galbraith essentially lived in like an apartment type situation where it was a house that was split. Everything I've seen and believe and what have been told and reviewed shows that Donna and Susan were friends for quite some time. And that's really how Susan met Jeremy Adams and I think explains sort of her involvement.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

She and Donna often threw parties together. Susan's son Ray was a young man in his 20s by this time. And he remembers Donna at one particular party.

[Ray McCord]

One memory I have of her is

I was walking through the house and

she like grabbed my face and she was loud, like very loud and obnoxious,

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

I have to say. Even ignoring the strength of the case against Jeremy Whether he's innocent or not. Just taking this in isolation. Susan teaming up with the lead suspect's mother and girlfriend. I'm sorry, whatever her motivations might have been at the outset, I just can't see how she could have been impartial. I suspect she never really looked at the strength of the evidence against Jeremy, rather that she was laser focused on looking elsewhere. Private investigator John Poole goes further. He believes that Susan had a clear agenda from the outset.

[John Poole]

Susan Galbert is Einvest and others investigated and found was a very good friend of Jeremy Adams mother. And I believe her whole goal was to take any interest or any problems away from Jeremy Adams.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

According to Miranda Hellman, Susan and Jeremy were soon writing to one another, speaking on the phone, even meeting in person. And that in her communications with him, Susan was crystal clear about her role.

[Miranda Hellman]

She was also very close with Jeremy. That she was getting calls from the jail that she was really out and out saying that her job, her goal, her mission, was to clear Jeremy's name. And not because she didn't know, you know, that she knew he didn't do it. It was just that she was going to clear his name.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

So in early 2004, Susan took up Jeremy's cause, joining forces with Donna and Net. But the question remains, why did she get involved? What's in it for her? Did she simply want to help a friend in need? Was it because she'd hit a rough patch in her life and needed a purpose? Or was there a more practical reason, like the reward money, perhaps? Back when Susan first got involved, Mayfield City hall was offering $9,000 for information leading to a break in the case. That's more like $15,000 today to a woman living on a disability check. That's a lot. Of course, we can't ask Susan ourselves, but her son Ray thinks that reward played a significant part.

[Ray McCord]

My mom let money cloud her decisions, cloud her thoughts.

And she was very smart.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

The idea that his mom, Susan, far from being an outstanding citizen, may have been involved in an awful conversation. I mean, defending the son of a friend who, for all she knows, could be the killer for a reward. It's a terrible legacy for Ray to inherit, But Rey, to his credit, is trying to find out exactly what his mother did and face it. Remember the story at the beginning about Pandora opening the box? People often forget the ending. That as all the evils of the world flew out, she managed to slam down the lid and trap one thing inside. Hope. The point is, hope is what remains to help us endure.

[Ray McCord]

I'm supposed to do this. If it's wrong, I should fix it, you know, or try to right it.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

But it's not easy for Ray. He's struggling. He knows in many ways he's going against what his mother would want for my mom.

[Ray McCord]

I think

if she were alive, she

wouldn't want me cooperating with anybody the way I am. But I think where she's at now, I think she would want to rest in peace. And if there's any way that I can use the stuff that she has to bring peace to anybody, even her, that, you know, it's all worth it.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

Next on My Mother's Lies, we see how veteran British journalist Tom Mengo comes to her assistance and opens up a world of possibilities.

[Ray McCord]

Everything that she wanted for herself, it was in her reach. Now, you know, with Tom being involved, she wanted big things for herself and

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

how together they unlocked the doors and the files that would lead Susan to a new suspect.

[Donna Adams]

I had Jeremy's motion to discovery, you know, stuff like that.

[Ray McCord]

Did you give all that stuff to Sue?

[Donna Adams]

Yeah, she's got every bit of it.

[Narrator / Host (Beth Karras)]

That's next time on My Mother's Lies. At the time of release, we have not received a response from Carlos Saxton or Jeremy Adams regarding allegations reported in this episode. Net Todd responded, denying having any knowledge of the crime nor any involvement with Susan's investigation. The Mayfield Police Department responded, saying none of the investigators that worked on the current case 26 years ago remain employed by the department, and the department was, quote, not in a position to respond to the allegations. Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of My Mother's Lies ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Search for the binge on Apple podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page, not on Apple. Then head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the 1st of every month. Check out the Binge channel page on apple podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. This is My Mother's Lies, an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Message Heard, hosted by me, Beth Karras from Message Heard. Alice Arnold is our investigator Producer Robin Simon our producer McAllister Bexson, our series producer Thiago Diaz our assistant producer Alan Lear is our supervising sound editor, supported by sound editors Lizzie Andrews and Ivan Easley with original composition by Mike Mains from Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producers are Katharine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch from Blink Films. Our executive producer is Justine Kershaw, and a big thanks to the whole Sony Music Entertainment team.

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