September 25, 2025 • 20 mins
Jason Flom sits down for an interview with Maggie Freleng, the Pulitzer prize-winning producer, journalist and host of Bone Valley Season 3 | Graves County. In this special episode, Maggie talks with Jason about her experiences reporting this show from a small town in Kentucky for over 2 years, and how truth and justice can get lost in the pursuit of retribution.
Graves County is out now in the Bone Valley feed. New episodes are available every Wednesday. Subscribers to Lava For Good+ on Apple Podcasts can listen to the entire series today.
To learn more and get involved, please visit:
https://governor.ky.gov/contact
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/541-guest-host-maggie-freleng-with-quincy-cross/
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is Connor Hall, the producer for Wrongful Conviction, and
we're taking a break from our usual release schedule to
discuss Maggie Feeling's new documentary series called Graves County. It's
out now as season three of Bone Valley. In the
Bone Valley Feed, we'll link it in the episode description.
So we got Jason and Maggie to discuss some of
the things that Maggie discovered over the past few years
(00:27):
while investigating a case that you may have heard about
here a few years ago. This is the murder of
Jessica Current and the wrongful conviction of Quincy Cross, among
several others, and the story takes us to Mayfield, Kentucky
aka Grapes County.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
The new season of Bone Valley, which I'm just gonna
say it out loud, is as powerful as the first one.
People said it couldn't be done, but this story is
every bit as crazy, and the podcast itself is I
think as brilliant of a masterpiece of storytelling as the
(01:05):
first one was.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you, Jason.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
It was obviously an honor to be on the Bone
Valley Feed with Gilbert, who I admire so much. Bone
Valley one was I remember saying to you. I was like,
or I think I said to Gilbert, you know, I
wish I made that. I was so mad he made it.
I was so jealous he made it. I was like,
that's the best podcast I ever heard. I wish I
made that. So I think I might have made something
(01:28):
equally as good you did.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
You did, And somebody was saying to me this morning,
I could just listen to her all day. I mean, you,
your voice is made for this format. And furthermore, you
know the fact that you wrote it and produced it
is you know, kudos to you, and hopefully there's another
Pulitzer coming your way. I'll never forget. I'll never forget
when you called me. By the way, this is off topic,
(01:52):
but for Eovil, Maggie of course knows the story because
she's the one who called me. But we were in
Nashville where Maggie was going to present me with an award.
I think it was the which one was it?
Speaker 4 (02:03):
It was it was an impact of it. It was
like it was a music award or something.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, So Maggie was kind of fly down and
offered to present me with this award, and the day
of the awards ceremony, which supposed to be that night.
I get a call from Maggie in the afternoon and
she says, I just found out I want to pull Itzir.
I was like, huh, I go how'd you get the news?
She goes, well, I was sitting in the hot top
of my hotel drinking whiskey when I got the call,
(02:28):
and I was like, Okay, that's perfect, and I'm going
to remember this moment forever. It also was very It
was good because it was just it was just absolutely
appropriately humbling because of the idea that I was going
to go get this cleo. So anyway, it's perfect. And
speaking of awards, there's some breaking news about Keith Lamar,
which is a case that lives rent free in my head,
and I'm sure for anyone who's listened to the Wrongful
(02:49):
Conviction episode on Keith Lamar's case is probably feel the
same way. Keith Lamar is in process of being nominated
for an Alternative Jazz Award for his Spoken Word. I mean,
Keith Lamar's on death row and accomplishing more than almost
anyone I know in the free world with his art,
(03:10):
with his music, with his spirit. Keith, I hope you
get to hear this because we have nothing but love
and respect for you, and we hope to see you
out here sometime soon where you belong. So so, Maggie,
let's talk about Mayfield, Kentucky. You know, you and I
went down there.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Like Cities Sleep two and a half years, like almost
three years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Now, Yeah, eyes wide open, and I don't know if
we were ready for what we found.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
You know, it reminded me a lot of these small towns.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I did Murder and Alliance a few years ago in
a small town in Ohio. It was a very similar
small police department, not equipped for a murder in any
sort of way. And in these small towns, like rumors
really become fact. And that was one of the first
things that we really kind of honed in on. We
were like, there's so much gossip, so many things going on,
(04:01):
we don't even know it's real. Right, that was like
our first trip, just trying to gather information, hearing all
of these crazy things about sex trafficking and stuff that
none of that made it into the podcast because we
weren't able to really corroborate some of it, but you know,
we heard so many different things. So from the beginning,
we just had a huge task at our hands of
(04:24):
kind of parsing fact from fiction. And that's what happens
in these small towns. Gossip becomes fact over the years.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, from my perspective, it was such a powerful experience,
and not in the least part because of the fact
that we were with the families of both the person
who was murdered, Jessica Kurrn, who was so viciously brutally
(04:51):
murdered at the young age of eighteen, and the man
who is still in prison after twenty plus years. I'm
just going to say, for having not committed this crime right,
but being charged with it and convicted of it anyway,
And so pretty unusual but not unprecedented to have these
(05:12):
two families united in wanting justice for their kids.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
It's so rare that we see the victims family standing
up for the accused. So that just speaks volumes to
the characture of the currents of Jessica's family to be
able to use their own critical thinking skills and see
outside of the prosecution's narrative that something wasn't right.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
They're not gullible people, right, And so I think that
consciously or subconsciously, the cops and prosecutors that were involved
in this case expected that this would just go away.
They would make an arrest, the family would be happy,
the headlines would run, everyone would get a pat on
the back, maybe a rais or motion, and everyone would
(06:02):
move on. But they don't understand apparently, who Joe Current
is and what his family is. They're pillars of the community, yes,
and they are extremely devoted parents and they are not
going to be trifled with or pushed aside as the
(06:23):
authorities wanted them to be. They're not docile.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
You know, you just hit on something is that Joe
was an important member of this community. He had, you know,
grown up here, he worked at the fire department. You know,
he did everything right. He was the correct kind of
person of color in this segregated town. He grew up
during segregation and was able to overcome a lot of that.
(06:51):
He has a successful business.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Now.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
You know, those were difficult things at the time. And
you know, when Jessica died, he expected that community that
he gave so much to give back to him and
he didn't get that. And you know, one of the
things we did want to put in and because it
just spoke so much to this community. Was David Cross.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
David Cross, of course is Quincy Cross's father.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Both of those dads, they both were pillars in their community.
They both survived segregation. David Cross still has a little
segregated one room schoolhouse in the back of his yard
that he went to school in as a little black boy.
This shack and I said to him, I said, where'd
the white kids go? He said, to the nice school
down the street. So you know, these are men who
(07:34):
have survived and been through so much, and to see
them being a team instead of adversaries, it was so
beautiful and humbling because they fought through the civil rights movement.
I mean, freaking Joe Kern was out there protesting for
civil rights. Like Joe Kern's other son just died. Like
(07:56):
they have been through so much. I don't know how
you get out of bed and keep fighting.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early
and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
One of the initial suspects in this case was named
Jeremy Adams. He had a child with the victim and
was indicted alongside Carlos or Lolo Saxton, the victim's boyfriend
at the time, but when the case was mishandled, their
indictments were dismissed, at which point a friend of Jeremy's mother,
a woman named Susan Golbreanth, began offering rewards on social media,
(08:53):
which brought her alleged witnesses, and the story that emerged
was a complete break from the narrative of the original indictment.
It involved group sex in which Jessica was allegedly involved
before and after her death. Interestingly, this steered everyone away
from Susan's friend's son Jeremy and eventually grabbed the attention
of a BBC reporter, catapulting Susan's ideas into becoming the
(09:18):
state's narrative.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
In this case, the story that is created this crazy
orgy sex, disgusting.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Whatever acroyphilia yes thrown even.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
In everywhere, this was not the original story. First of all,
there was no evidence at all, zero that she was
sexually assaulted, so then this story doesn't even come about
until four or five years later when Susan and the
reporter get involved and it's actually the reporter who picks
up on while her underwear wasn't on her, so there
(09:55):
must have been a sexual assault. Q a few years
later to the KBI than and grotesquely asking these women
how much semen quincy cross sprayed all over the room.
There was no semen in the room. Jason, where is
this coming from? That is the most shocking thing to me.
How we got to this insane, disturbing, disgusting story where
(10:17):
you hear KBI officers pressing young women about where semen
was sprayed and there's not an ounce of semen in
this case? How does that happen? So one of the
things we found out when reporting, and it's all public record,
is we had emails between Susan Galbreath, the Citizen investigator
to say it kindly, and a BBC journalist that she
(10:39):
reached out to saying, you know, there's this crazy story
and you should be here reporting this, and we have
their emails that they wrote back and forth.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
To each other.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
And what we've discovered was that this story that was
put out there by the media, specifically this BBC journalist,
was half truths. We saw in these emails that actually
a lot of the information that was being put out
was actually not true, and the journalist knew beforehand, had
gotten some email saying, look this information of people you
(11:10):
know saying they did this, they've recanted, and instead of
reporting the facts saying, hey, these people said this, but
they have recanted. So it's a little unclear. This story
was driven that these are the people they did this.
They said they did this. There was even a point
where they reported that Quincy Cross was stalking Susan Goalbreath,
(11:30):
only to find out later it was her own husband
stalking her. Yet no correction was ever made.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Right, so this stalker I hadn't even heard about that.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So yeah, so Susan was actually going through either a
divorce or had been divorced at the time, and her
husband was like harassing and stalking her, and she was
telling this reporter it was Quincy Cross, so this reporter
was just taking her word for it, and really that's
kind of.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
What we found.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
There was a lot of taking of Susan's word. And
then her friend who was quote working with her, this
woman named Lacey Gates, was actually then going to the
reporter saying, hey, the thing Susan's telling you don't seem
to actually be accurate and bore out by facts, and
that's when we started realizing there was something more than
(12:20):
just malpractice. There was really an effort to kind of
make Susan look like this, this wonderful helper lady, this
victim of Quincy Cross, and it was a made for
TV story from the beginning. They were hoping for movie
deals with this fantastic story they created. So that's the
kind of trickery that we were dealing with with this
(12:43):
story and this specific journalist and their reporting.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So, Maggie, this is a really full circle kind of
a feeling that I'm having about Bone Valley Graves County
right season three of Bone Valley, because it just occurred
to me that if not for the media attention that
Susan and what became her sort of partner in this
frame job, if not for the fact that they've been
(13:10):
able to get the media on board with the nonsensical
theories that they cooked up for a variety of reasons
and motives, they could have never gotten this conviction in
the first place.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So now, what I'm hoping is that the full circle
of it all is that Graves County Podcast will actually
be like the counterweight right and fix it.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
It is really meta to have another journalist come in
and try and fix this and make it right. And
that just speaks so much to the importance of journalism ethics.
When you find out something before you report a piece
that really shatters the entire narrative you're going to report,
(13:51):
you need to say that otherwise it's dishonest.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
And that's what we got in this story, Maggie.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This case is unique for a number of reasons. One
is that most wrongful conviction cases involve one person being
wrongfully convicted. This ain't that right. This involves a slew
of wrongfully charged and or convicted people. Can you explain
what I mean by.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
That Nine people were charged for one murder and there
were countless stories that these people were charged under. You know,
we go into the podcast how the prosecution story had
to change because the original story that they thought of, well,
Quincy was in jail, so he couldn't have been burning
a body. So then they have to now involve another
person who could have burned and moved this body. So
(14:51):
they find Isaac Benjamin. This kid was charged and convicted
for moving Jessica's body. We don't even freaking know who
this is, how he relates to anybody? We don't mention
him by name in the podcast, But Isaac Benjamin is
another one who was charged and convicted. There were two
other people who were charged. Austin Leach, he was actually
(15:12):
acquitted in this Austin Leach is charged. It's his car,
they're saying did this. He's acquitted. But where is Austin
Leach's car in this trial? Where's Austin Leach's name? Where
aren't we talking about this man that helped move this body? Right?
Why aren't we talking about Isaac Benjamin who allegedly helped
burn and move this body?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You know?
Speaker 4 (15:34):
And what happened to Jeremy and Lolo the first two
people who were charged under a completely different story. Like,
I am at a loss for words sometimes when I
think of if anyone and this is probably why Joe
kurran knew something was wrong. How are each of these
people being charged under this one's story when at Quincy's
(15:54):
trial their names don't even come up as accomplices. It
just makes no sense. And the scariest thing to me
is that this prosecutor has been in office since nineteen
eighty two, Jason nineteen eighty two. This woman Barbara mains Wayy.
We have identified at least five people we believe are
(16:17):
wrongfully convicted under Barbara Mainz Whaley.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, it's that five wrongful convictions include the ones from
this case.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
That is, the ones from this case. That's the ones
I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, I don't know which.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Are there any others? I'm sure there are.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
We I mean, these things tend to be in clusters.
We know that, right, because it becomes a pattern. Right
when people do this and they find that it's good
for them in their career or whatever their ambitions are,
they do it again because there don't seem to be
any repercussible There aren't any repercussions for them, right. The
prosecutors have absolute immunity. Police have qualified immunity. And what
(16:55):
that means in practical terms is they basically, what it
means in simplest terms is they never get in trouble
for doing this stuff. Almost never. This one stinks from
the top.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That's what it is. You just said.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
It's the top down and these people, these humans are
dealing with this consequence of the corruptibility of power.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You know, the beauty of this podcast. Advocacy is a
term that maybe I coined it, I don't know, but
I'd like to use it. That we do is that
sometimes it actually causes people to straighten up and fly right,
and we're hoping against hope, and it's important. If you've
already listened to Bone Valley Braves County, then you know,
(17:39):
get involved, talk about it, put it on your social media,
send a letter somewhere, send an email.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
The governor to Kentucky Governor. I mean, you could send
it to the AG's office, but who knows what that's.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Going to do.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Barbara mains Waley is the Assistant Attorney General and she's
been in that position for decades and decades. I can't
imagine that she's going to go back and reinvestigate her
own case. But the governor, that's probably the way to go.
That's what i'd recommend people right to the governor. We're
going to put a linked in the episode description for
where you can write and be respectful. It doesn't make
(18:12):
sense to curse anybody out or do anything like that.
You may want to time you finished listening to the
sixth episode, but the fact is the best thing to
do is be respectful and just make it known that
you're upset about this. You're outraged. So Maggie, any closing
thoughts before we wrap up this very special, unique episode
of Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I think our listeners will surely understand.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You know that this is not unique.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
What happened to Quincy Cross and all the others is
not unique. This happens all the time. But I would
love to say, please share it. I mean, it's a
digestible story. It's an interesting story, it's a mystery. There's
twists and turns.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
But the person you.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
Share it with will learn something about wrongful convictions on
the criminal legal system. So it's not just a wrongful conviction.
It's something people can learn from. There's so much in
it besides just the wrongful conviction. I mean, there's stories
of girlhood and being a child, and like I said,
power and corruption and there's so much there. So I
think you know, if you love the podcast, please please
(19:15):
please share it with somebody who might not know what's
going on in this area of the world.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(19:47):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is Connor Hall, the producer for Wrongful Conviction, and
we're taking a break from our usual release schedule to
discuss Maggie Feeling's new documentary series called Graves County. It's
out now as season three of Bone Valley. In the
Bone Valley Feed, we'll link it in the episode description.
So we got Jason and Maggie to discuss some of
the things that Maggie discovered over the past few years
(00:27):
while investigating a case that you may have heard about
here a few years ago. This is the murder of
Jessica Current and the wrongful conviction of Quincy Cross, among
several others, and the story takes us to Mayfield, Kentucky
aka Grapes County.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
The new season of Bone Valley, which I'm just gonna
say it out loud, is as powerful as the first one.
People said it couldn't be done, but this story is
every bit as crazy, and the podcast itself is I
think as brilliant of a masterpiece of storytelling as the
(01:05):
first one was.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you, Jason.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
It was obviously an honor to be on the Bone
Valley Feed with Gilbert, who I admire so much. Bone
Valley one was I remember saying to you. I was like,
or I think I said to Gilbert, you know, I
wish I made that. I was so mad he made it.
I was so jealous he made it. I was like,
that's the best podcast I ever heard. I wish I
made that. So I think I might have made something
(01:28):
equally as good you did.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
You did, And somebody was saying to me this morning,
I could just listen to her all day. I mean, you,
your voice is made for this format. And furthermore, you
know the fact that you wrote it and produced it
is you know, kudos to you, and hopefully there's another
Pulitzer coming your way. I'll never forget. I'll never forget
when you called me. By the way, this is off topic,
(01:52):
but for Eovil, Maggie of course knows the story because
she's the one who called me. But we were in
Nashville where Maggie was going to present me with an award.
I think it was the which one was it?
Speaker 4 (02:03):
It was it was an impact of it. It was
like it was a music award or something.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, So Maggie was kind of fly down and
offered to present me with this award, and the day
of the awards ceremony, which supposed to be that night.
I get a call from Maggie in the afternoon and
she says, I just found out I want to pull Itzir.
I was like, huh, I go how'd you get the news?
She goes, well, I was sitting in the hot top
of my hotel drinking whiskey when I got the call,
(02:28):
and I was like, Okay, that's perfect, and I'm going
to remember this moment forever. It also was very It
was good because it was just it was just absolutely
appropriately humbling because of the idea that I was going
to go get this cleo. So anyway, it's perfect. And
speaking of awards, there's some breaking news about Keith Lamar,
which is a case that lives rent free in my head,
and I'm sure for anyone who's listened to the Wrongful
(02:49):
Conviction episode on Keith Lamar's case is probably feel the
same way. Keith Lamar is in process of being nominated
for an Alternative Jazz Award for his Spoken Word. I mean,
Keith Lamar's on death row and accomplishing more than almost
anyone I know in the free world with his art,
(03:10):
with his music, with his spirit. Keith, I hope you
get to hear this because we have nothing but love
and respect for you, and we hope to see you
out here sometime soon where you belong. So so, Maggie,
let's talk about Mayfield, Kentucky. You know, you and I
went down there.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Like Cities Sleep two and a half years, like almost
three years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Now, Yeah, eyes wide open, and I don't know if
we were ready for what we found.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
You know, it reminded me a lot of these small towns.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I did Murder and Alliance a few years ago in
a small town in Ohio. It was a very similar
small police department, not equipped for a murder in any
sort of way. And in these small towns, like rumors
really become fact. And that was one of the first
things that we really kind of honed in on. We
were like, there's so much gossip, so many things going on,
(04:01):
we don't even know it's real. Right, that was like
our first trip, just trying to gather information, hearing all
of these crazy things about sex trafficking and stuff that
none of that made it into the podcast because we
weren't able to really corroborate some of it, but you know,
we heard so many different things. So from the beginning,
we just had a huge task at our hands of
(04:24):
kind of parsing fact from fiction. And that's what happens
in these small towns. Gossip becomes fact over the years.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, from my perspective, it was such a powerful experience,
and not in the least part because of the fact
that we were with the families of both the person
who was murdered, Jessica Kurrn, who was so viciously brutally
(04:51):
murdered at the young age of eighteen, and the man
who is still in prison after twenty plus years. I'm
just going to say, for having not committed this crime right,
but being charged with it and convicted of it anyway,
And so pretty unusual but not unprecedented to have these
(05:12):
two families united in wanting justice for their kids.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
It's so rare that we see the victims family standing
up for the accused. So that just speaks volumes to
the characture of the currents of Jessica's family to be
able to use their own critical thinking skills and see
outside of the prosecution's narrative that something wasn't right.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
They're not gullible people, right, And so I think that
consciously or subconsciously, the cops and prosecutors that were involved
in this case expected that this would just go away.
They would make an arrest, the family would be happy,
the headlines would run, everyone would get a pat on
the back, maybe a rais or motion, and everyone would
(06:02):
move on. But they don't understand apparently, who Joe Current
is and what his family is. They're pillars of the community, yes,
and they are extremely devoted parents and they are not
going to be trifled with or pushed aside as the
(06:23):
authorities wanted them to be. They're not docile.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
You know, you just hit on something is that Joe
was an important member of this community. He had, you know,
grown up here, he worked at the fire department. You know,
he did everything right. He was the correct kind of
person of color in this segregated town. He grew up
during segregation and was able to overcome a lot of that.
(06:51):
He has a successful business.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Now.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
You know, those were difficult things at the time. And
you know, when Jessica died, he expected that community that
he gave so much to give back to him and
he didn't get that. And you know, one of the
things we did want to put in and because it
just spoke so much to this community. Was David Cross.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
David Cross, of course is Quincy Cross's father.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Both of those dads, they both were pillars in their community.
They both survived segregation. David Cross still has a little
segregated one room schoolhouse in the back of his yard
that he went to school in as a little black boy.
This shack and I said to him, I said, where'd
the white kids go? He said, to the nice school
down the street. So you know, these are men who
(07:34):
have survived and been through so much, and to see
them being a team instead of adversaries, it was so
beautiful and humbling because they fought through the civil rights movement.
I mean, freaking Joe Kern was out there protesting for
civil rights. Like Joe Kern's other son just died. Like
(07:56):
they have been through so much. I don't know how
you get out of bed and keep fighting.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early
and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
One of the initial suspects in this case was named
Jeremy Adams. He had a child with the victim and
was indicted alongside Carlos or Lolo Saxton, the victim's boyfriend
at the time, but when the case was mishandled, their
indictments were dismissed, at which point a friend of Jeremy's mother,
a woman named Susan Golbreanth, began offering rewards on social media,
(08:53):
which brought her alleged witnesses, and the story that emerged
was a complete break from the narrative of the original indictment.
It involved group sex in which Jessica was allegedly involved
before and after her death. Interestingly, this steered everyone away
from Susan's friend's son Jeremy and eventually grabbed the attention
of a BBC reporter, catapulting Susan's ideas into becoming the
(09:18):
state's narrative.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
In this case, the story that is created this crazy
orgy sex, disgusting.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Whatever acroyphilia yes thrown even.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
In everywhere, this was not the original story. First of all,
there was no evidence at all, zero that she was
sexually assaulted, so then this story doesn't even come about
until four or five years later when Susan and the
reporter get involved and it's actually the reporter who picks
up on while her underwear wasn't on her, so there
(09:55):
must have been a sexual assault. Q a few years
later to the KBI than and grotesquely asking these women
how much semen quincy cross sprayed all over the room.
There was no semen in the room. Jason, where is
this coming from? That is the most shocking thing to me.
How we got to this insane, disturbing, disgusting story where
(10:17):
you hear KBI officers pressing young women about where semen
was sprayed and there's not an ounce of semen in
this case? How does that happen? So one of the
things we found out when reporting, and it's all public record,
is we had emails between Susan Galbreath, the Citizen investigator
to say it kindly, and a BBC journalist that she
(10:39):
reached out to saying, you know, there's this crazy story
and you should be here reporting this, and we have
their emails that they wrote back and forth.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
To each other.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
And what we've discovered was that this story that was
put out there by the media, specifically this BBC journalist,
was half truths. We saw in these emails that actually
a lot of the information that was being put out
was actually not true, and the journalist knew beforehand, had
gotten some email saying, look this information of people you
(11:10):
know saying they did this, they've recanted, and instead of
reporting the facts saying, hey, these people said this, but
they have recanted. So it's a little unclear. This story
was driven that these are the people they did this.
They said they did this. There was even a point
where they reported that Quincy Cross was stalking Susan Goalbreath,
(11:30):
only to find out later it was her own husband
stalking her. Yet no correction was ever made.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Right, so this stalker I hadn't even heard about that.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So yeah, so Susan was actually going through either a
divorce or had been divorced at the time, and her
husband was like harassing and stalking her, and she was
telling this reporter it was Quincy Cross, so this reporter
was just taking her word for it, and really that's
kind of.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
What we found.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
There was a lot of taking of Susan's word. And
then her friend who was quote working with her, this
woman named Lacey Gates, was actually then going to the
reporter saying, hey, the thing Susan's telling you don't seem
to actually be accurate and bore out by facts, and
that's when we started realizing there was something more than
(12:20):
just malpractice. There was really an effort to kind of
make Susan look like this, this wonderful helper lady, this
victim of Quincy Cross, and it was a made for
TV story from the beginning. They were hoping for movie
deals with this fantastic story they created. So that's the
kind of trickery that we were dealing with with this
(12:43):
story and this specific journalist and their reporting.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So, Maggie, this is a really full circle kind of
a feeling that I'm having about Bone Valley Graves County
right season three of Bone Valley, because it just occurred
to me that if not for the media attention that
Susan and what became her sort of partner in this
frame job, if not for the fact that they've been
(13:10):
able to get the media on board with the nonsensical
theories that they cooked up for a variety of reasons
and motives, they could have never gotten this conviction in
the first place.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So now, what I'm hoping is that the full circle
of it all is that Graves County Podcast will actually
be like the counterweight right and fix it.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
It is really meta to have another journalist come in
and try and fix this and make it right. And
that just speaks so much to the importance of journalism ethics.
When you find out something before you report a piece
that really shatters the entire narrative you're going to report,
(13:51):
you need to say that otherwise it's dishonest.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
And that's what we got in this story, Maggie.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This case is unique for a number of reasons. One
is that most wrongful conviction cases involve one person being
wrongfully convicted. This ain't that right. This involves a slew
of wrongfully charged and or convicted people. Can you explain
what I mean by.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
That Nine people were charged for one murder and there
were countless stories that these people were charged under. You know,
we go into the podcast how the prosecution story had
to change because the original story that they thought of, well,
Quincy was in jail, so he couldn't have been burning
a body. So then they have to now involve another
person who could have burned and moved this body. So
(14:51):
they find Isaac Benjamin. This kid was charged and convicted
for moving Jessica's body. We don't even freaking know who
this is, how he relates to anybody? We don't mention
him by name in the podcast, But Isaac Benjamin is
another one who was charged and convicted. There were two
other people who were charged. Austin Leach, he was actually
(15:12):
acquitted in this Austin Leach is charged. It's his car,
they're saying did this. He's acquitted. But where is Austin
Leach's car in this trial? Where's Austin Leach's name? Where
aren't we talking about this man that helped move this body? Right?
Why aren't we talking about Isaac Benjamin who allegedly helped
burn and move this body?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You know?
Speaker 4 (15:34):
And what happened to Jeremy and Lolo the first two
people who were charged under a completely different story. Like,
I am at a loss for words sometimes when I
think of if anyone and this is probably why Joe
kurran knew something was wrong. How are each of these
people being charged under this one's story when at Quincy's
(15:54):
trial their names don't even come up as accomplices. It
just makes no sense. And the scariest thing to me
is that this prosecutor has been in office since nineteen
eighty two, Jason nineteen eighty two. This woman Barbara mains Wayy.
We have identified at least five people we believe are
(16:17):
wrongfully convicted under Barbara Mainz Whaley.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, it's that five wrongful convictions include the ones from
this case.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
That is, the ones from this case. That's the ones
I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, I don't know which.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Are there any others? I'm sure there are.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
We I mean, these things tend to be in clusters.
We know that, right, because it becomes a pattern. Right
when people do this and they find that it's good
for them in their career or whatever their ambitions are,
they do it again because there don't seem to be
any repercussible There aren't any repercussions for them, right. The
prosecutors have absolute immunity. Police have qualified immunity. And what
(16:55):
that means in practical terms is they basically, what it
means in simplest terms is they never get in trouble
for doing this stuff. Almost never. This one stinks from
the top.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That's what it is. You just said.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
It's the top down and these people, these humans are
dealing with this consequence of the corruptibility of power.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You know, the beauty of this podcast. Advocacy is a
term that maybe I coined it, I don't know, but
I'd like to use it. That we do is that
sometimes it actually causes people to straighten up and fly right,
and we're hoping against hope, and it's important. If you've
already listened to Bone Valley Braves County, then you know,
(17:39):
get involved, talk about it, put it on your social media,
send a letter somewhere, send an email.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
The governor to Kentucky Governor. I mean, you could send
it to the AG's office, but who knows what that's.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Going to do.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Barbara mains Waley is the Assistant Attorney General and she's
been in that position for decades and decades. I can't
imagine that she's going to go back and reinvestigate her
own case. But the governor, that's probably the way to go.
That's what i'd recommend people right to the governor. We're
going to put a linked in the episode description for
where you can write and be respectful. It doesn't make
(18:12):
sense to curse anybody out or do anything like that.
You may want to time you finished listening to the
sixth episode, but the fact is the best thing to
do is be respectful and just make it known that
you're upset about this. You're outraged. So Maggie, any closing
thoughts before we wrap up this very special, unique episode
of Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I think our listeners will surely understand.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You know that this is not unique.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
What happened to Quincy Cross and all the others is
not unique. This happens all the time. But I would
love to say, please share it. I mean, it's a
digestible story. It's an interesting story, it's a mystery. There's
twists and turns.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
But the person you.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
Share it with will learn something about wrongful convictions on
the criminal legal system. So it's not just a wrongful conviction.
It's something people can learn from. There's so much in
it besides just the wrongful conviction. I mean, there's stories
of girlhood and being a child, and like I said,
power and corruption and there's so much there. So I
think you know, if you love the podcast, please please
(19:15):
please share it with somebody who might not know what's
going on in this area of the world.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(19:47):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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