Latest / Wrongful Conviction Podcasts / 544: #544 Jason Flom with Maggie Freleng on Quincy Cross and Graves County
Transcript
- 00:00:04 Speaker 1: Hi. 00:00:05 Speaker 2: 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 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. 00:00:43 Speaker 1: 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 first one was. 00:01:06 Speaker 3: Thank you, Jason. 00:01:07 Speaker 4: 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 equally as good you did. 00:01:31 Speaker 1: 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, 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? 00:02:03 Speaker 4: It was it was an impact of it. It was like it was a music award or something. 00:02:07 Speaker 1: 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, 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 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, 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. 00:03:28 Speaker 4: Like Cities Sleep two and a half years, like almost three years ago. 00:03:31 Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, eyes wide open, and I don't know if we were ready for what we found. 00:03:36 Speaker 4: You know, it reminded me a lot of these small towns. 00:03:39 Speaker 3: Right. 00:03:39 Speaker 4: 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, 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 kind of parsing fact from fiction. And that's what happens in these small towns. Gossip becomes fact over the years. 00:04:30 Speaker 1: 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 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 two families united in wanting justice for their kids. 00:05:17 Speaker 4: 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. 00:05:40 Speaker 1: 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 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 authorities wanted them to be. They're not docile. 00:06:27 Speaker 4: 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. He has a successful business. 00:06:52 Speaker 3: Now. 00:06:53 Speaker 4: 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. 00:07:10 Speaker 1: David Cross, of course is Quincy Cross's father. 00:07:12 Speaker 4: 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 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 they have been through so much. I don't know how you get out of bed and keep fighting. 00:08:15 Speaker 1: 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. 00:08:31 Speaker 2: 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, 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 state's narrative. 00:09:19 Speaker 4: In this case, the story that is created this crazy orgy sex, disgusting. 00:09:30 Speaker 3: Whatever acroyphilia yes thrown even. 00:09:33 Speaker 4: 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 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 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 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. 00:10:48 Speaker 3: To each other. 00:10:48 Speaker 4: 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 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, only to find out later it was her own husband stalking her. Yet no correction was ever made. 00:11:36 Speaker 1: Right, so this stalker I hadn't even heard about that. 00:11:39 Speaker 4: 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. 00:11:58 Speaker 3: What we found. 00:11:59 Speaker 4: 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 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 story and this specific journalist and their reporting. 00:12:47 Speaker 1: 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 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. 00:13:21 Speaker 4: Right. 00:13:22 Speaker 1: 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. 00:13:31 Speaker 4: 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, you need to say that otherwise it's dishonest. 00:13:54 Speaker 3: And that's what we got in this story, Maggie. 00:14:11 Speaker 1: 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. 00:14:28 Speaker 4: 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 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 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? 00:15:34 Speaker 1: You know? 00:15:34 Speaker 4: 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 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 wrongfully convicted under Barbara Mainz Whaley. 00:16:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that five wrongful convictions include the ones from this case. 00:16:25 Speaker 4: That is, the ones from this case. That's the ones I'm talking about. 00:16:28 Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know which. 00:16:29 Speaker 4: Are there any others? I'm sure there are. 00:16:31 Speaker 1: 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 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. 00:17:05 Speaker 3: That's what it is. You just said. 00:17:06 Speaker 4: It's the top down and these people, these humans are dealing with this consequence of the corruptibility of power. 00:17:15 Speaker 1: 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, get involved, talk about it, put it on your social media, send a letter somewhere, send an email. 00:17:45 Speaker 4: The governor to Kentucky Governor. I mean, you could send it to the AG's office, but who knows what that's. 00:17:51 Speaker 3: Going to do. 00:17:51 Speaker 1: 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 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. 00:18:32 Speaker 4: I think our listeners will surely understand. 00:18:37 Speaker 3: You know that this is not unique. 00:18:39 Speaker 4: 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. 00:18:53 Speaker 3: But the person you. 00:18:54 Speaker 4: 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 please share it with somebody who might not know what's going on in this area of the world. 00:19:27 Speaker 1: 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 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. 00:20:03 Speaker 2: 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.