00:00:00
Speaker 1: Heads up, this series contains graphic descriptions of violence. That's why by Kab will be charged as per your international plan to continue.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Please hold.
00:00:14
Speaker 1: After several of my emails to journalist Tom Mangold went unanswered, I found his phone number and gave him a call in March of twenty twenty five. Hi is this Tom Mangold? I tell him I'm a journalist working on the Jessica Current case. Yes, sir, so you did a series of stories about it. I say I'm covering how the prosecution's case against Quincy Cross seems to be falling apart, and that according to emails my team and I have reviewed, it's clear he knew that the state's main witness, Victoria Caldwell, had recanted parts of the story against Quincy Cross, yet he still chose to publish his final piece without any mention of her changing narratives and admitted lies. He tells me he hasn't seen my emails. Thank you so much, sir. Bye. Tom Mangold did write back shortly after we hung up.
00:01:14
Speaker 3: So he emails, Yeah, I have a credits I'm made to folk in my computer and I called up my producer Rebecca with the update.
00:01:22
Speaker 4: What does he say?
00:01:23
Speaker 1: The email says, Maggie, thanks for your note.
00:01:28
Speaker 5: The Quincy Cross's Innocent movement in quotes has been running in Mayfield for many years. People have jumped on and off that bandwagon ever since Susan received her reward from the State of Kentucky. I suggest you take the time and trouble to discuss the case with Bob O'Neil first, then go and get the transcripts of the court case and read the entire prosecution case. If you sol think Cross is innocent, that's your conclusion as a journal.
00:01:51
Speaker 1: Okay, Bob O'Neil is the KBI agent who is still in touch with Victoria and who declined my interview request. I replied to Tom and tell him I actually found his suggestion that I hadn't read all the documents patronizing, and then I offer him the opportunity to reflect on his work twenty years later, to which he shoots back.
00:02:16
Speaker 6: Any publication or broadcast in the United States which infers I may have behaved unprofessionally in the current murder will of course be instantly sued for both libel, both myself and the BBC. Now please don't pester me any further. All you batty conspiracy theorists are the same.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: When I was first approached with Quincy Cross's case, many of the people fighting on his behalf told me that Susan Galbreath had played a key role in Quincy's conviction, that an everyday citizen helped craft the theory the prosecution used at trial and helped find their most important witness. And by Tom Mangled's own reporting, he played a big role in Susan's journey from his very first trip to Kentucky.
00:03:12
Speaker 7: We use my room at the somewhat humble Mayfield Super eight motel as an office. We lived off toxic coffee, fried food, and some smuggled in Sauvignon Blanc. I became her news editor. She became my trainee cub reporter. I taught her my trade from the bottom up.
00:03:29
Speaker 3: I learned quite a bit from him. I learned how to not follow every rumor. I learned better from him how to distinguish rumor from fact. But it was a hard call in this case. We started a friendship and we became a team, and I felt an equal part of that team.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: Tom spoke publicly about how there was a lot of interest in making a movie about the odd couple who helped solve a murder, and according to the emails obtained by the Kentucky Innocence Project, Tom was pursuing a movie deal until at least twenty eighteen. When Susan Golbreeth died. That year, her sister took over her estate for a few months. She wrote Tom about Susan's last days and about business. She talked about handling any future film deals, and Tom told Susan's sister that he would fight to keep the project alive, but eventually studios lost interest. That was probably for the best, because knowing what we know today, it's fair to say they got this whole murder story wrong. Tom is ninety years old now. He's had a storied career as a war correspondent, an investigative journalist. He's faced down known gangsters and heads of state. I'm not looking to drag his life's work in the mud, but the story of Quincy Cross as the ringleader in this heinous crime is simply not born out by the evidence, and the main witnesses to this alleged crime are now all on the record saying they lied. Perhaps none of This is enough for Tom Mangel to say Quincy Cross shouldn't be in prison, But if he had agreed to talk to me, I would have asked him, shouldn't it take more than the word of a few girls or the theories of an amateur sleuth for a journalist to make such ruinous accusations against everyday citizens. Shouldn't it take more for the state to put a man in prison for life, to take a mother from her children and a father from his family. How far are cops and prosecutors allowed to go in their pursuit of justice? And who do we hold accountable when their whole case falls apart? These are questions that Tom refuses to answer, but that Jeff Burton, Tamra Caldwell, and Quincy Cross live with every day.
00:06:16
Speaker 8: For me personally, from two thousand and seven and until now, this whole thing is my whole Life's been like an everybody experience. I can't even explain, like an emotional fucking wreck that I have not been able to overcome.
00:06:29
Speaker 7: No, my trust in people is.
00:06:32
Speaker 9: Like a loved one.
00:06:33
Speaker 4: Now I don't trust anybody.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: I don't trust nobody really, you know, since.
00:06:40
Speaker 9: I've been incarcerated, you know, I've been further educating myself on different things, but what I really want.
00:06:47
Speaker 10: To do is start with family business and all they care of my family.
00:06:50
Speaker 11: Mostly.
00:06:50
Speaker 10: I'm family oriented.
00:06:51
Speaker 6: I was raised that way.
00:06:52
Speaker 10: So that's what hurts the most out of do in prison time for something you didn't do, being away from the people that you love.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: And what about Tom's heroine, Susan Galbreath. According to Tom's own reporting, she didn't get a triumphant ending. Sure she got recognized by the Attorney General's office, but the people of Mayfield didn't hold her up as a hero. Susan ended up having to carry a gun for her own protection, and she even contemplated leaving Mayfield for good, moving back to Chicago, but she never did. This is Graves County, chapter six, something Rotten. Before telling you what the future may hold for Quincy Cross, I'd like to take you back one last time to the summer of two thousand in Mayfield, Kentucky, because even though I never set out to solve Jessica's case, I wanted to at least understand how the investigation went so wrong. And in trying to answer that question, believe it or not, I found a common line of reporting with journalist Tom Mangled. Tom didn't just zero in on Quincy Cross. He also went after Mayfield law enforcement. Earlier in the season, you heard about Tim Fortner, the rookie Mayfield police detective who led and bungled the first investigation into Jessica's death. He's the man who, according to Jessica's father, said this to his family.
00:09:42
Speaker 12: Told us me and my wife did he had no clue what he was doing. He didn't know what he was doing.
00:09:48
Speaker 1: But Joe Kern says Fortner didn't just admit incompetence. He went on to imply that he'd been set up to fail.
00:09:58
Speaker 12: He said, I don't know what I'm doing. Place I go, it's like somebody's already been there before me. That's his words. So before his four tenure ended, they promoted him to assistant chief. And when he saw my wife at Walmart, he saw her and he started crying and he said, I'm afraid for my life. And he said, I'm gonna move, and he moved to Murray. He moved a few miles down the road to another place and got a job there.
00:10:31
Speaker 1: What do you think he was afraid of?
00:10:33
Speaker 12: I don't know who you're afraid of When you're a police chief and have a badge and a gun. I don't know who you're afraid of. How could you be afraid?
00:10:42
Speaker 1: From what I've been able to gather, one of the people Fortner was afraid of was the assistant chief of police at the time of Jessica's death, Ronnie Lear. Ronnie Leir was the man who appointed Tim Fortner as lead detective in the case. Even though Fortner didn't know the first thing about investigating a homicide, and even though Fortner declined my interview request, I do have him on tape talking about his disdain for his former boss.
00:11:19
Speaker 13: What's your opinion of Ronnie Lee right now?
00:11:22
Speaker 1: This is from a two thousand and seven interview with the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation or KBI.
00:11:27
Speaker 14: My opinion of Ronnie is that he's which it's the same opinion as it has been, that he's the son of a itch for even given this to me. Because it's been a total nightmare and I've just never done anything such as investigated anything like, especially this horrendous.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't the assistant chief of police set this case up for success? It was Mayfield's first murder in more than a year. Jessica was a teenager, a new mom, and Lear knew Jessica's family. He came up in Mayfield with Joe Curran.
00:12:05
Speaker 12: Actually we had been playing basketball together a year or so before all of this, and he knew me. He knew me for a long time. And I worked at the fire department, he worked at the police department, and we kind of, you know, see cases together and a lot of times they go to it.
00:12:24
Speaker 1: From the second I started investigating this case, I've heard Ronnie Lear's name, like in one of my first interviews with private investigator Nobel Faulkner.
00:12:34
Speaker 15: Let me tell you something, these police around here are so corrupt it's not even funny.
00:12:39
Speaker 1: And Tamra Caldwell, I've been here in his name ever since we got to Mayfield in ninety three. Everybody was scared to talk about him. Scared, you know, everybody brought up his name. He was just known to be corrupt. Ronnie Lear is mentioned in records about the case from the Kentucky State Police and even the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation. Mostly people were saying he's crooked or worse. That's what Tim Fortner told the KBI in two thousand and seven.
00:13:12
Speaker 16: And I don't know how.
00:13:13
Speaker 14: It's just my good feeling, but I just feel luck in some way. And I'll say it from a long time that he's involved in it.
00:13:21
Speaker 13: I've told him a why they're involved in this case?
00:13:24
Speaker 12: Yes, because Mark, Yes?
00:13:25
Speaker 1: Especially why would Tim Fortner believe that, you know?
00:13:33
Speaker 11: Still emotionally is a red hot case in Mayfield.
00:13:39
Speaker 1: Michael Grice served a very short stint as chief for the Mayfield Police Department from two thousand and four to two thousand and five, years after Ronnie Lear's tenure, Mayfield officials hired Grice after searching the country for months. He was a law enforcement veteran from Illinois with almost two decades of experience. He had legitimacy Mayfield police desperately needed, especially after the failure with the Jessica Current investigation.
00:14:10
Speaker 2: When I started there, that was a past issue that nobody would talk about, and anybody that had anything to do with it denied having anything to do with it. It was over time that I got some people to tell me, oh, yeah, I was there that night, or or I did this, or I did that, But they don't want to admit anything to do with the investigation. They didn't want to admit to having any part of the case itself. Why because it turned into such a shambles.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: After Mayfield detectives bungled the case, Gryce says, the town was a buzz with rumors of a police cover up. He spoke to my producer, Rebecca, there was.
00:14:55
Speaker 11: All kinds of stories going round at the time, and just nothing good. Nothing good for the Mayfield.
00:15:04
Speaker 1: Police Department who was telling Bee's stories general.
00:15:09
Speaker 11: Public, you know, just not people in the field. You know, people would say I heard that. I said, oh, yeah, where did you hear that? Well, you know, I'm my cousin's friend's uncle. You know, you get down the line of things, and there was no finite source that could ever be located to say yeah, that's true.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: In listening back to old police interviews from Jessica's case, there was a sense around town that the cops had something to do with her death.
00:15:41
Speaker 14: Somebody said, it's a police sent them word beause someone don't know.
00:15:45
Speaker 8: But mostly it was about that the cops was involved in it, that she was messing with one of the cops, they got her pregnant.
00:15:50
Speaker 14: There's something in this town somebody knows, and people are afraid to talk.
00:15:54
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I might know why. The top brass of Mayfield law enforcement had a reputation. People said they were involved in illegal dealings with some of the local drug runners. There were whispers that they sexually harassed local women and teens. Jessica, on the other hand, was dating a known drug dealer, and there were rumors that she was a drug informant, though that was later refuted. From what I can piece together, people took this information and let their imaginations fill in the blanks. And it didn't help that some of the rumors against the cops, including Ronnie Lear, turned out to be true. Sometime after Jessica's murder, Ronnie Lear was suspended without pay for selling a VCR and stereo from the evidence room and pocketing the money. A dispatcher at the precinct had also claimed that Lear and one of his colleagues were misus using city funds, including money confiscated from drug arrests. The same dispatcher also claimed that Lear had coerced her into a sexual encounter and then threatened her to stay silent. Then, several months after Jessica's death, Lear resigned. He told the press that he was leaving because his heart just wasn't in the job anymore. But the Mayfield mayor at the time, Wayne Potts, said Ronnie Lear tendered his resignation shortly after Potts confronted him about the dispatcher's sexual harassment claims. And when officers cleared Lear's desk they found around eighty baggies and foils of suspected crack cocaine, a few bags of suspected marijuana, and handguns that weren't police weapons or registered into evidence. And all this malfeasance raised red flags for Tom Mangled too.
00:18:07
Speaker 7: Half the top echelon of Mayfield Police that imploded with grubby little fiddles and corrupt practices. But it got worse for Lea mayor.
00:18:16
Speaker 1: Potts died in twenty nineteen, but Tom spoke to him a few years before about Lear's reputation and the drugs in his desk.
00:18:25
Speaker 13: My guess would be that he had taken them away from some of the street runners and said, hey, you know you got drugs. I'm gonna put you in jail for five years, or give me that bag of drugs and you hit the road run and don't ever come back.
00:18:39
Speaker 1: Lear claimed that he was using the confiscated material for show and tell visits in the public schools, but Mayor Potts said he didn't buy it.
00:18:48
Speaker 13: That's enough drugs to do half of Mayfield. The state police sent a special investigator in. He had worked with drug investigations for years. He got into the accounting the money, and he found where there was thousands of dollars taken.
00:19:08
Speaker 1: Lear and his boss, the Mayfield Chief of Police, were eventually indicted on felony charges of misusing public funds, but Lear cut a deal with prosecutors. He didn't get prison time, and because he stayed out of trouble for a few years, the felony has been erased from his permanent record. That means nosy journalists like me and Tom will never get the full story on the extent of his malfeasance. When Lear left his job as assistant chief of police, he apologized to the community, paid some of the money back, and eventually moved to Alabama. He left law enforcement altogether and got a job at an insurance company. But Ronnie Lear's presence and the failures under his leadership lingered on. In Jessica's case. When the Kentucky State Police took over the investigation, they actually asked Ronnie Lear if he ever concealed information or was in any way connected to Jessica's death. Ronnie Lear denied any involvement. He even agreed to take a polygraph, but that appears to never have happened.
00:20:33
Speaker 4: Okay, so we got a big box.
00:20:37
Speaker 9: In the mail.
00:20:39
Speaker 1: Rebecca and I requested Ronnie Lear's personnel file from ninety seven to two thousand and three. Maybe we'd find a smoking gun connecting leir to Jessica. Lear joined Mayfield Police in nineteen ninety and worked his way to assistant chief after a stint with the Army National Guard.
00:21:00
Speaker 4: Is six' to, two brown, hair blue. Eyes he's got a high school degree and an.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: Associates he's married with, kids a, churchgoer.
00:21:10
Speaker 4: Member Of rotary, club president Of mayfield And Graves county Child advocacy.
00:21:15
Speaker 1: Program there's a lot of everyday paperwork in the. Box this is a. Payroll there's for seats for, travel, reimbursements certificates of completion from courses like leadership for The New, century insurance. Documents there's record of his disciplinary hearings that match up with what has been reported in the, press like stealing A vcr from the evidence room and a spattering of complaints going back to ninety. Seven but what catches our eye is what isn't There no mention of the piles of drugs reportedly confiscated from his, desk or the reported sexual harassment claim against, him and no mention Of. Jessica the Allegations i've heard Against Ronnie lear go beyond misuse of funds and stealing, evidence yet many of them have been made by the same unreliable witnesses that first Implicated Jeremy adams and the murder and Then Quincy. Cross according to the emails obtained by The Kentucky Innocence, Project Victoria caldwell made a formal complaint Against lear to The Attorney general's, office And Tom mangled followed up on our claims to no. Avail The AG's office eventually told him That victoria dropped the, complaint And tom did not Publish victoria's. Claims we've reached out to The Kentucky Attorney general and The Kentucky State police for any records they may have On, lear hoping to confirm any further. Allegations of, misconduct but they either don't have them or haven't made them available to, us And Ronnie lear hasn't agreed to an.
00:23:05
Speaker 7: Interview casefully, Solved SOMETIMES i wonder whether there's still something rotten In.
00:23:12
Speaker 1: Mayfield In tom's final, piece broadcast in twenty, Twelve tom says he was left with the sense that something was rotten In, mayfield even if he could never get to the bottom of. It i've grappled with all of this in my many calls with my trusted, Source daryl Woman.
00:23:38
Speaker 16: Lear From Jump. Straight that's ALL i heard Was, Lear Lear, lear AND i was, like.
00:23:43
Speaker 1: Okay but.
00:23:45
Speaker 17: Everyone has tried to make him happy that there he's the wizard brought in the, curtain AND i don't believe.
00:23:52
Speaker 1: It what if all of this shit About Ronnie lear is just made? Up like what if this is all just rumor.
00:24:01
Speaker 8: Just a?
00:24:02
Speaker 16: Rumor like that's WHY i told you that gossip is the gospel in his, ath baby or? All and so everyone for so long has told themselves the same story and the same story and the same. Story this is a crime that wasn't meant to be, solved.
00:24:18
Speaker 1: And Joe curran has had to reckon with these rumors surrounding his daughter's. Death do you think he could be?
00:24:25
Speaker 12: Involved most people THAT i talk to that's around here feel like he, is.
00:24:31
Speaker 11: BUT i don't.
00:24:32
Speaker 1: Know my team AND i have gone back and forth on whether to present the details of these. Allegations but if there's something that has been made clear in my reporting of this case is that the stories we tell matter in our, communities in the, courts and in the. Press there's a danger in trying to write a neat ending for a murder case, that in many ways seems so, senseless and the need to find someone to blame can come at a great cost to the lives of people Like Tamra, Caldwell Jeff, burton And Quincy. Cross but WHAT i do know is that the incompetence and corruption From Ronnie lear and his police department tainted the investigation Into jessica's death from the. Start it added to the countless allegations that law enforcement had to parse through in order to separate fact from. Fiction it bred mistrust around, town leaving the doors wide open for someone Like Susan gallbreath to come in and test her, theories and it meant prosecutors under pressure to close an eight year old, case pushed to get a conviction at all, costs ignoring the fact that the truth may actually be impossible to. Find and, so after twenty five years of looking for, Answers Joe kurrn has, none just daily reminders of the void his daughter's death has left in his. Life how do you feel?
00:26:19
Speaker 12: Now you survive, It you never get over. It, now don't let nobody ever tell you you get, closure because you'll always miss a person like that the rest of your. Life there is no such thying as.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: Closure more after the, BREAK i end this investigation with more questions than answers about who may have Killed Jessica curran and. Why but my goal was to find out if there was any truth To, Tamra jeff And quincy's claims of. Innocence AND i THINK i could say with certainty, that based on all the Evidence i've presented to, YOU i do not believe they're guilty of the crime the prosecution accused and convicted them. Of Still quincy lingers in. Prison getting out has been a slow moving, fight riddled with. Setbacks in late twenty twenty, Four Miranda, Hellman quincy's, attorney left The Kentucky Innocence. PROJECT i, mean, okay so many, questions are you? Okay so do you.
00:27:55
Speaker 18: Want the kind of quick as version of the.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: Story WHILE i was surprised by the, news the discontent leading To miranda leaving had been building for a. Minute miranda became frustrated by the lack of resources to properly work her, cases big ones Like. Quincy's miranda says this was further complicated by how entangled The Kentucky Innocence project is with the state.
00:28:20
Speaker 19: Legislature so while we have our own independent structure and we don't necessarily have to answer for everything we do or the cases we take or how we litigate.
00:28:33
Speaker 18: Them we're completely funded by the.
00:28:35
Speaker 19: State so what legislators see and what judges, see.
00:28:39
Speaker 18: And what people with power see matters when we ask for.
00:28:44
Speaker 1: Money it especially matters when people Like miranda are accusing top law, enforcement like the prosecutors who Tried quincy's case of.
00:28:53
Speaker 19: Malfeasance they see that someone that they signed off on a salary is saying that the prosecutors at the highest level are committing perjury and committing felonies and are putting people in prison and lying about why they put them, there and so at the end of the, day.
00:29:14
Speaker 18: My boss's boss's boss's boss has to.
00:29:17
Speaker 19: Answer to, that either publicly at a legislative hearing or just in an informal meeting where they're sitting there talking to the heads of these other departments.
00:29:26
Speaker 1: Like The department Of corrections or The Kentucky State, police which are all run under the same umbrella as The Kentucky Innocence. Project and While miranda is never told point blank to drop her, accusations she says the funding for her cases slowly.
00:29:43
Speaker 19: Dwindled they start taking your purse strings, away they start taking your positions.
00:29:48
Speaker 18: Away we haven't had an investigator in nearly a. Year you. Know as they start taking your, resources there's just nothing that you can.
00:29:53
Speaker 1: Do it makes the uphill battle of proving a wrongful conviction even. Steeper but even Without, Miranda quincy's case carries, on and The Kentucky Innocence project is still fighting to get his conviction. Overturned in early twenty twenty, Five quincy's new attorney got results from ink testing on the diary That victoria read from at, trial the diary the prosecutors used as evidence that she had been an accomplice to the crime and That victoria later said was. Fake the results aren't a slam dunk, yet but they're. Promising according to an affidavit from a forensic chemist of over twenty, years there is no evidence that the ink used to write the key diary entries read at trial was available for use before two thousand and, seven years After jessica's. Death this same, expert who currently serves with The department Of Homeland, security was actually called as a witness at the first trial by the, prosecution but now is working With quincy's defense. Team THEN dna test results came in From harris found On jessica's body at, autopsy which hadn't been previously, tested and the results completely Exclude, Quincy tamra Or jeff from all testing. Done this means nothing forensically tested from the scene at the middle school or From jessica's body, itself has ever Linked, Quincy tamra Or jeff to the. Crime there's no.
00:31:42
Speaker 15: Evidence there's no physical evidence that Put quincy nowhere near this.
00:31:47
Speaker 1: Girl none of this comes as a surprise To quincy's, Dad David, cross and the other.
00:31:54
Speaker 15: People they didn't know each. Other i've never heard of. Such i'm seventy years, old AND i Don't i've never heard of three people that didn't know each other get convicted of a hainus crime like.
00:32:07
Speaker 1: This and none of this comes as a surprise To.
00:32:11
Speaker 9: Quincy, WELL i knew they ain't really have nothing on, me SO i ain't really the. Move i'm feeling the same WAY i always. FEEL i ain't, ever you, KNOW i ain't committed the. Crime so it's just something glad that the truth is coming, out you.
00:32:23
Speaker 15: Know What i'm.
00:32:23
Speaker 9: Saying that does me some good my heart to know, that you, know a lot of things that they were saying was just last to put in front of a.
00:32:31
Speaker 1: Junny quincy has had a lot of time to think about what and who landed him behind. Bars but when it comes To Venetia's Double fields And Victoria, Caldwell quincy says there's no ill will them.
00:32:48
Speaker 9: Being keens at the. Time she you, KNOW i don't hold no goods with. Them it's just it's the people that they told to last. For it's what having a problem with What i'm, Saying i'm having the problem with the state Of.
00:33:01
Speaker 1: Kentucky quincy's attorneys have presented all their findings in, court and now he waits for the same judicial system that put him behind bars to decide if he deserves a second chance at proving his, innocence And quincy's loved, ones Including, dara wait with.
00:33:26
Speaker 17: HIM i believe that he is innocent with my whole. Art if, SO i would have left y'all and everybody else the fuck alone a long time. Ago i'm ready to move on with my, life BUT i. Can't i'm going to love this family too. Much and regardless of his innocence or, guilt he didn't have a fair. Trial and that's WHAT i stand behind is if we don't have a correct judicial, system then we have nothing but.
00:33:58
Speaker 1: Anarchy And dara waits because she says she's honor bound To David.
00:34:05
Speaker 17: Cross, david whenever we originally got in, TOUCH i was, LIKE i promise you and offer you nothing at all except for maybe a little bit of hope and persistence and a lot of fun. Personality that's. It that's ALL i, offer and the fact THAT i won't quit until we get to the. End whatever the end looks. LIKE i have no fucking, clue But i'm not going. Anywhere AND i got you and that's what my family. Says as opposed TO i love, you we always SAY i got, You and to, me that's the most important thing.
00:34:44
Speaker 1: IS i got. Them tamra And jeff have both been out of prison for more than a, decade but their convictions hang over them every, day souring their. Freedom Jeff burton works at his family, cafe serving chicken casseroles And western omelets alongside his.
00:35:11
Speaker 8: Mom so, yes it's the greatest. Woman it, truly truly.
00:35:14
Speaker 1: Is getting a good job with a serious felony, conviction or even getting a job at, all is nearly.
00:35:23
Speaker 8: Impossible this is a, Blessing it really truly, is BECAUSE i mean it is hard to get a.
00:35:28
Speaker 1: Job Before jeff got caught up in this, case he was a young husband and a dad of. THREE i was straight and.
00:35:36
Speaker 8: NARROW i wasn't doing. NOTHING i was trying to be a good.
00:35:39
Speaker 1: Father getting his life in, order trying to.
00:35:42
Speaker 8: Be a family. Man just trying to do. That that's ALL i really focused. On make sure the kids had to create Good christmas or stuff like.
00:35:50
Speaker 1: That But jeff's marriage didn't survive his prison. Sentence and as he's talking about that, time his hands get shaky and his voice, quivers BECAUSE.
00:36:01
Speaker 8: I, mean, man that shit really fucked my life. Up it really, did and uh you, KNOW i was in prison like seven, years and it really. Did it ruled my. Life so that's WHY i get, all you, know all because some girls. Lied there's no nothing to prove anything except for the they, said and that's.
00:36:18
Speaker 1: Bullshit Like, Quincy jeff's family has stood by him all.
00:36:24
Speaker 8: Along they sacrificed a lot WHEN i was in the.
00:36:27
Speaker 1: Penitentiary especially his.
00:36:29
Speaker 8: Mom you, know she'd always come see me if my ex wife and kids can, come or Make she'd make SURE i had to, visit kept money on the, phone, everything you know WHAT i. Mean she was, there, man so Which i've always been pretty close to my.
00:36:43
Speaker 1: Mama tamera also struggles with life after. Prison if you go back to two thousand and, six two thousand and five and you never got wrapped up in, this what do you think your life would be like? TODAY i wouldn't be in may for, You, yep. YEP i sure wouldn't be In. Kentucky you. Wouldn't tamara has had a hard time getting a job because of her, conviction but Like, jeff she's got support today at forty, Five she cleans and paints houses for a friend's.
00:37:28
Speaker 15: Company mainly the projects they have the, Authorities, okay, yes mainly when they move, OUT i clean them firth and THEN i paint.
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Them she's close with her, Mom, brenda and her. Children the last TIME i Visited tamra Was december twenty twenty four and they were getting ready For. Christmas they always want me to. Cook they ain sweet. Potatoes oh you're making the sweet. Potatoes. Yes it's a simple, life a good and honest. One but if tam could have written her own, ending she, says maybe she would have gone back to school after her three kids were. Grown she would have liked to be a nurse or a weather. Person but despite all she's been, Through tamra has told me a few times that she's. Lucky even though you had five and a half years of your life taken, away you still think you're. Lucky, yep, yep sure.
00:38:24
Speaker 7: Do i'm here for a. Reason he ain't through with me.
00:38:29
Speaker 1: Yet he's not through with me. Yet quincy's, Dad, david shares this, Sentiment there ever a time during this last decade that you've lost hope at?
00:38:45
Speaker 15: All, no, no, No WELL i CAN'T i can't imagine losing. HOPE i have to think that something good is gonna come out of. This his life is worth if worth, That if it's not, worth nothing else is worth something good coming out of. It, NO i can't imagine losing.
00:39:06
Speaker 1: Hope But david seems to have whethered SINCE i first met him in twenty twenty. Three he's grown older waiting for his, son and the last time we spoke in, person the reality of that was on his.
00:39:20
Speaker 15: Mind the only FEAR i got THAT i won't live to See quincy walk out of. Prison that's my only fear in.
00:39:29
Speaker 2: Life you, know.
00:39:32
Speaker 13: That's my goal.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: Until he's free. Again quincy's family lives on hope and, memories do it so. Sor WHEN i first Met quincy's, family his Sister rochelle was. There she's one Of quincy's six, sisters and she was beaming at the chance to tell the world about her, brother about their childhood running free in Rural. Tennessee we you, know we're from the.
00:40:03
Speaker 6: Style So grandma's backyard was the, playground, trees, swings jumping.
00:40:09
Speaker 1: DITCHES i Think rochelle, remembers we can dance parties in a house full of kids in. Life we enjoyed, It.
00:40:17
Speaker 12: We Loved we was a family that loved to get together On saturday mornings and just get in the living room and just dance and have fun and cut.
00:40:23
Speaker 1: Up that was our.
00:40:24
Speaker 4: Thing R V wraps was, on And i'm gonna tell you.
00:40:28
Speaker 12: Something quincy.
00:40:31
Speaker 1: W pop lock great.
00:40:33
Speaker 7: Dance it would turn on his head and you know.
00:40:36
Speaker 1: We can do. That like what kind of music were? Doing quincy was her ride Or Die Rochelle's ho's whatever it came to.
00:40:45
Speaker 4: Be quincy was. THERE i need a babysitter BECAUSE i want to go to the. Club quincy was. There that's type people we. Are you, know we come from, nothing.
00:41:00
Speaker 2: But we had.
00:41:01
Speaker 1: Love this Year quincy turned forty, nine another birthday away from, home nineteen of. Them one, Day quincy would like to Leave kentucky move back To. TENNESSEE i picture him on the porch of his childhood, home sitting next to his, father all quiet and still except for the sound of cicadas and the occasional laughter of his nieces and nephews running, by playing with, tadpoles just like he used to years ago in those very same. Fields but for, Now quincy is content that you got to hear his.
00:41:51
Speaker 10: STORY i want the world to see AND i want them to look at the fag that. AGAIN i want them to look at everything about this, case because you, Know i'd have been through some hele trying to get the truth, out and now THAT i got an opportunity to get it, out it.
00:42:08
Speaker 9: Makes everything a whole lot. Better, yeah it makes everything a whole lot better for. Me that's WHAT i want the.
00:42:16
Speaker 4: World thank you for Ucing.
00:42:18
Speaker 1: Securist. Goodbye Graves county is a production Of lava For good in association With Signal Company Number. One this show is written and produced by Me Maggie freeling and senior Producer Rebecca. Ibarra Jason, Flamm Jeff, kempler And Kevin burtis are executive. Producers our editor Is martina Abraham's. Ilunga Dania suleiman is our fact. Checker sound design and mixing By Joe. Plored music created By. Wrench our theme song is the gangsta grass version Of The One Who's holding The star By Leo schofield And Kevin. Herrick Darrel woolman is investigative. Producer our head Of marketing And operations Is Jeff. Cliburn Is Ismay guarderama is our social media, director and Our Social media manager Is Sarah. Gibbons Andrew nelson is art, director with additional production help From Jackie, Paully Kara kornhaber And Kathleen. Fink be sure to follow us On, instagram, TikTok, facebook and threads At lava For good and follow me At Maggie. Freeling and we know there's a lot of names for you to keep up with in this, series so for a detailed list of, characters please go to our show notes.
00:44:06
Speaker 3: By a
00:44:14
Speaker 9: Gold bad
Speaker 1: Heads up, this series contains graphic descriptions of violence. That's why by Kab will be charged as per your international plan to continue.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Please hold.
00:00:14
Speaker 1: After several of my emails to journalist Tom Mangold went unanswered, I found his phone number and gave him a call in March of twenty twenty five. Hi is this Tom Mangold? I tell him I'm a journalist working on the Jessica Current case. Yes, sir, so you did a series of stories about it. I say I'm covering how the prosecution's case against Quincy Cross seems to be falling apart, and that according to emails my team and I have reviewed, it's clear he knew that the state's main witness, Victoria Caldwell, had recanted parts of the story against Quincy Cross, yet he still chose to publish his final piece without any mention of her changing narratives and admitted lies. He tells me he hasn't seen my emails. Thank you so much, sir. Bye. Tom Mangold did write back shortly after we hung up.
00:01:14
Speaker 3: So he emails, Yeah, I have a credits I'm made to folk in my computer and I called up my producer Rebecca with the update.
00:01:22
Speaker 4: What does he say?
00:01:23
Speaker 1: The email says, Maggie, thanks for your note.
00:01:28
Speaker 5: The Quincy Cross's Innocent movement in quotes has been running in Mayfield for many years. People have jumped on and off that bandwagon ever since Susan received her reward from the State of Kentucky. I suggest you take the time and trouble to discuss the case with Bob O'Neil first, then go and get the transcripts of the court case and read the entire prosecution case. If you sol think Cross is innocent, that's your conclusion as a journal.
00:01:51
Speaker 1: Okay, Bob O'Neil is the KBI agent who is still in touch with Victoria and who declined my interview request. I replied to Tom and tell him I actually found his suggestion that I hadn't read all the documents patronizing, and then I offer him the opportunity to reflect on his work twenty years later, to which he shoots back.
00:02:16
Speaker 6: Any publication or broadcast in the United States which infers I may have behaved unprofessionally in the current murder will of course be instantly sued for both libel, both myself and the BBC. Now please don't pester me any further. All you batty conspiracy theorists are the same.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: When I was first approached with Quincy Cross's case, many of the people fighting on his behalf told me that Susan Galbreath had played a key role in Quincy's conviction, that an everyday citizen helped craft the theory the prosecution used at trial and helped find their most important witness. And by Tom Mangled's own reporting, he played a big role in Susan's journey from his very first trip to Kentucky.
00:03:12
Speaker 7: We use my room at the somewhat humble Mayfield Super eight motel as an office. We lived off toxic coffee, fried food, and some smuggled in Sauvignon Blanc. I became her news editor. She became my trainee cub reporter. I taught her my trade from the bottom up.
00:03:29
Speaker 3: I learned quite a bit from him. I learned how to not follow every rumor. I learned better from him how to distinguish rumor from fact. But it was a hard call in this case. We started a friendship and we became a team, and I felt an equal part of that team.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: Tom spoke publicly about how there was a lot of interest in making a movie about the odd couple who helped solve a murder, and according to the emails obtained by the Kentucky Innocence Project, Tom was pursuing a movie deal until at least twenty eighteen. When Susan Golbreeth died. That year, her sister took over her estate for a few months. She wrote Tom about Susan's last days and about business. She talked about handling any future film deals, and Tom told Susan's sister that he would fight to keep the project alive, but eventually studios lost interest. That was probably for the best, because knowing what we know today, it's fair to say they got this whole murder story wrong. Tom is ninety years old now. He's had a storied career as a war correspondent, an investigative journalist. He's faced down known gangsters and heads of state. I'm not looking to drag his life's work in the mud, but the story of Quincy Cross as the ringleader in this heinous crime is simply not born out by the evidence, and the main witnesses to this alleged crime are now all on the record saying they lied. Perhaps none of This is enough for Tom Mangel to say Quincy Cross shouldn't be in prison, But if he had agreed to talk to me, I would have asked him, shouldn't it take more than the word of a few girls or the theories of an amateur sleuth for a journalist to make such ruinous accusations against everyday citizens. Shouldn't it take more for the state to put a man in prison for life, to take a mother from her children and a father from his family. How far are cops and prosecutors allowed to go in their pursuit of justice? And who do we hold accountable when their whole case falls apart? These are questions that Tom refuses to answer, but that Jeff Burton, Tamra Caldwell, and Quincy Cross live with every day.
00:06:16
Speaker 8: For me personally, from two thousand and seven and until now, this whole thing is my whole Life's been like an everybody experience. I can't even explain, like an emotional fucking wreck that I have not been able to overcome.
00:06:29
Speaker 7: No, my trust in people is.
00:06:32
Speaker 9: Like a loved one.
00:06:33
Speaker 4: Now I don't trust anybody.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: I don't trust nobody really, you know, since.
00:06:40
Speaker 9: I've been incarcerated, you know, I've been further educating myself on different things, but what I really want.
00:06:47
Speaker 10: To do is start with family business and all they care of my family.
00:06:50
Speaker 11: Mostly.
00:06:50
Speaker 10: I'm family oriented.
00:06:51
Speaker 6: I was raised that way.
00:06:52
Speaker 10: So that's what hurts the most out of do in prison time for something you didn't do, being away from the people that you love.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: And what about Tom's heroine, Susan Galbreath. According to Tom's own reporting, she didn't get a triumphant ending. Sure she got recognized by the Attorney General's office, but the people of Mayfield didn't hold her up as a hero. Susan ended up having to carry a gun for her own protection, and she even contemplated leaving Mayfield for good, moving back to Chicago, but she never did. This is Graves County, chapter six, something Rotten. Before telling you what the future may hold for Quincy Cross, I'd like to take you back one last time to the summer of two thousand in Mayfield, Kentucky, because even though I never set out to solve Jessica's case, I wanted to at least understand how the investigation went so wrong. And in trying to answer that question, believe it or not, I found a common line of reporting with journalist Tom Mangled. Tom didn't just zero in on Quincy Cross. He also went after Mayfield law enforcement. Earlier in the season, you heard about Tim Fortner, the rookie Mayfield police detective who led and bungled the first investigation into Jessica's death. He's the man who, according to Jessica's father, said this to his family.
00:09:42
Speaker 12: Told us me and my wife did he had no clue what he was doing. He didn't know what he was doing.
00:09:48
Speaker 1: But Joe Kern says Fortner didn't just admit incompetence. He went on to imply that he'd been set up to fail.
00:09:58
Speaker 12: He said, I don't know what I'm doing. Place I go, it's like somebody's already been there before me. That's his words. So before his four tenure ended, they promoted him to assistant chief. And when he saw my wife at Walmart, he saw her and he started crying and he said, I'm afraid for my life. And he said, I'm gonna move, and he moved to Murray. He moved a few miles down the road to another place and got a job there.
00:10:31
Speaker 1: What do you think he was afraid of?
00:10:33
Speaker 12: I don't know who you're afraid of When you're a police chief and have a badge and a gun. I don't know who you're afraid of. How could you be afraid?
00:10:42
Speaker 1: From what I've been able to gather, one of the people Fortner was afraid of was the assistant chief of police at the time of Jessica's death, Ronnie Lear. Ronnie Leir was the man who appointed Tim Fortner as lead detective in the case. Even though Fortner didn't know the first thing about investigating a homicide, and even though Fortner declined my interview request, I do have him on tape talking about his disdain for his former boss.
00:11:19
Speaker 13: What's your opinion of Ronnie Lee right now?
00:11:22
Speaker 1: This is from a two thousand and seven interview with the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation or KBI.
00:11:27
Speaker 14: My opinion of Ronnie is that he's which it's the same opinion as it has been, that he's the son of a itch for even given this to me. Because it's been a total nightmare and I've just never done anything such as investigated anything like, especially this horrendous.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't the assistant chief of police set this case up for success? It was Mayfield's first murder in more than a year. Jessica was a teenager, a new mom, and Lear knew Jessica's family. He came up in Mayfield with Joe Curran.
00:12:05
Speaker 12: Actually we had been playing basketball together a year or so before all of this, and he knew me. He knew me for a long time. And I worked at the fire department, he worked at the police department, and we kind of, you know, see cases together and a lot of times they go to it.
00:12:24
Speaker 1: From the second I started investigating this case, I've heard Ronnie Lear's name, like in one of my first interviews with private investigator Nobel Faulkner.
00:12:34
Speaker 15: Let me tell you something, these police around here are so corrupt it's not even funny.
00:12:39
Speaker 1: And Tamra Caldwell, I've been here in his name ever since we got to Mayfield in ninety three. Everybody was scared to talk about him. Scared, you know, everybody brought up his name. He was just known to be corrupt. Ronnie Lear is mentioned in records about the case from the Kentucky State Police and even the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation. Mostly people were saying he's crooked or worse. That's what Tim Fortner told the KBI in two thousand and seven.
00:13:12
Speaker 16: And I don't know how.
00:13:13
Speaker 14: It's just my good feeling, but I just feel luck in some way. And I'll say it from a long time that he's involved in it.
00:13:21
Speaker 13: I've told him a why they're involved in this case?
00:13:24
Speaker 12: Yes, because Mark, Yes?
00:13:25
Speaker 1: Especially why would Tim Fortner believe that, you know?
00:13:33
Speaker 11: Still emotionally is a red hot case in Mayfield.
00:13:39
Speaker 1: Michael Grice served a very short stint as chief for the Mayfield Police Department from two thousand and four to two thousand and five, years after Ronnie Lear's tenure, Mayfield officials hired Grice after searching the country for months. He was a law enforcement veteran from Illinois with almost two decades of experience. He had legitimacy Mayfield police desperately needed, especially after the failure with the Jessica Current investigation.
00:14:10
Speaker 2: When I started there, that was a past issue that nobody would talk about, and anybody that had anything to do with it denied having anything to do with it. It was over time that I got some people to tell me, oh, yeah, I was there that night, or or I did this, or I did that, But they don't want to admit anything to do with the investigation. They didn't want to admit to having any part of the case itself. Why because it turned into such a shambles.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: After Mayfield detectives bungled the case, Gryce says, the town was a buzz with rumors of a police cover up. He spoke to my producer, Rebecca, there was.
00:14:55
Speaker 11: All kinds of stories going round at the time, and just nothing good. Nothing good for the Mayfield.
00:15:04
Speaker 1: Police Department who was telling Bee's stories general.
00:15:09
Speaker 11: Public, you know, just not people in the field. You know, people would say I heard that. I said, oh, yeah, where did you hear that? Well, you know, I'm my cousin's friend's uncle. You know, you get down the line of things, and there was no finite source that could ever be located to say yeah, that's true.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: In listening back to old police interviews from Jessica's case, there was a sense around town that the cops had something to do with her death.
00:15:41
Speaker 14: Somebody said, it's a police sent them word beause someone don't know.
00:15:45
Speaker 8: But mostly it was about that the cops was involved in it, that she was messing with one of the cops, they got her pregnant.
00:15:50
Speaker 14: There's something in this town somebody knows, and people are afraid to talk.
00:15:54
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I might know why. The top brass of Mayfield law enforcement had a reputation. People said they were involved in illegal dealings with some of the local drug runners. There were whispers that they sexually harassed local women and teens. Jessica, on the other hand, was dating a known drug dealer, and there were rumors that she was a drug informant, though that was later refuted. From what I can piece together, people took this information and let their imaginations fill in the blanks. And it didn't help that some of the rumors against the cops, including Ronnie Lear, turned out to be true. Sometime after Jessica's murder, Ronnie Lear was suspended without pay for selling a VCR and stereo from the evidence room and pocketing the money. A dispatcher at the precinct had also claimed that Lear and one of his colleagues were misus using city funds, including money confiscated from drug arrests. The same dispatcher also claimed that Lear had coerced her into a sexual encounter and then threatened her to stay silent. Then, several months after Jessica's death, Lear resigned. He told the press that he was leaving because his heart just wasn't in the job anymore. But the Mayfield mayor at the time, Wayne Potts, said Ronnie Lear tendered his resignation shortly after Potts confronted him about the dispatcher's sexual harassment claims. And when officers cleared Lear's desk they found around eighty baggies and foils of suspected crack cocaine, a few bags of suspected marijuana, and handguns that weren't police weapons or registered into evidence. And all this malfeasance raised red flags for Tom Mangled too.
00:18:07
Speaker 7: Half the top echelon of Mayfield Police that imploded with grubby little fiddles and corrupt practices. But it got worse for Lea mayor.
00:18:16
Speaker 1: Potts died in twenty nineteen, but Tom spoke to him a few years before about Lear's reputation and the drugs in his desk.
00:18:25
Speaker 13: My guess would be that he had taken them away from some of the street runners and said, hey, you know you got drugs. I'm gonna put you in jail for five years, or give me that bag of drugs and you hit the road run and don't ever come back.
00:18:39
Speaker 1: Lear claimed that he was using the confiscated material for show and tell visits in the public schools, but Mayor Potts said he didn't buy it.
00:18:48
Speaker 13: That's enough drugs to do half of Mayfield. The state police sent a special investigator in. He had worked with drug investigations for years. He got into the accounting the money, and he found where there was thousands of dollars taken.
00:19:08
Speaker 1: Lear and his boss, the Mayfield Chief of Police, were eventually indicted on felony charges of misusing public funds, but Lear cut a deal with prosecutors. He didn't get prison time, and because he stayed out of trouble for a few years, the felony has been erased from his permanent record. That means nosy journalists like me and Tom will never get the full story on the extent of his malfeasance. When Lear left his job as assistant chief of police, he apologized to the community, paid some of the money back, and eventually moved to Alabama. He left law enforcement altogether and got a job at an insurance company. But Ronnie Lear's presence and the failures under his leadership lingered on. In Jessica's case. When the Kentucky State Police took over the investigation, they actually asked Ronnie Lear if he ever concealed information or was in any way connected to Jessica's death. Ronnie Lear denied any involvement. He even agreed to take a polygraph, but that appears to never have happened.
00:20:33
Speaker 4: Okay, so we got a big box.
00:20:37
Speaker 9: In the mail.
00:20:39
Speaker 1: Rebecca and I requested Ronnie Lear's personnel file from ninety seven to two thousand and three. Maybe we'd find a smoking gun connecting leir to Jessica. Lear joined Mayfield Police in nineteen ninety and worked his way to assistant chief after a stint with the Army National Guard.
00:21:00
Speaker 4: Is six' to, two brown, hair blue. Eyes he's got a high school degree and an.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: Associates he's married with, kids a, churchgoer.
00:21:10
Speaker 4: Member Of rotary, club president Of mayfield And Graves county Child advocacy.
00:21:15
Speaker 1: Program there's a lot of everyday paperwork in the. Box this is a. Payroll there's for seats for, travel, reimbursements certificates of completion from courses like leadership for The New, century insurance. Documents there's record of his disciplinary hearings that match up with what has been reported in the, press like stealing A vcr from the evidence room and a spattering of complaints going back to ninety. Seven but what catches our eye is what isn't There no mention of the piles of drugs reportedly confiscated from his, desk or the reported sexual harassment claim against, him and no mention Of. Jessica the Allegations i've heard Against Ronnie lear go beyond misuse of funds and stealing, evidence yet many of them have been made by the same unreliable witnesses that first Implicated Jeremy adams and the murder and Then Quincy. Cross according to the emails obtained by The Kentucky Innocence, Project Victoria caldwell made a formal complaint Against lear to The Attorney general's, office And Tom mangled followed up on our claims to no. Avail The AG's office eventually told him That victoria dropped the, complaint And tom did not Publish victoria's. Claims we've reached out to The Kentucky Attorney general and The Kentucky State police for any records they may have On, lear hoping to confirm any further. Allegations of, misconduct but they either don't have them or haven't made them available to, us And Ronnie lear hasn't agreed to an.
00:23:05
Speaker 7: Interview casefully, Solved SOMETIMES i wonder whether there's still something rotten In.
00:23:12
Speaker 1: Mayfield In tom's final, piece broadcast in twenty, Twelve tom says he was left with the sense that something was rotten In, mayfield even if he could never get to the bottom of. It i've grappled with all of this in my many calls with my trusted, Source daryl Woman.
00:23:38
Speaker 16: Lear From Jump. Straight that's ALL i heard Was, Lear Lear, lear AND i was, like.
00:23:43
Speaker 1: Okay but.
00:23:45
Speaker 17: Everyone has tried to make him happy that there he's the wizard brought in the, curtain AND i don't believe.
00:23:52
Speaker 1: It what if all of this shit About Ronnie lear is just made? Up like what if this is all just rumor.
00:24:01
Speaker 8: Just a?
00:24:02
Speaker 16: Rumor like that's WHY i told you that gossip is the gospel in his, ath baby or? All and so everyone for so long has told themselves the same story and the same story and the same. Story this is a crime that wasn't meant to be, solved.
00:24:18
Speaker 1: And Joe curran has had to reckon with these rumors surrounding his daughter's. Death do you think he could be?
00:24:25
Speaker 12: Involved most people THAT i talk to that's around here feel like he, is.
00:24:31
Speaker 11: BUT i don't.
00:24:32
Speaker 1: Know my team AND i have gone back and forth on whether to present the details of these. Allegations but if there's something that has been made clear in my reporting of this case is that the stories we tell matter in our, communities in the, courts and in the. Press there's a danger in trying to write a neat ending for a murder case, that in many ways seems so, senseless and the need to find someone to blame can come at a great cost to the lives of people Like Tamra, Caldwell Jeff, burton And Quincy. Cross but WHAT i do know is that the incompetence and corruption From Ronnie lear and his police department tainted the investigation Into jessica's death from the. Start it added to the countless allegations that law enforcement had to parse through in order to separate fact from. Fiction it bred mistrust around, town leaving the doors wide open for someone Like Susan gallbreath to come in and test her, theories and it meant prosecutors under pressure to close an eight year old, case pushed to get a conviction at all, costs ignoring the fact that the truth may actually be impossible to. Find and, so after twenty five years of looking for, Answers Joe kurrn has, none just daily reminders of the void his daughter's death has left in his. Life how do you feel?
00:26:19
Speaker 12: Now you survive, It you never get over. It, now don't let nobody ever tell you you get, closure because you'll always miss a person like that the rest of your. Life there is no such thying as.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: Closure more after the, BREAK i end this investigation with more questions than answers about who may have Killed Jessica curran and. Why but my goal was to find out if there was any truth To, Tamra jeff And quincy's claims of. Innocence AND i THINK i could say with certainty, that based on all the Evidence i've presented to, YOU i do not believe they're guilty of the crime the prosecution accused and convicted them. Of Still quincy lingers in. Prison getting out has been a slow moving, fight riddled with. Setbacks in late twenty twenty, Four Miranda, Hellman quincy's, attorney left The Kentucky Innocence. PROJECT i, mean, okay so many, questions are you? Okay so do you.
00:27:55
Speaker 18: Want the kind of quick as version of the.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: Story WHILE i was surprised by the, news the discontent leading To miranda leaving had been building for a. Minute miranda became frustrated by the lack of resources to properly work her, cases big ones Like. Quincy's miranda says this was further complicated by how entangled The Kentucky Innocence project is with the state.
00:28:20
Speaker 19: Legislature so while we have our own independent structure and we don't necessarily have to answer for everything we do or the cases we take or how we litigate.
00:28:33
Speaker 18: Them we're completely funded by the.
00:28:35
Speaker 19: State so what legislators see and what judges, see.
00:28:39
Speaker 18: And what people with power see matters when we ask for.
00:28:44
Speaker 1: Money it especially matters when people Like miranda are accusing top law, enforcement like the prosecutors who Tried quincy's case of.
00:28:53
Speaker 19: Malfeasance they see that someone that they signed off on a salary is saying that the prosecutors at the highest level are committing perjury and committing felonies and are putting people in prison and lying about why they put them, there and so at the end of the, day.
00:29:14
Speaker 18: My boss's boss's boss's boss has to.
00:29:17
Speaker 19: Answer to, that either publicly at a legislative hearing or just in an informal meeting where they're sitting there talking to the heads of these other departments.
00:29:26
Speaker 1: Like The department Of corrections or The Kentucky State, police which are all run under the same umbrella as The Kentucky Innocence. Project and While miranda is never told point blank to drop her, accusations she says the funding for her cases slowly.
00:29:43
Speaker 19: Dwindled they start taking your purse strings, away they start taking your positions.
00:29:48
Speaker 18: Away we haven't had an investigator in nearly a. Year you. Know as they start taking your, resources there's just nothing that you can.
00:29:53
Speaker 1: Do it makes the uphill battle of proving a wrongful conviction even. Steeper but even Without, Miranda quincy's case carries, on and The Kentucky Innocence project is still fighting to get his conviction. Overturned in early twenty twenty, Five quincy's new attorney got results from ink testing on the diary That victoria read from at, trial the diary the prosecutors used as evidence that she had been an accomplice to the crime and That victoria later said was. Fake the results aren't a slam dunk, yet but they're. Promising according to an affidavit from a forensic chemist of over twenty, years there is no evidence that the ink used to write the key diary entries read at trial was available for use before two thousand and, seven years After jessica's. Death this same, expert who currently serves with The department Of Homeland, security was actually called as a witness at the first trial by the, prosecution but now is working With quincy's defense. Team THEN dna test results came in From harris found On jessica's body at, autopsy which hadn't been previously, tested and the results completely Exclude, Quincy tamra Or jeff from all testing. Done this means nothing forensically tested from the scene at the middle school or From jessica's body, itself has ever Linked, Quincy tamra Or jeff to the. Crime there's no.
00:31:42
Speaker 15: Evidence there's no physical evidence that Put quincy nowhere near this.
00:31:47
Speaker 1: Girl none of this comes as a surprise To quincy's, Dad David, cross and the other.
00:31:54
Speaker 15: People they didn't know each. Other i've never heard of. Such i'm seventy years, old AND i Don't i've never heard of three people that didn't know each other get convicted of a hainus crime like.
00:32:07
Speaker 1: This and none of this comes as a surprise To.
00:32:11
Speaker 9: Quincy, WELL i knew they ain't really have nothing on, me SO i ain't really the. Move i'm feeling the same WAY i always. FEEL i ain't, ever you, KNOW i ain't committed the. Crime so it's just something glad that the truth is coming, out you.
00:32:23
Speaker 15: Know What i'm.
00:32:23
Speaker 9: Saying that does me some good my heart to know, that you, know a lot of things that they were saying was just last to put in front of a.
00:32:31
Speaker 1: Junny quincy has had a lot of time to think about what and who landed him behind. Bars but when it comes To Venetia's Double fields And Victoria, Caldwell quincy says there's no ill will them.
00:32:48
Speaker 9: Being keens at the. Time she you, KNOW i don't hold no goods with. Them it's just it's the people that they told to last. For it's what having a problem with What i'm, Saying i'm having the problem with the state Of.
00:33:01
Speaker 1: Kentucky quincy's attorneys have presented all their findings in, court and now he waits for the same judicial system that put him behind bars to decide if he deserves a second chance at proving his, innocence And quincy's loved, ones Including, dara wait with.
00:33:26
Speaker 17: HIM i believe that he is innocent with my whole. Art if, SO i would have left y'all and everybody else the fuck alone a long time. Ago i'm ready to move on with my, life BUT i. Can't i'm going to love this family too. Much and regardless of his innocence or, guilt he didn't have a fair. Trial and that's WHAT i stand behind is if we don't have a correct judicial, system then we have nothing but.
00:33:58
Speaker 1: Anarchy And dara waits because she says she's honor bound To David.
00:34:05
Speaker 17: Cross, david whenever we originally got in, TOUCH i was, LIKE i promise you and offer you nothing at all except for maybe a little bit of hope and persistence and a lot of fun. Personality that's. It that's ALL i, offer and the fact THAT i won't quit until we get to the. End whatever the end looks. LIKE i have no fucking, clue But i'm not going. Anywhere AND i got you and that's what my family. Says as opposed TO i love, you we always SAY i got, You and to, me that's the most important thing.
00:34:44
Speaker 1: IS i got. Them tamra And jeff have both been out of prison for more than a, decade but their convictions hang over them every, day souring their. Freedom Jeff burton works at his family, cafe serving chicken casseroles And western omelets alongside his.
00:35:11
Speaker 8: Mom so, yes it's the greatest. Woman it, truly truly.
00:35:14
Speaker 1: Is getting a good job with a serious felony, conviction or even getting a job at, all is nearly.
00:35:23
Speaker 8: Impossible this is a, Blessing it really truly, is BECAUSE i mean it is hard to get a.
00:35:28
Speaker 1: Job Before jeff got caught up in this, case he was a young husband and a dad of. THREE i was straight and.
00:35:36
Speaker 8: NARROW i wasn't doing. NOTHING i was trying to be a good.
00:35:39
Speaker 1: Father getting his life in, order trying to.
00:35:42
Speaker 8: Be a family. Man just trying to do. That that's ALL i really focused. On make sure the kids had to create Good christmas or stuff like.
00:35:50
Speaker 1: That But jeff's marriage didn't survive his prison. Sentence and as he's talking about that, time his hands get shaky and his voice, quivers BECAUSE.
00:36:01
Speaker 8: I, mean, man that shit really fucked my life. Up it really, did and uh you, KNOW i was in prison like seven, years and it really. Did it ruled my. Life so that's WHY i get, all you, know all because some girls. Lied there's no nothing to prove anything except for the they, said and that's.
00:36:18
Speaker 1: Bullshit Like, Quincy jeff's family has stood by him all.
00:36:24
Speaker 8: Along they sacrificed a lot WHEN i was in the.
00:36:27
Speaker 1: Penitentiary especially his.
00:36:29
Speaker 8: Mom you, know she'd always come see me if my ex wife and kids can, come or Make she'd make SURE i had to, visit kept money on the, phone, everything you know WHAT i. Mean she was, there, man so Which i've always been pretty close to my.
00:36:43
Speaker 1: Mama tamera also struggles with life after. Prison if you go back to two thousand and, six two thousand and five and you never got wrapped up in, this what do you think your life would be like? TODAY i wouldn't be in may for, You, yep. YEP i sure wouldn't be In. Kentucky you. Wouldn't tamara has had a hard time getting a job because of her, conviction but Like, jeff she's got support today at forty, Five she cleans and paints houses for a friend's.
00:37:28
Speaker 15: Company mainly the projects they have the, Authorities, okay, yes mainly when they move, OUT i clean them firth and THEN i paint.
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Them she's close with her, Mom, brenda and her. Children the last TIME i Visited tamra Was december twenty twenty four and they were getting ready For. Christmas they always want me to. Cook they ain sweet. Potatoes oh you're making the sweet. Potatoes. Yes it's a simple, life a good and honest. One but if tam could have written her own, ending she, says maybe she would have gone back to school after her three kids were. Grown she would have liked to be a nurse or a weather. Person but despite all she's been, Through tamra has told me a few times that she's. Lucky even though you had five and a half years of your life taken, away you still think you're. Lucky, yep, yep sure.
00:38:24
Speaker 7: Do i'm here for a. Reason he ain't through with me.
00:38:29
Speaker 1: Yet he's not through with me. Yet quincy's, Dad, david shares this, Sentiment there ever a time during this last decade that you've lost hope at?
00:38:45
Speaker 15: All, no, no, No WELL i CAN'T i can't imagine losing. HOPE i have to think that something good is gonna come out of. This his life is worth if worth, That if it's not, worth nothing else is worth something good coming out of. It, NO i can't imagine losing.
00:39:06
Speaker 1: Hope But david seems to have whethered SINCE i first met him in twenty twenty. Three he's grown older waiting for his, son and the last time we spoke in, person the reality of that was on his.
00:39:20
Speaker 15: Mind the only FEAR i got THAT i won't live to See quincy walk out of. Prison that's my only fear in.
00:39:29
Speaker 2: Life you, know.
00:39:32
Speaker 13: That's my goal.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: Until he's free. Again quincy's family lives on hope and, memories do it so. Sor WHEN i first Met quincy's, family his Sister rochelle was. There she's one Of quincy's six, sisters and she was beaming at the chance to tell the world about her, brother about their childhood running free in Rural. Tennessee we you, know we're from the.
00:40:03
Speaker 6: Style So grandma's backyard was the, playground, trees, swings jumping.
00:40:09
Speaker 1: DITCHES i Think rochelle, remembers we can dance parties in a house full of kids in. Life we enjoyed, It.
00:40:17
Speaker 12: We Loved we was a family that loved to get together On saturday mornings and just get in the living room and just dance and have fun and cut.
00:40:23
Speaker 1: Up that was our.
00:40:24
Speaker 4: Thing R V wraps was, on And i'm gonna tell you.
00:40:28
Speaker 12: Something quincy.
00:40:31
Speaker 1: W pop lock great.
00:40:33
Speaker 7: Dance it would turn on his head and you know.
00:40:36
Speaker 1: We can do. That like what kind of music were? Doing quincy was her ride Or Die Rochelle's ho's whatever it came to.
00:40:45
Speaker 4: Be quincy was. THERE i need a babysitter BECAUSE i want to go to the. Club quincy was. There that's type people we. Are you, know we come from, nothing.
00:41:00
Speaker 2: But we had.
00:41:01
Speaker 1: Love this Year quincy turned forty, nine another birthday away from, home nineteen of. Them one, Day quincy would like to Leave kentucky move back To. TENNESSEE i picture him on the porch of his childhood, home sitting next to his, father all quiet and still except for the sound of cicadas and the occasional laughter of his nieces and nephews running, by playing with, tadpoles just like he used to years ago in those very same. Fields but for, Now quincy is content that you got to hear his.
00:41:51
Speaker 10: STORY i want the world to see AND i want them to look at the fag that. AGAIN i want them to look at everything about this, case because you, Know i'd have been through some hele trying to get the truth, out and now THAT i got an opportunity to get it, out it.
00:42:08
Speaker 9: Makes everything a whole lot. Better, yeah it makes everything a whole lot better for. Me that's WHAT i want the.
00:42:16
Speaker 4: World thank you for Ucing.
00:42:18
Speaker 1: Securist. Goodbye Graves county is a production Of lava For good in association With Signal Company Number. One this show is written and produced by Me Maggie freeling and senior Producer Rebecca. Ibarra Jason, Flamm Jeff, kempler And Kevin burtis are executive. Producers our editor Is martina Abraham's. Ilunga Dania suleiman is our fact. Checker sound design and mixing By Joe. Plored music created By. Wrench our theme song is the gangsta grass version Of The One Who's holding The star By Leo schofield And Kevin. Herrick Darrel woolman is investigative. Producer our head Of marketing And operations Is Jeff. Cliburn Is Ismay guarderama is our social media, director and Our Social media manager Is Sarah. Gibbons Andrew nelson is art, director with additional production help From Jackie, Paully Kara kornhaber And Kathleen. Fink be sure to follow us On, instagram, TikTok, facebook and threads At lava For good and follow me At Maggie. Freeling and we know there's a lot of names for you to keep up with in this, series so for a detailed list of, characters please go to our show notes.
00:44:06
Speaker 3: By a
00:44:14
Speaker 9: Gold bad
