#541 Guest Host Maggie Freleng with Quincy Cross

Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armason here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia A.O. Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of "Portlandia" together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself, Kyle McGlocklin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, A.O. Rewatch, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist, Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the host of "Everyone Watches Women's Sports," a new podcast from "Together in iHeart Women's Sports." We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out. Shout-out to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Koshan Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tutorial. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest shot, or Spike Lee's Black Plansman. And on my new podcast, "Delivering Happiness with Nick Tutorial," I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollitz. What are you doing, my belt? To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of the mic this I am. And now, we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tutorial. Let's go with happiness. Delivering Happiness. And many, many more. Open your free iHeart Radio app. Search Delivering Happiness with Nick Tutorial. And listen now. On the morning of August 1, 2000, a woman's partially burned and decomposing body was found behind a middle school in Mayfield, Kentucky. 18-year-old Jessica Curran had last been seen playing cards with friends on the previous Saturday night, leaving a nearly three-day gap where no one claimed to have seen her. The crime was investigated by local and state police. But after a couple of years, the trail went cold. Then prompted by a citizen's investigation conducted by a local housewife, one of Jessica's friends came forward with a bizarre tale. In it, she and a group of friends had partied with Jessica that night. Then kidnaps, beaten, and raped her, and finally killed her. The ringleader, she told police, was Quincy Cross. Quincy had been at a party in Mayfield that night, but he claimed never to have met Jessica or any of the others involved. Still at trial, when others testified to the events of that night, they too pointed to Quincy as the murderer. But this is wrongful conviction. So welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Maggie Freeling, host of Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. And I'm so excited to be sitting in for Jason Flom today and to share this story with you. Today I have Quincy Cross with me. And I also have Miranda Hellman, his attorney from the Kentucky Innocence Project. Miranda, thank you for being here. Thanks for having us. Welcome to the show, Quincy. Hey, how you doing? I am well. How do you feel about telling everyone your story today? I know you haven't done that much. It's a lot of things that I've been old and in for a long time. Well, let's get to it. I want to hear your story in detail. And usually I just like to start with your life growing up, what was that like? I grew up with Sussex and brothers. I'm both sad. It's my family. My mom's sad. My dad's sad. I'm my stepmom's sad. Very old, protected by my sisters, all of them. Provided her, protected somebody that they can come talk to, have the conversations that they can have with other people. And they know that. And we have real good times. As a kids, we did all our things together. We used to catch turtles and snakes and all that. We used to go for all of it. We used to have it. Just do what kids, young kids do. I grew up in a union city and I grew up in one of the meals, Tennessee. So I'm a country guy. All right. You got to explain that to me, though, Quincy. I grew up in New York City. What is growing up in the country like? OK. The country is a whole lot of love in the country. It's like we did small things like play tag and play baseball. We just did it in the small community. But then you got to tighten their family because there's a lot of older people that arranged you. They cooked for you. You go out and stay cars. Like, mold it yours and that. Because we was tightening. There was a whole lot of love in the community. You know what I'm saying? Quincy, when you were younger, what did you want to do with your life? What were your hopes and dreams? What was my plan? I want to be a good football player. That's what I wanted to do. I want to go to college and play football and have the older people in my community look up. And say, he is. I'm what his life. So what was going on in your life in 2000? It was up and down. 2000 was up and down. Because my eye, my second, we had just had my grandma my children on Mother's Day of 99. And I went through a spiral after that. You know, because that was my heart. What do you mean by spiral? What was that like? I got off in the drugs basically got off in the drugs using the man selling them. I was doing both what kind of drugs cocaine and marijuana. So wondering if before the summer of 2000, did you have any run-ins with the law at all when you were selling drugs, dealing drugs, whatever it was? Well, it was like small, small petty crime like where a marijuana case, you know, cocaine. Some day wouldn't get you no time, you know, some 30 day, 90 day, some, you know, some smile like that. So Quincy, that summer you were living in Union City, Tennessee, just south of the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. But the crime that you were ultimately convicted of occurred in Mayfield, Kentucky, which is about 35 minutes away by car. So Miranda, can you tell us a bit about what Mayfield was like in 2000 so listeners can kind of get the feel for it? Sure. So Mayfield, Kentucky was and still is a very small town in rural western Kentucky, very predominantly white community. The black population and minority population live on one side of town where, you know, the white population lives in another. So the police and really the city government in Mayfield has had a few scandals throughout its time. The one that I think is most connected to this case would be the assistant police chief Ronnie Lear. At the time of Quincy's drug arrest, Ronnie Lear had already been under investigation for some time because of allegations that he and some of the other police officers had been selling confiscated drugs. Lear was later indicted for misconduct charges after crack cocaine was found in his desk drawer. He was fired essentially from the Mayfield police department sometime after this case occurred and it appeared to be a theory of the defense at the time of Quincy's trial, even in 2008 that Ronnie Lear was just a crooked cop and that this may have been connected to it in some way. Okay. So Quincy, can you tell me about the night of July 29, 2000? Who were you with and how? Why did you wind up in Mayfield? I was in New Guinea City. We had a party set up. We was cleaning the house up for this party. And Travis Jackson, Carlos Saxton and Greg Stokes had pulled up so I've been on Travis since before Eka Wall. So he come down there looking for some drugs. So I told him, you know, I could help him out. Quincy, Travis, Carlos and Greg drove around for a while looking to score and picked up some drugs near his hometown of Whitland Mills. In 2009, 30, they stopped at a liquor store, then headed back to Union City. On the way, Travis suggested they head up to Kentucky. He knew some folks they could sell to in Mayfield just over the state line. I'm like, man, I don't know nobody in Kentucky, man. I don't go to Kentucky. He was like, come on, man, if you're going, we'll bring you back later on. It took some convincing, but eventually Quincy agreed and they headed up to Kentucky. And the process of that, we get these back so many needs to put different back roles to where I don't even know what we had. We top up in Mayfield. Around midnight, they ended up at a party on Chris Drive, somewhere on the outskirts of town. They got the little girl friends or whatever hanging out out there. So we sent them drugs out there, that's all. I don't know nobody out there. As you'll hear later on, a number of other people who were involved in Quincy's case were alleged to have been at this party on Chris Drive, including Carlos Sackston. But the only one of them who was actually there was Carlos. The night war on and Quincy's friends showed no sign of wanting to leave the party. Well, I keep asking them to take me home. I'm like, man, I'm ready to go home. So I've used the phone down home. I call my partner and they're back in the city, letting them know that I'm trying to get home. I know they wait no minute, you know. By now, the sun was starting to come up. Quincy was getting hungry, so he borrowed Greg's car to drive into Mayfield to get something to eat. But he got lost on the way downtown and ended up driving in circles around the backroads. Finally, around seven in the morning, he ran out of gas. Quincy found a gas can in the trunk of the car and was about to pour cement at the tank when someone drove by and stopped to help out. It happened to be the Mayfield deputy jailer on his way to work. - This guy, he's standing right beside me. So he's been dropping a couple drops of gas on my family. But he's in the area to get to work 'cause he's late. So stay true to what Mike Perkins for the, so now he's been able to gas, but he give me a ride back to Chris Draft, about a mile up the street. And from now he dropped me off. And then he said he went back to the car. And he said, "Mary Wanda, which was some black and mild, "it wasn't even marijuana, it was black and mild." - So you encountered Officer Perkins the morning of the 30th. - Yeah. - And so when he found what he said was weed, I know you said it was black and mild, which is like a cigar kind of thing. What happened from there? - So he come back to the house, asking me if he can search a car, I'll tell him the car ain't mad. Then I got two empty baggies in my pocket that I meant to throw away to, but they in my pocket, and they're better Kentucky, two forms of prayer for me, it is automatic possession. So, and two empty baggies is what got me arrested. - In all 10 of the people at the Chris Drive Party were arrested that morning for drug possession, including Quincy. He spent the next two years in the Kentucky Department of Corrections as a result. So Miranda, the drug arrest happened on the morning of July 30th. Meanwhile, a young woman named Jessica Kern had been seen at a different gathering with friends the night before and then she went missing. Her body was found a few days later on Tuesday, August 1st. So, do we know what happened in the time between? - The timeline is difficult to nail down and we don't have a time of death, even a day of death for Jessica, partly because of the mishandling of the crime scene and the autopsy medical examination. So Saturday night, which would have been July 29th, was the night that Jessica was last seen. So, through looking at the witness interviews, I have the most accurate account of her leaving a small get together with her cousin, Venetia, around 11 o'clock that night on Saturday. - And according to the witness statements, this was just a few women playing cards at one of their friends' houses. Nothing to do with the party on Chris Drive. - So we know for certain that evening she was alive, she was in Mayfield and she left a small get together at a friend's house. And no one aside from Venetia and Victoria Caldwell saw her anytime after 11 o'clock. - But Venetia and Victoria Caldwell were to become major players in Quincy's case. We'll hear more about that later. By Sunday afternoon, Jessica's parents who were watching her baby son, Zion, were concerned. It wasn't like Jessica to not be up and ready for church. They started calling around if they didn't find anyone who had seen her since the night before. By Tuesday, August 1, nearly three days after Jessica had last been seen, her parents filed a missing persons report with the Mayfield police. - So as the missing persons report comes in, it's almost at the exact same time that the call that this body's been found behind the middle school comes in. So the Mayfield police dispatch out the assistant chief, Ronnie Lear and then the lead detective in this case, Tim Fortner. Tim Fortner was a beat cop who had just been promoted to lead detective. This was his first day on the job. He'd never investigated a murder before and the investigation was disorganized from the start. So Miranda, can you describe the crime scene? What did the investigators find? - So Jessica's body was found pretty severely decomposed and burned. She did not have clothing on. It was pretty clear she had a dress on and just most of it was burned off of the top but there were pieces of it underneath of her body. Her shoes were found at the scene but they weren't on her feet. She had some jewelry on that was not burned off and that was actually how her mother identified from photos of the jewelry that she was wearing. - Was there anything else found at the scene that they thought was significant? - The majority of the items that they attempted to test or to look for evidence on were just so badly burned. The fire had basically burned out. So there was very little left at the crime scene that wasn't charred. And then additionally they decided at all top see they wouldn't keep her clothing and they said it was too badly burned. There was a small piece of a braided belt found pretty close to the body. I'm gonna guess it's about two to four inches long. It's not on her but it is in the grass next to her and it does have a buckle still attached to it. So those were collected and still remain in evidence. - So there were two things that were later alleged to connect Quincy to the crime. First, the fragment of braided belt and buckle even though that style of belt was common at the time. And second, the fact that the body had been found partially burned coupled with the smell of gasoline that had spilled on Quincy's pants. - There was definitely an accelerant used and the police followed the assumption that it was gasoline and they connected that just by the word gasoline to Quincy who was found that next morning pouring gas out of a gas can into the car that had no gasoline in it. The deputy jailer saw that happen. He actually watched Quincy dump the gas on himself and down the side of the car and that's why he pulled over and asked him for help. - While the police were attempting to collect evidence, the crime scene was getting more and more chaotic. - People are really starting to show up at the middle school and they put tape up. It still wasn't a super secure scene in looking at the video that they made that day. People are really coming and going. - And one of those people was a local housewife named Susan Galbreath. - She describes herself as an overweight, stay at home, why no, who solved a crime. - So Susan Galbreath was at the scene the day Jessica's body was discovered from her own writings. She says that she was at a diner in downtown Mayfield having breakfast or lunch and that she felt a higher power calling her to the middle school because she felt that there was a tragedy there. So she becomes essentially obsessed with this case. - Dim Fortner headed up the Mayfield police investigation working with the Kentucky State Police. Initially, the authorities had two main suspects, both of whom were arrested in 2001. One was Carlos Sackstin, one of the guys who had been to the Christriff party along with Quincy and who had been dating the victim Jessica Curran around that time. The other was Jeremy Adams, the father of Jessica's son. Jeremy's mother was a close friend of Susan Galbreaths. - So once Jeremy's arrested, Susan Galbreath turns into kind of a private sleuth, wanting to put the case together and figure it out. So she's, I mean, she's deeply involved and very intertwined in the story. To the point, she's almost acting as a fourth investigating agency. You know, alongside the city police, the state police and the Bureau of Investigation. - And Susan was getting inside information from one of the state police investigators on the case. - That was Jamie Mills. They were exchanging information pretty freely. So Jamie was actually giving this private citizen that wanted to solve this crime information. - Thanks to Jamie and her other connections, Susan had access to not only the police files, but also to Jeremy Adams entire attorney file. And in one of the police files, there was a mention of the drug arrest on Chris Drive. - There is a notation in Quincy's file about him being booked in and him smelling like gas. And I think she starts to weave the stories together. I believe that that's why she started turning to Quincy. He was with pretty easy mark as well. He was an outsider, which I think is incredibly important to this case. He was not from Mayfield. He had very few ties to Mayfield. It was easy to point the finger at him because he was kind of a nameless, faceless person that was not her best friend's son. - So Quincy, when did you first hear the name Jessica Curran? - First time I ever heard her name, I was like, I was already locked up. We was in the back of the jail and we ate lots of newspaper back there. It's when he found the body, a burnt body, by the school. I was like, man, that's bad, man. How they did it, man. So I'm like, yeah, you need to convict somebody. - While Quincy was still incarcerated in Mayfield on the drug charge, he became acquainted with Tamra Caldwell, the sister of a fellow prisoner. After his release in October of 2002, he began seeing Tamra and eventually moved in with her in Mayfield. Tamra was the cousin of Victoria Caldwell. Then in February of 2003, the two suspects, Jeremy Adams and Carlos Saxton, both had their indictments dismissed because of discovery violations by the Mayfield Police Department and the local prosecutor. Although they had not been excluded from suspicion, it was the police and prosecutor not responding to discovery requests from their attorneys that led to their release. The case went cold for a few years before it was eventually picked up by the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation or KBI. Meanwhile, Susan Galbreath was still hard at work on her citizens investigation. She had teamed up with a TV documentary production company and was still being fed information by Jamie Mills. She had also started a MySpace page about the case, publicly calling out some people she thought were involved, including Quincy Cross, which is how she drew the attention of Victoria Caldwell. Victoria told Susan Galbreath that she knew who had killed Jessica, because she had been there when it happened. Victoria and Venetia had never met Quincy until he began seeing Tamra in 2002. Yet the pair wove a bizarre story that implicated Quincy, Tamra, and and acquaintance named Jeffrey Burton. And that ultimately became the basis of the state's case against Quincy. So the ultimate theory that gets presented at trial by Victoria and Venetia is that they were walking around in Mayfield, Victoria, Venetia, and Jessica, and that a car picked them up. The car changes, the driver changes constantly. It's very hard to pinpoint who this was supposed to be. In the car, it's supposed to be Jeffrey, Tamra, Quincy, Victoria, Venetia, and Jessica. And that Quincy was like making advances on Jessica, and she was not wanting those advances. They end up at the party at Chris Drive. According to witnesses from the party, none of these people were ever at the Chris Drive party, except for Quincy and Carlos, who had driven up together from Tennessee. Yet at some point, Victoria and Venetia folded Carlos into their own narrative. Since those two were the people last seen with Jessica, and since Carlos was seeing her at the time and was a suspect in her murder, all three of them had every motive to deflect suspicion from themselves, which is likely how their stories ended up merging together. Carlos accidentally testified at the trial that at the party, Quincy was seen swinging a brown braided leather belt around like a rodeo rider. But this fact could have been fed to him by the investigators to account for the charred fragment of belt found near Jessica's body, and to fabricate another connection between Quincy and Jessica. Victoria and Venetia's stories get more outlandish from there. Somehow they get from Chris Drive to Jeffrey Burton's house back into town. And when they got there, Quincy knocked Jessica out in the car. They carried her body in. She was still alive, but they carried her body in, put her in Jeffrey's bedroom, and they essentially had an orgy where everyone was kind of coming and going in and out of this bedroom while Jessica was coming in and out of consciousness on the bed. Then they say that sometime after that, after she woke back up, that Quincy hit her in the head again, they almost exclusively say it's with a baseball bat, like a miniature souvenir baseball bat, until they can't find the baseball bat and they find something else. According to Victoria, she had buried the bat in her sister Rosie Christ's backyard. But when they searched the backyard, the investigators could not find it. Instead, they uncovered an old rusty ratchet. And at that point, Victoria's story suddenly changed. And she says, oh, it wasn't a bat. It was a tool that makes a clicky, a clicky noise. And they collect the item and there's literally no evidence on it. Nothing that connects to the crime at all whatsoever. Nevertheless, that item later showed up as evidence at trial. Victoria gets on the stand and says, it's the murder weapon. I buried it in the backyard along with some clothing. And they never found the clothing. They never found the baseball bat. They only found this ratchet. And it becomes a key piece of evidence against Quincy. So without a physical connection to the crime and despite the cause of death being undetermined at all times. This ratchet was alleged to be the murder weapon, based solely on Victoria's word. The theory became that Quincy had allegedly hit Jessica repeatedly in the head with not a bat, but this ratchet. And Victoria and Venetia's absurd tale continues after Quincy supposedly delivered the final blow. They say that that final blow is what killed her and that they continued to have this orgy after she had passed away where Quincy forced everyone to perform sex acts on Jessica after she had passed away. From there, they say that morning broke, they took her body and put it in the garage wrapped in a blanket and just left it there for a few days. And it wasn't until a smell started occurring that they decided they were going to move the body to the medical school where it was found the following Tuesday morning, August 1st. And autopsy was performed on Jessica's body. But as with most of the investigation, it was badly botched and inconclusive. Because the body was so badly decomposed and burned, the medical examiner was unable to determine when or how she died. In addition, items of her clothing had been discarded and no one thought to save a sample of her DNA to potentially compare it with profiles found on other crime scene evidence. So in 2005, Jessica's body was exhumed and re-examined. Kentucky State Police hoped that DNA samples would corroborate her alleged connection with Quincy, who is by now their main suspect. One of the main pieces of evidence that they were looking for was something that would have her DNA sample in it. They had all of these items from the crime scene that they wanted to use to connect Jessica and Quincy together. They tried very hard and they were never able to do that. Meanwhile, Susan Galbreath continued with her campaign to throw suspicion, offer best-run son, Jeremy Adams, and onto someone else. And by 2007, thanks to her citizen detective theories, the weak threads of circumstantial evidence being used to connect Quincy with the crime scene, combined with Victoria and Venetia's absurd narrative, the state believed that they had enough to make an arrest. By then, Quincy was living with a woman named Melissa, who had two young boys. One night, he and Melissa were lying in bed watching television. Quincy's friends and family immediately started calling, urging him to get out of town. One friend offered to drive him to California, another to Mississippi, but Quincy didn't want to go on the run. He went to his dad's house to find the police had already been there looking for him. So I tell my dad, I'm like, look man, I'm going to get you and myself in and I can tuck you. Because I ain't going to do no running because I ain't doing that. But they got me considered armed and dangerous so I know they won't try to kill. I think that they wanted me dead so they can try to clear up and close his case so they can just say, well, we got the person that did it and he did it. We know that's what I think. I'm Mungusha Teghler and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about. And what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, a supposed to his brain. Here's some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration and get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make you look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, how to live forever on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jake Brennan and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of the Hollywood icon. Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic that her death can only be explained through conspiracy theories. And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastasized from conjecture to accepted fact. So on August 4th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started and she died again. And now we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died. The third way. Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession, and conspiracy collide. Listen to Hollywoodland on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Michael Rappaport and my podcast, the iAmRappaport Stereo podcast is unlike anyone you've ever heard. We're a variety show and if you're looking for strong opinions, funny opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. And I say that with love and respect for both of those actors and I don't know how many Oscar nominations they give out. And it's five, six for best actor. 150% this kid, Jafar Jackson should absolutely positively. Get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to I Am Rap Report on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I Am Rap Report Podcast. So these guys from the so-called Kentucky Brewer investigation, they were only wise and old Neil come to take me up from the Eggman County jail. And they take me to a hotel room in the dookah and interrogate me the whole time from my limb that, for that night, to about six a.m. and morning when I keep telling them to take me to the jail man. I don't want to talk to y'all, take me to the jail. Did you ask for a lawyer, Quincy? I did ask for a lawyer twice. And they never gave you a lawyer. They never, they never even act like they heard me say that. They had just told me that they, they, I was arrested anyway. They asked for them telling me I was arrested for the murder of Jessica Karn. From the time that Jessica's body was found in 2000 until Quincy was arrested in 2007, the case went through several different investigations and a mind-boggling number of suspects. We don't have time to go into all of that, but let's take a moment for a little recap. So the case was investigated first by the Mayfield Police Department, resulting in the arrest of Jeremy Adams and Carlos Sackston. After their charges were dropped due to discovery violations, neither suspect was ever recharged or went to trial. When Susan Galbret got involved working with Jamie Mills and the Kentucky State Police, she was the one who pushed Quincy forward to the exclusion of Jeremy and Carlos as well as several alternate suspects. Then the KBI picked up the case using Victoria and Venetia to solidify their theory of the crime. This led them to Quincy, Tamra and Jeffrey, who were all charged with kidnapping, rape, murder, and abuse of a corpse. The prosecution's theory wasn't super clear. When you look at this case, there are four different investigations that end in four different outcomes with four different defendants. At CYWI it was very difficult for them to figure out how are they actually going to try him for this murder and let alone get a conviction. Nevertheless, the trial began in March 2008. So for a capital murder case to go to trial in less than one year is to me unheard of, I don't see how anyone could be prepared to go to a capital trial in one year, especially in light of the massive amounts of discovery that the prosecution was dumping on them continually. The state, led by special prosecutor Barbara Waley, built its case largely around the outlandish and inconsistent stories told by Victoria and Venetia. Both women had pleaded guilty to corpse abuse and evidence tampering. But as the prosecution star witnesses, their sentencing was delayed until after they had testified in Quincy's trial. After telling their stories in front of the jury, Victoria called well with sentence to five years, but ultimately served just under three months. Venetia's doublefield got a total of seven years, but ended up serving only six months. Along with her trial testimonies, which was the only direct evidence against Quincy, the state presented a diary that Victoria had supposedly written during the time of the murder, in which she implicated Quincy. So this diary is supposed to be a document that helps lend some truthfulness to the story that Victoria and Venetia come up with. One of the entries essentially says they found Jessica's body, oh my god, what am I going to do? And she says the phrase, "Q is nowhere to be found." Which is really odd. Remember, according to Quincy, Victoria did not know him in 2000. They didn't meet until over a year later when Quincy was dating her cousin Tamra. The prosecution also presented testimony from the medical examiner who had performed the autopsy, despite the burnt and decomposed condition of the body. He said that he believed the cause of death could possibly have been either strangulation or blunt force trauma. But his theory appeared to be based more on the evidence presented by the prosecution, the piece of belts and the story about the ratchet, then on actual medical evidence. In defense, Quincy's attorney Vince Eustace brought up the former chief medical examiner, Dr. George Nichols, as an expert witness. But his testimony was also inconclusive. He essentially was just a witness to say they truly can't say when this crime occurred. They can speculate as to strangulation, they can speculate as to blunt force trauma. But because of the decomposition, the botched medical examination, together with just the condition of the body, they absolutely with certainty cannot tell you that this occurred here in this way or that this was what actually caused your death. There was no medical evidence that Jessica had even been raped. There was no semen found anywhere, there was no any other evidence of sexual assault. Maybe because it didn't happen, maybe because of the fire, but we just certainly do not know it. Carlos Sachson testified about seeing Quincy swinging the belt around at the Chris Drive party. And Victoria's sister Rosie Christ took the stand for the prosecution to answer questions about the ratchet found in her backyard. She's very quiet. She answers yes and no. She doesn't say too much. She's a prosecution witness, but not super cooperative. And in fact, Rosie later returned to the stand to testify for the defense, recanting her previous testimony. Saying they threatened me. They said they take my kids away. I would go to prison for murder and then they paid me money to do it. And it really just falls on deaf ears. And it gives us a little bit of insight into exactly how the prosecutors and police were treating the witnesses in this case with their threats and with their payments. And that was essentially the case. Quincy did not testify. They did very little to cut it. Victoria and Venetia's story. And it just at the end of the day, I don't think it's way at the jury. It wasn't enough to show that what they were saying was a lie and that it was a provable lie. Here's a question Quincy. Didn't you have an alibi for the time she was killed? Yeah, I did. Well, you never, you never used it. I was on Chris drive. I never left Chris drive that night and everybody in the house they continue. I never left it out to the song came up. And then from Sunday morning on, you were in the Mayfield jail for weed possession. Correct. I couldn't to the record. That's what it says. I was already locked up. First time I heard just his name. I was locked up. I think some people might hear this. You didn't know Jessica. You don't even know your co-defendants. And some people might just be like, how did this happen? I still wanted that, but I know how now that I've been incarcerated. You see a whole lot of things that don't happen. No else, but Kentucky and West Kentucky. As long as I've been going through some penetrative, penetrative, I've been letting other people look at my paperwork. And they asked me the same thing, but how has you even locked up? Like, how are you locked up? I'm like, man, I can't even explain it because I don't even know how I'm locked up. So when you're at trial, Quincy, it's wrapping up. They're giving closing statements. And then you, you hear, you're convicted. I cried, man. I cried with my dad. And I kept telling my dad that these people going out of that. They asked me to lie on terminal and Jeffrey. They told me they came to me with a deal. They came to me with a deal, a 15-year deal. I just told my own, I don't do that. I ain't that type because I know they innocent. The reason I know they innocent, because I know I'm innocent. So I didn't, I didn't even ask him what they wanted me to say or none of that because I ain't that type of person. So you were like, I will take a life sentence. I'm not going to lie about these people. Right. You're exactly right. I will. And that's what I do. Tamara and Jeffrey both took Alfred Pleas and were given 10 and 15 years respectively. But Quincy refused to plead out. And on May 21, 2008, he was convicted of capital kidnapping, capital murder, rape, sodomy, and abuse of a corpse. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. They must be straight out of the courtroom. Yeah, they had a breach that a lot in my league because they thought I was going to ruin it. Soon as the first person said, you know, they didn't even hear what all the charges were. I'm Munga Shitteghler and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. That doesn't work. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, how to live forever on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywood Land, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon. And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastasized from conjecture to accept it fact. Then the rumors started, and she died again. And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died. The third way. Listen to Hollywood Land on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Betrayal Weekly is back with brand new stories from threatening text messages disturbing a small Midwestern town. It was from an unknown number. Who else is getting these messages? Why did it start with us? To long cons and stolen identities. Who lies about being this sick? This was the last time I ever believed the word she said. New voices, each with the courage to tell their own story. He said I have been kidnapped. OK. Just trying at normal. He was essentially on the run. Every family has secrets. The rug had been pulled from underneath me. Oh my god. It was right in front of my face, and I didn't even see it. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I was very, very angry. Very, very angry. It's just what can I do, but make my own time hard. You understand what I'm saying? Because there was a lot of different things going through my brain, but I don't want to react to make everything harder than it was. Man, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's real for real. And every, in every aspect, any, any, any person that you can think of that inhale, I'm surrounded by them every day. But just imagine that imagine being innocent and going through that, though, imagine being an innocent person going through the same, going through hell. So now you got to adjust to it. So now I have to raise a little hell myself in order to, to, to, so for other people not to bother me, I have to raise a little hell myself because you got to adapt to it. If you don't adapt to it, you know, you become a man or a mouse, that's it, period. Ain't nothing between my world. Over the next 10 years, Quincy filed a number of appeals with the trial court and with the Kentucky Supreme Court. All were denied. And then in 2011, he received a letter from an unlikely source, Jessica's father, Joe Kern. They sent a message to me and told me to write him a letter. About how I was feeling, about everything that I was going to. And he wanted to get with me and he wanted to get a better understanding about, you know, what I'm going to and what I feel because he knows that I'm innocent. And he seemed to the facts of the case. And he knew that I didn't have nothing to do with it. Because you want the actual person that, that, that, that murdered his daughter in prison. He, I will want him to. I want to know who he, I don't pay for it. But it is, I've been sent here. It's going on me to my grave if I don't find out. And Joe has continued to believe in Quincy's innocence and to advocate for his release. And that's a win for me though, by myself. That's just, just from the outside, from the inside, looking out, that's a win right there. Period. So that means he knows everything that I know, you understand what I'm saying? And Joe Curran wasn't the only one who believed in Quincy. The Kentucky Innocence Project had started to work on his case in 2013. But unfortunately, they had to shelve it a few years later due to funding concerns. Then in 2020, Miranda Helman joined the Kentucky Innocence Project, right around the time that the country found itself in the grip of a worldwide pandemic. As COVID was hitting, I didn't have much else to do. So I just started going through old dusty boxes. And I found this massive case. It had 14, 18 boxes sitting on a shelf. It was very messy. It was not in any order. I couldn't tell what I even had to look at. So I started digging. And I think probably from the first 30 minutes and looking in the box and reading these memos from past staff, I knew there was something to it. So the KIP team began seeking out documents on the case. It took us well over a year to get state police documents and start to try to locate evidence. The high profile nature of this case and the massive amount of very well-known and high-ranking people that were involved in it from the investigation through the prosecution, even into the postconviction litigation, made it very difficult for us to get anything. So we fought for about a year and a half to get records. And it's taken about two and a half years just to try to lay my eyes on the majority of what we have. The prosecution did what I would call in civil litigation, a document dump, where they bury you in boxes and boxes of paperwork so you can never get through it. So we have about 40,000 pages of discovery from the trial attorney file that we still to this day. I go through every day just trying to pull out what I think that we're going to need for postconviction litigation. One detail that caught their attention right away was the sketchy history behind Victoria's diary. So Victoria told the KBI officers that she kept diaries her whole life. She wrote in them every day and she kept every single diary she ever wrote. So supposedly KBI found parts of these diaries in the trash can behind her apartment that she was living in in California. It's a spiral bound notebook written in a combination of pencil and blue ink. They're dated in 2000 and they only give 11 pages of this time period exactly when the crime happens late July to early August of 2000. So she dates these as 2000, but there is one entry that looks as if it was 2001 or 2007 that she goes back and fixes and puts zero over it. It turns out that prior to trial, the prosecution sent the diaries to the Secret Service in Washington DC for analysis. So the Secret Service comes back and says, we don't have this ink in our library. So that means either it's a really rare ink that we just have never collected or it's so new we haven't collected it yet. So it's not likely to be an ink that could have been used in a 2000 diary entry. Yet despite its dubious authenticity, the diary was presented at trial as evidence that Quincy was with Victoria and the others that night. So in post-conviction, a motion that will be filed is a request of a reanalysis of that ink either by the Secret Service or by a private lab. So we mentioned the diary. Is there anything else, you know, big points that you guys are making out of these 40,000 pages that you've read? Well, somehow 40,000 pages didn't even tell the whole story. So since I've come onto the case over the last year, we've been able to obtain new documents that weren't part of the original discovery or part of the initial investigation. A lot of that is centered around Susan Galbrith. She was communicating quite a bit with TV producers, friends, family, and now we have those written documents. So we can really show this missing piece. This investigation wasn't what it looked like and here's why it ended up, where it ended up. She was the person who put Quincy Cross in prison. She's the person who handed the police their theory, their investigation, and their star witnesses who had been prepped and paid to give the testimony she wanted them to give. So Rosie Christ wasn't the only witness who was being paid for testimony. Both Victoria and Venetia received money from the KBI out of a state fund that is set aside for witness protection. And Victoria was moved from California to North Carolina. Her living expenses were paid for about a year. And then she was brought back to Kentucky and basically traveled all on the dime of the state. She had told many people, including her sister and Venetia, that all testified that she had said this, that they could make money by giving these statements. So the combination of this payment to witnesses, how Susan was moving behind the scenes, we also have a couple pieces of forensic evidence that could be tested today that were never tested at the time of trial. So that includes some items found at the crime scene, some cigarette butts, a drink bottle that may or may not have had accelerant in it, but until we find out if there's a DNA profile on any of these items that were found with her body, we really can't say for certain. So much like asking for the release of the diary, we're going to ask for a release of items of evidence to do some DNA testing. Miranda and the KIP team are hopeful that all of the new evidence and information they're now presenting will spur the courts to take a look at what the jury never got to see. And that really is going to be the beginning of a new chapter of litigation for Quincy. So meanwhile, four listeners who want to know what can they do to help. There are a few petitions online that all support Quincy's innocence and call officials to review the case, including the governor and the attorney general. I would strongly suggest anyone who wants more information about the case. Look at those petitions, the information that's been given. Awesome. So we will link to those in the bio. So listeners can find them and also follow the case for any updates. So now is the part of the show we call closing arguments. I want to thank both of you guys for joining us Quincy. Thank you so much for sharing your story and Miranda for being here helping out to tell it. And we'd just like to ask your final thoughts and take aways, anything that you want to share with listeners. Miranda, do you want to start off? And then we'll let Quincy finish. Quincy's case and the murder of Jessica Curran are some of the worst examples of official misconduct that I have seen in any innocent cases that I've worked on. I think that what is so unique about his case is the long investigation, the many people involved in the investigation, and the mishandling by an act and untrained police officers that led to his arrest and ultimate conviction. And Quincy, what about you? What do you want to say to listeners? I want to know another man in his impression. And I want to look at the fact that he had, I want him to look at everything about this case. That's what I want the word to see. Because I don't mean to, I don't mean to do some head up, trying to get this truth out. And now that I've got an opportunity to get it out, it makes everything a whole lot better. Yeah, it makes everything a whole lot better for me. That's what I want the word. And I'm a bad, plus I'm a better person. Believe it or not, for prison made me a better person. I have a whole lot of love in my heart. That's the biggest thing I want to know. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all Lava For Good podcasts one week early by subscribing to Lava For Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'd like to thank executive producers Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wertis for inviting me to sit in today. And thanks to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Laila Robinson, and Kathleen Fink. 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 all platforms at Maggie Freelink. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava For Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One. Hey Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armasson here. We're launching Padlandia AO rewatch. Our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysler, the mayor himself Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Listen to Padlandia AO rewatch on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl Sam Jay. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women Sports, a new podcast from Together in iHeart Women Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Shout-out to you now. The viral moments. She looks good. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sport. On the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Hamler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse. The world gets crazier. And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Swini was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less. So I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]