transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Infamous is the gossip show that's smart. We talk about Tyra Banks and bringing down top model. We talk about Jenna Jameson and how she dominated the 90s.

Speaker 2:
[00:10] You know, she's horny and she's in charge. She just was very smart about marketing herself.

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[00:16] We talk about celebrities who maybe shouldn't be celebrities, like the Beckham guy.

Speaker 3:
[00:21] Brooklyn is their first kid.

Speaker 4:
[00:22] He's had a little bit of the nepo baby curse.

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[00:24] We investigate orgasm cults.

Speaker 2:
[00:26] A woman's erotic power can unlock many other powers in her life.

Speaker 1:
[00:32] And of course, we discuss people who have gotten into lots of trouble.

Speaker 5:
[00:37] My name is Molly McLaughlin.

Speaker 1:
[00:39] I am one of Jen Shah's many victims.

Speaker 3:
[00:43] She was defrauding the elderly and her tagline was, the only thing I'm guilty of is being Shahmazing.

Speaker 1:
[00:53] Listen to Infamous, the gossip show that's smart. The show's called Infamous.

Speaker 5:
[01:00] Listen to every episode of My Mother's Lies ad free right now when you subscribe to The Binge. You'll hear the entire series before anyone else, get exclusive bonus episodes, and unlock more than 60 other true crime podcasts. Just head to The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and tap subscribe, or visit getthebinge.com to listen wherever you are. The Binge, feed your true crime obsession. It's 4:55 p.m. on Sunday, February 20th, 2005. It's been four and a half years since Jessica Currin's murder and nine months since journalist Tom Mangold returned to England, leaving local citizen sleuth, Susan Galbreath, in charge of their investigation into Jessica's murder. Susan is in a car with her best friend, Lacey Gates. They pull up to a small one-story house in a black residential area in North Mayfield. Lacey turns off the engine. The two women sit in silence for a moment. They triple-check that it's the right address. Susan inhales deeply and stuffs a packet of cigarettes into her pocket. She's nervous and fidgety. The 45-year-old citizen sleuth looks her friend in the eye one last time before they both step out of the car. This is it. In the past, Susan wore a wire, one she got herself, without any police involvement. But not this time. Today, she's carrying a listening device disguised as a cell phone, and the Kentucky State Police gave it to her. This time, they're actively supporting her covert activities. In fact, they'll be listening themselves. Officers are positioned nearby, ready for the signal from her, should things go south. If Susan says the words, I wish my big brother was here, they'll come charging in. Today, Susan is confronting the man she believes murdered Jessica Currin, Quincy Cross. It's a move that journalist Tom Mangold thinks is a step too far. In fact, Tom was furious when he'd heard Susan's plan. You see, it's not just that Susan and Tom believe Quincy to be a cold-blooded killer. They believe that for the past few months, Quincy has been stalking Susan. She's been telling people he was showing up at her house, staring at her, dead-eyed from afar, which is weird if you think about it, because he lives in a different state. Susan later wrote to Tom saying, I guess he was playing around with the idea of doing me in, and needed to see how vulnerable I was. Had Quincy gotten wind of their investigation? Was he hoping to intimidate Susan, creep her out, and get her to give up? At any rate, Susan stepped up to his door and rang the bell.

Speaker 6:
[04:22] Hey. You Quincy?

Speaker 5:
[04:27] Quincy had been expecting Susan, but not Lacey. After a moment's hesitation, he invites them both inside. The house belongs to his cousin. The house is small and echoey. A TV blares loudly in the background. Quincy's watching over two toddlers who are sitting on a sofa beside him. Susan sizes him up. Late 20s, black, male, mustache, slightly grown out. He's smaller than she imagined. He's friendlier too. As the door closes behind her, Susan begins to explain their visit.

Speaker 6:
[05:11] And I can't claim this, but I think that he is paying like $500 per person that is signing up for the background.

Speaker 5:
[05:18] It's tough to make out, but you can just about follow Susan's opening pitch, that she's working with a journalist, that'd be Tom, on a documentary, that Quincy could be paid $500 if he chooses to participate. But more importantly, it would also be a chance to clear his name. She's playing a very dangerous game, but she keeps Tom's advice in mind. Quote, no one ever confesses. The best you can do is to try and con them into saying something they should not have revealed. She needs to convince him to talk.

Speaker 6:
[05:54] Because I talk to a lot of people.

Speaker 5:
[06:02] Susan says she's talked to a lot of people. She mentions the belt found at the crime scene and the fact Quincy was found reeking of gasoline the night of Jessica's murder. The facts, as she sees them, that point to Quincy as the prime suspect. Her hope is that he'll react and give away some crucial detail that only the killer would know. Years later, Tom will present this as Susan's moment of triumph.

Speaker 7:
[06:33] She pulled it off. She didn't get a full confession, but she got an interview which contained self-incriminating remarks. She'd made more progress in a day than the police agencies have made in five years.

Speaker 5:
[06:47] But in reality, at the time, even Susan realized it wasn't the home run she'd been hoping for.

Speaker 8:
[06:52] And I was just trying to go through my mind because it didn't go nothing like I wanted it.

Speaker 5:
[06:56] And yet, whatever doubt Susan had leaving Quincy, by the time she sat down with the cops, her confidence was restored. In fact, she doubled down. Quincy was their guy.

Speaker 9:
[07:15] And that's what he said.

Speaker 8:
[07:16] And I looked at Lacey and just out of nervousness, I was sitting there shaking and I was just, I moved my hands around trying to play it off, you know. But I mean, I wasn't scared of him or nothing like that, but it just, I just know he killed this girl. I just know he did. I know he did.

Speaker 5:
[07:34] From Sony Music Entertainment and Message Heard, you're listening to My Mother's Lies. I'm Beth Karas. This is Episode 4, Telling Tales. Let's now go back nine months earlier, when Tom and Susan's 10-day whirlwind investigation first suggested the name Quincy Cross. If you remember, before Tom returned to England, they shared their Quincy theory with the Kentucky State Police, along with the entirety of the documents they'd collected from Jeremy, his lawyer, and the disgruntled ex-cop. The person who took possession of their case file was Kentucky State Police lead detective, Jamie Mills.

Speaker 10:
[08:23] So Susan was, I don't even know where she came from, kind of out of the blue when I first got the case. I think maybe she had called the state police post or something. And I kind of thought, well, we'll see what this lady's got to say. And she was basically her own little private investigator.

Speaker 5:
[08:43] It's understandable that Detective Mills listened to Susan's theories and reviewed her files. After all, it's not like the official investigation was hurtling towards a speedy conclusion. Susan was relieved to find Detective Mills receptive to her phone calls.

Speaker 10:
[08:59] I think it's because no one else listened to her. I thought she had a wealth of information, you know, because she had nothing else to do. She didn't have a job, you know. So she was always just mingling in the community. And to me, that's how you found anything out. You just had to mingle.

Speaker 5:
[09:19] Don't forget, what the state police originally received from the local Mayfield cops was a thin case file for a murder investigation. It seemed incomplete. So when Susan started handing over official documents they hadn't seen, including the discovery materials from Jeremy Adams, plus her own original recordings and reports, well, Detective Mills would later say it himself to Tom Mangold. He felt he had to work with her.

Speaker 10:
[09:47] At first, I just thought Susan was kind of another one of those nosy people in town that wanted to try to get something out of me, you know, but she had a lot of information. And I thought, hey, I need to use this lady. I mean, she's got stuff that I don't have because I think she had gotten it from Jeremy's lawyer or something. And it was stuff that wasn't in the case file.

Speaker 5:
[10:08] As it turned out, some of the most important items Susan shared were from Jeremy's lawyer, the typed up transcriptions of all the police interviews conducted for the original investigation. You see, the state police had all of the tapes, dozens of them. They just hadn't transcribed them yet. But Susan not only had the transcriptions, she knew how to navigate them. Here she is speaking years later, boasting of that fact.

Speaker 8:
[10:37] Even though they had the tapes, they did not have the transcripts. So when I would be on the phone with them, I would say, check out this transcript on such a page. I was actually giving them information they didn't have.

Speaker 5:
[10:52] Why on earth the Mayfield Police or the Kentucky State Police didn't just prepare their own transcripts? I have no idea. And rather than do that, they allowed Susan to direct them to what she considered critical and relevant portions. It's kind of nuts to me. As Susan started getting cozy with the state police, she kept Tom informed via email, providing updates and seeking his assistance or advice on how to proceed. Right from the get-go, she was excited that Detective Mills was willing to investigate Quincy Cross. Here's what she wrote to Tom in June 2004. Hi Tom, I just got a call from Mills. He told me he doesn't expect any arrest for at least a month. I'm working on getting a pick up Quincy. Mills doesn't have one, and in fact doesn't know what Q looks like either. I asked him to use his resources to get a mug shot or something from Tennessee if he has to, and he said he would. That email came shortly before her first stalking claim arose. Clearly, she didn't really know Quincy at all. She didn't even know what he looked like. According to Joe Currin, who started asking around himself, Quincy was just a small guy with a big mouth, but not someone obviously threatening.

Speaker 11:
[12:14] Quincy Cross, from what I was told, I talked to two of my cousins that lived down and went to school with him, two young ladies. They said he just thinks he's a big chief. He tried to play big in what he is, like he's tough. And he ain't big as a minute, and the girl could probably whoop him. That's what they told me.

Speaker 6:
[12:32] He was very confident. He was humorous. He was just, at the time, a young man trying to find himself back then.

Speaker 5:
[12:38] This is Quincy's sister, Rachelle, recalling what Quincy was like back in the early 2000s, back before he knew who Susan Galbreath was or how his life would change after meeting her.

Speaker 6:
[12:51] He misses out on his family. He knows that he's really missed out on his family. Watching his nephews and nieces and stuff grow up, you know, that he missed a big part of their lives, and which he really could have had an impact.

Speaker 5:
[13:05] Rachelle knows Quincy wasn't perfect in his youth. He'd been in trouble with the law. But in Susan's view, this was the man behind Jessica Currin's murder, and she was going to prove it. Through the summer of 2004, Susan's investigation continued with Detective Jamie Mills in close communication. In another email to Tom, Susan claims she was actually out in the field collecting DNA evidence for the state police. Mills just left here. He came to pick up the DNA samples we got on V. I asked him if he thought an arrest would be made in the near future. Now, this part really floored me. In my time as a prosecutor and legal consultant, I've seen investigators use a lot of different methods to collect evidence. But allowing a citizen sleuth to collect items for DNA analysis? I mean, what? So, we have to bear in mind that this is all Susan's point of view. This is her representation of her relationship with Detective Mills. She even claimed in one email that she was planning on starting a private investigator business with Detective Mills. When our producer, Alice, managed to get a brief interview with him recently, he had a different take.

Speaker 12:
[14:18] Susan considered you a dear friend and said she said that you're going to start a PI business together. Is that?

Speaker 10:
[14:26] That's what she wanted. Yeah, that's what she wanted.

Speaker 12:
[14:29] It's not true.

Speaker 10:
[14:30] No.

Speaker 5:
[14:32] Reading Susan's emails, it does feel like she may have been prone to inventing things. Perhaps she just let her imagination get the better of her. But it's possible she misconstrued how things really were. That's worth keeping in mind as we continue unpacking her story. There's no doubt Susan and Mills were working closely together, and he was open to her Quincy theory. He said so himself. In fact, Susan's son Ray even thinks his mom's police access was by official arrangement and that it paid well.

Speaker 13:
[15:07] She was getting money. She would get like two or three grand every other month or every couple, whatever.

Speaker 12:
[15:15] That wasn't disability?

Speaker 13:
[15:18] No, her wouldn't have been that much. I think my mom was an informant for the police. And I think she was, I think they were probably one of her go-to's for information on the street. She was getting funds from them to do whatever she needed to be done. If she needed something, she would call them, try to get it.

Speaker 5:
[15:40] Lawyers and private investigators have tried to get the authorities to confirm or deny if Susan was a paid informant, but without success. Some have confirmed that she was an informant or used to encourage witness cooperation. But that's all we know for sure. By this point, Susan's investigation was gaining momentum. She and Tom are in contact by phone and email. Tom is preparing to publish an article in the British press reporting on their ongoing investigation into what is now a four-year-old cold case. But for all of Susan's sleuthing, they still only hold fragments of evidence, contradictory witness statements, and conflicting timelines. Over a series of emails, Susan begins sketching out a possible version of events that fits all the puzzle pieces together. We've summarized a little for brevity and for decency. Just to warn you, her account gets pretty graphic. The version that emerges goes like this. Austin and Quincy are riding around in the Cadillac looking for girls when they run into Venetia and Jessica. Quincy is in the back and starts touching and groping Jessica who tries to fight him off. At this point, Venetia gets scared and asks to be let out of the car. Jessica continues to resist, maybe hits back a bit too hard. And Quincy starts beating her, even choking her with his belt. She passes out. They then drive back to Chris Drive where they transfer the unconscious Jessica to the Blue Pontiac. Austin grabs the gas can from his own car, then they head back out. They're deciding where to dump her body when Jessica regains consciousness and leaps from the car. Quincy and Austin grab a bat and chase after her, beating and strangling her before using the gas to burn the body. Now at this point, Susan's version of events doesn't align with the official timeline of the murder, witness statements, or the Chris Drive call logs that place Quincy at the house until at least 5:30 a.m. But nonetheless, the story, though I'd call it a fantasy, takes shape. And Tom runs with it. In October 2004, a newspaper in the UK published his first article. In the article, he declared Jeremy Adams as innocent and named Austin Leach and Quincy Cross as the primary suspects in Jessica's murder. He focused on the gas and the belt elements of Susan's story and the issue of the two cars. It's also the first time the case was presented as a sexually motivated attack.

Speaker 4:
[18:46] The exact quote from Tom was, Quincy suggested a sexual predator on cocaine.

Speaker 5:
[18:53] This is Maggie Freeling, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who's been reporting on the story.

Speaker 4:
[19:00] The first time we heard of a sexual assault was from Susan Galbreath and Tom Mangold in their emails. Up until then, four years in, sexual assault was never mentioned. There's no evidence of it. There is no evidence of a sexual assault. It says that in her autopsy.

Speaker 5:
[19:19] For Maggie, this shift in the Quincy Cross narrative and the investigation was a red flag that something was wrong.

Speaker 4:
[19:28] They come up with this, well, her underwear wasn't on her. So, oh my gosh, there must have been an assault. That's where the story starts and that's when I realized Susan had a hand in this because this was not part of the investigation up until then.

Speaker 5:
[19:43] We'll hear more from Maggie and her investigation later on. But honestly, aside from accuracy of the information, I just can't understand how a newspaper could have published this to essentially exonerate one suspect, then announce new suspects in an active murder investigation. In any case, by the fall of 2004, their theory is now out in the world. It feels like the net is closing around Susan's main suspect. So imagine when to Susan's horror, Detective Mills, her friend and collaborator, is suddenly removed from the case, apparently for reasons unrelated to the current investigation. But it's a massive blow to Susan, who described herself as, quote, devastated since he was, quote, the only local police officer who was on the track of the right killers. With Detective Mills off the case, Susan not only lost her unique access to the official investigation, her whole case against Quincy was in jeopardy.

Speaker 14:
[20:56] Welcome to Crime Scene, the new weekly show from The Binge, where we tell you the stories behind the world's most unforgettable crimes. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. You may know me as the host of My Fugitive Dad or Dear Franklin Jones, Watching You. I'm an executive producer of The Binge, the true crime podcast network where we bring you a new series on the first of every month. For Crime Scene, I'm joined by my producer and co-host Cooper Moll, the reporter and voice behind Fatal Beauty and The Crimes of Margot Freshwater. We know there are a lot of true crime podcasts out there. I think what makes Crime Scene different is that Cooper and I have boots on the ground. We're investigative storytellers and so many of the stories that come across our desk, we haven't been able to share with you until now. If you're one of the millions of people who have flocked to the binge for riveting storytelling, deeply investigated true crime series, think of this as all the things that you love about those shows in a single episode. Join us every week in the crime scene office, wherever you listen to or watch your shows. This is Crime Scene, available now.

Speaker 15:
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Speaker 16:
[22:16] What podcast, Currin? Tell us.

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Speaker 5:
[23:11] Following the departure of Detective Mills, Susan's access to the state's investigation is uncertain. She soon learns that a new detective named Sam Steger has been assigned to the case. Here's a recording of an early telephone call between them.

Speaker 17:
[23:27] Hello. Susan?

Speaker 6:
[23:29] Yes?

Speaker 18:
[23:29] Why are you at the scene? How are you?

Speaker 6:
[23:32] I'm fine.

Speaker 18:
[23:34] I'm surprised I haven't heard from you. I'm sorry?

Speaker 17:
[23:37] I said I've been surprised I haven't heard anything from you.

Speaker 18:
[23:39] Well, I've been off. I hadn't been working any this week.

Speaker 5:
[23:43] It's immediately clear that Detective Steger wasn't going to work with her the way Detective Mills had. Susan is not happy. Here, she's asking the detective to justify why he hasn't called her yet.

Speaker 17:
[23:57] We talked about two weeks ago when I told you about Quincy being in town.

Speaker 18:
[24:01] Right. And that we were supposed to meet back by one day. Right. And I never heard from you. Well, I called between 9 and 10 o'clock, and I probably called three or four times, and it was busy.

Speaker 6:
[24:13] I did not receive any calls from the state at all on my caller ID, and I have not.

Speaker 5:
[24:18] Now, I don't know about you, but listening to the way she speaks to a detective, I'm stunned. What starts as a disagreement turns into a three-minute squabble. Susan's sense of entitlement is astounding. And worst of all, from Susan's point of view anyway, it seems as though Detective Steger intends to do his job, going back to the facts of the case and the original suspects. In December 2004, Detective Steger goes to speak to Jeremy Adams. Detective Steger walks into the law library at the Graves County Courthouse, accompanied by a Graves County prosecutor. Waiting for them is 24-year-old Jeremy Adams, currently an inmate at Eddyville Prison, where he's serving time for assault and cocaine trafficking. Detective Steger thinks this is a routine sit-down, a chance to cross-check Jeremy's earlier statements, tighten timelines, confirm details. Instead, Jeremy has a brand-new story. He announces to Detective Steger that he himself had tracked down Quincy Cross ten months earlier in Mayfield regarding an apparently unrelated personal matter. According to Jeremy, Quincy, a man he's never met, had made a pass at his girlfriend, Nett, and he wanted to confront him about it. And according to Jeremy, Quincy then openly confessed to Jessica's murder.

Speaker 19:
[25:57] Quincy Cross is the one who admitted to me that he had killed her.

Speaker 18:
[26:05] How come he said he killed her?

Speaker 19:
[26:08] He didn't give me a reason why he killed her.

Speaker 18:
[26:13] When did this happen?

Speaker 9:
[26:15] What day is this?

Speaker 19:
[26:17] What day?

Speaker 18:
[26:18] Yeah, you remember what?

Speaker 19:
[26:19] I don't know what day.

Speaker 5:
[26:21] According to Jeremy's news story, Quincy shares explicit details with him. Details only a killer could have known.

Speaker 19:
[26:29] Both of them got in Austin Leach's car. Well, they was riding around or whatever. This is what I get by the story. They was riding around and they ran into Venetia, the girl's best friend.

Speaker 5:
[26:43] Jeremy said Venetia and Jessica were picked up in the White Cadillac with Quincy and Austin, and that at some point, Quincy started to fight with Jessica in the back seat. The similarity to Susan's version, the one she wrote for Tom just a few months earlier, is uncanny, to say the least.

Speaker 19:
[27:04] The fight was only just good one point. The way he said it, she had got out and started running away from the car. He got out and chased after her, I guess. He had mentioned to me he had a bat, something about putting a belt around her neck and dragging her across the concrete.

Speaker 5:
[27:23] Given this remarkable revelation, two days later on December 9th, Jeremy agrees to sit for a polygraph test. But when asked about whether he had any involvement with Jessica's murder, he flunks and shows signs of deception. After failing the polygraph, Jeremy panics and in a tearful call to Steger, he requests another urgent meeting. When they sit down the following day, now this is December 11th, his story changes once more. This time, he tells Detective Steger that he was in the car with Quincy and Austin and now Lolo Saxton, another one of the original suspects in Jessica's murder. So he's placing himself at the crime. Jeremy also claims that he got out of the vehicle shortly after they picked up Jessica. It's yet another twist. But this new version of the story doesn't get time to settle. According to Detective Stegar's case report, by the time he arrived home from Jeremy's interview, there was a voicemail waiting for him. It's from Susan. Somehow she already knew what had happened and insisted Jeremy misspoke that he was not at the crime scene that night. Sorry. Okay. Like, the original suspect randomly comes up with a new story that just happens to match almost word for word Susan's version. Then he fails a polygraph, panics, implicates himself before Susan then steps back in to course correct for him. This is just unreal, unbelievable, not credible. By January 2005, Jeremy returned to Detective Stieger yet again, this time to officially recant his previous statement. But this time, he admits to something else. Jeremy tells Detective Stieger that he's been talking extensively with Susan and using details from the discovery in his original case to make his story sound credible.

Speaker 19:
[29:35] I had the whole emotional discovery. I have to be straight with you, man. I mean, if I had something to do with this case, trust me, the way I'm feeling right now, it would come out right now. That's how low I am. And I know that I was a suspect in the beginning. And I know that they could bring the case back up on me.

Speaker 5:
[29:57] So all this Quincy stuff was made up. And Jeremy's excuse? Because he was scared of being accused again. I can't imagine why. But this is exactly the risk with sharing those discovery documents. In a case that will be determined on the strength of witness statements, having case information flying around makes it incredibly difficult for investigators to get to the truth. It's clear to me that the police should not consult Susan anymore. She certainly seems to be hindering the investigation, possibly even obstructing it. As for the Detective Steger, Jeremy Adams, Susan Galbreath feedback loopout, there seems to be one more twist to it. In Detective Steger's final interview with Jeremy in January 2005, Jeremy asked the detective what the state police would need to convict the real killer of Jessica Currin.

Speaker 19:
[30:52] What type of evidence do we need in order to make the arrest and gain the conviction?

Speaker 17:
[30:59] Well, I mean, I want somebody.

Speaker 18:
[31:01] This is what my main objective is right now. I want somebody on tape.

Speaker 19:
[31:05] You want somebody on tape? So basically, you need a confession on tape or some involvement in names basically on tape. That right does enough to arrest and convict, okay?

Speaker 5:
[31:19] Detective Steger makes it clear. He'd need a confession on tape. Which brings us back to the opening of this episode with Susan meeting with Quincy, ready to covertly record the conversation, hoping for a confession.

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Speaker 4:
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Speaker 3:
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Speaker 5:
[32:48] We're back where we began. On that morning of February 20th, 2005, Susan's car was acting up, and she needed to make sure her meeting with Quincy went according to plan. So she called on her friend, Lacey Gates. Now, it's another name to keep track of, but this one is worth remembering. Lacey and Susan are really close, best friends. Lacey was aware of Susan's investigation and had been helping out here and there. But today, she's about to be dragged into the heart of it. She didn't know Quincy herself and at this point, wasn't so convinced of Susan's theory. Despite Detective Steger's renewed interest in Jeremy Adams, he does agree to support Susan's attempt to record an interview with Quincy, who is still a person of interest after all. After collecting the recording devices from the state police post, they drove around to do a trial run. With the support of the Kentucky State Police, it all seemed like a lot of fun to them, like they were playing cops. This is Lacey with Susan in 2012, recalling that day.

Speaker 22:
[34:00] We start singing the songs and we're like, you know, going bad boys, bad boys, what you want to do, what you're going to do when they come for you. Bad boys. And then we did Hawaii Five-O, and then we start talking about the cops. And one of the guys was really cute, and we're like, oh yeah, he's so hot. I would so do him.

Speaker 5:
[34:20] When Lacey and Susan arrive back at the police post, they receive a reprimand for their unprofessional conduct.

Speaker 22:
[34:28] We're laughing hysterically, and one cop looks at us and he's like, ladies, this needs to be way more professional. We heard every conversation that you guys had in the car.

Speaker 5:
[34:38] Embarrassed, the two women drive in near silence to Quincy's cousin's house. But I got to say, the way Susan is fooling around and making jokes, to me, she doesn't sound like someone who thinks she's about to confront a psychotic killer, let alone one she claims has been stalking her for the past eight months. The first reference she made of that stalking was in an email to Tom the previous summer, when she was trying to get hold of a picture of Quincy to identify him. I have to see what he looks like. I had a visitor yesterday, and before I could get to my door, he was getting into a car. I've been told the description I have describes Q. It's a story she would stand by for years. This is Susan speaking in 2012.

Speaker 8:
[35:26] I was out gardening and I glance up, and I just see him standing there. He's got his arms across his chest and just standing there with his legs spread and he's just looking dead at me. My husband at the time was there and I said, who is that? He said, it's Cross.

Speaker 5:
[35:42] Tom would repeat in the press. Now, as we've seen, Susan is prone to exaggerating. But what we do know is that her own friend, Lacey Gates, would later claim the stalker accusation was made up. Again, according to Lacey, Susan repeated this false accusation even after she'd figured this out. Either way, the accusation was never proven or even investigated as far as we know. Did she ever truly believe her stalker was Quincy? Did a genuine misunderstanding become a convenient lie? Or was she out to railroad Quincy from the outset? As with so many things in this story, it's unfortunate we can't ask her. In any case, this is the context in which Susan and Lacey confronted Quincy Cross on February 20th, 2005. As Susan perches on the edge of the sofa, she takes out her cigarettes and the cell phone the state police had given her and places them on the coffee table. The television plays in the background, the kids chatter. She doesn't know at the time, but the background noise will make the audio she is secretly recording almost impossible to hear. Lacey sits across the room in a chair. Quincy remains standing. Susan needs to elicit incriminating details from him. She decides to go for broke. It's hard to make out, but there they are. The two key details from the original crime scene report, Belt and Gas. The two details that slowly emerged from the Chris Drive interviews, Belt and Gas. The foundational evidence of Susan's narrative against Quincy, Belt and Gas. It's hard to hear how Quincy responds, but there is a lot of shouting. He denies even having a belt. He claims he was wearing sweatpants when he was arrested. And the gas he says he spilt over himself was when he was trying to get the car going. It's the same story he told the cops at the time. Susan doubles down. She tells him that he's in the sites of the police now, for the murder, especially according to Susan, that Jeremy Adams has now been cleared. An hour after entering the house, Susan and Lacey leave and walk quickly back to their car. Susan is coming down from an adrenaline high. She's shaking and comments to her friend Lacey that she's disappointed with how the interview went. There had been no confession, no major admission of guilt. But in her mind, Quincy had said one or two things that confirmed her suspicions. The question is, would it be enough to make an arrest? She'd soon find out. That evening, Susan and Lacey report back to the state police post to debrief with Detective Steeker who had been listening in, although details of the conversation were impossible to make out, so it's time to compare notes. But before they can begin, Susan breaks down in tears, the pressure of the day finally getting to her. After she recovers a little, Detective Steeker begins the official meeting.

Speaker 9:
[39:46] Today's day is February the 20th, 2005. It's this interview with Susan Galbreath.

Speaker 5:
[39:53] Susan goes over everything, drawing Detective Steeker's attention to the moments she felt Quincy gave himself away.

Speaker 8:
[40:01] If you notice, when he says, I ran out of gas and I started pouring the rest of that gas, he said the rest of the gas, which was key to me because that means he used gas for something else and had some left. But he said, I knew, and he says as soon as Perkins stops him, that I knew when he smelled that gas, I'd get blamed for that.

Speaker 9:
[40:20] I didn't, yes.

Speaker 18:
[40:21] He didn't catch that either.

Speaker 5:
[40:23] Perkins is the officer who found Quincy stranded on the side of the road, trying to put gas in the Blue Pontiac on the night of the murder. But as you heard there, Detective Steeker says he couldn't make out what Quincy said, or rather what Susan claims Quincy had said. What follows is even more troubling, because she claims Quincy freely admitted to strangling women.

Speaker 8:
[40:48] I wouldn't hit no woman.

Speaker 6:
[40:50] Now, I'll choke one.

Speaker 8:
[40:51] I'll strangle one.

Speaker 9:
[40:52] And that's what he said.

Speaker 6:
[40:53] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[40:54] It's a claim Lacey would repeat too. The problem for Detective Steeker is that you can't hear Quincy saying this, nor anything else that Susan claims. In fact, all you can hear is Quincy flatly denying everything. Every important detail that is discussed, it's Susan that's driving it, not Quincy. Gas and belt. Gas and belt. But there's nothing on the tape to indicate he knows anything more than what's already been reported, and yet what evolves in the fallout is an even clearer picture of Quincy as the killer. For example, Susan will later claim that Quincy indicated he knew exactly what type of belt was used to kill Jessica.

Speaker 8:
[41:37] And he stood up, and I can remember that his waist was right at my eye level. He said, I know exactly what kind of belt was around her throat. It was just like this. And he was wearing a black braided belt. I knew I had him then, because even though there may have been talk about a belt around her throat, it was never made clear what kind of belt it was. That, in my mind, said, you just confessed to murder.

Speaker 5:
[42:02] Susan didn't make this claim at the time. It only came out later on, as her story evolved. And there's nothing on that tape that backs this up. We only have her word to go on. Despite Susan's certainty about Quincy Cross' guilt, the covert recording just didn't have much evidentiary value. Months go by, and there's no movement to arrest Quincy, leaving Susan increasingly frustrated. In fact, Detective Steeker is still looking into Jeremy Adams, with yet more witnesses coming forward, repeating claims that have been floating around for years at this point. Here's another witness, who spent two weeks incarcerated at the same facility as Jeremy, a year after the murder. He had this to say to Detective Steeker.

Speaker 17:
[43:01] He looks up at me, he looks me straight in the eye. He says, I killed my baby's mother. He said that he did the final blow that killed her.

Speaker 9:
[43:13] With what?

Speaker 17:
[43:14] I believe he said a belt. He pulled off his belt and put it around her neck.

Speaker 5:
[43:20] And here's an inmate pointing the finger at Jeremy. He's making this accusation to the state police in 2006, six years after the murder.

Speaker 9:
[43:30] You've just told me that you used to deal with Jeremy Adams.

Speaker 17:
[43:33] Yes, sir.

Speaker 9:
[43:33] And that Jeremy Adams told you that he killed Jessica Currin.

Speaker 17:
[43:37] Yeah, he said he had to shut her up.

Speaker 5:
[43:41] In fact, by early 2006, Detective Sam Steeker's investigation has widened to now implicate Nett Todd, Jeremy's girlfriend, at the time of Jessica's murder. After everything Susan's done, her case against Quincy is once again on the verge of falling apart. And with Detective Steeker's focus drifting ever farther away from her Quincy theory, she needs a miracle. Incredibly, that miracle would come in the form of the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation. We see how new witnesses that Susan has unearthed are treated by the KBI.

Speaker 17:
[44:28] You're going to be charged with the murder with a test, because you're lying.

Speaker 6:
[44:31] I'm not lying about nothing.

Speaker 17:
[44:34] You ain't even getting close to the truth.

Speaker 18:
[44:41] You look so pathetic.

Speaker 23:
[44:43] Every time the story is not going to the Susan Galbreath script, then the tape was turned off. Then they come back on again, and it's back on the Susan Galbreath script.

Speaker 5:
[44:56] Witnesses who'd later claim they were coerced.

Speaker 11:
[45:00] They were forced to me to say, Quincy has something to do with it. That's no lie.

Speaker 13:
[45:03] They were forced to me to say that he took part in it.

Speaker 5:
[45:07] That's next time on My Mother's Lies. At time of release, we have not received a response from the Kentucky State Police, the Office of the Attorney General of Kentucky, Jeremy Adams, or former state troopers, Amy Mills and Sam Steiger regarding allegations reported in this episode. Net Todd responded, denying having any knowledge of the crime nor any involvement with Susan's investigation. Tom Mangold confirmed by email that he stands by his reporting. This is My Mother's Lies, an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Message Heard, hosted by me, Beth Karas. From Message Heard, Alice Arnold is our investigator producer, Robin Simon, our producer, McAllister Bexson, our series producer, Tiago Diaz, our assistant producer. Alan Lear is our supervising sound editor, supported by sound editors Lizzie Andrews and Ivan Easley, with original composition by Mike Maynes. From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. From Blink Films, our executive producer is Justine Kershaw. And a big thanks to the whole Sony Music Entertainment team.