
ยทS3 E4
My Girl Susan
Episode Transcript
Heads up, this series contains graphic descriptions of violence.
Speaker 2That's your dang through the record, please, Susan Galberth.
Speaker 1When Susan Galbreath was called to testify in the Jessica Current murder trial, she started with an apology for the judge.
Speaker 3I'd like to have first apologize for the show you.
Speaker 2I didn't mean to be late today.
Speaker 3I want to mention it.
Speaker 4For you.
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 6This set the tone for the rest of her testimony.
Speaker 1She was kind of scattered, hedging on her answers, chewing gum loudly.
The attorneys on both sides even approached the judge to complain, I'll be responsive.
Speaker 6She's saying.
Speaker 1Susan's not answering the questions, She's meandering.
Susan sounds nothing like.
Speaker 6The woman who so clearly had written and talked about her fervent commitment to solving the murder.
Like this is how she describes her feelings about Jessica's case.
Yeah, I've like followed courtev stuff like that, and.
Speaker 5So I of course was at the time there were so many murders.
Speaker 3In Mayfield going on that it was I.
Speaker 6Was just you know, dumbfounded by it.
Speaker 3It was just you know, and here was another one, and it just all of them kind of captured an interest in me, you know.
Speaker 1And this strikes me as odd considering there weren't many murders in Mayfield around two thousand.
Police said it had been the first.
Speaker 6In over a year.
Now.
Speaker 1I can't ask Susan what was going on in her head, but the way it looks to people who Susan accused is that she's trying to downplay her involvement in the case and with some of the people embroiled in it.
Speaker 7So what about jar is.
Speaker 6Jeremy Adams is a name you've heard before.
He's the unwitting father of Jessica Currn's baby boy, Zion.
You might remember Jessica's friend describing their encounter.
Speaker 8He kind of forcibly took her around the building and had said they had sex.
It was like two seconds they were around there and came back and he walked off and that was that.
Speaker 6She said.
Speaker 1How disappointed Jessica was to find out that Zion was Jeremy's son.
Speaker 6She was very upset.
Speaker 1Another significant fact about Jeremy Adams.
He was initially charged with Jessica's murder when the Mayfield police department bungled the investigation, he got off, and when Susan Goalbrath began her citizen investigation, suddenly the blame shifted elsewhere.
This is Graves County, Chapter four, My girl, Susan, You've now heard the story the prosecution used to convict Quincy Cross, Tammer Caldwell, and Jeff Burton a kidnapping, a drug field orgy and rape, necrophilia, and a murder.
But many of the people I've talked to about this case have told me that if I want to figure out exactly why Quincy was arrested in the first place, then bits of truth lies somewhere in the beginning, back when police had a much simpler theory and alternate suspects, Their main one was Jeremy Adams.
Jeremy Adams was only twenty when Jessica was killed, a skinny kid with a buzz cut and the whisper of a mustache on his top lip.
He was known as a local troublemaker with a growing rap sheet charges like promoting contraband, robbery, and assault, but nothing that merited serious prison time until two thousand and one, when he was arrested for Jessica's murder, Jeremy wasn't charged alone.
His co defendant was another person you've heard of, Carlos Lolo Saxton, Jessica Curran's boyfriend at the time she was killed.
Remember her best friend said about Carlos.
Speaker 8I mean she laughing, she really liked him.
Speaker 1He and Jeremy were both indicted the year after Jessica's killing, Jeremy for murder and Carlos for complicity to commit murder, and the person who was among the first to point the finger at them was none other than Victoria, called well, the state's key witness against Quincy Cross.
Speaker 4Do you want to be called the king or.
Speaker 9Let it matter?
Speaker 1In September of two thousand, more than one month after Jessica's body was found, Victoria told the very first investigators on this case that she had overheard Jeremy, Carlos and others talking about Jessica.
Speaker 6This tape has been edited for length.
Speaker 10Oh, Jeremy the b Ray pay back to the book.
Speaker 1Okay, the recording is not very clear, but she's saying, Jeremy said, payback's a bitch and we're gonna get her good.
Speaker 10Why would payback be a bitch?
Speaker 11Rather working from Jeremy or I guess they found out that they okay.
Speaker 4So maybe he got upset because she was telling everybody but the baby was whoever or something.
Speaker 1Jeremy was in a relationship with a girl named net Todd back in two thousand.
They even had kids, and the rumor around town, which then became the first Fie theory, was that Jessica went to confront Jeremy about child support.
Maybe she even threatened to tell Net that the baby was his.
This made Jeremy lash out, and then he accidentally or intentionally killed her.
Jeremy and Carlos have been tough to track down, but net Todd lives about twenty minutes outside of Mayfield, and she's one of the many people I've reached out to for this story.
Speaker 6Hey, my name is Maggie.
We have been looking into a really old taste from a long time ago, Quincy Cross.
Speaker 1I don't have anything to do with it, but she's not exactly happy that I'm standing here.
Speaker 3I don't know anything about that.
Speaker 4Yeah, and labor property.
Speaker 1N There aren't that many details in the press about the case police built against Jeremy, and there's even less out there about the charge which is against Carlos.
On top of that, many of the files in the case were destroyed in December twenty twenty one when a devastating tornado hit western Kentucky and leveled the Graves County Courthouse.
A lot of those records were kept there, So getting the full story is tough.
Speaker 6But I've got a secret weapon.
Speaker 4Well at least, shall Kate never say that I don't keep you informed with the going zones and the gossip.
So Darryl Woolman, ay, I love your face, Jeez, America, Trump and.
Speaker 6Shovels.
Speaker 1She got me a partial recording of the two thousand and one grand jury proceedings against Jeremy and Carlos.
Speaker 6Would you state your name for the record player?
Speaker 4Check?
Speaker 2Is Tam Partner and I'm Jim.
Speaker 4And how are you employed.
Speaker 2I'm employed by.
Speaker 12The City of Mayfield as a police detected I.
Speaker 1Actually have grand jury proceedings are secret.
These tapes aren't usually made public.
We are lucky to have this insight, and in.
Speaker 8That capacity, you are here to be testifying some cases now being brought against the Jeremy Adams and also Carlo Saxon.
Speaker 11Is that correct?
Speaker 8Yes?
Speaker 9Correct?
Speaker 1Now, that's Tim Fortner, the lead detective for the Mayfield Police who very politely declined to talk to me for this series.
In this proceeding, you hear him laying out the first police theory of the case.
He says, Jeremy and Carlos knew each other from around Mayfield and dealing drugs, and he says they both went out looking for Jessica.
Speaker 13Jeremy and Lolo had went out looking for Jessica.
Speaker 5A founder and argument ensued.
Speaker 1One of the doors to the middle school had unidentified palm prints sneered on it look like.
Speaker 3There may and somebody trying to get into into the door or.
Speaker 1Something which and there was also a clump of hair land nearby.
Speaker 14And with the clump of hair there, it certainly appeared to have been some type of struggle, perhaps somebody trying to get in or for the door open.
Speaker 6It may not be, but something could happen, he says.
Maybe Jessica fought back.
Speaker 5Jessica hit Jeremy in the face.
Speaker 2Jeremy then hit Jessica in the face with the things.
Speaker 1That would explain why Jessica's body was found with cuts to her face and a broken nose.
Speaker 14Said it knocked her down when she got up to take off down and he found a piece of metal and hit her in the back of the head, which also would go inside with the corner of the porker.
Speaker 1Here, Mayfield police aren't discussing the belt fragment much, the one found near Jessica's body, like you heard the prosecution do at Quincy's trial.
Instead, they're saying blunt force trauma to the head is what most likely killed Jessica.
Now, even though they suspected Jessica had been bludgeoned, they didn't find any evidence of blood spatter, but Mayfield police theorized that was most likely because it had rained those days.
Speaker 11But with all the rain, it watched its way.
Speaker 15And then they found later that they were still on the flood there and it drained there, so most of it happened pretty close to it.
Speaker 2And definitely the burning happened there because the grass was burned.
Speaker 1What's the either way, the police concluded that Jessica had to have been killed at the school grounds.
Then he says the killers pulled her underwear off to make it look like a rape, and they burned her body.
Speaker 4They burned the body so that they could cover.
Speaker 2You remember in the DNA evidence.
Speaker 13And that's why I wanted.
Speaker 1Detective Tim Fortner got these theories from the testimonies of at least three jailhouse informants who had all shared a cell with Jeremy at some point in two thousand and one.
Speaker 4Up here and talk to you about the Jessicicern murder down might feel Go ahead and.
Speaker 1Tell us I've listened to those recordings, and they either say Jeremy admits of various points to attacking Jessica.
Speaker 4In and back in the hand with stale Hie, and that's what we're telling came about.
Speaker 1Or they say Jeremy appears worried about any DNA they might find on some cigarette butts the police collected near Jessica's.
Speaker 14Body, if the DNA could be brought.
Speaker 6Off a bit now.
Speaker 1To be clear, I haven't been able to find what physical evidence the police had against Jeremy and Carlos.
They found those cigarette butts Jeremy was worried about, but didn't make an official DNA connection to either of them.
And I already described the mistakes Mayfield Police made in their investigation.
There's a chance that all they had against them was the word of three jailhouse snitches saying Jeremy had some thing to do with it.
Speaker 14Again, we received several tips Jeremy Adams might be involved.
Speaker 4Jeremy Adams might be involved.
Speaker 1Jeremy in turn implicated Carlos as far as he goes.
The police always described Carlos as someone who may have helped plan the murder or failed to stop it.
On top of that, remember the party Quincy Cross was at the night Jessica was last seen, the one on Chris Drive.
Carlos was also at that party.
He was arrested for drugs along with Quincy Cross and everyone else on Sunday morning, hours after Jessica was last seen alive.
So it's unclear as to when exactly he would have picked up Jessica and helped Jeremy kill her.
But I might never have a clear answer because Jeremy and Carlos would never see their day in court and lead up to their trial, the prosecution and police failed to turn over evidence to the defense, including eighteen to twenty audio and video recordings Jeremy and Carlos's attorneys thought could point to their client's innocence, and the prosecutor basically said, we can't find a lot of this evidence.
Speaker 6The judge was pissed.
Speaker 1He told law enforcement, quote, I have never seen a case so encumbered with problems, and I hope I never see another one.
Speaker 6The judge dismissed the.
Speaker 1Case without prejudice, meaning that Jeremy and Carlos could be charged and tried again.
And when the Kentucky State Police took over the investigation, it appears as if they did chase the case against Jeremy for a bit.
But then just a year later came Susan Gallbreath.
Speaker 14So pretty much Susan Galbert ran the investigation.
Speaker 6But what is her motive?
Speaker 8Like?
Speaker 5Why is Susan Barbreath invested on us?
Speaker 4Because she's fucking her awns Ona Adams, Jeremy's mother.
Speaker 6That's coming up.
Speaker 1When Quincy Cross was convicted, Susan Golbreath wrote an email to her journalist friend Tom Mangled, saying quote, I can hardly see from tears falling, this was her crowning moment, years of her labor finally paying off.
But now almost two decades later, Susan's own work is being used to try and get Quincy Cross out of prison.
Speaker 9So I just wanted to tell you I was looking at my timeline and I have around two thousand and four, Susan Galbrith first pops into the picture.
Speaker 1Miranda Hellman is an attorney and for four years, starting around twenty twenty, Miranda worked with the Kentucky Innocence Project on the post conviction case for the main person found guilty of murdering Jessica Currn Quincy Cross.
Speaker 9So mid two thousand and four is when I really.
Speaker 1Miranda's walking me through a timeline she's put together, connecting Susan's involvement in the case to changing stories of the state's main witnesses and law enforcements theories.
Speaker 9What I did was compare that with the statements of Victorian and Venetia up until that point.
So up until late two thousand and three is the last one I have from them, And there is no sexual component, and there is no Quincy.
The story is absolutely we left the car party.
Speaker 6It was Jeremy Adams.
Speaker 1The Kentucky Innocence Project actually first took on Quincy's case in the early twenty tens, but they had to shelve it because of funding.
When Miranda and her team picked it back up, they had their.
Speaker 6Work cut out for them.
Speaker 1It's very hard to get a conviction overturned in the state of Kentucky or in most of the country.
Really, one of the many hurdles is that Quincy's attorneys have to present new evidence that points to his innocence.
Speaker 9So it has to be something that wasn't available or should have been discovered at the time of trial, and so the burden is incredibly high.
It has to be something that truly is new.
Speaker 1Then in twenty twenty two, Miranda and her team had a lucky break.
Speaker 9We'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 Galbreth.
Speaker 1They obtained years of emails between journalists Tom Mangold and Susan Goalbreth, which you've been hearing throughout this series.
Last episode, those emails helped explain how Susan and suspects and theories found their way into the prosecution's case, and now Miranda says they can give us insight into Susan's motive.
Speaker 9Welcome to Susan Gabbrick World, whose main goal was always to get Jeremy Adams out of this.
Speaker 1At Quincy's trial, his attorneys did try to point out Susan's relationship with Donna Adams, Jeremy's mom.
They even said both women were invested in finding the quote real killer together, But when questioned by the defense, Susan denies being close to Donna years ago.
Speaker 3She lived upstairs from me, and that was how I met her, and you know those I did party that.
You know, we might party together or something like that, but we would have never hung out.
Speaker 6She says.
Speaker 1They were neighbors in the late nineties and they lost touch for a few years, and then you.
Speaker 11Were kindled relationship with our arms of being a flight.
Speaker 3You make rekindle sound as though we were like and slow mo should run in towards one another.
There was nothing like that at all.
Speaker 6Nothing.
Speaker 11When did you reappoint yourself in her?
Speaker 2What you in two thousand and four?
Speaker 11Did you consider here in?
Speaker 8I don't.
I don't.
Speaker 3I really don't think that I would even consider it that.
Speaker 1But new emails and testimony that the Kentucky Innocence Project obtained and that my team and I have reviewed, tell a different story as to the findings of other people invested in clearing the names of Quincy, Tamra and Jeff.
Speaker 14Excuse me one second.
Speaker 6Like private investigator John Poole.
Speaker 15Have you got to add Johnson working.
Speaker 1When I first met John in twenty twenty three, he drove.
Speaker 6Me around Mayfield and he knows everyone.
Speaker 1We stopped to say hi to some construction workers.
Speaker 14I figured you're the worker bees.
I figured that Ed wouldn't.
Speaker 12Be doing anything.
Speaker 6John grew up in Mayfield.
Speaker 1He left to work as a police officer in California, then came back home in his fifties.
Since returning, he's been a three time council member, heavily involved in the community.
He's also a dead ringer for the late actor Leslie Jordan.
Speaker 14Plus, I'm the uncle of Jeffrey Burton.
He was one of the people that was charged in the Jessica Current murder.
Speaker 6Jeff Burton the white boy.
Speaker 1Susan Goalbreth helped find she made his house the scene of the crime.
John has also become a good friend of Darra's.
Speaker 4I was sitting on his floor three years ago, almost to the date, and we were looking through papers and the light was hitting him so perfectly.
I said, why are you still do this?
John?
Why are you still involved, you know, other than Jeff, and he said, we said fucking vengeance, vengeance over the fucking judicial system and how much it needed to be changed.
Speaker 14There's no physical evidence in this case that indicates any of them did anything.
Speaker 1John also believes that Susan Goallbreath played a big role in shaping the case against Quincy, Tamra and Jeff.
Speaker 14If you look at the record, the prosecution used a story that was developed by Susan Galbert and Susan in any of the stuff that you look at, her goal was to save Jeremy Adams.
Speaker 1This is a big departure from Susan's publicly stated goal that she was a selfless, everyday citizen called by divine forces to help find justice for Jessica Current.
John managed to find a friend of Susan's of over twenty years who often helped her with the case.
Speaker 14Lacey Gates, gave us some information and tried to clean this up.
We even had her down here.
She knew that it was wrong.
Speaker 6Where is she now?
Speaker 14She is deceased.
Speaker 1Lacy Gates died in twenty twenty two, but before that she did give an affidavit to the Kentucky Innocence Project, which said I feel that Susan Golbreth directed the police in the wrong direction and the wrong people were convicted.
Susan Gaalbreth was friends with Donna Adams, the mother of Jeremy Adams, one of the first persons accused of Jessica's murder.
Donna was under the impression that Susan was going to help get Jeremy out of trouble.
Speaker 14Susan Galbert was able to get the discovery in the Adams case.
Speaker 1Jeremy signed over his case files to journalist Tom Mangled, and those documents were part of what Tom used to source his first articles on Mayfield and Jessica Curran.
Before those articles came out, Susan writes to Tom that Donna was anxious that her son's name still hadn't been cleared.
Speaker 6Here's my colleague reading the email.
Speaker 5I have pleaded with her so many times to stay level headed and to wait.
Speaker 1Remember, the charges alleging Jeremy had killed Jessica in a supposed fight over child support had been dismissed.
Speaker 6John says, but they.
Speaker 14Were dismissed without prejudice, and that means the case could have been brought back up at any time.
But again it's appeared that Galbert was pushing the other scenario, the one the state used.
Speaker 1And the scenario Tom Mingled used in his articles.
In these stories, Tom states matter of factly that Jeremy was obviously an innocent man, and he repeats that sentiment year later in his BBC retrospective.
Speaker 10By the end of the first week, we'd established that Jeremy Adams, the local small time criminal, had been wrongly charged by the cops.
Speaker 1Tom describes a bumbling police department that just wanted to pin the murder on a petty criminal.
Tom says the strongest evidence the Mayfield Police had against Jeremy was the alleged confessions he made to those cellmates you heard from earlier.
But Jeremy's attorney told Tom that the only reason Jeremy confessed was because Detective Tim Fortner had shown Jeremy pictures of the crime scene.
Speaker 11They went there to ask him about a murder, and they showed him evidence that no one had really seen before.
So of course he's going to implicate himself in some way.
Jarmy is a simple minded gentleman.
He can be led very easily.
He was one of the town criminals, and it was very easy for them to close this case and make themselves look.
Speaker 1Good, decides Tom Mingled and Susan Goalbreath had a much better suspect.
Speaker 10The seriously nasty drug dealer called Quincy Cross, whod been arrested just hours after the murder.
Speaker 9He was a pretty easy mark as well.
You know, he had a little bit of a history with the law as far as the drugs went.
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.
Speaker 1But what Tom ignores or fails to mention in his stories is that it wasn't just him and Susan out investigating.
Susan had help.
She conducted part of her investigation alongside Jeremy's mom, Donna, and the mother of his children, Net.
According to her emails, they went on at least half a dozen interviews together.
She even used NET to collect DNA evidence from people they suspected.
After one of Tom's stories accusing Quincy and clearing Jeremy was published in late two thousand and four, Susan wrote him.
Speaker 5Can you believe it?
Jeremy is becoming a celebnow?
Who to thunk it?
Speaker 6And While Susan was more than happy to share information with law enforcement, she didn't want anyone else getting their hands on her correspondence or files.
In the lead up to Quincy, Tamra, and Jeff's trials, Susan was worried that defense attorneys wanted to subpoena her computer.
She writes, Tom.
Speaker 5Met with my friends today and was told not to worry about anything concerning my PC.
I was told that even if they subpoena my hard drive, as a private citizen, I can do whatever I want to with my computer except break the law.
Speaker 1Her friends are the KBI agents you met last episode, the ones who would eventually solve Jessica curns More with the help of Susan Gallbroth.
Attorney Miranda Hellman says if the defense had had full access to Susan's documents and emails at trial, they could have shown the jurors the full extent of Susan's involvement in accusing Quincy and shifting the blame away from Jeremy, things could have played out differently.
Speaker 9You couldn't cross examine someone who was actively hiding information from the prosecutors and the defense attorneys and not giving them a fair shot.
Speaker 6And there's one more thing.
Speaker 1Even though Susan publicly denied wanting to help Jeremy, that was not the impression Jeremy Adams Scott.
Speaker 8This is the interview with Jeremy Adams, President or myself detected sam'ste text Tec Police and Attorney's office.
Speaker 1Just listen to parts of his interview between him and law enforcement in two thousand and five.
Speaker 16My number one prior is to get this case out of the way.
Speaker 13You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1By this time, Jeremy had actually met Quincy Cross in jail, one of the many times they'd both been locked up on various charges, and Jeremy says he knows Venetia's Stubblefield, the last person to see Jessica alive.
He says they'd hooked up once, and he's making the case that he could be of use in the investigation.
Speaker 13And I believe with all my heart, I know for a fact that if I was out that I'd be able to wire up on them or whatever and get them on tape talking about these things.
Speaker 1He just needs prosecutors to cut him a deal so he can get out of jail on his other charges.
Speaker 2Give me see.
Speaker 4Today and watch me.
Speaker 7I guarantee you if it's not solved, If it's not solved to sixty days, lock my ass right back up and convict me of the charges.
Speaker 13That's how much fake.
Speaker 12I got in myself.
Speaker 1And part of his pitch is that he can help find the real killer because he's connected in Mayfield.
Speaker 8I have a.
Speaker 7Whole team of people that's been in Mayfield for years.
Speaker 12It's got people.
Speaker 13Topping out of the way.
Speaker 6One of them, you know who it is, Susan.
Speaker 16Susan, Oh, Susan yeah.
JN Gomer, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 12She knows people the Lord.
Speaker 7A whole lot of information that's been found out now came through my girl, Susan and this other guy because they went out there and they personally.
Speaker 1My girl Susan and the other guy journalist Tom Mingold, who by that time had published two articles saying Jeremy had been wrongly accused.
Speaker 7What I'm saying is I have a connection to where if I can't give them somebody else.
Can you feel what I'm saying?
Speaker 14Why I haven't think so far there because they were, you know, Susan was working pretty hard with for you apparently, right, I come over from Britain and do this story and all.
Speaker 7That, right to see, these are a whole lot of things that they can do that I can't do.
There's a whole lot of things I can do that they can't do.
Speaker 1As far as I can tell, law enforcement never takes Jeremy up on his offer to be an informant, but they do maintain a working relationship with Susan Goalbreth.
In a phone call with one of those same officers in the years before Quincy's trial, she tells him to hurry and charge Quincy already.
Speaker 4I mean, there was so much more I'm him than they ever had on Jeremy.
Speaker 8Yeah, oh I agree, I totally agree.
Speaker 4Oh my god, I totally.
Speaker 14Agree with you.
Speaker 8I agree.
Speaker 14But you know, but that is right of my control, right.
Speaker 11Yeah.
Speaker 1As you know now, Quincy Cross is serving life in prison for the murder of Jessica Currn.
Miranda and the folks at the Kentucky Innocence Project have filed state and federal motions looking to vacate Quincy's conviction.
The emails between Susan and Tom are part of their case, Miranda says.
They show how Susan influenced the investigation beyond what was originally known, revealing how Susan worked alongside two women who had a vested interest in seeing Jeremy's name cleared, his girlfriend and his mom.
And they show that Susan fought to conceal her documents from defense attorneys.
Speaker 9She was the person who punt Quincy Cross in prison.
She's the person who handed the police their theory, their investigation, and their star witnesses.
What we want to present to the court is that they never had the full story.
Speaker 6And where is Jeremy Adams.
That's after the break.
Speaker 1The people I've talked to who are invested in clearing Quincy, Jeff and Tamer's names have all pointed to Jeremy Adams as a more obvious suspect in the murder of Jessica Currn, and I want to be fair to him.
Based on the evidence I've been able to see, it seems like the Mayfield Police relied heavily on the word of Jeremy's cellmates when they were building the case against him.
A lot of wrongful conviction cases I've covered involve the false testimony of jailhouse informants.
They often lie to get a better sentencing deal from the prosecution or to get even with another prisoner, so I know better than to trust them uncritically.
But the thing is, Jeremy went on to tell more people about his involvement or knowledge surrounding the death of Jessica.
Speaker 14Current Jeremy Adams kept hanging around my office up there and wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 6He reached out to private investigator John Pool.
Speaker 14And so I finally talked to him.
In fact, I even gave him a ride to where he was staying at the time, and he claims that he was going to tell me who did it.
Speaker 1He never did, but Jeremy did tell even more sell meates through the years that he either attacked Jessica or knew who did, and John says Susan often trailed behind Jeremy trying to do damage control.
Speaker 14Once Susan knew what was going on, she would go to those people and try to talk him in to not saying anything and at or correct their story.
So she was a busy little bee.
Speaker 1According to court filings from the Kentucky Innocence Project.
At one point, Jeremy tells the police he was in the car with Jessica the night she was killed, and that same day Susan calls the police to say Jeremy was mistaken.
On top of that, he talked to Jessica's family.
I asked Jessica's father, Joe Curran about it.
From what I understand, Jeremy Adams told you he knows.
Speaker 4Who did this.
Speaker 2He wrote letters from prison and jail saying if you'll tell me, well I'm not I'm zience father, I'll tell you who did it.
Well, of course he never told you.
Speaker 6And Jeremy didn't stop there.
Speaker 2But one incident happened when we saw Hi met Paduca Mall, and he walked and followed my wife and was telling her that he would tell us who done it, you know, and telling her that he didn't do it, and that's what he was saying.
But he was telling people on the street that he did it.
He was the one who did it.
So it was such a you know, you really don't know who's responsible.
I've always felt like that he's definitely involved.
If he didn't do it, he's definitely involved.
Speaker 1The Kurrans never let Jeremy have a relationship with their grandson.
My producer and I went looking for Jeremy in August of twenty twenty four.
We checked out one of his known Mayfield addresses, a modest, one story home in the outskirts of town.
Speaker 5Hello, we're looking for Jeremy Adams.
Speaker 6Do you know who that is?
Speaker 8Yeah, I know, I'm in born that.
Speaker 5Iss you knew where he was.
Speaker 1The woman who opens the door is Alice, Jeremy's great aunt.
Alice has had a couple of strokes, so it's a little hard for her to talk.
Speaker 6She says she's been getting his mail for years.
Speaker 12You mail here comes here every night every night.
Speaker 1She shows us his medical bills and traffic tickets.
But she says she hasn't seen Jeremy in forever?
Speaker 8Okay?
Speaker 6Where are his parents?
Speaker 15Dad?
Speaker 8Dad?
Speaker 1His mom, Donna died in twenty nineteen at the age of sixty, most likely from an overdose.
Speaker 8What is to me?
Speaker 4Come on in?
Speaker 16Thank you, Come on out?
Speaker 5Is anyone else here with you?
Speaker 6The TV is blasting in the cozy living room.
Speaker 1It's full of black and white family pictures cluttered with mail magazines.
Speaker 6And dog food, the things of life alone.
Alice sits down in her arm chair and we start to talk, and then she points to a corner.
Speaker 11Jeremy.
Speaker 1She says, when Jeremy was little, he used to sit there in her antique chair, banging his head against the wall.
Speaker 5He was a.
Speaker 1Troubled child, she says, who grew up to be a troubled man.
Drug addiction runs in the family.
His mom, Donna, also drank a lot, and Alice says Jeremy never stood a chance.
He never had a steady home and got into drugs and drug dealing when he was just a kid, and he could be violent, though never with her.
Alice says, he's been in and out of prison or jail a lot, and the few times she's seen him over the years, he's been high and struggling.
Speaker 10To me, he was right, do you know what kind of drugs?
Speaker 4Maybe?
Speaker 2No, it's the mard Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1One of the last times Alice saw Jeremy, he was sleeping on the street straight.
Speaker 14I think you look when no water time?
Speaker 5I bet here Nightville.
Speaker 1She gave him a warm bed for a few days.
Her eyes well up with tears talking about her.
Speaker 6Nephew, thank you for talking to us.
Then we say goodbye, thank you, nice to meet you.
Speaker 1Jeremy has spoken publicly in recent years.
In twenty twenty, he talked about being arrested for Jessica's murder on The Steve Wilco Show, which is kind of like Jerry Springer but somehow trashier.
Speaker 12For twenty years, I've been accused time and time again of this horrific rhyme that I did not commit, had no involvement whatsoever.
And because of the way my case was dismissed, the police didn't go back on on television to say, hey, we charged the wrong man.
When they later charged, tried and convicted this other man, they didn't say I'm sorry.
They just left it out in the open.
Being that I was the one that originally charged in the case.
They left it for the community to decide, and it left doubt in the community.
That is my purpose for being here today, to clear my name in the eyes of the world.
Speaker 1He even wrote and self published a book titled Almost Framed The Diary of Jeremy m Adams.
Speaker 4It's one of the best books ever.
The fact that I hasn't want to pulletser is fucking astonishing.
Speaker 6I've skimmed a PDF, but Darra has the hard copy.
Speaker 4Yeah, I've had the book for two and a half years and I can't finish it.
It's that fucking genius full of emojis.
Speaker 1In just over one hundred pages, Jeremy relitigates the case.
Speaker 4He talks about racism and how Jessica's father was so mad because she was gonna have a biracial child.
Speaker 1He goes further than that.
He accuses Joe Kerran of his daughter's murder.
Speaker 4It talks about how he was framed by the cops.
It talks about the night they met.
It talks about really nothing.
Speaker 6It would almost be funny if it weren't so cruel.
And it just adds to the noise of an already complicated case where so many people have lied or told half truths, noise Miranda and the Kentucky Innocence Project have had to contend with.
Speaker 9The truth may just be gone.
Us have no idea, but there.
Speaker 1Are people in this case who have tried to tell the truth or a version of the truth, like Rosie Christ Victoria Caldwell's sister.
You heard her at Quincy's trial, recanting on the stand, saying police made her lie and prosecutors punished her for it, charged her with perjury, and sentenced her to three years in prison.
Speaker 15I mean, nobody's perfect, but Rosie was a good hearted woman who all have started it made it seem like I was just a monster.
Speaker 6Rosie is forty four years old today.
Speaker 1She's a mom, and she says she was born to be a singer, but instead she works at the fast food chain Sonic, and Rosie refers to herself in the third person.
Speaker 15There everybody loves Rosie.
I mean Sonics up there in my job can tell you better anybody.
I mean the whole Sonics love Rosie.
I'm mean any job I'll get lowd Rosie because that's who Rosie really is, a rosy person.
My name fits me, It really fits me.
Speaker 1She's all smiles and her eyes disappear into tiny slits as she talks.
She's wearing fuzzy sandals and floral tights.
It's a cheerful outfit to match her demeanor.
Nothing like the twenty six year old at Quincy's trial who came off as angry, especially at the prosecution.
Speaker 11But I wasn't.
Speaker 15It was just like I was trying to.
I was mad and angry because even though I lied the day before, I knew what I was saying the next day was the god honest truth I was one, which was that Quincyham didn't have no involvement in the case.
They had took me, threatened me, told me that I didn't even need a lawyer, told me they could make it look like I was the one that murdered, just concured if I didn't say their story what they wanted to hear.
I mean, then they started talking about I'm gonna take your kids, trom me what to look up?
Speaker 6They threaten, Yeah, everything take my is make it.
Speaker 15Look like the murders on me.
Told me, I'm gonna get lead to injection and stuff.
Speaker 1All it has Victoria ever told you the truth of what happened?
Speaker 6Oh, she told me.
Speaker 15She's telling the damn lie.
She did say that.
Victoria told me, you got paid to make up a whole story just to get.
Speaker 16Rid of this case.
Speaker 6And get money there and get money.
Speaker 15Yes, she got paid to get to do this case.
Yes she got paid to do it.
Speaker 6And Rosie stands by her story.
Speaker 15Tell the truth it's what God wants you to do.
I know that.
Speaker 6I know Jesus name is truth.
Speaker 15I do know that, and with that being his name, is what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 6Tell the truth.
Speaker 15I know it's righteous to do, It's the right thing to do.
Speaker 11That's all I do know.
Speaker 6I want to believe Rosie, and I think I do believe Rosie in part because while she was the first person to publicly say that law enforcement made her lie on Quincy, Jeff and Tamra, she wouldn't be the last.
That's on the next episode.
Speaker 16They literally made me say that I took part in it.
They literally made me say I had this part I done in it.
They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her.
They made me say that I pour guests on her and everything.
They made me say that I took party into having sexual contact with her when she was already dead and everything.
Speaker 15Yes, but I did do something in the courtroom when I was at testify against Quincy.
Speaker 16Wow.
Speaker 15You know how they tell you to read your right hand.
Speaker 4Yeah, I didn't do that.
Speaker 11Oh wow, So you were never sworn in Is.
Speaker 14That what you're saying?
Speaker 4Yes?
Speaker 15Oh, wow I would never allow on the Bible.
Speaker 1Graves County is a production of Lava for Good in association with Signal Company Number One.
This show is written and produced by me, Maggie Frieling and senior producer Rebecca Ibarra.
Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Burtis are executive producers.
Our editor is Martina Abraham's Ilunga.
Dannia 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.
Ismay Guderama is our social media director, and our social Media manager is Sarah Gibbons.
Andrew Nelson is art director, with additional production help from Jackie Pauley, 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
Speaker 6For you to keep up with in this series, so for a detailed list of characters, please go to our show notes