Transcript of Persons of Interest

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the On Purpose podcast. Today, I'm joined by Emma Watson.

Emma Watson has apparently quit acting. Emma Watson has announced she's retiring from acting.

Has anyone else noticed that we haven't seen Emma Watson in anything in several years?

Emma Watson is opening up the truth behind her five-year break from acting. Watson said she wasn't very happy.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. On this podcast, InCels, we unpack an emerging mindset. I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't pay me either.

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point.

Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge. This is InCels. Listen to season one of InCels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream.

It was a battlefield. It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. The Model Wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high-stakes game where survival meant more than beauty.

Hosted by me, Vanessa Gregoriades, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition. Listen to Model Wars on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Heads up, this series contains graphic descriptions of violence. So, Quincy, I have a couple questions that are going to be difficult questions. It basically comes down to that night.

I'll get you.

In one of my calls with Quincy Cross, I brought up the concerns you heard last episode about the gas, the belt, and his demeanor the night Jessica went missing. These three things made Citizen investigator, Susan Galbreath home in on Quincy and make him suspect number one on her list. Not only that, prosecutors would use these details in their case against Quincy as proof of his guilt.

He was pouring gas into the car with Deputy Perkins' family, and he didn't have a belt or a shirt.

When I spoke to Quincy, his story remained relatively unchanged. He went to a small party, borrowed a car, and left around day break to go find something to eat. He got lost, and then the car broke down. Where did you get the gas can?

The gas can? I found it. I found it in a... It was a barn or something that was passed. And I see it just sitting out there.

He says he got the can and started filling the tank. Then a deputy jailer stopped by to help and saw him spilling gas on his pants. As far as wanting to find girls that night, he says, yeah, he brought that up at the party. It was full of guys.

It's like a whole bunch of dudes talking about dudes shit. I don't want to get in.

So maybe that's what people at the party remembered. And the missing belt? He thinks maybe he left it at the house when he dozed off on the couch.

I got done that morning to get him off the edge of the couch, but it was still on the couch.

These answers are unsatisfying, and they don't look great, if I'm being honest, but they would concern me more if the case against Quincy weren't so flimsy. Because when you to look deeper into the actual evidence presented at Quincy's trial and the story the prosecution told about how Jessica was killed, these two details lose their damning power. I'd go as far as saying they don't even matter at all.

This is Graves County, Chapter 3, Persons of Interest. After interviewing Quincy under false pretenses, Susan Galbraith was going to get him for Jessica Curran's murder. She knew it was him. The gas, the belt, it made too much sense. She just needed to figure out how, why, and with whom. One of the things Susan did next was find the names of exactly who all had been at the party at Chris Drive, the same one Quincy was at the night of the murder. It was a small gathering, but it was one of many on that street that night, so people came and went. Susan started by going over original police interviews from the days after Jessica's body was found on August first, I immediately started laying out the transcripts, and if I talk too much, I apologize.

I have a bad habit of it.

During trial, Susan recalls that in the transcripts, partygoers mentioned two guests whose names remained a mystery.

These two white boys stopped by 597 Chris Tried. For some reason, I thought they were so... They were important because they kept asking about them.

One partygoer told police that the two guys had come from a nearby gathering.

Those two guys were called down from the neighbor house.

But they only stayed for a minute or two.

They come in and talk for maybe a minute or two.

Through some digging, Susan says she managed to identify them. Then she called the Kentucky State Police.

I called Sam Steeter, and I said, Look, I got the name of those two white boys. It was Jeffrey Burton.

Jeff Burton, a scrawny guy from around town who was close to his mom, grew up going to church and playing baseball. Though, like many in Mayfield, he went through a rough patch. He quit high school, got busted for drugs, and got into fights. But by the time Susan found his name, he was in his mid 20s with a wife and three kids, getting his life together and mostly keeping to himself. In a 2007 email to journalist Tom Mangold, Susan reveals what had interested her about Jeff. A colleague will be reading Susan's emails.

I had found out earlier that Burton's house was near the middle school. I quit focusing on what I already knew and went after what I didn't know.

Jeff's house was close to the middle school where Jessica's body was found. Susan writes that she went to Jeff's house ready to knock on the door. She wanted to know what he was up to the night of the murder.

Long story short, I finally found Burton's house. I was so excited.

I pulled my car- But when Susan arrived to the house, there was no one living there. It was completely abandoned. She writes, Tom.

As I walked around the house, I saw a garage. It was so eerie. I could see inside the house.

She walks back to the garage.

The air was still. There were houses close by, but it felt as though time stood still. The driveway and garage were totally surrounded by brush and foliage.

She creeps closer.

I crept over to the door and was overwhelmed with a feeling of dread. I didn't go in for fear of tainting the scene. I was so excited. I knew I had finally found where they had Jessica. I knew this house was connected to her.

It's hard to explain. Another spiritual moment, perhaps. Up until then, the police had maintained that Jessica was attacked and killed at the middle school. According to records I've reviewed, Susan also had it as the crime scene in her murder theories. But in this email to Tom, Susan expresses that once she got to Jeff's house, she just knew it was connected to Jessica's death.

I told Lee Wies about everything, and he told me he would check into it on his next trip into town.

Susan shared her new theory with law enforcement, and sure enough, that winter, agents also visited Jeff's house.

We're in the city of Mayfield, Kentucky. Present in the vehicle is myself, David James, agent Bob O'Neill, agent Lee-Wyze.

The agents recorded the visit, but by that time, it had been demolished.

This would be the house where Jeff Burton resided. The house is now gone.

What you hear in these tapes seven years after Jessica's murder is a shift in the official murder theory. The crime scene is no longer the middle school.

This is a house where they took Jessica to. She was allegedly killed.

Also, up until this point, the police didn't have a reason to believe Jessica had been raped or sexually assaulted. They hadn't found any physical evidence of it, like trauma on her body that suggested assault or semen. But because her underwear was found ripped, laying next to her, it was a possibility, one that Susan and Tom jumped onto, and which you heard last episode.

We were pretty certain by now that Quincy Cross together with other accomplices, had murdered Jessica in a sex and drugs frenzy.

But they hadn't been able to corroborate their hunch. In 2007, when Victoria Caldwell responded to Susan's friend request on MySpace, Susan was elated and let Victoria know.

You just gave me goosebumps, hon. Of course I can help you.

She replied to Victoria, I'll do anything I can for you.

I promise you, I'm sitting here with tears rolling down my face. I had no I have no idea. I have friends in high places, hon, and I can probably help you a lot. In fact, I know I can.

Susan was convinced Victoria was the key to cracking the case against Quincy Cross because Victoria had been tangentially involved in this case from the beginning.

I'm at the Mayfipp High School in the conference room outside the principal's office. Present as myself, Detective Tim Fortner. And also Victoria Caldwell.

Just days after Jessica's death, Victoria told police she heard people talking about killing Jessica. She said, Let me have to call her because I don't let her walk even. But then she moved to California and virtually disappeared from the case until 2006, when she emerged again. First, she called the state police to say she'd overheard relevant information about the Jessica Curran murder. Then she made contact with Susan, saying she knew things that could put her in danger. By this time, a third investigative agency had taken over the case, the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation, or KBI. Susan built a rapport with them like she did with her predecessors. And on Susan's tip, the KBI traveled to California to interview Victoria Caldwell.

The name's Dave. It's February 12, 2007. My purpose in my visit to Santa Maria, California, is to conduct this interview with Ms. Victoria Caldwell.

Victoria Caldwell sounds and looks like a young girl, even though she was 22 when the KBI first spoke to her. There's an innocence to her tone.

When we start from the beginning? Yeah. Okay.

She has a bashful gaze and chubby cheeks that enhance her childlike features. During the interview, Victoria says she felt unsafe in Mayfield. She tells the KBI, Quincy had threatened her over the phone to stay quiet about anything she may have overheard about Jessica's murder.

Yeah, you know it was my ball around her neck. You know it was. I was just like, No, I don't know anything. He just kept saying, You know. He said, You know I can make you disappear. I was like, Okay. That's why I panicked.

In this interview, Victoria told the KBI that he'd been threatening her for over a year. Even though she didn't have his threats on tape, there was a recording of her sister, Rosie, telling Victoria that Quincy was after her in May 2006. I thought that Quincy is trying to kill your motherfucking ass. Rosie is saying, Quincy is going to kill your motherfucking ass. The KBI took these threats seriously, so the agents moved Victoria from California to North Carolina and into state witness protection. And soon after, authorities would blast Quincy's face and name in the local news as an armed and dangerous suspect wanted for the murder of Jessica Curran. Hello, Mr. Sunbo. Good to see you.

Hi, Maggie. How are you?

I am well. So like Rebecca said, My internet's slow over here, so I'm probably going to turn my- The reason these state agents got involved in the first place was Greg Stumbo.

Mayfield is not known for having violent crimes, and it's a little sleepy town in Kentucky, or everybody knows everybody. It's a farming community, and this type of crime was obviously not something that happens very often.

Stumbo served 36 years in public office, including four as the attorney general of Kentucky from 2004 to 2008, the years when Susan started looking into the case and working with the state police. While on the campaign trail, Stumbo met Jessica's dad, Joe Curran, at a political event.

Joe sought me out and told me about his daughter's tragic death that hadn't been solved.

Joe had been marching and demanding that law enforcement solve his daughter's case.

We went to see the county attorney We went to see the police chief. We went to see the sheriff.

Now, he had the ear of the potential State Attorney General. Stumbo made a promise to Joe.

I told Joe Curran that day. I said, If I'm elected, I will do my best to solve that case.

Stumbo won, and he did exactly that.

This guy decided to do something on it. We would have regular meetings with my KBI Commissioner, David James.

Stumbo revamped the investigative unit the attorney general's office had at the time.

We changed the name. I like the name, Kentucky Bureau Investigation, and make them a more effective investigating unit.

They tackled major crimes like drug trafficking, fraud, and public corruption. The KBI wasn't formed to solve homicides, but Stumbo had made a promise to Joe Curran. The KBI was on it. The man Stumbo chose to lead the agency happened to be Black, and he thought it would be beneficial to send Black agents to Mayfield. He figured, Black agents would have more success getting people to open up than the previous White law enforcement officers.

It just so happened we had two very good African-American agents, and they were big guys, big, impressive-looking guys. We sent them down there. Sure enough, the local people in the African-American community who had knowledge about that crime, who were afraid to talk to the Mayfield police about it or the Kentucky police officers, began spilling the beans.

Like Victoria Caldwell.

They confronted her, and she broke down and told the whole story.

The story that would end up implicating herself, Jeff Burton, Tamara Caldwell, Venetia Stubblefield, and Quincy Cross. But the agents had never investigated a homicide. They were two former narcotics cops who used a series of unorthodox Orthodox tactics to elicit several confessions. These tactics start with the place they conducted some of their key interviews.

We're presently located in the conference room of the Drury Sweets, located in Paduca, Kentucky.

The Drury Inn & Sweets in Paduca, Kentucky. Not a police station, but a modest hotel about 30 minutes from Mayfield. The place with free hot breakfast, '70s-style-looking conference rooms and limited surveillance.

They never did read me my rights or anything. They just had me get in the car. I was like, Where am I going? They would not tell me where I was going at all until I got there. I thought I was going to the police station.

Tamara Caldwell was among their persons of interest. She's Victoria's cousin, the homebody who never went anywhere without her babies and who dated Quincy Cross. He was great with her kids. Victoria had implicated both of them in her interviews with the KBI, and now they were being questioned by law enforcement, including two agents who made it clear that they already knew the truth. They just needed their suspects to confirm it.

Don't you know we already know what happened? I know you all know what happened. And you know what?

Lee Wies takes the lead, imposing and commanding.

You look so pathetic, faking those things, rocking in in that chair and telling that lie. Girl, look. I don't know nothing. You're not talking to a fool.

Agent Bob O'Neill is mild-mannered and more reserved.

Okay, Quincy, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can Will be held against you in the court. With these rights in mind, do you wish to talk with us now? Sure. All right.

Quincy actually turned himself in after seeing his name and face on the news.

I ain't ever been the type to run. Something I ain't doing. So I bet I'll turn myself in. You know what I mean? I'd rather come to you and start having you look for me.

Quincy and everyone else who was taken to the Drury Inn & Sweets went willingly. No one was under arrest, and no one had an attorney present. Tamara tells me she was questioned for hours on end.

Forever. I'm talking about like, 9, 10 hours.

The interviews turned interrogations are confusing, chaotic, and taxing.

You hear what I said? You're crying, but your eyes show evil. You're sitting there doing what you've done for your entire life. You're lying, and you're not accustomed to be held accountable for your actions. Let me tell you something.

In this clip, they're yelling at Tamara while she weeps. She's wearing a collared blue and white pinstriped shirt. Her hair is in a side pony, and she looks like a little girl. She's trapped alone in a hotel room with law enforcement 30 minutes from home, and very few people, if Anyone knows she's there.

I was terrified. They were telling me, If you don't tell the truth, you're going to get shipped up the river. You're never going to get to see your kids graduate. You're never It's not going to amount to anything.

The KBI also brought in Rosie, Victoria's sister, as a corroborating witness against Jeff, Quincy, and Tamara. Rosie says they interrogated her for two days.

They told me I was lying. He kept telling me to shut up. Then they told me that they could take my kids away from me.

The line of questioning is also disturbingly focused on the women's sex lives.

What type of sex did he like or did he enjoy? Oral sex. Oral sex? Yes. What's your sexual preference? Are you bisexual or are you a lesbian?

Especially about the women being lesbians.

You consider yourself a lesbian? No. You don't? Why does anybody else- I think right after that, right after he asked me if I was a lesbian, that's when he stuck his hand up on the table and was rubbing on my leg.

Jeff Burton was also brought in. The white kid Susan Galbraith had found I don't want to go to jail.

You just told him with three kids. I don't want to go to jail. But I don't want to sit here and listen to these lies. I don't want to listen to these lies, man.

I don't want to go. And they squeezed him, all of them, for confessions.

It's going to be your word against Five or six other people. You know what it takes? All it takes is for a jury to either believe- And that's fucked up. That's fucked up. It takes the jury to believe what you say or what they say. That's messed up. That's messed up. If that's the case and that's how it goes down, then that is messed up.

To me, it sounds like the agents learned how to be detectives from watching Law and Order.

I hope you're a good surfer. But, baby, I'm giving you one wave. You better ride this wave until you're done. Because you're not going to get another wave from me, okay? Yes. So if you can't surf, you better lay down on that board and hold it.

In these KBI videos, only the interviewer is visible. All law enforcement are off camera. We don't know what they were or were not doing out of frame or who is in the hotel room. Think of videos you see in police stations. The camera is usually above. You can see the whole room, everyone in it. That didn't happen here. Plus, video and tape recorders were turned on and off frequently.

They would ask me questions, and they would cut the recorder off. We're going to go off record for about 10 minutes. And then go in this room and then come back in and unpause the recorder or whatever and start talking crazy to me. And we're back on record.

At one point during Jeff's interrogation, Rosie is brought into the room to identify him.

Say it out loud. Jeff Burton. Jeff Burton.

If you know anything about witness identification or lineups, this is absolutely Absolutely not how it's done. Looking back, Jeff says the whole thing was mind boggling.

I feel like they're telling me that, Man, we already got the proof. Just tell us. When I'm like, Man, I didn't have anything to do with this stuff. No, Charge me with whatever you want to. I did not know her, and I did not kill her. Or rape or rape, or burn, or any of that other stuff that you all said. This can't be real life. It can't be. I know that that right there was a crock of shit. That makes me think that all this is freaking fake as hell, But the KBI's tactics worked.

After weeks of interrogations at the hotel and elsewhere, they got the confessions they were looking for. First from Victoria, who, over the course of at least six interviews with the KBI, goes from having only heard about the murder and possible suspects to actually witnessing the kidnapping, rape, and killing of Jessica, and participating in the abuse of her dead body. Then, Vinisha. For seven years, Vinisha told police that she did not see Jessica after they said goodbye that Saturday night in 2000. Now, after at least two separate days of KBI interrogations, her story resembles Victoria's.

Has Christie done anything to Jessie?

She says she actually went looking for Jessica that night, then ran into Tamra, Victoria, Jeff, and Quincy.

He was rubbing on her and touching on her and stuff and told her if she didn't cooperate, he was going to put a gun to her head.

Vinisha is slumped in her chair. She looks exhausted, shrunken, and you can hear her trying to find the right words.

Nobody struck her. Nobody did anything. Tamra hit her. You didn't say that, though. I asked you, what happened to Jessica in that car?

Changing her answers, according to the response from agents O'Neill and Wise.

You sure Tamar You're not cool? It's Quincy's time. Thank you.

She eventually says they did drugs and took Jessica to Jeff's house. Then Quincy and the others raped her. But the agents are not satisfied with just saying rape. They need details, graphic details.

I want you to see it. What was he doing to her?

And they keep asking about semen.

How much semen was on her body? A lot. Who put it there? I love it.

I want to I want to point out that this line of questioning might make sense in a rape case where a body was covered in fluids.

Everything, quincing and ejaculated all over her body, right? And you all still kissing on her and rubbing on the right. I'm all right?

Yes. But in the case of Jessica Curran, there was no evidence of rape or a sexual assault on Jessica's body, and especially no semen. There are glaring inconsistencies in Victoria and Vinisha's statements. Like, Vinisha cannot confidently say if Quincy, Jeff, or Tamara struck Jessica with any object. But Victoria says Quincy hits Jessica in the head with a mini baseball bat while in the car, and they buried the bat in her sister Rosie's Yard. But when the KBI went to search Rosie's yard, they only found a wrench, to which Victoria then changes her story to add that Quincy also hit Jessica with a wrench in the house. The bat was never recovered. A note on this timeline of the crime, though. Quincy had to have committed the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Jessica Curran in the time he left the party at daybreak and when he was spotted by the deputy jailer around 7: 40 AM. Possible, sure, but very tight. And there are big holes in the KBI's theory that all these people assaulted and killed Jessica. First, there were no fingerprints or DNA linking any of them to the murder. In fact, Quincy's DNA and clothing were tested shortly after Jessica's death in 2000, and nothing from Quincy matches the crime scene.

On top of that, the only thing that links as Quincy to the scene of the crime is the fragment of a braided belt found near Jessica's neck. Yet, we don't know for a fact that's Quincy's belt. And investigators desperately tried to find evidence to prove their theory of the crime, searching everywhere, from vehicles to houses. Law enforcement even exhumed Jessica's body to retest for evidence. And nothing. None exists matching any of these people to Jessica's death or crime scene. And there's one other glaring red flag.

I didn't know Quincy until 2002, so how could I have something to do with it? In this case, it happened in 2000.

Remember, I told you, Tamara and Quincy met while she was visiting her brother in jail. That was two years after Jessica's death. Quincy and Tamara maintained contained to this day. They did not know each other in 2000.

And I still don't know Jeff Burton. Quincy Cross. I didn't know him. Didn't hang around him.

Jeff says he had never even met Quincy, and he only knew Tamara from school. Despite there being no physical evidence, flimsy stories, inconsistencies, suspects not even knowing each other at the time of the murder and adamant claims of innocence, the KBI brought that case to the attorney general's office. And under Greg Stumbo's leadership, the state of Kentucky moved forward to try Quincy Cross as a depraved evil man.

There's no doubt in my mind that we caught the right person. There's no evidence that would lead you anywhere else. I mean, you have a direct eyewitness account of what happened.

Seven years after Jessica Curran was killed, Venetia Stubblefield, Victoria Caldwell, Tamra Caldwell, Jeff Burton, and Quincy Cross were arrested, charged, and indicted, based largely on the accounts of two girls and circumstantial evidence. That's it. That's all the prosecution had. At trial, cracks in those stories start to split until the entire prosecution's case is left with gaping holes. That's after the break.

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the On Purpose podcast. Today, I'm I'm joined by Emma Watson. Emma Watson. Emma Watson. Emma Watson has apparently quit acting.

Emma Watson has announced she's retiring from acting.

Has anyone else noticed that we haven't seen Emma Watson in anything in several years?

Emma Watson is opening up the truth behind her five-year break from acting. Watson said she wasn't very happy.

Was acting always something you were going to do?

I was using acting as a way of escaping to feel free. My parents, it wasn't just the divorce, it was just the continuing of living between two different houses and two different lives and two different sets of values, the career and the life that looks like the dream. But are you really happy? Fame has given me this extraordinary power. It's also given me a lot of responsibility.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. From the studio who brought you the Pykton Massaker and murder 101, When I'm a woman, this is incels. I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either. From the dark corners of the web, an emerging mindset. If I can't have you, girls, I will destroy you.

A subculture, a hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women.

A seed of loneliness explodes. I just hate myself. I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. At a deadly tipping point.

In cells will be added to the terrorism guide.

Police say a driver intentionally drove into a crowd, killing 10 people. Tomorrow is the day of retribution. I will have my revenge. This is Incells. Listen to season one of InCels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Power struggles, shady money, drugs, violence, and broken promises.

It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. There's no integrity, there's no loyalty. That's all gone.

In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream.

It was a battlefield. Book, book, book. It's like deals. Let's get models in. Let's get them out. And the models themselves, they carried scars that never fully healed. Till this day, honestly, if I see a measuring tape, I freak out.

The Model Wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high-stakes game where survival meant more than beauty. Hosted by me, Vanessa Gregoriatis, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition.

Listen to Model Wars on the iHeart Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Good morning. Let me go through the roll. Make sure we've got everyone here that's supposed to be here.

Quincy was the first to go to trial in spring of 2008. By then, news of Jessica's death and the salacious story behind it had spread through Graves County, so the judge agreed to move the trial to Hickman County to avoid any bias the jury from Graves could have.

All right. Is Commonwealth ready to proceed?

The small courthouse was full, and it was tense. On one side, there was Quincy's relatives sitting in complete disbelief that he was being accused of such crimes. And on the other, Jessica's loved ones, with eight years of pent-up frustration and pain.

Commonwealth like to make an opening statement. Yes, sir.

The lead prosecutor on Quincy's case was Assistant Attorney General, Barbara Maines-Waley.

It took a long, long time to get people to talk about this because of their fear.

Waley is a career prosecutor. She's been Assistant Attorney General since 1982 and is said to be one of the most experienced prosecutors in the Commonwealth. Some people may know her from being one of the special prosecutors to investigate police officers in the 2020 killing the killing of Breonna Taylor. Whaley was seeking the death penalty against Quincy. His defense attorneys only had about a year to prepare, and the prosecution didn't make it easy. They dumped thousands of documents on the defense in the run up to trial.

Where the dates of the items that they are given us go back as much as seven years.

Quincy's attorney is complaining to the judge. He says it's It's been virtually impossible to get through all the files to properly prepare for a death penalty case.

I don't know if it's Chinese war to torture or death by 10,000 cuts. One of the two.

But the judge denied a motion for more time, and the trial continued on schedule. And despite the advantage over the defense, Whaley knew this would be a hard case because of how many players and stories there were. In her opening statement, she prepares the jury for this.

Rumors build on rumors. And more rumors and talk spread like wildfire in Bayfield.

But the agents with the KBI were allegedly able to find the truth. Then on the early hours of Sunday, July 30th, 2000, Tamara Caldwell, Victoria Caldwell, Vinisha Stubblefield, Jeff Burton, and Quincy Cross, picked up Jessica Curran and took her to Jeff Burton's house, where they raped and killed her in a drug-fueled haze. Quincy then forced the girls to have sex with Jessica's dead body. Then they stored her body in Jeff's garage until she was moved and set on fire.

Doused with gasoline and set on fire.

Outside the middle school a day later.

On the Monday following.

She was found the following day on Tuesday. Away. One of the first witnesses Barbara Whaley calls is the state medical examiner at the time of Jessica's death. He says, besides being burned.

And there were traumatic injuries on the head and face, and there were lacerations on the back of the head.

He says Jessica also had injuries similar to that of a stab wound. But he ruled her likely manner of death was blunt injury and strangulation. He admits there's no actual evidence of strangulation, but he says the other injuries on Jessica were not significant enough to cause death alone. Plus, the piece of belt found near her neck suggested strangulation.

Basically, when everything was completed and looked at, that, I thought, was very significant in her cause of death. All right. You'd call your next witness, please. Vinisha Stubblefield.

Jessica's friends and family are called, school personnel, investigators, and locals from around town. They have party-goers from Chris Drive testify about seeing Quincy wave his belt around and talk about wanting to go find girls. But Victoria and Vinisha are Whaley's star witnesses. And much like in their interrogations, their testimonies differ in key aspects at trial.

After that, we all got out the car and went inside the house.

In Vinisha's story, Jessica walks in Jeff Burton's house.

How did she get in the house? He made her walk in there.

Victoria, on the other hand, testifies that Jessica was knocked out and then carried inside the house.

Quincy and Jeff carried Jessica's body to the side, the side door.

Discrepancies are to be expected when a case is eight years old, and the women testifying were teens at the time of the crime. But I will say, messing up details like whether or not you carried an unconscious body inside the house is major. But the prosecution had backup. They called Rosie to confirm what Victoria told the KBI, that Quincy threatened Victoria to stay quiet. You heard the call earlier.

I remember that he said he was going to kill my sister. I remember that. Which sister? Victoria.

The prosecution had another key piece of evidence, a diary that Victoria allegedly kept where she detailed her life and the crime.

Now read August first. What does it say? It says, Dan, they found the body. I'm not sure what the other word says. I hope they don't find out it was us. Fuck, man. It says, Q is nowhere to be found. Jeff don't want to talk to me. This is bullshit. Says, Fuck. I am out.

The defense strategy was to question the validity of everything, from the diary to the prosecution's circumstantial evidence to witness testimonies. They were successful in some areas, like poking holes in Victoria's numerous stories.

We don't need to do that. On Some parts, yes, some parts, no.

The defense also called their own expert, the former Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner, to refute the questionable findings of strangulation.

Are you able to provide Why did the jury a cause of death in this case? No, sir. I am not. There's no anatomic cause of death determined in this case. I can tell you that she could have been strangled, but there is no evidence that she was strangled.

The defense's medical expert explains that a telltale sign of strangulation is bruising and a broken hyoid bone in the neck, which there was not. There's no external documentation augmentation of any injury on the skin or the subcutaneous tissues deep to the skin that shows any evidence that trauma was applied to the area.

Now, you can get strangulation injuries.

The defense wanted to make four main points. First, the only thing tying Quincy to Jessica's death in any physical manner is a belt. Yet there's no evidence it's Quincy's. It was an extreme extremely common 2000s belt. Even a witness at trial is wearing a similar belt, and he points to it.

A braided belt? Yes, sir. So I'll get you right here.

Second, if there's no certainty, Jessica was strangled, Then the jury cannot convict Quincy on the prosecution's theory of the case. Third, according to Victoria and Vinisha, Jessica was killed early Sunday morning, and they put her body in Jeff's garage before driving her to the middle school and lighting her on fire Monday night. By the prosecution's own timeline, Quincy was in jail by the time they disposed and burned Jessica's body. He'd been arrested that Sunday morning on drug charges and stayed in jail for over a year. So their entire theory that Quincy smelling like gas linked him to Jessica makes no sense. In this timeline, him smelling like gas is meaningless. And fourth, law enforcement coerced witnesses into lying on Quincy. To prove that point, they called Rosie Kreis, Victoria's sister, and the prosecution's witness back on the stand.

Rosie Kreis.

The defense knew something important about Rosie that they wanted the jury to know.

I was trying to tell them that I didn't have nothing to do, and I didn't know nothing about this case or nothing like that. They told me I was lying.

Before trial, Rosie says she tried to recant to law enforcement.

You kept trying to tell them the truth, and they wouldn't accept it. Yes.

She testifies that they made her a lie, implicating Jeff Burton, her own cousin, Tamara Caldwell, and Quincy Cross.

Did Quincy Cross ever threaten you? No. Okay. Every threat is victory. That you know. No. That's all I had.

When prosecutor Scott Sutherland counters, Rosie is defiant.

Oh, Ms. Christ. Today, I really don't care about going to jail, Scott, so you can ask me what you wanted to. Object, but we approach.

Rosie shifts in her chair, shakes her head, and scrunches her face in anger. But she stands her ground.

I'm going to ask you again, are you lying today or are you lying the other day? I lied the other day. I'm not lying today. I wanted to tell the truth all the time. You guys had to stop me.

But in such a long trial, with so many facts and discrepancies, it becomes nearly impossible to follow what is going on, especially with so many objections, redirects, and sidebars. Objection.

Objection. Objection. Objection. Objection. Objection. Objection.

With so much confusion, the prosecution knew to always direct the attention back to the belt.

A distinctive belt Not a unique belt by any means.

And the gas.

Smelling strongly of gasoline.

Don't look at the distractions, the different stories, the half-truths, the recantation. Look here. Look at the guy who was talking about finding girls, waving his belt around, smelling like gas. And so after deliberating for only 3 hours and 45 minutes, 11 white jurors and one Black juror found beyond a reasonable doubt that Quincy Cross murdered Jessica Curran.

Well, I cried, man. I cried with my dad. I let my dad in in the room in the back, and I cried with my dad.

At Quincy's sentencing, Assistant Prosecutor Scott Sutherland asked the jury to show Quincy no mercy. He said, I would ask you to look at this heinous crime and ask yourselves, if not now, then when? If not Quincy Cross, then who? He deserves nothing less than the ultimate punishment in this case, a sentence of death.

I don't believe in the death penalty.

But that's not what Joe Curran, Jessica's father, wanted.

I don't feel like a person should die. Killing another person because another person died, don't bring back the person that died. If I kill somebody I was in there bringing my daughter back, I kill the first person I see because I want her back that bad. But it's not going to bring her back.

Ultimately, Quincy was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Quincy says before trial, prosecutors offered him a deal of 25 years. What did they want you to say?

To tell a lie on camera and Jeffrey. I didn't even ask him what they wanted me to say or none of that. So we didn't even get that far because I ain't that type of person.

And after trial, Quincy's attorney asked him if he wanted to see if the deal was still good, but he said no. So you were like, I will take a life sentence. I'm not going to lie about these people.

Right. You're exactly All right, I will. And that's what I did.

Tamara and Jeff were set to go to trial after Quincy, and they were scared.

At first, I was gung-hold. I Well, they're lying on me, all this stuff. I'm ready to face whatever. And then after that, it just broke my spirit. I'm like, Oh, my God, they're going to do the same thing to me. I ain't ever going to get out of here. I ain't ever going to see my kids, all this different shit. You know what I mean? So now I'm starting to question, Man, even though you're in this, you are fucking going to prison. It don't fucking matter. So it broke my spirit a lot. It really took a lot out of me.

Jeff and Tamara decided to take plea deals to avoid a life sentence and possibly the death penalty. Jeff was sentenced to 15 years and Tamara, 10. Victoria and Vinisha pled guilty. Victoria was sentenced to a total of five years and Vinisha, seven. They only served a few months. After years of fighting, Jessica Curran's family finally saw her accused killers punished. But instead of feeling a sense of relief, Joe Curran felt uneasy.

I felt in my gut that something wasn't right.

That's because something wasn't. That's after the break.

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the On Purpose podcast. Today, I'm joined by Emma Watson. Emma Watson. Emma Watson.

Emma Watson has apparently quit acting. Emma Watson has announced she's retiring from acting.

Has anyone else noticed that we haven't seen Emma Watson in anything in several years?

Emma Watson is opening up the truth behind her five-year break from acting. Watson said she wasn't very happy.

Was acting always something you were going to do?

I was using acting as a way of escaping to feel free. My parents, it wasn't just the divorce, it was just the continuing situation of living between two different houses and two different lives and two different sets of values, the career and the life that looks like the dream. But are you really happy? Fame has given me this extraordinary power. It's also given me a lot of responsibility.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. From the studio who brought you the Pykton Massaker and murder 101, This is InCels. I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either. From the dark corners of the web, an emerging mindset. If I can't have you, girls, I will destroy you.

A subculture, a hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women.

A seed of loneliness explodes. I just hate myself. I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. At a deadly tipping point.

In cells will be added to the terrorism guide.

Police say a driver intentionally drove into a crowd, killing 10 people. Tomorrow is the day of retribution. I will have my revenge. This is Incells. Listen to season one of InCels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Power struggles, shady money, drugs, violence, broken promises. It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. There's no integrity, there's no loyalty. That's all gone.

In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream.

It was a battlefield. Book, book, the hook. It's nice deals. Let's get models in. Let's get them out.

And the models themselves, they carried scars that never fully healed.

Until this day, honestly, if I see a measuring tape, I freak out.

The Model Wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high-stakes game where survival meant more than beauty. Hosted by me, Vanessa Gregoriatis, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition.

Listen to Model Wars on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Do you ever have moments where you forget that this is part of your life?

No, never. Never.

After the trial and conviction, Quincy's family was left to reckon with their own loss.

It's just like total of 2,000-pound weight on your back every day. No, never forget it. Never off my mind.

On any given day, you can find Quincy's dad sitting on his porch. Posted behind where he sits is a sign that reads private property. Owner is too old to fight, too fat to run, too lazy to argue. The image is of two handguns. David Cross isn't fat or lazy, though old is fair. He's in his early '70s now, but his hair, styled in a flat top, is still perfectly jet black. David grew up here, right on Cross Street, 40 minutes outside of Mayfield, just over the border in a small town in Tennessee.

My grandparents just lived down at the end of the street.

David says Cross Street is named after his family. They've been here for generations.

That was our schoolhouse right around the corner.

He points to an abandoned cottage down the Little Dirt Road.

This was it. See, it was segregation back then. This was the Black school. This was where I went to school for eight years.

David raised his kids here. Quincy grew up roaming the fields, playing with Tadpoles and snapping turtles. David Cross's boy, who he hasn't seen since before the pandemic. Quincy is in prison, 450 miles away on the other side of Kentucky, bordering Virginia. So getting there is difficult.

You can't imagine. You just want to break down and cry, but it would do no good.

Instead, like Joe Curran, David Cross decided to fight. He's spent thousands of dollars defending Quincy. He's hired lawyers and private investigators to try and prove his son is innocent. Dara Wolman, my trusted source, is one of the people David worked with to help clear Quincy's name. When Dara found Quincy's case, it came with his whole family, with loved ones who've stood by him through the years, which I can tell you from my experience in this line of work, it's actually rare. Incarcerated people are usually forgotten, but instead, Quincy has gained new family.

She's really something special. I got to say that she's really something special. For over three years now, we've spoken literally almost every day. I won't say every day, but She's persisting. I got a question. I got a question. Wake your ass up.

If you're noticing it sounds like there's an audience, it's because there is. On one of these visits, I didn't just meet with David alone. On my first trip, he brought the whole gang, his wife, Mary, Quincy's biological mom, Quincy's sister. I think an aunt and a cousin were there, too. There were also at least two private investigators gators, and Dara on the floor, sitting cross-leg, filming like a proud mom. Dara, you got a picture of us while we're all sitting here, too? What if I'm- There was another person there. All right, so, Joe, we're going to be over here. Joe Curran.

I'd like to think we got the right person because he's spending a lot of time in prison. But evidence don't show he's the right person. Mr. Curran, I knew he knew something was wrong. Him and his family knew something was wrong.

After trial, Joe Curran should have felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. His daughter's murderer, convicted. But the nagging feeling wouldn't leave him.

Then when you start looking into the case, Quincy's from another town. He didn't know my daughter. You got to have a motive. You got to have an opportunity. You got to have, I like this, five things, or the case is not a case. Well, I just couldn't figure out five things on him that would make him from another town, hadn't been involved with her, didn't know her, but he's supposed to come up here and killed her.

Yeah. So early on, you were like, this doesn't make sense.

It didn't make sense.

A few years after the conviction, David hired a private investigator and had him reach out to Joe. He wanted the investigator to show Joe some of the concerns he had about his son killing Joe's daughter.

So when we started sharing the information and really looking at what the evidence really was, then I think we started talking.

They would get together and go over everything. Would you say you're friends?

Yes. And a lot of people think that me and Mr. Kieran are an odd couple. But Here's the way I see it. Here's my definition of it. Me and Mr. Kieran want the same thing. Mr. Kieran wants justice for his daughter, Jessica, I want justice for my son, Quincy Cross. If Quincy Cross didn't do this, he's the last person I want in there. I don't want the others to have went through what they went through if they're innocent. If he didn't do it, who did?

Over the years, Joe, David, and their team of PIs, including Dara, went back to the beginning, to the original investigation. And they think they pinpointed where things derailed.

I'm sure you done read a whole lot about Susan Galbrahe. Our lady with a big mouth that spewed nothing but lies.

They discovered Susan wasn't just a busy body housewife looking for something to do. I told you that in the immediate aftermath of Jessica's death, Victoria came forward with a story different than the one she told at trial. But it wasn't just a different version of the trial story. She actually implicated two completely different people. I've been told that the answers in this case are somewhere in the beginning, in the first cops to look into Jessica's death and the very first people arrested for this crime. But the investigation into those people ended when Susan Galbraith homed in on Quincy Cross.

She just kept writing scenarios till they thought it fit. The scenario of how this thing played out.

And the KBI and prosecution ran with her stories.

What bothers me is it comes back to the fact that the police, the Commonwealth, the state of Kentucky, they let her have all this power. As far as I'm concerned, Susan Galbraith ain't got a goddamn thing to do with fucking shit with this case, other than being a roadblock for there to be actual justice.

Susan Galbraith also knew there were two people arrested in the initial Mayfield police investigation. And one of those people, she had close ties to. That's next time.

Graves County is a production of Lava for Good in association with Signal Company number one.

This show is written and produced by me, Maggie Freeling, and senior producer, Rebecca Ibarra. Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Werdes are executive producers. Our Our editor is Martina Abraham's Ilunga. Dania Suleiman is our fact checker. Sound design and mixing by Joe Plourd. Music created by Wrench. Our theme song is the gangsta grass version of The One Who's Holding the Star by Leo Scofield and Kevin Herrick. Dara Wulman is investigative producer. Our head of marketing and operations is Jeff Clibern. Ismani Guadalrama is our social media director, and our social media manager is Sara Gibbons. Andrew Nelson is art director with additional production help from Jackie Pauley, Kara Cornhaber, and Kathleen Fink. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and threads @LavaForGood, and follow me at Maggie Freeling. We know there's a lot of names for you to keep up with in this series. For a detailed list of characters, please go to our show notes.

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the On Purpose podcast. Today, I'm joined by Emma Watson.

Emma Watson has apparently quit acting. Emma Watson has announced she's retiring from acting.

Has anyone else noticed that we haven't seen Emma Watson in anything in several years?

Emma Watson is opening up the truth behind her five-year break from acting. Watson said she wasn't very happy.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On this podcast, InCels, we unpack an emerging mindset. I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't pay me either.

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point.

Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge. This is InCels. Listen to season one of InCels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream.

It was a battlefield. It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. The Model Wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high-stakes game where survival meant more than beauty.

Hosted by me, Vanessa Gregoriatis, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition. Listen to Model Wars on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.