Pod Insights The Binge Cases: Doctor Billions My Mother’s Lies | 2. My Mom, Susan About this episode After her death, Susan’s son Ray finds a web of lies in her old case notes, and it throws her memory into question. And sets him on a journey to set the record straight.
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Transcript 5,876 words · 17 speakers
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1:03 Speaker 01 There's an old Greek myth you might know, the one where a woman named Pandora is given a tightly sealed jar by Zeus and told never to open it. All Pandora must do is keep it safe and leave well enough alone. But curiosity gets the better of her. She opens the jar and lets loose all sorts of evil: sickness, envy, death. The contents wreak havoc across the world, leaving misery in their wake. Pandora didn't open the jar out of malice or stupidity. She was curious. She simply wanted to know the truth, however
1:43 Speaker 01 uncomfortable. Well, the story I'm going to tell you across the course of this series is in part the story of a man who opened his own version of Pandora's Box.
1:57 Speaker 01 Not a jar sealed by the gods, but a dusty box taken from his garage. Inside it are notepads, letters, and dog-eared photographs that belong to his mother. But these are not sentimental memories. This is a vault of clues and secrets. And just like Pandora, once the man opened the box, there was no going back.
2:38 Speaker 01 It's early November 2025, just before Thanksgiving. Kentucky has been gripped by a cold front. Just outside of Mayfield, in a brightly lit hotel lobby, our producer Alice Arnold is meeting Ray McCord.
2:54 Speaker 02 Hi. Nice to meet you.
2:58 Speaker 01 As you heard last time, Alice is no stranger to the Jessica Curran murder, nor Susan Galbraith's role in solving it. Alice has been looking into this story for several years now, but today is the first time she's speaking with Ray face to face. You see, Ray knows a lot about the real Susan. He's Susan Galbraith's son, her only child. At the time of Susan's sudden death in 2018, Ray and his mom weren't talking much. They didn't exactly leave things on good terms. So after he inherited a bunch of her belongings, Ray stashed the boxes in his garage.
3:41 Speaker 01 One of those boxes included Susan's research on Jessica Curran's murder. In 2021, Ray was contacted by producers from Blink, the British TV company who wanted to make a film about his mom. Their plan was to tell the heroic story of how a citizen sleuth, with the help of an international journalist, had solved a gruesome murder in Mayfield, Kentucky. The timing felt right for Ray to finally confront some of his feelings towards his mother. So Ray went into the garage and opened the box.
4:26 Speaker 01 That was four years ago. And Alice, now working with us, was one of the TV producers who first got Ray digging into his mother's story. Since then, they've both been on a journey of discovery. But today, they're finally going over it all in person.
4:44 Speaker 03 Shall we rifle through your stuff? And come show me what we've got.
4:48 Speaker 01 Together, Alice and Ray go through his mother's files: transcripts of police interviews, official court documents, the autopsy report. They pause on some old photographs Susan took of each of the members of the Mayfield Police Department. You see, she was a keen photographer.
5:06 Speaker 03 How does she have these?
5:08 Speaker 04 Because she was working with all of them.
5:11 Speaker 03 But what, she asked them for pictures?
5:12 Speaker 04 Probably just, well, she knew, like, just to get it, just to have stuff documented. Look, there's her at the...
5:20 Speaker 03 Investigating the scene. He's good.
5:24 Speaker 01 Along with those case files, Ray also inherited a stack of Susan's notebooks. Inside, mixed in with grocery lists and doodles, are her notes about her own investigation into Jessica Curran's murder.
5:38 Speaker 04 I always loved her handwriting, too. I thought she had pretty handwriting.
5:41 Speaker 03 She does, yeah. And she's meticulous.
5:46 Speaker 01 For all their problems, Ray had always believed that against all odds, his mom actually helped a family get justice for the horrendous murder of their daughter. Lots of people believe that story. As we said in the last episode, the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation even gave Susan an Outstanding Citizen Award.
6:06 Speaker 03 So this is the... This is the award?
6:10 Speaker 04 That's from Greg Stumbo, the Attorney General at the time. I was very proud of my mom for everything that she had done and the award that she received. It was all, it was, it was pretty cool.
6:24 Speaker 03 How do you feel about this award now?
6:26 Speaker 04 It's obviously tainted.
6:29 Speaker 01 Tainted is one word for it. That award was his mother's crowning achievement. A rare moment of triumph in the life of a woman looking for purpose. But when Ray finally started digging through his mom's case file, that image of his mom and her triumph crumbled.
6:46 Speaker 04 Well, it's because I went through everything, you know. Like, I had all this stuff on the walls and like the yarn that was going from this to that. As I started looking into her stuff and started realizing like this wasn't the case. I was learning in real time, the lies, there was a lot of lies.
7:05 Speaker 01 He saw how easily facts shifted to suit Susan's theories. At first, what seemed like inaccuracies or errors began to look more intentional. Was this outright deception or self-delusion on an epic scale? Either way, Ray realized the public had the wrong idea about his mother. Susan Galbraith was no hero. She hadn't been hell-bent to find Jessica's killer. She wasn't driven to give Jessica's grieving parents peace. She had ulterior motives.
7:38 Speaker 04 She wanted it. She wanted fame. She was just money, always want, you know, just money, money, money.
7:45 Speaker 01 These revelations set Ray on a journey to discover the truth. He lives with the fear that his mother helped put away the wrong man and in doing so, kept the currents from getting justice for Jessica's murder. It's something he now feels compelled to make right.
8:03 Speaker 04 If it's wrong, I should fix it, you know, or try to right it.
8:15 Speaker 01 From Sony Music Entertainment and Message Heard, you're listening to My Mother's Lies. This is episode two, My Mom, Susan.
8:34 Speaker 01 Ray is 50 years old now, and he's still got a lot of conflicting feelings about his childhood. When he looks back at family photos, sometimes he smiles, other times not so much. They might have ended up estranged, but on the whole, Ray remembers his mom fondly. She had a lot of dreams, but like many of us, lacked the follow-through.
8:57 Speaker 04 My mom was so all over the place. She wanted to be a photographer. She wanted to be a jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none. She had an idea for all kinds of stuff, but, you know, nothing ever panned out.
9:09 Speaker 01 Susan was born in Chicago in 1960, the middle child of nine. By the time she was 15, she had given birth to Ray. Ray's father was even younger, but in spite of this, took full custody when Susan up and left for Kentucky.
9:25 Speaker 04 My dad was 14, my mom was 15. So you can see, kind of like, where the gap could come with our relationship, you know, how difficult it could have been for a young woman to mother, you know, a child. And she's a child herself.
9:45 Speaker 01 Ray was raised with a lot of help from his paternal grandmother. As he grew up, his dad struggled with alcohol and would leave Ray alone for days with no food at home. During these early years, Ray had no contact with Susan. His father made sure of it.
10:02 Speaker 04 My dad had told me she was dead, so I didn't even know she existed. And then, when I was nine, she used to come up and visit me at school, and I didn't even know who she was. And so, through that, we built a relationship. I found out she was my mother, and then I ended up running away with her.
10:19 Speaker 01 After years of neglect by his dad, Ray finally went to live with Susan in Mayfield, Kentucky. By that time, she was in her mid-20s and ready to take care of him.
10:29 Speaker 03 Was she a good mom?
10:30 Speaker 04 Yeah. I mean, she did better than my dad. She fell short on some things, but... I'm not gonna knock her as a parent at this point.
10:40 Speaker 01 Susan paid attention to him, cared for him, bought him candy and presents, and made sure there was food in the house. It was a big change from his life in Chicago.
10:51 Speaker 04 I was growing up in the streets of Chicago. Mayfield was like heaven. Everything was just green and nice and people were friendly and they were waving it. You know, everybody waved at everybody and that was just so foreign.
11:04 Speaker 01 Unlike at his dad's place, Susan's was filled with noise and people and fun. She loved music. In the box of her things, Ray found a notebook filled with page after page of her favorite karaoke tunes.
11:19 Speaker 05 Her and her sisters had their own line dance that they created. And so usually if a couple of them got together and music came on, mostly like the song "We Are Fam-" yeah, they would like get up and dance to it, you know, and do their little line dance.
11:36 Speaker 01 One thing Ray doesn't remember his mom ever having was a job. She mostly supported him on her disability checks. Susan had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She had some good days and some bad. But on the day she went in for her disability assessment, she made sure she looked like she was really struggling.
11:57 Speaker 04 So my mom went with my cousin Jennifer to go be evaluated for her disability. A crazy check she called it. So she goes in there with her hair disheveled, like she put on a show for them to get her check. She had her shirt buttoned all wrong, different colored socks. She would cry in the interview.
12:21 Speaker 01 It wasn't fraud, but looking back, Ray feels like his mom knew what she had to do to get that check and did it to provide for her family. She was good at getting what she needed.
12:31 Speaker 04 Everything was a hustle with her. It was always a hustle, everything.
12:36 Speaker 01 At the time of Jessica's murder in 2000, Susan's marriage was breaking up and she was feeling unmoored and unmotivated. But this was the moment everything changed. Standing before Jessica Curran's body at the middle school, it seems Susan found the sense of purpose she was seeking, although it would be another four years before she acted on it. As we mentioned last time, Susan is the only Mayfield citizen to appear on the police log for that day.
13:06 Speaker 03 What do you know about your mom being at the crime scene and being in the crime scene log?
13:12 Speaker 04 That shouldn't have happened.
13:14 Speaker 03 How did that happen?
13:16 Speaker 01 What compelled her to physically step into the crime scene is still something of a mystery. Frankly, even trying to figure out what exactly brought her there is up for debate.
13:27 Speaker 04 There's four different stories. My aunt has a story that my mom told her, my Aunt Judy, and then my Aunt Pat has another story that my mom told her. I have a story that my mom told me, and then she's got a story that she told the news people.
13:41 Speaker 03 I've got a restaurant story here.
13:43 Speaker 04 The restaurant story? So this would have been in the morning, right? The restaurant don't even serve breakfast.
13:50 Speaker 03 Why do you think there are so many stories?
13:53 Speaker 04 Well, because, I mean, there's only logically, it's a lie.
13:56 Speaker 03 Was your mom prone to lying?
14:00 Speaker 04 My mom used to tell me, "I'm going to tell you something, but if you tell anybody, I'll tell them you're a liar." She would call me a liar if I told somebody something that she told me.
14:12 Speaker 01 Susan told conflicting versions over the years, depending on whom she was speaking to. As her story evolved, the truth became more elusive. So over the course of this podcast, using the contents of Ray's boxes, Susan's emails, letters, and her interview recordings, we're going to try to unpack her story. We're going to try to figure out how a housewife who didn't hold a job, who had no experience or investigative training, and was in the habit of lying, ended up central to the state's prosecution to convict a man for Jessica's murder.
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15:51 Speaker 01 Let's go back to the start, the place where it all began to go wrong: the crime scene. Evidence collection is something you have to get right immediately, or it can hamper your investigation permanently. In this case, as we told you last time, the evidence was bungled from the start. But let's see exactly how it unfolded, how confusion turned to chaos, and how the void was created for Susan Galbraith to step into. Now lawyer Miranda Hellman studied the police crime scene video from that day. She immediately identified a number of items that do not appear in the official evidence log.
16:35 Speaker 07 And so when I'm looking around the video, I'm seeing bottles everywhere, I'm seeing cigarette butts everywhere, I'm seeing trash everywhere, I'm seeing pieces of fabric kind of spread all around, not just really located on her body itself, and none of that is in evidence.
16:52 Speaker 01 Items like hair clumps, a plastic bottle apparently smelling of gasoline, part of a black braided belt and buckle could all be vital for DNA testing and forensic analysis. Whose hair? Whose belt? What type of gas? Not to mention fingerprints. Yet much of this evidence never made it to the police station. And the items that did? Well, many were mishandled, mislabeled, or misfiled. For instance, evidence boxes were logged incorrectly. And as a result, unrelated rape swabs were found in the current evidence boxes. A critical contamination error.
17:34 Speaker 07 You know, if I handed this case file to my grandma and said, Grandma, go investigate a murder, I feel like she would collect the items of evidence on the body. She's played Clue before, and she would know to at least start with the body. And if you see anything that looks like it could be a murder weapon or involved in, you know, here we're talking about a fire, we should collect those things, too.
17:57 Speaker 01 With the crime scene and evidence now contaminated, it would prove nearly impossible to rely on any forensics. From this point on, the Jessica Kern investigation would come down to other police work. Conducting interviews, identifying witnesses, and generating leads. A job lead detective Tim Fortner was better equipped for. In the months following the murder, local police went house to house, talking to Jessica's friends and family, establishing her movements that day. Which, over time, led them to two suspects.
18:38 Speaker 01 In the last episode, you heard how the indictment against them was thrown out because of an inadvertent discovery violation on the part of law enforcement. But there's something we didn't tell you. That one of those two original suspects allegedly confessed to Jessica's murder. Those two suspects were Carlo Saxton, Jessica's new boyfriend, better known locally as Lolo. The second was the father of her child, Jeremy Adams. Both men were reported to be prone to violence. Lolo was said to be the jealous type, possessive even.
19:22 Speaker 01 They were also both rumored to be involved in drug circles. But after sifting through the local gossip and hearsay, Mayfield cops focused on Jeremy Adams as their primary suspect. Here's attorney Miranda Hellman again. Remember, she would come to represent a different suspect years later, in 2008.
19:41 Speaker 07 Jeremy, he has a fairly long criminal record. It's sort of well-known, I think, in Mayfield that he struggles with substance abuse and mental health. He was in and out of shelters and sort of living on the street. His arrest record kind of shows a lot of the same things. Some of it's violent, some of it is domestic violence-related.
20:01 Speaker 01 This view of Jeremy is shared by John Poole, a local private investigator who would also end up on the defense team for one of the accused.
20:10 Speaker 08 If you look into Jeremy's background, he has a real history of selling drugs, assaults, all sorts of things. From the interviews that I did with people that knew about him, said he had a bad childhood. He had all kinds of problems.
20:30 Speaker 01 And Joe Curran's opinion of Jeremy hasn't changed over the years either.
20:34 Speaker 09 He's kind of a wild guy. Most of everybody is kind of scared of him because he's, he does crazy things.
20:42 Speaker 01 Mayfield police detectives looked for someone with a reason, a motive, to kill Jessica. According to some witnesses they interviewed, Jeremy didn't want his current girlfriend, Net Todd, to find out he had fathered a child with Jessica. But Jessica was a single mom and needed government assistance. She had to name a father on the paperwork to get those benefits. Another piece of gossip was that Jessica might have been holding drug money for Jeremy and Lolo. And there's more. Remember Jessica's 16-year-old cousin, Benicia Stubblefield? The one who told police that she last saw Jessica walking off into the night alone? Well, you're about to hear a tape of a police interview with two other Mayfield teens who
21:26 Speaker 01 claimed that, at the time of the murder, Benicia apparently admitted to knowing exactly what happened and who did it, something she had not told police initially. According to these witnesses, Benicia told them that she and Jessica were walking home when a white car pulled over.
21:46 Speaker 10 She was telling me that that night it happened, Jessica threw in, got killed. She said that she was there, there was walking, and then...
21:54 Speaker 01 That old police tape is hard to hear. So I'll summarize what they said. They claimed Venetia had admitted to them that she had been sitting in the white car with Jessica, Lolo, Jeremy, and a man named Austin Leach. And that's when the men started beating Jessica. They parked the car by the middle school and got Jessica out of it. According to the tape, the young girls say Venetia told them she stayed inside and that she heard screaming, then silence, before the men ran back to the vehicle. So, I mean, that's pretty explosive information, if true. But here's the problem that the Mayfield cops were faced with. New names pop up and disappear.
22:37 Speaker 01 And these young girls are repeating something someone else told them. They don't witness it, so it's hearsay, but leads the police can follow up on. Also, the issue of the white car will be a point of contention and confusion throughout the case. So to be fair, Mayfield police had their work cut out, trying to corroborate rumors, chasing gossip, and dealing with witnesses who are afraid to speak out. It was slow work. But over the course of two years, the witness statements kept stacking up. Here's a 2003 police interview with the then-boyfriend of Jeremy's mother, Donna. He claimed Jeremy burst into their apartment in the hours after the murder in a state of panic.
23:21 Speaker 02 Two, maybe three in the morning, something like that. Opened up, I'm laying in bed, Donna's like, "You didn't come in here and meet her and talk to her?" I'm like, "Man, I better go to work." Anyhow, he's pacing the floor, man, he's acting funny, you know? And he just told me, he said, "I think I fucked up."
23:41 Speaker 01 Again, let me clarify. This guy is claiming to the police that Jeremy woke them up in the middle of the night, talking about how he screwed up. He didn't say what he'd done, just that he was going to go to prison for it.
23:56 Speaker 11 Anyhow, he said, "I'm going to go to prison for this shit."
24:00 Speaker 11 And he didn't tell me what happened. It's just that he just kept mugging over and over, "That I fucked up. I'm going to prison."
24:10 Speaker 01 In that same interview, Detective Tim Fortner asks if Jeremy's mom, Donna Adams, knew anything about the crime. It seems to put Donna's boyfriend in an awkward position. But his answer is telling.
24:24 Speaker 11 You think Donna knows anything?
24:27 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:29 Speaker 02 She'd take a great deal of that stuff to you. She'd love that to you.
24:36 Speaker 01 For the Mayfield cops, the final piece of evidence were statements from Jeremy's own cellmates. You see, Jeremy was in and out of jail on drug charges in the years since the murder, between 2000 and 2004. And various inmates reported similar things to the police. According to them, Jeremy outright confessed that he murdered Jessica.
25:00 Speaker 11 He was worried that Annette was going to find out that he had a baby with her and that he had been cheating with Jessica. He said that she had... As it was arguing, he grabbed a hold of her and I guess it had startled her or what have you, and she had struck him. And she struck him, he said that he lost control of himself and picked something up. He had described it as a piece of metal and struck her. She was running when he struck her and she had fell. He say where he hit her at? He said in the back of the head.
25:35 Speaker 01 Again, I mean, that's pretty compelling evidence if true. Now, in fairness, we should note here that Jeremy's defense later claimed that these accusations were false and that any statement from a jailhouse informant came from bad policing. Regardless, Mayfield police eventually charged both Jeremy Adams and Lolo Saxton with the murder of Jessica Curran.
25:59 Speaker 01 Not only did they feel they had probable cause based on circumstantial evidence and witness statements, but they also felt it was proof beyond a reasonable doubt, sufficient to support a conviction at trial. But the defense attorneys were well-prepared. Even before a trial date could be set, lawyers for Lolo and Jeremy got the case moved outside of Mayfield to a neighboring county. As the pretrial hearing approached, local news started circling.
26:27 Speaker 12 The judge moved the trial of the accused Jeremy Adams to Marshall County because of pretrial publicity. Recently, the victim's friends and family pushed to reverse that decision. They argued the new location would not provide a fair trial in this case of a white man accused of killing a black woman. Marshall County's population is almost entirely white.
26:46 Speaker 01 The suggestion that race might have played a part in the jury's decision is worth bearing in mind when we come back to the eventual 2008 trial of Quincy Cross, a black man who eventually is convicted of this crime by a mostly white jury. In the end, the concerns over where Jeremy's trial should take place were never put to the test.
27:09 Speaker 13 Observe: The North American Dad. 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang, that's a good offer." The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle, no one called him "boss." He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.
27:40 Speaker 00 Hey Spotify listeners! When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.
28:07 Speaker 01 In early 2003, after the cases against Jeremy Adams and Lolo Saxton were thrown out, the community was in turmoil. The mayor of Mayfield publicly demanded an investigation into his own police department. Tim Fortner was removed and then resigned before the Mayfield Police Department handed the case over in its entirety to the Kentucky State Police. Now, it's important to note here that the case against Jeremy and Lolo was never heard. It was dismissed, but without prejudice. That means the same charges can be brought again, the same evidence presented, the same suspects brought to trial.
28:47 Speaker 01 So with her son still in the spotlight, Donna Adams was determined to see Jeremy cleared of suspicion. And as you heard from her ex-boyfriend, Donna wasn't one to take things lying down. Over a decade later, she still seemed angry about her son being charged with Jessica's murder. You can hear how strongly she defends her son.
29:10 Speaker 14 Motherfucker, I may not have no money, but I'm gonna tell you something. You fucked with the wrong kid because he didn't do this. And it may take me 20 years and it may kill me doing it, but I'm gonna clear my kid's name.
29:24 Speaker 01 Donna was something of a force of nature and really took matters into her own hands. With no experience or training, it seems like she started her own amateur detective agency.
29:36 Speaker 14 I knew what was up. I had to do what I had to do. This was my kid's life, you know what I mean? So I went out, was wired. I turned in 16 tapes at the Mayfield Police Department.
29:49 Speaker 01 You heard that right. Donna Adams, the main suspect's mother, turned in 16 tapes to the police. Now, she means audio tapes, as in interviews that she conducted on her own with witnesses and suspects of her choosing. Many of them, by the way, were covert recordings. She was basically going around wearing a wire. But that's legal in Kentucky, since it's a one-party consent state, meaning only one person to a conversation needs to consent to a recording. And of course, Donna was consenting. Still, it's all pretty bizarre. And that's not all. Jeremy also got in on the act. During interviews with the police,
30:33 Speaker 01 he let them know that he could help them find the real killer. It was a concerted campaign to clear Jeremy's name. Needless to say, the new investigators from the Kentucky State Police weren't having any of Donna's self-serving investigation to clear her son. And they weren't about to start sharing information with their prime suspect and his family. So by 2004, Donna felt she needed help. She needed someone who could be seen as neutral, someone the police might listen to. As it happened, she had someone in mind: Susan Galbraith.
31:11 Speaker 14 Well, I'm sorry, but you fucked with the wrong bitch and the wrong kid. That's how I got so involved.
31:21 Speaker 01 As it turns out, Susan and Donna were friends, good friends by most accounts.
31:27 Speaker 07 Once Susan Galbraith moved to Mayfield, Donna and Susan Galbraith essentially lived in like an apartment-type situation where it was a house that was split. Everything I've seen and believe and what have been told and reviewed shows that Donna and Susan were friends for quite some time. And that's really how Susan met Jeremy Adams. And I think explains sort of her involvement.
31:51 Speaker 01 She and Donna often threw parties together. Susan's son Ray was a young man in his 20s by this time. And he remembers Donna at one particular party.
32:03 Speaker 04 One memory I have of her is I was walking through the house and she like grabbed my face. And she was loud, like very loud and obnoxious.
32:12 Speaker 01 I have to say, even ignoring the strength of the case against Jeremy, whether he's innocent or not, just taking this in isolation: Susan teaming up with the lead suspect's mother and girlfriend? I'm sorry, whatever her motivations might have been at the outset, I just can't see how she could have been impartial. I suspect she never really looked at the strength of the evidence against Jeremy, rather that she was laser focused on looking elsewhere. Private investigator John Poole goes further. He believes that Susan had a clear agenda from the outset.
32:48 Speaker 08 Susan Galbert, as I investigated and others investigated and found, was a very good friend of Jeremy Adams' mother. And I believe her whole goal was to take any interest or any problems away from Jeremy Adams.
33:07 Speaker 01 According to Miranda Hellman, Susan and Jeremy were soon writing to one another, speaking on the phone, even meeting in person. And that in her communications with him, Susan was crystal clear about her role.
33:23 Speaker 07 She was also very close with Jeremy, that she was getting calls from the jail, that she was really out and out saying that her job, her goal, her mission was to clear Jeremy's name. And not because she didn't know, you know, that she knew he didn't do it, it was just that she was going to clear his name.
33:57 Speaker 01 So in early 2004, Susan took up Jeremy's cause, joining forces with Donna and Net. But the question remains, why did she get involved? What's in it for her? Did she simply want to help a friend in need? Was it because she'd hit a rough patch in her life and needed a purpose? Or was there a more practical reason, like the reward money perhaps?
34:26 Speaker 01 Back when Susan first got involved, Mayfield City Hall was offering $9,000 for information leading to a break in the case. That's more like $15,000 today. To a woman living on a disability check? That's a lot. Of course, we can't ask Susan ourselves. But her son Ray thinks that reward played a significant part.
34:49 Speaker 05 My mom let money cloud her decisions, cloud her thoughts, and she was very smart.
34:58 Speaker 01 The idea that his mom Susan, far from being an outstanding citizen, may have been involved in an awful con, I mean, defending the son of a friend who, for all she knows, could be the killer for a reward? It's a terrible legacy for Ray to inherit. But Ray, to his credit, is trying to find out exactly what his mother did and face it. Remember the story at the beginning about Pandora opening the box? People often forget the ending, that as all the evils of the world flew out, she managed to slam down the lid and trap one thing inside: hope. The point is, hope is what remains
35:42 Speaker 01 to help us endure.
35:44 Speaker 05 I'm supposed to do this. If it's wrong, I should fix it, you know, or try to right it.
35:51 Speaker 01 But it's not easy for Ray. He's struggling. He knows in many ways he's going against what his mother would want.
35:58 Speaker 05 For my mom, I think if she were alive, she wouldn't want me cooperating with anybody the way I am. But I think where she's at now, I think she would want to rest in peace. And if there's any way that I can use the stuff that she has to bring peace to anybody, even her, that, you know, that's all worth it.
36:26 Speaker 01 Next on My Mother's Lies, we see how veteran British journalist Tom Mangle comes to her assistance and opens up a world of possibilities.
36:36 Speaker 04 Everything that she wanted for herself, it was in her reach now, you know, with Tom being involved. Like, she wanted big things for herself.
36:45 Speaker 01 And how together, they unlock the doors and the files that would lead Susan to a new suspect.
36:53 Speaker 14 I had Jeremy's motion discovered, you know, with stuff like that. Did you give all that stuff to Sue? Yeah, she's got every bit of it.
37:01 Speaker 01 That's next time on My Mother's Lies.
37:11 Speaker 01 At the time of release, we have not received a response from Carlos Saxton or Jeremy Adams regarding allegations reported in this episode. Net Todd responded, denying having any knowledge of the crime nor any involvement with Susan's investigation.
37:29 Speaker 01 The Mayfield Police Department responded, saying, "None of the investigators that worked on the current case 26 years ago remain employed by the department." And the department was, quote, "Not in a position to respond to the allegations."
37:52 Speaker 15 What's it take to be a mentor with big brothers, big sisters? It takes 30 minutes and a cup of coffee, a video game, best two out of three. It takes sharing thumbs-up emojis, clapping emojis, and loaded nachos at halftime. That's how you make an impact on a young kid's life. So go on, share a few hours a month, because mentorship may sound huge, but the truth is, it takes little to be big. To learn more, volunteer, or donate, go to bbignow.org.
38:29 Speaker 01 This is My Mother's Lies, an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Message Heard, hosted by me, Bath Charis. From Message Heard, Alice Arnold is our investigator producer, Robyn Simon, our producer, McAllister Bexin, our series producer, Thiago Diaz, our assistant producer. Alan Lear is our supervising sound editor, supported by sound editors Lizzie Andrews and Ivan Eastly, with original composition by Mike Mainz. 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.
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