Pod Insights The Binge Cases: Doctor Billions My Mother’s Lies | 4. Telling Tales About this episode Susan wears a wire on a high-risk sting operation - hoping to force a confession out of her prime suspect.
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Transcript 6,509 words · 24 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 When you put your body in the hands of a surgeon, you assume your doctor will do you no harm.
0:06 Speaker 01 I'm looking at the surgery board for tomorrow going, "These people are [BLEEP]."
0:13 Speaker 00 But when your doctor's in it just for the money, something absolutely insane happens. One doctor says, "Yeah, I did a lumbar fusion. My kickback was $25,000." And the other doctor's going, "Well, I only got $12,000 because I did a neck." This is a story about a massive web of fraud and deception. Dozens of doctors all over Southern California. A fraud worth over $1 billion.
0:40 Speaker 02 Patients were committing suicide, losing their homes, losing their marriages.
0:44 Speaker 00 From Sony Music Entertainment and Western Sound, this is Dr. Billions, available now on The Binge. Search for Dr. Billions wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes all at once, ad-free.
1:00 Speaker 03 Listen to every episode of My Mother's Lies ad-free right now when you subscribe to The Binge. You'll hear the entire series before anyone else, get exclusive bonus episodes, and unlock more than 60 other true crime podcasts. Just head to The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and tap Subscribe, or visit getthebinge.com to listen wherever you are. The Binge: Feed your true crime obsession.
1:39 Speaker 03 It's 4:55 PM on Sunday, February 20, 2005. It's been four and a half years since Jessica Curran's murder, and nine months since journalist Tom Mangold returned to England, leaving local citizen sleuth Susan Galbraith in charge of their investigation into Jessica's murder.
2:02 Speaker 03 Susan is in a car with her best friend, Lacy Gates. They pull up to a small, one-story house in a black residential area in North Mayfield. Lacy turns off the engine. The two women sit in silence for a moment. They triple-check that it's the right address. Susan inhales deeply and stuffs a packet of cigarettes into her pocket. She's nervous and fidgety. The 45-year-old citizen sleuth looks her friend in the eye one last time before they both step out of the car. This is it.
2:42 Speaker 03 In the past, Susan wore a wire, one she got herself, without any police involvement. But not this time. Today, she's carrying a listening device disguised as a cellphone. And the Kentucky State Police gave it to her. This time, they're actively supporting her covert activities. In fact, they'll be listening themselves. Officers are positioned nearby, ready for the signal from her should things go south. If Susan says the words, "I wish my big brother was here," they'll come charging in. Today, Susan is confronting the man she believes murdered Jessica Curran, Quincy Cross.
3:25 Speaker 03 It's a move that journalist Tom Mangle thinks is a step too far. In fact, Tom was furious when he'd heard Susan's plan. You see, it's not just that Susan and Tom believe Quincy to be a cold-blooded killer. They believe that for the past few months, Quincy has been stalking Susan. She's been telling people he was showing up at her house, staring at her, dead-eyed from afar, which is weird if you think about it, because he lives in a different state. Susan later wrote to Tom, saying, quote, "I guess he was playing around with the idea of doing me in and needed to see how vulnerable I was." Had Quincy gotten wind of their investigation?
4:09 Speaker 03 Was he hoping to intimidate Susan, creep her out, and get her to give up? At any rate, Susan stepped up to his door and rang the bell.
4:21 Speaker 03 Quincy had been expecting Susan, but not lazy. After a moment's hesitation, he invites them both inside. The house belongs to his cousin.
4:39 Speaker 03 The house is small and echoey. A TV blares loudly in the background. Quincy's watching over two toddlers who are sitting on a sofa beside him. Susan sizes him up. Late twenties, black, male, mustache lightly grown out. He's smaller than she imagined. He's friendlier, too. As the door closes behind her, Susan begins to explain their visit.
5:06 Speaker 04 And I am looking for that guy, the journalist. And I can't swear to this guy. I think that he was paying like $500 per person that is trying to get back to my house.
5:18 Speaker 03 It's tough to make out, but you can just about follow Susan's opening pitch. That she's working with a journalist, that'd be Tom, on a documentary. That Quincy could be paid $500 if he chooses to participate. But more importantly, it would also be a chance to clear his name. She's playing a very dangerous game. But she keeps Tom's advice in mind. Quote, "No one ever confesses. The best you can do is to try and calm them into saying something they should not have revealed." She needs to convince him to talk.
5:53 Speaker 04 Because I've talked to a lot of people. Now, of course, you know, the fact that one has to admit. I mean, it's just the worst fact that one can do.
6:02 Speaker 03 Susan says she's talked to a lot of people. She mentions the belt found at the crime scene and the fact Quincy was found reeking of gasoline the night of Jessica's murder. The facts, as she sees them, that point to Quincy as the prime suspect. Her hope is that he'll react and give away some crucial detail that only the killer would know.
6:28 Speaker 03 Years later, Tom will present this as Susan's moment of triumph.
6:33 Speaker 05 She pulled it off. She didn't get a full confession, but she got an interview which contained self-incriminating remarks. She'd made more progress in a day than the police agencies have made in five years.
6:47 Speaker 03 But in reality, at the time, even Susan realized it wasn't the home run she'd been hoping for.
6:52 Speaker 06 And I was just trying to go through my mind because it didn't go nothing like I wanted it.
6:56 Speaker 03 And yet, whatever doubt Susan had leaving Quincy, by the time she sat down with the cops, her confidence was restored. In fact, she doubled down. Quincy was their guy.
7:10 Speaker 06 When he said, "I wouldn't hit no woman," now I'll choke one, I'll strangle one.
7:15 Speaker 07 And that's what he said.
7:16 Speaker 06 And I looked at Lacy, and just out of nervousness, I was sitting there shaking. And I was just, I moved my hands around, trying to play it off, you know? But, I mean, I wasn't scared of him or nothing like that, but it just, I just know he killed this girl. I just know he did. I know he did.
7:34 Speaker 03 From Sony Music Entertainment and Message Heard, you're listening to My Mother's Lies. I'm Beth Karas. This is episode four, Telling Tales.
7:53 Speaker 03 Let's now go back nine months earlier, when Tom and Susan's 10-day whirlwind investigation first suggested the name Quincy Cross. If you remember, before Tom returned to England, they shared their Quincy theory with the Kentucky State Police, along with the entirety of the documents they'd collected from Jeremy, his lawyer, and the disgruntled ex-cop. The person who took possession of their case file was Kentucky State Police Lead Detective, Jamie Mills.
8:23 Speaker 07 So Susan was, I don't even know where she came from, kind of out of the blue. When I first got the case, I think maybe she had called the State Police Post or something. And I kind of thought, well, we'll see what this lady's got to say. And she was basically her own little private investigator.
8:43 Speaker 03 It's understandable that Detective Mills listened to Susan's theories and reviewed her files. After all, it's not like the official investigation was hurtling towards a speedy conclusion. Susan was relieved to find Detective Mills receptive to her phone calls.
8:59 Speaker 07 I think it's because no one else listened to her. I thought she had a wealth of information, you know, because she, she had nothing else to do. She didn't have a job, you know, so she was always just mingling in the community. And to me, that's how you found anything out. You just had to mingle.
9:19 Speaker 03 Don't forget, what the state police originally received from the local Mayfield cops was a thin case file for a murder investigation. It seemed incomplete. So when Susan started handing over official documents they hadn't seen, including the discovery materials from Jeremy Adams, plus her own original recordings and reports, well, Detective Mills would later say it himself to Tom Mangold. He felt he had to work with her.
9:47 Speaker 08 At first, I just thought Susan was kind of another one of those nosy people in town that wanted to try to get something out of me, you know, but she had a lot of information. And I thought, hey, I need to use this lady. And she's got stuff that I don't have because I think she'd gotten it from Jeremy's lawyer or something. And it was stuff that wasn't in the case file.
10:09 Speaker 03 As it turned out, some of the most important items Susan shared were from Jeremy's lawyer, the typed up transcriptions of all the police interviews conducted for the original investigation. You see, the state police had all of the tapes, dozens of them. They just hadn't transcribed them yet. But Susan not only had the transcriptions, she knew how to navigate them. Here she is, speaking years later, boasting of that fact.
10:37 Speaker 09 Even though they had the tapes, they did not have the transcripts. So when I would be on the phone with them, I would say, check out this transcript on such, such page. I was actually giving them information they didn't have.
10:52 Speaker 03 Why on earth the Mayfield Police or the Kentucky State Police didn't just prepare their own transcripts, I have no idea. And rather than do that, they allowed Susan to direct them to what she considered critical and relevant portions? It's kind of nuts to me. As Susan started getting cozy with the state police, she kept Tom informed via email, providing updates and seeking his assistance or advice on how to proceed. Right from the get-go, she was excited that Detective Mills was willing to investigate Quincy Cross. Here's what she wrote to Tom in June 2004. Hi, Tom. I just got a call from Mills. He told me he doesn't expect any arrests for at least a month.
11:37 Speaker 03 I'm working on getting a pic of Quincy. Mills doesn't have one, and in fact, doesn't know what Q looks like either. I asked him to use his resources to get a mugshot or something from Tennessee if he has to, and he said he would. That email came shortly before her first stalking claim arose. Clearly, she didn't really know Quincy at all. She didn't even know what he looked like. According to Joe Curran, who started asking around himself, Quincy was just a small guy with a big mouth, but not someone obviously threatening.
12:13 Speaker 10 Quincy Cross, from what I was told, I talked to two of my cousins that lived down and went to school with him, two young ladies. They said he just thinks he's the big chief. He tried to play big in what he is, like he's tough. And he ain't big as a minute, and the girl could probably whoop him. That's what they told me.
12:31 Speaker 11 He was very confident. He was humorous. He was just, at the time, a young man trying to find himself back then.
12:38 Speaker 03 This is Quincy's sister Rochelle, recalling what Quincy was like back in the early 2000s, back before he knew who Susan Galbraith was, or how his life would change after meeting her.
12:50 Speaker 11 He misses out on his family. He knows that he's really missed out on his family, watching his nephews and nieces and stuff grow up, and sisters grow up. You know, that he missed a big part of their lives, in which he really could have had an impact.
13:05 Speaker 03 Rochelle knows Quincy wasn't perfect in his youth. He'd been in trouble with the law. But in Susan's view, this was the man behind Jessica Curran's murder, and she was going to prove it.
13:17 Speaker 03 Through the summer of 2004, Susan's investigation continued with Detective Jamie Mills in close communication. In another email to Tom, Susan claims she was actually out in the field collecting DNA evidence for the state police. Mills just left here. He came to pick up the DNA samples we got on V. I asked him if he thought an arrest would be made in the near future. Now, this part really floored me. In my time as a prosecutor and legal consultant, I've seen investigators use a lot of different methods to collect evidence. But allowing a citizen sleuth to collect items for DNA analysis? I mean, what? So, we have to bear in mind that this is all Susan's point of view.
14:02 Speaker 03 This is her representation of her relationship with Detective Mills. She even claimed in one email that she was planning on starting a private investigator business with Detective Mills. When our producer Alice managed to get a brief interview with him recently, he had a different take.
14:18 Speaker 12 Susan considered you a dear friend and said that you were going to start a PI business together. Is that...
14:27 Speaker 07 That's what she wanted. Yeah, that's what she wanted, but I...
14:29 Speaker 12 It's not true.
14:30 Speaker 07 No.
14:31 Speaker 03 Reading Susan's emails, it does feel like she may have been prone to inventing things. Perhaps she just let her imagination get the better of her. But it's possible she misconstrued how things really were. That's worth keeping in mind as we continue unpacking her story. There's no doubt Susan and Mills were working closely together, and he was open to her Quincy theory. He said so himself. In fact, Susan's son Ray even thinks his mom's police access was by official arrangement, and that it paid well.
15:07 Speaker 01 She was getting money. She would get like two or three grand every now, every, every other month, or every couple, whatever.
15:15 Speaker 12 That wasn't disability?
15:17 Speaker 01 No, her wouldn't have, hers wouldn't have been that much, no. I think my mom was an informant.
15:23 Speaker 01 For the police, and I think she was, I think they were probably one of her go-tos for information on the street. She was getting funds from them to do whatever she needed to, you know, to be done. If she needed something, she would call them, try to get it.
15:40 Speaker 03 Lawyers and private investigators have tried to get the authorities to confirm or deny if Susan was a paid informant, but without success. Some have confirmed that she was an informant or used to encourage witness cooperation, but that's all we know for sure. By this point, Susan's investigation was gaining momentum. She and Tom are in contact by phone and email. Tom is preparing to publish an article in the British press, reporting on their ongoing investigation into what is now a four-year-old cold case. But for all of Susan's sleuthing, they still only hold fragments of evidence, contradictory witness statements, and conflicting timelines.
16:25 Speaker 03 Over a series of emails, Susan begins sketching out a possible version of events that fits all the puzzle pieces together. We've summarized a little for brevity and for decency. Just to warn you, her account gets pretty graphic. The version that emerges goes like this. Austin and Quincy are riding around in the Cadillac, looking for girls when they run into Venetia and Jessica. Quincy is in the back and starts touching and groping Jessica, who tries to fight him off. At this point, Venetia gets scared and asks to be let out of the car.
17:08 Speaker 03 Jessica continues to resist, maybe hits back a bit too hard, and Quincy starts beating her, even choking her with his belt. She passes out. They then drive back to Chris Drive, where they transfer the unconscious Jessica to the blue Pontiac. Austin grabs the gas can from his own car, then they head back out. They're deciding where to dump her body, when Jessica regains consciousness and leaps from the car.
17:43 Speaker 03 Quincy and Austin grab a bat and chase after her, beating and strangling her before using the gas to burn the body.
17:55 Speaker 03 Now, at this point, Susan's version of events doesn't align with the official timeline of the murder, witness statements, or the Chris Drive call logs that place Quincy at the house until at least 5:30 a.m. But nonetheless, the story, though I'd call it a fantasy, takes shape. And Tom runs with it.
18:19 Speaker 03 In October 2004, a newspaper in the UK published his first article. In the article, he declared Jeremy Adams as innocent and named Austin Leach and Quincy Cross as the primary suspects in Jessica's murder. He focused on the gas and the belt elements of Susan's story and the issue of the two cars. It's also the first time the case was presented as a sexually motivated attack.
18:46 Speaker 13 The exact quote from Tom was Quincy suggested a sexual predator on cocaine.
18:53 Speaker 03 This is Maggie Freeling, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who's been reporting on the story.
19:00 Speaker 13 The first time we heard of a sexual assault was from Susan Galbraith and Tom Mangle in their emails. Up until then, four years in, sexual assault was never mentioned. There's no evidence of it. There is no evidence of a sexual assault. It says that in her autopsy.
19:19 Speaker 03 From Maggie, this shift in the Quincy Cross narrative and the investigation was a red flag that something was wrong.
19:27 Speaker 13 You know, they come up with this, well, her underwear wasn't on her, so, oh my gosh, there must have been an assault. And that's where the story starts. And that's when I realized Susan had a hand in this, because this was not part of the investigation up until then.
19:43 Speaker 03 We'll hear more from Maggie and her investigation later on.
19:48 Speaker 03 But honestly, aside from accuracy, the information, I just can't understand how a newspaper could have published this to essentially exonerate one suspect, then announce new suspects in an active murder investigation. In any case, by the fall of 2004, their theory is now out in the world. It feels like the net is closing around Susan's main suspect. So imagine when, to Susan's horror, Detective Mills, her friend and collaborator, is suddenly removed from the case, apparently for reasons unrelated to the current investigation.
20:29 Speaker 03 But it's a massive blow to Susan, who described herself as, quote, devastated, since he was, quote, "the only local police officer who was on the track of the right killers." With Detective Mills off the case, Susan not only lost her unique access to the official investigation, her whole case against Quincy was in jeopardy.
20:58 Speaker 03 Following the departure of Detective Mills, Susan's access to the state's investigation is uncertain. She soon learns that a new detective named Sam Steger has been assigned to the case. Here's a recording of an early telephone call between them.
21:14 Speaker 14 Hello? Susan? Yes? How you doing? How are you? I'm fine. I'm surprised I haven't heard from you. I'm sorry? I said, "I've been surprised I haven't heard anything from you." Well, I've been off. I hadn't been working any this week.
21:29 Speaker 03 It's immediately clear that Detective Steger wasn't going to work with her the way Detective Mills had. Susan is not happy. Here, she's asking the detective to justify why he hasn't called her yet.
21:43 Speaker 14 We talked about two weeks ago when I talked to about Quincy being in town. Right. And that we were supposed to meet that following day. Right. And I never heard from you. Well, I called between 9:00 and 10:00 o'clock, and I probably called 3 or 4 times, and it was busy. I have not seen any calls from state at all on my caller ID and I have not.
22:04 Speaker 03 Now, I don't know about you, but listening to the way she speaks to a detective, I'm stunned. What starts as a disagreement turns into a three-minute squabble. Susan's sense of entitlement is astounding. And worst of all, from Susan's point of view anyway, it seems as though Detective Steger intends to do his job, going back to the facts of the case and the original suspects. In December 2004, Detective Steger goes to speak with Jeremy Adams.
22:39 Speaker 03 Detective Steger walks into the law library at the Graves County courthouse, accompanied by a Graves County prosecutor. Waiting for them is 24-year-old Jeremy Adams, currently an inmate at Eddenville Prison, where he's serving time for assault and cocaine trafficking. Detective Steger thinks this is a routine sit-down, a chance to cross-check Jeremy's earlier statements, tighten timelines, confirm details. Instead, Jeremy has a brand-new story.
23:15 Speaker 03 He announces to Detective Steger that he himself had tracked down Quincy Cross 10 months earlier in Mayfield regarding an apparently unrelated personal matter. According to Jeremy, Quincy, a man he's never met, had made a pass at his girlfriend, Net, and he wanted to confront him about it. And according to Jeremy, Quincy then openly confessed to Jessica's murder.
23:43 Speaker 15 Quincy Cross is the one who admitted to me that he had killed her. How can we say he killed her? He didn't give me a reason why he killed.
23:59 Speaker 16 When did this happen? What day is this?
24:03 Speaker 15 What day?
24:05 Speaker 16 Yeah, you remember what?
24:06 Speaker 15 I don't know what day.
24:07 Speaker 03 According to Jeremy's news story, Quincy shares explicit details with him, details only a killer could have known.
24:16 Speaker 15 Both of them got in Austin Leach's car. Well, they was riding around or whatever. This is what I get out of the story. They was riding around and then ran into Venetia, the girl's best friend.
24:30 Speaker 03 Jeremy said Venetia and Jessica were picked up in the white Cadillac with Quincy and Austin, and that at some point Quincy started to fight with Jessica in the backseat. The similarity to Susan's version, the one she wrote for Tom just a few months earlier, is uncanny, to say the least.
24:50 Speaker 15 They had a fight. I saw me Jessica at one point. The way he said it, she had got out and started running away from the car. He got out, chased after her, I guess. He had mentioned to me he had a bat, something about putting a belt around her neck and dragging her across the concrete.
25:10 Speaker 03 Given this remarkable revelation, two days later, on December 9, Jeremy agrees to sit for a polygraph test. But when asked about whether he had any involvement with Jessica's murder, he flunks and shows signs of deception.
25:29 Speaker 03 After failing the polygraph, Jeremy panics. And in a tearful call to Steger, he requests another urgent meeting. When they sit down the following day, now this is December 11, his story changes once more. This time, he tells Detective Steger that he was in the car with Quincy and Austin and now Lolo Saxton, another one of the original suspects in Jessica's murder.
25:58 Speaker 03 So he's placing himself at the crime. Jeremy also claims that he got out of the vehicle shortly after they picked up Jessica. It's yet another twist. But this new version of the story doesn't get time to settle. According to Detective Steger's case report, by the time he arrived home from Jeremy's interview, there was a voicemail waiting for him. It's from Susan. Somehow, she already knew what had happened and insisted Jeremy misspoke, that he was not at the crime scene that night.
26:35 Speaker 03 Sorry. Okay. Like, the original suspect randomly comes up with a new story that just happens to match almost word for word Susan's version? Then he fails a polygraph, panics, implicates himself, before Susan then steps back in to course correct for him? This is just unreal, unbelievable, not credible. By January 2005, Jeremy returned to Detective Steger yet again, this time to officially recant his previous statement. But this time, he admits to something else. Jeremy tells Detective Steger that he's been talking extensively with Susan and using
27:17 Speaker 03 details from the discovery in his original case to make his story sound credible.
27:22 Speaker 17 I had the whole emotional discovery. I have to be straight with you, man. I mean, if I had something to do with this case, trust me, the way I'm feeling right now, it would come out right now. That's how low I am. And I know that I was a subject in the beginning, and I know that they could bring the case back up on me.
27:44 Speaker 03 So, all this Quincy stuff was made up? And Jeremy's excuse? Because he was scared of being accused again? I can't imagine why. But this is exactly the risk with sharing those discovery documents. In a case that will be determined on the strength of witness statements, having case information flying around makes it incredibly difficult for investigators to get to the truth. It's clear to me that the police should not consult Susan anymore. She certainly seems to be hindering the investigation, possibly even obstructing it. As for the Detective Steger, Jeremy Adams, Susan Galbreth feedback loop. Well, there seems to be one more twist to it.
28:27 Speaker 03 In Detective Steger's final interview with Jeremy in January 2005, Jeremy asked the detective what the state police would need to convict the real killer of Jessica Curran.
28:39 Speaker 17 What type of evidence do we need in order to make the arrest and gain the conviction? Well, I mean, I want somebody. This is what my main objective is right now. I want somebody on tape. You want somebody on tape? So basically you need a confession on tape or some involvement in that's exactly. Names basically on tape. That right there is enough to arrest and convict. Okay?
29:05 Speaker 03 Detective Steger makes it clear. He'd need a confession on tape. Which brings us back to the opening of this episode with Susan meeting with Quincy, ready to covertly record the conversation, hoping for a confession.
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30:01 Speaker 19 Welcome to The Haunted Library. Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing, and what it truly means to be human.
30:21 Speaker 19 Listen to The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube.
30:35 Speaker 03 We're back where we began. On that morning of February 20, 2005, Susan's car was acting up, and she needed to make sure her meeting with Quincy went according to plan. So she called on her friend, Lacy Gates. Now, it's another name to keep track of, but this one is worth remembering. Lacy and Susan are really close, best friends. Lacy was aware of Susan's investigation and had been helping out here and there. But today, she's about to be dragged into the heart of it. She didn't know Quincy herself, and at this point, wasn't so convinced of Susan's theory.
31:16 Speaker 03 Despite Detective Steger's renewed interest in Jeremy Adams, he does agree to support Susan's attempt to record an interview with Quincy, who is still a person of interest, after all. After collecting the recording devices from the state police post, they drove around to do a trial run. With the support of the Kentucky State Police, it all seemed like a lot of fun to them, like they were playing cops. This is Lacy with Susan in 2012, recalling that day.
31:47 Speaker 20 We start singing the songs, and we're like, you know, going, "Bad boys, bad boys, what you wanna do? What you gonna do when they come for you? Bad boys." And then we did... Hawaii 5-0, and then we start talking about the cops. And one of the guys was really cute. And we're like, oh yeah, he's so hot. I would so do him.
32:07 Speaker 03 When Lacey and Susan arrive back at the police post, they receive a reprimand for their unprofessional conduct.
32:14 Speaker 20 We're laughing hysterically. And one cop looks at us and he's like, ladies, this needs to be way more professional. We heard every conversation that you guys had in the car.
32:25 Speaker 03 Embarrassed, the two women drive in near silence to Quincy's cousin's house. But I gotta say, the way Susan is fooling around and making jokes, to me, she doesn't sound like someone who thinks she's about to confront a psychotic killer, let alone one she claims has been stalking her for the past eight months. The first reference she made of that stalking was in an email to Tom the previous summer, when she was trying to get hold of a picture of Quincy to identify him. I have to see what he looks like. I had a visitor yesterday, and before I could get to my door, he was getting into a car. I've been told the description I have describes Q. It's a story she would stand by for years.
33:10 Speaker 03 This is Susan speaking in 2012.
33:13 Speaker 09 I was out gardening, and I glance up, and I just see him standing there. He's got his arms across his chest and just standing there with his legs spread, and he's just looking dead at me. My husband at the time was there, and I said, who is that? He said, it's Cross.
33:28 Speaker 03 And Tom would repeat in the press. Now, as we've seen, Susan is prone to exaggerating. But what we do know is that her own friend, Lacey Gates, would later claim the stalker accusation was made up. Again, according to Lacey, Susan repeated this false accusation, even after she'd figured this out. Either way, the accusation was never proven or even investigated, as far as we know. Did she ever truly believe her stalker was Quincy? Did a genuine misunderstanding become a convenient lie? Or was she out to railroad Quincy from the outset? As with so many things in this story, it's unfortunate. We can't ask her.
34:13 Speaker 03 In any case, this is the context in which Susan and Lacey confronted Quincy Cross on February 20, 2005.
34:25 Speaker 03 As Susan perches on the edge of the sofa, she takes out her cigarettes and the cellphone the state police had given her, and places them on the coffee table. The television plays in the background, the kids chatter. She doesn't know at the time, but the background noise will make the audio she is secretly recording almost impossible to hear.
34:46 Speaker 03 Lacy sits across the room in a chair. Quincy remains standing. Susan needs to elicit incriminating details from him. She decides to go for broke.
34:59 Speaker 04 I had to allow a brief, I suppose, you know, about the house just a minute. I mean, there was a belt around him. And, I mean, I don't like the, the, the, the, the focus of everything.
35:12 Speaker 03 It's hard to make out, but there they are. The two key details from the original crime scene report. Belt and gas. The two details that slowly emerge from the Chris Drive interviews. Belt and gas. The foundational evidence of Susan's narrative against Quincy. Belt and gas.
35:36 Speaker 03 It's hard to hear how Quincy responds, but there is a lot of shouting.
35:45 Speaker 03 He denies even having a belt. He claims he was wearing sweatpants when he was arrested. And the gas, he says, he spilled over himself was when he was trying to get the car going. It's the same story he told the cops at the time. Susan doubles down. She tells him that he's in the sights of the police now for the murder, especially, according to Susan, that Jeremy Adams has now been cleared.
36:11 Speaker 04 And I'm telling you, you face. Jeremy Adams is cleared. Jeremy Adams is cleared because of the information and what the journalist found. He is completely fair and honest.
36:31 Speaker 03 An hour after entering the house, Susan and Lacy leave and walk quickly back to their car. Susan is coming down from an adrenaline high. She's shaking and comments to her friend Lacy that she's disappointed with how the interview went. There had been no confession, no major admission of guilt. But in her mind, Quincy had said one or two things that confirmed her suspicions. The question is, would it be enough to make an arrest? She'd soon find out.
37:07 Speaker 03 That evening, Susan and Lacy report back to the state police post to debrief with Detective Steger, who had been listening in, although details of the conversation were impossible to make out. So it's time to compare and notes. But before they can begin, Susan breaks down in tears, the pressure of the day finally getting to her. After she recovers a little, Detective Steger begins the official meeting.
37:33 Speaker 21 Today's date is February 20, 2005. It's this interview with Susan Galbraith.
37:40 Speaker 03 Susan goes over everything, drawing Detective Steger's attention to the moments she felt Quincy gave himself away.
37:47 Speaker 06 If you notice, when he says, "I ran out of gas and I started pouring the rest of that gas." He said, "the rest of the gas," which was key to me because that means he used gas for something else and had some left. But he said, "I knew," and he says as soon as Perkins stops him, "that I knew when he smelled that gas, I'd get blamed for that."
38:07 Speaker 21 I didn't, yeah.
38:08 Speaker 06 He didn't catch that either.
38:10 Speaker 03 Perkins is the officer who found Quincy, stranded on the side of the road, trying to put gas in the blue Pontiac on the night of the murder. But as you heard there, Detective Steger says he couldn't make out what Quincy said, or rather, what Susan claims Quincy had said. What follows is even more troubling because she claims Quincy freely admitted to strangling women.
38:34 Speaker 09 I wouldn't hit no woman. Now, I'll choke one, I'll strangle one.
38:39 Speaker 06 And that's what he said?
38:40 Speaker 09 Yeah.
38:40 Speaker 03 It's a claim Lacey would repeat too. The problem for Detective Steger is that you can't hear Quincy saying this, nor anything else that Susan claims. In fact, all you can hear is Quincy flatly denying everything. Every important detail that is discussed, it's Susan that's driving it, not Quincy. Gas and belt, gas and belt. But there's nothing on the tape to indicate he knows anything more than what's already been reported. And yet, what evolves in the fallout is an even clearer picture of Quincy as the killer. For example, Susan will later claim that Quincy indicated he knew exactly what type of belt was used to kill Jessica.
39:23 Speaker 09 And he stood up, and I can remember that his waist was right at my eye level. He said, "I know exactly what kind of belt was around her throat. It was just like this." And he was wearing a black braided belt. I knew I had him then because even though there may have been talk about a belt around her throat, it was never made clear what kind of belt it was. That, in my mind, said, "You just confessed to murder."
39:49 Speaker 03 Susan didn't make this claim at the time. It only came out later on, as her story evolved. And there's nothing on that tape that backs this up. We only have her word to go on. Despite Susan's certainty about Quincy Cross's guilt, the covert recording just didn't have much evidentiary value. Months go by and there's no movement to arrest Quincy, leaving Susan increasingly frustrated. In fact, Detective Steger is still looking into Jeremy Adams, with yet more witnesses coming forward,
40:31 Speaker 03 repeating claims that have been floating around for years at this point.
40:37 Speaker 03 Here's another witness, who spent two weeks incarcerated at the same facility as Jeremy, a year after the murder. He had this to say to Detective Steger.
40:47 Speaker 16 A look up at me, he looked me straight dead in the eye. "Jeremy Adams," he said, "I killed my baby's mother." He said that he did the final blow that killed her. "With what?" "I believe he said a belt. He pulled off his belt and put it around her neck."
41:07 Speaker 03 And here's an inmate pointing the finger at Jeremy. He's making this accusation to the state police in 2006, six years after the murder.
41:16 Speaker 21 You've just told me that you used to deal with Jeremy Adams? Yes, sir. And that Jeremy Adams told you that he killed Jessica Kern? Yeah, he said he had to shut her up.
41:27 Speaker 03 In fact, by early 2006, Detective Sam Steger's investigation has widened to now implicate Net Todd, Jeremy's girlfriend at the time of Jessica's murder.
41:43 Speaker 03 After everything Susan's done, her case against Quincy is once again on the verge of falling apart.
41:52 Speaker 03 And with Detective Steger's focus drifting ever farther away from her Quincy theory, she needs a miracle. Incredibly, that miracle would come in the form of the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation.
42:07 Speaker 03 We see how new witnesses that Susan has unearthed are treated by the KBI.
42:13 Speaker 22 You's already in jail. You gonna be charged with the murder with it, because she lying. I'm not lying about nothing. You starting out lying, you ain't even getting close to the truth.
42:25 Speaker 22 You look for fear.
42:28 Speaker 23 Every time the story is not going to the Susan Galbert script, then the tape is turned off. Then they come back on again and it's back on the Susan Galbert script.
42:42 Speaker 03 Witnesses who'd later claim they were coerced. They was forcing me to say Quincy had something to do with it. And that's no lie. That was forcing me to say that he took part in it. That's next time on My Mother's Lies.
43:01 Speaker 03 At time of release, we have not received a response from the Kentucky State Police, the Office of the Attorney General of Kentucky, Jeremy Adams, or former state troopers Jamie Mills and Sam Steger regarding allegations reported in this episode. Nat Todd responded, denying having any knowledge of the crime nor any involvement with Susan's investigation. Tom Mangle confirmed by email that he stands by his reporting.
43:34 Speaker 03 This is My Mother's Lies, an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Message Heard, hosted by me, Beth Karas. From Message Heard, Alice Arnold is our investigator producer, Robyn Simon, our producer, McAllister Beckson, 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 Maines. 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.
Previous My Mother’s Lies | 3. Prime Suspect Next Introducing . . . CUT, COLOR, KILL. Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated