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Pulitzer Prize-winning podcaster Maggie Freleng has spent years advocating for the wrongly incarcerated — and her next project is a hell of a tale. A burned body, an alleged violent sexual assault, reportedly crooked cops, and a citizen sleuth with the power to potentially ruin lives, Bone Valley 3: Graves County, premiering Sept. 19th via Lava forGood, follows the murder of 18-year-old Jessica Currin and the plight of a group of young people who may have been falsely accused of the crime.
When 18-year-old Jessica Currin’s decomposing body was found burned behind the Mayfield Middle School in Kentucky’s Graves County in 2000, to say it rocked the community would be an understatement. What followed was a decades-long saga that put 20-year-old Quincy Omar Cross behind bars, and implicated Jeffrey Burton, Currin’s friends Tamara Caldwell and Victoria Caldwell — as well as her 16-year-old cousin, Vinisha Stubblefield — in her brutal rape and murder.Police accused them of ganging up on her to sexually abuse and then murder her; though they all had different alibis, the suspects agreed on one thing: they didn’t do it. Plus, there was no evidence of a sexual assault.
Cross was convicted of several charges, including rape and murder, in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison. Victoria Caldwell and Stubblefield pleaded guilty to evidence tampering and abuse of a corpse, and Burton and Caldwell entered Alford pleas to abuse of a corpse and second-degree manslaughter — while Burton also pleaded as such to tampering with evidence. Such a plea allows a person to agree that the prosecution has the evidence to convict while also maintaining their innocence. Only Cross is currently incarcerated.
Still, according to Freleng and the Kentucky Innocence Project, the case was botched due to overly vigorous interrogations, alleged law enforcement malfeasance, and potential interference by a local armchair detective and a BBC reporter who set out on their own to solve the murder. Freleng, struck by the sheer scale of the possible wrongful conviction, was intrigued by the case. In 2021, she helmed the Pulitzer-winning podcast Suave — about a youth offender who got a second chance at life — and she’s been fighting for the forgotten ever since.
“[Suave] told me about a man that he was in prison with who was not out yet. He was still fighting for his innocence,” she says. “And he said, ‘Have you ever thought of that — that there’s people that didn’t do their crimes?’ And I was like, ‘Not really. I never really gave that much of a thought.’ Fast forward, years later, I am fully doing this work. I consider myself a criminal legal advocate.”
Freleng spoke with Rolling Stone about how she chooses what to cover, the criminal justice system, and her other new podcast, and just how many calls she gets from prison per day.
What drew you to the case you explore in the new podcast?
One of the main things for all journalists is access, right? You have to be able to have access to the person to get their story. So we knew, in this case, all the folks were willing to talk. They all wanted their story out there.
Also, I hadn’t done a story out of Kentucky yet. I wanted to see what’s going on in this part of the country I never go to. And the fact that this was a single murder that engulfed so many people but ultimately convicted five of them — I had never seen a five-time wrongful conviction aside from the Central Park Five. That was just crazy to me, and when I started looking into it, it just got crazier and crazier.
Did someone reach out to you initially, or did you read about it?
This case was really interesting, because it actually came from someone in prison who said to [criminal justice reformer] Jason Flom, “Hey, have you heard of this guy, Quincy Cross? I did time with him when I was in that prison.” Jason was like, “Hey, Maggie, you make podcasts. Do you want to look at this?” And I did, and it was absolutely wild.
What happened after you first heard about the case from Jason? How did you go about reporting?When we first heard about it, it came to us with all these stories — that there were sex rings in town, all these salacious rumors and gossip about what could have happened to Jessica. Because most people don’t believe these are the people that did it. So we started looking into those claims and seeing if there was any meat to them.
And the story just started changing from police doing nefarious things to these young girls to really looking at the girls themselves. How did this story even come about in the first place? So that’s where we really kind of started digging. And that led us to Susan Galbraith [the citizen investigator] and Tom Mangold [of the BBC].
Part of this story is about what happens when the media pushes a theory for a crime. As a journalist, what do you think we should when we make mistakes?
I think we have to own up to our mistakes, and we have to look back at our work in order to continue to be ethical and tell the truth. And so for me, I am re-releasing a podcast in the fall that I did a few years ago where I got it wrong called Death and Deceit in Alliance. I thought this guy was innocent, and, turns out he wasn’t. I look inward at what I did, I as a journalist, trying to get answers in this case. How did I get it wrong? And who did I hurt in that process? Because there are lives at stake here.
I don’t want to ruin the podcast, but what’s the status of the case now?
We’ll find out in October if Quincy is going to get an evidentiary hearing, which would be the first step in getting him back into court. They would hear all this new evidence. These people have gone through hell, and so checking in sometimes is just equally as sad and devastating. It’s never just a show and a story, it’s my life. I care about these people. I genuinely care about Tamara and Quincy and Jeff and Vinisha.
What role do you think journalists and podcasts like this have on criminal justice reform?
It’s truly a checks and balances that often doesn’t happen in our system. And this is very specific to Graves County as well. When the criminal legal system does not get it right, and somebody is wrongfully convicted, people often step in themselves. And so in this case, it’s a journalist here filling the void that the system should have. The system should have made sure there was evidence to convict people, right? And so, in this case, that is my role.
Do you ever feel the pressure — the sadness — that you can’t write about everything?
It’s really awful. I’m the kind of person that I will try to help everyone. It doesn’t end for me. I’m sure for you, too. Your job is your life, and it’s not a nine to five. You know, there’s people calling me all day. There’s people wanting help all the time, and I’m a fucking bleeding heart and can’t say no.
What do you think of the true crime industry? I feel like there’s different realms of the industry, right? There’s podcasts like yours, and then there’s, like, a true crime cruise.
I have been a true crime watcher and consumer since I can really remember. So I’ve seen this industry evolve. And I actually think the industry has evolved in a better way. There’s always going to be terrible [media]. I think there are so many creators thinking about these things in ethical ways, though. I think it just has to be in the hands of the right person.
What about citizen sleuths?
I think citizen sleuths are the freaking coolest thing. I really think the power of the internet and crowdsourcing is amazing. I think it is also really, really scary and really problematic when we get it wrong. That’s exactly what happened in Graves County.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Update – July 30th, 2025: This piece has been updated to reflect the podcast series’ new premiere date as well as details of the case.
