Kentucky Homemaker Took Law Into Own Hands And Solved Murder That Haunted Town

By: Ryan Smith
Topics: Daily Blotter

NEW YORK (CBS) The image of 18-year-old Jessica Currin's burned and dumped body behind a local middle school stayed with Susan Galbreath year after year without of a trace of a killer.

Galbreath, a Mayfield, Ky. Homemaker, didn't stop searching, even as the police investigators' trail ran cold. After six years of probing the crime nearly every day, Galbreath was convinced a man named Quincy Cross drove the car that picked up Currin along a road, and later assaulted and strangled her with his belt.

(CBS)

The Early Show reported Galbreath's story and her quest for justice in the Currin case.

In the course of six years of investigating, Galbreath reached out to everyone she could. She wrote letters to celebrities, and even enlisted the help of a British journalist. But only when she started a MySpace tribute page to Currin did she get a lead.

Galbreath opened the Web page to comments, and one day she got a hit. Victoria Caldwell, who attended the party with Currin, wrote to Galbreath saying she had information about Currin's death.

"Needless to say," Galbreath said, "the hairs on my neck were standing up."

Caldwell, an accomplice who helped dump Currin's body, was scared silent for all those years.

Galbreath put Caldwell in touch with Kentucky state investigators and she eventually confessed, leading to the arrests and conviction of four other accomplices and Cross, who was sentenced to life without parole.

Caldwell served six months in prison for her role in the crime.

"It felt real good for me to be able to get that off my chest and to give the family the closure that they'd been looking for," Caldwell said.

Galbreath was named "Citizen of the Year" by the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation for her involvement in solving the cold case.

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by joycemac01 April 29, 2013 7:42 PM EDT: This woman did not solve a crime, she made a crime fit her senerio. There is an innocent man setting in prison because of the way this woman ran that investigation. She was a private citizen with access to all the court documents. People were intimidated into lying on others. Neither of the two suspects, Quincy or Jeffery, even know each other. Witnesses recanted AND WERE CHARGED WITH PERJURY yet they maintained they had lied after being scared by the police. Kentucky's Innocence Project has looked at this case and has agreed that it was mishandled. They are out of funding and Jessica's family is left with still no answers. You reported the lie are you brave enough to report the truth?; Reply to this comment