The Binge Cases: What She Buried
The Binge Cases: What She Buried

What She Buried | 4. The Job Offer

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Kwaneta concocts another complicated plan and convinces someone else to confess to her own crimes. - Want the full story? Binge every episode of What She Buried ad-free now by subscribing to ⁠The Bi...

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"Evening by as remorse.

"Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana."

"Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it."

"So there's no... No, no buyers remorse. More like buyers rejoice." "I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it." "Bier's rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may have like. See her Saturday return policy at Carvana.com." "Listen to every episode of what she buried, add 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. The morning I interview Queneta, she wakes up in her cell. It's the size of a parking

bay with a window that's nailed shut. She washes in a small metal sink that's welled into a toilet. puts on her prison whites and her giant state issued sunglasses. She's shackled. She's marched over to the visiting area. Strip searched. Then placed in a concrete cubicle, basing me across the glass. There I am. This person she's written to, but she's talked to on the phone. She likes me. She trusts me.

We think. After all, we've had a relationship of sorts for five years. And I'd written about her already in several articles. Queneta read them. She said it helped just to have some light shine on a dark place, to have her name in the world. After the articles were published, Queneta told me that the warden had wandered by herself and asked her, "You writing to that

communist Yankee reporter again?" I loved the nickname. So did Queneta. And that's how she addressed

me from then on. See why are communist Yankee reporter. Queneta saw me as an ally. Maybe a friend. She wasn't wrong. But on that February morning when we met in the visiting room, I was trying to reconcile Queneta's version of events with what the police had found. Queneta told me she'd killed Michael Giles because she'd been in an inconceivable situation. She'd reacted. She wasn't some criminal mastermind.

In Detroit, in my home, the first thing that they said is, "Oh, we know this lesson. Why

did you say it's premeditated? It says premeditated? Is she wanted to get rid of him? She would have learned him here, and somebody would have gave him a shot of bad delk. Take them over to such a funeral home, make up what doesn't do premeditated." Queneta's argument was simple. If she had meant to kill Michael Giles, she would have done a better job. This was chaotic. This was the, "Oh, she had oops. I, I, I, I, oh, my, this wasn't anything calculated." But stealing $200,000 from Michael Giles

after his death by forging checks and power of attorney documents, that was the definition of deliberate. I told Queneta that I was struggling with all this. How do you square the fact that she said it was this hectic accident with all these plans she made one after another after another? And she's

like, "Allow me to explain." "Yes, I always was free with his money to me so I really didn't have

no reason still, but because I didn't run my mouth to my eggs in the evening. He first thought was, "Oh, yeah, I'm money." So, according to Queneta, stealing Michael Giles money was all Deandre's idea. Yes, Queneta had killed Michael as a response to what happened between them, but Deandre was the one to see the opportunity to profit off of Michael's death. Queneta said, "Look at where the money went. It went mostly to male purchases." Okay, yes, there were some "male purchases made."

But the majority of the $200,000 that was liquidated from Michael Giles accounts went to Queneta. Only around $16,000 went to accounts that Deandre controlled. I mean, the records do show the money more going to you. So, what, like, specifically like, just like to Queneta Harris, name? Oh, the name, not to like, um,

Vehicles, or the, well, I guess, not to say, but I get money in that bag.

had to notice Michael, he had to, okay? That's fair. Okay. That's fair, she said. She kind of gave in.

It was pretty hard to counter their paper trail. She'd left behind.

I imagine that back in the fall of 2007, in the weeks after Queneta was arrested, she knew very well that the money was going to be impossible to explain away. That it was going to make the killing look like a cold, flooded, pre-meditated act, motivated by greed, and only greed. A jury would hear about all of it and send her a way to prison, maybe even to death row. She hadn't seen her kids in months.

Would she get to see them again? Ever? Queneta was backed into a corner, and as was her habit, whenever she realized she was in too deep.

She reacted by coming up with a plan, one that was pretty hard to wrap your head around.

From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is what she buried. I'm Justine Vanderland. Episode 4. The Job Offer. When authorities uncovered the extent of financial fraud that occurred after Michael Giles' death,

they increased Queneta's charge from first-degree murder to capital murder.

In Texas, capital murder is usually reserved for, say, killing the governor, or a police officer, or a child under 10, or for being a serial killer, or a mass shooter, or for intentionally committing a murder in the course of committing another crime. Like robbery, as the state claimed in Queneta's case. There are two punishments for capital murder. Life without parole and death. The judge set a bond of $300,000.

Queneta didn't have that kind of cash sitting around. Nobody she knew did.

So she could either stay at the Dallas County jail until her trial, or she could find a bail

bondsman, who, for a fee, would front the money for bail. That's David Wells. Back in 2007, David ran a bail bonds company. He was also a private investigator, a boxing coach, and generally a man around town. I didn't put my bill by a company down by the jail. My bill by a company was in the neighborhood, so people could bump to me. I became the man in the city that is mayor and judges and people of the $30 of the day. He

needed a car day, but I became a product or who I am in that community. It's still in my community. And if you look at the stores in the history, I dominated the bill, but it was a white man's business. And maybe one afternoon or two afternoon, so my business grew tremendously, and I made millions of dollars doing it. David lives in a sprawling house, long stretches of gleaming floors, high ceilings. It's full of historical memorabilia. Some of it from the civil rights era,

most of it having to do with sports. We sat down to talk in one piece caught my eye. I should mention the OJ. A photo of OJ Simpson at the defense table at his murder trial, signed by OJ himself. When he got the 90 of the verdict, I was able to obtain a picture of him in the picture of his lawyers and after David did a signed copy of it, so that's what hangs on the wrong. And then you got a quote in blazing on the lower part of the frame. There was a little engraved plaque

with the words. If it doesn't fit, you must equate. What do you love about that quote?

Was not in love about it. I mean, it's factual. I mean, I deal with the courts every day. So it's a great quote. I've been blessed to be involved in a lot of hopper for our cases. We're now to just one case of many cases that I've been involved in. And a lot of times people are sewing overbearable with the police say, and with the police doing, with the prosecutor to put on. And then we get, we forget the little element of the defense. It was hard for me to tell if David

Wells was the best or worst guy for a Connecticut called back then to her. He was kind of the only guy.

I found a restart to me from Detroit and Anthony could do the barn, the barn ...

a thought. She could have a dime. I might have to get something for it. I normally don't take a

letter, but sometimes I do, like with Quonetta. So Quonetta's mom, Robertha, gives him around $30,000.

David puts up the money and Quonetta bonds out of jail. The terms of her release require that she stay in Dallas. She can't go back to Detroit. I saw one Quonetta got a deal as well. We don't know what she's doing. She's going to leave with you. And I got to tell him I was single. And I know she can't come to leave with me. Not because I was scared that the offense adjusted. I was single and dating women. I'm not just another woman at the biggest house here. I would not find that at that. So

I said, but I've got a problem that she can live in. So Quonetta was just down the road from David. If we would spend time, we would talk. Now we became pretty cool. But David has been hearing rumors about Quonetta from people in serious positions, official positions. One thing I was told right off the top is don't fall for her because she got a ready of dealing with men. And she had a nice body said, but she went my style. He doesn't stand to style a woman. You know, I deal with women

all the time. But everything like she's very manipulative when it comes to men. Well, she's not your style. I got a style of women in that life. She went my style. So she's not his style. And also, he doesn't trust her. He has an employee who does a lot of the legwork of his business. He tells the employee, keep an eye on Quonetta. Make sure she doesn't leave that apartment. Is that like unique

to Quonetta or are you always watching everyone? Because I should revise. It's not just the one

employee on Quonetta duty. But I would also send the people to live next door of the Primer Company. You have a lot of eyes and ears out. I do that in the street anywhere. People would tell you, if anything in the streets, I'm going to regret it. If the eye I get pleased, I got ears and stuff to the street. And the ears and stuff to the street pick up some unusual activity going on in Quonetta's apartment. David's recollection of what exactly she's up to. It's hazy. But he remembers that she's got

folks going in and out. When she was in that apartment, she interviewed like three or four people. She was a movie director and that she was going to do this deal. I'm going to stop for a moment and clarify what David says is happening here. He's saying that it appears that Quonetta was pretending to be a casting director. As part of a scheme that she hoped would get her charges dismissed.

What she did is took her situation. Did the cast have people auditioned for this situation?

Befriend it this girl. But never let it be girl so much now. If you did great,

you're fine, you did that. Now you've got to go to the Quonetta and go to the A's office, confessing to the DA that you did this. I know that's the same for what you promised. Queen Carvania stood Halo by the morning sun and army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana to as a lovely SUV and inexplicably queenly author. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight, we faced!

An author you can feast on, sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees maya fly. It's late April 2008. It's been six months since Quonetta was arrested and Detroit, flown to Dallas and booked into the county jail. Just before the new year, she bonded out. She's been living at David Wells apartment and every so often, David's employee takes her to attend

the hearing. Around this time, a woman named Teresa Kane enters the picture. I remember everything

about the initial call. It was because it was very odd. I just left Barnes and Noble across from North Park Mall. It was at night, and I got a call from an unknown number.

Teresa doesn't pick up at first. The caller kept calling and left a message saying that it was an

urgent matter. Teresa Kane was a criminal defense attorney. Getting an after hours call from someone with an emergency, part of the job. So she's in her car and the Barnes and Noble parking lot, and she calls back. A woman answers. She says that there's a seriously bad situation

In a concerns her niece.

she, along with some other individuals, had murdered someone, and that her niece was headed to the police department to confess. Teresa's thinking, this is unusual. We did ask questions that her normal defense attorney would ask, like, "Do you think she really did it? Do you part of the police even investigating this?" And she was, you know, very adamant that her niece had actually committed this crime was distraught and really wanted to come clean.

My first instinct is, well, I mean, this sounds horrible, but you know, if they're not looking

for you, is that what you really want to do? The woman assures her. Yes, my niece has thought this

through, and she wants to come forward. And I think the next step was, I wanted to meet with her,

and then it got a little, it started to get a little weird. There was all these excuses of why she couldn't come to my office. She wanted to meet me at the courthouse. And I thought that was strange, but, you know, people who don't bunny can't get around town. Teresa agrees to meet at the courthouse. I had set up a tentative meeting with the prosecutor

for that afternoon. If she showed up, if she wanted to talk, if, you know, whatever, and I hadn't

told him really anything other than I might have some information about a case he was working on. On Thursday, April 24, 2008, a young woman appears at the bottom of the long steps leading up to the Frank Crowley courthouse in downtown Dallas. It's an imposing complex. Two 10-story brick buildings connected by a towering glass atrium. Set against that, the young woman looks minuscule. She's only 19. She's black, skinny with short hair, wearing a dark hoodie, jeans,

sneakers. She's so soft-spoken that you have to really lean in to make out her words.

Teresa greets her. They take an elevator downstairs and walk into an empty attorney workroom, municipal gray carpets, beige walls. Teresa's like, "What's going on?" She seemed very like matter-fact about it. She just really wanted to get this off her chest and she told me a story about, and here's where I might not remember all the details, but it was something about some guy who was in a house and I don't remember why, but she was there with some

other guys. Somebody hit him over the head or something, and as I recall, I think they buried him in the back yard and somebody had a cement patio poured over the burial spot. I mean, she had details, sufficient information. And as I remember, it wasn't all stuff that was like in the paper. So you found her believable. I mean, I did. I mean, why would someone go confess to her if I didn't, you know, like, that's not something that usually happens in my line of

works? I mean, people sometimes get brow beaten by police and say, "Okay, okay, yeah, that's what I did," but this wasn't that kind of a situation. This was someone just coming forward on

our own, and that's different. That just never had that happened before. What kind of person walks

into a court and begs to confess to a murder? It's interesting to meet you because I just watched the interrogation videos and you're so quiet. Yeah, I was naive. Quiet didn't know. I was lost.

Honestly, I was lost, um, a little girl still, basically. This is the so-called niece.

Her name is Erica Flores. She's 35 now. She lives in a bright, tidy apartment in southeast Dallas with her five kids and her partner. Erica feels stable and content these days. She's getting her bachelor's degree in psychology. But back in April 2008, when she met Teresa King at the courthouse, her life was a lot more precarious. She didn't have a job. The year before her mom had been arrested for a DUI and sentenced to six months in jail. And Erica and her sisters were left

to fend for themselves. No money, unprepared. We had state-to-house where I sales, family members would come over and help with this stuff, but it was a test. Erica also had a son who was born with herbs palsy, a condition that causes arm paralysis. And he was about two years old. His death was in and out. So I was kind of like any other typical teenager who's had a child, young, just trying

To make it and do what I can to provide.

I was in my weird scene. I was like, uh, you know, I can't find a job. Then out of the blue,

she gets a call. I can remember where she her name was, but she was African or she, you know,

changed her voice. So Erica, who has no reason to suspect this odd stranger is actually Quinnetta Harris, who goes along with it. She agrees to listen. She was like, hey, I have this opportunity. It was the private investigator job, a private investigator job. And you know, I was asking my questions like, I'm not qualified. Don't you hear? And she's like, oh no, you know, I was kind to be real fast. So I'm like, oh, you know, job. So I'm all excited about it. And she was like, well,

we can meet downtown because the office is stormed in and it's rain. It leaks. I don't want to

meet there. So we made downtown by El Central College. We were like, at a subway inside of the school. The potential employer is an older lady as far as an 18 year old Erica can tell and she's holding a briefcase and carrying paperwork. The woman sits down and makes her pitch. This job is not only going to pay well. It's also in the interest of justice. The job is how they're trying African Americans. She made it like it was a race thing. And I'm like, okay, so she's going to go into detail and

say the guy, Josh Healey. Josh Healey, a Dallas County assistant district attorney.

She described him as having a scar on top of his head and he's like this badass. And he

really doesn't like black people. She gave you a scenario. Yeah. She gave him a scenario. She did. She was telling me everything. Like, you met some Hispanic guy. I can't remember the name. She told me at the time. But me and this Hispanic guy supposedly had went to their house to help her.

I can remember everything that she just said. But I know it was like, what?

This would be Erica's addition for the job. All she had to do was memorize the details of a murder, a murder in which she killed a black man in Garland. Then Erica would march into the courthouse. Tell all of this to Josh Healey, the allegedly racist prosecutor with the scar on his head. And he would put her away and treat her worse and charge her more harshly than a white woman who had recently confessed to something quite similar. Erica might have to sit in jail for a couple

days. With soon enough, her new employer would come and bail her out. Erica would be rewarded with a plumb job and she'd have exposed systemic racism. I know. It all sounds so fantastical now. But it wasn't so fantastical back then. After all, Erica was a perfect mark. That's probably why Aquaneta had chosen her. Because who would be more desperate for a job and more a float in the world than this 19-year-old single mom with a young child with a disability? Who would be more

willing to believe that this job really existed? Who would be more aware of the actual pitfalls and real life implications of a racist DA? Erica had a lot of problems and maybe this was the solution to all of them. So in that moment, listening to this woman offer her this bizarre assignment at El Centro College, Erica thinks, "Okay, I can make this work." She gave me money.

She gave me $40. Honestly, I don't remember how I got there. It was right up the street.

There. At the bottom of those long steps leading up to the Frank Crowley courthouse in downtown Dallas. Erica was ready to confess to a killing that Aquaneta had committed. I'm Dan Jones. I'm Dan Snow. And this is Dan's quit. In a special series for this is history, I, Dan Jones, interview people who use the past and make sense of our present. And this week, history hits Dan Snow takes me places. There are two kinds of stories in the world. There are

those who go out holiday and learn a son-launcher and then there are those who immediately scale the cliff behind no tell to go and look at the castle. Find this episode on YouTube or

Wherever you get your podcasts.

has swept over this community of just 13,000 people. It's like they had a stuff you want to hear about on TV.

Fifteen murders in the last five years. Some criminals, I put them into the category of supervillants.

I'm Timothy Sawa and from CBC's uncover and the fifth estate. An investigation into deaths and disappearances in Darson Creek and what's behind it all. I'm not saying in other words, leave me alone. The Mile Zero murders. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. In the weeks leading up to Erickflerz's arrival, Garland Police Detective Gary Sweet had been noticing an uptick in tips about the Michael Giles murder. Each tip suggests that maybe the case against

Quinnetta Harris isn't so simple after all. I started getting a lot of crime stoppers tips.

And a lot of them were saying that a guy named T.O. was laughing, saying he got away with this

that they think this other woman did it. I also start getting tips about one in Vick. You know, I started hearing that these guys are doing it. And all these are coming through crime stoppers anonymous tips with no leads nothing to follow up. Then he gets a call from Josh Healy, the lead prosecutor in Quinnetta's case. The man that Eric of Flores was going to expose. Josh says, Gary, we've got someone at the courthouse confessing to the murder of Michael Giles. And I'm thinking there is no way.

Gary heads to the courthouse and there he finds Josh Healy, Teresa Kane, the defense attorney, and 19-year-old Eric of Flores. When I met her, she was very tiny, little petite, very soft

spoke. I could barely hear her talk. She was soft spoke. And I'm like trying to read her lips.

And I'm thinking there's no way in the world this girl killed anyone like she's described. Then Erica starts telling her story. She says that she's with some friends. They're driving around, looking for someone to raw. And they go by Walmart and they see a guy loaded in groceries. It's by himself. So they follow him home. And when he's carrying groceries in, they went in behind. And she says, we robbed him. I shot him and killed him. And we left. I said,

you're going to have to give me a whole lot more details in this. A whole lot more details. She does. Turns out, Erica has an excellent memory. She says he's set down on the couch. And I went over to him. And he was pleading for his life. And I shot him and killed him. Okay, he's still leaving more words to the shooting man in the head. Well, okay, that's right. And we knew he was most likely killed on the couch because the family bought all the furniture in the house,

except the sofa, because it had a big red stain on it. So she's given me the couch details. She's given me the shot in the head. It's okay. What caliber gun did you use? 9 mm. Well, that was correct. Also, so tell me exactly step by step what happened. And she said, he's pleading for his life. She's I went over. I stuck the gun up to his head. And I don't remember right now. I'll stop my head. It's been a few years. She said, one or big one of them stuck a pillow over space. And I shot him.

Now I'm thinking, okay, she's got a lot of details. Then what did you do?

We wrapped him in a red blanket and we buried him in the backyard where he was wrapped in a red blanket. So all those details were right there. In other words, it was a plausible confession. But something kept pulling that me going. Corned it did this. I talked to Corned. I was she did this. I know she did this. And I'm just not buying it. Erica has said her accomplices in this murder were two men named Juan and Vic.

That sounds familiar to Gary. The teenage landscaper and his uncle, the ones who dug the hole in Michael Giles backyard, they went by the name Juan and Vic. But those guys have them cleared of any wrong doing. So Gary starts asking Erica for descriptions of them. She says they were both around five ten, 180 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes. That's close enough to the real guys. Then Gary asks how old they were. The teenage landscaper, Vic, Erica says he was 19.

Gary's thinking, that's about right. Then he asks about Juan, the uncle. How old was he? She said 19. He was 58. Gary himself is in his 50s.

So I looked at her and I said, Erica, if I told you I was 19, would you believe me?

If you go, oh, I said, how come you told me Juan was 19? I said, Juan is 58 years old.

Her eyes just kind of went, oh, crap.

I've got Josh. I've got DAs. I've got DA investigators. I've got her attorney. I've got my partners

with me. There's people everywhere in this room. And they're all kind of looking like,

holy cow. I said, this is not true. This didn't happen like you said, didn't she?

She can't lower their head and she knows. Erica also remembered this moment. Gary was like, you didn't do this. I'm like, no, I didn't do this. And that's when Gary started asking me, do you know Juanita Harris? Do you know Mr. Jiles? I'm like, no, I don't know. But I was like, my mom probably does. I'm not sure you may want to call it as my mom. Juanita Harris was in Dallas County, jail at one point, just like Erica's mom, Elizabeth Flores.

Gary puts Erica in the car and they drive over to her family's house. Not going to door and I'm open to door. And then at this time, it was a lot of crazyness going on in my life. Mom was like drinking at the time, hey, me. So she swings the door open and Gary tells her, yeah, we was just right here, daughter, 50 years alive, mom's like, what? And I wish I had

mom in the beginning because mom drugged the truth out of her immediately. What did she say she did?

I said, well, she said that her and some friends followed the guy home, took him to his house. They shot him in the head. They drug him to the backyard and they dug a hole and they buried him. She looked at me and she went, that sounds like my home girl, Juanita's story. And I'm like, oh, you know, Juanita, she's, we were sell mates in jail. And she's, we talk every day.

For some time in 2007, Juanita and Elizabeth lived together in a four-woman cell. Then Elizabeth completed her sons and Juanita bonded out. They kept in touch. Juanita called Elizabeth often. Apparently, just to check in, say hi. She was cool. A friend who'd also been through the ringer. Elizabeth told Juanita about her life, about her daughters.

I was kind of, say, well, mom, I'm 'cause I'm like, you told her stuff about me that thought she'd know.

Days were still in contact with each other. I think she was going to try to do my older sister at first

because we kind of both were looking for jobs. I guess she used to mean because at the time, I would drop out, you know, I guess. She's serial tight meal with him. It was sinking in for Erica.

There was never a private investigator job. No sting on a racist prosecutor.

She'd clearly been set up by someone to take the fall for murder. That night, sitting in an interview room at the Garland Police headquarters, Erica was shown a six-photo lineup. And there, staring at her, was a picture of the mysterious employer who had hired her. It was Juanita. I felt dumb. I felt like a complete idiot. Like, now thinking back, it could have been anybody except it was her. It was Erica.

She had been chosen quite deliberately, when it identified a vulnerable young woman, put her on the path to a ruined life and gave her a shove. There's an alternate reality here in which Erica Flores is arrested and put away for a long time. And when she realizes what happened, she begins to protest. Hey, I'm completely innocent. An African lady at a subway sandwich shop at the community college hired me as a private investigator to expose racism. And to heart, that's actually what

happened. I swear, prisons do have people like that telling those sorts of stories. They usually get medication, not exoneration. I don't mind sharing my story, but I don't like going back to that moment. How does it make you feel going back to the moment? I don't know a number of things. Kind of like makes me upset, then it kind of makes me nervous, just thinking about it, but mainly upset.

I had never asked Queneta about what happened with Erica Flores, and she had never really told me

about it. But when I went to visit Queneta in prison, when we were finally faced a face, I asked her.

I'd met with Erica Flores just three days earlier.

because we're already here. And what happened with Erica's Flores? We, uh, we found her. Oh, good. Is she telling you how she described me? Erica had. She'd said a tall black woman, around middle aged, with a hard to place for an accent. Queneta gave me this exasperated look. Was that not you? That was one of the people who would help me. That was someone that he knows. His friend went, they were trying to help me. It was more of a alliance and that would help you get out of this.

Queneta's claim is that a friend from Detroit, a person who was trying to help her out, he got a friend of his, to hire Erica Flores. Queneta herself had nothing to do with it. And as to Erica? And I have a matter. Did you think it was a good idea?

No. I told no. I told them why it was the idea. You have to realize it's just,

I was facing a death penalty. Initially. So this was, um, to people who care about me and people who love me, they were a panic. When I was at the prison talking to Queneta face to face, a part of me thought, or hoped, maybe it was like she said, some other person did this. Despite her protests. After all, Queneta was on an ankle monitor. She was being watched by neighbors and by David Wells employee. How would she have slipped out into downtown Dallas,

dressed sharp, carrying a briefcase, and then made her way back to the apartment, unseen?

I'll never know for sure the woman who spoke with Erica in person was Queneta.

But I do know that the evidence leads back to Queneta and only Queneta. That's not just because Erica Flores picked Queneta out of a lineup,

or because Erica's mother Elizabeth Flores knew Queneta and had talked to Queneta about her daughter.

Or because Queneta's story about the mystery woman is far fetched to say the least. In the days after Erica Flores's false confession, police searched the apartment where Queneta had been staying. They found a sheet of paper listing all sorts of odd scenarios, scenarios that corresponded with the tips that had flooded Gary Sweet's crime stoppers line. There was another piece of paper there with another more specific scenario.

A bullet-pointed breakdown of the story Erica Flores told authorities about Michael Giles murder. So Queneta was almost certainly lying to me about Erica Flores. But I was coming to realize her lies. They weren't senseless. They had an internal logic to them, an angle.

The lies also followed a couple patterns.

Sometimes they were like "wishes." For example, I suspected that Queneta wished she had powerful and connected supporters, even if those supporters had questionable morals. She wished that she hadn't been totally alone in Texas, facing down a possible death penalty case. Maybe she wished that she hadn't been the type of person to pop on a wig and try to wreck a young stranger's life.

In her new persona as a prison journalist and truth seeker, Queneta was trying to rewrite her own life. Not by facing what she'd done, but by obscuring it. She didn't want to be exposed as a person who'd once been willing to potentially send an innocent teenager to prison and take away the sole provider to a toddler with disabilities, a toddler that might have ended up in foster care.

So she obfuscated. The other pattern connected to the first.

Was that even Queneta's falsehoods? They always contained some glimmer of a truth.

They were based on a sort of submerged reality. And the more we talked, the more that reality would bubble up. A part of Queneta, I knew, wanted to tell it all to come clean. I thought there was a good chance that together we could push that reality closer to the surface. So even if Queneta lied to me, I wasn't going to dismiss her.

I wanted to keep talking. I wanted to ask her about what had really happened the night she killed Michael Giles. I was never going to call the police because I didn't pull the heat down here.

So I was never going to call the police. I was just thinking if the good, but um,

I should have held it on him.

That's next time on what she buried.

[Music]

What she buried is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media. This show was reported

and hosted by me, Justine Vanderland. Eric Benson is the Executive Producer.

Ashley Ann Krigbaum is the Managing Producer.

Production assistance from Lane Rose, Josie Duffy Rice, Mozi Secret, Emily Martinez,

Shiba Joseph, and Michael Meyer. The story editor is Matthew Share.

The series was mixed in sound design by Garrett Tidman, the support from UN-Li Trimulin.

Fact checking by Matthew Giles. A special thanks to our operations team,

Ashley Warren, Sabina Mara, and Destiny Dingo. From Sony Music Entertainment, the Executive Producer is our Katherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. Campside Media's Executive Producer are Josh Dean Vanessa Grigoriades and Matthew Share. If you enjoyed what she buried, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.

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