The Binge Cases: Scary Terri - What She Buried | 4. The Job Offer

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

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 Binge+⁠. You’ll unlock over 60 true crime series instantly, get early access to drops on the first of every month, and hear exclusive bonus episodes. Search for the channel on Apple Podcasts or head to ⁠GetTheBinge.com⁠. For behind-the-scenes details, join our free newsletter at ⁠Patreon.com/TheBinge⁠. What She Buried is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media. Follow @sonypodcasts and discover more at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices at podcastchoices.com/adchoices. The Binge — feed your true crime obsession. - For more of Justine’s work, read Unreasonable Women, which follows three women who have been punished for defending themselves. The result of seven years of reporting inside U.S. prisons, it's a gripping, urgent look at how survivors are criminalized, called "required reading for anyone who cares about women and justice," by Bookpage, "remarkable... riveting," by Kirkus, and "true crime at its finest," by Booklist. Available now on ⁠Amazon⁠ or ⁠Bookshop.org⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Evening, buyer's remorse. Buy a new car, I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.

So there's no... No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice? I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana.

Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. 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 Binge. The morning I interview Quenetta, 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 welded to 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, facing me across the glass.

There I am. this person she's written to that she's talked to on the phone she likes me she trusts me I think after all we've had a relationship of sorts for five years

and I'd written about her already in several articles Quenetta read them she said it helped just to have some light shined on a dark place to have her name in the world after the articles were published Quenetta told me that the warden had wandered by herself and asked her,

you writing to that communist Yankee reporter again? I love the nickname. So did Quenetta. And that's how she addressed me from then on. C-Y-R. Communist Yinky reporter. Quenetta 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 Quenetta's version of events with what the police had found. Quenetta 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 wasn't.

Why do I keep saying it's premeditated? This isn't premeditated. If she wanted to get rid of him, she would have lured him here, and somebody would have gave him a shot of bad dope. take them over to such as a funeral home pay a couple thousand they'll pre-maid him. Quenetta's argument was simple. If she had meant to kill Michael Giles, she would have done a better job.

This was chaotic. This was a, oh shit, oops. 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 Quenna 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.

John's 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 ex. And, you know, he first thought was, tell me how money. So according to Quenetta, stealing Michael Giles' money was all DeAndre's idea. Yes, Quenetta 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.

Quenna said, Look at where the money went. It went mostly to mail purchases. Okay, yes, there were some, quote, mail purchases made. But the majority of the two months, $200,000 that was liquidated from Michael Giles' accounts went to Quenetta. Only around $16,000 went to accounts that D'Andre controlled. I mean, the records do show the money more going to you.

To what, like, specifically like... Just like to Quenetta Harris' name. Oh, the name, but not to, like, um, vehicles and all that. Well, I guess, though, because I bought it, I got the money and I buy. He got the vehicles. Yeah, the motorcycle. Okay. That's fair.

Okay. That's fair, she said. She kind of gave in. It was pretty hard to counter the paper trail she'd left behind. I imagine that back in the fall of 2007, in the weeks after Quenetto 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-blooded, premeditated act, motivated by greed and only greed.

A jury would hear about all of it and send her away to prison, maybe even to death row. She hadn't seen her kids in months. Would she get to see them again? Ever? Quenetta 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 write. wrap your head around. From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is what she buried. I'm Justine Vanderlun. Episode 4.

The Job Offer. When authorities uncovered the extent of financial fraud that occurred after Michael Giles' death, they increased Quenetta'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 Quenetta's case.

There are two punishments for capital murder, life without parole and death. The judge set a bond of $300,000. $1, Quenetta 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. At one time, I had 4,000 people on bond and $29 million on the street.

Rapists, murders, robbers, carjackers, some of the worst of the way. 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 bail bond company down by the jail. My bail bond company was in the neighborhood so people could walk to me. I became the man in the city that's mayor and judges and people of authority. I had called Dave. He didn't get it done. Carl Dave.

But I became a product of who I am in that community and still in my community. And if you look at the stories and the history, I dominated the bellboy. It was a white man's business. And he had maybe one after America or two after maybe in it. 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, and one piece caught my eye. I should mention the O.J. A photo of O.J. Simpson at the defense table at his murder trial, signed by O.J. himself. When he got the not guilty verdict, I was able to obtain a picture of him and a picture of his lawyers, and after they were able to get a signed copy of it, so that's what hangs on the world. And then you got a quote emblazoned on that. On the lower part of the frame, there was a little engraved plaque with the words.

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. What do you love about that quote? What's not to 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 high-profile cases. Quenetta is just one case of many cases that I've been involved in.

And a lot of times people are so overbearing what the police say and what the police do and with the prosecutor puts on and that 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 Conetta to have called back then. To her, he was kind of the only guy. If I had me reached out to me from Detroit and asked me, could I do the bond? The bomb is $300,000.

I'm going to have to get something for it. I normally don't take collateral. But... But sometimes I do. Like with Quenetta. So Quenetta's mom, Roberta, gives him around $30,000. David puts up the money and Quenetta bonds out of jail. The terms of her release require that she stay in Dallas.

She can't go back to Detroit. And so when Quinella got her deal, they said, well, we don't know what she's going to do. She wants, can she come to live with you? And at that time, I was single. I was like, no, she can't come to live with me. Not because I was scared that the offense, it's just that I was single and dating women. I'm up. Now this other woman, as big as his house is, I would not have been to have that.

So I said, but I've got an apartment that she can live in. So Conetta was just down the road from David. We would spend time. We would talk. We, you know, we became pretty cool. But David has been hearing rumors about Quenetta, 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 way of dealing with men. And she had a nice body.

But she wasn't my style. You know, I'm saying? It's a style of woman. You know, I deal with women all the time. But they realize she's very manipulative when it comes to men. Why was she not your style? I got a style of women that got laid. She wasn't 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 Quenetta. Make sure she doesn't leave that apartment. Is that, like, unique to Quenetta, or are you always watching everyone?

Because... I'm always watching everyone. I should revise. It's not just the one employee on Quenetta duty. But I was also friends with the people that live next door A department company. You got 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, I get FBI, I get police, I got ears and stuff to the street. And the ears and stuff to the street pick up some unusual activity going on in Quenetta'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.

She was in the 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 Quenetta 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, had people audition for this situation,

befriended this girl and manipulated the girl so much you did great you're fine you did this, you did that now you've got to go to the courthouse

and go to the DA's office confession to the DA that you did this I know that's specifically what two days best thing that's ever happened to you financially go easy sold my car on Carvana

amazing offer really I hit 200 on a scratcher did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once. Okay, that's fair. It's like the lottery, except you always win.

Not like the lottery at all, actually. Exactly, inexplicably good. Offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. It's late April 2008. It's been six months since Quenetto was arrested in 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 a hearing. Around this time, a woman named Teresa Kane enters the picture. I remember everything about the initial call, just because it was very odd. I just left Barnes & 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 in the Barnes & Noble parking lot, and she calls back. A woman answers. She says that there's a seriously bad situation, and it concerns her niece.

She was very cryptic at first, but then she was very cryptic at first, but then she calls back. And she basically told me that 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. I did ask questions that a normal defense attorney would ask, like, do you think she really did it? Do you, are 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 that, 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 have money, 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 of fact about it. Like, 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 backyard, and, like, somebody had a cement patio poured over the burial spot. Okay. That's, you know, 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 they didn't commit? You know, like that's not something that usually happens in my line of works. I mean, people sometimes get browbeaten 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 their 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. A little girl still. 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 Kane 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 to stay at the house for ourselves. Family marries would come over and help us and stuff, but it was a task. 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 dad 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. Trying and failing. Erica was broke and nobody was hiring her. I was at my wit's in. I was like, you know, I can't find a job. Then, out of the blue, she gets a call.

I can't remember what 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 Quenetta Harris, goes along with it. She agrees to listen. She was like, hey, I have this opportunity. It was a private investigator job. A private investigator job. And, you know, I was asking all this question. Like, I'm not qualified, don't you?

And she's like, oh, no. You know, it just kind of took me real fast. So I'm like, oh, you know, job. So I'm all excited like, okay. 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 met 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 19-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 detail and say the guy, Josh Healy. Josh Healy, 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 me 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't remember everything that she just said. but I know it was like, what? This would be Erica's audition 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 Healy, 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. But soon enough, her new employer would come and bail her out.

Erica would be rewarded with a plum 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 Quenetta had chosen her. Because who would be more desperate for a job and more afloat 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 Quenetta had committed. I'm Dan Jones. I'm Dan Snow.

And this is Dan... Squared. In a special series for This Is History, I, Dan Jones, interview people who use the past to 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 away on holiday and line a sun lounger, And then there are those who immediately scale the cliff behind the hotel to go and look at the castle.

Find this episode on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Something is happening in Dawson Creek. A wave of violence has swept over this community of just 13,000 people. It's like the kind of stuff you only hear about on TV. 15 murders in the last five years. Some criminals, I put them into the category of supervillains. I'm Timothy Sawa, and from CVC's on cover and the 5th of 6th, state, an investigation into deaths and disappearances in Dawson Creek, and what's behind it all.

I'm not saying another word. Leave me alone. The Mile Zero Murders, available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. In the weeks leading up to Erica Flores' 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 Quenetta Harris isn't so simple after all. I start getting a lot of crime stoppers tips. And a lot of them were saying that a guy named T.O. is laughing, saying he got away with this, that they think this other woman did it. I also start getting tips about Juan and Vic.

You know, I start 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 Quinnett's case, the man that Erica Flores. 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 Erica Flores. When I met her, she was very tiny, little petite, very soft-spoken.

I could barely hear her talk. She was so soft-spoken. And I'm like, trying to read her a little. And I'm thinking, there's no way in the world this girl killed anyone like she's describing. Then Erica starts telling her story. She says that she's with some friends. They're driving around looking for someone to rob. And they go by Walmart and they see a guy loading groceries that's by himself.

So they follow him home. And when he's carrying groceries in, they went in behind him. 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 than this. A whole lot more details.

She does. Turns out, Erica has an excellent memory. She says he sat down on the couch and I went over to him and he was pleading for his life and I shot him and killed him. I said, okay, still need more. Where did you shoot him at?

In the head. 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 a sofa because it had a big red stain on it. So she's giving me the couch details. She's giving me the shot in the head. It's okay, what caliber of gun did you use? Nine millimeter.

Well, that was correct also. So I said, well, tell me exactly step by step what happened. And she said, he was pleading for his life. She said, I went over, I stuck the gun up to his head. And I don't remember right now off the top of my head that's been a few years. She said, Juan or Vic, one of them stuck a pillow over his face and I shot. 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. 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 at me going, Quinella did this. I've talked to Quentin, and 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 names Juan and Vic. But those guys have been cleared of any wrongdoing. So Gary starts asking Erica for descriptions of them.

She says they were both around 5'10, 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? And she goes, no. I said, how come you told me Juan was 19? I said, Juan is 58 years old. And her eyes just kind of went, oh, crap, I'm caught. Now, you got to remember, this room is full.

I've got Josh Heel. 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, it didn't happen like you said, did it? And she kind of lowered her head and said, no. 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 Quenetta Harris? Do you know Mr. Giles? I'm like, no, I don't know.

But I was like, my mom probably does. I'm not sure he may want to call and ask my mom. Quenetta 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. Knocked on the door and mom opened the door. And then at this time, like, it was a lot of craziness going on in my life. Mom was, like, drinking at the time heavy.

So she swings the door. open and Gary tells her, yeah, we was just about to get your daughter 50 years. The life mom was like, what? And I wished I had mom in the beginning because mom drug the truth out of her immediately. What did she say she did? I said, well, she said that her and some friends followed a 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, Quonetta's story.

And I'm like, oh, you know Quintetta. She's, we were cellmates in jail. And she says, we talk every day. For some time in 2007, Quenetta and Elizabeth lived together in a four-woman cell. Then Elizabeth completed her sentence and Quenetta bonded out. They kept in touch. Quinetta called Elizabeth often, apparently just to check in, say hi. She was cool, a friend who'd also been through the ringer.

Elizabeth told Quenetta about her life, about her daughters. I was kind of upset with my mom because I'm like, you told her stuff about me. That's how she knew. They 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 me because at the time, a dropout, you know,

I guess, just stereotyped me or whatever. 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 employees.

lawyer who had hired her. It was Quenetta. 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. Quenetta 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. Hand 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 Quenetta about what happened with Erica Flores, and she had never really told me about it. But when I went to visit Quenetta in prison, when we were finally face-to-face, I asked her.

I'd met with Erica Flores just three days earlier. Okay, now that we're in thorny territory, because we're already here. And what happened with Erica Flores? We found her. Oh, good. Good. Did she tell you how she described me?

Erica had. She'd said, a tall black woman, around middle-aged, with a hard-to-place foreign accent. Quenetta gave me this exasperated look. Was that not you? That was one of the people who had helped me. There was someone that he knows. His friend went.

They were trying to help me. It was more of a All hands on deck We got to help you get out of this Quenetta'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 Quenetta herself had nothing to do with it And as to Erica I never met her Did you think it was a good idea? No I told no

I told them why it was a good idea You have to realize I was facing a death penalty initially. So this was people who care about me and people who loved me. They were panicking. When I was at the prison talking to Quenetta 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, Quenetta was on an ankle monitor. She was being watched by neighbors and by David Welles 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 Quenetta. But I do know that the evidence leads back to Quenetta.

And only Quenetta. That's not just because Erica Flores picked Quenetta out of a line. up. Or because Erica's mother, Elizabeth Flores knew Quenetta and had talked to Quenna about her daughter. Or because Quenetta's story about the mystery woman is far-fetched, to say the least. In the days after Erica Flores' false confession, police searched the apartment where Quenetta 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 Quenetta 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 Quenetta 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, Quenetta 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 Quenetta'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 Quenetta, I knew, wanted to tell it all, to come clean.

I thought there was a good chance that together we could push that. that reality closer to the surface. So, even if Quenetta 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'm not even told to be down here. So I was never going to call the police. I was just thinking, get the gun. But I should have held it on him. It just, it didn't work like that. It didn't happen like that. That's next time on what she buried. Don't want to wait for the next episode?

You don't have to. Unlock all episodes of What She Buried early and ad-free right now by subscribing to the binge. And it doesn't stop at What She Buried. Subscribers get a binge drop of a brand-new series, on the first of every month. That's all episodes all at once, all ad-free. Search for The Binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe.

Not on Apple? Head to getthebinge.com to subscribe directly. What She Buried is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media. This show was reported and hosted by me, Justine Banderlund. Eric Benson is the executive producer. Ashley Ann Crigbaum is the managing producer. Production assistance from Lane Road, Josie Duffy Rice, Mosey Secret, Emily Martinez, Sheba Joseph, and Michael Meyer.

The story editor is Matthew Cher. The series was mixed in sound design by Garrett Tiedemann with support from Ewan Lai Tramuen. Fact-checking by Matthew Giles. A special thanks to our operations team, Ashley Warren, Sabina Mara, and Destiny Dingle. From Sony Music Entertainment, the executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriatus, and Matthew Cher. If you enjoyed what she buried, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.