The Pen Pal

The Binge Cases: Doctor Billions

Journalist Justine Vanderloon recounts her five-year correspondence with Quenetta Harris, an incarcerated woman in a Texas prison. The episo

Key takeaways

• Justine Vander/loon and Quenetta Harris maintained a pen-pal relationship for years before communicating via prison tablets.
• Quenetta Harris's mother, Roberta Powell, raised her as a single mother in Detroit with a focus on Catholic education.

Main topics

• Prison correspondence
• Incarcerated women's narratives

Notable quotes

Well-behaved women seldom make history.

Conclusion

The episode establishes a complex web of intersecting lives, setting t

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:02) Some evil thing happened here. Speaker 8 (0:05) Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. Speaker 7 (0:11) It's not a coincidence. Speaker 8 (0:13) One after the other. In the same house. Is this bad luck? Or something more sinister? Speaker 5 (0:23) The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. A long simmering, what took you so fucking long to get Speaker 8 (0:29) here? Speaker 8 (0:32) From Sony Music Entertainment, this is What Happened to the Harrisons. I'm Amy Dempsey-Raven. What Happened to the Harrisons is available now on The Binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, ad-free. Speaker 1 (0:59) Listen to every episode of What She Buried 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. Speaker 8 (1:25) The Binge. Speaker 6 (1:36) You know that quote? Well-behaved women seldom make history. You've seen it on bumper stickers, mugs, Instagram grids. Speaker 1 (1:47) It means, unless a woman boldly breaks convention, she's going to fade into oblivion, just folding laundry until she dies. I like it. I get it. Speaker 6 (2:00) But I'd counter that badly behaved women also seldom make history. You can't actually break too many rules. Speaker 6 (2:09) especially Speaker 1 (2:10) if you're the wrong type of woman to begin with. I've been reporting on women in prison for eight years now. I have a new book out on the topic. It's called Unreasonable Women, a slightly sarcastic title. It's about how many so-called murderers were actually making quite sensible decisions, often to defend themselves or a loved one from abuse. And yet they're painted as cold-blooded killers. Because these women? They ventured into a field traditionally reserved for men. Violence. And for that, they've been severely punished. Disappeared far away. Wiped clean from history. Usually. Alright, so did you, are we starting? We've been rolling. Okay, we're good. This is our beginning. Speaker 5 (3:00) Hi. Hello. Speaker 1 (3:02) So, how are you? Speaker 5 (3:06) Tired. Speaker 3 (3:13) Making it every day, one day at a time. Speaker 1 (3:17) Not long ago, I found myself with my producer Eric in the visiting room of a vast women's prison in central Texas. Across from me, speaking into a telephone receiver, from behind a wall of bulletproof glass, was a woman I'd been corresponding with for five years. Her name is Quenetta Harris. So, okay, I mean, obviously, I'm so glad I get to finally meet you in person. Finally. I didn't think it was ever going to happen. But now here we are. Speaker 5 (3:48) Here we are. Speaker 1 (3:51) And I wish that we had more time and could have a more natural conversation. I know. We're pressed for time. They only give us like an hour. Yeah. And we get busy. Yeah, so instead of what I would like to do, which is... Sit and gossip. Sit and gossip and relax and talk. I'm going to be asking a little bit more in terms of just like some questions. I know. Quinetta was dressed in prison whites. She's a black woman in her 50s. Taller than I had anticipated. More commanding. And her hair was long, wavy, past her shoulders. Speaker 6 (4:27) She was wearing this pair of gigantic state-issued sunglasses. She's losing her vision. Texas prison health care is notoriously lacking. I couldn't see her eyes. This is kind Speaker 1 (4:42) of going to be Speaker 6 (4:43) your Speaker 1 (4:43) story. Speaker 6 (4:44) This whole thing that we're looking at. This Speaker 1 (4:47) whole... I don't even... I don't know. Speaker 1 (4:54) It's so complicated, Quenetta. I Speaker 5 (4:56) don't know if you know about this. It's so Speaker 1 (4:59) complicated. Speaker 4 (5:01) So just multi-layered. Speaker 1 (5:05) Confusing. Speaker 4 (5:06) Yeah, very confusing. Speaker 1 (5:07) Are you confused? Speaker 4 (5:08) I've been confused. Speaker 1 (5:11) Confused. That was an understatement. I first got to know Quenetta as a pen pal of sorts. And through our years-long correspondence, I learned about her past and what brought her to prison. Like so many women I've reported on, she had a history of abuse and trauma. For such women, killing can mean an end to their torment. And I'd wanted to make this podcast because I thought that story deserved to be told. And Quenetta agreed. But the more I dug in, the more people I talked to, the more I realized that my initial concept of Quenetta, of what she'd been through, and what she'd done, it flattened her. At first, I thought Quenetta's narrative would move from point A to point B pretty easily. But soon, I learned that with Quenetta, there were no straight lines. Only a labyrinth, elaborate and disorienting. Speaker 4 (6:09) When they meet her, it's like they're on a high. And then slowly but surely, you know, that high comes down. Holy cow. Speaker 7 (6:17) She's just, I said, this is not true. This, it didn't happen like you said, did it? Speaker 4 (6:23) Did you think it was a good idea? Speaker 3 (6:25) No. Speaker 1 (6:26) I Speaker 3 (6:26) told, no. I told them why it wasn't a good idea. Speaker 4 (6:30) Sometimes when you're a light, you attract, you know, darker entities. Speaker 7 (6:36) I had girls in the kitchen, everywhere. One time she shouted at me. Speaker 4 (6:43) Did she? Speaker 7 (6:45) Hey, listen, there's a lot going on back there. Speaker 1 (6:50) Turned out, there were many versions of Quenetta's story. And almost every single version contradicted the one before. She's Speaker 5 (6:59) loving. She's a mentor. How am I in trouble? I didn't have no teenager, didn't know how. We Speaker 7 (7:04) had our computers and our cell phones. You know, how to kill someone without leaving a mess. How to clean blood off a couch. And he scribbled a signature on it. And there goes the money. I Speaker 5 (7:15) thought that was rather clever. I kind of, I kind of thought, wow. Speaker 1 (7:26) By the time I was sitting across from Quinetta, in that Texas women's prison, I was thoroughly perplexed. Prosecutors and the state depicted Quinetta as a ruthless killer, and worse. I had known someone very different, someone smart and insightful, someone I considered almost a friend. But when I really dug into her past, I was confronted with far more complexity than I ever anticipated. And now, I was trying to make sense of a person and a story that was all wrapped up in the deepest truths and the thorniest lies. So what do you do when you don't get the story you're planning, the story you thought would adhere to a relatively clean narrative? What do you do when you come face to face with somebody who simply won't fit into any mold? Well, I was about to find out. So what happened? Because you never really told me. Speaker 1 (8:32) I don't know if you can, but if you are comfortable, I would ask if nobody asked. I mean... But I prefer you, if you don't, if you're not going to tell me it Speaker 6 (8:45) accurate, I prefer you don't. Yeah, Speaker 5 (8:47) I'm Speaker 1 (8:47) thinking back to, Speaker 5 (8:48) let me circle back around. Speaker 1 (8:52) From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is What She Buried. I'm Justine Vanderloon. Episode 1, The Pen Pal. Speaker 5 (9:12) When you put your body in the hands of a surgeon, you assume your doctor will do Speaker 7 (9:15) you no harm. I'm looking at the surgery board for tomorrow. These people are . Crooked Speaker 5 (9:21) doctors have launched their most ambitious fraud yet. worth over $1 billion. One doctor says, my kickback was $25,000, and the other doctor's going, well, I only got $12,000. From Sony Music Entertainment and Western Sound, this is Dr. Billions. Coming October 1st to The Binge. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (9:44) Some evil thing happened here. Speaker 8 (9:48) Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. Speaker 7 (9:53) It's not a coincidence. Speaker 8 (9:55) One after the other. In the same house. Is this bad luck? Or something more sinister? Speaker 5 (10:05) The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. A long simmering, what took