Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - The Texas Cadet Murder: The dark side of teen love & ambition

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

Diane Zamora and David Graham were overachieving high school students in love, sharing common dreams of flying high in the Air Force as a married couple. But a dark secret emerged as they were their first year of college. Diane was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy and David was a cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy when investigators linked them to the murder of another teen, Adrianne Jones, who had been found dead on a rural Texas road a year earlier.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Troy Slaten - Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney, Slaten Lawyers, APC, Twitter @TroySlaten  Dr. Michael B. Donner, PHD - Psychoanalyst, Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, Author: "Tearing the Child Apart: The Contribution of Narcissism, Envy and Perverse Modes of Thought to Child Custody Wars", michaelbdonner.com @michaelbdonner Dr. Kendall Crowns – Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Travis County, Texas (Austin) Justin Boardman - Former Special Victim's Unit Detective, West Valley City (Utah), Author: "I Was Wrong: An Investigator's Battle-cry for Change Withing the Special Victims Unit. Boardman Training & Consulting, JustinBoardman.com, Instagram/Twitter: @boardman_train Peter Meyer - Author: "Blind Love: The True Story Of The Texas Cadet Murder", Found: School Life Media, schoollifemedia.org Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a beautiful, vivacious, 16-year-old little girl end up dead in a field there in Grand Prairie, Texas. No leads, no clues, just a dead body. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is where it all starts. Take a listen. A farmer is driving along a sleepy, desolate country road near Mansfield, Texas, and he sees something behind a barbed wire fence and discovers it's the body of a teenage girl. She was unrecognizable.

The girl's face was obliterated. One bullet hole was in her left cheek, another in her forehead. She had also been hit so many times and so hard on the left side of her head that part of the skull above her ear, and this is a pretty tough part of the skull, was completely caved in.

Wow. You're hearing our friend John Lindley from CrimeOnline.com with me, an all-star panel to make sense of it. First of all, high-profile lawyer joining me out of L.A., Troy Slayton. You can find him at Troy Slayton, Dr. Michael Donner, PhD, psychoanalyst, clinical and forensic psychologist, and author of Tearing the Child Apart. Dr. Kendall Crowns, deputy chief medical examiner, Travis County, that's Austin, Texas, and lecturer, University of Texas, and of course, forensic sciences. Justin Boardman, former Special Victims Unit Detective, West Valley City. Author, I Was Wrong,

an investigator's battle cry for change within the Special Victims Unit. You can find him at justinboardman.com. But first to Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love, the true story of the Texas cadet murder. Peter, thank you so much for being with us. Describe the area for me where this unidentified 16-year-old girl's body was found. Certainly, Nancy. Nice to be here.

It was a morning out in the middle of what's scrub brush and sagebrush and outskirts of Mansfield, Texas, an architect named Gary Foster was getting up early in the morning, took his pickup to drive to the entry to his driveway and was surveying the fields, the nearby fields. And he saw what looked like a person in a field. And this is in the middle of nowhere. I mean, these are gravel roads for the most part.

And closer inspection, he saw it was the young woman. Trying to get that visual image with me, Peter Meyer, the author of Blind Love, True Story of the Texas Cadet Murder, and you can find that on Amazon, where there are fields, as far as the eye can see, certainly he would have seen it the day before, which tells me whatever happened, happened overnight. And you're hearing Peter Meyer describe gravel roads. A lot of people will call it out in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn't since I came from out in the middle of nowhere. And it may look like the middle of nowhere to a

lot of people, but when you live there and you know the ins and the outs and the cuts, it all makes sense. But who else would know of this location? Who would be so daring to leave a body out in an open field? And also straight to you, Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Travis County, that's Austin. Did you hear the way the injury was described? Shot in the head, I believe they said on the side of the head, which sounds like execution style, but then beaten horribly. So a very tough part of the skull was actually caved in.

She was murdered two times over. Yes, it sounds like she was beaten with something and then shot in the head or shot in the head and then beaten with something to obscure her identity. I'm just thinking about what you just said to obscure her identity. Well, you know what? You're right, Dr. Kendall Crowns, because that's exactly what it did. Take a listen to our friend Jackie Howard, Crime Online. Detectives found no sign of struggle at the crime scene, nor were there any marks on her hands or legs that would show she had been restrained. In fact, the investigation

was filled with no's. No indication that someone had broken into her house, no evidence of a sexual assault. What police did find was a pretty young girl shot in the face. For investigators, the death was more like an execution, the result of rage. To Dr. Michael B. Donner, Ph.D., clinical forensic psychologist and author. Dr. Donner, again, thank you for being with us. By the way, you can find him at michaelbdonner.com. Why would someone immediately assume that this murder was one of rage? Well, it sounds like the sort of thing that happens when somebody loses complete control of themselves. It's not just one injury.

It's multiple injuries. And that seems like it could only come as a result of anger and rage. And is it correct, back to you, Peter Meyer, author, that she was fully clothed and there was no indication of a sex attack? Correct. To Justin Boardman, former Special Victims Unit detective, West Valley City and author, you can find him at justinboardman.com. Justin, when you come on the scene as the detective, special victims unit, and you see a big open field and see there's a big difference right there because you've got,

as opposed to in an apartment or a house, you can get fingerprints, you can get blood spatter, you can get drag marks across the carpet. You can get all sorts of evidence. But in a field, for Pete's sake, what do you do? Wow. I start securing to make sure nobody has been walking through the crime scene. And then I start getting processing and brainstorming with other people on where there might be evidence before we get into the scene too far. We wouldn't have gone right in because she was already deceased and it was obvious. So we would actually do some of the same sort of thoughts that you were just talking about, looking for drag marks, looking for tire tracks and retracing the evidence that was there that people had dragged in before our arrival, meaning the person who found her.

Yes. Immediate question. I know you heard Peter Meyer say that these were gravel roads between fields. Right. Having grown up on a red dirt road, I wonder, can you actually get a tire mark off a gravel road? Because I don't see how you could.

Right. Right. And maybe not, but maybe there is a berm off the side of the road that the vehicle may have gone into. Yes. Or something like that.

You're absolutely right. And I guess at some point, they would have had to turn off asphalt. It can't be, you know, all gravel roads. And another thing, well, you know, when this happened, I don't know that they could get any DNA off her body, but fibers. And of course, you know, Justin Borman, the very first case where fiber evidence was accepted was in the Atlanta serial killing of multiple young boys across the city.

Fiber evidence leads cops back to the car trunk and the home of the perp. That fiber found on the body. So that's one clue. Tire tracks. You're not going to find fingerprints. You know, with a gunshot wound and a beating, you're not probably not going to find the defendant's blood. So at first, cops are stymied. What is a 16-year-old girl's body doing out in the middle of a field, shot in the face? Well, it took a minute, but it happened. She was identified.

Take a listen to this. Adrienne Jones was the All-American girl next door. She was blonde, smart, and athletic. She took advanced honors courses and played soccer. But after a knee injury, she decided to join the girls' cross-country team to get in better shape. She excelled at the two-mile run. Jones also had a job. She worked 20 hours a week at Golden Fried Chicken, a local fast food restaurant. She manned the drive-thru window. Wow, that sounds like

so many people I grew up with working at school all day, trying to make the best grades, trying to do after-school activities, and holding down a job here at Golden Fried Chicken, a local fast food restaurant, meaning the drive-thru. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, I'm suspicious, I'm curious. Dr. Kendall Crowns, when you have a body like this, if you want to do a DNA comparison to find out who it is, you have to have an idea of who it is to get the known. So let's just pretend I think that it's, um, let's just pick out Troy Slayton to be the dead body. I think it's Troy Slayton. So I go get his toothbrush at home and get a warrant and get his toothbrush. Then I compare DNA from the dead body to the DNA from the toothbrush. Bam, it's Troy Slayton. But when you don't have a known Troy

Slayton, you don't know who to compare it to. You can't make a DNA analysis. Same thing for dental records. Dr. Kendall Crowns, you have to have an idea who it may be to get that known identity dental records, right? Yeah, that's correct. Most methods of identification have to have a presumptive idea of who the individual is. The only one that you can do is fingerprints and then hope that they're in the system. That's the only time I've ever hoped somebody is a convicted felon. So their fingerprints will be in the system, Dr. Crowns. Well, in Texas also, anybody that gets a driver's license gets a thumbprint. So they can often be identified quite readily that way.

But that isn't the case in the rest of the U.S. So when you have an individual who isn't identified and you have no idea who they are, there isn't a lot that can be done. And you just have to hope that someone comes forward, you know, saying that they're missing an individual and then you can do the testing and try and find out if it's them. But otherwise, they can remain unidentified for a very long time. And they do. There are literally tens of thousands of unidentified Jane Doe's and John Doe's waiting to be ID'd across our country right now. To Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love, True Story of Texas Cadet Murder. Peter Meyer, in this case, how did detectives finally figure out this was 16-year-old American girl next door, Adrienne Jones. Well, because she was the American girl next door and came from a nice tight-knit family in Grand Prairie, she was missing.

And that's how they put the family, put the word out. Adrienne Jones, their daughter, is missing. And so it didn't take long for them to make the connection. I can't remember how many days, but it wasn't too long before the dead body was identified by the kinds of tests you talked about. But they had a name, so it went quickly after that. Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. Just before bed, Adrian Jones received a phone call. It's around 10 p.m.

Her mother, Linda, has some quick words for her 16-year-old daughter as she told American Justice. She walked down the hallway and she came back. And I said, you get that phone put down and you get to bed, little girl. And then after that, I went to bed. And she said it was David from cross-country. And he's upset. Linda Jones didn't recall hearing about a boy named David before, but didn't think anything about it. After the phone call,

the two went to bed. So how many times has a 16 year old girl been told to get off the phone and go to bed? I have to tell two 13 year olds that every night they're playing Candy Crush or whatever it is they're playing online. And in the dark, I can see the light from their phones. So I know that it's still on. I'm just imagining Adrian Jones's mom telling her, okay, get off the phone, go to bed. She's on the phone with her boyfriend. And she does. She gets off the phone and they go to bed. Take a listen to this. The next morning, Adrian's brother Justin looks in on his sister. Then he knocks on his mom Linda's door.

Justin knocked on my door and said, well, Mom, where's Adrian? I said, what do you mean? She's at school. She says, well, her stuff's still here. And so that was around 7. So I went in and checked and her things were still there. And I said, what's going on? As Linda Jones tells American Justice, she calls to school and is told that Adrienne didn't show up that day. Linda Jones calls her husband.

And at noon, I knew something was really, really, really wrong. And I called my husband up and I said, Adrienne's not here. We can't find her anywhere. She's not at school. She's not at her friends. We called everybody in our address book looking for them, the Davids especially. I was looking at every David in our address book. for them, the Davids especially. I was looking at every David in our address book. After calling Adrian's friends and their parents, the Joneses report their daughter missing to police.

So she's reported missing, and then wisely the investigators make the connection listen. It's not long after Adrian Jones is reported missing that investigators were able to match their Jane Doe found in the field with this missing girl. My husband had to go with the detectives and identify her body. And I called all my family and I can still hear their voices saying, no, you're wrong. And it was the truth. She had been shot and murdered by somebody. No one could figure out why. Jones had indeed been shot and murdered.

The girl's face was nearly unrecognizable. One bullet hole in her left cheek, another in her forehead. She had been hit so hard on the left side of her head that part of the skull just above her ear was crushed. She's been shot in the face and bludgeoned in the back of her head. And you don't know why. What did this young 16-year-old little girl know or do? It caused she didn't hate her that much. To Troy Slayton, L.A. criminal defense attorney, no stranger to a courtroom.

Troy Slayton, thank you for being with us. Why is it detectives will first start in a murder investigation with those closest to the victim? Well, that's because those closest to the victim are usually the ones involved in a murder or other nefarious activities. And in this case, that's exactly what happened. And so the police were right to start to talk to the people on the track team, the people that were closest to her at school, her friends, her associates. And her family. Straight out to you, Dr. Michael B. Donner. Of course, that's just a statistic that typically the perp is in the family or it is a close associate, a neighbor, a boyfriend, an ex. But statistics are not allowed in court. None of that could come in as proof that ex did the deed. Question to you, Dr. Donner,

on a psychological level, why do you always look at those closest to the victim? You know, not to be too much of a cliche, but you always hurt the one you love. That's where passions are most inflamed. That's where people's emotional structure starts to break down. It's part of the explanation for so much domestic violence. Intimacy breaks down the barriers of normal society and the structures that we use to contain our emotions. So the closer you feel, the more powerful the emotions you feel, the more out of control things can get. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas. That's Austin. We're hearing of two gunshot wounds, one to the cheek, one to the side of the head, and multiple daunting blows to the head. If I had to analyze it, I would say the bullets were first, the first one to the cheek, that didn't work, then a shot to the head, then the beating. Now, there's really no way to prove that, is there? No, there is not.

The only way you can say that the beating occurred after the gunshot wounds is if the injuries appeared bloodless, as if the individual had been dead for a while, heart wasn't beating, and then they crushed their head. So that would be the only way to know that the gunshot wounds occurred later or potentially the other way around. The head could have been caved in because they bludgeoned them to death and then they shot him afterwards. I'm rethinking my scenario, Dr. Krause. Thinking it through, I think that they would have beaten her, then shot her. Because in every other case I know of, for instance, let's just talk about the Jodi Arias case. She stabbed victim Travis Alexander 27 to 29 times, then shot him in the head. It's almost as if the gunshot wounds are a dramatic coup de grace at the end of the murder.

Right, it's a way of making sure they're dead. You just shoot them in the head. They might not be breathing or moving, but that way you're guaranteeing that you've killed them. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace guys wisely investigators start with those closest to 16 year old adrian starting with her family take a listen to investigative reporter lee egan when adrian couldn't be found her parents remember the call from the night before and started asking, who's David? He wasn't listed in her personal phone book.

Linda Jones called Leanne Burke, the cross-country coach at Mansfield High, and came up with the name David Graham. Graham was a senior cross-country athlete. He was a battalion commander at the school's junior ROTC program. Detectives interviewed David, but quickly ruled him out. Wow, he's got a lot going on. Junior ROTC, cross-country athlete, battalion commander. But what more do we know about David Graham? Listen. After seeing his first air show,

seven-year-old David Graham told his father he wanted to become an Air Force pilot. He never wavered from his dream. Graham kept his grades up and joined Manfield High School's ROTC program and the track team. He was a National Merit Committed student and had garnered the support of Congressman Martin Frost for his application to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Wow. Straight out to Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love, True Story of the Texas Cadet and Murderer. Peter Meyer, this David Graham sounds like the perfect package. Did you hear all that? Sure did. Honor student, had a congressman helping him get into the Air Force Academy,

got into the Air Force Academy. That's not easy. And since age seven years old, he knows he wants to be an Air Force pilot. Exactly. He's the perfect, he's the perfect, perfect kid. And it's one reason why, as your narrator just said, he was interviewed. He was on the cross country team with Adrian. But it never went farther than that because there was no evidence per se. So quickly, the case turned fairly quickly cold. Did you say he was a cadet candidate for the Air Force Academy, correct? That's right. Yeah, and you certainly don't want to smear his reputation. But there's another problem. Why is he on the phone at 10 o'clock

at night with a 16-year-old little girl when he's already got a girlfriend? Listen. Diane Zamora was a high school senior in the nearby town of Crowley. She was smart and determined to get into one of the U.S. military academies. She was a member of a student council, the Key Club, National Honor Society, and the Masters of the Universe, a science organization. She played flute, the marching band, and ran on our high school's cross-country team. And she was also David Graham's girlfriend. Ruh-roh. I smell a mess of trouble cooking right now. Here you got David Graham, superstar, cadet candidate, Air Force Academy. Then you've got Diane Zamora, high school senior nearby, next town over, headed to the U.S. military. No, no, she was headed to the Naval Academy, student council, key club, National Honor Society.

Good gravy. She plays the flute in the marching band on high school cross country team. And here's the important part. Also, David Graham's girlfriend. Now, let me understand something. Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love. love these are they're all very young adrian is just 16 years old david graham is just 17 at the time or 18 as is diane samora this sounds like puppy love well it does it should sound like puppy love but you've just read this you've just read the credentials of these kids. They're bound for the academy. These are not your regular high school kids. They're exceptionally driven. They met at the Civil Air Patrol unit, which David was a member of.

You already talked about his love of flying from age seven. And for Diane, she ended up there too because she was driven to get as many pieces to her resume as she could. It's hard to imagine 16 and 17 year old, I think kids, working on their quote, resume. but about their relationship. Take a listen to Hour Cut 10, our friends at Crime Online. David Graham and Diane Zamora met when their parents began dropping them off at a small

airfield south of Fort Worth for weekly meetings of the Civil Air Patrol. That's an Air Force auxiliary organization that teaches the basics of the military life and leads search and rescue missions for downed aircraft. But there was no romance between them. Diane was driven, wanting to focus on her studies and plans to become an astronaut. She kept a spiral notebook with the list of achievements she needed to get a college scholarship and kept an eye on her grades and always knew her GPA. She also told family and friends she did not want to have sex until she was married. She wanted to make sure that a pregnancy didn't derail her dreams. At the beginning of her senior year, Zamora tells family

she has fallen for David Graham. Wow, it seems like the perfect couple. So where does 16-year-old Adrienne Jones fit into that scenario? You know, I want to go out to Dr. Michael B. Donner, psychoanalyst, joining us. That's a lot of pressure to put on children, teens that young. Here you've got Diane Zamora, as she was just described, driven, who actually keeps a spiral notebook of her achievements and at any given moment knows her exact GPA because she wants to get into the Naval Academy and become an astronaut. David Graham, I mean, his CV, I guess if you have a CV at that young age, is spectacular. I mean, that seems like too much on a teen.

Well, not only that, Nancy, but they're putting a lot of pressure on themselves. They're driven. They know what they want. They go after it. They're organized. They plan for things. They're willing to sacrifice a lot to get what they want. You know, I want to go to Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love. So, Peter, let me understand this.

David Graham and Diane Zamora are both incredibly driven. One's at the Naval Academy, one's at the Air Force Academy. They're in love. They're engaged. They plan to get married. So how does he end up connecting with 16-year-old Adrian Jones? They rode the bus. Cross-country team was the connection. I mean, they both went to the same high school, but Adrian was a year behind David. But on the cross-country team, you have these classes merging. And when you go to a cross-country meet, you take a bus. So they're coming back from a cross-country meet in the bus. And, you know, it was one of those little perfectly normal thing in these days. David gave her a ride home.

And then the next thing you know they had a one night stand I think. You know it's hard to think of Justin Boardman, a little 16 year old girl having a so called one night stand she runs

track at school, she works at the chicken joint part time to make money. I don't know. I think it's a little harsh to say a teen girl like this has a quote, one night stand. Isn't that being really judgmental on a young girl? Absolutely. Absolutely, I absolutely, I apologize for that language. Oh, you know what? We all say it,

Peter. We all say it. I don't think anybody means any ill will by, I mean, I think that's really what it was. I think that this guy seduced a 16 year old girl and they had sex one time. I mean, technically it is a one night stand, but something about just saying that about this little girl, she's just so innocent and good.

It just doesn't seem right. You should run high in teenagers. You know, the adolescents are, they fall in love. Their bodies have changed. You know, we think about it a little differently, the one-night stand for the adult. But for teenagers, it's romance and love. crime stories with nancy grace long story short the two meet and they do in fact have sex take a listen to our cut 11 about a month after they started dating, Diane tells her parents that she and David are engaged with plans to get married after they both graduate from military academies.

But David has a secret. He cheated on Diane with Adrian Jones, a fellow track team member. It was a one night stand. Ultimately, he confesses and Diane feels betrayed. He says Diane then gave him an ultimatum, kill Adrian. Dear Lord in heaven, first of all, Peter Meyer, you're the author. You literally wrote the book Blind Love. Why in the world did he confess? What, to get it off his chest and make Diane Zamora feel terrible? I don't know. I really don't.

I mean, David was kind of an interesting teller. Okay, let me just ask the whole panel a question. Did anybody ever read Dear Abby? I mean, I read Dear Abby growing up, and this is what Dear Abby says. Dear Abby said every time somebody writes in, he goes, oh, my best friend's husband's having an affair. Should I tell her?

No, don't tell her. It's none of your business. Or a woman writes in, I had an affair. It's over. I'm so afraid I'm going to lose my husband. Should I tell him? Abby said, no, don't tell him. It makes you feel better to relieve your conscience and your guilt.

It ruins a marriage and it will ruin his thought of you forever. Just don't do it again for Pete's sake. Why in the world? What is it, Dr. Donner? Why do people feel they have to unload everything on their loved one? What is it? It makes them feel better to purge and it makes the loved one feel terrible? That's it. Do you feel that? Just don't do it again. I do it, Dear Abby, every day. It's a relief.

You can unload your own sense of shame and guilt and share it with someone else and beg for forgiveness and say, I'm sorry, it'll never happen again. But it is selfish. People do it never happen again. But it is selfish. People do it all the time, but it is selfish and it's just the pain to someone else. Now, the one thing I do not like among many things is anybody to start preaching at me. But it's my understanding that when you ask for forgiveness, you're supposed to not only ask for forgiveness, but change your ways. Otherwise, your request for forgiveness isn't worth a hill of beans. Sometimes it's just a way of hurting somebody another time.

So if you really want to make amends to the one you love, accept what you've done wrong, feel bad about it. You should feel bad about it. And then don't do it again. Now, that's coming from me, a JD with no psychological background. David came from a broken home.

What? I'm sorry. David, his parents were divorced. He was a kind of a loner. He worked on his, what was a kind of a loner. So he worked on his what was a kind of passiveness. And he worked very hard to overcome that passiveness. Pardon me, Dr. Donner, I'm stepping out of my territory here. And so we haven't even talked about the guns and the military propensities that come along with that. So there was a lot of this business

of taking orders, David, and being a bit passive and thus... Runs into Diane Zamora and her spiral notebook and this ultimatum. Kill her or lose me. Okay, that dr michael donner kill her or lose me that's easy bye-bye you know not everybody uh really thinks about other people as as being

completely human they're they're objects for their own personal gratification. They're objects that get in their way. They're objects that help them, but there's no real empathy. Now, I don't know Diane Zamora, so I can't speak about her specifically. You know enough. But that's the kind of person that we run into where they just don't care about other people. So, Troy Slayton, let me understand something. You're a veteran criminal defense attorney. I bet you would have a field day with this if you were representing David Graham.

She told me to do it or she'd break up. How is that coercion? Well, it depends. But, you know, they say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Oh, here we go with the cliches. And here, you know, I can see you prancing that banner around the courtroom till the cows come home. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Well, I wonder who beat her skull in and pull the trigger.

You think Zamora did took a dumbbell and smashed it into Adrian's head. And as she stumbled out of the car, it was Graham who who pulled the trigger and. Well, isn't it true, Troy Slayton, that for coercion to work. In other words, they made me do it. You have to be under threat of death or a third party has to be under threat of death. Yes, you have to have what a reasonable person would believe to be fear of imminent mortal danger to yourself. So basically, Diane Samora was holding herself hostage. If you don't murder 16-year-old all-American girl scrubbed in sunshine that you seduced one time, if you don't kill her, I'm going to commit suicide or leave you. So she's basically holding herself hostage. As ridiculous as that sounds, take a listen to this, our Cut 12.

David Graham tells police he called Adrienne and said he wanted to see her. He picked her up in a Mazda Protege owned by Diane's parents with Zamora hiding in the hatchback. Adrienne reclined the passenger seat. According to David, while he held Adrienne, Diane hit her in the head with a dumbbell, but she didn't die. Adrienne managed to crawl through the window and ran off. David says he grabbed a gun and followed. When Adrian fell, Graham pulled the trigger. Hiding in the hatchback. This reeks of premeditation to Justin Boardman, former special victims unit detective. You can find them at Justin Boardman dot com.

They planned this whole thing out and their victim, a 16 year old little girl. Absolutely, they did. And I think gathering some of this evidence before we were talking, I would also be taking a look at some of the grooming. A one-night stand like that just does not usually happen. Just out of the blue. Yeah. So you think he was cajoling her or as you say grooming her before that occurred? Absolutely. And I think that would be something to take a look at. They probably did. I don't have the information on that. But I'm sorry you were saying. Well, I'm thinking about how they lured her into the car while Diane Zamora throws caution to the wind, hides in the hatchback of the vehicle. And her boyfriend, her fiance, David Graham, lures the 16-year-old

to the car all in order to kill her. And guess what? They came that close to getting away with it. Remember, no sex attack, no DNA, no fingerprints, no tire tracks. But you know what? The Constitution protects you from statements you make without a warrant to police, but it doesn't protect you from yourself. Listen to our cut 13. The distance between Zamora and Graham grew as they pursued their military careers until one night when Zamora had a late-night gab fest with her two roommates, Mandy Gotch and Jennifer McKierney. One of the girls mentioned that Diane and David seemed so in love that they would do anything for each other, even kill. Diane paused and said, we have. The roommates were skeptical at first, but the next day told

the Navy chaplain about the conversation. The chaplain contacted a Navy attorney who then began calling police departments in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to ask if they had an unsolved murder of a teenage girl. On August 29th, he contacted the Grand Prairie Police Department. The next morning, detectives were on a flight to Annapolis. Can you imagine that moment? All these girls and their PJs having a gab fest in their dorm room. Man, you guys are so in love. I bet you'd kill for each other. Then Zamora in her dramatic manner says, we did. And the case busts wide open. You know what? Why would you blurt out a secret like that to your dormies? Well, listen to this.

He said, look, look what you made me do. Did you make him do that, Diane? No. I asked him to let me meet her. Oh, dear Lord in heaven, the crying and the snotting and the no, no, no. Troy Slake, if she could cry all she wants to right now, but the law is, you may immediately regret the deed. But what matters is the intent at the time of the act. You want to tell me she didn't mean to kill when she's hiding in the hatchback, driving with her lover out there with a loaded gun to get the 16-year-old girl in the car?

It's too late for all that snotting in front of a jury. It would appear to be, and a skilled prosecutor like you, Nancy, would be arguing all these special circumstances in this case. She was lying in wait. There was premeditation. And she clearly showed a an indifference, a depraved indifference to human life. And so if if I was a prosecutor in this case and took off my defense attorney hat, I'd be seeking the death penalty if it was available. Guys, more testimony. Listen. She said this is a girl they had sex with and that they had planned her murder. Okay, and how had they planned her murder? At first, they were planning to snap her neck and drop the body in the lake, but it didn't go as planned.

Hmm. Snap her neck and drop a body in the lake. You're hearing Zamora's former best friend testifying at court. That was Christina Mason. Well, none of that worked. Listen. We, the jury, find the defendant, Diane Michelle Zamora, guilty of the offense of capital murder as alleged in the indictment. Signed, Monty Winsett. It's not just Zamora, the mastermind of the murder. What about David Graham, who follows along like a little sheep, murdering a 16-year-old girl? May they rot in

hell. Nancy Grace, Crimeum story signing off goodbye friend this is an iheart podcast