Going West: True Crime - The Texas Cadet Murder // 99

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

*In 1995, a young and intelligent couple set out to kill a local girl who was “getting in the way” of their relationship. But after one of them told the story to a roommate the following year, everything came crashing down. This is the murder of Adrianne Jones and the story of the Texas Cadet Murder.* *BONUS EPISODES* patreon.com/goingwestpodcast *CASE SOURCES* https://offender.tdcj.texas.gov/OffenderSearch/offenderDetail.action?sid=05706168 https://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-appeals/1007875.html https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7667911/adrianne-jessica-jones https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-killer-cadets/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Tee. And I'm your other host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. I can't believe we're one episode away from episode 100 that is so crazy. We started our podcast almost two years ago Exactly. We started it on December 31st 2018, so it's crazy. I know it's so wild. I can't believe we're that close to 100 freaking episodes We have a very special episode planned for next week and we are gonna do a Q&A at the very end of the case that we're covering. So if you guys have any questions, we already asked on all of our social medias, but I think we're gonna go through it one more time, do it again for anyone who missed it.

But just in case anybody has any questions regarding the show or us, we'd love to answer them in next week's Q&A. Right, if you want to squeak in your last minute questions, make sure you do that before what would you say? Before next Sunday? Just ASAP. Yeah, I guess just as soon as possible. On Patreon, we just released a brand new episode on the murder of Joanna Yates. It is crazy. It takes place in Bristol, England. It's such a creepy one that just feels like it could happen to anybody. And we have that bonus episode along with how many, like, almost 30 other bonus episodes, like we have a ton of bonus episodes for you guys to binge, and we're adding more every single month. So go over and check out patreon.com slash going west podcast. Right, the library

just gets bigger and bigger each month, so make sure you subscribe again, that's patreon.com slash going west podcast. All right, guys, this is episode 99 of going west, so let's get into it. In 1995, a young and intelligent couple set out to kill a local girl who was getting in the way of their relationship. But after one of them told the story to a roommate the following year, everything came crashing down. This is the murder of Adrian Jones and the story of the Texas Cadet murder. Diane Michelle Zamora was born on January 21, 1978 in Crowley, Texas to Gloria and Carlos Zamora.

And within a few years, her younger brother, Carlos Jr. was born and then within the next few years, two more siblings. Growing up, the Zamoras weren't in the best financial standing, but Diane's parents tried their best to give their kids great lives and make sure that they would strive to achieve their highest of goals so they didn't have to struggle in their adult lives like they did. While Diane was growing up, her mother Gloria worked as a directory assistance operator for a phone company, while Carlos struggled to find consistent work as an electrician. The Zamores raised their kids in a religious

household and they spent almost every Sunday at their Baptist church, where Diane's grandfather was a minister, and this really brought the family together because Diane sang in the choir with her mom and her dad Carlos played the saxophone. So it was always a really fun family time with music and community. Diane was a very shy child growing up and didn't have a ton of friends but singing gospel music really helped her kind of break out of her shell. When Diane was nine years old she visited NASA and Houston, Texas for the first time and this absolutely changed her life. She became obsessed with wanting to become an astronaut, so after this trip she became incredibly motivated to get her grades up,

so she could eventually get a scholarship to college and then pursue her dream, knowing that her parents wouldn't be able to afford to put her through college, but things would remain tough on the home front. From the time Diane was 10 until she was 17, the Zamores had filed for bankruptcy four times. They didn't pay their taxes for a couple years, so they owed the IRS over $160,000. At this time, Gloria was working towards getting her degree in nursing, and in the meantime, was trying to sell cosmetics, but it was tough on her since she had so much studying to do. Meanwhile, Carlos lost his job, and on top of that, when Diane was 14 years old, she walked in on her father Carlos having an affair with another woman who was actually

from their church. And this destroyed her relationship with her father because she knew that he was hurting her mom and the family. But since she was just a teenager, she had to stay in the house and just deal with it. But it didn't really help that her mom Gloria had her tag along and help her ransack the woman's car and steal stuff from her. Gloria also wanted to have Diane help her break into the woman's car and steal stuff from her. Gloria also wanted to have Diane help her break into the woman's apartment, but they couldn't find the right one.

So this is definitely not appropriate at all considering Diane is just 14 years old, but still, Gloria and Carlos stayed together after all of this. But since things were still bad financially, a short while after this, their whole family of six had to move in with Carlos' parents. Yeah, so this is really rough. I think it's so inappropriate that Gloria, first of all, even ransacked the woman's apartment, I always think it's so crazy when people blame the woman. It's like, your husband is cheating on you.

Take this out on him. You know, maybe this woman knows that you guys are together, so sure I understand why you can be mad at her, but you're gonna go ransack her car with your daughter. That's just so not okay. Well, I just find it so weird. I mean, you know that your husband is having an affair, so instead of confronting him about set affair,

you just decide to go steal this woman's stuff from her car? Yeah, kind of strange. It's weird. And to bring Diane into it when she's only 14 like this is not, you're not being a very good motherly example here. Yeah, that's not setting a great example. But luckily, the struggles at home didn't stop Diane from trying to achieve her goals. And if anything, it made her more determined to get out of Texas and make a successful

life for herself. And the way she planned to do this was by joining the Naval Academy after she graduated high school as an honors student. But before this could happen in the fall of 1995, Diane was 17 years old and a senior, and still very much wanting to become an astronaut. And she knew the Naval Academy could help her achieve just that. In 1991, so four years earlier, she attended her very first civil-air patrol meeting at Spinks Airport just outside of Crowley, Texas, where Diane lived and grew up when she was 14, and it was here that she met 14-year-old David Graham. He went to Mansfield High School just outside of Crowley in Mansfield, Texas and was the

same age as Diane and they got along really well. These meetings took place every week and the purpose was to teach the upcoming students the basics of military life as well as lead search and rescue missions for fallen aircrafts. After a couple years of both Diane and David going to these meetings, when they were going into their senior year at their respective high schools, in August of 1995, they began dating. They were both 17-year-old honor students, and Diane fell hard for David and described him as her perfect guy. He, like Diane, was very smart and was actually known by some to be brilliant. He was a muscular guy who loved sports, had great manners, and had dreams of becoming a pilot. He was known to be very respectful in general by all those who knew him, and apparently,

he was never known to be a troublemaker. So just kind of an all around, good kid. However, he was known to have some conflict with his mother Janis, who left the family while he was in his teens. She left a note on the kitchen table and started a new life with a new man, so this was her main reason for leaving was this new love interest. But it's also said that she was fearful of how confrontational David had become, and she didn't like that her husband, who was David's father, didn't discipline their kids, so she just kind of up and left.

David had three other siblings, and they all lived with her father, Jerry Graham, who was a Mansfield Elementary School principal. His mom, Janice, had also worked in education, but she was a teacher who had moved to Houston after the divorce. It was very clear from an early age, like Diane, again, that David was going places in life. Since he was seven, he wanted to be an Air Force pilot and carried that passion into his teens. And because of this, a lot of his high school peers really respected him because he was very mature and refined And a lot of people even called him Colonel Graham because it was so well known that he was going to the Air Force after school

And a lot of people kind of looked up to him for being so cool yet intelligent and headstrong Because he had had the same goal his whole life And I feel like a lot of other kids are kind of you know, they don't know what they want to do And a lot of people don't even know until they get to college. But David always wanted to do the same thing and everybody kind of knew that. It's always interesting because I always think about little kids and like when you ask them what they want to be when they grow up and it's like, oh, like little kids say,

like, oh, I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a doctor or a fireman or whatever. And this guy was like, I want to be a pilot and then like literally kept that same goal his entire life. Yeah, which is kind of a little bit more rare. Yeah, most kids don't do that. They're like, I want to be a doctor and then they end up working it subway. Yeah, I mean, when I was that age,

I wanted to be a criminal justice lawyer. So I guess it kind of full circle. I wanted to be a ninja, but that didn't have. Okay. So it seemed that David and Diane had a lot in common. So they got along really well and Diane loved how intelligent David was. She was kind of picky about this kind of thing and hated stupid people who couldn't keep up, especially since she was so disciplined, even waking up at 6 a.m. every morning to study before school.

So very very disciplined. Diana and David's relationship was described as intense and they became engaged after just a month of dating. Wow, that's that's actually really fast. Yeah, well that that's the thing about their relationships, which which you're about to go into. It's it was a little much. Yeah, so both of their families were very surprised by this, and they were glad they at least wanted to wait to get married until the year 2000, when they would graduate from college. But still, a lot of people close to these two felt uncomfortable about their relationship, because it really just didn't seem normal.

They seemed to be overly obsessed with each other, which led to violence, i.e. hitting each other, but to them, this was just them showing their passion and love towards each other, and it wasn't like this violence was in any way a deal-breaker, since they were supposedly so madly in love with each other, but I mean still just weird regardless. It's very toxic, like it just sounds like a horribly toxic relationship. They're both obsessed with each other. They're so passionately in love with each other supposedly that they heard each other out of passionate rage.

And they think that's fine. And they always made up after it was never like, I'm an abusive relationship. They were just like, well, we're just in love. And that's just what happens. And it's like, no, you're in an abusive relationship. Yeah, it's interesting to see relationships like that when people convince themselves that they're in something

that's not toxic because they maybe can't recognize that it is and they think that this is just how love really is. Exactly. And this is both of their first serious relationship. So it's definitely understandable how they would be confused by that, not really know, because neither of them had a great role model, you know, relationship-wise to look up to. Diane's dad had an affair, and David's mom left the family, so dysfunctional is kind of all they know. But David, being 17 years old, was

easily tempted by another girl who happened to be on Mansfield's track team alongside David. So you know, even though he's so madly in love with Diane, he's still a 17 year old guy. Oh, yeah, he's a horny kid. Yeah. So Adrian Jones went to his school, but was two grades below him. She was 16 years old and a sophomore at Mansfield High School, and David was overall just very intrigued by her.

And you can find photos of her on our socials. I mean, she was absolutely stunning. She was very much the striking and beautiful girl next door type. Although Diane was also beautiful, he couldn't help but be attracted to Adrian, so he went after her. Adrian Jones was born on June 18, 1979 in Dallas, Texas to Linda and Bill Jones along with her two younger brothers. After her youngest brother was born, her parents decided to move them 35 miles or 56 kilometers, South West, to the small town of Mansfield, hoping for a safe place to raise the kids. And it was, they lived in a nice neighborhood with lots of other families and they were happy. Bill worked as a construction

equipment repairman, and he was pretty strict around the house because he always wanted to make sure that his children were safe. It wasn't until Adrian was 16 that he let her stay out past 9 pm on the weekends only, but they kept fairly close tabs on her to ensure that she was making good decisions and hanging out with the right people. He had even nailed Adrienne's window shut so she couldn't sneak out at night. But don't let this fool you because Adrienne, who went by AJ, was a really good kid. She was an advanced honor student and studied constantly, she was a successful athlete,

and she was very kind, friendly, and had a great sense of humor. Her friends called her a flirt and described her as being very spirited at school, so everyone really liked her, but she was also very responsible. She worked 20 hours a week at a local fast food joint called Golden Fry Chicken and the manager referred to Adrian as her superstar employee. She worked the cash register and always was making people smile and laugh, so she was just all around a very good kid, very responsible, but also extremely popular. Adrian had plans to attend Texas A&M University after her high school graduation, which was a couple years away, and she wanted to become a behavioral analyst.

So she did her very best in school in hopes of kind of having a full and successful life. But on November 4, 1995, three months into David and Diane's relationship, David and Adrienne went to a track meet with the rest of their team in Lubbock, Texas, which is about a five-hour drive from their hometown of Mansfield. It's unknown whether or not Adrian knew David was dating Diane, but since Diane went to a different school and David was interested in getting with Adrian, she likely didn't know. Either way, during this weekend track meet event, Adrian and David got to know each other better. And after the weekend was over, Adrian asked David to drive her back to Mansfield, and this is according to David, so no one actually saw them speak at this track meet, but David claims he drove her home and no one else has stated otherwise, while at least up to this point. On this drive home, David also claims that he pulled over behind an elementary school

and that he and Adrian had sex in his car. According to Diane, about a month later while Diane and David were studying for their SATs in early December, she and David got into a fight. She had asked David if he was seeing other girls and David said that he had sex with someone else, and that someone else was Adrian Jones. Then Diane became so livid that she started hitting her head against the floor and screaming, kill her, kill her. Because of her religion, Diane didn't want to have sex until marriage, but because she was engaged to David, she felt that they would be together forever, so she gave in to that. But David was extremely aggressive about having sex, and would apparently force her into

the act multiple times a day, and according to Diane, he would threaten her with a gun if she didn't comply. What the fuck? This is according to Diane, so I really can't say whether or not it's true because we weren't there, but that's what she says. Okay, if it is true, that's messed up. And if it's not true, it's also messed up because she's making this up. Yeah, it's hard because I don't want to, I don't want to say that she's not telling the truth because I want to stay on beside a victim, of course, if it's true, but she is known to lie about these kinds of things, so I'm not sure.

Right. And we can't know if these accusations are true since Diane came forward with it later on, but it's definitely possible. Regardless, in Diane's eyes, it was just she and David forever. So the thought that another girl could possibly take David away from her was unacceptable. And instead of blaming David for cheating, she blamed Adrian. Which I'm sure she might have been influenced by her mom on that part because her mom also took her dad's cheating out on the woman. So I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Yeah, it might. It might. She might also just be really psychologically scarred from the situation that happened with her family. Exactly. But either way, because Diane was so upset about this situation, she told David to kill Adrian. So later, David stated that Diane said she would kill herself or leave him if he didn't kill Adrian Jones. Since at this point, Diane was still having a full-on meltdown, David agreed as he apparently felt like it was the only thing he could do to calm her down. He promised Diane that he would kill Adrian.

The next day, December 2, 1995, Diane and David spent the day trying to find out where Adrian was, and they just tried to get a hold of her. At this point, David came up with a plan. His plan was to meet up with Adrian and kill her by breaking her neck. Then he would sink her body to the bottom of Joe Poole Lake, which is a recreational freshwater lake just outside of Mansfield, and it's often used for fishing, boating, and water skiing, and it stretches across 7,740 acres. So the very next day, David made a plan to hang out with Adrian.

On December 4, 1995, after 12.30am, so technically the night of Sunday, December 3, David drove Diane's family's green mosa proté, while Diane hid in the back. David had planned to meet up with Adrian at 12.30am, but they were running late talking about the plan, so David didn't actually arrive at Adrian's house to pick her up until about 1.35am. And it's unclear how Adrian was able to sneak out of her house since this was way past her curfew, and to to our knowledge her windows were still nailed shut at this point, but either way she got into David's car and drove for about

20 minutes. At this point Diane was in the trunk, but with this car you can push down the middle seat from the trunk and then you can sneak through it so she was able to hide without being seen, but also still know what was going on. David had to act like he and Adrian were going to hook up, so when they eventually parked, he motioned to Diane that it was time while he went to kiss Adrian to distract her. Diane says that seeing David and Adrian kissing through her into yet another rage, and she went into the backseat at this point so she crawled from the trunk to the backseat while they're kissing.

Adrian suddenly noticed Diane was there and jumped in fear because obviously this will be shocking that there's suddenly a girl in the backseat watching you make out with some guy and David calmed her down a bit and said that it was okay because they just wanted to talk to her. And by the way this is all from Diane's confession later, so we can't be clear how accurate it is, but this can be said for a lot of cases in general since everything is just someone's recount of what happened. Yeah, exactly.

At this point, Diane says that she asked Adrian why she had sex with her boyfriend, to which Adrian responded that she felt bad about it and didn't even enjoy it. And for some reason, hearing that, sent Diane even more into a rage and she screamed, just do it, just do it. And David started wrestling with Adrian while Diane swung at Adrian with a weight that was in the back of the car. Oh my God. So she's just being viciously attacked by two people, and she's like, I don't even know what the hell is going on right now. She has no idea.

And Diane is just so mad just wants to get revenge on Adrian when she should really just be talking to David about this. I mean, this is his fault more than it's Adrian's fault because you're in a relationship with him. Yeah. And like you said before, Adrian probably doesn't even know that David was in a relationship to begin with.

Yeah, just this is all sorts of messed up. According to Diane, her hands were shaking so much that she missed, so she kept swinging and eventually hit Diane on the head with the weight. And the weight, it's like a dumbbell, so it's like an exercise weight. Right. And remember, Adrian is at a severe disadvantage here because she's sitting in the passenger seat while David, who's in the driver's seat and Diane, who is behind her in the back seat, are attacking her. Even still, Adrian was able to crawl out of her window and start running. Because Adrian had been hit so hard in the head, she eventually fell to the ground. So when David found her, he felt like she was actually dead.

Then David returned to the car and told Diane that Adrian was dead, but she didn't believe him. She told David to go back and shoot her. So he did. And he shot Adrian twice in the head and then jumped back in the car and had the audacity to say, I love you baby. Do you believe me now? After the murder, David and Diane went to their friend John Green's house and washed David's

clothes. When they took a moment to think about what they did, they apparently hugged each other and both cried. Then they went back to Diane's house and David slept while Diane cleaned the blood from the car because she said David was too sick to stomach to look at it or be in the car at all after what they did. But they were going to keep their secret and just hope that no one would know. After Diane cleaned the way, she kept them in the car,

but made sure to make David hide his gun in his dad's attic, which he did that week. And I think she also had some of the weights put in the attic. I think the one that she used, but some were still in the car. The night of the murder before Diane went to bed, for some fucking reason, she wrote in her calendar,

on that day, Adrian 138 AM. Oh my God, are you serious? Why do you want to save that information? That's just, you're like, did, I don't even know. Like really? Not smart. No, you're just stupid and that just tells me

that you're not remorseful. So Adrian had been murdered in Grand Prairie, Texas near JoPoo Lake. And later that day, which was Monday, December 4, 1995, her body was found by a farmer, and it was reported. Her body was just laying in a field because, I mean, luckily, David hadn't taken the extra step to put it in the lake like they had planned and they just sped off hoping that she was actually dead and that somehow this that she like wouldn't be found or you know what I mean? I don't know what they were thinking.

This is such a teenage plan came come to fruition because like most adults would go through the extra step of trying to hide the body and and do more to hide the evidence and they wouldn't go home and write in their freaking diary or their calendar, the victim's name and the time in which they killed that person like, this is so juvenile. It really is, it shows how young they really are. Since Adrian didn't have any identification on her, the police brought her into a local medical examiner and identified her as Jane Doe. There was no sign of sexual assault, but it was obvious that she had a terrible blunt

force injury to her head, as well as two gunshot wounds that had been fired from a few feet away. And I did read that the head injury, it's like that part of her head was completely caved in, like Diane hit her with that weight so hard. Right, so she was hitting her with the intent to kill. That day, Adrian's parents reported her missing, so the police were able to connect the dots on that and determine that the body they had was indeed Adrian Jones after seeing her photo.

The news broke all over the area that day, and David's dad had asked him if he had heard about the girl from Mansfield who had gotten killed. But little did he know. During the investigation, it came out that Adrian would attend all night raves in a town that was about an hour away, and this is why her dad had boarded her window shut.

But police started to think that this was possibly where she could have come in contact with her killer. Like maybe did someone become obsessed with her during one of these raves and follow her home one day and then they knew where she lived and killed her later? Police were confident that her killer was someone she knew. Mansfield High School had 2,500 students at this time, and many of these students felt that there was a potential murderer amongst them there. But all sorts of leads were coming in, and police later joked that the only tip they didn't

receive was that Adrian was abducted by aliens, because there was just so many different ideas being thrown around regarding who would have killed her and why. The night that Adrian was murdered, her parents remembered that she had been talking on the phone with her brand new boyfriend Tracey Smith, who was out of town with his parents that weekend. Usually, they told her she had to be off the phone by 10 pm, but since he called her at 10.30 pm and she begged them to let her talk to him. They allowed it. Linda Adrienne's mom remembers that during this call,

she heard Adrienne say, hold on, there's someone on the other line. Adrienne spoke to the other person and her mom wasn't paying attention to what was being said since Adrienne was being quiet anyway. But later, Linda made a point to ask, who was that that called in? To which Adrian said, oh that was just David from cross country, he's upset about something. Since Adrian was now off the phone, she went to her room.

At this point it was 10.45 pm and she was ironing her pants for school the next day. Her mom noticed that she seemed antsy for some reason, so she told her daughter to go to bed. And this was David calling to ask to meet up that night at 12.30 pm, less than two hours later. And David did admit this later, so we know that this was David. Right, so he was the one that called in.

So Adrian was probably antsy because she wanted to be able to successfully sneak out of the house to see him without her parents knowing. Her younger brother did in fact actually hear a car that night and looked out the window to see a pickup truck. He didn't see Adrian but wondered why the truck was there. And going back to how she was reported missing so you guys know the details of that since it is relevant to suspicion regarding David. The morning came and her parents had no idea where Adrian was. They hope that she had maybe just gone for a run before school, but her running shoes were in her room.

So Linda got on the phone with the cross-country coach and asked who David was, to which the coach said, oh, that would be David Graham. Linda was automatically suspicious that she had seen him, and she even said to the coach, Adrian's missing, and I think he called her last night. The coach was very confused because she didn't even know Adrian and David to be friends at all, like she had never even seen them speak.

So give Linda peace of mind, the coach had asked another girl on the track team to find David at school and ask him if he had called Adrian the previous evening. And remember this is just hours after the murder, and he had apparently been throwing up and sick to his stomach regarding the murder. So he was probably super freaked out when this girl from track came up to him and asked him this. David then got very defensive and said, did I talk to Adrian?

No, why would I? Once they found out that Adrian had been murdered, this information was given to police. So of course, they followed up on it and actually questioned David Graham that very weak. But according to his statements to police, he didn't seem suspicious at all, so police didn't ask him to take a polygraph test or pursue him any further. Another reason why police didn't think he was the killer is because he wasn't in Adrian's phone book, and she had only about 30 people in there. Also, none of Adrian's friends knew them to be friends or lovers at all.

David didn't access his, but he did get emotional at Adrian's memorial just like most of the other students. So to everyone else, he just looked like another grieving schoolmate. Which is actually really surprising to me because knowing that he wouldn't clean up the mess in the car and he was throwing up that night and

apparently crying. I'm really surprised that hours later he was able to pull it together to be questioned by police and not come off as sketchy. That's crazy to me. Yeah, yeah definitely. I don't know how they didn't find him suspicious. And being a teenager, I'm sure it's extremely nerve-wracking to be a murderer and have police question you about that. This whole thing kind of gives me Heather's vibes for some reason. I don't know why, maybe it's because of the time frame in which it happened in the early 90s or possibly because there's a guy and a girl who kill another girl, I don't know. Right, yeah, totally. Yeah, absolutely.

So the first real suspect to arrive in this case was actually a girl who went to Mansfield High. Her name has not been released to the public, so I'm just gonna call her the girl. But this girl was known to be very aggressive and possessive. For example, whether true or not, this girl thought one of Adrian's best friends had slept with her boyfriend, and her reaction was to beat said girl with a baseball bat and break her cheekbone and give her a concussion. Dang, these kids are violent. I know what the hell. So this girl even shot her boyfriend. She didn't kill him, but she did injure him.

Okay, I guess Violin was an understatement. Yeah, she she be crazy. She be crazy. So because of all this, the girl's hearing, Adrian had testified for her friend regarding the girl's violence. And the girl supposedly told Adrian, I'll get you for this. Which you don't want to piss this girl off, apparently. Yeah. So this girl was looking like a very good suspect. However, it was quickly determined that she had a solid alibi and she also passed a polygraph test.

So, in comes potential suspect number 2, Brian McMillan. Adrian's new boyfriend Tracy told police that the night Adrian was last seen, while they were on the phone, the other call that came in was from her friend named Brian, who was apparently depressed and wanted to see her that night. So this made them believe even more that it wasn't David, and David was just the name Adrienne gave her mom, but it was really actually Brian. But weirdly enough, Brian wasn't Adrienne's friend. He was someone who was somewhat of a pest to her. Before working

at the fast food chicken restaurant, Adrian worked at Subway. And while she worked there, one of her classmates at Mansfield named Brian McMillan would come by to see her. It seems that he developed kind of a crush on her, but he came in so often that when she saw him approaching the Subway, she would duck behind the counter or go in the back so she didn't have to talk to him. When investigators looked into him, they found that he was clinically depressed and was on four different kinds of medication for this, and it was a huge red flag for them. Strangely enough, when they called Brian down to the station, he told them that he didn't know anyone by the name of Adrian Jones,

which only made him look way more suspicious. I never understand what people do this. Like, you're just gonna lie right away. Sir, it's a huge mistake. Yeah, they're gonna see right through that. But after talking some more, he said he did know her, which is even more suspicious. You're like, yeah, I just lied, sorry. Yeah, now they know you lied.

Yeah. So Brian then said that on the night Adrian was last seen, he got drunk because he was so upset that all of his friends had girlfriends and he didn't. He also said that he didn't remember calling Adrian, but he definitely could have. Then, when asked if he had gone to Adrian's house that night, he said he might have, but he wasn't sure.

Oh no. How drunk did you get, man? So this was enough for police to strongly believe that he was involved in her murder. So one week later, on the very early morning of Friday, December 15, 1995, armed police officers flooded Brian's house with a freshly obtained search warrant and they arrested Brian McMillan for Adrian's murder. Brian McMillan had a pickup truck and this was impounded so that they could search it for any evidence. Police were aware that Adrian's brother had seen a pickup truck after midnight the night that Adrian was murdered so this was a huge

connection obviously. It is very weird, like what are the chances? Yeah, it's pretty strange. But after several people came forward letting police know that Brian was a good and gentle person, and after questioning Brian again and again, an impassing polygraph test, police wondered if they'd made a mistake. And then, after searching his family's home and his truck, they didn't find any evidence that he killed Adrian. So they started to wonder if he really was just depressed that night and had driven to Adrian's house, hoping to see her since he liked her, but he didn't actually commit the crime.

And the crazy thing is that Brian was depressed, and Adrian literally told her boyfriend that the call was from a friend named Brian who was depressed. But we know that it was really David, and the reason she said Brian was likely just so her boyfriend didn't know that she was seeing another guy, and one who was on her cross-country track team at that. Exactly. But it's just weird that there is this strange Brian connection that turned out to be a total coincidence, I guess, that he was depressed that night, but didn't call Adrian yet he

did show up at her house, but he didn't kill her. It's just too weird. But they ended up releasing Brian after a couple weeks when they determined that he was not responsible for the murder. But he did have to stay there in jail on Christmas and New Year's. Ah, that sucks. I mean, that probably made his depression even worse. Yeah, geez.

He's like, I didn't fucking do anything. Yeah, sorry, Brian. A couple months later, Adrian's manager at the Golden Fried Chicken remembered a moment with Adrian from from months prior. It had only just occurred to her that this tip may be helpful, so she called police. This moment in particular was one at work when Adrienne pulled a small photo out of her wallet of a teenage boy and said, his name is David. And this seems to be the only person that Adrian mentioned David to at all.

And she probably just felt that it was probably a safe person to mention David to. And I mean, they had really just started talking to each other, so maybe since it was so new, I don't know, maybe that's why she didn't say anything to anybody else. Well, also in the fact that she had a boyfriend, that's another reason why she probably wanted to keep David kind of secret. Right, which I know you guys are probably confused about that, but remember this is a new boyfriend and she's in high school and I don't know if she had been seeing David before, so she's probably just trying to figure out what she wants. Exactly, so police still had already rolled David Graham out and really just didn't believe

he had done this. So nine whole months passed and the police didn't have any leads as to who killed Adrian. Diana and David had pretty much gone back to their normal lives, no longer fearing that police were going to catch them. Around Valentine's Day two months after the murder, David finally gave Diana an engagement ring, and then in the spring, they both graduated at the top of their classes, and were both accepted to their chosen academies. Diane Zamora headed to Annapolis, Maryland, to attend the Naval Academy, while David

Graham headed to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to attend the Air Force Academy. But they insisted on staying together, and knew that they would email and call each other constantly, and then get married after graduation. They insisted on staying together and knew that they would email and call each other constantly and then get married after graduation. In the fall of 1996, nine months after the murder, Diane reported to family that she was loving the Academy. She had started going to church at the Naval Chapel and also joined the Glee Club. But she was having a really tough time being apart from David, and

this showed in her morning drills and her workling. She wasn't really doing the best. So with all this separation, she got the idea in her head that David was cheating again, and this seemed to be all she talked about to her fellow, fellow plebs, as they call him. But it was never that she wanted to leave him, but that she loved him so much and there better not be any other girls getting in the way, which was the same way she felt towards Adrian, that it's the girls fault, not David's.

So to make David jealous, she stopped emailing him so frequently and told him that she kissed a guy named Jay, who was one of her friends there at the Academy. And this really pushed David over the edge. His response was to contact the Naval officers at Diane's school and tell them that Diane was being sexually harassed by a guy named Jay. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Wow, you're going to go that far though. This is their relationship. Their jealousy is intense. I mean, I guess it's Not surprising because they have gone that far together before so yeah, I guess it's weird. It's just strange Jay was very interested in Diane and they became really close friends One night in August the two were talking and Jay asked if David had ever cheated on her before. And Diane responded with, yes. And then, Jay asked what she did about it. Diane then flat out said that she asked David to kill the other girl.

Jay was incredibly confused and wasn't sure if she was serious, so he pressed on. Diane, feeling like she could trust Jay, told him that he watched David Killagirl named Adrian the previous year. You helped. Wow. I can't believe she just admitted that. She didn't go into big details, but gave the basic gist of what happened. The Academy has a very strict honor code, so Jay didn't feel like he could keep this

information to himself. If it was true, David should get in trouble, but he just hoped that she was exaggerating for attention. Because remember, this is in Maryland, so Jay doesn't know that a girl back in Texas named Adrian was murdered. But a couple weeks later, Diane told this same story yet again to her roommates, Mandy and Jennifer. Late one night, they were gabbling on about love, and one of the girls was infatuated by how in love David and Diane were. So she asked if they would kill for one another. And Diane said that they had.

And then she gave the details. Just like with Jay, the girls just kind of hope that she was exaggerating, but the next day, they decided to tell a Navy Chaplain. And this Navy Chaplain contacted police in the Dallas Fort Worth area where Diane's from, to see if there was a teenage girl who had been murdered in that area the year before. With that, everything unraveled. Dallas Fort Worth investigators were then on their way to Annapolis, Maryland to talk to Diane the very next morning. During a pep rally, investigators found Diane and questioned her about what she said, but of course, she outright denied

it. She said that she only said those things because she wanted to look tough since she was insecure. But the police did not buy this for a second. And since this was such a big deal if it were true, the Academy suspended her and sent her back to Texas so that they could properly investigate her. At the same time, investigators were on their way to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to question David, and he also outright denied the story was true, and stated that he had no idea why Diane would say that. Air Force officers were also present for this, and they told David that as a member of the

Academy, he had a responsibility to tell the truth, and that's what broke him. With that, David typed up a five-page confession detailing everything that happened, and the basis of it was that no one could stand in the way of he and Diane's relationship, and he felt like he needed to uphold a pure and perfect relationship with Diane, rid of any temptation. After this, police searched David's dad's house and found the handgun along with several dumbbells. When Diane got to Texas and heard about David's confession, she too confessed.

And their stories are very, very similar, and it's the same story that we stated above. Also, when they searched Diane's car, they found small traces of Adrian's blood, so this really pieced the whole story together as well. The town of Mansfield and beyond were an utter disbelief when this truth came out. David and Diane had so much success ahead of them and they were both incredibly smart people. So how could they have done this? How could they think killing Adrian was the only and best option? These were the questions that plagued the area.

On September 6th, 1996, both Diane Zamora and David Graham were arrested for the murder of 16-year-old Adrienne Jones. A bit after the arrests, both Diane and David recanted their confessions and blamed the other person. Oh, yep, it always happens too. I know, it's crazy. So Diane said she took no part in the murder and actually didn't hit Adrian over the head, but that David did it all. Meanwhile, David said that Diane committed the murder herself and that he just helped cover it up. Wow, so they really turned on each other.

Like they were both like, I didn't do any of this, you did all of it. Yes, exactly. And I mean, considering both of their stories were initially the same, it seems that they really did both take part in the murder, but didn't want to go to prison for life. So they decided to blame the other person because that was the easy thing to do. David and Diane had separate trials, and Diane Samoras began in February of 1998, whereas David's began in July of 1998.

Interestingly enough, both the prosecution and the defense believed that David's statement regarding Key and Adrian having sex was a lie, and David recanted this confession. So, it's unclear if this even ever happened, and no one else can confirm whether or not it did. The prosecution stated that they believe that David made this whole thing up to make Diane jealous, while the defense believed that Diane made up the affair herself, and created a problem that didn't exist.

Which we know that she was doing when she got to the academy thinking that David was with another girl when there was no evidence. Right. So the reason they think that she did this is because how clearly obsessed with David she really was. She would pretty much be jealous of any girl that would come along and many believe that Diane had previously seen Adrian at one of she and David's track meets and thought that she was pretty and just assumed that David was

hooking up with her. And then Diane had to get rid of her because she was a potential threat to her, so a little loopy there. But then there's also the fact that apparently Adrian had a photo of David and her wallet, so maybe they didn't actually have sex, but they were interested in each other and they were talking, and we just don't know. Linda Jones, who remember as Adrian's mom, actually requested that the death penalty be

removed from both trials. So that was off the table, and life in prison was now the goal. And it seems that she had maybe some empathy towards them, likely because they were so young, but I was kind of shocked when I read that, that she didn't want them to get the death penalty. Well, I mean, also, it could be because of religious beliefs. I know that a lot of religious people don't believe in the death penalty and they believe in forgiveness. So as hard as it may be, sometimes the killer can be forgiven.

That's true. I didn't read anything about Adrian growing up religious at all, but that's definitely possible. So during Diane's trial, she admitted that she was there for the murder, but did not take part in it. A few people testified regarding Diane's behavior, including the people she admitted the story to at her naval academy, and everyone agreed that Diane didn't show any remorse. Two weeks after the trial began and after the jury deliberated for six hours, they found Diane Zamora guilty of capital murder, and she received a sentence of life in prison men with the possibility of parole after 40 years, meaning she'll be eligible at the age of 60 in 2038. During David's trial five months later, a girl from the track team testified that she was the one who took Adrian home after the track meet in Lubbock, Texas, meaning David's story about driving

Adrian home that day and them having sex wasn't actually true. Regardless, there was a lot of evidence going against David in this case, so he was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment just like Diane. Later, after the trial was over, David admitted that his original confession was the truth, and he lied about not having sex with Adrian because it's what his defense lawyers advised him to do. So he really was just trying to get out of the life sentence, but now at least admits his role in what actually happened to Adrian Jones. But it's believed that he and Adrian had hooked up another time and not after the track meet in Lubbock.

A big reason why he told the truth in the end was because he felt like it was the right thing to do. David said, I'm not going to tell people who love Adrian that we don't deserve life in prison. To this day, Diane Zamora denies having anything to do with the murder physically. And she even says that Adrian was never hitting the head with a weight and that she was hitting the head with the butt of David's gun. But medical examiners determined that because of how severe Adrian's head had caved in, it had to have been with something heavier than the gun, a K a weight. So this is just a flat out lie. Yeah. So we know she's a liar. Right. But she still

says this to this day. And she remains incarcerated at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas in protective custody. She and David haven't spoken since three years after the trial. And in fact, Diane Zamora married another inmate named Stephen Mora in 2003, but they divorced five years later in 2008. David also remains incarcerated, but at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and won't be eligible for parole until 2036. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and next week we'll have an all new episode for you guys to dive into.

This was just such a tragic case in general because it was three people's lives destroyed just out of jealousy for no reason. And of course, the most important life is Adrian Jones because she had nothing to do with anything she was just a complete victim and it's just absolutely disgusting what was done to her. Yeah, it's very, very sad. And you know, David and Diane had a lot going for them. They had a bright future ahead of them, but they chose to make a decision that changed the path of their lives for the worse.

Exactly. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. If you guys want more episodes if you're all caught up on going west, we do have bonus episodes on our Patreon. Again, we just released a brand new episode on the murder of Joanna Yates. It's a crazy England case, and that one just came out. So thank you to everybody who has joined Patreon in the last week. Thank you so much to Riley, Amber, Brandy, Susan, Samantha, Brianna, and Sarah.

Big thanks going out to Pamela, Naomi, Clara, Gabrielle, Kayla, and Tracy. And last but not least, thank you so much to Carrie, Riannan, love that name. Heather, Deborah, Michaela, and then I think it's Liana. Thank you guys so much. It means the world that you join our little Patreon community. It is the best way to help going west. If you can't join Patreon, just share us with a friend.

Yes, please, please leave us a review or share our show with a friend. It really, really helps us become more discoverable. It helps us grow and it helps us continue to put out content for going west. And I always forget to say this about Patreon, but they're full length, ad-free, bonus episodes, so there you go. And we have about 30 of them right now in the library So make sure if you want more content patreon.com slash going west podcast All right guys, so for everybody out there in the world cheerio and don't be a stranger Thank you. you