Murder With My Husband - 258. The Killer Cadets - The Murder of Adrienne Jessica Jones

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

In this episode, Payton and Garrett dive into the chilling case of Adrienne Jones, a teenager who vanished after sneaking out —only to meet a tragic fate. Links- NEW MERCH: https://mwmhshop.com Twi...tch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 Case Sources- Oxygen.com - https://www.oxygen.com/prosecuting-evil-with-kelly-siegler/crime-news/diane-zamora-david-graham-murdered-adrianne-jones DailyMail.co.uk - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5987673/Woman-fatal-Texas-teen-love-triangle-loses-court-appeal.html DenverPost.com - https://www.denverpost.com/2008/02/10/former-air-force-cadet-expresses-remorse-for-1995-slaying-of-teen/ Murderpedia.org - https://murderpedia.org/female.Z/z/zamora-diane.htm NBCNews.com -  https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17965475 Sportskeeda.com - https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/who-killed-adrianne-jones-details-explored-ahead-people-magazine-investigates-id People.com - https://people.com/crime/diane-zamora-speaks-adrianne-jones-murder/ InvestigationDiscovery.com - https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/the-texas-cadet-killers-revisiting-the-adrianne-jones-murder TexasMonthly.com - https://www.texasmonthly.com/true-crime/the-killer-cadets/ DallasObserver.com - https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/love-is-a-killer-6403303 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband. For those that were interested, our ghost sweaters are back in stock. So you can go check those out. We had a lot of demand for those. So we ordered a few more. They're back in stock. And I know we did have a lot of requests for another strange-y danger drop so that will be coming in the future so
Starting point is 00:00:28 Just get ready for that. We heard you it is coming again. All right Gare. Do you have our Your 10 seconds our dang you try and take my 10 seconds away your 10 seconds You guys are probably so sick of me always saying the same things for 10 seconds, but I'm currently going to the gym, playing pickleball a few times a week. What else I got going on, babe? Gym, pickleball, or it's been like weighing his food. Yeah, I am currently, I have some goals that I want to hit
Starting point is 00:01:04 before summer, so I'm currently I have some goals that I want to hit before summer So I'm currently weighing my food, counting all my calories I just will say it's horrible Like if you want happiness in your life, don't do it Do not do it Don't do it But I will say it does work But I will also say it's absolutely horrible
Starting point is 00:01:20 But it works, it 100% works That's about it That's kind of, oh I have a stye on my eye currently. I don't know why I have a stye. I'm not trying to rhyme with something like Dr. Seuss. I don't know why I have a stye. But I might die. But I might die.
Starting point is 00:01:35 Anyways, I have a stye. No, you said, I don't know why I have a stye on my eye, but I might die. But it might die. So I have a stye. It's not too bad. It should go away in a couple of days. That's kind of all I got for you guys.
Starting point is 00:01:49 I will say though, since I've been a lot more consistent at the gym and with pickleball and with my food, my energy levels have been through the roof. Like, what do you want me to do? I'll do it. Name it, name it and I'll do it. I want you to clean off our porch. I won't do that. There's a couple things that... I'm just kidding. I do need to do that. I need to clean off our porch.
Starting point is 00:02:11 That's kind of all I got for you guys. So I hope everyone has a great week and don't weigh your food. All right. Our sources for this episode are oxygen.com, dailyMail.co.uk, DenverPost.com, Murderpedia.org, NBCNews.com, Sportskeeda.com, People.com, InvestigationDiscovery.com, TexasMonthly.com, and DallasObserver.com. Honor, courage, commitment. Those are the core values, essentially the motto for the United States Navy. So when you think about the people that are willing to dedicate their lives
Starting point is 00:02:45 to service, you might imagine people who intrinsically have these values and are able to uphold them with no problem. People who are stand-up citizens willing to go above and beyond for their communities and do whatever it takes to protect the American people. which may be why it's the perfect coverup for someone who's done the complete opposite. After a gruesome murder of a high school student in Mansfield, Texas, the last place police thought to look was at the Naval Academy 1,400 miles away in Maryland. 1,400 miles, wow. But as it turns out,
Starting point is 00:03:28 not everyone is who they represent themselves to be. And sometimes those who hide behind the banner of honor, courage, and commitment are really masking their shame, cowardness, and cold-blooded nature. Also, if you're watching on YouTube currently, Peyton's looking pretty hot. If you're not watching on YouTube, you can go check her out. And subscribe while you're there. Let's head back in time to 1995 as we travel to Mansfield, Texas, a farming community with
Starting point is 00:04:03 an old indoor rodeo and a cute little main street lined with antique stores. Mansfield was a little slice of that all-American life in Texas. And that's why Bill Jones and his wife Linda chose to raise their three children there. And while they settled into a modest little neighborhood, a bubble of safety and comfort, Bill always went the extra mile to protect his kids, especially when they became teenagers. There were curfews, rules, checks and balances to keep them safe, even though they were in a safe area. If they went somewhere, they would have to prove it later on with a ticket stub or a receipt, particularly their teenage daughter, Adrienne,
Starting point is 00:04:49 or as her friends called her AJ, who had been experimenting with her rebellious teenage side lately. See, Adrienne was the textbook definition of the popular girl. She was a sophomore at Mansfield High School. She was a track star with a pretty face that definitely caught the eye of most boys. She had tons of school spirit, was practically
Starting point is 00:05:11 a cheerleader without the uniform and pom poms, but she also stayed on top of her academics and got excellent grades, even in her honors courses. Even her manager at her part-time job at a fried chicken restaurant said Adrienne was an exemplary employee. And on top of it all, she was nice. Kids said Adrienne would say hello to them in the hallway even if she didn't know them. She was friendly, warm. She never acted snooty or above anyone else,
Starting point is 00:05:38 which probably only added to her list of admirers. And while Adrienne was definitely looking towards the future, hoping to get accepted to Texas A&M University and eventually get her veterinarian degree, Adrienne was also enjoying just being a teenager. And she did what most teenagers girls do. She flirted with a lot of boys and good for her,
Starting point is 00:06:02 but her parents were not fond of it. Mostly because Adrienne was sick of all the rules that her parents had put in place. It prevented her from having a good time living her teenage years to the fullest. Dude, I'm scared to raise a teenager. I'm gonna be honest. But you really just, you have no idea.
Starting point is 00:06:17 No, I know. You just think the world is so fun. Can't do it. So. Can't do it. I can't do it. Can't raise a teenager, I'm sorry. So with a strict 10 PM curfew, she found ways to sneak out through her bedroom window. That was until they caught her and decided to bolt her window shut. Still, as teenagers always do, Adrienne
Starting point is 00:06:38 found creative ways to skirt the rules. Little did she, those rules were meant to protect her from the very thing that would happen next. It was Sunday, December 3rd, 1995. Winter break was fast approaching and Adrienne was probably excited about some time off from school and her responsibilities. She just spent her Sunday afternoon working a half-day shift at the Golden Fried Chicken Restaurant. She was also a ball of energy.
Starting point is 00:07:04 When she got home that day, she asked her mom Linda if she wanted to go down to the 24-hour fitness center with her. It was just a few miles away. So Linda took her down there, always enjoying that quality time between the two of them, and said she even remembered the conversation that they had at the gym that night. Adrienne was thinking about her new career path. She said she was interested in learning why people act the way they do. So her mother was like, hey, you might be interested in becoming a behavioral analyst. But she didn't seem to ask why Adrian had this sudden change in interest, or if something or someone in particular had sparked it. So after their workout, they returned home to settle in
Starting point is 00:07:41 for the night. By then it was around 10 4545 PM. So after Adrian's curfew. You know, everything I've ever done that, how do I say this? Anything that I've ever done that didn't make sense when I was a teenager was definitely because of a girl. You know what I'm saying? Like we're randomly be like, oh, I'm gonna do this. And your parents are like, what?
Starting point is 00:08:00 They're like, oh yeah, I just feel like it. No, it was always because of a girl or something going on. It's kind of funny. It's after her curfew, but the phone rings when they walk in the door, Adrian answers. Adrian took the portable phone to her bedroom. Remember, we're in the nineties. And then walked around the house chatting
Starting point is 00:08:16 while puttering around with laundry and a few other things. Eventually Linda, her mom told Adrian, hey, go to bed, before Linda went to bed. But Adrian wasn't planning to go to sleep anytime soon. Instead, she waited until everything was quiet. And sometime between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., she slipped past her parents' bedroom and out the front door of the house completely unnoticed. Around 6 a.m., the following morning, Linda woke up to the sound of Adrian's alarm clock
Starting point is 00:08:43 ringing in her room. After realizing Adrian wasn't doing anything to turn the alarm off, Linda got up groggily and wandered into her daughter's room, only to find that Adrian wasn't there and her bed was neatly made. Now, Linda's first instinct is Adrian just went out for an early morning run, something she would do. But by 8 a.m., when Adrian still wasn't back, Linda started to panic. She immediately called the Mansfield police who sent an officer to the house
Starting point is 00:09:11 to help them file a missing persons report. Meanwhile, 20 miles away, an officer in Grand Prairie, Texas is responding to a different 911 call. It's from a local who noticed something that morning on his drive to work. He saw what he thought was a body lying behind some barbed wire fence on a quiet stretch of road. When police arrived, they realized it was the body of a teenage girl. But her face was barely identifiable.
Starting point is 00:09:44 She had a bullet in her left cheek and through her forehead. Plus, her head had been beaten so badly that part of her skull had been dented in above her ear. So while the girl had no identification on her, she did have a t-shirt on that read, cross country regionals 1995. We know who that is. Plus, there were a few telling. We know who that is. Plus there were a few telling clues
Starting point is 00:10:06 about what might have happened. Like the girl appeared to be clutching the grass, which told detectives this was where she died than rather where she had been moved and left after she was killed. And it only took a few hours for them to realize the Jane Doe matched a missing person's case that had just been reported over in Mansfield. The deceased body was 16 year old, Adrian Jessica
Starting point is 00:10:32 Jones. 16. So young, man. So young. So one of the first things detectives need to allow after making the connection is, is this an abduction? There's no indication of a struggle in Adrian's home. Plus the autopsy doesn't show any signs that Adrian was restrained or bound. She also didn't really have any defensive wounds of any kind. So they quickly realized that Adrian must have willingly left her house, whether that was with the attacker or not.
Starting point is 00:10:59 But this also told them that she probably knew her attacker. So they start compiling a list of friends, coworkers, and fellow students to speak with. But because Adrian was so popular, it kind of turned out to be a pretty long list. They began asking around, was there anyone that Adrian didn't get along with? Maybe someone was angry with her, was a girl jealous of her, and that's when the wild theories and rumors started to emerge. And you have to imagine in this small town in Texas in the 90s, a popular girl turns up dead. They're talking to people at the school
Starting point is 00:11:30 and people just start talking. Someone said they heard Adrienne talk about attending all night raves that happened about an hour away from Mansfield. There were whispers that maybe Adrienne had met someone there that had killed her. Oh. Others said, no, no, no, Adrian knew drug dealers, which turned out to be completely baseless. Dude, kids are weird.
Starting point is 00:11:54 A few even- Kids are just funny, you know what I'm saying? The problem with, in a town like this, it probably wasn't just the kids. That's probably the adults too. Probably, yeah, you're probably right. Okay. A few even mentioned a former friend of Adrienne's who had been angry with her ever since Adrienne
Starting point is 00:12:08 told the girl's mom that she was drinking at a party like she tattled on her. So there was a ton of speculation, but not much evidence, which only made things even harder for police. But there seemed to be one thing a lot of kids at Mansfield High could agree on. The killer was likely in their halls. They had a locker beside them probably.
Starting point is 00:12:30 They were sitting across from them in the cafeteria. They were sharing a school project with them. How scary is that? Another high school kid killing another high school kid? And then going to school being like, someone in here kills somebody? And the reason this is the theory is because police believe she snuck out to hang out with someone and that person killed her, which she was most likely sneaking out to hang out
Starting point is 00:12:51 with someone from her own age and from school. So there's 2,500 students at their school. So narrowing it down wouldn't be easy, but no one knows a daughter better than her own mother. Luckily that seemed to be the case for Linda Jones because she had some insight that she thought could help the police. She thinks she knows who Adrienne was talking to
Starting point is 00:13:14 on the night she died. Remember she was talking on the phone. Problem was it wasn't just one person. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscription, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. You guys, you need to be using Rocket Money. This is how I found out how much money I was spending on lives for the games I play on
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Starting point is 00:14:33 Rocket money comm slash husband. Don't forget slash husband K. Love you. Bye Linda said when the phone rang at around 1045 Linda asked who Adrian was speaking to and Adrian told her it was an 18 year old senior, remember Adrian's a sophomore, named David Graham, who was on Adrian's cross country team. Linda was about to tell Adrian to hang up the phone, that it was past her bedtime, but Adrian had a concerned look on her face and she whispered to her mother,
Starting point is 00:15:02 he's upset about something. So Linda let her keep chatting, thinking, okay, she's just being a good friend. But sometime during that conversation, Linda heard Adrienne switch callers. She was now talking to her new boyfriend, a 19 year old boy named Tracy Smith. But when Tracy, her boyfriend, asked her who she was just speaking to on the phone before him, Adrienne doesn't say David Graham, the 18 year old, like her, like she had told her mom, she said she was on the line with a third boy. So she either lied to her mom or actually did talk to all three boys. It was a kid named Brian McMillan
Starting point is 00:15:45 who had dropped out of her high school after suffering from depression, but he still had a big crush on her. So if she did lie, why? Well, some of her friends think it's because Tracy knew Brian and didn't feel threatened by him. But if she said she had been speaking with someone else,
Starting point is 00:16:03 a senior on her track team, then Tracy, her new boyfriend might've felt jealous. So they think that she's lying to her boyfriend is what the consensus is. Still, it's not Tracy that Linda, the mother, is worried about. It's this David name that actually sticks with her because she had never really heard Adrian mention this guy before. And then Adrian lies to her boyfriend about it. So she checks in with the track coach says, what do you know about David? And the track coach is like, David Graham, I didn't even know your daughter and David were friends. Which may be a tad bit strange but by most people's accounts
Starting point is 00:16:44 David is said to be a pretty stand-up guy. As some of the other girls at Mansfield High described him, David was sort of the cool guy around campus. By no means as popular as Adrian, but still attracted the attention of some girls. He was said to be a gentleman, very goal-driven and family oriented. But his biggest identifier was that he was the battalion commander of the school's junior ROTC program. Now, if you don't know, ROTC stands for the Reserve
Starting point is 00:17:14 Officers Training Corps. It's basically like a college prep program for anyone who wants to go into the US military. On top of that, people said David was an excellent student, always very polite. Which is interesting because, and I might be under the wrong impression, I'm just telling you guys what I see on social media.
Starting point is 00:17:35 I don't know why it happens. I feel like I always see people making jokes about people that are on ROTC in high school and college. I don't know why, but that's just what I see on social media. So I'm saying that because I guessOTC in high school and college. I don't know why, but it's just what I see on social media. So I'm saying that because I guess we are in a different. We're in the nineties. In the nineties, but I used to like,
Starting point is 00:17:52 he's the cool guy because of it, but maybe that's just changed. I don't know guys. I don't think my school had an ROTC program. Mine didn't have one either, but our college did. Both of our college or went to same college, but our college did. But I didn't, I don't know much about it.
Starting point is 00:18:07 I never really paid attention to that. We had other programs for like other career paths. Like potato farming? Yeah. And then also like nursing. If you want to become a nurse, you could like take this thing that would get you a certification before you went to college,
Starting point is 00:18:23 like helped you. I don't know, actually, I wasn't smart enough to be in the nursing thing. No, Peyton was smart. Peyton did really good on her ACT. Only because I studied, not because I was actually really smart. I was just a hard worker. Yeah, still pretty smart. So people said David was like the yes ma'am, yes sir type of guy. Okay. But when it came to his connection to Adrian, things were still a bit unclear. Yeah, they both
Starting point is 00:18:44 ran cross- country together, but David actually had a very serious girlfriend. Her name was Diane Zamora. The two had met four years back through a local civil air patrol group, an air force program that teaches sort of the 101s of military life. While Diane went to another high school 15 miles away
Starting point is 00:19:03 in Crowley, Texas, she and David grew very close over the years and the summer before their senior years of high school, they both had started dating. Now, Diane was almost the complete opposite of Adrienne. She was reserved, quiet, she kept to herself. She was very religious, the kind of girl who was not going to lose her virginity until marriage. The only thing she had in common with Adrienne was that she was also an excellent student on the Honor Society. But Adrienne shouldn't have been a concern for Diane.
Starting point is 00:19:32 Diane and David were madly in love by the summer of 1995. In fact, only a few weeks after they started dating, they actually got engaged in high school with plans to marry after each one of them finished their respective military training. Okay. Diane was planning to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, while David was going to be attending the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado. They even set a date for their wedding, five years out, August 13th, 2000. But shortly after announcing their engagement, Diane said something that would sort of change
Starting point is 00:20:06 the dynamic between her and David would make her even more attached. She actually lost her virginity to him after they got engaged. And after that, things definitely got more intense between the couple. Some said that David and Diane both got more possessive over one another. David always had his arm around Diane when they were together, but he also acted differently. He got more quiet and tense when he was with her. And those who knew them said it was hard to tell
Starting point is 00:20:33 who was controlling who in the relationship, but it was definitely turning a little toxic. Interesting, okay. So could that have been what David was calling Adrian about that night? Was there some sort of lovers quarrel between David and Diane that he was confiding in Adrian about? Well, once police hear that Adrian spoke to him in the hours before her death, they called
Starting point is 00:20:57 David in for questioning, but they just aren't convinced that this guy is involved. Maybe it was his polite nature, maybe the fact that he was gonna go serve his country, or maybe it was the fact that not a single one of Adrian's friends mentioned him as suspicious, and that he was actually seen crying in the hallways after her death. Either way, they didn't even bother giving David a polygraph test, so they began looking elsewhere.
Starting point is 00:21:22 Like to another local Mansfield teenager whose name was never formally released, probably because she was a minor at the time. So for the sake of the story, we're gonna just call her Tammy. Now Tammy already had a really ugly rap sheet for a 14 year old girl. A year before Adrienne's death,
Starting point is 00:21:39 she actually attacked one of Adrienne's good friends with a baseball bat after she heard that this friend had been messing around with Tammy's boyfriend. Then Tammy went to her boyfriend's house and shot him. Oh, okay. While his wounds weren't fatal, charges were definitely pressed against Tammy. She had a trial and guess who testified against her? Adrian Jessica Jones. Tammy only got two years probation for delinquency, but many thought that was enough
Starting point is 00:22:07 for her to seek revenge against Adrian. So the police pulled her down to the station, give her a polygraph, she passes, plus she has a really strong alibi. So she's off the list, which brings them to their next suspect. Another name that Adrian's boyfriend, Tracy brought up. Remember how she supposedly lied to Tracy
Starting point is 00:22:25 on the phone that night and told him she was speaking to an old classmate named Brian McMillan, the one who had a crush on her and had dropped out of school? Well, Tracy tells police, hey, you gotta look into him too. And I guess even though Brian had dropped out of school, he and Adrian still saw each other since they worked right near each other. But when they start looking into him, it seems like Brian didn't just have a crush on Adrian.
Starting point is 00:22:49 It was a little bit more of like an obsession. He began visiting her at work constantly to the point where she had to hide and lie when he came around. Hearing this, police decided 17-year-old Brian was a suspect. And to be fair, his story was a bit sketchy. At first, he denies knowing Adrian all together when he talks to police. Then he meets, okay, fine, I do. I do know her. So not off to a great start.
Starting point is 00:23:12 But when they ask him what he was doing the night Adrian disappeared, he was like, I got drunk by myself. I'm just trying to figure out what the motive is because we're saying some of these suspects, but I guess there's not always a good motive for, I mean, there's never a good motive for killing someone, but like what, he was jailed? Like what, what's the motive gonna be for him? This is insane.
Starting point is 00:23:35 When teenagers kill other teenagers, it's either jealousy or sociopathic. That's so young just to kill someone, it's wild. He told police he was upset that night because he realized all of his friends had girlfriends and he didn't. So this is raising all types of red flags for police. They even get a search warrant for Brian's house.
Starting point is 00:23:52 They impound his truck. But Brian's friends all say, look, there's no way he hurt Adrian. He's a gentle soul. He would never hurt a fly. His dad also says, my son was home all night. There's no way. Still Brian sits in a jail cell from Christmas Eve
Starting point is 00:24:07 to New Year's Eve. Eventually he's given a polygraph test. He passes with flying colors. So with zero evidence, police release Brian, which means they're back to square one. And that's where the case sits for a month. No new leads, no confessions or evidence, just dead end after dead end.
Starting point is 00:24:24 Meanwhile, life in Mansfield goes on, for some people at least. Linda and Bill Jones still find themselves driving to the street where Adrian was found thinking maybe this time they'll find something that police had missed. Some students continue to seek grief counseling, others paint a portrait of Adrian on the art room door, but many students, like David Graham and Diane Diane Zamora are preparing for the rest of their lives. As the two temporarily parted ways, the summer of 1996 was spent in intensive boot camps for both of them. Diane was at the Naval Academy in Maryland and David at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. And while David was excelling in his training, Diane was
Starting point is 00:25:02 having a much harder time with the physical training and with the distance from her fiance David. Other cadets said she talked about him constantly. But things seemed to be falling apart between the two of them now that they weren't communicating and seeing each other every day. Diane was getting increasingly jealous and paranoid, constantly worrying what David was up to. She was going on intense crying fits as her friends called it when David wouldn't respond to her emails right away. Eventually,
Starting point is 00:25:31 she convinced herself that David had to be cheating on her with a female cadet. Yeah, I know where this is going now. So she thought, why not get him back? So Diane began cozying up to her squad leader, a guy named Jay Gild. And she opened up to Jay about her relationship. And when Jay asked her why she didn't trust David, Diane told her it was because he had cheated on her in the past. And when Jay asked, okay, well what did you do about it back then? Diane looked this man dead in the eyes and said,
Starting point is 00:26:05 I made him kill the girl. Now Jay sort of laughs it off. I mean, she can't possibly be serious. What a weirdo. But that's not the only time Diane says something like this. One night Diane's having a late night conversation with her two roommates,
Starting point is 00:26:18 telling them how deeply in love she and David are. And when one of them says to Diane, I bet you guys would do absolutely anything for each other, probably even kill for each other. You know what Diane says? Oh, we already have. Oh, she's weird. Get her out of here. Now there's an honor code in the Navy. It's called the Brigade of Mid Shipman Honor Concept and it basically requires anyone who hears of wrongdoing from a fellow officer to report it. Yep. No questions asked because
Starting point is 00:26:45 if you don't, it could be grounds for dismissal from that's why in movies, a lot of you that are listening or watching, um, like when someone has an affair and someone else and finds out about it, that's in the military, you're supposed to report it. Like you're supposed to hear like you're just any bad behavior, any wrongdoing. I mean we talked about earlier that there is an honor code when you're part of the military even in the Academy. So her roommates go and tell the people in charge and the people in charge don't just sit on this information. Officials call the police stations in and around Diane's hometown they're like hey she's saying that her and her boyfriend killed a girl and sure enough they learned that there's an unsolved
Starting point is 00:27:27 case from last year that of Adrienne Jessica Jones that both her and her boyfriend were questioned in. Do you I guess you know the answer. This is gonna be crazy if they both did it together. So that's so sad. On August 30 1996, officers pulled her out of a pep rally and brought her in for questioning. Now once Diane's confronted by these detectives and Navy officials, she says, I made the whole thing up for attention. I just want to look tough, which the police think, okay, that that could be possible. I mean, they have absolutely zero evidence on her besides other people. Perhaps she heard the news on Adrian and is making a false confession. Wouldn't be the first time someone's done this. But she doesn't get to just resume classes the next day. She's
Starting point is 00:28:14 given a one-way ticket home to Texas while police rule her out for sure. Only Diane doesn't go home to Texas. When she gets to Atlanta on her layover, she goes to the ticketing agent and says, Hey, can you actually put me on a flight to Colorado? Next thing you know, she's showing up on David's doorstep, which is a very stupid mistake because that happens to be the detective's next stop. Obviously going to be a visit to Colorado Springs to talk to David on September 4th, 1996, less than a week later, David's getting hooked up to a polygraph machine. And while he's also insisting Diane must've made this whole thing up, police have a new witness statement that discounts that. A friend of David's
Starting point is 00:28:56 told police he and Diane came by his house after the night of the murder to change their bloody clothes. So you're telling me that if she didn't go around saying that she killed someone, they probably would have gotten away with this. Yeah. So this friend is like, yeah, no, they showed up on my doorstep to change their clothing. They tell police that.
Starting point is 00:29:15 And then when police are talking to David and tell him, well, your friend said you showed up in bloody clothing, he breaks. From there, he goes on to write a four page confession letter detailing every little thing that happened that December night back in 1995 and what happened leading up to it. And here's what he says. It all started at a track meet in November. This would be a month before Adrian's death. Adrian and David were away with the rest of the team for a cross-country event. And during that weekend, they got pretty close chatting during their free time.
Starting point is 00:29:48 And when the buses finally dropped them off back at Mansfield High, Adrian asked David, hey, can you give me a ride home? But instead of going directly there, he said they pulled into the elementary school parking lot and hooked up. Now in the car. And now David writes that he was so ridden with guilt afterwards that he actually went right to Diane and told her everything.
Starting point is 00:30:10 Diane, having lost her virginity to David when she never planned to, who's also her fiance at the time, she's so betrayed that she says the only way that they can stay together and that David can earn her trust back- As if he kills her. As if he kills Adrian.
Starting point is 00:30:25 He did it, what? And if he doesn't. What? He doesn't, Diane says, and if you don't do it, I'm gonna kill myself. Diane says, if you don't kill Adrian, I'm gonna kill myself. I always said,
Starting point is 00:30:38 good luck. Choosing to prove his loyalty to Diane, he agrees to her plans. And on the night of December 3rd, David calls Adrian, telling her he's having issues with Diane. He wants to her plans. And on the night of December 3rd, David calls Adrian telling her he's having issues with Diane. He wants to meet up. Adrian sneaks out of the house
Starting point is 00:30:49 and hops in David's pickup truck. They come to that desolate county road. And as the two began chatting in the car, the hatchback opens and out comes Diane Zamora, who's been hiding in there this entire time. This is so sad. In her hand is a dumbbell. Gosh.
Starting point is 00:31:08 Which she begins hitting Adrian in the head with. And David just sat there and watched? Well, Adrian gets out of the car, he runs, and that's when Diane tells David, go after her with your gun. So he chases Adrian into that field, up to that barbed wire fence. When he catches up to her, he shoots her twice in the head.
Starting point is 00:31:27 Now, like Adrian has a good weekend with this guy. They talk. Yeah. She hooks up with him. And he kills her. And then he shoots her in the head. Yeah. Like.
Starting point is 00:31:41 They're both, they're both, they're both insane. Like, this is just wrong. This is just explicitly evil and wrong. They're both horrible. When David comes back to the car, he tells Diane he loves her. But he he says we shouldn't have done this. And we need to get rid of the evidence. So of course, this is enough to get David behind bars. But now the next step is confronting Diane because she was in the back seat. And when police get her back into the station, she admits to essentially the same story. Police also get a search warrant for David Graham's house and find both the dumbbell and the gun used to kill Adrian. So game over, they're charged with capital murder and they are tried separately. Now 20 year old Diane gets to trial. She's like, no, my confession was coerced. The jury isn't buying it.
Starting point is 00:32:28 And so after a two week trial and a six hour deliberation, they find Diane guilty of capital murder and she receives a life sentence. That's what I'm talking about. Now David's trial comes five months later in July of 1998. His plan is similar. He hopes to argue he was trapped in a controlling partnership, but there's one giant twist in the whole story, something David hasn't even seemed to share with Diane. One of the people called to the witness stand is Adrienne's friend and fellow track athlete
Starting point is 00:32:57 Wendy Bartlett. And she claims that November day after the track meetup, she drove Adrienne home, that November day after the track meetup, she drove Adrian home. Not David. Which means they wouldn't have had sex in the car. In fact, David admits at trial, actually we never had sex ever. It was just a lie that he had conjured up to make Diane jealous. One that just became incredibly out of hand and somehow made the situation even more inconceivable. Because if you're telling me that they didn't even have sex and he lied and then kills her, she has no idea what she's even done. I'm sorry, those people should not be in our society.
Starting point is 00:33:36 So they return with a verdict guilty of capital murder. So it was initially a crime of passion had kind of inevitably driven a fake. Yeah. So, and I will say by the time they were both sentenced, David and Diane, who were once lovers had now become mortal enemies, which is always so ironic to me when people kill for love and then end up hating each other anyways. Diane moved on quickly though, falling in love with another inmate. She married him in 2003 only to divorce him by 2010. And whether they like it or not,
Starting point is 00:34:12 Diane Zamora and David Graham will be forever bound anyways. Only instead of marriage, it'll be because of the horrific crime they committed together over some senseless teenage love affair. It's crazy, so they were, oh. wait, were they both adults at that point? When they were tried.
Starting point is 00:34:29 Yeah. Yes. Ah, okay. That makes sense. And they got life. That's so sad. That's horrible. I mean, what's even crazier is that she really didn't do any, I mean, she did nothing. Like she was completely just a citizen. Like I don't even know how else to say it. A bystander. There's something about when we cover teenagers who kill other teenagers. It's just pure evil. I can't explain it, but every time the motive is so dumb.
Starting point is 00:34:55 You're so young and like what? Like it really just goes to show that their brains are completely underdeveloped and that they're just bad people. Sorry, we can't have those people in our society. It's so sad, horrible. So awful. Ugh. Okay, you guys, that was the case of Adrienne Jessica Jones,
Starting point is 00:35:11 and we will see you next time with another one. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.

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