Crime Junkie - SURVIVED: Dianna D'Aiello

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

When a pregnant woman is found brutally beaten in her apartment, the race is on to find out whether she’s a serial killer’s latest target – or if her attacker is hiding in plain sight.If you or anyone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE. Resources are available and can be found at this link. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/survived-dianna-d'aiello/Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies. Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today has been living in my head, rent-free, for months. It's one of those older cases that when I first learned about it, I'm like, how am I just learning about it? And if it was new to me, I had a feeling it would be new to a lot of you as well. And this is one where we got to go like full Crime Junkie,

going super deep, talking to the people who actually lived this story. So even if you do think you know it, I promise I will give you something new. And I promise it will leave you thinking long after this episode. Because while this is a rare solved case where the victim actually survived, it will have you questioning the reliability of memory and how stories, even the ones that feel straightforward, are always so much more complicated and live in the gray when you dig deep into the details. And that's what we're gonna do today. This is the story of Diana D'Aiello. diello. So let me set the scene.

We're in Tustin, California, September 30th, 1979. It's around two o'clock in the morning when a 19-year-old named Judy is startled awake by the sound of a voice calling her name. And it takes her a second to get her bearings. She even wonders if she is dreaming. But it sounds like her downstairs neighbor, 20-year-old Diana Green. So she goes to the window to see if she can see anything out in the yard, but she doesn't see anything.

It's too dark. So she crawls back into bed next to her husband. And what feels like 15 minutes later, she hears another voice, this time a man's voice. And she hears the man say something like, I leave you alone for 10 minutes, half an hour, this is what happens to you. So she kinda just lays in bed and listens, in silence, probably holding perfectly

still and not wanting to even breathe too loud, just trying to figure out what's going on. And it's the man she hears again next. Judy, Judy, please wake up. And this time she knows she's heard it. So she goes to the window again, and outside she sees Diana's husband, 21-year-old Kevin Green. And he's running like in and out the back door of the Greens' apartment, just in this panic, crying out for help. And at one point, she looks through the Greens' open kitchen door, and she sees him making a phone call. Now, Judy's first thought must likely be, oh, this must be the baby,

because you see, Diana is pregnant, two weeks past her due date with her and Kevin's first child together, a girl that they plan to name Chantal Marie. So Judy and her husband both quickly get dressed, they rush downstairs to help. And that's when Kevin screams that Diana has been attacked. And what he says next makes Judy's blood run cold. He says that Diana has been shot in the head. Kevin found her when he got home from a late-night fast-food run. And though she is still alive, she needs help right away if she's gonna make it. So Judy jumps into like, go-mo to flag down the ambulance that Kevin called, because it

keeps passing by the complex. And when she leads paramedics inside the apartment, Judy is stunned by what she sees. There is blood everywhere. Diana is laying in bed, naked, in a pool of her own blood, and she is struggling to breathe. And Britt, it's literally so bad that her brain is exposed. So paramedics rush Diana to the hospital

where her family is waiting, because Kevin had called them to. And he's probably like chomping at the bit to get there as well, but the officers who also responded to the apartment say they need him to stay behind, because, you know, like, they gotta talk to him. And he's clearly distraught, but he cooperates,

because he wants police to do their jobs and find whoever did this to his wife. So police ask Kevin to walk them through his day, leading up to finding Diana. And we actually got to speak with him, and he gave us the full rundown of that day too, which we kind of cross-reference with case records Diana's held onto that she shared with us. And according to police records, Kevin and Diana were home watching TV with his brother, who actually lived with them, until around six,

when a friend of Kevin's came over with his wife. Around 7.45, Kevin told us that he and his friend went to go buy weed, and the friend's wife stayed behind with Diana, and then they got back at around 10.30. How far did they have to go for this weed run? So like 20 minutes or so, and it's worth noting Kevin told us like he didn't smoke weed that day.

Like it just took so long, he said, because they got lost. So exactly who is the weed for if not for Kevin? He claims it was for that friend who came over. So I don't know, they go on this long weed run. Anyway, Kevin came home, his friends leave. Kevin left again to take his brother to go meet friends which only took like 15 minutes or so, and then he came back at around 10.45. And then he and Diana laid on the couch and watched a movie on the TV.

Now before midnight, he says that he and Diana had sex, then they moved the TV into their bedroom so that they could finish the movie in bed. And after about an hour, Kevin left to go get cheeseburgers from a Jack in the Box across the street. Like, thinking he'd be right back, he said that he just left the kitchen door unlocked. But then when he got to the Jack in the Box, it was packed. Kevin told us he was in a hurry to get back home, he didn't want his wife to wait, so he went to the next closest one, which was like three miles away. Now, arriving back home, he noticed that the front door was open, a crack.

So he pushed it open with his foot, went inside, and that's when he found Diana. And then he makes note of something, something that stood out to him and stands out now to investigators. In an episode of On the Case of Paul Azzon, a detective remembers Kevin telling him that on the way out, like when he was going to jack in the box, he noticed, quote, a black man standing next to a black van. Now, he didn't think much of the guy at the time, but he was still there standing by the van when Kevin got back and found Diana.

So now Kevin is thinking that maybe that guy could have hurt his wife. And is that guy still there? Like, did he go out and try to get a hold of the guy after he found Diana? I don't know if he makes the connection that this guy could have been the attacker, like, in that moment. I don't think he's, like, really thinking about it until he's talking to police. And in the moment, he was probably so frantic trying to, like, tend to Diana and get her help. He's not, like, thinking.

That guy goes completely out of his mind. Right. Now all in all, he says he was gone for about 20 minutes tops. And Kevin's story seems to check out because the bag of warm food is literally still like sitting on the table that he just went and got. Now, when he found Diana lying in bed, it was dark. He said that she was making a sound almost like she was fake snoring, so at first he thought she was just like kind of messing around with him. But when he turned on the lights, he saw this just massive hole in her forehead, which is what made him think that she'd been shot with, he says, he thought it was like a large

caliber weapon at close range, like was exactly what he said. That feels really specific. How would he know that? Well, because Kevin is a Marine Corporal who serves at a local helicopter station in the tool shops. I mean, he probably knows his way around a gun. And what he eventually realizes that like fake snoring sound was actually her trying to breathe through pooling blood.

So Kevin says he forced her mouth open to help her breathe better, but she like bit down on his fingers when he did. And that is when he called police. He says that she was moaning, which to Kevin meant that she was still breathing. So he looked around to the apartment to see if anything was missing. He didn't notice anything like while he's waiting for police. But here's what's so interesting. Police don't agree with Kevin that Diana was shot. Because to them, they're like neighbors would have woken up to the sound of a gunshot, right? And about 20 minutes after Diana is rushed to the hospital, police get a call confirming that they're right. Doctors say that Diana was hit in the head with a blunt heavy object, something like

a mallet, maybe a baseball bat. And they're saying someone broke in and did that in this 20-minute window. Yeah, according to Kevin, that's all she was alone for. So police start searching for something that could be the weapon. They don't find anything, though. So they do finally let Kevin go to the hospital to be with his wife.

And there, all Diana's family can do is stare at two heart rate monitors. One for Diana, one for her baby. And they're just, they're both fighting for their lives. I can't imagine being in that headspace where, you know, in the days leading up to this, you're like, oh, like, I can't wait to go to the hospital to see their new baby, their new grandchild. Yeah, their first granddaughter too. Oh my god. And now they're at the point where like, Are we gonna wait to go to the hospital to see their new baby, their new grandchild. Their first granddaughter too. Oh my god.

And now they're at the point where like... Are we gonna have one or both of them? Right. They could lose both of them. I know. It had to have been like a very surreal moment. And doctors tell them that they're actually holding off on performing an emergency c-section to deliver the baby, which is normally what they would do if it were just the baby in

danger. But with Diana's head trauma, like like both her and the baby could die if they put her body under any more stress. And for right now, the baby's heart rate is steady, and they're working to stabilize Diana. They do this for about 12 hours, but at about that point after she's admitted, one of the monitors flatlines. Kevin and Diana's parents are by her side when doctors rush into the room, they usher the family out. And when doctors come back out, they have a heartbreaking update. They lost Chantal Marie.

And now they have to rush Diana into emergency surgery to stop the swelling in her brain. So when police arrive at the hospital, Kevin fills them in on everything that has happened, and they brace themselves now, not just for an investigation into an assault, but an assault and now a homicide. And it's a homicide charge for Chantal? Yes. So that's the charge that they hope to eventually hit someone with.

But they got to find that someone first. Though, as Diana goes on to make a slow recovery, because she does get out of surgery, she is stable, police begin to wonder if the person who did this to her, the one that they're looking for, is right there in her hospital room. Because Kevin is like saying and doing just some weird shit. Like first, right when they get to the hospital, Kevin tells police that Diana's doctor told

him that she was sexually assaulted. But when they go talk to that doctor, he actually can't confirm this. And in his opinion, he says he doesn't think she was. Second, when Diana does eventually wake up, this is about 10 days after she's in this coma, her significant brain damage leaves her unable to speak. She has what's called aphasia, and her memory is just wiped, completely gone.

She doesn't remember her friends, her family. She doesn't even remember Kevin. And officers who had been at the hospital throughout her coma notice Kevin's reaction to this. Like he almost seems relieved that Diana can't remember anything. And then finally, Diana and Kevin's friends tell cops that at one point, someone said they hoped that Diana recovered enough to name whoever attacked her. And Kevin's response was, I don't. Now, to be fair, Kevin went on to say that he didn't want Diana

to have to relive the trauma again. And that friend took that to mean that he was concerned for her well-being. So I don't even think at the time they necessarily were like concerned by it. But like, couple all of this together, especially with what they were learning in the field as they were investigating, and Kevin starts looking real bad. So the night of Diana's attack, neighbors say that they heard yelling in the complex, followed by a woman screaming. And this was around 2 a.m. They couldn't say for sure that the sound was coming from the Green's apartment, but they assumed that it was an argument between Kevin and Diana because apparently that was

a pretty common occurrence. And it's worth noting that Kevin told us and police said in an On the Case with Paul Lazon episode that police had gotten domestic violence calls to the Green's apartment pretty regularly leading up to the night of the attack. So after some kind of argument, screaming whatever, a few people heard a door slam, then a car speed away, which is not quite the peaceful night in watching TV that Kevin had originally told police about,

if all of that commotion was Kevin. But, I mean, it's possible that Kevin did leave quietly and then what they heard was her attacker. But I keep coming back to remember that thing Judy heard. I leave you alone for 10 minutes, half an hour, and this is what happens to you. Well, another neighbor remembers hearing that same exact thing, and they thought it was Kevin who said it, which, if so, would be like a pretty weird response to have. If you come home, you find your spouse

in a actual pool of blood. You're like upset that they're hurt? Yeah, this is what happened. I leave you alone. Yeah. And that doesn't seem to be lost on police, because in their notes, they wrote down that quote, or what people heard him say, like word for word, twice.

And more and more, the people they speak with who knew the couple say that there was a known history of domestic violence. According to their statements, Kevin is a heavy drinker, so much so that one of his friends considered reporting him to his commanding officer for alcoholism. And his drinking caused tension throughout their roughly year-long relationship. Is that what they fought about? Or did the drinking lead to fighting about other things? I don't really know.

I mean, probably all of the above. Like, Kevin chops some of their fighting up to just them being really young and their story never really having a like fairy tale beginning. You see, they met at a bar when Diana was 18 and Kevin was 19. And then soon after they started dating, Diana moved in with Kevin and got pregnant. Now Diana told us that she didn't know at the time, but Kevin was still married to another woman who she said she eventually actually became friends with.

But it was really messy before that. Now we talked to that ex-wife and even though Kevin told us the relationship was over, she was very much under the impression it was not. So you got like both women saying kind of the same thing. So things were very rocky, especially as Diana's pregnancy went on and Kevin's abuse got worse. And friends tell police that at one point Diana actually asked them to help her move out, and when she did, she had a bruise over her right eye that extended down her cheek. But that same night that her friends helped her move her stuff so she could get out, she

must have had a change of heart. She convinced herself that Kevin was going to change once the baby was born, so she could get out. She must've had a change of heart. She convinced herself that Kevin was gonna change once the baby was born, so she went back to the apartment. But here's the wild part. When she goes back to the apartment that night, she found Kevin with his ex-wife. No. Yes. And his ex told us that they were still legally married when Diana found her there.

She was actually pregnant with Kevin's child around the same time that Diana was, and she gave birth to a girl about a month before Diana was attacked. Now according to an LA Times article by HG Reza, at some point in March of 1979, so this is when Diana was already pregnant, Kevin divorced his previous wife and then married Diana. Now, Kevin says he didn't abuse Diana, that the only time he ever laid a hand on her was when she came home and found his ex there.

He said that she had kicked him in the head as he was sleeping on the floor. He like jumped up, he didn't know it was her, he fought back. But that seems to be contradicted by his own words, because in an episode of On the Case with Paula Zahn and in an episode of Frenzick Files, he told those producers that at some point in her pregnancy, he had slapped Diana hard enough to leave bruises.

So now that they know all of this, police bring Kevin in for an interview to suss out what he knows about the weapon used in Diana's assault. I think they're probably hoping he's going to say too much. But he stays calm through the whole thing. Later he even agrees to take a polygraph. That he passes.

But police can't shake this feeling that something isn't adding up. But does that mean he tried to kill her? The idea that a roaming psychopath just happened upon their apartment in the exact small window that Kevin went out to get food seems almost unbelievable. Except for the fact that at this very time, there was a roaming psychopath attacking women in almost the exact way that Diana had been attacked. And just a week into the investigation of Diana's case, police get word of another brutal attack.

A 24-year-old named Deborah Kennedy is found by her sister, bludgeoned to death, inside their shared apartment. Now, authorities determine in that case that Deborah had been sexually assaulted. And the similarities in the victim profiles are hard to ignore. Both Diana and Deborah are young white living in the same neighborhood, attacked the same way, both in first floor apartments. And these two attacks actually fit a much larger pattern because for two years, police have been responding to assaults all across Orange County, California.

And at least 10 other women who lived in first floor apartments with either unlocked windows or unlocked doors had been attacked in the middle of the night. They'd all been beaten with some kind of blunt object, mostly fatally, and some were sexually assaulted. Now, police believe that they're all the work of a serial killer that they're calling the bedroom basher. And for some reason, it takes until Deborah's murder for police to finally form a task force to investigate this.

Is Diana the only survivor? No, so there are others. Definitely one that we know of who was attacked in July of 1979. She had to have a tracheotomy because of her injuries and has difficulty speaking. And all she remembers about her attack

is hearing noises in her apartment hallway before a man grabbed her, told her to shut up. And it doesn't seem like any description of her attacker was ever shared by police, so I'm not sure if she couldn't remember what he looked like because of her injuries, maybe she never saw him. I don't know. So for a while, again, Diana's still recovering, she doesn't remember anything.

So they're like, really trying to dig into this line of inquiry, hunting down a potential serial killer. But along the way, they get hundreds of tips with conflicting information, which kind of leads them to wonder if they're right. Is this a serial killer? Or are these a bunch of different people? Because to them, it seems so far-fetched. How could one guy commit all of these horrible assaults so closely together and just fly

completely under the radar? I mean, it's 1979. This is literally the time to do that. I'm with you. Like, I don't think it's that wild, but at the time, it was. And then there's another attack. On October 21st, 17-year-old Deborah Sr. is found dead by her rooming after leaving a party that they both went to earlier in the night.

Again, Deborah's Costa Mesa apartment is on the first floor and there are no signs of a break-in. But even with new evidence from this murder, they actually have hand prints on the windowsill and a semen sample, police don't find any solid leads, and they do end up disbanding the Bedroom Basher Task Force by the end of October. They only give it a month? Less than that, like from what I can tell. Like, which I couldn't believe. What's the point of a task force for five minutes?

Exactly. And there's no real reporting explaining why it was disbanded so quickly. I don't even feel like you could like get through all the materials in that time. Or get on the same page as a task force. Yeah. Retired detective Tom Tarpley, who was with the Tustin PD, he took over the cold case investigation. He told us that in that time, basically, the task force just like ran its course and with no new information coming in and like possible staffing shortages,

like that one seems most likely to be, they just had to return the cases back to like their local jurisdictions and everyone had to kind of work them separately. So in Diana's case, their last real remaining hope is that Diana will be the one to solve her own case. Maybe she heals, maybe her memory will come back and she'll be able to tell them who did this to her. And sure enough, out of the blue, one day late in November, they get a call from Diana's dad. He says, Diana remembered something, something really big. So apparently, Diana had tagged along to her mom Pat's dentist appointment earlier that day.

And while waiting for her mom, Diana's sitting in the lobby, just kind of like flipping through some magazines. And as she's doing that, she comes across this picture of a baby. And that's when all of a sudden, the pieces start clicking into place. I mean, again, at this point, she remembers nothing. But she sees this baby, and all of a sudden, she remembers that she'd been pregnant.

And from there, images of her attacks start appearing in her mind. And when Pat came out of her dentist's office, Diana was trying to tell her something, but she was struggling to find the words. Because again, remember, she was having to learn how to talk all over again. It's not just her memory's gone, her basic skills are. So she said something like, Ivan hit me, Evan hit me. And to her mom, Pat, it sounds like she's trying to say,

Kevin, instead of Ivan. So what they do is they take Diana to a speech therapist before anyone even confronts Kevin with this, because this is huge. And when that person asks Diana, who hurt you, Diana points to her wedding ring, and the therapist asks her if she means Kevin,

and Diana says yes. And that's all police need to hear. Detective Tarpley believes that this is when they pull Diana's case out of the bigger bedroom basher investigation. Like in that moment, I mean, again, they're all worked separately at that point, but in that moment they're like,

oh, clearly this is something else. And they like pull it out. Cause they're like, okay, our surviving victim has just told us who did this. And there's no chance that it's all one and the same, right? Like Kevin can't be the bedroom basher. No, they've ruled Kevin out on those other attacks based on his work schedule alone. So it was always just two options.

Either she was part of this serial killer spree and Kevin was innocent or Kevin attacked his wife and her case is unconnected. It had nothing to do with the rest of them. Right. And it's clear to them now. It is the latter. Police believe they have their guy. He's been right there in front of them this whole time. And on November 30th, exactly two months after Diana was attacked, they send a squad of patrol cars out to track Kevin down. They find

him leaving a 7-Eleven and he is completely caught off guard when police arrest him on charges of murder, attempted murder, and assault. But five days after Kevin's arrest, he's released. The DA doesn't file charges against Kevin because of concerns about Diana's ability to testify against him, at least right now. But they aren't just throwing in the towel. To them, it just means that they need to get more. So while Diana divorces Kevin and begins to work with her speech therapist to put words to what happened to her that

night, police work on buttoning up their case. They go back to the hospital and they find another nurse that they hadn't spoken to before who has even more stories about Kevin's strange behavior while his wife was in the hospital. She says that after Diana woke up, Kevin said, what if she wakes up and doesn't remember who did this and thinks it was me? Which is like, not a great choice of words. But the next thing that the nurse reports is even more disturbing, at least to me. The nurse tells police that there was this time when Diana was restrained using a posy vest. That's like this jacket used for trauma patients so they don't like pull out their tubes or hurt themselves.

And the nurse left Diana alone with Kevin while she checked on another patient. And when she looked back through the window into Diana's room, she saw Kevin pulling the ties on Diana's vest so that when she stepped forward, she would be like pulled backward and have to sit down. And the nurse claimed that Kevin was laughing while this was happening, but Diana, who was still getting her speech back at this point, seemed like completely frustrated, which is...

Yeah, that feels so cruel. Yes, but that still just proves he's the husband. They need something more. And they might have the ace in the hole. So there was a lot of speculation early on about whether or not Diana had been sexually assaulted. Everyone seemed to have an opinion. Everyone was hearing different things from different people in the early days.

But they had done a forensic exam while she was in the hospital, just to be sure, and they had found semen. Now, initially, this wasn't a huge deal because part of Kevin's story to police was that he and Diana had had sex that night to try and induce labor. Right. So, when they did antibody tests on the semen and found that it came from someone with Kevin's O-negative blood type, it didn't really do anything to prove or disprove his guilt. About 7% of people are O-negative.

Kevin's in that 7%. But still, he's not denying that they had had sex that night. Right. But that totally changes when Diana is able to speak enough to tell police her version of events that night. Because Diana told us that her speech wasn't all the way there yet when she talked to police, but they understood what she was trying to get across. She communicated that Kevin was drinking and smoking weed that Saturday, which upset her

because she was so close to her due date. When we talked to her, she claimed she even called him while he was out on that long ass weed run because she was having contractions. Now Kevin denies this. He's like, you know, if she was having contractions, we would have gone to the hospital. Either way, by the time he got home, Diana says they fought about this because she was upset. She went into their bedroom, slammed the door.

Kevin came in, apologized. He wanted to have sex. But Diana says she said no. And when she resisted, Kevin violently sexually assaulted her. And the last thing she remembers is Kevin picking up his key caddy and striking her in the head with it, which she believes knocked her out. What's a key caddy? Um, it's basically like this key ring that sometimes like retracts.

You can like put it on your belt loop or whatever. Okay, and I hate to ask this, but with the head trauma, how reliable is Diana's memory at this point? You mentioned earlier that she had had some memory loss. This is part of the theme, right? So Kevin told us he remembered doctors warning him that Diana was pretty suggestible. But the police reports that Diana sent to us

contain a statement from her doctor saying that she only has issues with her speech now at this point, not her memory. Now, based on the police reports, her friends remember her telling them what she told police at the time, that sex had gotten too painful for her by that point, and she was bleeding, so she didn't want to have sex anymore. Though, there is one friend who remembers Diana saying that she and Kevin tried having

sex to induce labor that day, but it hurt too much, so she wanted to stop. But that was even earlier in the night, like it doesn't line up with Kevin's story when he claimed they had sex. Now, Kevin claims they never even found any blood on his key caddy, but none of the case files that we have even mentioned the key caddy one way or another. So I don't know about that part. So they don't have any kind of weapon. We don't know if it's the key caddy. It doesn't seem like it would be a key caddy. I can't remember. Her brain's exposed. But the DA believes Diana and that means finding semen that's likely Kevin's to them means he attacked her. So in March of 1980, Kevin is

arrested a second time. And this time the charges stick. Police add a spousal rape charge, making Kevin one of the first people to be tried for that after California had previously passed a law against it. Which is like wild that you have to pass a law against it, but they did. Now in the months leading up to Kevin's trial, Diana is determined to get justice for her daughter that she'd never got to see grow up. The state's case, which has become front-page news by this point, rests on her shoulders. Without much other evidence, is Diana's account enough? And what about the emotional and physical demands of a trial?

Is Diana up to testifying in court? These are the questions hanging over investigators who seem to have concerns about the strength of the case. Because according to an article in the Hanford Sentinel, they end up dropping the spousal rape charge at some point leading up to the trial. I don't know exactly why, but from those records Diana sent us, it seems like it was tough to establish whether or not the sex was consensual or not. Like every rape case where I mean like they're not taking on that fight.

So in October of 1980, just over one year after her attack, Diana takes the stand in front of Kevin and devastatingly details an abusive marriage that culminated in an assault that caused permanent, life-altering damage. I mean, still, she is partially deaf in one ear, fully deaf in the other. She's lost her sense of smell, she has a plastic plate in her head, and she has had to relearn basic language skills from scratch. Reading, writing, speaking, communication that was once as easy as breathing is now a daily struggle for her.

After her emotional testimony, Kevin's defense is up next. They can't introduce the polygraph that he passed into evidence. The judge won't allow it. So they put all of their focus on discrediting Diana's memories. They point out that in pre-trial hearings, she said that her attacker took off all his clothes, but then at the trial, she said he was fully clothed. They have Kevin take the stand in his own defense, and he points the finger at the man who was standing outside the apartment, someone he says that police didn't look at hard enough,

especially while this bedroom basher was roaming the streets. And after a grueling week and a half long trial, the jury only deliberates for three hours before coming back with a verdict. Kevin is found guilty of Diana's attempted murder and the second degree murder of their daughter, Chantal Marie, and the judge sentences him to 15 years to life in a maximum security prison.

And to be clear, no one's happy about any of this. I mean, to Diana, this verdict is a tragedy, but I'm sure Kevin's sentence finally makes her feel safe. I mean, she told us that's when she could move on with her life. That's when she got a job, she went to beauty school, and then two years after Kevin's conviction, she met someone new, someone she'll end up having a daughter with. And meanwhile, Kevin's not exactly a model prisoner. According to an article in the Deseret News, he deals drugs, he starts fights,

which he told us is how he survived in prison. Now, come 1989, Kevin is up for parole for the first time, and Diana remembers him showing up in chains. And she does. She attends every single one of his parole hearings to make sure he stays behind bars. But in the DA's eyes, Kevin seals his own fate at those parole hearings because he never takes responsibility

for the crime that he was convicted of. He still claims that he's innocent and he still claims that the guy outside his apartment is the one responsible for attacking Diana. So not seeing any signs of remorse, the DA's office opposes Kevin's release. But then a few years into his time in prison, Kevin seems to turn his life around.

He gets sober. That same article in Deseret News reports that he earns a degree in computer science. He gets a job as an office clerk in the prison. And that's actually where he meets his third wife. And he and his daughter with his first wife both told us that from that point, he stays on track. And he actually tries to be as present wife both told us that from that point, he stays on track and he actually tries to be as present of a dad as he can be from prison. She and her mom told us they always believed in Kevin's innocence and that he was never

capable, they didn't think he was capable of attacking Diana so brutally. And actually, a detective working on one of those bedroom basher cases in 1996 is about to find out that they're right. So with advances that come in DNA testing in, like, mid to late 90s, Detective Tom Tarpley of the Tustin PD starts taking a second look at all those murders that had once been attributed to this elusive bedroom basher. Those cases are all still unsolved and they were hoping to make progress on them years later.

And one of those cases that he's looking into stands out, Deborah Kennedy. She's the one who was killed just a week after Diana's attack. So Detective Tarpley submits a DNA sample that they have on file from Debra's case to CODIS, and so soon he gets a hit. The sample matches 41-year-old Gerald Parker, who Detective Tarpley learns has been serving

time in a prison for a parole violation. And thank freaking God he did this testing when he did, because Gerald was scheduled to be released the next month. His DNA was in CODIS because he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl after abducting her. Like he had grabbed her and thrown her into his van on her way home from her dad's funeral. What?

I know. So in June of 1996, Detective Tarpley visits Gerald in prison. And he's not alone. Police in Costa Mesa have been looking into Gerald too, because his DNA matched samples from three of their unsolved murders. Were these cases known bedroom basher cases? All three of the Costa Mesa murders were,

and those include Deborah Senior. So Gerald says he did have violent urges. He heard voices, but he says he's been prescribed medication for those mental health issues and he can't remember assaulting anyone, let alone, he says he can't remember the four women that they're talking to him about. He claims that his memory of that time and his life apparently as a whole isn't great because of his substance use disorder while he was in the Marines. And at the time of the murders in Costa Mesa, he was living at a Marine Corps airbase working

nights in a helicopter squadron. Working around helicopters like Kevin did. Bingo. And at the same time, at the same base in Tustin. Yeah. And this is when like all the feelers go up because apparently so many years on, even the DA had started making some rustlings. Like by this point, he wasn't so sure that Kevin was their guy anymore. I don't think anything specific was being done yet in Diana's case to prove or disprove

that feeling. But a case that they once thought was connected to Diana now being solved, the killer having a connection to where Diana's husband worked, was just like, a little too weird to write off. Yeah. So when Costa Mesa police don't really get anywhere with Gerald, Detective Tarpley goes in and tries his hand at questioning him.

And he shows Gerald first a picture of Deborah and asks, why would your DNA be at the scene of this woman's murder? But Gerald claims he doesn't recognize her, says he has no idea why his DNA would be there, but he does admit that he had been in that area where her apartment was. And that's when Detective Tarpley runs Gerald

through Diana's attack and reminds him that Kevin is serving time for it. And Gerald not only admits that he read about the case, but he gives up details only someone who had been in the apartment should know, like the street it was off of, the layout of the bedroom Diana was attacked in, the fact that the door to the apartment was on the side of the building. Detective Tarpley is actually amazed by how much Gerald remembers after 16 years. So he asked him if he knew Kevin

while they were in the Marines, but he says he didn't. I mean, how? I don't know. I have no idea how many people served on that base or worked in that squadron, but it was like a 4,700-acre facility. So, we're not talking something small, but still, it feels like a big coincidence, like massive. Anyway, Gerald asked Detective Tarpley if Kevin is on death row, and Detective Tarpley says

he's not sure. But hearing about Kevin's conviction seems to flip some kind of switch in Gerald. He's like, lost in thought. And Detective Tarpley thinks that he's on a verge of a confession. So he makes one last plea for Gerald to do the right thing. And that hits Gerald hard. He finally asks for Costa Mesa police to come back in because he's ready to talk.

And when everyone is back in the room, he says he believes an innocent man, meaning Kevin Green, is on death row for something that he did. And out of all the murders, all the assaults, all the horrible things he's done, that's what's been eating away at him for almost two decades. That's the only thing that's been eating away at him.

That's all. Not concerned about the women he killed or left fighting for their lives. Right. This man who was in prison for something he didn't do. And though to even be clear, like it's not like he did anything once he saw that Kevin had been arrested and convicted.

Right, this has been decades on now. And it's when he's confronted, but now at least he's finally telling something resembling the truth. Gerald likely was the man that Kevin saw by the van when he left the apartment that day. Because Gerald says after a night of drinking, he parked his van near the Green's apartment complex and he was walking past their apartment when he

heard Kevin and Diana arguing. And then he heard a door slam, he heard a car drive away. So Gerald says that he went back out for a drink for what he thinks was an hour before coming back to the apartment. Now this is where like things don't totally add up because we know that Kevin was only gone for, like, 20 minutes. So, the timeline is weird, but Gerald does admit that he was high during all of the murders. So, my only thought is that maybe what felt like an hour to him was 20 minutes, or he even got that wrong,

because I don't even know how he'd have time to go and come back. Anyway, someone's timeline isn't quite adding up, but Gerald says he comes back to the apartment at some point, and by that time, he had gotten in the habit of just checking if doors or windows were unlocked. And Kevin, remember, had left that kitchen door unlocked. So he says he picks up a board, like some kind of two-by-four piece of plywood that he found outside.

He went inside to where he found Diana in the bedroom. And he says that she actually, like, when he walks in she like sits up in bed and like stared at him before laying back down and Gerald says he thinks this is why she thought it was Kevin. She like didn't realize it wasn't him. I don't know if he was like backlit or something. And like put the pieces together if someone's in my room it's got to be Kevin. The guy that just like left and came back but as soon as she like gets up lays back down Gerald says he rushed at her with the board striking her in the head before sexually

assaulting her. So hold up Kevin has been telling the truth this whole time? Yes he's telling the truth about not being the one who attacked her. Okay. The thing is like there's no version of Kevin's story that he's ever told where him and Diana fight before he leaves, but that seems like that's what happened, right? Based on what neighbors heard, based on Diana's own account, based even on what Gerald said that he witnessed. Nicole Soule Do they ever try to say that Kevin hired Gerald? Ashley Bates No, I think they just take Gerald at his

word when he says that him and Kevin didn't know each other. And I mean, after all this time, Gerald has never said that. And it would have helped him to say that. And listen, while it might be easy for someone to argue with this confession of a man who is a serial killer, like what you can't argue with is DNA. And luckily, the sexual assault test kit that was done in Diana's case has not been thrown out yet. And it hadn't been ever tested for DNA, remember, just a blood type.

Right, because it was back in like the late 70s. Yeah, and in another just like weird coincidence, Gerald and Kevin have the same blood type. But PCR tests confirmed that the DNA was Gerald's, not Kevin's. And just so like we're on the same page, these tests that prove that Kevin didn't attack Diana, that Kevin wasn't the one who killed their daughter, those by this point had been available for like 12 of the 16 years he'd been in prison. And did Kevin's defense ever try to get these tested before? Mm-hmm.

Kevin said they tried. He said they reached out to, or he did at one defense ever try to get these tested before? Mm-hmm, Kevin said they tried. He said they reached out to, or he did at one point reach out to a lawyer who was like one of the first in California to successfully defend a client using DNA. But it wasn't feasible. That lawyer wanted like 10 grand to just look into whether there was DNA to test, and then like another 10 grand to actually do the test,

which he just didn't have. But now, all in all, police use DNA to tie Gerald to seven bedroom basher cases, including five murders beside Chantal Marie's. Those are Sandra Fry, Kimberly Rollins, Marilyn Carlton, Deborah Kennedy, and Deborah Senior. And he's also identified as a man who attacked a woman named Jane Pettengill, who she's the one who's the other survivor, who tried to describe him back in like 1979 to police. But even though he's identified as that he's not charged for that, because the statute of limitations on that assault ran out. Just always so wild to me that like, especially when the intent was to kill someone,

attempted murder, like just because you failed, like you get to... There's a time limit on being able to be charged. It's so wild, it's so wild. So on June 20th, 1996, this is nearly 16 years after Kevin was sent to prison, the new evidence is brought in front of a judge. And there, a DA recommends that Kevin be declared innocent.

The judge agrees with the recommendation and apologizes to Kevin for all the years he's lost to imprisonment. So finally, Kevin's a free man. But it takes time to sink in. His ex-wife remembers him calling her from a hotel, terrified that police were going to send him back to prison. Like he can't even believe he's out now. He has to enter also a completely different world than he left.

I mean, he's spent almost half his life behind bars. But eventually the state of California passes a bill to compensate him $100 a day for each day he served, which comes out to about $620,000. So when he leaves, Kevin, he flies to Salt Lake City, then he goes to the Midwest to reunite with his family to start over. And finally, he gets to be present for his daughter, who goes on actually to get a criminal justice degree. And in most of the reporting, that's where this story ends.

But Diana told us that's where this story ends. But Diana told us that's not where it ended for her. She tells the media how shocked she was by these revelations. I mean, she's like, at the time, struggling to reconcile her memories with Gerald's confession. She ends up actually meeting with police who show her a photo of Gerald, but she has no idea who the guy is. I honestly can't imagine how difficult that would be to process, like you said, to reconcile what you feel

like you know versus what is known. Right, and it has to feel, I mean, you went to trial, you believe it in your soul, like something that happened to you, and now she's like also in this place where she's having to like go through that attack again and again, trying to make sense of it. But every time she's like, sure, she didn't mix up. She is sure she didn't remember another instance where Kevin had hurt her like, he like had done so many times before. So I mean, I'm sure someone was like, Oh, maybe you're conflating this was something else. And she's like, no, like I remember what happened.

And as everything does slowly start to sink in, police drop another bombshell. They let her know that Kevin has already been released. So like, as she's learning this, she probably thinks he's like, it's something that's going to happen. She still has a sense of like safety or security as she's processing all this. And then that's just gone. And then she has to jump into survival mode. In an LA Times article by Renee Lynch and Dexter Filkin, she says she is considering filing a restraining order against him at

that point. Like that's truly just how scared she was. And she said like she kept, I don't know, like the way it was for her, she kept calling police and like asking them about specific details about the investigation. Like she just keeps trying to make things add up. And she said, finally, police tell her, like, listen, like, we've told you everything. Like, you know, what might be a good idea is for you to go straight to the source. Like, maybe you should go talk to Gerald before he goes on trial. So they tell her to just talk to the serial killer

who attacked her. Yeah, and she does. She goes and talks to the serial killer who attacked her with her mom right by her side. Diana shared with us her mom Pat's super detailed handwritten account of that visit to Gerald, which is dated August 25th, 1996. In a room divided by glass, with one seat and a phone on one side, and another seat

and phone on the other, Gerald sat down across from Pat and Diana, and Pat told Gerald that they wanted to confront him and to get answers about what happened. And according to this letter, Gerald told them even more than they expected. He said that he was wandering around Diana's apartment complex when he heard Kevin and Diana arguing. He didn't know what caused the argument, but he stood outside the window and watched Kevin and Diana. And according to Pat's account, Gerald claimed that he couldn't make out what it was, but

that he saw Kevin reach over, pick something up from the dresser, and hit Diana a few times. Did Gerald mention that in his original confession? Not that I could tell. Like, we weren't able to get the full transcript before the recording. But Pat wrote that Gerald said when he went inside and he found Diana, she was like in this daze. Remember, this is when she like lifts her head, looks at him before like flopping back down. And then the rest is what he told police.

But this meeting with Gerald is what reinforces Diana's belief that Kevin hurt her before Gerald attacked her. Like in her mind, both can still be true. So while Diana leaves believing that Gerald is responsible for attacking her, she feels more convinced than ever that so did Kevin. And it is incredibly hard for her to wrap her head around the outpouring of public support that he's getting.

Diana and Kevin have never spoken in the years since this. Diana told us that he's never tried to reach out to apologize or to make amends. And she firmly believes that he does have something to apologize for. It's the reason that she's never been able to forgive him while she says she has been able to forgive Gerald because he at least apologized.

Now Kevin told us that he never reached out to her because he doesn't want to make things harder for her, but things were already pretty freaking hard for her. I mean, lingering effects of her physical attack itself aside, now that Kevin has been exonerated, the media all but blames Diana for his wrongful conviction. So after Kevin's convictions overturned, his lawyers say in that LA Times article that nothing Diana says should be believed because her testimony at Kevin's trial has proven that she's not reliable. But if there's one thing that this story has taught me, it's that memory is a complicated

thing, no matter if you've suffered a brain injury or not. Like, for example, a friend told police that Kevin said that the reason he went out for that cheeseburger at the Jack in the Box was because Diana was craving one. Diana remembers it that way too, but when Kevin talked to us, he said that he'd never craved anything in his life like that cheeseburger, and Kevin told us he didn't drink anything the night of the attack, but multiple witnesses remember him drinking that day. And again, clearly there was some fight that took place that night, but that's never been part of Kevin's story. And is it memory? Or is it trying to change our memory

to make the truth better for certain people easier? Now, just to be clear, nobody ever believes that Kevin is responsible for the crime he was wrongfully convicted of. He has been completely cleared. And by cleared, I mean, ultimately exonerated of it. He was proven factually innocent in a court of law. Kevin claims that some police officers called Diana and her mom the crazy ladies when the story like really went public.

And I've said it before, we as society are quick to write women off as crazy. But while Diana has had to work hard to communicate her thoughts, she speaks powerfully when she reflects on what she went through. And she does just that when she takes the stand again, this time to testify against Gerald, when he goes to trial in 1998 for the murder of her daughter and the murders of five other Orange County women,

ones that his DNA was tied to. And in that case, the jury deliberates for less than two hours before returning a verdict of guilty on all six counts of first degree murder with a recommendation of the death penalty. Diana told us that she felt a sense of relief when Gerald was convicted of her daughter's murder because he's where he should be, in prison, where he can't hurt anyone else.

But she still says she wouldn't call it closure. She said that when she got our call about speaking about her perspective of this, she felt some hope that maybe talking about it, talking about what she went through, like the real full story of what she went through, maybe that will bring closure. I mean, since the attack, her life at times has been difficult and frustrating. When she was in high school, English was her favorite subject, and before the attack, she loved writing poetry to put her innermost thoughts to paper. But since then, she has had to work hard to find the right words to even express herself,

even in everyday conversations. But she has also surprised herself. She recovered better than she ever hoped that she would. Like, she only had, I don't know if you know this, a 10% chance of survival in the hospital. And now she is like the pillar of support for her friends. She drives them to doctor's appointments and keeps busy and goes on vacations with her grandkids.

And she raised her daughter from a place of hope and never a place of fear. So she lived. She lived. And we asked Diana what she wants crime junkies to take from her story and she told us that she hopes that we'll look at her case in a different way than everyone has in the past. That there is more to her story than people think and more to her than what she survived. And there is no doubt in my mind that no matter what happened that night in 1979,

Diana is a survivor. That is who she is at her core. She survived a volatile relationship, a heinous attack by an evil stranger waiting in the shadows, and the death of a child. I mean, her world was turned upside down again and again and again. She is strong and she has never stopped living. I mean, her world was turned upside down again and again and again. She is strong and she has never stopped living. So if you, crime junkies, you or someone you know are experiencing domestic violence, you can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline and 1-800-799-SAFE. We're also going to link to more resources in our show notes.

You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? No!