Murder With My Husband - 260. What Happened To Diana Duve?

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

In this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the heartbreaking case of Diana Duve, a young nurse whose relationship with the charismatic Michael Jones took a deadly turn. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband NEW MERCH LINK: https://mwmhshop.com Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ 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: CBSNews.com- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/diana-duve-murder-michael-jones-criminal-past-web-of-lies-48-hours/ CBS12.com - https://cbs12.com/news/local/trial-gets-underway-for-murder-of-vero-beach-woman-diana-duve WPTV.com - https://www.wptv.com/news/region-indian-river-county/jury-deliberations-underway-in-sentencing-phase-of-michael-jones TCPalm.com - https://www.tcpalm.com/picture-gallery/news/crime/indian-river-county/2019/09/20/evidence-photos-released-diana-duve-murder-case/2366075001/ SportsKeeda.com - https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/diana-duve-s-case-5-things-know-murder-ex-mike-jones-involvement TheSun.com - https://www.the-sun.com/news/8055538/diana-duve-mike-jones-murder-convicted-felon/ FloridaToday.com - https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2021/05/27/vero-beach-wealth-planner-michael-jones-2019-murder-conviction-upheld-strangling-diana-duve-2014/7455188002/ Legacy.com - https://www.legacy.com/funeral-homes/obituaries/name/diana-duve-obituary?pid=171570372&v=batesville&view=guestbook&page=2 VeroNews.com - https://veronews.com/2021/05/13/diana-duve-murder-subject-of-television-documentary/ FLCourts.gov - https://4dca.flcourts.gov/content/download/746031/opinion/193691_DC05_06022021_160219_i.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's O-P-O-S-I-T-I-V.com slash husband for 25% off. You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Marlant. And I'm Garell Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband.

Just real quick, we got some comments and messages about it. Our Patreon wasn't linked below. So if you're curious about bonus content and you're not on Apple or don't wanna do Apple subscriptions, our bonus content will be linked below. You can click that and you can check it out. Yeah, that's about it for announcements this week.

For my 10 seconds, Peyton and I, actually we finished it pretty quick, which means that we really liked it and that it does not happen very often to us. It was a new series, it's on Hulu. If you haven't seen it, you really need to go watch it. It's called, it's called Paradise, right? Yep.

It's good. I would dare say episode seven is one of the best episodes that has ever aired on TV. I was Peyton and I were watching seven and we were just glued. It felt like in one episode, an entire just like movie. It was so good. So good. So we finished that, but now we're mad because then you have to wait for the second season It's gonna take year and a half for it to come out and then are you gonna watch it by then?

Anyways, it was really good. We loved it. Have you been keeping up with Severance? Yeah, Severance has been good. I Don't know something about the first season sucked me in a lot more the second season is good Don't get me wrong. Well, I don't know. I think paradise really kind of took the cake for me. It was just so good that I was like, dang, I want another season at Paradise. Any other, nothing else I really been watching. Just that trying to think if there's any other series that Peyton and I need to watch together. Probably some movies we need to catch up on, but we don't watch a ton of series or shows together in general. So it was kind of nice to watch that together because we both really liked it. Yeah, we watch a lot of separate stuff.

Yeah, that's kind of what we got going on in our lives. Nothing too crazy. I'm drinking some coffee right here because I'm trying to wake up because I'm supposed to start driving to Vegas tonight at 10 o'clock tonight and have a five hour drive ahead of me. Yep. You know me. Oh, and before we get into the episode, just a reminder that I have a Twitch account

where I live stream. I do get ready with me. Sometimes I'll play games. It just kind of depends. But if you want to come hang out with me and the community over there, it's so fun. It's just randomly throughout the day. But yeah, I live stream over there sometimes. Well, majority of the time Garrett's on with me as day. But yeah, I live stream over there.

Sometimes, well majority of the time Garrett's on with me as well. So yeah, come hang out. That should also be linked below. Our sources for this episode are CBS News, CBS12.com, WPTV.com, TCPalm.com, Sportskeeda.com, TheSun.com, FloridaToday.com, Legacy, VeroNews.com, and FLcourts.gov. Okay, so when it comes to a courtroom defense, we've heard a lot of pretty wild things on this show, whether that's self-defense, insanity, please, blaming someone else entirely. You would think that we've heard pretty much any excuse there is for a defense in court. In fact, just the other week we covered a case where they allowed the prosecution

to bring a bed in the courtroom. Yes. So- Insane. Today's case though, I think might actually be a first on this show as far as the defense goes. And Garrett's gonna know about this, but if you follow football at all, then you've probably heard this term before.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or as it's more commonly known. C-T-E. Yes. It is a disease that is linked to repeated head trauma, and it can cause a lot of really complicated issues. I would say football is the thing that really brought this to the surface of people recognizing this disease, but it also can happen in boxing, MMA fighting.

Honestly, any contact sport where there is repeated hitting to the head, CTE can be a common disease. There's actually, if you want like a good summary on kind of what it is, there's a good movie on it with Will Smith. I forget what it's called, but it kind of explains the whole process of when everything was going down.

So basically CTE, a recognized disease, can cause mood swings, problems with memory and rationalization, irritability. Now, like I said, while football isn't the only sport that CTEs are seen in, it has definitely brought the most attention to the condition, which is what Garrett's talking about. Yet despite how well known it is, very little is still understood about the disease itself because it is very case-to-case and that's even today which may be why the perpetrator in today's case thought it would make for a pretty convincing defense. But the question is can CTEs

really explain away a history of violent abuse and murder. I'm curious to find out what case this is already. So today I want to introduce you to a 26 year old woman named Diana Duve. Now Diana lives in Vero Beach, Florida on the Eastern coast of the state, but she's not originally from America. She was actually born in a small little country

in Eastern Europe called Moldova, nestled between Romania and Ukraine. Now, Diana moved to Vero Beach, Florida, with her mom, Lena, when she was around 13, after her mom met and fell in love with an American man named Bill, and then they all go to Florida together. Of course his name's Bill.

So for the teenaged Diana, that move must've felt like moving to an entirely different planet. She didn't even speak a word of English, yet she adapted fast, impressively fast. Two months after starting her new school, Diana was enrolling in English speaking classes. And a few years later, those who knew her said you couldn't even tell that English wasn't her first language. By the time she graduated high school, she had plenty of

friends and a bright future ahead of her in America. Because Diana was dedicated to her dream of one day becoming a nurse. So she graduates. She moves away to Gainesville, Florida in 2007 to begin her nursing degree. But after she graduated, Diana was eager to return home and actually be close to her mother again. So she graduates nursing school. She moves back home and she gets a job at Sebastian Medical Center. It's just a half hour away from home. But Diana was already dreaming of what the next chapter would bring in her life. She was working on obtaining her nursing license

in the state of California with hopes of one day moving west. So from Florida to California. But in 2013, Diana met someone at a local bar who would complicate that dream that she had. It was a man named Mike Jones. Now, Mike was slightly older than Diana by about six years, but that might have been what drew Diana in. Mike was a wealth manager at a local PNC bank branch, meaning he handled giant multimillion dollar accounts for very wealthy people. And he was one of the top workers at that branch. So he brought in a ton of great clients. He said he knew a bunch of different celebrities

that he could bring into the bank, that his sister was married to the country singer, Jason Aldean, and that he himself was adopted by Ronald Reagan's son as a kid. On top of that, Mike received excellent performance reviews. Even the clients raved about him. It certainly helped that he had a master's degree and a law degree. Plus, he seemed to have a really great reputation around Vero Beach. Not only did he

dress to impress, Michael was always attending charity events, trying to give back to his community. Friends of his used words like genius, trustworthy, ambitious. So on paper, Michael Jones seemed like a really stand-up guy. He seems to be the social butterfly, which really helps him in his career. But Diana wasn't completely sold on Michael. Not right away at least. Even after what seemed like a few dates, Diana told a friend she still wasn't sure.

She wasn't head over heels for him yet, but she'd continue to give him a chance. And Michael made sure she did. He charmed Diana every chance he got. He charmed her parents too. When he met them, he was dressed to the nines. He was well-spoken. He was polite.

He presented himself as everything you would ever want in a partner for your daughter. And as a result, Diana started to fall for Mike. Just a few months after they started dating, she told her parents that she was planning to move in with Mike and they had no objections. The two seemed happy. They seemed in love and they were definitely working towards a bright future together. A few friends said that they were truly inseparable after that, arm and arm constantly, but not in a way that felt totally healthy.

According to Diana's friend, Chelsea, she said it almost felt like they were together all the time in a controlling way. Like the reason they're together all the time is because Mike wouldn't let Diana out of his sight. When Chelsea met with Diana for lunch one day, just the two of them, Diana sort of hinted that she might be in trouble for going to lunch with her without him. But on April 30th, 2014,

that issue almost seemed like it was gonna work itself out because Diana decided to break it off with Mike and move back in with her parents. She didn't tell her mother why they had broken up, but her mother didn't pry. Lena, her mother did notice, however, that it didn't really seem completely over yet. Mike was still texting Diana constantly trying to get her back. And they sort of remained in that limbo for the next few months of being on again, off again, seeing each other, but not actually dating.

Sometimes trying to make it work. Other times saying, nope, we're done. But Diana didn't move back in with Mike. She stayed living with her mother and stepfather until June of 2014. And on the night of the 19th, 2014, she went out with a few friends hoping to take her mind off of the Mike situation just for a little while. Of course, that's easier said than done. Diana's friends noticed she was glued to her phone all evening, barely able to hold a conversation with the rest of the group. So they're all out there hanging out. Diana's supposed to be broken up with Mike, but she won't get off her phone. And you know, we've all either been there or been with a friend who's in this

on again off again relationship with someone. And even when you're hanging out, that's all they can think about. It was more of like when I was in high school though. Yeah. I'm mature now. No, I was kidding. So eventually Diana left the night earlier than planned telling your friends that she was actually going to go meet up with Mike and just talk. So Diana got in her car and made the few minutes drive over to a bar called What a Tavern in Vero Beach. Now surveillance footage shows her taking a seat next to Mike at the bar, sometime before midnight. She leaves her friends, she's now at a bar with Mike.

Other people at the bar said, for the most part, it looked like the couple was honestly having a nice time. They were talking, they were laughing. Though there was a point in the night where Diana did get visibly upset and might've actually been crying. So I was gonna say, you know what's interesting is, I used to always wonder, how are people like,

how do people know this? How are they looking at someone and now they notice someone's crying They notice someone's happy. They notice they notice someone's upset Whatever it may be but I'm not gonna like Peyton and I do this at restaurants Sometimes we'll just be eating we'll both go silent and we'll just be both staring at a couple thinking. Hmm Wonder what they're talking about. Is this their first day? What are they doing? Oh, they look like they're fighting Oh, they look like they're happy I mean if I noticed a girl crying at a restaurant

I would probably remember it by the time police came and Talked to me and said you were at this place at the same time as this couple Did you notice anything and if I had seen her crying I would have remembered that so I think Whether we all do it or not. I feel like subconsciously a lot of us do it. But I'm not going to lie, eyewitness accounts are like the most unstable accounts there are. That's true. So she might be crying, but around 1 15 a.m., Diana and Mike were actually seen on the same

surveillance footage of the bar leaving the bar. Now Mike's place, presumably the one that he used to share with Diana, so where she had moved in with him, was just four miles from that bar. And Diana texted her mother around 1.45 a.m. that night saying she wasn't going to be coming home. She sends that message in Russian. That is their native language. Now, Lena doesn't see that text until she wakes up the next morning for work because it came in at 1.45 a.m.

But to her, this isn't unusual. Diana has been known to just go spend random nights at Mike's house. She just assumes, okay, that's where she is. Plus, because it's written in Russian, Lena knows Diana was obviously the person who sent it, right? But just to be sure, she messages her back that morning and says, where are you?

Though the hours start ticking by and there's no response from Diana. With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today conditions apply details at Fizz.ca. This episode is brought to you by RBC student banking POV

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Visit rbc.com slash student 100. So by the time the entire day has gone by, Lena has come and gone from work and the clock strikes 11.30 PM. And there is still no word from her daughter. Lena is past worried. So what does she do? She decides to call Mike. Remember she's met Mike.

He's been introduced to the family and the family liked him. So she calls Mike and Mike is cool as a cucumber. He's like, oh yeah, you know, Lena's just here with me, don't worry. She can't get to the phone, she's sleeping, but I'll have her call you back. Only.

No way, I'd be like, wake my daughter up right now. Diana doesn't call, so Lena tries again. She's like, Mike, enough, wake her up. Like, let me talk to her. She never called me. Let me talk to her. And she's met with another excuse. He's like, Oh, well, I actually am not home anymore. She's back at my place. I'll wake her up and have her call you as soon as I get there. That'll be around 30 minutes. Again, there's no call. So Lena and her husband, Bill are shaking in fear and rage by this point, which is why they decide we're just going to drive to Mike's house and knock on the door.

Yeah. When they get there, there's no Diana. There's also no Mike. Neither one of them nor their cars are at the house. Gosh. So Lena's like, that's it. I'm done. I don't care.

I'm going to the police and I'm reporting my daughter missing. So it's now Saturday, June 21st, 2014. This is about 36 hours give or take since Diana was last seen or heard from that last message. And detectives are knocking on Michael Jones's door to find he is still not home and there's still no sign of Diana. So her mom, Lena, goes to police, is like, my daughter's missing. Her boyfriend, on-off again boyfriend, Mike, said she was there, but when we got there, they weren't there. So detectives go and they're still not there. So they return to the station

with plans to secure a search warrant and they get one and they head back to the house the following afternoon. When they get there though they're surprised to see that Lena and Bill, this is her mom and Bill, the American man that they moved to America with, have just been parked outside of Mike's house, watching and waiting for any signs of him or their daughter, which honestly, same. Good for them. Same.

Yeah. And I mean, what else are you going to do? Right? But the police get inside Michael's house and they expect to find something, anything to tell where Diana is, what might've happened to her, but there's nothing. There's not even any belongings of Diana's to show that she might've spent the night there. That's when they realized that the only way they're probably going to find Diana, considering that Michael told Lena that she was with him during the

time that she was missing, they realized they need to find Michael. And the more they look into him, his behavior in the hours before he met up with Diana that night was pretty alarming to say the least. So just 12 hours before Mike had Diana meet him at the Whatta Tavern bar, he was actually spotted on surveillance footage at his own PNC bank, withdrawing money from an ATM. We're not talking a couple hundred bucks.

He took out $2,500 in cash. Okay, I thought you were gonna say 25,000. Then he told a coworker. I was like, he can't do that because he'd have to go talk to it. Tell anyways, keep going. Hey, I'm actually not feeling well, so I'm gonna be taking the next few days off.

So this is 12 hours before he even meets her at the bar. He takes $2,500 out and then tells his coworker, I'm gonna be sick for the next few days. But then he tells another coworker, I'm taking the next few days off to go to a wedding. So he's now told two different coworkers, two different stories. Okay. However, on the morning of the 21st, it appears Mike was still at his house or at least stopped by to gather some things before the police would arrive that

day because a neighbor said they saw someone with an odd freaked out demeanor walking around behind Mike's building. And afterwards notice the man get into and drive away in a black Nissan Altima. And you know who drove a black Nissan Altima? Diana. Of course she did. So they're thinking, okay, so before we got here that day,

Michael was here and his neighbors saw him acting weird and then drive away in Diana's car when Diana's nowhere to be found. I'm curious when the CTE comes into play because gosh, I can't remember the movie and I obviously I'm not an expert on this. Um, it's just honestly what I remember from the movie and I guess different articles I've read here and there, but it's interesting because it sounds like this is being planned out.

Right. I am not sure. Murder via CTE is premeditated. And I'm not sure murder. Yeah. Via the complications due to CTE is planned out and premeditated. I was under the impression and thought it was more of a snap in the moment type thing, not making good decisions close to in the moment type things, not planning this out 24 hours in advance.

Right. And then around 7 a.m. shortly after that witness sighting, Mike's spotted on surveillance footage at a Walmart in Palm Bay. It's about 45 minutes away. There he actually buys a Samsung flip phone and a prepaid Verizon card. He's then spotted on parking lot footage, going back to the car, grabbing a plastic bag, trying to throw something in the dumpster by Walmart, which is locked.

So he puts it back in the car and drives away. Now, all of this is shady enough. I mean, if this guy knows his girlfriend is missing, he should be helping her parents look for her. But it gets a lot more suspicious when police look into Mike Jones's background and find he has a criminal record. So before living in Vero Beach,

Mike lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This was back in 2012, so only like two years prior. And there he was charged with, get this, aggravated stalking after he threatened to kill an ex-girlfriend. So police look Mike up and they realize he's already been charged for wanting to harm an ex-girlfriend.

My kids are gonna hate me because I going to do a background check on every single person they ever date as you should. Yep. So for this crime, Mike pleaded no contest and was only given five years probation. By the time of sentencing, though, he was living in Vero Beach and he was told if he left the Vero Beach area without getting permission from his probation officer, he could be placed under arrest. So when detectives learn all this, they decide to call this probation office because Mike is nowhere to be found. And it seems he's gotten the heck out of Vero Beach by this point.

And the probation officer is like, no, he definitely didn't get permission from me to leave. So now police have cause to arrest Mike the second they find him. If they can find him. Now, Lena and Bill are totally shocked by this news that Mike has this criminal record. According to them, they had no idea that Mike was at all possessive or abusive in any way. Definitely not towards their daughter. But according to some of Diana's friends, Mike kind of did some of the same things in his relationship with her.

The most notable was on April 30th, 2014. This is just two months before Diana went missing. Early that morning, a little before 1 a.m., Mike Jones's neighbor made a call to 911. And he's like, hey, yeah, I think I have a domestic disturbance call for you. My next door neighbor and his girlfriend have been screaming at each other for an hour. Then he says, and this is a direct quote, it sounds like he's trying to dominate the crap out of her. Now the police show up at the house minutes later and when they knock on the door Mike answers. At first he's like I was asleep. He pretends that he was sleeping and he doesn't know what the

neighbors referring to. And then they're like, well, the neighbor didn't make it up. And he's like, oh, okay, yeah, me and Diana, we were just having rough sex. So they asked to speak with her. She comes to the door in her pajamas and police say, well, she looks frustrated with the situation. She doesn't appear to have any marks on her. Right before the officers are about to leave,

Diana says, wait, please don't go. I wanna get my things and I don't go. I want to get my things and I don't want to do it alone. So one of the officers says she practically begs them to stay with her and let her get out of the house safely, which they definitely find alarming. Yeah. DV one, one, but they help her out once again, outside of the house, they ask her, are you sure you're okay? That nothing has happened. They examine her again for cuts and bruises of the house, they ask her, are you sure you're okay that nothing has happened? They examine her again for cuts and bruises,

and she's like, I'm fine, I just wanna go home. So they let her leave, but Diana doesn't go home. She calls her friend, Chelsea, who works at a bar nearby. Now, Chelsea says Diana was hysterically crying on this phone call, and she told Chelsea she was coming to work to see her. She gets there a few minutes later, Chelsea says she's inconsolable, she's hyperventilating,

her face is puffy and swollen from crying. Plus she's standing at this bar in her pajamas. And Chelsea sees this as a big red flag because Diana would never be out in public in her pajamas unless this was an emergency of some sort. So Chelsea rushes her into the bathroom and that's when Diana opens up to her friend about what actually happened earlier.

She says that they got into an argument. Mike pushed her down. He got on top of her. He started choking her while saying over and over, I'll effing kill you. Holy, holy. And Chelsea can see red marks all over Diana's neck. So clearly the officers missed this or didn't look very hard. She tells Diana, we need to take pictures of this. So Chelsea takes pictures of these marks for evidence.

That's so smart. Chelsea's like, look, you have to go back to the police and file a complaint. You can't let this side. But Diana's like, no, which is not unusual in cases like this, though that is the time that she moves out of the house and back with her parents. So remember how I told you earlier that they had split and she didn't tell anyone really why? Chelsea knew why and it was because he had been physically violent with her and told her he was gonna kill her.

But as we know, Diana and Mike kept talking on and off for the next several months until that night in June when they meet up and then Diana was never seen again. By the way, this wasn't just Diana and it wasn't just the woman he was dating in Fort Lauderdale either, the one who he had stalked and been charged with. As the police dig, they find there's been abuse in almost all of Mike's past relationships. Patterns are always the same. Charm the

pants off them, start to tighten the reins, control, control, control, escalate to violence. This is a clear sign of a predator. Police no longer have any doubts that Mike is the reason for Diana's disappearance. And as much as they wanna bring her home to her parents, it's not looking good now that they know the truth about Mike's background. So the pressure is on.

They need to find Mike Jones. It has now been three days since Diana was last seen and they know they need to step it up. So on the afternoon of June 22nd they begin analyzing Mike and Diana's cell phone data to see what towers her phone last pinged. And they find that Mike made one of his most recent calls near Fort Pierce, Florida. This is about 25 minutes from Vero Beach. So Vero Beach police contact the officers there and tell them to be on the lookout for either Diana's black Nissan or Mike's gold Honda.

And just a few hours later, they get a call back. Mike's car has been spotted in the parking lot of a Hampton Inn hotel. So officers rush over there to speak with the front desk. They find Mike Jones had checked in about 24 hours after Diana disappeared. They also learned he had paid in cash for a two night stay and he told the front desk not to tell anyone he was there and not to transfer any calls to his room.

That's so funny. Like the front desk cares to keep this a secret. So police are like, let's see your cameras. They look at the surveillance footage and see that Mike checked in alone. Diana is not with him, which is not a good sign. So the front desk gives the police a key card, offer up his room number and basically are like, yeah, go do whatever you need to do. I don't know. So police go up, they go up to his floor, they get up to his door of his hotel room, and they just use the key card and let themselves in.

Okay. And there he is. He's sitting on the bed talking on his burner phone that he was seen on surveillance buying to someone, which by the way, he has this burner phone, but he's also still using his regular phone too. Cause that's how they found him there, which means Mike's really not the smartest criminal. But when they berate him with questions about Diana, Mike refuses to offer up any information. Here's the thing though, they have Mike backed into a corner.

They say to him, look, you can answer our questions or we can place you under arrest since you violated your parole. But Mike still doesn't budge, which means he's placed in handcuffs and taken down to the station for booking. However, the question remains, where is Diana? Yeah, can they charge him for Diana? With Mike unwilling to talk, officers have to sort of retrace his steps on their own. They figure tracking his cell phone worked once, let's do it again.

And what they find is the morning after he was last seen with Diana, remember how he went to Walmart to buy that burner phone and then he was seen in the parking lot getting into Diana's car and driving away? Well apparently after that little trip his phone pinged another tower around Melbourne almost an hour north of Vero Beach. So again, police call the officers at that precinct and tell them we're searching for a black Nissan. This is Diana's car. And again, it works. Around 4.30 a.m. that night, after arresting Mike Jones,

they find Diana's car sitting in a Publix grocery store parking lot abandoned. But when they open the vehicle, they're searching it, they pop the trunk, see what they can find. Nothing. Nothing. Oh. Diana is dead. Holy s- In her own trunk.

Her body is sitting- Holy crap. In her car's trunk. That's horrible. In this parking lot of a random public's grocery store. Okay. Which means that Diana's missing person case is now officially a homicide. And the autopsy indicated that whatever happened to Diana was not an accident.

She had multiple defensive wounds, as well as red marks around her knees and ankles that told detectives she had likely been tied up. She'd suffered blunt force trauma to the head and her cause of death was strangulation. This is why the other week when we were talking about domestic violence, it is so it's just so dangerous. So dangerous because. Honestly, I'm fairly convinced that every single. Sorry, not every single I'm fairly convinced that 75 as it goes.

All right, let's go 70, 70% of DV cases would probably end up in murder if they went down long enough. Yeah, I just think that I don't know the statistics on that, but I do know it's I just think it. Well, I think people most dangerous thing. I think people get out. I think people leave, but I think if someone stayed long

enough or I don't know, it's just it's so dangerous DV is extremely dangerous actually attempting to leave is the one of the strongest triggers or A I'm sure because they don't want you to I'm sure if you were attempt to leave in the wrong situation Majority of people who are committing to domestic violence would probably kill someone So they're like, okay, we need to prove that if he drove her here with her body in the trunk and left it here, we need to prove that he then somehow got home. Cause how did he get home from here?

So they begin calling taxi companies around the area, seeing if anyone picked up a guy fitting Mike's description from that public's parking lot. And they get lucky again. They find one taxi driver who says he picked up a guy in the exact same clothes Mike was seen wearing in surveillance footage that day. Now, during that nearly hour ride back to Vero Beach, the cab driver said he was trying to chat with Mike, asking him what brought him there. Mike told him he and his friend had gotten into a fight and she had left him. But the real kicker was when they presented the cab driver with a lineup of suspects, they're like,

can you try to identify him? He picks Mike out right away. So now they have a witness, a strong witness who's gonna say, I drove Mike from that Publix back to Vero Beach and he told me in the car that he'd gotten in a fight with a friend and she had left him, but nothing beats physical DNA evidence in court. And when police do a search of Mike's home and garage, they find a few small drops of blood when they test it, they prove it's Diana's DNA.

So on June 25th, 2014, Mike Jones is charged with first degree murder for killing Diana. And his plan is to maintain his innocence through and through But as we know the trial will bring forth a bunch of other surprises Now as the prosecution begins digging into Mike's background to build out a case against him for trial They learn this guy wasn't just abusive to the people in his life He also made up many elaborate lies to rope people in and keep them close Remember Mike had a lot of really interesting facts about himself that he

shared with people, that his brother-in-law was country singer Jason Aldean, that he was adopted by the Reagans, and that he played minor league baseball, that he had a penthouse in Fort Lauderdale, he had a Porsche that he only drove on the weekends. None of this is true. Mike Jones was a pathological liar. In fact, he was so good at it that he'd even conned the bank he worked at. Remember, before he got the job, Mike was a convicted felon. Banks don't usually let convicted felons manage multimillion dollar accounts. Yet Mike somehow weaseled his way in there. Actually, that job might have been one of the only real things about Mike's life. Well, that and his really prestigious academic career, because it appears Mike really did get

a master's and a law degree. But when it came to his social life and a lot of other personal details, they all just seemed to be a lie. The prosecution was ready to tell the jury this so they knew they could not trust Mike. So Mike Jones's trial began in October of 2019, and the prosecution painted a solid picture of what they're pretty sure happened that night. They think Mike, who had always tried to control the narrative and control his sexual partners, snapped after Diana told him she no longer wanted to be with him. They think she called it off later that night when they got back to his place and Mike refused to accept it, including the part

where she told him she had plans to move out west to California. But Mike's defense team argued there was so much more to the story and that the jury should have a little bit of sympathy for him because of two very traumatic things that had happened to Mike. Prior abuse and a traumatic brain injury. This is where the defense comes in. Mike's defense claimed that Mike himself was a victim of abuse growing up and that it had even pushed him into doing the same. Mike's uncle Teddy Jones even took the stand to support this. So Teddy says he remembers there's an incident when Mike was in his early 20s, Teddy arrives at the house to find Michael's father holding him up against a wall by

his throat. Teddy screamed at Mike's father to let him go and eventually took Mike home with him because he was scared for his nephew's life. Now I know hurt people hurt people. Is that an excuse for murder? Never. No. But the defense said that prior abuse wasn't the only factor. Michael was an avid motocross rider and sustained so many injuries over the years that he suffered from CTE. Here's the hard thing is if we compare this to the case we did the other week where the girl was actually being abused and killed her abuser and she's in jail. Right. I have zero sympathy for this. But here's the thing. There is no medical records ever presented as evidence to show that Michael had repeated head trauma, that he had been diagnosed with them, but the prosecution had an excellent rebuttal for all this.

If the plan was to argue that Michael Jones had some sort of cognitive deficiency that made him take his girlfriend's life, well then that same cognitive deficiency would have made it hard for him to do his job, to get all of those accolades he received doing such an amazing job. Becoming, getting a law degree, yeah, you're right.

So they tell the jury, this is just another elaborate lie. Like this is not even real. He was trying to fool the jury using the same tactics he had used to fool his friends, his colleagues and his girlfriends. They shouldn't fall for it. Turns out they didn't. After deliberating for only 45 minutes, Sheesh. The jury was back with a verdict. Michael Jones was guilty of first degree murder, meaning premeditation. And with that, the jury also had the option of recommending the death penalty. However, they chose to show Mike some mercy.

He got a life sentence instead. Diana's mother, Lena, had a lot to say about Michael's punishment, though. And she put it in words that I think any mother or loved one could relate to. During his sentencing hearing, this was the statement she read directly to Michael. Look at me. You came to my home, you sat at my table,

and you took my daughter away from me. There is no punishment harsh enough for what you took from me. Nothing can happen to you that will satisfy me ever again because you're a coward. If hate could kill, you would be dead now for what you took from me. Yeah, I mean, I don't even, I'd feel the same way. Before I wrap this up, I want you to know

if you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 and that is the case of Diana Duve. Do you have to say I was reading the YouTube comments um we've done a couple DV cases recently and it's sad and blows my mind on how many of our listeners as well have been through domestic violence. I don't know if you've read some of the YouTube comments. It was crazy. And first of all, I'm so sorry. And second of all, it sounds like a lot of you have gotten out of

those relationships. So I'm happy for you. It's wild. It's wild. And yes, I know it does happen to men too, but I feel like the majority of it, at least from our comments and our YouTube videos was females. And I'm just like, what's going on, man? And you might get it out, but you don't get out on skates. Oh, talk about the emotional, mental trauma and you could have physical trauma as well. I mean, it just it's it's a thing that keeps on happening over and over. It's just crazy. I think. It's a thing that keeps on happening over and over again. It's just crazy.

I think domestic violence is one of the things that, because look, I mean, a lot of us are in relationships and we've been in relationships and we understand being upset with our partner and being angry and being frustrated, but to take it to the level that, to get physical at all is not, it's just not okay. Not okay.

It's not okay. It's just a line you have to put down that you're not gonna cross. And I know there's like mental abuse as well. I think that could be a little more complicated. So I'll leave that out for now. But just being physically harmful to your partner to anyone, unless you're,

unless I'm watching a pay-per-view UFC fight, it's just not okay. This is my biggest argument of why we should teach kids from a young age that physical harm is not the option, which is in my opinion why we shouldn't spank children. Because those children can't grow up and then spank people. You're teaching them that this is how you punish people. You're teaching them that physical is how you punish people. You're teaching them that physical violence is a punishment. But when you're an adult,

you can't physically punish someone. It's literally illegal. And so it's like any type of physical violence is just not acceptable. Yeah. All right, you guys, that is our case for today. And we will see you next time with another one. I love it. I hate it.

Goodbye. ["The Last Supper"] For the past three seasons of Gone South, we've covered one story per season. We tried to figure out who killed Margaret Coon. She told me, I'm gonna kill you. I said, well, do it. Go ahead and do it. We delved into the violent world of the Dixie Mafia me I'm gonna kill you. I said, well, do it. Go ahead and do it.

We delved into the violent world of the Dixie Mafia. I'm an outlaw and I was a thief, but I'm far from being the psychotic nutcase that I've been made out to be. And we tracked a serial killer in Laredo, Texas. Just turn around, please. Turn around. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!

Now, Gone South is back for a fourth season. But this time, we're doing things a little differently. So, in Gone South Season Four, we'll be bringing you new stories every week with no end in sight. I'm Jed Lapinski. Welcome back to Gone South, an Odyssey Original Podcast. Listen and follow now on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes every week.