True Crime with Kendall Rae - Cadets Murder High School Student to “Purify Their Love”? The Murder of Adrianne Jones

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

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Look forward at your local grocery or communitycafy.com. Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. I hope you guys are all having a good day so far. I really want to get out my thoughts on this case because I have a lot. This case, it's incredibly annoying, the people in it are incredibly annoying, not the victim, of course, but the others involved. Wow, like learning every new detail and every new twist or change in the story was driving me nuts, and I feel like you guys will probably feel that same way towards the end of this video.

Today we're going to be talking about the murder of Adrian Jones. Her full name was Adrian Jessica Jones. She was born on June 18th, 1979 in Mansfield, Texas. Her parents are named Belle and Linda and she also had two brothers, Justin and Scott. Their family moved to Mansfield in 1984 from the Dallas area. And they did that because they wanted to raise their kids in a more small town environment, get out of the city of Dallas as it was growing a lot at that time. Adrian's father Bill was a very protective parent, especially of her being his only daughter. So of course, like a lot of protective

parents, when she started getting older, Bill started putting more rules into place to keep her safe. They gave her a straight to 9 p.m. curfew and if she ever went to like a fair or a concert, she always had to bring back a ticket stop to show proof of where she went. But like with many teenagers, this only made her want to break the rules more. At some point, he suspected that she was sneaking out at night, so he decided to nail her window shut. And I think he was just worried because he knew that Adrienne was very pretty, she was a popular girl, but she really had it together. She was in advanced honors courses and spent hours studying after school every day.

She was very determined. She was on the soccer team, but eventually she got a knee injury and she decided to switch to a different sport, cross country, and she really excelled at that. She was very fast. And not only was she very smart and excelling in sports, she also worked 20 hours a week at a fast food restaurant. It was called Golden Fried Chicken. And when she was working there, she was known as a reliable employee who made work more fun for everyone. So she had stellar work ethic too, and she also managed to keep up a social life. Adrienne had tons of friends. She was a social butterfly. She met people in school at work

on cross country and then also met people from different states through cross country as well. One of her teammates said that she was the type of person that would say hi to anyone. She came across in the hallway. She was always making small talk when in a small room with someone or an elevator. Being friendly and cheerful just seemed to come naturally to Adrian. And she also liked boys. And one of her close friends said that she was a big flirt, but wouldn't go more into detail about what that meant. And as Adrian got older, she got more into makeup, hair, fashion. And she would spend hours sometimes getting ready to leave the house.

Even if she didn't have a date or an important event to go to, she always looked her best when she left the house because she said, you never know who you might meet. So in fall of 1995, their team was preparing for regionals, which was gonna be in Lubbock. During the first week in November of 1995, their team was preparing for regionals, which was going to be in Lubbock. During the first week in November of 1995, their team piled into a large van for a 5-hour drive from Mansfield to Lubbock. Their team did pretty well, and the trip was uneventful as far as drama or gossip.

Any fights between people, none of that happened. Everyone got along really well, according to teammates, and they all went back to the high school. Once they got back to the high school, Adrian got a ride home with a friend. This is important. She dropped Adrian off at home. Everything went on as normal after this until December 3rd, 1995. It was a Sunday evening and that night around 10 30 Adrian got a phone call. It was her boyfriend at the time, Tracy Smith, who went to another high school. And he actually had just been out of town. So Adrienne's parents said that she could talk to him even though they normally didn't like her to be on the phone

that late at night. So she's on the phone with Tracy and her mom is kind of listening in while she's doing some things around the upstairs floor. And at some point, her mom Linda heard Adrian switch the phone line over to another call. She talked to somebody else for about a minute and then switched back over to Tracy. She finished her call with Tracy, said goodnight to him, and then her mom came in and talked to her and asked who, you know, called him while you were on the phone with him. Adrian said, oh, that was David from cross country. He was upset about something. Linda didn't know who David was and she didn't think much of it.

But about 10 minutes later, she went back into Adrian's room and she noticed that Adrian seemed unsettled. She just seemed to be very anxious and thinking about something clearly. But her mom said goodnight to her and she went to bed. But the next morning at 7 a.m., Linda was woken up by one of her sons asking where Adrienne was. At first, Linda assumed that Adrienne went running before school. This was something she would do sometimes, but when she went in her room, she realized her running shoes were still there.

Her mom knew there was a possibility that she had snuck out. It was something that she had done before, but she had always come back before morning. Later that morning, when Adrian didn't jump for school, her parents called 911 and reported her missing. And this is the 90s, so Adrian had an address book. So Linda got that out and started contacting everyone she could that her daughter was acquainted with. At some point, she talked to Adrian's cross country coach, and she thought it was a good opportunity

to ask him about David. The guy that Adrian had said that she spoke with on the phone briefly that Sunday night. Her coach said the only David on their team was David Graham, but he didn't really think the two of them were friends. So the next day at school, the cross country coach told another student to go talk to David and ask him if he had talked to Adrian that night. And that kid said that David seemed confused and said, no, why would I? So they started thinking,

you know, maybe Adrian just used the name David to cover up for who she was actually talking to. This was December 4th. So Adrian had been missing for at least 24 hours at this point. And later on that morning, a farmer was just driving down along rural County Road near Joe Poole Lake in Grand Prairie, Texas, about 10 miles from Mansfield. And he actually came across Adrian's body. At first, he thought maybe he was a prank or a setup so he stayed back for a little while and just watched her and then when he noticed she wasn't moving he went ahead and walked over there and confirmed that she was dead. Someone had clearly beaten her, her head was caved in on one side and she'd also been shot twice once in her forehead and once in her cheek. As soon as the

farmer realized that this was a body he called 911. Adrian was dressed in a sweatshirt and shorts but had no shoes on and they also found two shell casings near her body. The medical examiner was able to determine that she died around 1am the night before. Of course everyone in the town wanted to know why, why Adrian was this a sexual assault, but the medical examiner also said there was no sexual assault involved. Her father Bill had to go and identify her body, which I truly can't imagine what being in that situation would be like. That is so traumatizing. The whole town, all of her friends, their extended family and other states were all devastated and confused.

Why did this happen to 16 year old Adrian, who would want to see her dead? I mean, here she is, this beautiful young girl and she's found in this really wacky place out in nowhere land and she's been shot in the face, can bludgeon in the back of her head and you don't know why, what did this young 16 year old little girl know or knew? I had caused you to hate her not much. My husband had to go with the detectives and identify her body and I called on my family and I can still hear her. And of course it's the same, no, you're wrong. And it was the truth, she had been shot in murder by somebody. No one could figure out why.

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Restrictions may apply, see site for details. Save big on your favorites with the Buy, Fiver more, save a dollar each sale. Simply buy five or more participating items and save a dollar each with your card. Proger, fresh for everyone. So of course, investigators looked into Adrian's life, looked at her house, her room. There were no signs that Adrian had been abducted from the house. It seems like she left on her own. For someone to leave their home willingly,

most likely it's gonna be with someone that they know. And it's hard to narrow down who this person could be because Adrian, like I said earlier, had so many friends. She had a very wide circle. Investigators said that there were literally hundreds of potential suspects, and they had to thoroughly go through them all. They started just casually interviewing people at the high school and then making a list of people they actually wanted to bring in and interrogate.

There were several students that they wanted to bring in for lie detector tests and her brother had seen a pickup truck that night, so they tried to narrow down any students that had pickup trucks. Their small community was absolutely shocked by this murder and just how gruesome it was. The fact that the person was still out there was freaking everyone out thinking, what if this is a serial killer who's going to kill more students? And her classmates, of course, were broken hearted over this. They had to bring in guidance counselors to talk a lot of them through the grief.

A bunch of students at the school got together and they planted a tree in Adrian's memory on the soccer field like right next to it, and people also wore ribbons around in honor of her memory. And when counselors were working with a lot of the students, they noticed that a lot of them were repeating the same thing. They had heard that the killer was one of their classmates and that they were still just walking around the school, trying to act normal. And Adrienne's friends were really freaked out because they felt like maybe this killer had something against all of them, and maybe they were next. Meanwhile, Linda and Bill are desperate to find answers

about what really happened to Adrienne, who she really talked to that night. So they were talking to as many classmates as they could as many of their friends, trying to dissect the rumors, figure out what was true, was not. And at some point, she even contacted a psychic and tried to get help that way, but nothing really came out of that.

As investigators are working their way through the long list of people that could have potentially done this to Adrianian, her mom all along had a feeling that it was David, the boy that Adrian said she was talking to that evening. David Graham was a senior at the time. He was 18 years old and he wasn't even on detective's radar really because Adrian didn't even have him in her address book and they figured that he and Adrian weren't close enough for him to be really considered a suspect.

Plus, her friends said that she had nothing to do with David Graham, and they didn't think they were even close acquaintances. But they both were on the cross-country team, and her saying that she had talked to him the night before, of course, put him on their interview list. So let's talk more about David Graham. David Christopher Graham, he was born on November 2nd, 1977. He's a little older than Adrian. But even though he was older than Adrian, they did have a lot in common. They were both excelling in academics and athletics.

David was very popular. He was well liked and Adrian may have been interested in that. One of his classmates actually described him as one of the coolest people left on Earth. David was actually a battalion commander in the Junior ROTC program and planned to go to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs as the first step to his future career as a fighter pilot. This was a career that he decided he wanted to do when he was just 7 years old. When David talked to investigators, he said that he and Adrian were just casual friends and he hadn't talked to her in a while. But he was very upset about her death

and actually cried openly in front of them about how emotional he was feeling about it. And while several other people on their suspect list were given polygraph tests for some reason, they decided that David didn't need to take one. And not only that, they ended up just clearing him as a suspect. Meanwhile, they're focusing on their first real suspect, a girl named Tara. Now apparently Tara isn't her real name, but she just is referred to as Tara in this case for some reason. But this girl Tara had a history of violent behavior. In one incident, she shot her boyfriend and seriously wounded him.

And another time, she actually attacked one of seriously wounded him. And another time she actually attacked one of Adrian's friends with a baseball bat because she thought her boyfriend was sleeping with her. She ended up breaking this girl's cheekbone and gave her a concussion all because of jealousy. So that tells you a lot about her. Maybe she could have been involved. Adrian's friend had filed a restraining order against Tara and Adrian testified in court. So they thought maybe she would after Adrian to get her back, because she actually said in court, I'll get you for this.

So most of the rumors at school were centered around Tara at this point. Most people thought that she was the killer. But as detectives looked more into her, they realized that her alibi was rock solid. She was able to prove that she could not have killed Adrian. They also cleared Adrian's boyfriend Tracy Smith, although Belinda, her parents, were still very sus of him because they thought it was weird that he never contacted her parents after the news broke that she was found dead and they thought that was really odd and cold. But Tracy passed a polygraph test and also led them to their next suspect. 17-year-old Brian Mcmillan. So this guy

Brian used to visit Adrian all the time when she would work at a local subway restaurant and he just creeped her out. According to her friends, he became obsessed with her, started falling her around, and any time that he would come into the subway, she would literally hide. Tracy, her boyfriend, claimed that it was actually Brian, that she was talking to that night on the phone. It's very confusing because that's not what she told her mom, but Tracy said that when she clicked back over to him, she said that it was Brian and that he was upset. So when they talked to Brian, at first he said that he didn't even know Adrian. But after more questioning, he admitted that they did know each other and that they were friends, which who knows what Adrian would have said about that.

He said that the night that Adrian was killed, he drank a lot because he was depressed. That all his friends had girlfriends, so it was the first time he drank in six months, and he was black out drunk. So he doesn't know if he talked to Adrian or not. He said it was possible he could have even gone over to Adrian's house. Anything was possible because he was drunk. So they ended up arresting Brian. Not long after Adrian was killed December 15th, 1985. And right away tons of Brian's friends came forward and his defense saying that he was not a violent guy. He would have never done something like this. His father also said that on the night that Adrian died, he was home and he was sure he never left. But they put him in jail and he was there for three weeks and while he was in there,

he took a polygraph test and he passed it and the person who gave it to him said that he passed it with flying colors. So he was immediately released and Brian's family ended up suing the city for an undisclosed amount for the whole thing. So maybe Tracy was confused about who Adrian had talked to that night. Or maybe for some reason, Adrian just told Tracy that she was talking to Brian. So at this point, detectives are back to square one. They have no substantial leads and no one that they're really looking at more than anyone else. So then, nine months after the investigation began, two cadets from the Naval Academy in anapolis, Maryland came forward and said that their roommate had confessed to them that

she had been involved in a murder. They said that they doubted that it was true, but she had given them so many details and seemed so serious that they felt like they had to report it. Now this roommate is someone we haven't talked about yet. Diane Michelle Zamora. She just randomly told her roommates that she had committed the murder of Adrian Jones with her boyfriend David Graham, who we have talked about already. So Diane was born on January 21st, 1978. She was raised in a very religious family. She was the oldest in the family and was oftentimes a caretaker for her younger siblings. Their family really struggled financially. There were times that their electricity would just be shut off,

and Diane would have to study by aelite because she was a very determined person. She really wanted to be a NASA astronaut one day. She decided when she was very young and she woke up at 6 a.m. even before school every day to study. In high school, she took honors courses and belonged to multiple clubs and organizations and she also played the flute in the marching band. And just like David and Adrian, she also ran cross country. But she was way different than Adrian. She was introverted, she didn't socialize much. She wasn't really into makeup and fashion and really kind of stuck to herself.

And she said before that the reason she didn't day is because most guys were too immature for her. She and David actually met when she was only 14 years old at a civil air patrol meeting. They stayed in touch after that and then they started dating their senior year in 1995. I had known Diane in the civil air patrol for about three years before we started going out and had always known her to be a real bubbly spontaneous girl. I knew she was very smart that she made straight A's in school. She was real determined to get what she wanted. I knew that the relationship we had was too

serious for that time in our life and I tried to slow it down, but there was nothing I could do. I was infatuated with her and she was obsessed with me. They were both very career driven over achievers with high ambitions that hadn't

planned on getting into serious relationships, but a month after they started dating, they announced their engagement and their wedding date. They planned to get married this summer right after college graduation in 2000. But they had a long distance relationship for a little while because Diane got into the Naval Academy in Annapolis and David was accepted into the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Staying faithful to each other meant a lot to Diane because she was determined to marry another virgin.

Like I said, she was very religious, so she was a virgin herself. She wanted to lose her virginity to her husband and only have slept with one person her whole life, and she planned for this person to be David. Her virginity was incredibly important to Diane. It was a big part of who she was, her identity. In the fall of 1996, Diane was a midshipman at the Naval Academy and David was a first-year cadet in U.S. Basics Air Force cadet training at the Air Force Academy. And everything for them was going according to plan. But this didn't last long because Diane, for some reason, decided to

tell her roommates that she and David killed somebody and that she was basically proud of it. She was actually bragging to them about it, saying that that's how much David loved her. You would do anything she said. And they said that she was very cold about it, saying that it had to be done. And according to them, the only time that she expressed any remorse about killing Adrienne was being at Adrienne's funeral and seeing her parents cry. And that made her feel sad. So detectives from Grand Prairie get this news and they flew out to where Diane was right away. But when they interviewed Diane, she said that she made the whole thing up. She said she and David weren't involved in a murder at all. She just made it up to seem cool to

her fellow cadets. As I spoke to her, told her why we were there and who we were, I got no reaction whatsoever. I got what is sometimes referred to as the 1,000-mile stare she just kind of looked through. But at least now, they had a lead. They knew that someone wouldn't just make something like that up. So detectives went back to Texas and continued to work on gathering evidence against Diane and David.

The Naval Academy actually asked Diane to go on a temporary leave while she was under investigation and she was very upset about that, but she went back home to Texas and then on August 31st she flew out to Colorado Springs to see David and tell him face-to-face what she had done. She told him that she had told her roommates about what they had done and she had told them all slightly different versions, but then when the police interviewed her, she just denied the whole thing. So David decided that he would just do the same thing if they interviewed him, denied the whole thing.

She told me that she had told her roommate stuff, she had given them several different versions, and when the police came, she said she did not everything. So I thought, well, if the police come and talk to did not everything so I thought well if the police come and talk to me else tell me I don't know anything about it. They questioned David on September 4th and of course he denies having any involvement with Adrian Jones murder. When asked why Diane would make up story like that then he just said he didn't know. Maybe she was bored. So that Air Force actually made him take a polygraph test, and he failed that. So that only he did things up more, and the interrogations began to get more intense.

They questioned David for two days without a lawyer present, unfortunately, and they also told him that if he didn't confess to everything, he and Diane would likely get the death penalty. So they were clearly trying to scare him into confessing. At some point, they told him that if he just wrote everything down on a piece of paper, he gave a written confession that they would go easy on him. So finally, David agreed. And he wrote out a four and a half page confession about what happened the night that Adrian died. It started with that regional cross-country meet in Lubbock. He said on November 4th, he gave Adrienne a ride home. You know, we heard earlier that her friend gave her a ride home, so it's a bit

confusing. And on the way home, they stopped at an elementary school in the parking lot and decided to have sex there. And David actually had the nerve to describe this sexual encounter with Adrienne as short-lived and hardly appreciated. He said right afterwards he felt bad and he decided to confess the whole thing to Diane. So he went back and told her that night and when she found out that he had slept with another woman and broke their promise to save their virginity for each other after they were married. Diane was just beyond angry. She was livid that David had wrecked

the purity of their future marriage that he had sex with somebody else. That was huge for her because she had actually started having sex with David already. Even though she wanted to wait until marriage, she decided at some point that it was just too hot to handle with David and they decided to go ahead and start having sex but they promised to get married. So she thought, you know, God would probably be okay with that. But this to her was bad.

This ruined everything and he said that Diane just went berserk. She was screaming hysterically throwing herself all over the room, bashing her head on the walls and the floor. And this is when she started telling David that she wanted Adrienne to die. To her, the only way to cleanse their marriage of this impurity was to kill Adrienne. And obviously this makes no logical sense. If you kill someone, you're not erasing what has happened, especially in the eyes of God, if that's what you're worried about. God still knows what you did, but I guess it was more about other people's opinions for Diane. She was worried about other people judging her relationship.

She felt like they had to get rid of her. And David agreed. He said he was too hard to deny her anything. In fact, he said Diane's beautiful eyes have always played the strings of my heart effortlessly. He said, ultimately, when he killed Adrian, he had no hard feelings against her at all. He just wanted to make Diane happy. So on December 3rd, that Sunday night, he called Adrian and asked her to meet him outside

of her house. He said he asked her to go there around 1am. He planned to pick her up and take her away from the house. Then his plan was to break her neck and drop her in the lake. And he brought weights with him to tie to her feet to make sure her body sunk. And they actually decided that Diane would join him. She hid in the back of the car. He drove out to a deserted field with Adrian in the car,

and then also Diane pops up out of the back and attacks her. But he said that killing her was harder than he expected. He actually said in his interview that he realized that snapping someone's neck wasn't as easy as it looked in the movies. Even after being struck in the head, Adrian tried to fight back. She actually climbed out of the window of the car and ran as far as she could, eventually collapsing into a barbed wire fence. According to David, Diane said, we can't stop here and told him that he needed to finish the job even though he wanted to leave at that point. But he knew he couldn't let her live. She had witnessed his crimes at this point and he would be caught. So he

walked over to Adrian, put his gun to her head, and shot her twice. When they got back in the car, their first words to each other were, I love you. But then there was a pause, and Diane said, we shouldn't have done that, David. And he wrote all of this down in a four and a half page statement, signed it, and turned it in. Early the next morning, 1.30am, they arrested Diane, who was staying at her grandparents' house at the time. She didn't ask any questions or tried to deny anything. She just went with the officers very quietly. The next day she was charged with murder and held on a $250,000 bail.

Diane was very obviously surprised. She didn't, she wasn't asking any questions. She wasn't making any denials. She wasn't no outburst of why are you arresting me. She's very quiet. After her readment, Detective showed her Brian's confession, which was faxed over from Colorado Springs, and she had a tukopee got it but didn't read the whole thing. And then they asked her if she wanted to tell her side of the story. And she said yes. So just like David, without a lawyer present, she told her version of events to investigators while they typed it out in a typewriter. And even though she didn't read David's confession in full, they had read certain

parts of it to her. She pretty much wrote out the exact story that David had in his confession. It literally mirrored his down to the smallest details and they knew that this is likely what happened. She explained that when she found out that he cheated on her, she went absolutely berserk. She just lost it. She talks about how she was ramming her head into the floor over and over that night trying to crack her skull. And then she even confessed that at some point,

she stood up and just looked at David and said, kill her, kill her. She felt betrayed, she wanted to get even. She told David that the only way that they could purify their love was by killing Adrian. She said the same thing David did, that the plan was to break her neck and drop her in the lake, but that didn't work out, so she had to get involved. She said that Adrian and David were fighting and it was making her mad, so she attacked Adrian in the head with one of the dumbbells. She said Adrian stumbled back from the car after being hit in the head and tried to get away from them, but eventually passed out

along the barbed wire fence. The investigators believed that this was the true version of events. It aligned just with what David said down to every detail. And then three days later, David was arrested in Colorado Springs. He was extradited back to Texas and charged with the murder. Later, kidnapping was also addedited back to Texas and charged with the murder. Later,

kidnapping was also added to both of their charges, making it a capital crime punishable by death. However, Adrian's parents intervened. They said there was enough death already. They didn't want them to face the death penalty. Instead, they wanted to go for life in prison. Diana Davis friends from high school were all shocked. They had been the perfect couple, the adorable high school sweethearts who were completely devoted to each other. It just didn't make sense. Investigators ended up finding the gun and the dumbbells in David's parents' attic, which is exactly where he said that they would be. It seemed like David was going along with them, cooperating, and seemed to not be putting up much of a defense until he decided

that he had been coerced into giving a false confession. He said that he had been awake for 30 hours, he was exhausted, and he didn't understand how his confession would have any effect on the real world. It came to a point where the detectives were threatening telling me that it didn't matter what I said, I was going to get the death penalty. And Diane was going to get the death penalty, too. And one of the detectives said, David just

wrote us a story, tell us something, and we'll make sure they go easy on you. So I said, OK, here, I'll write you something. It was all so surreal, I hadn't really internalized it yet. And I guess after being awake for so many hours, you know, what I said to the police didn't, I guess it didn't see how any of that

could affect my life. Soon, the national media picked up the story and it was widely reported on and dubbed the Texas Cadet Murder. David's confession was also leaked to the press and was used as a basis for the TV made movie Love's Deadly Triangle, the Texas Cadet Murder, which aired in February of 1997,

before either of them even went on trial. This was a very sensationalized version of the story, and it was released on DVD under the title, Swearing Allegiance. Diane's beautiful eyes will always play the strings of my heart after it was slain. I couldn't imagine life without her. She'll have to suffer the consequences.

She'll have to die. In the meantime, while waiting for their trials, Daven and Diane were both kept in the Tarant County jail. They couldn't see each other, but they wrote dozens of love notes back and forth. And one of the notes, David got quite creative when describing his love for Diane. I miss you like I miss ice cream. You're both rich and creamy, sweet and ice cold, milky and tasty,

and bad for you. Dianne would write back saying things like, when will my love come find me? When will I get to walk out of these bars for good? I just wish I had a remote control for time. That would rock. The judge decided to try them separately, and they would both be tried as adults even though Dianne was only 17 at the time. And of course, they both pleaded not guilty. And this is where these two started to really annoy me. They started to change their story all the time. Like, it's extremely hard to keep up with it. They just go back and forth between guilty, not guilty, who's involved, who's not involved.

It's so confusing. I mean, they both confessed to it. And now here they are saying they're not guilty And they're gonna fight as hard as they can in trial to prove that they're not guilty. Diane's trial was first It started in January 1998 in Fort Worth and the judge actually decided to let this trial be filmed and aired on TV Even though there had already been so much publicity and so much talk about the case It was kind of a surprising decision. The prosecutors case relied mostly on Diane's confession and her confession to her roommates. All the witnesses were deemed to be reliable and would have no reason to lie on the stand.

On February 2nd, they called Christina Mason to the stand who was Diane's best friend, and she provided details about the motive, David's sexual encounter with Adrian. She said, um, this is a girl they had sex with and that they had planned her murder. Okay, now how did they plan her murder? At first they were planning to snap her neck and drop the body, like they didn't go as planned. They also called up David's high school friend, John Green Jr., who testified that the night the murder, Diane and David had showed up at his house. He said that David was calm, and he comforted Diane

while she cried, and the couple laid out on John's floor and went to sleep. I have to come out of the bathroom. Dave was just holding Diane, and she's kind of went from stuff, and that is laid down my floor and went to sleep for a while. But one of the most important witnesses was Jennifer McKerney. She was one of Diane's roommates and she said that Diane told her that Adrian was a tramp and a slut who deserved to die.

She said that the girl, everyone knew that the girl was a tramp and a slut and that she deserved a die. She said that she and David went to the funeral and that when she went to the funeral she saw the parents and she saw how sad they were and it made her feel very bad. She felt sorry for the parents. They also had physical evidence. They had the gun. They had the dumbbells and they also had found Adrian's blood on the passenger side door of Diane's car.

Then they also found something very suspicious in Dianne's day planner. And this is truly unbelievable, but Dianne actually wrote in her day planner what she had done on December 4th. On December 4th at 1.38 a.m., Dianne wrote a Dianne and circled it. Why would that be in your calendar unless you were there?

Pretty fucking stupid. I mean, putting a murder that you that be in your calendar unless you were there? Pretty fucking stupid. I mean, putting a murder that you did down in your day planner, like it's just go in a Starbucks. But Diane's defense attorneys tried to argue that Diane was also pressured into making a false confession and that she did it just to protect David, who was her abusive and controlling boyfriend at the time. They tried to prove that David was the dominant one in the relationship and that she was the submissive one. They brought up the fact that he called her kittens and she called him a tiger and actually said in court that the tiger

is the bigger one, therefore he was the dominant one and she was a submissive one. I don't know, it's so stupid, the whole argument. They tried to make the argument that David was abusive and controlling of Diane. They said that he would say very possessive things to her like, you are mine, no one else can have you. I earned you, I own you, you belong to me completely. There was a lot of argument in court around the wound.

Could it have been made by the dumbbell or was it actually just made by the butt of the gun? Who actually did it? They tried to argue that David did both, if he was one holding the gun, and it was an injury made by a gun, then he probably would have done both. And if that were the case, then David

would be responsible for Adrian's murder and Diane would be a bystander and still be charged, but not as much. So they ended up making the decision to put Diane on the stand to convince the jury that all of this was true. And while she was on the stand, she admitted that she was there, but that David committed the crime and she had no involvement, she was just a bystander.

The only thing that she was guilty of was trying to cover up the crime. She claimed that David went after Adrian and that she just heard gunshots. Then he dragged Adrian back to the car to show Diane what he had done. Then, according to her, he took her back out to the field and shot her again. Diane cried a lot in her testimony. She really struggled to get the words out. Her story changed completely from her original confession. She said she never even asked David to kill Adrian, she didn't want Adrian to die. She said she was under the impression that they were all going to just be talking to Adrian, and she just wanted to confront her. She said that she didn't want Adrienne to die. She said she was under the impression that they were all gonna just be talking to Adrienne.

And she just wanted to confront her. She said that she had taken blame for David to protect him and his future career in the military. Did you make him do that, Diane? No, I'm a bit asked in this. I asked him, let me be your... I'm so sorry. I asked him to let me meet her. Had you ever asked him to kill later in Jones for you? No.

But the prosecution did not buy her crying act on the stand. And when she was cross examined, her whole demeanor changed. She seemed calm, confident, even cocky at times. Christian Ermason, it's a liar. Oh, we found somebody with the jaygill a liar. No, sir. I believe Jay Gild and Jennifer Malkerni was interpreted a lot in their reasons. I said, but they're not liars.

Christian Ermason is a liar, though. She tried to say that people that testified against what she was saying on the stands were all lying and she had nothing to do with Adrian Jones murder. Then it was time for the jury to deliberate. They talked for six hours before they came back with a verdict on February 17, 1998. Diane was found guilty of Capitol murder.

We, the jury, find the defendant, Diane Michelle Zamora, guilty of the offense of capital murder as alleged in the indictment. She was then sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole until she served 40 years. Adrian's family said they were content with this verdict, with the sentence as well, but it didn't fix the pain for them at all. She made a lot to me. And when she died, something was ripped out of my heart.

They'll never be replaced. We can only hope that if David Graham respects his military co-de-vonner, he will step forward and accept responsibility. So then it was time for David's trial, which began in July of 1998. And because all the media coverage around Diane's trial, David's trial was actually moved to New Brown Field in Texas near San Antonio. And immediately after Diane's trial, David broke off his engagement with her. He was very upset that she got up there during her trial and

pinned everything on him. He felt like now it was his turn and he was going to tell the truth. When it came down to my defense, I wasn't gonna let that, you know, crazy infatuated, obsessed relationship stop me from telling the truth and from getting myself off. His defense attorneys tried to argue

that there was no physical evidence at the scene, placing David there and that the blood evidence that was found was found in Diane's car. The only proof that he had committed this crime was his own confession, which they said shouldn't count because he was exhausted. He had been awake for 30 hours when he was given to him and he didn't have a lawyer present. They found out that detectives actually told him he didn't need a lawyer. They made him believe that if he just wrote down everything that he knew, everything would be okay.

To me, that statement is a product of 30 hours of interrogation, false promises being made to him, of assurances to him that he doesn't need a lawyer and a lawyer will only confuse things. And they said the same thing that they said about Diane. That David was simply covering for a Diane, trying to protect her. But the main problem with his defense is he had no alibi and one even say where he was when the crime was being committed. He claimed he met up with Diane after she murdered Adrian and that she confessed to him that she did it. They argued that this confession matched the physical evidence at the scene. David claimed that he had just hidden the murder weapons

for Diane and his parents' attic, trying to help her. He explained that she had some type of twisted attachment to the barbells and the gun, and that she wouldn't let him get rid of them. And throughout the trial, David seemed smug and cocky. He had this arrogant smirk on his face, and that did not go over well with a jury.

And then on July 15th, a girl named Wendy Bartlett took the stand and this is big. She is a friend that drove Adrian home from the cross country meet, if you remember. David also said he drove her home from the regional cross country meet. But Wendy was now testifying that she definitely took Adrian home, which makes you question if David even had sex with her at all. And you're positive you drove her home on that particular evening after the cross country meeting lover. Yes, this testimony blew up the whole narrative of the case. Why would he have even killed her if they hadn't have had sex? Why would he have made that up and told Diane? And there was no proof that David and Adrian had sex. It was all just going off of his claims.

Adrian's friends also testified that it was unlike her to have casual sex like that and she knew he had a girlfriend and she had a boyfriend. They said that her doing something like that would be very out of character for her. And no one had, you know, questioned David on his version of the story because without this part of the story, what would his motive for murder be? David did not take the stand during the trial his attorney knew that the jury wouldn't believe him anyway and letting him testify would only hurt his case they actually only called one witness for the defense Diane Zamora and she just walked in there and pled the fifth she and David made eye contact but showed no emotion

for each other. So it was time for the jury to make their decision. On July 24th, the jury deliberated for eight hours before coming back with a guilty verdict. David was sentenced to 40 years in prison. We the jury find the defendant David Christopher Graham guilty of the offense

of Capitol murder as a lady in the indictment. I was surprised the worst part was just here in my family behind me start crying having to face them after it. And shortly after his conviction he did an interview and David said that his whole confession was a lie. He never had sex with Adrian. They were just casual friends. He said that he had given her a ride home after a few practices here and there, but they never saw each other outside of Cross Country. And to this day, they still deny their original confessions. They continuously change their version of events. David, it seemed to adjust really well to life in prison. It seems like he

actually enjoys it in there. I've adjusted the prison life a lot better than most people. Would I think? I guess prison life and the military life are a lot of like, but I think in the military you get a lot more respect from your superiors. In prison, I guess a lot of the guards don't, you know, they don't think you're worth much. He passes his time by exercising,

attending church services, and he works on a blog about airplanes. David is obsessed with airplanes and one day he hopes he can get out of prison and fly in a plane again. And he said that there's a silver lining to prison. He was able to get away from Diane. The situation got me away from Diane. That shouldn't, you know, I don't know if it's funny thing, but at least I know in my life, my coming to prison and getting away from Diane was it was worth losing my dream over.

He actually got married by proxy in 2010 and he also got a degree in criminology and as of right now he remains in jail and let's hope it stays that way. Diane of course requested a new trial and in 2005 she was denied and her life in prison has been a bit more of a struggle than David's. She didn't make a lot of friends, she didn't figure out a lot of ways to keep herself busy, she didn't get an education or anything. She also got married by proxy to another inmate who she never met in person and they actually got divorced a few years later.

She only had one inmate that she was friends with. And if you are into true crime or a fan of Selena, you can probably guess who this was. What other famous killer could be in a Texas prison? If you guessed Yolanda, you are correct. Yolanda Salvador, who murdered Selena, Kentenia. And if you haven't heard about that case, it's wild. I have a whole video on it.

I did a couple years ago. I'll link it below. But in 2015, Diane tried to claim that she and Yolanda were being targeted by other inmates because they had high profile cases. She tried to convince them that they both needed to be in protective custody. And it's pretty obvious why she wanted to do this. People in protective custody get to stay in air conditioned

units with larger cells and they get access to the TV. Diane tried to file a civil rights lawsuit alleging that he moved to the general population, violated her constitutional right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, but this was immediately dismissed. After her request for a new trial was denied, she did an exclusive interview with Dateline. And it's one of the most frustrating interviews to listen to. I'll link some of it below. You can tell she is just such a liar still to this day. She barely takes any blame.

She doesn't take it seriously. She thinks she was just screwed over by everyone else. And in that interview, she actually said that she felt like if she didn't take blame for David, that he would have killed her too. But she did admit that if it wasn't for her jealousy, David probably would have never killed Adrian. But to this day, she says she wasn't involved. She was in the car that night,

and she does admit to pulling Adrian's hair while they were all fighting, but that's it. She also agreed to take a polygraph test when she did this interview with Dateline and they gave it to her and the results were mixed. During the test, Diane was breathing oddly and the person in minutes during the test had to ask her to breathe like a normal person, but she said she was just trying to calm down, but obviously it's well known that people will try to control their breathing to try to throw off the results or

produce a different result. Two independent examiners looked at her results and said that they were inconclusive, but a third examiner said that she had failed. Then the following year, David gave his own interview. And in this interview, he explained that when Diane had come and visited him in Colorado Springs before they got caught, it was for them to collaborate on their stories and make sure they were going to tell investigators the same thing. He said that the only crime that he committed was covering up the murder and God has forgiven him for that. In fact, he said that if you ask God to forgive you for anything that he will. So, Diane says that she was a bystander to the murder. David did everything and she just watched and

that's not what she wanted. And David says the complete opposite, that Diane did everything and he had no involvement at all. But then he changes his story again in November of 2002. In the British documentary, he said he did murder Adrian. And his motive was to prove ultimate devotion to Diane. He called Diane the motivator of the murder, but admitted that he was the one who did it and he did deserve life in prison. Most people believe that they were both involved. I'm sure that's how most

of you feel. That's how I feel. I think their original confessions were the truth. Adrienne's mother Linda says that she has no intention of ever communicating with her daughter's killers. She's grateful that Justice has been served, that they're behind bars, and she said their family has really tried to move forward, but it's been hard. Her brothers were devastated when they lost her. It had a lasting impact on their whole family. The memories I have of Adrian are of a soccer,

and watching her play, and knowing that she was gonna do it, watching her hair flip in the air, watching her with people. It's just incredibly sad that Adrian's life was cut short for no reason. I mean, it's possible that her and David never even hooked up. It could have all been to fit some weird lie that he was telling Diane.

Either way, she got caught up in a situation that she never should have been involved in. And it's incredibly sad to think about what her final moments were like. I'm glad like Linda that Justice has been served there behind bars, but it is very concerning. They are both up for parole in 2036, which isn't that far away. I'm not sure how their family feels about that, but I would be angry if I were them. I think both of them should be in jail a lot longer. They are just such liars. So selfish, haven't seemed to learn anything just continuing to lie.

Ugh, they're such scum. I just hope they stay in prison as long as possible. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon,

but until then, stay safe out there. Until then, stay safe out there. three times the points on dining and two times on fuel with our gold rewards card. I-Y-K-Y-K. Do you mean if you know, you know, is that what that means? We totally get it. Finance, that is, learn more at NavyFederal.org, Navy Federal Credit Union. Our members are the mission, insured by NCUA.