In this episode, Payton and Garrett dive into the chilling case of Adrienne Jones, a teenager who vanished after sneaking out —only to meet a tragic fate.
Oxygen.com - https://www.oxygen.com/prosecuting-evil-with-kelly-siegler/crime-news/diane-zamora-david-graham-murdered-adrianne-jones
DailyMail.co.uk - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5987673/Woman-fatal-Texas-teen-love-triangle-loses-court-appeal.html
DenverPost.com - https://www.denverpost.com/2008/02/10/former-air-force-cadet-expresses-remorse-for-1995-slaying-of-teen/
Murderpedia.org - https://murderpedia.org/female.Z/z/zamora-diane.htm
NBCNews.com -
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17965475
Sportskeeda.com - https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/who-killed-adrianne-jones-details-explored-ahead-people-magazine-investigates-id
People.com - https://people.com/crime/diane-zamora-speaks-adrianne-jones-murder/
InvestigationDiscovery.com - https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/the-texas-cadet-killers-revisiting-the-adrianne-jones-murder
TexasMonthly.com - https://www.texasmonthly.com/true-crime/the-killer-cadets/
DallasObserver.com - https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/love-is-a-killer-6403303
You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.
Hey, everyone! Welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband.
I'm Payton Moreland.
I'm Garrett Moreland.
And he's the husband.
And I'm the husband.
For those that were interested, our ghost sweaters are back in stock, so you can go check those out. We had a lot of demand for those, so we ordered a few more. They're back in stock! And I know we had a lot of requests for another strangey dangey drop, so that will be coming in the future. Just get ready for that—we heard you, and it is coming again.
Alright, Gar, do you have your 10 seconds?
Are you trying to take my 10 seconds away? My 10 seconds? You guys are probably so sick of me always saying the same things for 10 seconds, but I'm currently going to the gym, playing pickleball a few times a week. What else have I got going on, babe?
Jeez, pickleball. G’s been weighing his food.
Yeah, I have some goals that I want to hit before summer, so I'm currently weighing my food, counting all my calories. I'll just say—it’s horrible. Like, if you want happiness in your life, don't do it. Do not do it. But I will say, it does work. But it's absolutely horrible. But it works. It 100% works.
That's about it. Oh, I have a stye on my eye currently. I don’t know why I have a stye. I’m not trying to rhyme like Dr. Seuss—
"I don’t know why, I have a stye, but I might die, but I might die."
Anyways, I have a stye. It's not too bad; it should go away in a couple of days. That’s kind of all I got for you guys.
I will say, though, since I’ve been a lot more consistent at the gym, with pickleball, and with my food, my energy levels have been through the roof. Like—what do you want me to do? I’ll do it. Name it. Name it, and I’ll do it.
I want you to clean off our porch.
Won't do that. There are a couple of things—just kidding. I do need to do that. I need to clean off her porch. That’s kind of all I got for you guys. I hope everyone has a great week—and don’t weigh your food.
Our sources for this episode are Oxygen.com, DailyMail.co.uk, DenverPost.com, Murderpedia.org, NBCNews.com, Sportskeeda.com, People.com, InvestigationDiscovery.com, TexasMonthly.com, and DallasObserver.com.
Honor. Courage. Commitment.
Those are the core values—the motto—of the United States Navy.
So when you think about the people who are willing to dedicate their lives to service, you might imagine people who intrinsically have these values and uphold them with no problem. People who are stand-up citizens, willing to go above and beyond for their communities and do whatever it takes to protect the American people.
Which may be why it's the perfect cover-up for someone who's done the complete opposite.
After the gruesome murder of a high school student in Mansfield, Texas, the last place police thought to look was the Naval Academy—1,400 miles away in Maryland.
But as it turns out, not everyone is who they represent themselves to be. And sometimes, those who hide behind the banner of honor, courage, and commitment are really masking their shame, cowardice, and cold-blooded nature.
Also, if you're watching on YouTube right now, Payton's looking pretty hot. So if you're not watching on YouTube, you can go check her out and subscribe while you're there.
Let's head back in time to 1995 as we travel to Mansfield, Texas—a farming community with an old indoor rodeo and a cute little Main Street lined with antique stores. Mansfield was a little slice of that all-American life in Texas, and that’s why Bill Jones and his wife, Linda, chose to raise their three children there.
While they settled into a modest neighborhood—a bubble of safety and comfort—Bill always went the extra mile to protect his kids, especially when they became teenagers. There were curfews, rules, and checks and balances to keep them safe, even though they were in a safe area. If they went somewhere, they had to prove it later with a ticket stub or a receipt—particularly their teenage daughter, Adrienne, or as her friends called her, AJ, who had been experimenting with her rebellious teenage side lately.
Adrienne was the textbook definition of the popular girl. She was a sophomore at Mansfield High School, a track star with a pretty face that definitely caught the eye of most boys. She had tons of school spirit—practically a cheerleader without the uniform and pom-poms. But she also stayed on top of her academics and got excellent grades, even in her honors courses.
Even her manager at her part-time job at a fried chicken restaurant said Adrienne was an exemplary employee. And on top of it all, she was nice. Kids said Adrienne would say hello to them in the hallway even if she didn’t know them. She was friendly, warm—she never acted snooty or above anyone else, which probably only added to her list of admirers.
And while Adrienne was definitely looking toward the future—hoping to get accepted to Texas A&M University and eventually earn her veterinary degree—she was also enjoying just being a teenager. She did what most teenage girls do: she flirted with a lot of boys. And good for her.
But her parents weren’t fond of it, mostly because Adrienne was sick of all the rules they had put in place. They prevented her from having a good time, from living her teenage years to the fullest.
Dude, I’m scared to raise a teenager. I’m going to be honest.
But you really just—you have no idea. You just think the world is so fun.
I can't do it. Can't do it. I—I can't do it. Can't raise a teenager. I'm sorry.
With a strict 10 p.m. curfew, Adrienne found ways to sneak out through her bedroom window. That was until they caught her—and decided to bolt her windows shut.
Still, as teenagers always do, Adrienne found creative ways to skirt the rules. But little did she realize, those rules were meant to protect her from the very thing that would happen next.
It was Sunday, December 3, 1995. Winter break was fast approaching, and Adrienne was probably excited about some time off from school and her responsibilities. She had just spent her Sunday afternoon working a half-day shift at the Golden Fried Chicken restaurant.
She was also a ball of energy.
When she got home that day, she asked her mom, Linda, if she wanted to go down to the 24-hour fitness center with her. It was just a few miles away, so Linda took her down there, always enjoying that quality time between the two of them. She even remembered the conversation they had at the gym that night.
Adrienne was thinking about a new career path. She said she was interested in learning why people act the way they do. Her mother said, "Hey, you might be interested in becoming a behavioral analyst." But she didn’t ask why Adrienne had this sudden change in interest—or if something, or someone, in particular had sparked it.
After their workout, they returned home to settle in for the night. By then, it was around 10:45 p.m., after Adrienne’s curfew.
You know, anything I ever did that didn’t make sense when I was a teenager? It was definitely because of a girl. You know what I’m saying? Like, randomly, I'd be like, Oh, I’m going to do this, and my parents would be like, What? And I’d just say, Oh yeah, I just feel like it. No. No, it was always because of a girl or something going on.
It’s kind of funny—it’s after her curfew, but the phone rings when they walk in the door. Adrienne answers. She takes the portable phone to her bedroom—remember, we’re in the ‘90s—then walks around the house chatting while puttering around with laundry and a few other things.
Eventually, Linda tells her, "Hey, go to bed," before heading to bed herself.
But Adrienne wasn’t planning to sleep anytime soon. Instead, she waited until everything was quiet, and sometime between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., she slipped past her parents' bedroom and out the front door of the house—completely unnoticed.
Around 6:00 a.m. the following morning, Linda woke up to the sound of Adrienne’s alarm clock ringing in her room. After realizing Adrienne wasn’t turning it off, Linda got up, groggy, and wandered into her daughter’s room—only to find that Adrienne wasn’t there. Her bed was neatly made.
Linda’s first instinct was that Adrienne had just gone out for an early morning run—something she would do. But by 8:00 a.m., when Adrienne still wasn’t back, Linda started to panic. She immediately called the Mansfield police, who sent an officer to the house to help them file a missing person’s report.
Meanwhile, 20 miles away, an officer in Grand Prairie, Texas, was responding to a different 911 call.
A local had noticed something unusual on his drive to work that morning. He saw what he thought was a body lying behind a barbed wire fence on a quiet stretch of road.
When police arrived, they realized it was the body of a teenage girl.
But her face was barely identifiable. She had a bullet wound in her left cheek and another through her forehead. Her head had also been beaten so badly that part of her skull was dented in above her ear.
She had no identification on her, but she was wearing a t-shirt that read Cross Country Regionals 1995.
We know who that is.
There were also a few telling clues about what might have happened. The girl appeared to be clutching the grass, which told detectives this was where she died—rather than where she had been moved and left after she was killed.
And it only took a few hours for them to realize the Jane Doe matched a missing person’s case that had just been reported over in Mansfield.
The deceased body was 16-year-old Adrienne Jessica. So young.
One of the first things detectives needed to rule out after making the connection was whether this was an abduction. There was no indication of a struggle in Adrienne’s home. Plus, the autopsy didn’t show any signs that Adrienne was restrained or bound. She also didn’t have any defensive wounds of any kind.
They quickly realized that Adrienne must have willingly left her house, whether that was with the attacker or not. But this also told them that she probably knew her attacker. So, they started compiling a list of friends, co-workers, and fellow students to speak with. Because Adrienne was so popular, that list turned out to be pretty long.
They began asking around: Was there anyone Adrienne didn’t get along with? Maybe someone was angry with her? Was a girl jealous of her? That’s when the wild theories and rumors started to emerge.
You have to imagine—in this small town in Texas in the ’90s, a popular girl turns up dead. They’re talking to people at the school, and people just start talking.
Someone said they heard Adrienne talk about attending all-night raves that happened about an hour away from Mansfield. There were whispers that maybe Adrienne had met someone there who had killed her. Others said, no, no, no—Adrienne knew drug dealers, which turned out to be completely baseless.
"Dude, kids are weird."
A few even mentioned a former friend of Adrienne who had been angry with her ever since Adrienne told the girl’s mom that she was drinking at a party—like she tattled on her.
So there was a ton of speculation but not much evidence, which only made things even harder for police.
But there seemed to be one thing a lot of kids at Mansfield High could agree on: the killer was likely in their halls. They had a locker beside them. Probably, they were sitting across from them in the cafeteria. They were sharing a school project with them.
How scary is that? Another high school kid killing another high school kid and then going to school, being like, someone in here killed somebody.
The reason this was the theory was because police believed she had snuck out to hang out with someone—and that person killed her.
She was most likely sneaking out to hang out with someone her own age, from school.
There were 2,500 students at their school, so narrowing it down wouldn’t be easy. But no one knows a daughter better than her own mother. Luckily, that seemed to be the case for Linda Jones, because she had some insight that she thought could help the police.
She thought she knew who Adrienne was talking to on the night she died.
Remember, she was talking on the phone. The problem was, it wasn’t just one person.
Linda said that when the phone rang at around 10:45, she asked Adrienne who she was speaking to. Adrienne told her it was an 18-year-old senior—remember, Adrienne was a sophomore—named David Graham, who was on Adrienne’s cross-country team.
Linda was about to tell Adrienne to hang up the phone because it was past her bedtime, but Adrienne had a concerned look on her face and whispered to her mother, "He's upset about something." So, Linda let her keep chatting, thinking, okay, she’s just being a good friend. But sometime during that conversation, Linda heard Adrienne switch callers. She was now talking to her new boyfriend, a 19-year-old named Tracy Smith.
Okay, but when Tracy, her boyfriend, asked her who she was just speaking to on the phone before him, Adrienne didn’t say David Graham, the 18-year-old like she had told her mom. She said she was on the line with a third boy. So, she either lied to her mom or actually did talk to all three boys. It was a kid named Brian McMillan, who had dropped out of her high school after suffering from depression, but he still had a big crush on her.
So, if she did lie, why? Well, some of her friends think it’s because Tracy knew Brian and didn’t feel threatened by him. But if she said she had been speaking with someone else—a senior on her track team—then Tracy, her new boyfriend, might have felt jealous.
Okay, so they think she was lying to her boyfriend—is that the consensus?
Still, it’s not Tracy that Linda, the mother, is worried about. It’s this David name that actually sticks with her, because she had never really heard Adrienne mention this guy before. Then, Adrienne lies to her boyfriend about it, so she checks in with the track coach. "What do you know about David?"
The track coach was like, "David Graham? I didn’t even know your daughter and David were friends," which may be a tad bit strange. But by most people’s accounts, David is said to be a pretty stand-up guy. As some of the other girls at Mansfield High described him, David was sort of the cool guy around campus. By no means as popular as Adrienne, but still, he attracted the attention of some girls. He was said to be a gentleman, very goal-driven, and family-oriented. But his biggest identifier was that he was the Battalion Commander of the school’s Junior ROTC program.
Now, if you don’t know, ROTC stands for the Reserve Officers Training Corps. It’s basically like a college prep program for anyone who wants to go into the U.S. military.
On top of that, people said David was an excellent student—always very polite. Which is interesting because, and I might be under the wrong impression, I’m just telling you guys what I see on social media—and I don’t know why it happens—but I feel like I always see people making jokes about people who are in ROTC in high school and college. I don’t know why, but that’s just what I see on social media. So, I’m saying that because I guess we’re in a different time—we’re in the ’90s. But you said he was the cool guy because of it, but maybe that’s just changed.
I don’t think my school had an ROTC program.
Mine didn’t have one either, but our college did.
Both of our colleges went to the same college, but our college did. But I don’t know much about it. I never really paid attention to that. We had other programs for different career paths, like potato farming.
Also, like, nursing—if you wanted to become a nurse, you could take this program that would get you a certification before you went to college. It helped you... I don’t know, actually. I wasn’t smart enough to be in the nursing thing.
Payton was smart. Payton did really good on her ACT—only because I studied, not because I was actually really smart. I was just a hard worker.
Yeah, still pretty smart.
People said David was like the "yes ma’am, yes sir" type of guy.
Okay, but when it came to his connection to Adrienne, things were still a bit unclear. They both ran cross country together, but David actually had a very serious girlfriend. Her name was Diane Zamora.
The two had met four years back through a local Civil Air Patrol group—an Air Force program that teaches sort of the basics of military life. While Diane went to another high school 15 miles away in Crowley, Texas, she and David grew very close over the years. In the summer before their senior years of high school, they both started dating.
Now, Diane was almost the complete opposite of Adrienne. She was reserved, quiet, and kept to herself. She was very religious—the kind of girl who wasn’t going to lose her virginity until marriage. The only thing she had in common with Adrienne was that she was also an excellent student on the Honor Society.
But Adrienne shouldn’t have been a concern for Diane. Diane and David were madly in love by the summer of 1995. In fact, only a few weeks after they started dating, they actually got engaged in high school, with plans to marry after each of them finished their respective military training.
Diane was planning to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, while David was going to attend the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado. They even set a date for their wedding—five years out: August 13th, 2000.
But shortly after announcing their engagement, Diane said something that would sort of change the dynamic between her and David, making her even more attached. She actually lost her virginity to him after they got engaged. After that, things definitely got more intense between the couple. Some said that David and Diane both got more possessive over one another. David always had his arm around Diane when they were together, but he also acted differently. He got more quiet and tense when he was with her, and those who knew them said it was hard to tell who was controlling who in the relationship, but it was definitely turning a little toxic.
Interesting.
Okay, so could that have been what David was calling Adrienne about that night? Was there some sort of lovers’ quarrel between David and Diane that he was confiding in Adrienne about?
Well, once police heard that Adrienne spoke to him in the hours before her death, they called David in for questioning. But they just weren’t convinced that this guy was involved. Maybe it was his polite nature, maybe the fact that he was going to go serve his country, or maybe it was the fact that not a single one of Adrienne’s friends mentioned him as suspicious. He was actually seen crying in the hallways after her death.
Either way, they didn’t even bother giving David a polygraph test. So, they began looking elsewhere—like to another local Mansfield teenager whose name was never formally released. Probably because she was a minor at the time. So, for the sake of the story, we’re just going to call her Tammy.
Tammy already had a really ugly rap sheet for a 14-year-old girl. A year before Adrienne's death, she actually attacked one of Adrienne's good friends with a baseball bat after she heard that this friend had been messing around with Tammy's boyfriend. Then Tammy went to her boyfriend's house and shot him.
While his wounds weren't fatal, charges were definitely pressed against Tammy. She had a trial, and guess who testified against her? Adrienne Jessica Jones. Tammy only got two years probation for delinquency, but many thought that was enough for her to seek revenge against Adrienne.
So, the police pull her down to the station, give her a polygraph, and she passes. Plus, she has a really strong alibi, so she's off the list. This brings them to their next suspect, another name that Adrienne's boyfriend, Tracy, brought up.
Remember how she supposedly lied to Tracy on the phone that night and told him she was speaking to an old classmate named Brian McMillan? The one who had a crush on her and had dropped out of school. Well, Tracy tells police, "Hey, you got to look into him too."
And I guess, even though Brian had dropped out of school, he and Adrienne still saw each other since they worked right near each other. But when they start looking into him, it seems like Brian didn't just have a crush on Adrienne. It was a little bit more of an obsession. He began visiting her at work constantly to the point where she had to hide and lie when he came around.
Hearing this, police decided 17-year-old Brian was a suspect. To be fair, his story was a bit sketchy at first. He denies knowing Adrienne altogether when he talks to police. Then he admits, "Okay, fine, I do know her." Not off to a great start. But when they asked him what he was doing the night Adrienne disappeared, he was like, "I got drunk by myself."
Oh, gosh.
I'm just trying to figure out what the motive is because we're seeing some of these suspects, but I guess there's not always a good motive for... I mean, there's never a good motive for killing someone, but I also feel like... like, what did she... was he jealous? Like, what's the motive going to be for him? This is insane. When teenagers kill other teenagers, it's either jealousy or something else. It's so young just to kill someone.
It's wild. He told police he was upset that night because he realized all of his friends had girlfriends and he didn't. So, this is raising all types of red flags for police. They even get a search warrant for Brian's house, they impound his truck, but Brian's friends all say, "Look, there's no way he hurt Adrienne. He's a gentle soul. He would never hurt a fly." His dad also says, "My son was home all night. There's no way."
Still, Brian sits in a jail cell from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve. Eventually, he's given a polygraph test. He passes with flying colors. So, with zero evidence, police release Brian, which means they're back to square one. And that's where the case sits for months—no new leads, no confessions or evidence, just dead end after dead end. Meanwhile, life in Mansfield goes on for some people, at least.
Linda and Bill Jones still find themselves driving to the street where Adrienne was found, thinking maybe this time they'll find something that police had missed.
Some students continued to seek grief counseling. Others painted a portrait of Adrienne on the art room door. But many students, like David Graham and Diane Zamora, were preparing for the rest of their lives as the two temporarily parted ways. The summer of 1996 was spent in intensive boot camps for both of them. Diane was at the Naval Academy in Maryland, and David at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. While David was excelling in his training, Diane was having a much harder time with the physical training and with the distance from her fiancé, David.
Other cadets said she talked about him constantly, but things seemed to be falling apart between the two of them now that they weren't communicating and seeing each other every day. Diane was getting increasingly jealous and paranoid, constantly worrying what David was up to. She would have intense crying fits, as her friends called it, when David wouldn't respond to her emails right away. Eventually, she convinced herself that David had to be cheating on her with a female cadet.
Yeah, I know where this is going now.
So she thought, why not get him back? Diane began cozying up to her squad leader, a guy named Jay Gild, and she opened up to Jay about her relationship. When Jay asked her why she didn't trust David, Diane told him it was because he had cheated on her in the past. When Jay asked, "Okay, well, what did you do about it back then?" Diane looked this man dead in the eyes and said, "I made him kill the girl."
Now, Jay sort of laughs it off. I mean, she can't possibly be serious. What a weirdo. But that's not the only time Diane says something like this. One night, Diane's having a late-night conversation with her two roommates, telling them how deeply in love she and David are. When one of them says to Diane, "I bet you guys would do absolutely anything for each other. Probably even kill for each other." You know what Diane says? "Oh, we already have."
Oh, she's weird. Get her out of here.
Now, there's an honor code in the Navy. It's called the Brigade of Midshipmen Honor Concept, and it basically requires anyone who hears of wrongdoing from a fellow officer to report it.
Yep, no questions asked.
Because if you don't, it could be grounds for dismissal from the Academy. In movies, a lot of you that are listening or watching might have seen situations where someone has an affair, and someone else finds out about it. In the military, you're supposed to report it. You're supposed to report any bad behavior. We've talked about earlier that there is an honor code when you're part of the military, even in the academy.
So, her roommates go and tell the people in charge. And the people in charge don’t just sit on this information. Officials call the police stations in and around Diane’s hometown. They’re like, "Hey, she’s saying that she and her boyfriend killed a girl." And sure enough, they learn that there’s an unsolved case from last year—that of Adrienne Jessica Jones.
It’s insane that both she and her boyfriend were questioned in this. Do you... I guess you know the answer. This is going to be crazy if they both did it together. That’s so, so sad.
On August 30th, 1996, officers pulled her out of a pep rally and brought her in for questioning. Once Diane's confronted by these detectives and Navy officials, she says, "I made the whole thing up for attention. I just wanted to look tough," which the police think, "Okay, that could be possible." I mean, they have absolutely zero evidence on her besides other people. Perhaps she heard the news on Adrienne and is making a false confession. It wouldn't be the first time someone's done this, but she doesn't get to just resume classes the next day. She's given a one-way ticket home to Texas, while police rule her out for sure.
Only Diane doesn't go home to Texas. When she gets to Atlanta on her layover, she goes to the ticketing agent and says, "Hey, can you actually put me on a flight to Colorado?" Next thing you know, she's showing up on David's doorstep. Which is a very stupid mistake because that happens to be the detective's next stop—obviously, going to be a visit to Colorado Springs to talk to David.
On September 4th, 1996, less than a week later, David is getting hooked up to a polygraph machine. While he's also insisting Diane must have made this whole thing up, police have a new witness statement that discounts that. A friend of David's told police he and Diane came by his house after the night of the murder to change their bloody clothes.
So, you're telling me that if she hadn't gone around saying she killed someone, they probably would have gotten away with this?
Yeah, so this friend is like, "Yeah, no, they showed up on my doorstep to change their clothing." They tell police that, and then when police are talking to David and tell him, "Well, your friend said you showed up in bloody clothing," he breaks from there. He goes on to write a four-page confession letter detailing every little thing that happened that December night back in 1995 and what happened leading up to it.
Here's what he says: It all started at a track meet in November, a month before Adrienne's death. Adrienne and David were away with the rest of the team for a cross-country event, and during that weekend, they got pretty close, chatting during their free time. When the buses finally dropped them off back at Mansfield High, Adrienne asked David, "Hey, can you give me a ride home?" But instead of going directly there, he said they pulled into the elementary school parking lot and hooked up in the car.
David writes that he was so ridden with guilt afterward that he actually went right to Diane and told her everything. Diane, having lost her virginity to David when she never planned to (and he's also her fiancé at the time), is so betrayed that she says the only way they can stay together and that David can earn her trust back is if he kills Adrienne. He did it.
What? And if he doesn't? Diane says, "If you don't do it, I'm going to kill myself." Diane says, "If you don't kill Adrienne, I'm going to kill myself."
I would have said good luck choosing.
To prove his loyalty to Diane, he agrees to her plan, and on the night of December 3rd, David calls Adrienne, telling her he's having issues with Diane and wants to meet up. Adrienne sneaks out of the house and hops in David's pickup truck. They come to that desolate County Road, and as the two began chatting in the car, the hatchback opens, and out comes Diane Zamora, who's been hiding in there this entire time.
Gosh, this is so sad.
In her hand is a dumbbell, which she begins hitting Adrienne in the head with, and David just sat there and watched. Well, Adrienne gets out of the car; he runs, and that's when Diane tells David to go after her with your gun. So, he chases Adrienne into that field up to that barbed wire fence. When he catches up to her, he shoots her twice in the head.
Now, Adrienne has a good weekend with this guy. They talk, she hooks up with him, and then he kills her, shooting her in the head.
Yeah, they're both insane; this is just wrong. This is explicitly evil and wrong. They're both horrible.
When David comes back to the car, he tells Diane he loves her, but he says, "We shouldn't have done this, and we need to get rid of the evidence." So, of course, this is enough to get David behind bars. But now, the next step is confronting Diane because she was in the back seat, and when police get her back into the station, she admits to essentially the same story. Police also get a search warrant for David Graham's house and find both the bell and the gun used to kill Adrienne. So, game over.
They're charged with capital murder, and they are tried separately. Now, 20-year-old Diane gets to trial. She's like, "No, my confession was coerced." The jury isn't buying it, and so after a two-week trial and a six-hour deliberation, they find Diane guilty of capital murder, and she receives a life sentence. That's what I'm talking about. Now, David's trial comes five months later, in July of 1998. His plan is similar. He hopes to argue he was trapped in a controlling partnership, but there's one giant twist in the whole story, something David hasn't even seemed to share with Diane.
One of the people called to the witness stand is Adrienne's friend and fellow track athlete Wendy Bartlett, and she claims that on that November day after the track meet-up, she drove Adrienne home, not David, which means they wouldn't have had sex in the car. In fact, David admits at trial, "Actually, we never had sex, ever.” It was just a lie that he had conjured up to make Diane jealous, one that just became incredibly out of hand and somehow made the situation even more inconceivable.
Because if you're telling me that they didn't even have sex and he lied and then kills her, she has no idea what she's even done. I'm sorry, those people should not be in our society.
So, they return with a verdict: guilty of capital murder. So, what was initially a crime of passion had kind of inevitably driven a fake. Yeah, so, and I will say by the time they were both sentenced, David and Diane, who were once lovers, had now become mortal enemies, which is always so ironic to me when people kill for love and then end up hating each other.
Anyways, Diane moved on quickly though, falling in love with another inmate. She married him in 2003, only to divorce him by 2010. And whether they like it or not, Diane Zamora and David Graham will be forever bound. Anyways, instead of marriage, it’ll be because of the horrific crime they committed together over some senseless teenage love affair.
Crazy.
So, they were—oh wait, were they both adults at that point when they were tried?
Yeah, yes.
Ah, okay, that makes sense. And they got life. That’s so sad. That’s horrible. I mean, what’s even crazier is that she really didn’t do any— I mean, she did nothing. Like, she was completely just a citizen. I don’t even know how else to say it.
There’s something about when we cover teenagers who kill other teenagers; it’s just pure evil. Like, I can’t explain it, but every time, the motive is so dumb. You’re so young and like, what? It really just goes to show that their brains are completely underdeveloped and that they’re just bad people.
Sorry, we can’t have those people in our society. It’s so sad, horrible, so awful.
Okay, you guys, that was the case of Adrienne Jessica Jones, and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.
And I hate it.
Goodbye.