Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / True Crime Documentary - Vanished Without Answers The Ongoing Mystery of Diana Duve
Transcript
- 0:14Speaker 1: She's my everything.
- 0:17Speaker 2: I need to back. Her name is Diana Duven.
- 0:22Speaker 3: This is a photo of twenty six year old Diana.
- 0:25Speaker 4: Duvet of Vero Beach, Idol Know what Shit.
- 0:27Speaker 3: Police describe her as five to three, one hundred and
- 0:30Speaker 3: twenty pounds, brown hair.
- 0:31Speaker 1: And I'm looking for her, but I don't know.
- 0:36Speaker 3: She was last seen leaving the What a Tavern restaurant
- 0:39Speaker 3: around one am Friday morning with a man they say
- 0:42Speaker 3: is her boyfriend, thirty two year old Michael David Jones.
- 0:45Speaker 3: Neither has been heard from since.
- 0:51Speaker 5: I contact Lieutenan Harrelson say I'm going to need help
- 0:54Speaker 5: with this case because there's much more of this than
- 0:56Speaker 5: just a missing person's case.
- 0:59Speaker 6: We're in a million different directions trying to find her
- 1:01Speaker 6: and him. His phone has been turned off. Her phone
- 1:04Speaker 6: is now turned off. Diana who was out with some friends.
- 1:12Speaker 6: They described her as enjoying herself, but she was texting
- 1:15Speaker 6: a lot.
- 1:15Speaker 7: They just felt like he was a lout of the ordinary.
- 1:18Speaker 6: She left her friends and then went and met up
- 1:20Speaker 6: with Mike Jones at another establishment it's called what a Tavern.
- 1:24Speaker 6: They appeared to be having a good time, as in
- 1:26Speaker 6: having quite a few drinks at one point it appeared
- 1:29Speaker 6: as though she was crying and visibly upset, but then
- 1:33Speaker 6: kind of not. And when they were leaving with our staff,
- 1:36Speaker 6: he said, here, you guys, okay to get home.
- 1:38Speaker 7: Mike said, I'm gonna drive her home. Don't worry about it.
- 1:40Speaker 6: What time was that It was around one point thirty am.
- 1:50Speaker 2: I didn't wait for her that night. When I got
- 1:54Speaker 2: up in the morning, there is text message there Mom,
- 1:58Speaker 2: I'm not coming home. I texted her, Diana, where you're
- 2:03Speaker 2: at Call me. I went to work around eleven thirty.
- 2:07Speaker 2: It just kind of shock went through me that wait
- 2:12Speaker 2: a second, she didn't call me. She was twenty six
- 2:17Speaker 2: years old and she would call me every day. It
- 2:22Speaker 2: set me off immediately. I was trying to tell everybody
- 2:26Speaker 2: who would listen, if she's not calling me, it's because
- 2:30Speaker 2: she can't.
- 2:37Speaker 8: And then we began to learn about Michael Jones.
- 2:42Speaker 6: What we learned was he told many of his workmates,
- 2:44Speaker 6: I'm not feeling that well. I'm going to be gone
- 2:45Speaker 6: for a couple of days agust some things I got
- 2:47Speaker 6: to take care of.
- 2:47Speaker 7: I thought that they were out of town for a wedding.
- 2:50Speaker 9: When I first met Mike Jones at a networking Luncheon.
- 2:53Speaker 7: He's a charming guy.
- 2:55Speaker 4: Mike and I dated I want to say, like two
- 2:57Speaker 4: to four months. He seemed pretty put together. He was smart,
- 3:02Speaker 4: he was really funny.
- 3:03Speaker 1: Mike told me that he.
- 3:05Speaker 4: Was a trust attorney for P and C Wealth Management.
- 3:08Speaker 5: He had a lot of multimillion dollar accounts. A lot
- 3:10Speaker 5: of people trusted him with a lot of money.
- 3:13Speaker 4: Mike was very elaborate. His stories were big celebrities involved,
- 3:19Speaker 4: always knowing people everywhere we went. Mike told me that
- 3:23Speaker 4: his sister was dating Jason Aldene and that he was
- 3:27Speaker 4: adopted by Ronald Reagan's son. I think that he probably
- 3:34Speaker 4: had stories about who he was, depending on who he
- 3:38Speaker 4: was talking to.
- 3:39Speaker 10: Who he really is to this day, I'm not sure.
- 3:41Speaker 10: We don't.
- 3:46Speaker 7: Just come home.
- 3:47Speaker 2: Everybody love you, Everybody missus. You're terribly all I cared about.
- 3:53Speaker 1: Find her?
- 3:54Speaker 11: Where's my daughter? Where's Diana.
- 4:50Speaker 6: We've interviewed all of these people, We've run down all
- 4:52Speaker 6: the leads that we had.
- 4:53Speaker 7: We're in a million different directions.
- 4:57Speaker 12: On Saturday, June twenty first, twenty fourteen, Lieutenant Matt Harrelson
- 5:01Speaker 12: and Sergeant Brad Metz with the Vero Beach Police Department.
- 5:05Speaker 12: We're not having much luck trying to find out what
- 5:08Speaker 12: could have happened to Diana Duvet and Mike Jones. Investigators
- 5:13Speaker 12: went to Jones's apartment, but no one was answering the door.
- 5:17Speaker 5: We did get a search warrant that day to get
- 5:20Speaker 5: into Michael Jones's apartment to try to collect physical evidence
- 5:23Speaker 5: or find Diana, and hopefully it'd be, you know, next
- 5:25Speaker 5: to nothing.
- 5:26Speaker 12: When the investigators returned with a warrant, they were surprised
- 5:29Speaker 12: to discover Lena and Bill Andrews, Diana's mother and stepfather,
- 5:34Speaker 12: sitting outside in their car. Is that unusual?
- 5:38Speaker 7: Oh my gosh, that's crazy.
- 5:40Speaker 6: Lena is sitting at the house hoping for a sighting
- 5:44Speaker 6: of her daughter. She's just beside herself, you know, she's crying,
- 5:48Speaker 6: she's upset. She wants to go physically kick the door in.
- 5:51Speaker 12: Before investigators went inside, they interviewed Lena. She told them
- 5:56Speaker 12: that the last communication she had from her daughter was
- 5:59Speaker 12: that tex Diana sent in the early hours the previous day.
- 6:04Speaker 2: She texted me at one forty five am, I won't
- 6:07Speaker 2: be home.
- 6:08Speaker 12: It was in Russian, the language they spoke with each other,
- 6:12Speaker 12: so Lena believed it had to be from her daughter.
- 6:17Speaker 12: As the hours passed on Friday with no sign of Diana,
- 6:21Speaker 12: she grew increasingly desperate. You call Michael Jones.
- 6:26Speaker 1: I did call Michael Jones. Yes. He was like, Oh,
- 6:30Speaker 1: don't worry, she is with me. Everything's okay.
- 6:32Speaker 2: Oh he said that, yes, So I was like, oh
- 6:36Speaker 2: my god, Mike, you guys killing me.
- 6:40Speaker 1: I am. I am worried, sick.
- 6:42Speaker 2: I need to talk to her. I want to hear
- 6:44Speaker 2: her voice. I told him to give her phone. All
- 6:49Speaker 2: of a sudden, Oh she is sleeping, well, wake up
- 6:54Speaker 2: because I have to talk to her.
- 6:57Speaker 1: All of a sudden.
- 6:58Speaker 2: Another excuse, she is at my place, not there right now.
- 7:02Speaker 2: I told him, you go home, you wake her up,
- 7:06Speaker 2: call me back in thirty minutes.
- 7:09Speaker 12: But Jones never called Lena back, and she never heard
- 7:13Speaker 12: from him again.
- 7:22Speaker 1: She was my world.
- 7:29Speaker 12: Diana was born in Moldova, a small country in eastern Europe.
- 7:35Speaker 12: Diana emigrated to America when she was thirteen to join
- 7:39Speaker 12: her mother, Lena, who had married Bill, an American.
- 7:43Speaker 2: A girl that didn't speak English at all. Within two months,
- 7:48Speaker 2: she was in the regular school class. In a few years,
- 7:52Speaker 2: you couldn't even guess that she's not American.
- 7:56Speaker 12: In twenty eleven, Diana received her nurse degree. At the
- 8:02Speaker 12: time she disappeared, Diana worked with cancer patients at the
- 8:06Speaker 12: Sebastian River Medical Center.
- 8:09Speaker 2: She really really cared about patients, about patient's families.
- 8:17Speaker 13: Highly intelligent, always motivated.
- 8:20Speaker 12: Chelsea Demayo was Diana's best friend and former roommate.
- 8:25Speaker 13: She's very easygoing, just fun to be around.
- 8:29Speaker 12: In the summer of twenty thirteen, Chelsea says, Diana met
- 8:33Speaker 12: Jones at a bar in Vero Beach. Did she seem
- 8:36Speaker 12: smitten from the start?
- 8:38Speaker 13: No, no, no, She never had an initial oh wow,
- 8:43Speaker 13: Mike Jones. It seemed more like he definitely had his
- 8:47Speaker 13: site set on her, and she kind of eventually came around.
- 8:54Speaker 12: Lena and Bill say they didn't know much about Jones
- 8:57Speaker 12: except that he worked for P and C B in
- 9:00Speaker 12: wealth management and had gone to law school.
- 9:03Speaker 2: He was extermilo, polite, nice, dressed, well spoken.
- 9:07Speaker 12: Seemed like the ideal boyfriend, and after just a couple
- 9:11Speaker 12: of months of dating, Diana moved into Jones's apartment. She
- 9:15Speaker 12: seemed happy, so we were okay with it. Chelsea says,
- 9:19Speaker 12: Diana and Jones quickly became inseparable.
- 9:22Speaker 13: You would never see her without him, and she had
- 9:27Speaker 13: never done that in relationships before.
- 9:29Speaker 12: Over time, Chelsea says, she became concerned.
- 9:33Speaker 13: There was a time where we were getting lunch. I
- 9:37Speaker 13: remember she wanted to go somewhere where Mike wasn't going
- 9:41Speaker 13: to see her or run into her, or see her car.
- 9:45Speaker 13: It was almost as if she would have been in
- 9:47Speaker 13: trouble getting lunch with me.
- 9:50Speaker 12: Chelsea says, before she could sit down and have a
- 9:52Speaker 12: serious talk with her friend, Diana and Jones had a
- 9:56Speaker 12: domestic dispute that would officially end the relationship. It was
- 10:01Speaker 12: April thirtieth, twenty fourteen, just two months before Diana would disappear.
- 10:07Speaker 12: If you ever be pleading, yakay, I think I got
- 10:10Speaker 12: a domestic for you.
- 10:12Speaker 1: The next door neighbor and his girlfriends went to yam
- 10:15Speaker 1: in slated.
- 10:16Speaker 12: Mike Jones's neighbor made this nine to one one call.
- 10:19Speaker 5: And singleing on for a bottom an hour, just be
- 10:22Speaker 5: yelling and scamming or yeah.
- 10:24Speaker 7: It just sounds like he's trying to dominate.
- 10:26Speaker 5: The crap out her. So it's just right, burble. I
- 10:30Speaker 5: can't hear any slaps or anything.
- 10:32Speaker 12: Well, but I'll tell you it's not good.
- 10:35Speaker 6: Officers responded, knocked on the door made contact with both
- 10:39Speaker 6: Diana and Mike Jones.
- 10:41Speaker 12: According to the police incident report, Jones told them that
- 10:45Speaker 12: the noise was from rough sex. Diana told police everything
- 10:50Speaker 12: was fine, but she asked them to wait for her
- 10:53Speaker 12: as she grabbed her things and left.
- 10:58Speaker 13: She called me and leaving his apartment. I told her
- 11:03Speaker 13: to just come straight to where I was, and she did,
- 11:05Speaker 13: and she was still in her pajamas, hysterical.
- 11:08Speaker 12: Had you ever seen her like that before?
- 11:11Speaker 13: That upset?
- 11:11Speaker 7: Never?
- 11:13Speaker 13: Never. She was explaining that he was screaming at her,
- 11:16Speaker 13: that it had been going on for what felt like hours,
- 11:20Speaker 13: and he just wasn't letting up, and he finally got
- 11:23Speaker 13: to the point where he had put his hands around
- 11:25Speaker 13: her neck and started strangling her. I could clearly see
- 11:28Speaker 13: that there were marks on her neck.
- 11:30Speaker 12: So Chelsea says she took these photos which showed what
- 11:34Speaker 12: appears to be hand marks on Diana's necks.
- 11:37Speaker 13: I need to document this. I need to protect her.
- 11:39Speaker 12: But despite Chelsea's efforts to get her to make a
- 11:42Speaker 12: formal report, Diana chose not to press charges.
- 11:46Speaker 13: She just wanted to move her things out and remove
- 11:50Speaker 13: herself from the situation, and that's what we did.
- 11:53Speaker 12: Diana moved back in with her parents and did not
- 11:56Speaker 12: tell them the Jones had tried to strangle her.
- 12:00Speaker 2: I think she was just trying to protect me, so
- 12:03Speaker 2: I wasn't worry and she thought that she handled it.
- 12:07Speaker 1: In her mind, it was over.
- 12:11Speaker 12: But Lena says Jones continue to pursue Diana.
- 12:15Speaker 2: She would tell me he texts me, looks like he
- 12:17Speaker 2: doesn't understand that I broke up with him.
- 12:22Speaker 12: Now, with a search warrant, almost forty eight hours after
- 12:25Speaker 12: Diana was last seen with Mike Jones, investigators entered his apartment.
- 12:32Speaker 5: You can see the sheer fare and panic in Lena's eyes.
- 12:35Speaker 5: I said, Lena, I promise you, I'm gonna get your
- 12:37Speaker 5: daughter back for you, one way or another.
- 12:40Speaker 2: I vividly remember that I was walking back and forth
- 12:43Speaker 2: in the front of this apartment, neighbors people that I
- 12:46Speaker 2: don't know all coming out. This girl just came and
- 12:50Speaker 2: hugged me and said, Oh, everything's gonna be okay, And
- 12:56Speaker 2: I looked at her and said, no, it won't.
- 13:16Speaker 6: We want to find Diana. We want to reunite her
- 13:19Speaker 6: with her parents. We want to make sure she's okay.
- 13:22Speaker 12: As detectives searched Mike Jones's apartment. They were hopeful they
- 13:26Speaker 12: would find Diana duvet, but they were met with disappointment.
- 13:31Speaker 6: We didn't find a lot, but we didn't find any
- 13:34Speaker 6: belongings that we felt were Diana's.
- 13:36Speaker 7: We didn't find any sign of.
- 13:38Speaker 12: Her, but they were not discouraged. Sergeant Metz was motivated
- 13:43Speaker 12: by that promise he made to Diana's mother, Lena that
- 13:46Speaker 12: he would find her daughter.
- 13:48Speaker 5: What really drove me to keep pushing forward was a
- 13:52Speaker 5: mother begging you please find my daughter for me.
- 13:57Speaker 12: They knew that in order to find Diana, they needed
- 14:00Speaker 12: to find Mike Jones. Investigators grew concerned when they learned
- 14:05Speaker 12: that about twelve hours after Jones was last seen with
- 14:08Speaker 12: Diana at the what A Tavern bar, he was captured
- 14:12Speaker 12: on surveillance footage visiting a P ANDC bank in Vero Beach.
- 14:17Speaker 6: When he went to the P and C bank, he
- 14:18Speaker 6: withdrew two thy five hundred dollars in cash and then
- 14:21Speaker 6: told many of his workmates he said, you know, I'm
- 14:23Speaker 6: not feeling that well. I'm going to be gone for
- 14:24Speaker 6: a couple of days. Agust some things I got to
- 14:26Speaker 6: take care of.
- 14:28Speaker 12: Investigators grew even more alarmed when they learned that Jones
- 14:32Speaker 12: had a criminal record. Prior to moving to Vero Beach,
- 14:36Speaker 12: he had been charged with aggravated stocking for threatening to
- 14:39Speaker 12: kill an ex girlfriend near Fort Lauderdale in twenty twelve.
- 14:45Speaker 12: Your merchant say, this is the nine to one one
- 14:48Speaker 12: call from that incident.
- 14:50Speaker 14: The night ex boyfriend just called me and told me
- 14:53Speaker 14: that he has practiced done. And then it seems they
- 14:56Speaker 14: walk outside going to look off from my head. My
- 15:01Speaker 14: boyfriend threatened to kill himself tonight. And then when I
- 15:05Speaker 14: told him that we were not getting back together, he
- 15:07Speaker 14: told me he would kill me. Afraid I've seen, We've
- 15:10Speaker 14: heard any groups before.
- 15:12Speaker 12: He pleaded no contest, and as part of a plea deal,
- 15:16Speaker 12: Jones was given five years probation in lieu of jail time.
- 15:21Speaker 12: He was required to stay in the Vera Beach area
- 15:24Speaker 12: and could be arrested if he left without getting permission
- 15:27Speaker 12: from his probation officer.
- 15:29Speaker 6: I spoke to the probation officer who told us if
- 15:31Speaker 6: we come in contact with him, that's probable cause we
- 15:34Speaker 6: can't arrest him for a probation violation at minimum.
- 15:37Speaker 2: At that point, all of a sudden, they found out
- 15:42Speaker 2: that he's convicted fallen that he's on probation.
- 15:48Speaker 12: Lina says she and Bill were blindsided by the news.
- 15:52Speaker 2: It's something that was extremely unexpected.
- 15:56Speaker 1: Nobody knew about it.
- 15:59Speaker 12: Investigators can continued to work the case, but were running
- 16:02Speaker 12: out of leeds, so they turned their attention to analyzing
- 16:06Speaker 12: cell phone tower pings from Diana and Jones's phones.
- 16:11Speaker 6: We had to kind of like overlay two separate maps
- 16:14Speaker 6: to be able to see where she may have been
- 16:16Speaker 6: and where he was prior.
- 16:18Speaker 5: I was getting pretty tired, and something told me just
- 16:22Speaker 5: give it a couple more minutes. And this is why
- 16:25Speaker 5: I would say that divine intervention was definitely at play here.
- 16:29Speaker 5: Within a few minutes, I found something that was really odd.
- 16:32Speaker 12: Sergeant Metz noticed there was only one ping from Jones's
- 16:36Speaker 12: phone off a cell tower located in the Fort Pierce area,
- 16:40Speaker 12: approximately twenty five minutes from Vero Beach, So mets had
- 16:45Speaker 12: dispatched alert local authorities there to be on the lookout
- 16:49Speaker 12: for Jones's gold Honda and Diana's black Nissan.
- 16:53Speaker 5: I'm on my way home, get in bed, and then
- 16:55Speaker 5: my phone rings.
- 16:56Speaker 7: Fort Pierce PD had located Mike Jones car.
- 17:02Speaker 12: Jones's gold Honda was located in the parking lot of
- 17:05Speaker 12: a Hampton Inn hotel. Surveillance footage showed that Jones had
- 17:09Speaker 12: checked into the hotel almost twenty four hours after Diana
- 17:13Speaker 12: went missing. He appeared to be alone. According to the
- 17:17Speaker 12: front desk staff, Jones paid in cash for two nights
- 17:22Speaker 12: and instructed them not to tell anyone he was there
- 17:25Speaker 12: and not to transfer any calls to his room.
- 17:29Speaker 6: You don't know what you're gonna find when you get
- 17:30Speaker 6: in that room. You know your heart's racing. You've been
- 17:33Speaker 6: going for two days straight, and now you're disc close
- 17:36Speaker 6: from getting who you believe is a possible suspect and
- 17:39Speaker 6: also hopefully finding Diana.
- 17:41Speaker 12: Around eleven thirty pm, using a key card given to
- 17:45Speaker 12: them by the front desk, Metz and Harrelson entered Jones's
- 17:49Speaker 12: hotel room. He seems surprised.
- 17:52Speaker 7: He was surprised to see us. Absolutely.
- 17:54Speaker 6: He was sitting on one of the double beds with
- 17:56Speaker 6: like a V neck T shirt on and some shorts
- 17:58Speaker 6: and smoking a cigarette.
- 18:00Speaker 7: And he was talking on a phone on a cell phone.
- 18:02Speaker 12: It was a burner phone, a phone that is difficult
- 18:05Speaker 12: for police to trace.
- 18:08Speaker 5: Oh my, he had a pretty good reason why we're here.
- 18:10Speaker 12: I'm sure this is audio of Sergeant Metz speaking to
- 18:14Speaker 12: Jones in his hotel room.
- 18:16Speaker 5: I'll tell you unequickly, I bill Hillers here have the
- 18:19Speaker 5: slightest quick trying to find you. Why won't he just
- 18:23Speaker 5: give me the information? I'm looking for. Your girlfriend's missing.
- 18:26Speaker 5: It's just somebody that you professed that you loved and
- 18:28Speaker 5: profess that you cared about. You should be helping law
- 18:31Speaker 5: enforcement try to find her.
- 18:33Speaker 10: I said.
- 18:33Speaker 6: If you're not willing to give us any information, I said,
- 18:35Speaker 6: you're going to jail right now for the violation of probation.
- 18:39Speaker 12: Mets and Harrelson were relieved to place Jones behind bars,
- 18:44Speaker 12: but they still had no idea where Diana was or
- 18:47Speaker 12: her car.
- 18:49Speaker 6: You go from very high because you found him and
- 18:52Speaker 6: your person in the room to like here we are
- 18:55Speaker 6: back again.
- 18:58Speaker 12: Investigators decided to trace the purchase of that burner phone
- 19:01Speaker 12: Jones had been using, and learned that he bought it
- 19:04Speaker 12: at a Walmart located about an hour north from the
- 19:08Speaker 12: Hampton Inn. When they pulled their surveillance footage from the Walmart,
- 19:12Speaker 12: they made a startling discovery.
- 19:15Speaker 7: It's a little grainy, but it appeared to be Diana's car.
- 19:18Speaker 12: In this surveillance footage from the morning after Diana went missing,
- 19:22Speaker 12: her Nissan entered the Walmart parking lot part then you
- 19:27Speaker 12: see what appeared to be Mike Jones, wearing a red
- 19:30Speaker 12: baseball hat, walk into the store, buy the burner phone,
- 19:34Speaker 12: and then walk out. There was no sign of Diana,
- 19:40Speaker 12: but despite buying the burner phone, Jones occasionally still turned
- 19:45Speaker 12: on his primary phone.
- 19:47Speaker 7: He would turn it on and then use it for
- 19:49Speaker 7: something and then turn it back off.
- 19:50Speaker 5: When you go through these pings one last time, I said,
- 19:52Speaker 5: maybe I'm missing something here.
- 19:54Speaker 7: I found one.
- 19:55Speaker 5: I mean, maybe we can catch lightning in a bottle.
- 19:56Speaker 12: Twice so, Mets and Harrelson analyzed Mike Jones's primary cell
- 20:01Speaker 12: phone pains one more time, looking for any pings in
- 20:06Speaker 12: and around the area of the Walmart.
- 20:09Speaker 5: He and I are kind of looking at together. I'm like, well,
- 20:10Speaker 5: this one's strange. He gets, well, what do you mean?
- 20:12Speaker 5: So what's he doing up in Melbourne?
- 20:14Speaker 12: It appeared that Jones had picked up a call in
- 20:17Speaker 12: the Melbourne area, almost one hour north of Vero Beach,
- 20:21Speaker 12: so local police were alerted and asked to search that
- 20:24Speaker 12: area for Diana's car and Just thirty minutes later, detectives
- 20:29Speaker 12: received a call they had been desperately waiting.
- 20:32Speaker 7: For and found her vehicle.
- 20:36Speaker 12: Three days after Diana had gone missing. Her car was
- 20:39Speaker 12: located in a public's parking lot in Melbourne, Florida.
- 20:43Speaker 15: We jump in the car, we're rocking and rolling, and
- 20:47Speaker 15: there she was crazy, crazy, We're on.
- 21:09Speaker 7: The ragged edge. You know, we haven't slept, you know,
- 21:12Speaker 7: because you're just you're moving.
- 21:14Speaker 12: It was around four thirty am when investigators arrived at
- 21:18Speaker 12: a public's parking lot where Diana Duvet's black Nissan had
- 21:21Speaker 12: been discovered. Lieutenant Harrelson feared they would find her body here.
- 21:28Speaker 7: And I told Brad, I said, she's in the trunk.
- 21:32Speaker 5: I said, I don't know. I said, it's just so cliche.
- 21:35Speaker 5: It's something like out of a movie. Didn't make much
- 21:37Speaker 5: sense to me.
- 21:39Speaker 12: But when they opened the trunk, Lieutenant Harrelson's premonition turned
- 21:44Speaker 12: out to be true.
- 21:48Speaker 6: There's certain things in this job that you can't unsee,
- 21:54Speaker 6: you can't unlive.
- 21:56Speaker 12: You'll never forget.
- 22:00Speaker 5: Remember putting my hands on my knees and kind of
- 22:01Speaker 5: just putting my head down. And it was not the
- 22:04Speaker 5: way I wanted to find her.
- 22:06Speaker 2: And they opened the door and here's sheaft police in
- 22:10Speaker 2: complete uniform.
- 22:12Speaker 9: That's saddest thing in my life was seeing him come
- 22:14Speaker 9: out the direct way.
- 22:19Speaker 2: And he had told me they fold her, they found her.
- 22:22Speaker 2: Don't loose high like this. It's indescribable.
- 22:27Speaker 12: As painful as it was, this was no longer a
- 22:30Speaker 12: missing person's case, but a homicide. An autopsy would later
- 22:35Speaker 12: reveal Diana had suffered blunt force trauma to the head
- 22:39Speaker 12: and had been strangled to death. Investigators believed they had
- 22:44Speaker 12: a strong case connecting Jones to the parking lot where
- 22:48Speaker 12: Diana was found, but something was gnawing at them. How
- 22:53Speaker 12: did Mike Jones leave the area without a car?
- 22:57Speaker 6: So we just started cold calling so of these taxi
- 23:00Speaker 6: agencies and I said, hey, do you get a fair
- 23:02Speaker 6: fro the Vero in the last couple of days?
- 23:03Speaker 7: And then we hit one and I was like, wow, you.
- 23:06Speaker 6: Know, like that's just like that doesn't happen every day.
- 23:08Speaker 6: So we got lucky on that one.
- 23:10Speaker 12: Around eight am, after Jones dropped off Diana's car, a
- 23:14Speaker 12: man called for a taxi down the street.
- 23:17Speaker 16: I showed up and there was a guy outside with
- 23:21Speaker 16: a red hoodie on and he got in the passenger
- 23:26Speaker 16: side of the vehicle.
- 23:28Speaker 12: During the hour long ride, they briefly chatted.
- 23:32Speaker 16: I asked him questions like like, what brought you down here,
- 23:36Speaker 16: and he said, oh, well, I came here with a
- 23:38Speaker 16: friend of mine, you know. And so then I asked him,
- 23:43Speaker 16: I said, how come you didn't get a ride back
- 23:46Speaker 16: with your friend to Vero Beach and he.
- 23:48Speaker 10: Said, well, they got into an argument and she's very.
- 23:51Speaker 16: Pissed with him.
- 23:52Speaker 12: The former cab driver, who asked us not to use
- 23:55Speaker 12: his name, says that he dropped the man off across
- 23:58Speaker 12: the street from this apartment in Vero Beach. It was
- 24:02Speaker 12: Mike Jones's apartment.
- 24:04Speaker 6: The kicker was he was able to pick him out
- 24:06Speaker 6: of a lineup too, which really helped our case, and just.
- 24:11Speaker 12: Two days after they found Diana's body, they had enough
- 24:15Speaker 12: evidence to officially charge Mike Jones with her murderer. He
- 24:19Speaker 12: would plead not guilty.
- 24:23Speaker 6: He didn't show any emotion, he didn't ask any more questions.
- 24:26Speaker 7: He just sat there, Hey there.
- 24:29Speaker 5: Mike, Yeah, I requests went right to council, right to reinsilent.
- 24:35Speaker 7: Okay, probably got to do more than nothing, of.
- 24:36Speaker 12: Saying Assistant state Attorney Brian Workman was assigned to prosecute
- 24:43Speaker 12: the case along with State Attorney Thomas Backadolf. As they
- 24:48Speaker 12: started digging, they soon learned that Mike Jones was no
- 24:52Speaker 12: ordinary suspect.
- 24:54Speaker 8: He doesn't fit the mold of your your average violent murderer.
- 24:59Speaker 12: Jones was well educated, with a master's and law degree,
- 25:04Speaker 12: and he was a respected member of the Vero Beach community.
- 25:08Speaker 9: It was shocking that Mike Wood would have done this.
- 25:12Speaker 5: I think it blew everybody's mind.
- 25:14Speaker 12: Stuart Pearce was friends with Jones.
- 25:17Speaker 9: Mike Jones was a guy that you wanted to be
- 25:21Speaker 9: friends with. He was clean cut, real nice guy.
- 25:25Speaker 12: He first met him at a networking luncheon shortly after
- 25:28Speaker 12: Jones had moved to Vero Beach in the summer of
- 25:31Speaker 12: twenty thirteen.
- 25:32Speaker 9: We saw him everywhere that there was to be seen.
- 25:35Speaker 9: I'm cufflinks and a well start shirt.
- 25:38Speaker 12: Jones was often seen at local charity events.
- 25:42Speaker 8: Here's a guy who was able to work his way
- 25:46Speaker 8: into the community. Here, I mean he was doing charitable activities.
- 25:50Speaker 8: He actually showed up and walked for the very same
- 25:53Speaker 8: domestic violence organization that I'm a board member for.
- 25:57Speaker 12: Jones was also active in the bar scene and had
- 26:00Speaker 12: made many friends in a short period of time. Investigators
- 26:04Speaker 12: interviewed some of them on audio tape.
- 26:07Speaker 5: I would say that he was ambitious. They could trust
- 26:10Speaker 5: him with things that I would trust my family with.
- 26:13Speaker 5: Michael was a genius, one of the smartest people I've
- 26:16Speaker 5: ever dealt with.
- 26:18Speaker 12: And when it came to work, Jones thrived at his
- 26:21Speaker 12: job in wealth management at P and C Bank.
- 26:24Speaker 17: And he brought people in who had a lot of money,
- 26:27Speaker 17: and he had performance reviews emails that went back and
- 26:32Speaker 17: forth between P ANDC personnel, raving about his job performance
- 26:36Speaker 17: and how great he was doing there.
- 26:39Speaker 12: In his last performance review, from four months before Diana
- 26:43Speaker 12: was murdered, his boss wrote, Michael has shown that he
- 26:46Speaker 12: has strong ethics and leadership qualities. He is a big
- 26:50Speaker 12: asset for P and C.
- 26:52Speaker 10: This guy's a master manipulator.
- 26:55Speaker 7: This guy was running multimillion.
- 26:57Speaker 8: Dollar counts for a bank as a convicted felon, so
- 27:01Speaker 8: he was able to con a bank.
- 27:04Speaker 12: We reached down to P and C Bank to ask
- 27:06Speaker 12: if they knew Jones had a record and was on
- 27:09Speaker 12: probation for stalking that woman near Fort Lauderdale in twenty twelve.
- 27:14Speaker 12: They declined to comment. His friends, however, had no idea.
- 27:19Speaker 12: But what they did know about Jones's past is there
- 27:23Speaker 12: were a lot of stories, and.
- 27:25Speaker 4: I remember the stories like every time there was a zinger.
- 27:29Speaker 12: Ellie Sexton dated Jones shortly before he started dating Diana.
- 27:34Speaker 4: Mike told me that his sister was dating Jason Aldean,
- 27:38Speaker 4: and he told me that he was adopted by Ronald
- 27:42Speaker 4: reagan'son Mike drove a gold Honda Accord that was probably
- 27:48Speaker 4: ten years old, but he told me that he had
- 27:51Speaker 4: a penthouse in Fort Lauderdale, that he had a Porsche
- 27:54Speaker 4: that he just didn't want to damage.
- 27:56Speaker 9: Well, Mike Jones told me that he was adopted and
- 27:59Speaker 9: that he played some minor league baseball, But one time
- 28:02Speaker 9: hanging out on the beach and seeing him throw a
- 28:05Speaker 9: football made me think that he'd probably never played minor
- 28:08Speaker 9: league baseball.
- 28:09Speaker 8: Nothing in his life was the truth who he really
- 28:12Speaker 8: is to this day, I'm not.
- 28:14Speaker 10: Sure we don't.
- 28:16Speaker 12: Prosecutors were certain of one thing that Mike Jones was
- 28:20Speaker 12: a murderer, and now as they prepared to go to trial,
- 28:25Speaker 12: they learned that Diana was one of Mike Jones's many victims.
- 28:29Speaker 12: The only difference is the others got away.
- 28:33Speaker 4: My family has all said, you know you skipped death.
- 28:54Speaker 8: Say a woman's name with whom he had a relationship,
- 28:58Speaker 8: and there is abuse.
- 29:00Speaker 12: As prosecutors continued to unearth more details about Mike Jones,
- 29:04Speaker 12: they say there was a clear pattern in how he
- 29:07Speaker 12: treated his ex girlfriends.
- 29:09Speaker 8: He's Prince Charmie in the door, right, but then slowly
- 29:13Speaker 8: who began telling them what to where, what friends to
- 29:17Speaker 8: hang out with. He's calling incessantly, He's showing up at restaurants, He's.
- 29:21Speaker 10: Reading her phone.
- 29:23Speaker 8: A couple of the women that we talked to, he
- 29:25Speaker 8: would hold them in place for long periods of time.
- 29:29Speaker 4: He was very controlling.
- 29:31Speaker 12: Ellie Sexton only dated Mike Jones for a few months,
- 29:34Speaker 12: but says she witnessed his violent temper.
- 29:39Speaker 4: Mike never got physical, but there were a few times
- 29:43Speaker 4: that he just had some jealousy behaviors. I do remember
- 29:49Speaker 4: him screaming in my face one time and getting really
- 29:53Speaker 4: close to me and feeling fear.
- 29:56Speaker 12: And Investigators also learned that Mike Jones's stories about his
- 30:00Speaker 12: past were flat out lies.
- 30:03Speaker 7: He's a pathological liar.
- 30:05Speaker 12: In a personal essay he wrote for a college admission,
- 30:09Speaker 12: Jones claimed that he was born into poverty to uneducated
- 30:13Speaker 12: and abusive parents. He wrote that he was placed with
- 30:17Speaker 12: several foster families and eventually was adopted. What is the
- 30:22Speaker 12: truth about his upbringing?
- 30:24Speaker 10: What do you think? He was spoilt, rotten?
- 30:27Speaker 17: His parents bought him motorcycles, They put him in private school,
- 30:32Speaker 17: and it wasn't until his parents told him that they
- 30:36Speaker 17: weren't going to pay for any more education, meaning law school.
- 30:39Speaker 17: That was the point where he broke it off with them,
- 30:42Speaker 17: manipulating trying to get what he wanted.
- 30:45Speaker 12: We reached out to Jones's family, but we never heard
- 30:49Speaker 12: back from them, and the manipulation continued while Jones attended
- 30:54Speaker 12: a graduate law program at the University of Miami. According
- 30:58Speaker 12: to an email to his fellow students in twenty ten,
- 31:02Speaker 12: Jones claimed that he was battling prostate pancreas and stomach
- 31:06Speaker 12: cancer and other alleged medical conditions that prohibited him from
- 31:11Speaker 12: often attending classes.
- 31:13Speaker 6: We have no record of any type of cancer diagnosis
- 31:16Speaker 6: in his background or anything like that.
- 31:18Speaker 12: But despite Mike Jones's dark past of lies and abusing
- 31:22Speaker 12: other women, prosecutors could only tell a jury about his
- 31:26Speaker 12: abuse of Diana and her murder.
- 31:29Speaker 8: You should be convicting somebody for the crime that they committed,
- 31:32Speaker 8: not based upon what they've done in the past.
- 31:36Speaker 12: And when it was time to go to trial, they
- 31:39Speaker 12: had to make an important decision whether to go for
- 31:43Speaker 12: the death penalty.
- 31:45Speaker 10: Well, that was a tough one.
- 31:46Speaker 8: When we sat down with Lenna and we said, listen,
- 31:50Speaker 8: when we take this step, it's a whole different process.
- 31:54Speaker 12: He explained that the proceedings could drag on for years,
- 31:58Speaker 12: and even if one juror did not believe Jones deserved
- 32:01Speaker 12: the death penalty, he would be given a life sentence instead.
- 32:06Speaker 2: I wanted a death penalty. Absolutely. He lost his right
- 32:10Speaker 2: to live when he killed her. When he killed.
- 32:13Speaker 8: Diana, Brian and I agreed with him and thought that
- 32:18Speaker 8: this is the route we need to take.
- 32:23Speaker 12: In October of twenty nineteen, Mike Jones's trial finally began
- 32:28Speaker 12: in Vero Beach. During opening remarks, prosecutors told the jury
- 32:33Speaker 12: that Mike Jones abused Diana mentally and physically during their
- 32:38Speaker 12: short six month on and off again relationship.
- 32:43Speaker 8: She would talk about her feelings and the things that
- 32:45Speaker 8: he had done, and how he would be demeaning, and.
- 32:48Speaker 7: He would flip it.
- 32:50Speaker 8: He would flip the scripts and start blaming her and
- 32:53Speaker 8: accusing her and suggesting that it's her fault.
- 32:57Speaker 10: What he was doing was gaslighting her.
- 33:00Speaker 12: To back up their claims of physical abuse, prosecutors called
- 33:03Speaker 12: Diana's friend, Chelsea Demayo and showed the jury the photos
- 33:08Speaker 12: she took after that domestic incident when Jones allegedly strangled Diana.
- 33:14Speaker 13: I could clearly see that there were marks on her neck.
- 33:17Speaker 12: As disturbing as that was, Baka Doll explained that after
- 33:21Speaker 12: that domestic incident, Diana had secretly started seeing Jones on
- 33:26Speaker 12: and off again.
- 33:28Speaker 10: This is what happens in domestic VID.
- 33:30Speaker 8: People want to know why would she go back, And
- 33:33Speaker 8: it's because of the control and he had total control
- 33:36Speaker 8: over her.
- 33:38Speaker 12: Prosecutors said, no one knows what they talked about in
- 33:41Speaker 12: the early hours of Friday, June twentyth twenty fourteen, when
- 33:45Speaker 12: they left the bar together and went to Jones's apartment.
- 33:49Speaker 8: Now, they had been drinking that evening, and of course
- 33:52Speaker 8: that has an impact on your judgment.
- 33:54Speaker 12: But Baka Doll thinks Diana was trying to end the
- 33:57Speaker 12: relationship for good.
- 33:59Speaker 8: She he was telling him that night it's over. I
- 34:02Speaker 8: have no doubt in my mind that this was the
- 34:04Speaker 8: end of this relationship.
- 34:06Speaker 12: In fact, according to Lena, Diana had upcoming plans to
- 34:10Speaker 12: go out west to visit a friend, and.
- 34:13Speaker 10: When he got into that, that was it.
- 34:16Speaker 12: Prosecutor said they believe Jones lost his temper and that's
- 34:20Speaker 12: when he beat and strangled her.
- 34:23Speaker 8: He had beaten her so badly that he knew at
- 34:26Speaker 8: that point in time he could not let her go.
- 34:29Speaker 8: He knew that if she were to leave the house
- 34:32Speaker 8: that night and been covered in bruises, a jig was
- 34:35Speaker 8: up for this guy, and he couldn't allow that to happen,
- 34:37Speaker 8: and so he resorted ultimately to murder.
- 34:40Speaker 12: The state admitted they didn't know exactly what time the
- 34:43Speaker 12: murder took place, but said blood evidence showed that Jones
- 34:47Speaker 12: placed Diana's body in the trunk of her car while
- 34:50Speaker 12: it was parked in his garage.
- 34:52Speaker 6: Next to the threshold where the garage door comes down,
- 34:55Speaker 6: where the concrete meets it. We found like two very
- 34:58Speaker 6: small droplets of blood Diana's.
- 35:01Speaker 12: When it was the defense's turn to lay out their case,
- 35:05Speaker 12: they told the jurors that in fact, no one really
- 35:08Speaker 12: knew exactly what happened after Jones and Diana left the
- 35:11Speaker 12: bar on June twentieth, they raised the possibility that Diana's
- 35:16Speaker 12: death could have been an accident. Jones's defense team declined
- 35:21Speaker 12: our request for an interview.
- 35:23Speaker 6: They tried to act like that, you know, he was
- 35:25Speaker 6: an upstanding citizen in our community.
- 35:27Speaker 7: You know he had a solid job. Why would he
- 35:30Speaker 7: do this to her?
- 35:31Speaker 6: It was almost insulting sometimes for them to even try
- 35:35Speaker 6: to act like he wasn't the monster that we knew
- 35:38Speaker 6: him to be.
- 35:39Speaker 12: After seven days of testimony, the case went to the jury.
- 35:43Speaker 12: The prosecutors felt confident.
- 35:46Speaker 8: I expected a guilty verdict, but I didn't expect it
- 35:49Speaker 8: to happen as quickly.
- 35:50Speaker 10: As it did.
- 35:51Speaker 12: How quickly did it come back?
- 35:52Speaker 10: Like forty five minutes.
- 35:54Speaker 12: That says something that says a lot.
- 35:56Speaker 8: That says that somebody finally saw through Michael Jones.
- 36:02Speaker 12: But they knew there were many challenges ahead. Now the
- 36:06Speaker 12: jury would have to decide whether Mike Jones would live
- 36:11Speaker 12: or die. What did you tell Lena right after the trial?
- 36:15Speaker 7: I remember hugging her.
- 36:17Speaker 8: I specifically remember telling her, now the heavy lifting.
- 36:21Speaker 10: Comes be ready.
- 36:26Speaker 18: What do you think is the most outlandish lie that
- 36:29Speaker 18: Mike Jones told? Go inside the investigation at forty eight
- 36:33Speaker 18: hours dot com.
- 36:47Speaker 1: She had so much good in her heart, and she
- 36:51Speaker 1: knew that.
- 36:56Speaker 12: Nearly a month after the verdict, the same jury that
- 36:59Speaker 12: convicted Mike Janes of first degree murder would now decide
- 37:02Speaker 12: whether he would live or die.
- 37:05Speaker 8: The penalty phase is everything about the defendant.
- 37:08Speaker 12: Prosecutor Backadal warned Lena that this sentencing hearing would be
- 37:13Speaker 12: difficult to sit through the.
- 37:15Speaker 8: Poor defendant, all of the issues faced by the defendant
- 37:19Speaker 8: throughout his life, to the absolute and utter exclusion of
- 37:23Speaker 8: her daughter.
- 37:24Speaker 12: The defense called medical experts who testified Jones that received
- 37:27Speaker 12: multiple blows to his head, possibly from doing motocross as
- 37:31Speaker 12: a teen, and he suffered brain damage. One expert testified
- 37:36Speaker 12: that Jones's frontal lobe, which regulates decision making and impulse control,
- 37:40Speaker 12: had been damaged and caused a significant cognitive defect.
- 37:45Speaker 8: They wanted the jury to believe that he had this
- 37:48Speaker 8: major or minor cognitive deficit. The problem is, in order
- 37:53Speaker 8: to have that particular deficit, you can't do things like
- 37:57Speaker 8: balance a checkbook, pay rent. Here's a guy who went
- 38:01Speaker 8: to law school and managed multimillion dollar accounts.
- 38:05Speaker 12: When it was time for her victim impact statement, Lena
- 38:08Speaker 12: surprised everyone and confronted Jones face to face.
- 38:14Speaker 2: How can you do that with your bare hands to
- 38:19Speaker 2: the person that you supposedly love? How can anybody do that?
- 38:25Speaker 8: How she brought Diana to life in that courtroom, and
- 38:33Speaker 8: if we were going to get the death penalty, it
- 38:35Speaker 8: was going to be on the back of that testimony.
- 38:38Speaker 10: It was just a mother's love for her child. It's big.
- 38:46Speaker 12: Throughout the entire trial, Jones showed no emotion.
- 38:50Speaker 2: He absolutely had zero remorse, absolutely zero.
- 38:56Speaker 12: Even as his sentence was about to be read.
- 38:59Speaker 17: His attorneys they had their faces in their hands, they
- 39:02Speaker 17: were leaning on the tables, and he just sat there
- 39:05Speaker 17: like statue.
- 39:08Speaker 12: Mike Jones received a life sentence, much to the prosecutor's disappointment.
- 39:13Speaker 8: For me, it was devastating because we didn't finish the
- 39:18Speaker 8: job that we had promised Lena in the family. I
- 39:23Speaker 8: realized at that moment, if I can't get death in
- 39:26Speaker 8: this case, what case?
- 39:29Speaker 12: Do you remember? How many for how many against?
- 39:31Speaker 8: Yeah, I remember, I'll never forget. It was eleven to one.
- 39:35Speaker 8: The defense was playing for one hold out the entire time.
- 39:38Speaker 8: That's all they need. We needed to be perfect.
- 39:46Speaker 2: He's still going to die in jail, one way or another,
- 39:49Speaker 2: and he's never going to hurt another girl again. And
- 39:54Speaker 2: the end of the day, my daughter, Diana, she's not
- 39:59Speaker 2: coming home. She's not and he's still alive. Graduation day,
- 40:14Speaker 2: she was happy. All her adult life started.
- 40:20Speaker 1: It was a good day.
- 40:23Speaker 12: Lena wants people to remember and learn from her daughter's story.
- 40:28Speaker 2: If this has happened to Diana, it's gonna happen to anybody.
- 40:33Speaker 2: If you feel something is not right, listen to yourself,
- 40:38Speaker 2: because something is not right.
- 40:42Speaker 12: Today, after all these years, Diana's bedroom looks exactly the
- 40:47Speaker 12: way she left it.
- 40:49Speaker 2: It's one of the older pictures of Diana when she's
- 40:52Speaker 2: a baby in Moldova. She really didn't want to take
- 40:54Speaker 2: this picture.
- 40:55Speaker 1: She was a little bit grumpy. Here. I'm thinking about
- 41:01Speaker 1: Dana minute I wake up.
- 41:04Speaker 2: She's the last thing I'm thinking about when they fall
- 41:07Speaker 2: asleep every single day, and this is forever.
- 41:15Speaker 1: That's how it's going to be.
- 41:36Speaker 7: An intruder came into her house and attacked her, stabbing
- 41:40Speaker 7: her repeatedly.
- 41:40Speaker 18: A woman's iron will.
- 41:42Speaker 12: There's no earthly reason why I'm alive.
- 41:44Speaker 18: None, And the thin line between life and death.
- 41:47Speaker 2: The amount of strength that goes into that is just
- 41:49Speaker 2: unimaginable
- 41:50Speaker 18: Forty eight hours Saturday on CBS and streaming on Paramount
- 41:54Speaker 18: Plus