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The Texas Cadet Murder: The dark side of teen love & ambition · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a beautiful, vivacious,
0:15
Speaker 1: sixteen year old little girl end up dead and affilled
0:20
Speaker 1: there in Grand Prairie, Texas. No leads, no clues, just
0:26
Speaker 1: a dead body. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is
0:40
Speaker 1: where it all starts. Take a listen. A farmer is
0:45
Speaker 1: driving along a sleepy, desolate country road near Mansfield, Texas,
0:51
Speaker 1: and he sees something behind a barbed wire fence and
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Speaker 1: discovers it's the body of a teenage girl. Was unrecognizable.
1:01
Speaker 1: The girl's face was obliterated. One bullet hole was in
1:05
Speaker 1: her left cheek, another in her forehead. She had also
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Speaker 1: been hit so many times and so hard on the
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Speaker 1: left side of her head that part of the skull
1:16
Speaker 1: above her ear, and this was a pretty tough part
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Speaker 1: of the skull was completely caved in. Wow. Here we're
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Speaker 1: hearing our friend John Linley from Crime Online dot Com
1:27
Speaker 1: with me an all star panel to make sense of it.
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Speaker 1: First of all, high profile lawyer joining me out of
1:32
Speaker 1: La Troy Slayton. You can find him at Troy Slayton.
1:36
Speaker 1: Doctor Michael Donner, PhD, psychoanalyst, clinical and forensic psychologist and
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Speaker 1: author of Tearing the child apart, doctor Kendall Crown's Deputy
1:48
Speaker 1: Chief Medical Examiner of Travis County. That's Austin, Texas and
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Speaker 1: lecturer University of Texas and of course forensic sciences. Justin Boardman,
1:58
Speaker 1: former Special Victims Unit detective West Valley City author, I
2:03
Speaker 1: was wrong, an investigator's battlecry for change within the Special
2:07
Speaker 1: Victims Unit. You can find him ajut a Boardman dot com.
2:10
Speaker 1: But first, Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love, The True
2:16
Speaker 1: Story of the Texas Cadet murderer. Peter, thank you so
2:21
Speaker 1: much for being with us, described the area for me
2:24
Speaker 1: for this unidentified sixteen year old girl's body was found.
2:31
Speaker 1: Certainly Nancy, nice to be here. Um. It was a
2:36
Speaker 1: morning out in the middle of us what's what's scrub
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Speaker 1: brush and sage brush? And in an outskirt of Mansfield, Texas.
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Speaker 1: An architect named Gary Foster was getting up early in
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Speaker 1: the morning, took his pickup to drive to the entry
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Speaker 1: to his driveway and was surveying the fields, the newbody fields.
3:04
Speaker 1: And he saw what looked like a person in a field.
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Speaker 1: And this is in the middle of nowhere, and this
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Speaker 1: is these are gravel roads for the most and closer
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Speaker 1: inspection he saw it was a young woman trying to
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Speaker 1: get that visual image with me. Peter Meyer, the author
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Speaker 1: of Blind Love true story that Texas Cadet and Murder,
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Speaker 1: and you can find it on Amazon where there are
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Speaker 1: fields as far as the eye can see. Certainly he
3:34
Speaker 1: would have seen it the day before, which tells me
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Speaker 1: whatever happened happened overnight. And you're hearing Peter Meyer describe
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Speaker 1: gravel roads. A lot of people would call it out
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Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn't since I came
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Speaker 1: from out in the middle of nowhere and it may
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Speaker 1: look like the middle of nowhere to a lot of people.
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Speaker 1: But when you live there and you know the ends
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Speaker 1: and the outs and the cuts, it all makes sense.
4:01
Speaker 1: But who else would know of this location? Who would
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Speaker 1: be so daring to leave a body out in an
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Speaker 1: open field? And also straight to you? Doctor Kendall, Crown's
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Speaker 1: Deputy Chief medical examined Travis County. That's Austin. Did you
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Speaker 1: hear the way the injury was described Shot in the head,
4:24
Speaker 1: I believe they said, on the side of the head,
4:27
Speaker 1: which sounds like execution style, but then beaten horribly, so
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Speaker 1: a very tough part of the skull was actually caved in.
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Speaker 1: She was murdered two times over. Yes, it sounds like
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Speaker 1: she was beaten with something and then shot in the head,
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Speaker 1: or shot in the head and then beaten with something
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Speaker 1: to obscure her identity. I'm just thinking about what you
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Speaker 1: just said, to obscure her identity. Well, you know what,
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Speaker 1: You're right, doctor Kendall Crowns, because that's exactly what it did.
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Speaker 1: Take a list in to our friend Jackie Howard. Crime
5:02
Speaker 1: online detectives found no sign of struggle at the crime scene,
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Speaker 1: nor were there any marks on her hands or legs
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Speaker 1: that would show she had been restraint. In fact, the
5:10
Speaker 1: investigation was filled with nose no indication that someone had
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Speaker 1: broken into her house, no evidence of a sexual assault.
5:17
Speaker 1: What police did find was a pretty young girl shot
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Speaker 1: in the face. For investigators, the death was more like
5:23
Speaker 1: an execution the result of rage. To doctor Michael Donner, PhD,
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Speaker 1: clinical forensics psychologist and author, Doctor Donner again, thank you
5:34
Speaker 1: for being with us. By the way, you can find
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Speaker 1: him at Michael Bdonner dot com. Why would someone immediately
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Speaker 1: assume that this murder was one of rage, Well, it
5:47
Speaker 1: sounds like the sort of thing that happens when somebody
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Speaker 1: loses complete control of themselves. It's not just one injury,
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Speaker 1: it's multiple injuries. And that seems like it could only
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Speaker 1: come as a result of anger, and and is it correct?
6:01
Speaker 1: Back to you, Peter Meyer author that she was fully
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Speaker 1: closed and there was no indication of a sex attack.
6:08
Speaker 1: Correct to Justin Boardman former Special Victims Unit Detective West
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Speaker 1: Valley City and author. You can find them at Justin
6:16
Speaker 1: Boardman dot com. Justin When you come on the scene
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Speaker 1: as the detective Special Victims Unit and you see a
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Speaker 1: big open field, now see there's a big difference right there,
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Speaker 1: because you've got as opposed to in an apartment or
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Speaker 1: a house, you can get fingerprints, you can get blood spatter,
6:35
Speaker 1: you can get drag marks across the carpet, you can
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Speaker 1: get all sorts of evidence. But in a field, for
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Speaker 1: Pete's say, what do you do? Wow, I start securing
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Speaker 1: to make sure nobody has been walking through, and then
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Speaker 1: the crime scene, and then I start getting processing and
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Speaker 1: brainstorming with other people on where there might be before
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Speaker 1: we get into the scene too far. We wouldn't have
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Speaker 1: gone right in because she was already deceased and it
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Speaker 1: was obvious, so we would actually do some of the
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Speaker 1: same sort of thoughts that you were just talking about,
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Speaker 1: looking for drag marks, looking for tire tracks, and retracing
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Speaker 1: the evidence that was there that people had dragged in
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Speaker 1: before our arrival, meaning just a person who found her Yes,
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Speaker 1: immediate question. I know you heard Peter Meyer say that
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Speaker 1: these were gravel roads between fields. Having grown up on
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Speaker 1: a red dirt road, I wonder, can you actually get
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Speaker 1: a tire mark off a gravel road, because I don't
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Speaker 1: see how you could, right, right, and maybe not, but
7:55
Speaker 1: maybe there is a burm off the side of the
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Speaker 1: road that the vehicle have gone into, yes, or something
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Speaker 1: like that. You're absolutely right, and I guess at some
8:05
Speaker 1: point they would have had to turn off asphalt can't
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Speaker 1: be you know, all all gravel roads. And another thing,
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Speaker 1: what well you know when this happened. I don't know
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Speaker 1: that they could get any DNA off her body, but fibers,
8:23
Speaker 1: and of course you know justin Bourban. The very first
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Speaker 1: case where fiber evidence was accepted was in the Atlanta
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Speaker 1: serial killing of multiple young boys across the city. Fiber
8:35
Speaker 1: evidence leads cops back to the car trunk and the
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Speaker 1: home of the purp that fiber found on the body.
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Speaker 1: So that's one clue. Tire tracks. You're not going to
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Speaker 1: find fingerprints, you know, with a gunshot wound and a beating,
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Speaker 1: you're not probably not going to find the defense the
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Speaker 1: defendants blood. So at first cops are STYMIEDE what is
9:01
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old girl's body doing out in the
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Speaker 1: middle of a field, shot in the face. Well, it
9:09
Speaker 1: took a minute, but it happened. She was identified. Take
9:14
Speaker 1: a listen to this. Adrian Jones was the All American
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Speaker 1: girl next door. She was blonde, smart, and athletic. She
9:21
Speaker 1: took advanced honors courses and played soccer, but after a
9:25
Speaker 1: knee injury, she decided to join the girls cross country
9:27
Speaker 1: team to get in better shape. She excelled at the
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Speaker 1: two mile run. Jones also had a job. She worked
9:33
Speaker 1: twenty hours a week at Golden Fried Chicken, a local
9:36
Speaker 1: fast food restaurant. She manned the drive through window. Wow,
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Speaker 1: that sounds like so many people I grew up with,
9:45
Speaker 1: working at school all day, trying to make the best grades,
9:49
Speaker 1: trying to do after school activities, and holding down a
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Speaker 1: job here at Golden Fried Chicken, a local fast food restaurant,
9:57
Speaker 1: manning the drive through. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. You know,
10:17
Speaker 1: I'm suspicious. I'm curious, doctor Kendall Crowns. When you have
10:20
Speaker 1: a body like this, if you want to do a
10:24
Speaker 1: DNA comparison to find out who it is, you have
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Speaker 1: to have an idea of who it is to get
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Speaker 1: the known Say, let's just pretend I think that it's
10:36
Speaker 1: let's just pick out Troy Slayton to be the dead body.
10:39
Speaker 1: I think it's TROYE. Slayton. So I go get his
10:41
Speaker 1: toothbrush at home and get a warrant and get his toothbrush.
10:44
Speaker 1: Then I compare DNA from the dead body to the
10:47
Speaker 1: DNA from toothbrush. Bam, it's Troy Slayton. But when you
10:51
Speaker 1: don't have a known Troy Slayton, you don't know who
10:55
Speaker 1: to compare it too. You can't make a DNA analysis.
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Speaker 1: Same thing for dental record, doctor Kendall Crowns. You have
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Speaker 1: to have an idea who it may be to get
11:05
Speaker 1: that known identity dental records, right, Yeah, that's correct. Most
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Speaker 1: methods of identification have to have a presumptive idea of
11:13
Speaker 1: who the individual is. The only one that you can
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Speaker 1: do is fingerprints and then hope that they're in the system.
11:20
Speaker 1: That's the only time I've ever hoped somebody's a convicted
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Speaker 1: felon so their fingerprints will be in the system, doctor
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Speaker 1: crowns Well. In Texas, also, anybody that gets a driver's
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Speaker 1: license gets a thumb prints, so they can often be
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Speaker 1: identified quite readily that way. But that isn't the case
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Speaker 1: in the rest of the US. So when you have
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Speaker 1: an individual who isn't identified and you have no idea
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Speaker 1: who they are, there isn't a lot that can be done,
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Speaker 1: and you just have to hope that someone comes forward
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Speaker 1: saying that they're missing an individual, and then you can
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Speaker 1: do the testing and try and find out if it's them.
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Speaker 1: Otherwise they can remain unidentified for a very long time,
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Speaker 1: and they do. There are literally tens of thousands of
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Speaker 1: unidentified Jane Does and John Does waiting to be idead
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Speaker 1: across our country right now. To Peter Meyer, author of
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Speaker 1: Blind Love, True Story of Texas Cadet Murder, Peter Meyer,
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Speaker 1: in this case, how did detectives finally figure out this
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Speaker 1: was sixteen year old American girl next door Adrian Jones? Well,
12:21
Speaker 1: because she was the American girl next door and came
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Speaker 1: from a nice, tight knit family in Grand Prairie. She
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Speaker 1: was she was missing, and that's how that's how they
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Speaker 1: put the family put the word out, Adrian Jones, their
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Speaker 1: daughter is missing, and so it didn't take long for
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Speaker 1: them to make the connection. I can't remember how many days,
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Speaker 1: but it wasn't It wasn't too long before the dead
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Speaker 1: body was identified by the kinds of ten the tests
12:53
Speaker 1: you talked about, but they had a name, so so
12:56
Speaker 1: it went quickly after that. Take a listen to our
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Speaker 1: friends a crime online. Just before bed, Adrian Jones received
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Speaker 1: a phone call. It's around ten pm. Her mother, Linda
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Speaker 1: has some quick words for her sixteen year old daughter,
13:07
Speaker 1: as she told American Justice down the hallway and she
13:10
Speaker 1: came back and I said, you get that phone put
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Speaker 1: down and you get to bed, old girl. And then
13:14
Speaker 1: after that I went to bed and she'd said it
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Speaker 1: was David from cross Country and he's upset. Linda Jones
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Speaker 1: didn't recall hearing about a boy named David before, but
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Speaker 1: didn't think anything about it. After the phone call, the
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Speaker 1: two went to bed. So how many times has a
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Speaker 1: sixteen year old girl been told to get off the
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Speaker 1: phone and go to bed. I have to tell two
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Speaker 1: thirteen year olds that every night they're playing Candy Crush
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Speaker 1: or whatever is they're playing online, and in the dark,
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Speaker 1: I can see the light from their phones, so I
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Speaker 1: know that there's still ought. I'm just imagining Adrian Jones's
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Speaker 1: mom telling her, Okay, get off the phone, go to bed.
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Speaker 1: She's on the phone with her boyfriend, and she does.
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Speaker 1: She gets off the phone and they go to bed.
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Speaker 1: Take a list of this. The next morning, Adrian's brother, Justin,
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Speaker 1: looks in on his sister. Then he knocks on his mom,
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Speaker 1: Linda's door. Justin knocked on my door and said, well, Mom,
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Speaker 1: where's Adrian. I said, what do you mean, She's at school.
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Speaker 1: She says, well, her stuff's still here. And so that
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Speaker 1: was about on seven. So I went and checked and
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Speaker 1: her things were still there, and I said, what's going on.
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Speaker 1: As Linda Jones tells American Justice, she calls to school
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Speaker 1: and just told that Adrian didn't show up that day.
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Speaker 1: Linda Jones calls her husband and at I knew something
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Speaker 1: was really, really, really wrong. And I called my husband
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Speaker 1: up and I said, the Adrian's not here. We can't
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Speaker 1: find her anywhere. She's not at school, she's not at
14:35
Speaker 1: her friends. We called everybody in her address book looking
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Speaker 1: for him, the Davis, especially, I was looking at every
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Speaker 1: David in her address book. After calling Adrian's friends and
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Speaker 1: their parents, the Joneses report their daughter missing to police.
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Speaker 1: So she's reported missing, and then wisely, the investigators make
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Speaker 1: the connection. Listen, it's not long after Adrian Jones is
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Speaker 1: reported missing that investigators were able to match their Jane
15:00
Speaker 1: Dough found in the field with this missing girl. My
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Speaker 1: husband had to go with the detectives and identify her body.
15:07
Speaker 1: I called on my family and I can still hear
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Speaker 1: their voices saying, no, you're wrong, and it was it
15:18
Speaker 1: was assurance. She had been shot and murdered by somebody.
15:23
Speaker 1: No one could figure out why Jones had indeed been
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Speaker 1: shot and murdered. The girl's face was nearly unrecognizable. One
15:32
Speaker 1: bullet hole in her left cheek, another in her forehead.
15:35
Speaker 1: She had been hit so hard on the left side
15:38
Speaker 1: of her head that part of the skull just above
15:40
Speaker 1: her ear was crushed. She's been shot in the face
15:44
Speaker 1: and bludgeon in the back of her head, and you
15:47
Speaker 1: don't know why. What did this young, sixteen year old
15:50
Speaker 1: little girl know or to do had caused she didn't
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Speaker 1: hate her. Notch Detroy Slayton, LA criminal defense attorney, no
16:00
Speaker 1: stranger to a courtroom, Troy Slane, thank you for being
16:03
Speaker 1: with us. Why is it detectives will first start in
16:10
Speaker 1: a murder investigation with those closest to the victim. Well,
16:15
Speaker 1: that's simple, Nancy. It's because those closest to the victim
16:19
Speaker 1: are usually the ones involved in a murder or other
16:24
Speaker 1: nefarious activities. And in this case, that's exactly what happened,
16:31
Speaker 1: and so the police were right to start to talk
16:34
Speaker 1: to the people on the track team, the people that
16:38
Speaker 1: were closest to her at school, her friends, her associates,
16:44
Speaker 1: and her family straight out to you, doctor Michael B. Donner.
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Speaker 1: Of course, that's just a statistic that typically the is
16:54
Speaker 1: in the family, or it is a close associate, a neighbor,
16:58
Speaker 1: a boyfriend in X. But statistics are not allowed in court.
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Speaker 1: None of that could come in as proof that X
17:07
Speaker 1: did the deed. Question, do you, doctor Donner? On a
17:11
Speaker 1: psychological level, why do you always look at those closest
17:14
Speaker 1: to the victim? You know, not to be too much
17:19
Speaker 1: of a cliche, but you always hurt the one you love.
17:21
Speaker 1: That's where passions are most inflamed. That's where people's emotional
17:27
Speaker 1: structure starts to break down. It's part of the explanation
17:31
Speaker 1: for so much domestic violence. Intimacy breeds, contempt. Intimate breaks
17:36
Speaker 1: down the barriers of normal society and the structures that
17:39
Speaker 1: we used to contain our emotions. So the closer you feel,
17:43
Speaker 1: the more powerful the emotions you feel, the more out
17:47
Speaker 1: of control things can get to. Doctor Kendall Crowns, Deputy
17:50
Speaker 1: Chief Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas as Austin. Doctor Kendall Crowns,
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Speaker 1: We're hearing of two gunshot wounds, one to the cheek,
17:59
Speaker 1: one to the side of the head, and multiple daunting
18:04
Speaker 1: blows to the head. If I had to analyze it,
18:08
Speaker 1: I would say the bullets were first the first one
18:14
Speaker 1: to the cheek that didn't work, then a shot to
18:17
Speaker 1: the head, then the beating. Now, there's really no way
18:21
Speaker 1: to prove that, is there. No, there is not. The
18:25
Speaker 1: only way you could say that the beating occurred after
18:28
Speaker 1: the gunshot wounds is if the injuries appeared bloodless, as
18:33
Speaker 1: if the individual had been done for a while, heart
18:36
Speaker 1: wasn't beating, and then they crushed their head, So that
18:38
Speaker 1: would be the only way to know that the gunshot
18:41
Speaker 1: wounds occurred later, or potentially the other way around. The
18:44
Speaker 1: head could have been caved in because they bludgeoned them
18:47
Speaker 1: to death and then they shot them afterwards. And thinking
18:51
Speaker 1: my scenario, Doctor Kraus, thinking it through, I think that
18:55
Speaker 1: they would have beaten her then shot her because in
18:59
Speaker 1: every other case I know of, For instance, let's just
19:02
Speaker 1: talk about the Jodi Aris case. She stabbed victimin Travis
19:07
Speaker 1: Alexander twenty seven to twenty nine times then shot him
19:11
Speaker 1: in the head. It's almost as if the gunshot wounds
19:15
Speaker 1: are a dramatic q de gras at the end of
19:20
Speaker 1: the murder. Right, it's a way of making sure they're dead.
19:23
Speaker 1: You just shoot them in the head. They might not
19:26
Speaker 1: be breathing or moving, but that way you're guaranteeing the
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Speaker 1: Pew Children crime stories with Nancy Grace guys. Wisely, investigators
19:48
Speaker 1: start with those closest to sixteen year old Adrian, starting
19:52
Speaker 1: with her family. Take a listen to investigative reporter Lee Eken.
19:57
Speaker 1: When Adrian couldn't be found, her parents remember the call
20:00
Speaker 1: from the night before and started asking who's David. He
20:03
Speaker 1: wasn't listed in her personal phone book. Linda Jones called
20:06
Speaker 1: Lean Burke the cross country coach Advance Full High and
20:09
Speaker 1: came up with the name David Graham. Graham was a
20:12
Speaker 1: senior cross country athlete. He was a battalion commander at
20:15
Speaker 1: the school's junior ROTC program. Detectives interviewed David but quickly
20:20
Speaker 1: ruled him out. Wow, he's got a lot going on.
20:23
Speaker 1: Junior ROTC, cross country athlete, battalion commander. But what more
20:30
Speaker 1: do we know about David Graham? Listen? After seeing his
20:35
Speaker 1: first air show, seven year old David Graham told his
20:38
Speaker 1: father he wanted to become an Air Force pilot. He
20:41
Speaker 1: never wavered from his dream. Graham kept his grades up
20:44
Speaker 1: and joined Manfield High School's ROTC program and the track team.
20:48
Speaker 1: He was a National Merit committed student and had garnered
20:51
Speaker 1: the support of Congressman Martin Frost for his application to
20:54
Speaker 1: the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Wow, straight
20:59
Speaker 1: out to Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love, True Story
21:02
Speaker 1: of the Texas Cadet and Murderer. Peter Meyer, this David
21:05
Speaker 1: Graham sounds like the perfect package. Did you hear all that? Sure? Did?
21:11
Speaker 1: Honor student had a congressman helping him get into the
21:15
Speaker 1: Air Force Academy. Got into the Air Force Academy. That's
21:19
Speaker 1: not easy. And since age seven years old, he knows
21:22
Speaker 1: he wants to be an Air Force pilot exactly. He's
21:25
Speaker 1: the perfect He's the perfect, perfect kid. And it's one
21:29
Speaker 1: reason why, as your narrator just said, he was interviewed,
21:35
Speaker 1: he was on the cross country team with Adrian, But
21:39
Speaker 1: it never went farther than that because after there was
21:42
Speaker 1: no evidence per se, so quickly the case turned fairly
21:49
Speaker 1: quickly cold. But did you say he was a cadet,
21:54
Speaker 1: a cadet candidate for the Air Force Academy, correct, that's right. Yeah,
21:58
Speaker 1: and you certainly don't want to smear his reputation. But
22:02
Speaker 1: there's another problem. Why is he on the phone at
22:05
Speaker 1: ten o'clock at night with a sixteen year old little
22:08
Speaker 1: girl when he's already got a girlfriend. Listen. Diane Zamora
22:13
Speaker 1: was a high school senior in the nearby town of Crowley.
22:16
Speaker 1: She was smart and determined to get into one of
22:18
Speaker 1: the US military academies. She was a member of a
22:20
Speaker 1: student council, the Key Club, national honor society, and the
22:24
Speaker 1: Masters of the Universe, a science organization. She played flute
22:27
Speaker 1: the marching band and ran on her high school's cross
22:29
Speaker 1: country team. And she was also David Graham's girlfriend. Runt row.
22:34
Speaker 1: I smell him as a trouble cooking right now here,
22:37
Speaker 1: you got David Graham, superstar cadet candidate, Air Force Commit Academy.
22:45
Speaker 1: Then you got Diane Zamora, high school senior nearby, next
22:49
Speaker 1: town over, headed to the US military. No, no, she
22:54
Speaker 1: was headed to the Naval Academy Student Council, Key Club,
22:58
Speaker 1: National honor Society, Good Gravy. She plays the flute in
23:03
Speaker 1: the marching band on the high school cross country team.
23:07
Speaker 1: And here's the important part, also David Graham's girlfriend. Now
23:12
Speaker 1: let me understand something, Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love,
23:17
Speaker 1: these are they're all very young. Adrian is just sixteen
23:22
Speaker 1: years old. David Graham is just seventeen at the time,
23:28
Speaker 1: or eighteen, as is Diane Samora. This sounds like puppy love.
23:33
Speaker 1: Well it should sound like puppy love. But you've just
23:36
Speaker 1: read this, You've just read the credentials of these kids
23:40
Speaker 1: that they're bound for the academy. These are not your
23:45
Speaker 1: regular high school kids. They're very they're exceptionally driven. They
23:52
Speaker 1: met at the Civil Air Patrol unit, which David was
23:56
Speaker 1: a member of. You already talked about his love of
23:59
Speaker 1: flying from age seven, and for Diane, she ended up
24:06
Speaker 1: there too because she was driven to get as many
24:11
Speaker 1: pieces to her resume she could. So remember to imagine
24:15
Speaker 1: sixteen and seventeen year old as I think kids working
24:19
Speaker 1: on their quote resume, but about their relationship. Take listen
24:24
Speaker 1: to our cut tien our friends at crime online. David
24:28
Speaker 1: Graham and Diane Zamora met when their parents began dropping
24:31
Speaker 1: them off at a small airfield south of Fort Worth
24:34
Speaker 1: for weekly meetings of the Civil Air Patrol. That's an
24:37
Speaker 1: Air Force auxiliary organization that teaches the basics of the
24:40
Speaker 1: military life and leads search and rescue missions for down
24:43
Speaker 1: to aircraft. But there was no romance between them. Diane
24:47
Speaker 1: was driven, wanting to focus on her studies and plans
24:50
Speaker 1: to become an astronaut. She kept a spiral notebook with
24:53
Speaker 1: the list of achievements she needed to get a college
24:56
Speaker 1: scholarship and kept an eye on her grades and always
25:00
Speaker 1: her GPA. She also told family and friends she did
25:03
Speaker 1: not want to have sex until she was married. She
25:05
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that a pregnancy didn't derail her dreams.
25:09
Speaker 1: At the beginning of her senior years, Zamora tells family
25:12
Speaker 1: she has fallen for David Graham. Wow, it seems like
25:16
Speaker 1: the perfect couple. So where does sixteen year old Adrian
25:18
Speaker 1: Jones fit into that scenario? You know, I want to
25:22
Speaker 1: go out to doctor Michael B. Donner or psychoanalyst joining us.
25:26
Speaker 1: That's a lot of pressure to put on children, teens
25:32
Speaker 1: that young. Here you've got Diane Zamora, as she was
25:36
Speaker 1: just described, driven, who actually keeps a spiral notebook of
25:40
Speaker 1: her achievements and at any given moment knows her exact
25:45
Speaker 1: GPA because she wants to get into the Naval Academy
25:51
Speaker 1: and become an astronaut. David Graham, I mean his CV.
25:57
Speaker 1: I guess if you have a CV at that young
25:59
Speaker 1: age is spectacular. I mean that seems like too much
26:06
Speaker 1: on a team. Well, not only that, Nancy with they're
26:10
Speaker 1: putting a lot of pressure on themselves. They're driven, they
26:13
Speaker 1: know what they want, they go after it. They're organized,
26:16
Speaker 1: they plan for things. They're willing to sacrifice a lot
26:21
Speaker 1: to get what they want. You know, I want to
26:24
Speaker 1: go to Peter Meyer, author of Blind Love. So Peter
26:29
Speaker 1: let me understand this. David Graham and Diane Samora about
26:33
Speaker 1: incredibly driven. Once at the Naval Academy, once at the
26:37
Speaker 1: Air Force Academy, they're in love, they're engaged, they plan
26:41
Speaker 1: to get married. So how does he end up connecting
26:44
Speaker 1: with sixteen year old Adrian Jones? It was they rode
26:49
Speaker 1: the bus cross country team was the connection. I mean
26:52
Speaker 1: they both went to the same high school, but Adrian
26:54
Speaker 1: was a year behind David. But on the cross country team,
26:57
Speaker 1: you have these classes urging, and when you go to
27:00
Speaker 1: a cross country meets, you take a bus. So they
27:02
Speaker 1: coming back from a cross country meet in the bus,
27:06
Speaker 1: and you know, it is one of those little perfectly
27:11
Speaker 1: normal thing and is just then is the DA would
27:15
Speaker 1: give her a ride home and then the next thing
27:17
Speaker 1: you know, um, they had a one night stand. I
27:21
Speaker 1: think that it's hard to think of justin boardman, a
27:26
Speaker 1: little sixteen year old girl for having a so called
27:32
Speaker 1: one night stand. She runs track at school, she works
27:37
Speaker 1: at the chicken joint part time to make money. I
27:43
Speaker 1: don't know, I think it's a little harsh to say
27:47
Speaker 1: a teen girl like this has a quote one night stand.
27:51
Speaker 1: Isn't that being really judgmental? On a young girl. Absolutely
28:00
Speaker 1: that I apologize for that language. Oh you know what,
28:03
Speaker 1: we all say it, Peter, we all say it. I
28:05
Speaker 1: don't think anybody means any ill will by I mean,
28:09
Speaker 1: I think that's really what it was. I think that
28:13
Speaker 1: this guy seduced a sixteen year old girl and they
28:18
Speaker 1: had sex one time. I mean, technically it is a
28:22
Speaker 1: one night stand, but something about just saying that about
28:26
Speaker 1: this little girl, she's just so innocent and good. It
28:31
Speaker 1: just doesn't sing high and teenagers, well, you know, the
28:37
Speaker 1: adolescence or they fall in love, they their their bodies
28:43
Speaker 1: have changed. You know, that's we think about it a
28:45
Speaker 1: little differently. The one night stand for the adult but
28:48
Speaker 1: for teenagers is romance and love crime stories with Nancy Grace.
29:07
Speaker 1: Long story short, the two meet and they do, in
29:11
Speaker 1: fact have sex. Take a listen to our cut. Eleven.
29:18
Speaker 1: About a month after they started dating, Diane tells her
29:20
Speaker 1: parents that she and David are engaged, with plans to
29:24
Speaker 1: get married after they both graduate from military academies. But
29:28
Speaker 1: David has a secret. He cheated on Diane with Adrian Jones,
29:31
Speaker 1: a fellow track team member. It was a one night stand. Ultimately,
29:35
Speaker 1: he confesses and Diane feels betrayed, he says. Diane then
29:39
Speaker 1: gave him an ultimatum. Hill Adrian, dear Lord in Heaven.
29:45
Speaker 1: First of all, Peter Meyer, you're the author. You literally
29:49
Speaker 1: wrote the book blind Love. Why in the world did
29:52
Speaker 1: he confess want to get it off his chest and
29:55
Speaker 1: make Diane's the moral feel terrible. I don't, No, I
30:00
Speaker 1: really don't. I mean he davidkay Me just asked the
30:04
Speaker 1: whole panel a question. Did anybody ever read Dear Abby?
30:10
Speaker 1: I mean I read Dear Abbey growing up, and this
30:14
Speaker 1: is what Dear Abby says. Dear Abbey said. Every time
30:19
Speaker 1: somebody writes singing goes, oh, my best friend's husband's having
30:22
Speaker 1: an affairs. Should I tell her? No, don't tell her,
30:26
Speaker 1: It's none of your business. Or a woman writes, sin,
30:29
Speaker 1: I had an affair. It's over. I'm sorr afraid I'm
30:32
Speaker 1: gonna lose my husband. Should I tell him? Abby said no,
30:36
Speaker 1: don't tell him. It makes you feel better to relieve
30:40
Speaker 1: your conscious and your guilt. It ruins a marriage, and
30:43
Speaker 1: it will ruin his thought of you forever. Just don't
30:48
Speaker 1: do it again. For Pete's sake. Why in the world
30:53
Speaker 1: what is it, doctor Donner? Why do people feel they
30:55
Speaker 1: have to unload everything on their loved one. What is
31:00
Speaker 1: it may still feel belt a apolge and it makes
31:02
Speaker 1: the love one feel terrible. That's it your abbey every day.
31:08
Speaker 1: It's it's a relief. You can get it. You can,
31:11
Speaker 1: you know, unload your own sense of shame and guilt
31:14
Speaker 1: and share it with someone else and beg for forgiveness
31:17
Speaker 1: and say I'm sorry. It'll never happen again. But it
31:20
Speaker 1: is selfish. People do it all the time, but it
31:24
Speaker 1: is selfish and the pain to someone else. Now, the
31:27
Speaker 1: one thing I do not like, among many things, is
31:30
Speaker 1: anybody to start preaching at me. But it's my understanding
31:35
Speaker 1: that when you ask for forgiveness, you're supposed to not
31:38
Speaker 1: only ask for forgiveness, but change your ways. Otherwise, your
31:45
Speaker 1: request for forgiveness its worth a hill of beans. Sometimes
31:49
Speaker 1: it's just a way of hurting somebody another time. So
31:52
Speaker 1: if you really want to make amends to the one
31:55
Speaker 1: you love, except what you've done wrong, feel bad about it.
32:00
Speaker 1: You should feel bad about it and don't do it again.
32:06
Speaker 1: Now that's coming from me. Point out that psychological band
32:11
Speaker 1: came from a broken home. Sorry, but David David his
32:16
Speaker 1: parents were divorced. He was a kind of a loner.
32:18
Speaker 1: So among he worked on his what was a kind
32:22
Speaker 1: of a passiveness, and he worked very hard to overcome
32:28
Speaker 1: that passiveness. Pardon me, doctor Donner, and by stepping out
32:32
Speaker 1: of my territory here. But and and so we haven't
32:35
Speaker 1: even talked about the guns and the military um propensities
32:40
Speaker 1: that come along with that. So there was there was
32:43
Speaker 1: a lot, but there was a lot of this business
32:45
Speaker 1: of taking orders, David and being a bit passive. Um
32:51
Speaker 1: uh as thus runs into your old notebook and this ultimatum,
32:59
Speaker 1: kill her or lose me. Okay, what is that, doctor
33:04
Speaker 1: Michael Donner? Kill her or lose me. That's easy, bye bye.
33:10
Speaker 1: You know, not everybody really thinks about other people as
33:14
Speaker 1: being completely human. Their their objects for their own personal gratification.
33:19
Speaker 1: They're objects that get in their way that they are
33:21
Speaker 1: objects that help them. But there but there's no real empathy.
33:25
Speaker 1: Now I don't know Diane Zamora, so I can't speak
33:28
Speaker 1: about her a specific. You know, we know that's the
33:30
Speaker 1: kind of person that we run into where they just
33:33
Speaker 1: don't care about other people. So, choyce light, let me
33:38
Speaker 1: understand something. You're a veteran criminal defense attorney. I bet
33:42
Speaker 1: you would have a field day with this if you're
33:45
Speaker 1: representing Davey Graham. She told me to do it or
33:48
Speaker 1: should break up. How's that coercion? Well it depends. But
33:53
Speaker 1: you know they say, hell hath no fury? Oh here
33:56
Speaker 1: we go, and here you know, I can see you
34:02
Speaker 1: prancing that banner around the courtroom till the cows come home.
34:06
Speaker 1: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorn. Well, I
34:09
Speaker 1: wonder who beat her skull in and pull the trigger?
34:13
Speaker 1: You think Samoura did all that on her own, Well,
34:15
Speaker 1: it was Graham who said that it was Samoura who
34:19
Speaker 1: took a dumbbell and smashed it into Adrian's head. And
34:27
Speaker 1: as she stumbled out of the car, it was Graham
34:31
Speaker 1: who who pulled the trigger. And well, isn't it true
34:35
Speaker 1: Troy Layton that for coercion to work, in other words,
34:41
Speaker 1: they made me do it, you have to be under
34:43
Speaker 1: threat of death or a third party has to be
34:45
Speaker 1: under threat of death. Yes, you have to have what
34:48
Speaker 1: a reasonable person would believe to be fear of imminent
34:54
Speaker 1: mortal danger to yourself. So basically, Diane Samoura was holding
34:58
Speaker 1: herself hostage. If you don't murder sixteen year old All
35:04
Speaker 1: American girls scrubbed in Sunshine that you seduced one time.
35:08
Speaker 1: If you don't kill her, I'm going to commit suicide
35:11
Speaker 1: or leave you. So she's basically holding herself hostage. As
35:17
Speaker 1: ridiculous as that sounds, take a listen to this. Our
35:20
Speaker 1: cut twelve, David Graham tells police he called Adrian and
35:24
Speaker 1: said he wanted to see her. He picked her up
35:26
Speaker 1: in a Master Protege owned by Diane's parents, with Samora
35:30
Speaker 1: hiding in the hatchback. Adrian reclined the passengers seat. According
35:34
Speaker 1: to David, while he held Adrian, Diane hit her in
35:37
Speaker 1: the head with a dumbbell, but she didn't die. Adrian
35:41
Speaker 1: managed to crawl through the window and ran off. David
35:44
Speaker 1: says he grabbed a gun and followed. When Adrian fell,
35:48
Speaker 1: Graham pulled the trigger. Hiding in the hatchback. This reeks
35:56
Speaker 1: of pre meditation. Just In Boardman and former Special Victims
36:00
Speaker 1: Unit detective you can find them at Justin Boordman dot com.
36:03
Speaker 1: They plan this whole thing out and they're victim a
36:08
Speaker 1: sixteen year old little girl. Absolutely they did, and I
36:13
Speaker 1: think gathering some of this evidence before we were talking
36:17
Speaker 1: I would also be taking a look at some of
36:19
Speaker 1: the grooming at one night stand like that just does
36:22
Speaker 1: not usually happen, just just of thee. Yeah, so you
36:30
Speaker 1: think he was cajoling her or as you say, grooming
36:33
Speaker 1: her before that occurred. Absolutely, and I think that would
36:39
Speaker 1: be something to take a look at. They probably did, um,
36:41
Speaker 1: I don't have the information on that, but I'm sorry
36:45
Speaker 1: you were saying, Well, I'm thinking about how they lured
36:49
Speaker 1: her into the car. While Diane Zamora throws caution to
36:54
Speaker 1: the wind and highs in the hatchback of the vehicle
36:57
Speaker 1: and her boyfriend and David her fiance, David Graham, lures
37:03
Speaker 1: the sixteen year old to the car all in order
37:06
Speaker 1: to kill her. And guess what, they came that close
37:10
Speaker 1: to getting away with it. Remember no sex attack, no DNA,
37:15
Speaker 1: no fingerprints, no tire tracks. But you know what, The
37:19
Speaker 1: Constitution protects you from statements you make without a warrant
37:25
Speaker 1: to police, but it doesn't protect you from yourself. Listen
37:31
Speaker 1: to our cut thirteen. The distance between Zamora and Graham
37:35
Speaker 1: grew as they pursued their military careers, until one night
37:39
Speaker 1: when Zamora had a late Mike gabfest with her two roommates,
37:43
Speaker 1: Mandy Gotch and Jennifer Mcarney. One of the girls mentioned
37:46
Speaker 1: that Diane and David seems so in love that they
37:49
Speaker 1: would do anything for each other, even kill. Diane paused
37:53
Speaker 1: and said, we have. The roommates were skeptical at first,
37:56
Speaker 1: but the next day told the Navy chaplain about the conversation.
38:00
Speaker 1: The chaplain contacted a Navy attorney, who then began calling
38:03
Speaker 1: police departments in the Dallas Fort Worth area to ask
38:07
Speaker 1: if they had an unsolved murder of a teenage girl.
38:10
Speaker 1: On August twenty ninth, he contacted the Grand Prairie Police Department.
38:15
Speaker 1: The next morning, detectives were on a flight to Annapolis.
38:19
Speaker 1: Can you imagine that moment, all these girls in their
38:22
Speaker 1: pj's having a gab fest in their dorm room. Man,
38:26
Speaker 1: you guys are so in wef I bet you kill
38:28
Speaker 1: for each other. Then Zamora, in her dramatic manner, says,
38:33
Speaker 1: we did, and the case bus wide open. You know what,
38:39
Speaker 1: why would you blurt out a secret like that to
38:43
Speaker 1: your dormi's Well, listen to this. Look, what did you
38:55
Speaker 1: make him do that, Diane? Had you ever asked him
39:13
Speaker 1: to kill? Later in Jones for you, oh dear Lord
39:18
Speaker 1: in heaven. The crying and the snodding and the no, no,
39:21
Speaker 1: no choice Lake, and she could try out cross she
39:24
Speaker 1: wants to right now. But the law is you may
39:27
Speaker 1: immediately regret the deed. But what matters is the intent
39:31
Speaker 1: at the time of the act. You want to tell
39:33
Speaker 1: me she didn't mean to kill when she's hiding in
39:35
Speaker 1: the hatchback, driving with her lover out there with a
39:38
Speaker 1: loaded gun to get the sixteen year old girl in
39:41
Speaker 1: the car. It's too late for all that snodding. In
39:44
Speaker 1: front of a jury, it would appear to be and
39:46
Speaker 1: a skilled prosecutor like you, Nancy, would would be arguing
39:51
Speaker 1: all these special circumstances. In this case, she was lying
39:55
Speaker 1: in wait. There was premeditation, and she clearly showed an indifference,
40:03
Speaker 1: a depraved indifference to human life. And so if if
40:09
Speaker 1: I was a prosecutor in this case and took off
40:12
Speaker 1: my defense attorney hat, I'd be circue. I'd be seeking
40:17
Speaker 1: the death penalty if it was available. Guys, more testimony. Listen,
40:24
Speaker 1: she said, Um, this is a girl they had sex
40:28
Speaker 1: with and they had planned her murder. Could I have
40:33
Speaker 1: been planned murder? At first? They were planning to snap
40:37
Speaker 1: her neck and drop the body the like they didn't
40:40
Speaker 1: go as planned. Mhmm, snap her neck can drop a
40:44
Speaker 1: body in the light. You're hearing Samora's former best friend
40:47
Speaker 1: testifying at court that was Christina Mason. Well none of
40:51
Speaker 1: that worked. Listen, we the jury find the defendant Diane
40:55
Speaker 1: Michelle's are more guilty of the offense with capital murder
40:59
Speaker 1: as alleged indicton Soi and Monty Winship. It's not just
41:04
Speaker 1: as Zamora the mastermind of the murder. What about David
41:08
Speaker 1: Graham who follows along like a little sheep murdering a
41:13
Speaker 1: sixteen year old girl. May they wrought in hell? Nancy
41:19
Speaker 1: Grace grum Story signing off Goodbye friend,