Teen love story turns tragic because of jealous joke

Early in the morning of December 3, 1995, while driving along a deserted country road, a farmer discovered the girl’s body behind a barbed wire fence. The girl, who was shot twice, was wearing sweatpants and a gray T-shirt that read “1995 Regional Cross-Country Competition”.

Within hours, police identified the victim as Adrianne Jones, a 16-year-old high school student from the town of Mansfield, southeast of Fort Worth, Texas.

Adrianne Jones, commonly known as AJ, is both a good student and has a beautiful appearance and an active, sociable personality. Adrianne’s popularity at school makes the investigation difficult. Police obtained a long list of admirers, jealous or angry with Adrianne.

Police determined that Adrianne knew her killer. There was no sign at the scene that the victim was restrained and struggled. Nor is there any sign of someone breaking into the house or going through a window to kidnap Adrianne. Furthermore, the autopsy found no evidence that Adrianne was sexually assaulted, meaning that the perpetrator was not the rapist. The police recognized Adrianne’s death as an execution, the result of a terrible rampage.

The night of the murder, Adrianne’s parents said she was on the phone with Tracy Smith, her boyfriend of a few months, and David Graham, a classmate on the school’s cross country team. After Adrianne went back to her room to turn off the lights and go to bed, her brother heard an engine outside the window and saw a pickup truck drive away.

The next morning, Adrianne was nowhere to be found. Her mother called the school to check on David, but he denied calling Adrianne.

The police only briefly questioned David, but they were sure he was not involved so they didn’t check with a lie detector. According to the investigation, David’s name is not in the contact list of 30 people in Adrianne’s personal phone. Police also did not hear David’s name mentioned by any of his friends when they inquired about the person who had a close relationship with Adrianne. David has a longtime girlfriend and has announced his engagement.

A schoolgirl named Tara is considered a suspect because Adrianne testified against her for assaulting and injuring Adrianne’s friend. However, Tara has a solid alibi and passes the lie test.

Adrianne’s new boyfriend Tracy was removed from the list of suspects because he was away for a weekend with his family and was not in town at the time of the murder. Tracy also passed the test, and provided clues to the police.

According to Tracy, Adrianne said 17-year-old Bryan called her that night and wanted to meet her to talk. Bryan used to work part-time at a cake shop with Adrianne, fell in love with the beautiful schoolgirl and often tried to approach her.

Police investigated that Bryan was taking four drugs to treat symptoms of clinical depression. He said he was so drunk that night that he doesn’t remember talking or driving to Adrianne’s house.

A week later, on December 15, 1995, police arrested Bryan on suspicion of murder. However, Bryan’s father confirmed that on the night of the murder, Bryan returned and did not leave the house after that. Bryan has to spend Christmas and New Year in prison. He was released after passing a lie test.

Adrianne’s murder shocked the Mansfield community. However, despite mobilizing a large number of investigative forces, the case was still deadlocked. Police did not find the next suspect until receiving news from the Naval Academy in August 1996.

Two cadets reported to the academy’s leadership that their roommate, Diane Zamora, had confessed to murdering Adrianne. Diane is David’s longtime girlfriend.

On September 6, 1996, Diane was arrested after leaving school. Three days later, David was arrested in Colorado. He was questioned for 30 hours and confessed to murdering Adrianne. Diane also pleaded guilty.

Diane and David met at the age of 14 at a Civil Aviation Patrol convention at Spinks Airport, near Crowley, Texas. The two began dating about four years later, in August 1995. The couple attended different schools but were both excellent students. About a month after officially dating, Diane and David announced their engagement to the family and plan to get married after graduating from college. In everyone’s eyes, they are a beautiful couple and have a bright future.

Storms hit when David meets Adrianne on the school’s running team. In the confession, David said that on November 4, 1995, Adrianne asked David to drive her home. They didn’t go straight to Adrianne’s house, but stopped at the back of the elementary school to have a chat.

Diane testified that about a month later, she asked David about other girls, including Adrianne. They argued and David said he had sex with Adrianne. Diane started screaming and banging her head on the floor, screaming. David tries to calm his girlfriend down but Diane claims she will kill herself or leave David if he doesn’t kill Adrianne.

According to David, the two planned to kill Adrianne, tie dumbbells to the body and throw it into the lake. David called Adrianne on the night of December 3, 1995, driving her to Joe Pool with Diane hiding in the back of the car. They arrived at 0:30 on December 4, when David stopped the car, Diane came out to confront Adrianne. According to Diane, Adrianne admitted and said she felt guilty. Diane angrily rushed to Adrianne with weights, David shot twice at the victim.

Then they both got back to the car, and David said: “I love you, honey, do you believe me now?”. They cleaned up the scene, threw away blood-stained clothes and went home. Diane wrote in the calendar: “Adrianne 1:38”.

Unsuspecting police, David went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and Diane went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland until his arrest.

However, the couple later turned over their testimony. David said he did not kill Adrianne but helped cover up the murder committed by Diane herself. Diane testified that David carried out the murder alone. A handgun, believed to be the weapon, was found in the attic of David’s house.

The police investigated the case for 9 months. They claim David and Adrianne did not have sex. David lied to Diane making her crazy but never explained it was just a joke because he wanted to make his girlfriend jealous.

David admitted that his initial confession was correct, having lied about having sex with the victim on advice from his defense attorney.

On February 17, 1998, a jury found Diane guilty of murder, received a life sentence and would be eligible for parole after 40 years.

On July 24, 1998, David was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

The Adrianne case was made into a movie Love’s Deadly Triangle: The Texas Cadet Murder In 1997, actress Holly Marie Combs played Diane Zamora.

This case is also written in two books as The Cadet Murder Case: A True Story of Teen Love and Deadly Revenge by AW Gray (1997), Blind Love: The True Story of the Texas Cadet Murder by Peter Meyer (2011).

Tue Anh (According to Texasmonthly, Murderpedia)