Diane Zamora and her fiance David Graham are two teen killers from Texas who would be convicted in the murder of Adrianne Jones. A case that is commonly referred to as The Texas Cadet Murder
According to court documents Diane Zamora and David Graham were dating and Zamora was upset that Graham had a one time encounter with Adrianne Jones following a cross country meet. In order to prove his love to her Zamora demanded that David murder Adrianne Jones
Adrianne Jones was lured from her home and would later be found with two gunshots to her head. Graham would later testify that he had shot the teen after Zamora had struck her in the head with a dumbbell
Diane Zamora and David Graham would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison
Diane Zamora Videos
Diane Zamora Now
SID Number: 05713081
TDCJ Number: 00814993
Name: ZAMORA,DIANE MICHELLE
Race: H
Gender: F
Age: 45
Maximum Sentence Date: LIFE SENTENCE
Current Facility: MURRAY
Projected Release Date: LIFE SENTENCE
Parole Eligibility Date: 2036-09-05
David Graham Now
SID Number: 05706168
TDCJ Number: 00837388
Name: GRAHAM,DAVID CHRISTOPHER
Race: W
Gender: M
Age: 46
Maximum Sentence Date: LIFE SENTENCE
Current Facility: ALLRED
Projected Release Date: LIFE SENTENCE
Parole Eligibility Date: 2036-09-05
Diane Zamora Case
A former North Texas midshipman who with her boyfriend killed a Mansfield teen after he confessed to an affair has lost an appeal to return to protective custody in prison.
Diane Zamora, 40, alleged that her constitutional right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment was violated when she was moved out of protective custody at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville and into the general population at the Hobby Unit in Marlin.
In 1998, Zamora and her then-fiance, David Graham, were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison in the 1995 slaying of Adrianne Jones.
Graham said Zamora ordered him to kill Jones after he admitted to a one-time sexual encounter with her after a cross country meet.
Following an unsuccessful civil rights lawsuit in a U.S. District Court, Zamora appealed her case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals where it was rejected Monday.
The 5th Circuit ruling upheld a summary judgment in favor of Texas prison officials that was issued in January 2017 by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman.
In it, Pitman said there was no evidence that “having a high-profile case entitles a prisoner to transfer to safekeeping” and that evidence of alleged assaults in her case is “far from reliable.”
Safekeeping units are air-conditioned and inmates get larger cells than in general population as well as a television, according to court documents.
In her appeal, Zamora claimed that because of the national attention her case got — the trial was televised live and resulted in at least two books and a made-for-TV movie — she had been threatened and assaulted by other inmates, according to court documents.
“In essence, Zamora’s contentions boil down to a disagreement with prison officials over her housing status,” the court said in an opinion, which also stated that Zamora had not presented evidence showing there was “a genuine issue” and that there was no valid constitutional claim for retaliation.
Zamora is back in the Mountain View Unit, according to prison records, but it’s unclear how long she will be there.
Graham, 41, who was found guilty 20 years ago Tuesday, is being housed in the Allred Unit in Iowa Park. The pair won’t be eligible for parole until 2036.
Following are five things to know about the case:
Honor students-turned-killers
Zamora, an honor student at Crowley High, and Graham, an honor student at Mansfield High, had plans to marry in 2000 after they had graduated from their respective military academies.
Zamora was in her first year at the Naval Academy as a midshipman, and Graham was at the Air Force Academy when they murdered Jones, a 16-year-old student from Mansfield.
In his confession, Graham said that Zamora was devastated by his tryst with Jones and that she insisted that killing the teen was the only way to make up for it.
In December 1995, Jones slipped out of her house to meet Graham but never returned. Her badly beaten body was found the next day in a field near Joe Pool Lake in Grand Prairie with two gunshot wounds to the head.
During his trial, Graham said that Zamora was hidden when they picked up Jones, but revealed herself and hit Jones with a dumbbell. When Jones stumbled out of the truck, Graham said he shot her twice in the head as she attempted to flee.
The case had gone cold
Zamora and Graham each returned to their respective service academies, but police said that months later, Zamora began telling classmates about the murder.
The midshipmen reported the story to their superiors in August 1996, and Zamora left the academy. She was arrested the following month, three days after Graham was arrested in Colorado and typed his confession
Grand Prairie Sgt. Alan Patton, who took Zamora’s confession, said in a Dateline NBC interview that neither of the 18-year-olds were suspects until Zamora started talking; the case had gone cold.
‘Satisfy her womanly vengeance’
In a self-typed confession, Graham said: “I was stupid, but I was in love
He said that Zamora felt “betrayed, deceived and forgotten” upon learning of the infidelity with Graham’s Mansfield High classmate.
“When this precious relationship we had was damaged by my thoughtless actions, the only thing that could satisfy her womanly vengeance was the life of the one that had, for an instant, taken her place,” he said in the confession.
At first, Graham said he couldn’t believe what Zamora was asking him to do, but in the end he was persuaded by love. After they killed Jones, Graham said they regretted their actions.
In her testimony, Diane Zamora claimed that she only wanted to meet Jones — not to kill her — because she thought Graham had made the whole ordeal up to make her jealous.
Diane Zamora said she had also planned to take the blame to protect Graham’s career, and also claimed that he had abused her.
More than 10 years after the slaying, Diane Zamora broke her silence on Dateline NBC. She said in that 2007 interview that she was afraid that Graham would kill her, but also that she loved him and wanted to protect him. She denied hitting Jones with a dumbbell.
The next year, Graham said in a prison interview that he wished he had “pled guilty from Day 1.” Both he and Diane Zamora pled not guilty for their roles in Jones’ slaying. After initially confessing, Graham denied involvement, then later admitted to killing Jones.
At the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that the sexual encounter with Jones never occurred, but Graham insisted in the interview that it had happened.
After weeks of exchanging love letters in jail, Zamora and Graham’s relationship cooled.
In 2003, Diane Zamora married another inmate, Steve Mora, by proxy without meeting face-to-face. They became acquainted after Mora wrote to her.
Graham also married by proxy in 2010.
Diane Zamora News
David Graham and Diane Zamora were only teenagers when they were arrested for a brutal crime: the beating and shooting death of 16-year-old Adrianne Jones, a well-liked girl in Mansfield, Texas, who fell between Graham and Zamora with deadly consequences.
Graham and Zamora were convicted of Adrianne’s murder in the ’90s and have spent two decades behind bars — where they will remain at least until they are eligible for parole in 2036. Their arrests and conviction were featured on Monday night’s episode of People Magazine Investigates, on Investigation Discovery.
In their years in prison, the formerly inseparable couple, who were engaged before their murder arrests and later split, have had some similar experiences. Here’s a look at their lives now.
David Graham
In a 2008 interview, Graham — like Diane Zamora did before and would do after him — struck a publicly remorseful tone about Adrianne’s December 1995 killing.
“I wish I had’ve pled guilty from day one,” he told the Dallas Morning News. “If I had it to do over, I’d plead guilty to murder and let a judge sentence me and that’s it.” And, like Zamora, Graham blamed the driving force for the murder on the other person involved — in this case, her.
“She [Diane Zamora] was the motivator, but I went through with it and that’s all that really matters,” he said.
“Regrets? I start with the simple fact of killing Adrianne and everything that surrounded that,” Graham said. “I don’t see the two of us being any different in our culpability. ”
In 2010, he said he had gotten married. Earlier that year, he started a blog from prison with a fellow inmate called Prison News Exposed and he “plan[ned] to debate prison issues,” according to the Morning News. Without access to the Internet, Graham said he posted to the site via mail to a third party.
Graham also said he earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology.
And while he has previously recanted his confession, which was the centerpiece of the prosecution against him, he told the Morning News it was accurate: “I’m not going to tell people who love Adrianne that we don’t deserve life in prison.”
Like Graham, Diane Zamora wed in prison: She married inmate Steven Mora in 2003. She was also featured in a 2007 episode of NBC’s Dateline, where she went public for the first time from prison with her claims of innocence.
“I’m not a killer and that I’m not some witch,” she said then. “I’m not some evil-hearted person, not even close.”
Her comments to Dateline echo what she told People Magazine Investigates in Monday night’s episode on the Adrianne Jones murder: That she witnessed the girl’s death, and helped hide it, but did not help kill her. (Graham could not immediately be reached by PEOPLE.)
“I think I remember seeing [Adrianne] one time, just noticing her,” Zamora said on PMI. “I have a vague recollection, but I’d never heard her name, anything about her. I’d never seen a picture. … I didn’t know anything of her at all.”
“It wasn’t her fault, but she wouldn’t have been in that position had I not lost my temper,” Diane Zamora said.
She said she is no longer in contact with Graham, either: He reportedly sent her a Christmas card in 2001, to no avail.
Adrianne’s family, meanwhile has kept private since her killers were convicted. They have not forgotten their daughter and have asked the same of others.
“The end of this day is not the end of my life or our family’s life,” Adrianne’s mother said as Graham and Diane Zamora were convicted. “But I hope that everyone remembers our daughter with the integrity that she has — ’cause she’s still among us, watching us. I remember her eyes with joy.”
https://people.com/crime/david-graham-diane-zamora-their-lives-now-2016/
