Killer Cadets: The Murder of Adrianne Jones

True Crime Campfire

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The U.S. military teaches recruits to function together as a well-oiled machine—and for young people who dream of joining the most elite forces, it requires discipline, commitment, and loyalty, not to mention the courage to put yourself in harm’s way for the greater good. For the ones with the deepest commitment, there has to be a fire in the belly that drives them to keep their eye on the prize, no matter what the risks. Most of the time this sets the stage for great achievements. But sometimes, the personality type that lends itself to flawless dedication can teeter over the line into feverish obsession. Where’s the line? When you’ve cultivated a “failure is not an option” attitude your entire life, how do you put the brakes on when that determination starts to bleed into your personal relationships? Join us for the story of one of the most infamous killer couples of the 1990s: Diane Zamora and David Graham.

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Sources:
Blind Love by Peter Meyer
Texas Monthly, Skip Hollandsworth: https://www.texasmonthly.com/true-crime/the-killer-cadets/
A&E's "American Justice," 2000: "Duty, Honor, Murder"

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire.
0:04.0	We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney.
0:08.0	And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction.
0:12.0	We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire.
0:19.0	The U.S. military teaches recruits to function together as a well-oiled machine, and for young people who dream of joining the most elite forces, it requires discipline, commitment, and loyalty, not to mention the courage to put yourself in harm's way for the greater good. For the ones with the deepest commitment,
0:38.0	there has to be a fire in the belly that drives them to keep their eye on the prize, no matter
0:42.7	what the risks. Most of the time, this sets the stage for great achievements, but sometimes
0:48.3	the personality type that lends itself to that flawless dedication can teeter over the line into feverish obsession.
0:56.6	Where is the line? When you've cultivated a failure is not an option attitude your entire life,
1:03.2	how do you put the brakes on when that determination starts to bleed into your personal
1:07.4	relationships? This is Killer Cadets, the murder of Adrian Jones.
1:13.1	So, campers, for this one, we're at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, one of the most
1:29.5	elite, selective training programs in the country, where you can get a bachelor's degree and
1:34.2	begin training for military service at the same time. August 24, 1996. The summer before their
1:41.1	freshman year, new cadets go through what they call Pleeb summer.
1:44.9	Plebe is the nickname they give the first years, which sounds like standard-issue military hell,
1:50.1	an ungodly amount of running, push-ups, marching, and getting yelled at.
1:53.8	All out in the summer sun.
1:56.1	It was a regiment designed to break you down and build you back up again as a perfect midshipman.
2:00.7	Or in the case of freshman Diane Zamora and her roommates Mandy and Jen, Regiment designed to break you down and build you back up again as a perfect midshipman,
2:06.1	or in the case of freshman Diane Zamora and her roommates Mandy and Jen, midship women.
2:11.8	The summer was coming to a close, much to everybody's relief. They'd begin their first full year at the academy soon. An experience like Plebe Summer is pretty hellish for most people,
	...

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