Texas v. David Graham
"The Cadet Murder Trial"
Zamora's former best friend testifies, has credibility challenged
NEW BRAUNFELS, TEXAS, July 16 (Court TV) -- Kristina Mason, the former best friend of Diane Zamora, was called to testify against David Graham and was challenged by the defense with various inconsistencies in her prior testimony about the case.
Under direct examination by prosecutor Mike Parrish, Mason, who testified at Zamora's trial last February, said that Zamora had told her that she and Graham were responsible for Adrianne Jones' death a week after the murder. She said that Zamora told her, "That's how David proved his love for me. He killed her." Mason said that Zamora told her that Graham told her that he had slept with Jones. According to Mason, Zamora told her how she and Graham carried out their plan to murder Jones: Graham drove to Jones's house and picked her up while Zamora hid in the car trunk. Graham drove out to Joe Pool Lake, stopped the car, and a struggle ensued involving Graham, Jones, and Zamora. During the tussle, Zamora grabbed a weight and tried to hit Jones in the head. Jones escaped the car and ran out into the nearby field and collapsed. According the Mason, Zamora told her that she told Graham to "Shoot her, kill her, shoot her!"
Mason admitted that she did not tell authorities what Zamora had told her about Jones' murder because she was afraid. On August 31, 1996, Mason testified, she received a call from Graham, who told her that Zamora was returning to Ft. Worth from Annapolis because she was facing disciplinary action at school. (Zamora eventually visited Mason at her house for three hours.) He asked Mason to arrange a flight for Zamora from Ft. Worth to where he was stationed in Colorado. (Eight months after Jones' murder, Zamora had enrolled as a Navy midshipsman at Annapolis while Graham had entered the Air Force in Colorado.) According to Mason, Zamora was anxious to see Graham.
During his cross-examination of Mason, defense attorney Dan Cogdell confronted Mason with various inconsistencies in her testimony before a grand jury and tried show weaknesses in her credibility. He asked her whether she believes Zamora tells the truth and whether she has ever told anyone that Zamora is a liar. At first, Mason denied that she had ever told anyone that Zamora was a liar. Cogdell also asked Mason whether she was a liar, to which she responded "No."
But then Cogdell pointed out to Mason that during the first part of her grand jury testimony, she had lied about her knowledge of the case and only started telling the "truth" (her current testimony about the case) when prosecutor Parrish threatened her with aggravated perjury charges. (Mason originally told the grand jury that Zamora never told her that she and Graham had killed Jones.) This forced Mason to admit that at least during the first part of her grand jury testimony, she had lied about the case. She also conceded that she has never discussed what Zamora told her about Jones's murder with Graham. Cogdell also elicited from Mason that when Zamora stopped by her house on August 31, 1995, she talked about a "conspiracy" in which her schoolmate, Jay Guild, and roommate, Jennifer McKearney, were "telling lies about her."
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Cogdell also confronted Mason with her prior grand jury testimony that she thought Zamora was lying about the murder. Mason had testified she thought because Zamora lied because Zamora told her that when she was a little girl, she would tell her relatives stories to get attention. Mason said that she did not want to believe Zamora.
In addition the defense asked Mason about the condition of Zamora's left hand, which she had severely injured during a car accident months before Jones' murder. The accident left Zamora's left hand practically useless by the time of the murder. Cogdell pointed out to Mason that Parrish had to remind her during grand jury testimony that Zamora's left hand had been injured in the accident. (Zamora is right-handed. In Zamora's trial, her defense contended that Zamora could not have used the left hand to hit Jones with the weight because of the injury. And Zamora also claimed she could not have used her right hand because she could not lean on her injured left hand to give her the leverage needed to strike Jones.)
Prosecutor Parrish, however, had Mason provide context to some of her testimony to the defense. Regarding her grand jury testimony that she thought Zamora was lying and that she did not want to believe her, Mason explained that she was shocked when Zamora first told her about her and Graham's involvement in Jones' murder. She could not believe that her best friend would do such a thing and did not want to believe that Zamora and Graham killed Jones. Parrish also asked Mason to explain his "reminding" her about Zamora's injury to her left hand: Mason said Parrish only reminded her that Zamora is right-handed, and this reminded her that Zamora's injury occurred to left hand. Mason's testimony ended with her identifying Zamora's handwriting in several letters presumably written to Graham.
Medical examiner Dr. Marc Krouse, another witness from the Zamora trial, also came to the stand and said that the head injury suffered by Adrianne Jones from the blow to the head was so severe that she could have died from the injury if left untreated. Krouse's theory was that the butt of a gun (perhaps the 9 mm Makarov used to kill her) was used to hit Jones. However, he also conceded that the edges of weight (which was not identified as coming from Graham's house but used by the state only for demonstration purposes) could have been used to strike Jones.
Krouse said Jones was hit with such force that it was probably inflicted by a larger and more muscular person than Zamora. During cross-examination, Cogdell got Krouse to admit he does not really know how strong Zamora is and that people can become extraordinarily strong when under the influence of adrenaline. Krouse also addressed the bruises found on Jones' neck, saying that they appear to have been caused by a hand grabbing her neck with force. The doctor believed those bruises were caused by someone with hands bigger than Zamora's. However, on cross-examination by the defense, Krouse admitted that if Zamora had gloves on her hands or gauze for her hand injury, it could have been her hand which caused the bruises. Krouse also testified that force used to strike Jones suggests that the injury may not have been inflicted within the cramped confines of the car. Jones may have been hit outside the car.
In other testimony, Grand Prairie police officer Brad Geary told the court that Graham told him where to find the gun allegedly used to kill Jones. Investigators found the gun in the attic of Graham's father's house. Geary said he spoke to Graham by telephone; Graham, who was being held for questioning in Jones' death, was calling from Colorado.
"He just stated that it was well-hidden," Geary said. "I believe he spoke of an eave...It [the gun] was wrapped up and under some insulation."
Another Grand Prairie police officer, Mike Fleming, testified that he found two shell casings from a handgun at the crime scene, stored them in a cigarette wrapper, and put them in his pocket. When defense attorney Cogdell asked Fleming whether he or anyone else was concerned about possible contamination of evidence, the officer conceded that previous witness Roberta Porter was not pleased and worried about the fingerprint evidence.
Grand Prairie detective Teena Jackson testified that she drove to Colorado Springs to help military officials interrogate Graham on September 4, 1996. Jackson and a Detective Dennis Meyer drove Graham back the next day to his air force base from military correctional facility in Fort Carson, Colorado, the place of his interrogation. During the ride, Jackson sat in the back, Meyer drove, and Graham was in the front passenger seat. According to Jackson, she and Meyer were casually conversing with Graham but not interrogating him. Graham then said that he, as a point of honor and from the desire to be completely honest, had something else to confess: the murder weapon was in his home. Meyer called a Detective Geary in Grand Prairie and put Graham on the phone with him.
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