Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
Speaker 1: not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: The guys came in here and are instantly hostile. Wise,
Speaker 3: I don't know, guys.
Speaker 4: Okay, this is my life here, this is my life
Speaker 4: is it's on the line here right now. I didn't
Speaker 4: do anything to hurt anybody else's life, And yes, I
Speaker 4: have a reason to feel the way I feel.
Speaker 1: Austin, Texas is known for its music, its culture, and
Speaker 1: it's easy charm. But on the gray November morning of
Speaker 1: two thousand and one that Tarum didn't reach the Travis
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's office. In a small interview room, detective sat
Speaker 1: across from a middle aged woman and told or something
Speaker 1: that she could have never imagined.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's talk a.
Speaker 2: Little bit about where we're going with this.
Speaker 3: If you notice the signs on the door when we.
Speaker 5: Came, I figured it was startin on homicide.
Speaker 3: And we're investigating a murder.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out why your van would be
Speaker 2: an Austin. We have several witnesses that haven't described a
Speaker 2: man driving this van.
Speaker 1: The detectives told the woman that they suspected her van
Speaker 1: driving husband was a murderer. She claimed this news frightened her,
Speaker 1: yet her demeanor remained unnervingly calm, cold and composed.
Speaker 6: It's like I'm living in a dream right now, because
Speaker 6: it's up until I'm mad him. I just I didn't
Speaker 6: have any contact with the law other than I guess.
Speaker 6: I don't want to believe this, that it's even happening,
Speaker 6: but I am very scared.
Speaker 1: This interview was just one piece of a much larger
Speaker 1: investigation when that centered on a forty three year old
Speaker 1: woman named Diane Hollick.
Speaker 7: Let's talk a little bit about Diane's work. She works
Speaker 7: for IBM and she doesn't. Does she work out of
Speaker 7: an office or does she work out.
Speaker 5: Of her home?
Speaker 3: She worked out of her home.
Speaker 8: Okay?
Speaker 5: And how long has Diane worked for.
Speaker 9: I mean God, twenty four years?
Speaker 5: What does she do exactly for Yman?
Speaker 9: She IBM is very specialized. They have managers for people
Speaker 9: going to the bathroom. Yeah, she managed people that were
Speaker 9: reaching their second year in IBM, and she was developing
Speaker 9: programs for them to procur development.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and one, Diane had spent many years
Speaker 1: working as a supervisor IBM, helping God new employees through
Speaker 1: their training. She took pride in her job, but her
Speaker 1: greatest joy came from something outside of the office or
Speaker 1: two dogs.
Speaker 3: Diane and those.
Speaker 7: Dogs were That's when I heard that they were her life.
Speaker 1: Diane lived alone with her two dogs, but she wasn't
Speaker 1: without company. She'd never lacked attention from men. She was attractive,
Speaker 1: full of life, and she had the kind of personality
Speaker 1: that drew people in. She'd been married twice and divorced
Speaker 1: twice as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I saw some wedding pictures.
Speaker 9: She was married twice before, once for I think four years,
Speaker 9: again only for like four months to some sure, I
Speaker 9: guess that, you know, just totally took advantage generally.
Speaker 1: After her second divorce, Diane signed up for a dating service,
Speaker 1: the kind where you filled out forms, not a profile.
Speaker 1: It was the early two thousands. It was a different time.
Speaker 1: There's no tender and Facebook didn't exist yet. The service
Speaker 1: eventually matched Diane with a forty five year old man
Speaker 1: who worked in the computer industry, a Houston business owner
Speaker 1: named Dennis Conley.
Speaker 5: How long have you known Diane? How did you guys.
Speaker 9: Meet me through the dating service? It's just lunch about
Speaker 9: thirteen months ago.
Speaker 5: That's the name of the days.
Speaker 3: It's just lunch.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you have to pay to join, and it's like,
Speaker 9: you know, I mean, they just they don't it's not
Speaker 9: a computer thing or anything like that.
Speaker 10: They try to match you.
Speaker 5: Up and I take you gets hit it up pretty good, Yeah,
Speaker 5: we did immediately.
Speaker 1: Diane and Dennis's relationship was a classic fools rush in scenario.
Speaker 1: Things got serious fast, too fast, and before long they
Speaker 1: were already talking about moving in together and getting married.
Speaker 9: We met each other on the fifth of October last year.
Speaker 9: We both agreed that we would move to Houston because.
Speaker 3: We got engaged, I believe.
Speaker 9: Around but like the middle of December, you know, we
Speaker 9: both knew it was kind of crazy, but I was
Speaker 9: just totally happy.
Speaker 1: Within two months of meeting, Diane and Dennis were engaged
Speaker 1: and planning a fresh start, which included a new home
Speaker 1: in Houston and a new life together. But it didn't
Speaker 1: take long for the cracks to show. Like many whirlwind romances,
Speaker 1: the couple started to realize they might not be as
Speaker 1: compatible as they first thought.
Speaker 9: Like March, everything was going pretty good and then we
Speaker 9: ran into some rough spots. We were going to build
Speaker 9: a house in Houston, and I decided that, you know,
Speaker 9: given the fact that we weren't getting along together very well.
Speaker 10: I mean there was no fight.
Speaker 3: I mean, we don't fight.
Speaker 9: It's just, you know, everybody carries baggage into your relationlationships
Speaker 9: at this age, and our baggage was clashing and we
Speaker 9: were working on it, but we decided not to be
Speaker 9: engaged anymore, but steadily. I mean, We've been to therapy together,
Speaker 9: and I mean we were really really making breakthroughs, you know,
Speaker 9: and in fact, you know, I was going to ask
Speaker 9: her to marry me again.
Speaker 3: And all the Thanksgiving while we.
Speaker 1: Were up with my parents, they kept trying to make
Speaker 1: it work, and eventually Diane decided she would still move
Speaker 1: to Houston and live with Dennis.
Speaker 5: And she when did she decide to sell her at
Speaker 5: her home.
Speaker 9: When she started looking at places in Houston about I'm
Speaker 9: going to say a month ago. But the plan was
Speaker 9: is you know, she was going to sell that and move.
Speaker 8: In with me.
Speaker 1: As Diane prepared to move, she put her house up
Speaker 1: on the market, but the news of her move didn't
Speaker 1: sit well with another man in her life, someone who
Speaker 1: didn't want to see her go.
Speaker 3: As anybody got in the hold of Ray.
Speaker 5: They're trying to figure out who Ray is. We've heard
Speaker 5: about Ray.
Speaker 9: He's like thirty something. He just got out of the
Speaker 9: army couple. He's very, very, very smart. He's probably one
Speaker 9: of the smartest programmers that IBM has. He's very very smart.
Speaker 3: But he's he's out there, he's on the edge.
Speaker 1: Thirty year old Ray Clancy worked with Diane at IBM.
Speaker 1: In fact, she had hired him, and over time they
Speaker 1: had become very close friends.
Speaker 5: So people said, you guys are pretty close.
Speaker 3: You're very close.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I know, Dian pod betted than most people in
Speaker 11: the town. What's your house for the last couple of
Speaker 11: years of dogs? I think she's got guard the openers.
Speaker 11: Of course it doesn't work right now.
Speaker 9: They have known each other since I think Diane's been here.
Speaker 9: He's from Louisiana.
Speaker 5: What was her relationship?
Speaker 8: Did they date it?
Speaker 10: They all know it was a very odd relationship.
Speaker 5: Because what does that to explain that to me? What
Speaker 5: that means like in.
Speaker 9: Other words, the way Diane described to me, he seemed
Speaker 9: to worship the ground.
Speaker 10: She walks on.
Speaker 1: Ray like Diane a lot, and well, Diane didn't feel
Speaker 1: the same way. She valued his friendship. Ray often offered
Speaker 1: to help her with things around the house, sir to
Speaker 1: watch her dogs when she was away. It wasn't romantic,
Speaker 1: but everyone who knew about their relationship thought it was
Speaker 1: a little unusual.
Speaker 11: I was I'll fix everything in her house that was broken.
Speaker 11: I'm an fix up man too. You can do a
Speaker 11: buddy thing in the house. So anytimes she had her
Speaker 11: repair in the house, I did it for her after
Speaker 11: her own almost everything. He locks on the doors and
Speaker 11: all that kind of gustaff because the house came with me.
Speaker 3: I weren't dating because she didn't want to date it
Speaker 3: over ago. She didn't wan because almost six kids. She
Speaker 3: doesn't want kid.
Speaker 5: Oh my lord, okay, six kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 9: He watches the dogs, so it's great to have somebody
Speaker 9: to watch the dogs.
Speaker 10: And and he did.
Speaker 9: The dogs were crazy about him, and he did take
Speaker 9: good care of him.
Speaker 10: And he did lots of stuff around the house for her.
Speaker 3: You know, he kicked her.
Speaker 9: Garage door like in Newmobile times. And my whole thing was, Hey,
Speaker 9: he seems like a nice guy, Diane. Jeez, he's watching
Speaker 9: your dogs and he's fixing your stuff. He seems pretty harmless,
Speaker 9: So why don't you just lighten up on him, and
Speaker 9: for a long time, up until that last falling out,
Speaker 9: that appeared to be the case.
Speaker 1: For all his effort, Diane had firmly planted Ray in
Speaker 1: the friend zone, and everyone seemed to know it except him. Eventually,
Speaker 1: he and Diane had a falling out. He stopped returning
Speaker 1: her calls as quickly and became less eager to help
Speaker 1: with the little things. Then a few weeks later, Diane
Speaker 1: missed an important employee meeting at IBM.
Speaker 7: Diane had not made an appointment or done whatever business
Speaker 7: she was supposed to do on Friday. That's when she
Speaker 7: became concerned, and that's what she called the police department.
Speaker 1: After Diane missed this meeting, one of her coworkers requested
Speaker 1: a police welfare check. When officers arrived at her home,
Speaker 1: no one answered the door. They went inside and eventually
Speaker 1: found Diane's lifeless body.
Speaker 3: Did they didn't know what they found her bedroom.
Speaker 5: She was in the upstairs bedroom with a where.
Speaker 3: The shes upstairs.
Speaker 1: Ever, Diane was found on the floor of the upstairs bedroom.
Speaker 1: She was fully clothed and had been brutally strangled to death.
Speaker 1: There were no signs of what led up to it,
Speaker 1: no argument, no fourst entry, no warning at all, and
Speaker 1: no sign of how the killer had managed to disappear
Speaker 1: without a trace.
Speaker 7: I can't tell you that it was ruled a homicide
Speaker 7: by a strangulation, okay, and I won't give you any
Speaker 7: of the other details.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 8: Scant imagine he would do that.
Speaker 1: Dennis claimed that he couldn't understand why anyone would want
Speaker 1: to hurt Diane, but detectives weren't so sure he was
Speaker 1: being honest, not just about Diane's murder, but about their
Speaker 1: relationship in general. Much of what he'd told them about
Speaker 1: how they got along screamed of minimization. At the same time,
Speaker 1: detectives were equally puzzled by Diane's friend, Ray Clancy, a
Speaker 1: man who seemed to orbit her life long after she'd
Speaker 1: made it clear she wasn't interested. His behavior, his access
Speaker 1: to her home, and his attitude after her death all
Speaker 1: raised red flax between the two of them. Detectives couldn't
Speaker 1: shake the feeling that one was hiding something. The challenge
Speaker 1: was figuring out where the truth stopped and where the
Speaker 1: lie started. On November fifteenth, two thousand and one, forty
Speaker 1: three year old Diane Hollick was at her Northwest Austin home,
Speaker 1: preparing for a move that would mark the next chapter
Speaker 1: of her life, but by the following morning, she was dead,
Speaker 1: found strangled in an upstairs bedroom of her home. In
Speaker 1: the days that followed, detectives started piecing together the timeline
Speaker 1: of her final hours. They processed her house and collected evidence.
Speaker 7: We have the house sealed for right now, and we're
Speaker 7: going to keep it that way until we, you know,
Speaker 7: gather a lot more information, trying to focus in on
Speaker 7: the things that are important. Obviously, we've done a lot
Speaker 7: of the forensic most of the forensic stuff.
Speaker 1: The crime scene was strange and ominous, not because of
Speaker 1: what was found, but because of what wasn't. Diane was
Speaker 1: discovered face down on the floor of an upstairs bedroom.
Speaker 1: She was fully dressed, with marks on her wrists consistent
Speaker 1: with being bound, and deep ligature marks around her neck.
Speaker 1: There were no signs of forced entry, no struggle, and
Speaker 1: nothing to suggest sexual assault. The scene was eerily clean,
Speaker 1: so clean, in fact, that even Diane's own fingerprints were
Speaker 1: missing from places police expected to find them.
Speaker 7: U she ramed doesn't appear, so we won't know, obviously,
Speaker 7: until all the test results come back, but doesn't appear
Speaker 7: she was fully clothed.
Speaker 1: As for suspects, detectives quickly focused on two men. Her fiance,
Speaker 1: Dennis Conley, had a coworker who, by all accounts, wished
Speaker 1: he was Diane's fiance. His name was Ray Clancy. One question,
Speaker 1: both men offered nearly identical statements about Diane and her background.
Speaker 1: They told police that Diane had no enemies, that everyone
Speaker 1: who knew her loved her.
Speaker 12: Can you think of anybody that would want to hurt Diane?
Speaker 3: Everybody loved her, everybody that matter.
Speaker 11: Had enemies, and nobody that didn't like her. Louisbod who
Speaker 11: didn't like Diane's If the personality was fantastic, it was
Speaker 11: a gorgeous few persons.
Speaker 1: Initially, investigators turned their attention to Dennis, but he looked clean,
Speaker 1: at least on paper. He had no criminal record and
Speaker 1: no history of violence.
Speaker 13: This is the first time I've ever been in a
Speaker 13: police station so other than when I was a legal
Speaker 13: officer in the Marine Corps and I took people theref According.
Speaker 1: To Dennis, his last contact with Diane was on the
Speaker 1: afternoon of her death. They exchanged messages online during the
Speaker 1: workday and Diane mentioned she may have found someone interested
Speaker 1: in buying her house.
Speaker 9: Yeah, she said, somebody was really super interested in her
Speaker 9: house Thursday afternoon online she goes keep her finger crossed,
Speaker 9: fingers crossed, and she doesn't usually say that unless somebody's
Speaker 9: really interested. So well, one of the questions that I
Speaker 9: have for you, and you don't have to answer this,
Speaker 9: but I think may fit into this as well, is
Speaker 9: you know, did.
Speaker 10: She still have her engagement ring on?
Speaker 9: Because if she didn't, then that's that's what I think
Speaker 9: might have happened.
Speaker 3: Is somebody came in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we need to talk about all her jewelry.
Speaker 3: I mean there's things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And that's why I needed you really come down here.
Speaker 5: And I don't want to have to ask I understand that.
Speaker 1: One thing that stood out about Diane's interview was how
Speaker 1: eager he seemed to offer up theories, any theory about
Speaker 1: what might have happened to Diane. Maybe it was genuine speculation,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was a way to steer attention away
Speaker 1: from himself. One theory he floated was that Diane could
Speaker 1: have been showing her home to a potential buyer who
Speaker 1: noticed her engagement ring and decided to rob her. Maybe
Speaker 1: she fought back and things turned violent. Maybe this murder
Speaker 1: was a robbery gone wrong, or maybe Dennis just wanted
Speaker 1: to make it look that way.
Speaker 5: Do you have a photograph of the ring or any
Speaker 5: information on that ring?
Speaker 3: I can get it, Okay.
Speaker 7: I'm probably gonna need it because we can't find the ring.
Speaker 7: My understanding was from missus Brown was that she always
Speaker 7: wore that ring.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she did.
Speaker 9: And I told her, you know, I told her, I said,
Speaker 9: you know, when you go down to the park or whatever.
Speaker 10: Da YadA not, you know, be flashing.
Speaker 3: That thing around.
Speaker 9: It's a diamonite, a twenty thousand dollars, you know, I mean,
Speaker 9: it was a beautiful ring.
Speaker 5: Did you buy it for her?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 10: She's so goddamn stubborn.
Speaker 9: Know, if they were king of trying to take the ring,
Speaker 9: I'll bet she fought tooth and nail for that, you.
Speaker 5: Know, And certainly robbery is a motive.
Speaker 8: There's no doubt.
Speaker 10: I will tell you she would have had that.
Speaker 5: Ring on, There's no doubt in my mind. Well it's
Speaker 5: missing right now.
Speaker 1: Like Dennis, Ray also confirmed that Diane always wore her
Speaker 1: engagement ring. The obvious assumption was that whoever committed the murder,
Speaker 1: had taken it the ring.
Speaker 3: Treat care it or something like that.
Speaker 11: It's a big one. I've never seen it without wearing it.
Speaker 11: And I always been to ask her if you were
Speaker 11: breaking up, mind you buried ring, but I never would.
Speaker 3: That's kind of insulting.
Speaker 11: I'm never seen him take it off before, even whenever
Speaker 11: they were split apart in fighting, she never took it off.
Speaker 1: As for Dennis, if he was the killer, investigators had
Speaker 1: to consider possible motives. He admitted that his relationship with
Speaker 1: Diane wasn't perfect, but the problems he described seemed pretty mild,
Speaker 1: especially for a couple that had recently called off their engagement.
Speaker 1: Perhaps things with Dennis and Diane were much worse than
Speaker 1: he was letting on.
Speaker 10: Yeah, we had her ups and downs, no question, but
Speaker 10: they weren't you know.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like it was physicified.
Speaker 9: It's nothing never never, never even angry or loud words.
Speaker 5: What were your big issues?
Speaker 12: Money, no other people in relationship.
Speaker 3: It was just it's stupid, you know.
Speaker 9: That's one of the things I think I'll learn out
Speaker 9: of this steal is the little things starn't really that important.
Speaker 3: That's where I was getting to too.
Speaker 1: But according to Dennis, a major point of tension in
Speaker 1: their relationship was what he saw as Diane's obsession with
Speaker 1: their dogs. It wasn't thrilled about the idea of buying
Speaker 1: a new house together only to have the two large
Speaker 1: dogs tear it up. But for Diane, her dogs were
Speaker 1: her family, further them as her kids, and they weren't negotiable.
Speaker 11: Mostly it was a dogs either or not he hates
Speaker 11: I would say he hates those, but you didn't a
Speaker 11: doggy person, and she, in her mind, it was important
Speaker 11: for him to like the dogs. If he didn't like him,
Speaker 11: that was too good in bed and he didn't get
Speaker 11: to buy somebody else.
Speaker 1: Dennis told detectives that he did eventually come around. He
Speaker 1: realized that his issue with the dogs wasn't worth losing Diane.
Speaker 9: The thing that got me back and really really cemented it,
Speaker 9: was that you know, she's I remember her saying, you
Speaker 9: know that she would she loved me, and that she
Speaker 9: would jump the chance to be in a relationship.
Speaker 10: And marry me, and you know, no matter how long
Speaker 10: it took, And that really just settled in my heart,
Speaker 10: and I just.
Speaker 13: Said, you know, I'm not going to ever find anybody
Speaker 13: that loves me as much as she does.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Dennis's version of the relationship was that he and Diane
Speaker 1: had worked through their rough patches. The engagement might have
Speaker 1: been called off, but he said things were improving and
Speaker 1: that he planned to propose to her again.
Speaker 5: Did you get had you guys said a wedding date?
Speaker 10: No, but we talked about it last last weekend.
Speaker 3: We were together here.
Speaker 9: We had a great weekend, no issues.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 10: She goes, so, when do we getting married?
Speaker 9: And I said, I'm thinking, you know, October, but you know,
Speaker 9: next year, but we might move that on, you know,
Speaker 9: how things go.
Speaker 10: Okay, So yeah, I mean we had not set a date.
Speaker 9: But then again, I had officially asked her to marry
Speaker 9: me again, and I was going to say that for
Speaker 9: you know, around the same time.
Speaker 10: That I asked her last year, just kind of as
Speaker 10: a special thing.
Speaker 1: While keeping a close eye on Dennis, investigators also focused
Speaker 1: their attention on another man in Diane's life, her friend
Speaker 1: and coworker and someone who clearly had feelings for her,
Speaker 1: Ray Clancy and Ray.
Speaker 9: That's the deal with Ray, Okay, so is a very
Speaker 9: dysfunctional person from my standpoint, in the fact that he
Speaker 9: seems to be attracted to women that are not attracted
Speaker 9: to him.
Speaker 14: Right.
Speaker 1: I freely admitted that he had romantic feelings for Diane,
Speaker 1: but he denied that his willingness to help her watching
Speaker 1: her dogs, fixing things around her house had anything to
Speaker 1: do with that. He said he was simply trying to
Speaker 1: repay her for bending a few rules at IBM to
Speaker 1: help get him hired.
Speaker 5: Had a little crush on her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I always had a question, Diana say, I remember.
Speaker 11: When harmony I'd had behind the GPA, and they refused
Speaker 11: the harmony in IBM.
Speaker 3: So she boked the rules and she harmed me. You
Speaker 3: know I'm in all.
Speaker 11: Over the world, twenty countries. I mean a lot of
Speaker 11: money IBM. They were all kind of stuff. I can
Speaker 11: do anything with the computer because she broked the.
Speaker 8: Rules for me.
Speaker 3: So I had a occasion.
Speaker 11: If you have all the rules is ubligations of people
Speaker 11: that we like our family and have fuss and so
Speaker 11: I always has to mubligation to take care of her
Speaker 11: and watch the house and take care of her kids.
Speaker 11: She just meant that nobody else would ever do.
Speaker 1: There was no secret that Ray had a thing for Diane,
Speaker 1: and it was also no secret that she just didn't
Speaker 1: feel the same way about him. Even Ray admitted as much,
Speaker 1: insisting that he just accepted it and.
Speaker 5: Diane didn't reciprocate your feelings. She just friends, Okay, I
Speaker 5: don't know.
Speaker 3: Just never was never had any plea or whatever.
Speaker 8: They understand, you just have just friends.
Speaker 5: Always had cause problems between No.
Speaker 3: Never in the beginning of argument.
Speaker 11: No, in the beginning, I always wanted to always pampered her,
Speaker 11: and she took care of her and butter flowers, all
Speaker 11: that kind of good stuff. He used to make a
Speaker 11: nervous uncomfortable because she'd like guy's pamper your relationship. No
Speaker 11: one ever did, never, even him, never even want to, always.
Speaker 3: Wanted to it. Never did.
Speaker 1: Naturally, the investigators had to consider the possibility that Ray
Speaker 1: hadn't accepted being just die An's friend. Maybe he was
Speaker 1: tired of helping her and getting nothing in return. Maybe
Speaker 1: he just felt like she owed him. Maybe he tried
Speaker 1: to make a move and when she turned him down,
Speaker 1: things got violent.
Speaker 10: Well, one thing that you said, and then you kind
Speaker 10: of took it back.
Speaker 3: You thought she's good looking. I did get that body,
Speaker 3: she did.
Speaker 15: He said, you didn't want to have sex with her,
Speaker 15: and then you said earlier on you said, yeah you did,
Speaker 15: but it just never.
Speaker 8: Did you or not?
Speaker 3: It was full of it was full of friendship. If
Speaker 3: we did it was full of friendship. If we did
Speaker 3: something like that, both of it was new, just something
Speaker 3: we understood.
Speaker 11: Anytime you see it with the lady, it's it's changed everything.
Speaker 11: You get your feeling from the lady that you.
Speaker 3: Might have past at her, and she said, no, no,
Speaker 3: I didn't make a don't make passes in it. He
Speaker 3: didn't know.
Speaker 14: I don't.
Speaker 5: I didn't know you you.
Speaker 11: Don't make a past at her because it's kind of insulty.
Speaker 11: Because she said no, then you can know friendship anymore.
Speaker 11: Oh yeah, no you don't, because Dane's really sensitive to
Speaker 11: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: You don't. I didn't want to spoil the friendship with her,
Speaker 3: so I didn't.
Speaker 11: I didn't push it. I didn't make HI pass at her
Speaker 11: all that kind of stuff. Just still I didn't really
Speaker 11: do the deliver I guess like a friend.
Speaker 3: I never tell anybody you love her?
Speaker 14: Well?
Speaker 3: I love how like I love dogs. I love dogs too.
Speaker 3: Did you tell anybody you love her? I don't think
Speaker 3: I would have said that.
Speaker 1: Now the bizarre thing about Ray was that he came
Speaker 1: off as a genuinely nice guy. Yeah, if he had
Speaker 1: killed Diane, it wouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone.
Speaker 5: So you think he pretty much is obsessed with her.
Speaker 10: I wouldn't even I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go there.
Speaker 10: I just want to say that.
Speaker 5: What was there falling out about? Let me ask you that,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's raised presses.
Speaker 10: He presses like, you know, he's always wanting uh validation.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 10: Honestly, if if I was, if I was a woman, he.
Speaker 3: Would give me the creeps.
Speaker 9: Oh really yeah, And again it seems like the worst
Speaker 9: women treat him, you know, the more he uh, he
Speaker 9: gravitates towards. It's a very unhealthy situation.
Speaker 1: For many of Diane's friends, there was something unsettling about Ray,
Speaker 1: something they couldn't quite put their finger on. Yet, somehow
Speaker 1: he mostly came across his friendly and harmless. So the
Speaker 1: big question just loomed. Was Ray just a hopeless romantic
Speaker 1: with an unreturned crush, let's say, or was he something darker?
Speaker 1: Was he a man willing to take what he wanted
Speaker 1: by force, by violence, by murder? Was Ray a monster.
Speaker 5: Did she ever tell you about anything inappropriate that he did?
Speaker 5: It made her field off?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 10: Yes, then this.
Speaker 3: Was before we started dating.
Speaker 9: You would press her on, uh, just like things that
Speaker 9: were not appropriate for friends to press on.
Speaker 5: And it wasn't sexual.
Speaker 10: It was just a lot of a lot of neediness.
Speaker 9: And apparently that I do remember now that that's what
Speaker 9: the last conversation was about. I guess he was pressing
Speaker 9: on something and either either she hung out with him
Speaker 9: or he hung on her.
Speaker 3: She just had no patience with that.
Speaker 5: Do you think he's capable of doing something bad? Have
Speaker 5: you ever seen him lose his temper? Has told you
Speaker 5: about anything specifically?
Speaker 10: Ever remember anything like that?
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 1: With both Dennis and Ray looking like plausible suspects, investigators
Speaker 1: turned their focus to the evidence. Maybe the crime scene
Speaker 1: could point to which man had killed Diane. There were
Speaker 1: no signs of fourth century meaning. Whoever did it was
Speaker 1: either invited inside or they had a key.
Speaker 5: To your knowledge, who has a key to that house?
Speaker 9: I may have, there was one in my car that
Speaker 9: I I do not have a key on my key chain.
Speaker 3: That I I mean because I never had the need to.
Speaker 5: Okay, do you know if Ray has a key he.
Speaker 11: Used to our house too. If you need copy them
Speaker 11: for you, you can make Prinzon or if you need
Speaker 11: herse No.
Speaker 5: I'm going to take those keys. She was deceased and
Speaker 5: there's really no need for you to be in the
Speaker 5: house anymore.
Speaker 1: Both Dennis and Ray had keys to Diane's house. That detail, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: didn't help narrow things down, so investigators shifted their focus
Speaker 1: to each man's alibi and when they each last saw
Speaker 1: or spoke with Diane.
Speaker 5: When's the last time you saw Saturday?
Speaker 3: Two weeks ago, Saturday Night of Dallas night. Though she
Speaker 3: was a young lady. I don't really know her.
Speaker 11: Being, but I haven't hear from assistant, no word, no fun, contact,
Speaker 11: nothing for about two weeks.
Speaker 1: Ray said that the last time he saw Diane was
Speaker 1: weeks before the murder. Dennis told police that his last
Speaker 1: contact with her was through an online chat well he
Speaker 1: was at work when investigators checked on this. Both stories
Speaker 1: appeared to hold up, which raised a new question. Were
Speaker 1: they looking at the wrong men altogether? Maybe Dennis and
Speaker 1: Ray were both innocent.
Speaker 3: What do you think happened from what she told me?
Speaker 11: Since she never went upstairs and her house is well
Speaker 11: in the market, and she said she was training hold
Speaker 11: of what time?
Speaker 3: He said, what time? Oh, I guess she was showing
Speaker 3: somebody to the house.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, when Ray was asked what he thought might have
Speaker 1: happened to Diane, his answer was almost identical to the
Speaker 1: answer that Dennis had given. Both men suggested that Diane
Speaker 1: could have been showing the house to a potential buyer
Speaker 1: and then things turned violent. With no sign of forced entry,
Speaker 1: they reasoned that Diane must have let someone inside and
Speaker 1: maybe that someone killed her. Investigators soon discovered that this
Speaker 1: theory wasn't far fetched at all. While canvassing Diane's neighborhood,
Speaker 1: they learned that several residents had been approached by a
Speaker 1: strange man, someone going door to door claiming to be
Speaker 1: a rancher and asking about homes for sale. Not only that,
Speaker 1: but they later confirmed that Diane herself had been approached
Speaker 1: by this man in the afternoon on the same day
Speaker 1: that she was killed.
Speaker 7: This man comes and claims that he's a rancher and
Speaker 7: claims that he's going that he can pay cash for
Speaker 7: the house, but he needs to get with his wife,
Speaker 7: and that he was going to come back.
Speaker 5: The following day with his wife to see the house.
Speaker 5: We don't know if he has anything to do with it.
Speaker 5: I don't know. It's we're looking into it. It's it
Speaker 5: seemed suspicious.
Speaker 7: We're going to try to get a composite an older man.
Speaker 7: Apparently he went to an older man's house Thursday, probably
Speaker 7: around noon.
Speaker 10: Yeah, because that's what Diane said that she thought she had.
Speaker 8: Sold the house.
Speaker 9: That was like about three o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday.
Speaker 7: And I guess she had talked to her friend Tina,
Speaker 7: that this guy had come to the house, but he
Speaker 7: didn't have a real estate agent with him. He came
Speaker 7: by himself, and you know, she she I think she
Speaker 7: thought it was odd.
Speaker 12: But apparently she led him into the house, but he left.
Speaker 1: For several days, investigators tried to untangle the stories of
Speaker 1: two men, a fiance who might have been angry about
Speaker 1: it failed engagement, and a coworker who might have been
Speaker 1: angry that Diane didn't love him back. But as the
Speaker 1: investigation moved forward, something much darker started to surface, something
Speaker 1: beyond jealousy or heartbreak. In a disturbing twist, the evidence
Speaker 1: pointed to a different kind of motive altogether, one rooted
Speaker 1: not in love, but in perversion, and it suggested that
Speaker 1: whoever killed Diane Hollick hadn't come to win her heart,
Speaker 1: he'd come to feed a fetish. In the days after
Speaker 1: Diane Hollick's murder, investigators pulled at every threat, jealousy, rejection, heartbreak,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who could have killed her and why,
Speaker 1: but none of it fit. When they circled back to
Speaker 1: the most obvious suspect, her Beyonce Dennis, he gave them
Speaker 1: an alibi that couldn't be broken.
Speaker 7: Okay, so the last time you actually spent time with
Speaker 7: Diane was last week in Okay, and you go back
Speaker 7: to Houston and did you work all week?
Speaker 9: Yeah, like a friend's stand with me.
Speaker 3: You can vouch for me if.
Speaker 5: Now I just you know, we gotta do it, understand.
Speaker 3: I understand.
Speaker 1: Investors eventually confirmed that when Diane was killed, her fiance Dennis,
Speaker 1: was two hundred miles away in Houston working at his office.
Speaker 1: He was eliminated as a suspect. Likewise, Diane's coworker, Ray Clancy,
Speaker 1: was also at work at the time of her death,
Speaker 1: and in fact hadn't spoken to Diane in about two weeks.
Speaker 11: The night of the storm that he went home last night.
Speaker 11: The tenthred that night because Chilthy was horrible. They got
Speaker 11: home and that's the latt of state home and didn't
Speaker 11: go anywhere in the sleep. I'm gonna look time to
Speaker 11: see or little closed. Back to work next morning about
Speaker 11: got to work against eight o'clock.
Speaker 3: Eight o'clock or so.
Speaker 1: With both Ray and Dennis ruled out, investigators turned their
Speaker 1: attention to a new lead. During an interview with Diane's
Speaker 1: friend Tina, they learned that a strange man had recently
Speaker 1: come to Diane's house, claiming to be interested in buying it.
Speaker 7: And she had said that a man had come over
Speaker 7: that was very nicely dressed, probably in his mid thirties,
Speaker 7: had come over and told her that he was interested
Speaker 7: in her house and that he didn't have a real
Speaker 7: estate agent, that he was a rancher, and that's I mean.
Speaker 7: She had that conversation with Tina. But she also made
Speaker 7: a comment to Tina that the man kind of gave
Speaker 7: her the creeps. And we don't know if this guy
Speaker 7: came back, but clearly he used the same ruse so
Speaker 7: to speak with an older man that lived down the
Speaker 7: street prior to going to Diane's house.
Speaker 1: On the surface, one of this seemed unusual. After all,
Speaker 1: Diane was trying to sell her home and there was
Speaker 1: a big first sale sign out front. That wouldn't be
Speaker 1: at all strange for someone to stop by unannounced and
Speaker 1: ask about the property. But what caught investigator's attention was
Speaker 1: that this same man had been supposedly house shopping all
Speaker 1: over Austin for weeks, and nearly everyone who'd encountered him
Speaker 1: described him the same way, creepy and strange and just
Speaker 1: a little bit threatening.
Speaker 7: Probably by Monday, we'll be putting out that on the
Speaker 7: news that we are trying to speak with that man.
Speaker 3: Hopefully somebody do call in.
Speaker 1: What a composite sketch was released to the media, It
Speaker 1: didn't take long for investigators to track down the strange
Speaker 1: home shopping man. One woman who'd encountered him had been
Speaker 1: so unnerved by his behavior that she actually wrote down
Speaker 1: his license plate number. That plate number led investigators to
Speaker 1: a van registered to a Patrick Anthony Russo.
Speaker 5: Patrick Russo Right.
Speaker 3: Holder, thirty eight eight.
Speaker 1: Thirty eight year old Patrick, who sometimes went by his
Speaker 1: middle name Tony, lived in Elgin, Texas, about twenty five
Speaker 1: miles east of Austin. Patrick was born again Christian who
Speaker 1: worked part time at his local church.
Speaker 3: Which was the name of the church, New Life in Christ.
Speaker 5: New Life in Christ, Yes, ma'am, and what do you
Speaker 5: do for them?
Speaker 3: I'm the music minister, there you said.
Speaker 5: And you're married in your wife's name Janet Jane in
Speaker 5: the two boys or years.
Speaker 1: Yes, Patrick lived with his second wife, Janet. They had
Speaker 1: two children from a previous marriage, though they didn't live
Speaker 1: with them. On the morning of November twenty one, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, Texas deputies arrived at Patrick's home and
Speaker 1: asked both him and Janet to come down to the
Speaker 1: station for interviews. They agreed, you're not under arrest, okay.
Speaker 16: I am curious so us someone be knocking on my
Speaker 16: door this early in the morning.
Speaker 15: This has to do with an incident that happened here
Speaker 15: in Austin, in northwest Austin.
Speaker 3: Some things are missing.
Speaker 17: I brought a calendar of November if you can tell us,
Speaker 17: if you could start maybe the twelfth, and go through
Speaker 17: and tell us what you remember, where you were and
Speaker 17: what you did.
Speaker 1: Before revealing why they brought him to the station for questioning.
Speaker 1: Investigators asked Patrick about his whereabouts. During the week of
Speaker 1: Diane's murder, they quickly focused on the actual day she
Speaker 1: was killed, which was a Thursday. That day a massive
Speaker 1: thunderstorm that swept through Austin.
Speaker 16: That was that big storm day, Wasn't it? Okay, there's
Speaker 16: not a problem.
Speaker 3: Thursday, I spent some time at the church again.
Speaker 16: I went to go to can Elle here in Austin.
Speaker 7: About what time was that?
Speaker 16: I think it was about I said, talk to my wife.
Speaker 16: I was pulling in the parking lot, so that would
Speaker 16: have been about four o'clock.
Speaker 3: I believe.
Speaker 1: Patrick told investigators that on the day Diane was killed,
Speaker 1: he'd driven into Austin to visit a local radio station.
Speaker 1: He said he was supposed to meet someone there who
Speaker 1: was helping him set up a website for his Christian
Speaker 1: rock band.
Speaker 16: We have a website that we've been trying to get
Speaker 16: up for about four months, and I have spent so
Speaker 16: much time with him trying to get it up. So
Speaker 16: I went out there to try to see about getting
Speaker 16: that up. Since we got all the information that they needed,
Speaker 16: and when no one came to the door, I went
Speaker 16: ahead and left.
Speaker 8: Who did you talk to you over at can Hellen?
Speaker 16: Actually I didn't talk to anybody because nobody answered the door.
Speaker 17: So you made the trip up there for nothing.
Speaker 3: This pretty much, I mean you didn't.
Speaker 8: You didn't call ahead and say you were coming.
Speaker 1: And Patrick told investigators that his trip to the radio
Speaker 1: station had been spontaneous. He hadn't made an appointment or
Speaker 1: even called a head. When he arrived, no one was
Speaker 1: there to meet him, and no one at the radio
Speaker 1: station remembered ever seeing him, which meant Patrick had no alibi.
Speaker 1: After leaving the station, the storm rolled in. The heavy
Speaker 1: rain and low visibility caused Patrick to get lost, at
Speaker 1: least that's what he said had happened.
Speaker 16: Made a right hand turn and made an illegal you
Speaker 16: turn there was the only way you could get around everybody.
Speaker 16: And then I went back out and gone the highway,
Speaker 16: going back towards Fast drib. Probably took me about another
Speaker 16: fifteen minutes to get home normally, normally was a little
Speaker 16: bit quicker than that.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you get home.
Speaker 16: Five point thirty, I guess, or six somewhere. I'm not
Speaker 16: really sure exactly the time frame.
Speaker 1: Patrick told investigators he got home around six o'clock in
Speaker 1: the evening, but his wife Janet gave a different time
Speaker 1: well we.
Speaker 6: Got to the station, there was anybody there that was
Speaker 6: doing the website, So he was coming home. I know
Speaker 6: we were on the phone an hour because he was
Speaker 6: coming through all that storm.
Speaker 12: So we were on the phone probably from.
Speaker 5: Six to seven.
Speaker 3: What time did you get home?
Speaker 18: Should have been.
Speaker 19: Shortly after seven, probly between seven and fifteen.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking because the couple's timelines were off by an hour.
Speaker 1: In a lot of cases, that kind of discrepancy might
Speaker 1: not mean much, but in a murder investigation, one hour
Speaker 1: can change everything. It can be the difference between being
Speaker 1: miles away from a crime scene or standing inside it.
Speaker 3: Did you ever.
Speaker 8: Stop to get out to talk to anybody?
Speaker 16: I believe i'd I knocked on someone's door asking for directions.
Speaker 15: And when you say someone's door was at a residential door,
Speaker 15: was that a business door?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: It was it was a residential door.
Speaker 8: Do you remember what that person looked like?
Speaker 20: No?
Speaker 3: I have no clue.
Speaker 1: Imagine this just a few days ago. You're driving home
Speaker 1: when a brutal thunderstorm rolls in Lorrain's coming down in sheets,
Speaker 1: visibility's gone, and you take a wrong turn into a
Speaker 1: neighborhood you've never seen before. You're so disoriented that you
Speaker 1: stop at a random house, knock on the door and
Speaker 1: ask a stranger for directions, wouldn't you I don't know,
Speaker 1: remember that, wasn't that whole encounter kind of Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, stick in your mind a little bit, don't
Speaker 1: you think? Apparently? For Patrick Nay, I.
Speaker 8: Want to ask you a little bit more about Thursday.
Speaker 15: And he was talking about going to kN Elie and
Speaker 15: no one was there to tell us that you were there, okay,
Speaker 15: And then.
Speaker 8: You talked about driving around and getting back on one
Speaker 8: A three.
Speaker 15: And now you're telling us about maybe stopping at a
Speaker 15: residential area and talking to a gray haired man. Is
Speaker 15: there any other places that you stopped while you were
Speaker 15: in his neighborhood?
Speaker 8: You didn't stop to talk to anybody else.
Speaker 3: I'm not lying to you.
Speaker 16: If that's what you're asking, and that's what I'm asking,
Speaker 16: I'm It's simple.
Speaker 8: You only stopped at one house.
Speaker 15: You talked to one man, an older man, and the
Speaker 15: gest of the conversation was you needed directions to get back.
Speaker 3: To one any correct.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, investigators didn't buy Patrick's story. They were
Speaker 1: convinced that the house he stopped at wasn't random and
Speaker 1: that the person who answered the door was their murder victim,
Speaker 1: Diane Hollick.
Speaker 15: So you're saying you've never seen this woman, never been
Speaker 15: to her house, never been to her doorstep, never been
Speaker 15: inside her house, never been invited to look around, and
Speaker 15: there would be no reason for anything to come back
Speaker 15: to say.
Speaker 8: That you were in her house.
Speaker 16: No, sir, If she's saying that I've stole something from her,
Speaker 16: then I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, when investigator showed Patrick a photo of Diane, he
Speaker 1: not only denied ever being in her house, but also
Speaker 1: spoke about her as if she were still alive. You
Speaker 1: seem to believe or wanted detectives to think he believed
Speaker 1: that this was all about a simple burglary or breaking
Speaker 1: and not a homicide investigation. Of course, investigators weren't fooled
Speaker 1: by this performance, and they had more than a few
Speaker 1: reasons to suspect that Patrick was their man. This wasn't
Speaker 1: his first brush with the law. Patrick was on parole
Speaker 1: at the time and had already spent eight nights in
Speaker 1: prison for kidnapping a woman and tying her up.
Speaker 16: I had a nervous breakdown while on the job I
Speaker 16: was trying to seek out a new life which wasn't
Speaker 16: really going all that great, and ended up where I
Speaker 16: had nervous breakdown, and I ended up holding the receptionist
Speaker 16: against her will.
Speaker 3: And basically I broke down, crying and just telling her
Speaker 3: all my problems, and then I left.
Speaker 8: How did you hold her? How did you?
Speaker 3: I tied her up?
Speaker 16: I needed I just needed someone to talk to it
Speaker 16: and feel like anybody, and I forced her to. I
Speaker 16: forced her to listen to my problems. And you'll see
Speaker 16: what it says in the case it'll take her. I
Speaker 16: believe that anybody that ties anybody up does some damage,
Speaker 16: physical damage. No, I didn't hurt her emotionally, I probably
Speaker 16: ruined her.
Speaker 1: Patrick claimed that prison had changed him. He said that
Speaker 1: after his conviction, he found God, embraced faith, and left
Speaker 1: his old criminal life behind. He supposedly transformed himself into
Speaker 1: a humble Christian man.
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you what I've done to get
Speaker 3: my life in order. Okay.
Speaker 16: I spent my entire eight years in prison doing nothing
Speaker 16: but engulfing myself in a better life. I got my
Speaker 16: ged I went to college. I studied for theology to
Speaker 16: become a minister. I took every kind of anger management
Speaker 16: program because that was my big problem back then was
Speaker 16: I went through the drug rehabs because.
Speaker 3: I had an old drug habit that really took a
Speaker 3: toll on me.
Speaker 1: After his release from prison, Patrick wrote a book, joined
Speaker 1: a ministry, and even started a Christian rock band. All
Speaker 1: of this, he claimed it was part of his mission
Speaker 1: to help others find faith.
Speaker 16: When I got out, I've done everything from put a
Speaker 16: book out to try to help inmates and other people
Speaker 16: get their life in order through christ. I have been
Speaker 16: a music minister. I have a ministry that I go
Speaker 16: into prisons with.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for Patrick, the investigators weren't convinced by his supposed
Speaker 1: moral awakening. To them, this new Patrick looked a lot
Speaker 1: like the old one, a man with a history of
Speaker 1: violence and a record that included not just kidnapping but
Speaker 1: also burglary. And of course Patrick had an excuse for
Speaker 1: that as well.
Speaker 5: What about the burglaries?
Speaker 3: All my offenses have to do with with just anger?
Speaker 5: Was there somebody in the house when you did the burglary?
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I didn't burglarize the house. I assaulted someone
Speaker 3: through their doorway, and so I got a burglary of
Speaker 3: a habitation with the attempt to commit bodily harm when
Speaker 3: the burglary had nothing to do with it because it
Speaker 3: wasn't a burglary.
Speaker 16: I was actually looking for a friend of mine. I
Speaker 16: was looking for a drug fix.
Speaker 1: What investigators pressed Patrick about his criminal past, he grew uneasy,
Speaker 1: but detectives didn't let up. They hadn't brought him in
Speaker 1: to rehash his old crimes. Their focus was on the
Speaker 1: murder of Diane Hollock.
Speaker 16: I'm trying to stay, you know, relaxed about this whole thing,
Speaker 16: but y'all are starting to grow me pretty hard for stuff.
Speaker 3: And I don't even have the slightest clue what's going on.
Speaker 16: But I do know that, you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 16: be as honest as I can with you.
Speaker 5: You guys, are you, I mean, are you really?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 5: Are you in the market to buy a house?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: Is there any reason why you'd be in a neighborhood
Speaker 5: looking for a house?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 7: Do you think it's a little coincidental that several people
Speaker 7: said that they saw you in a neighborhood.
Speaker 16: I think it's well, it has to be coincidental because
Speaker 16: I hadn't been in any neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Patrick consisted that everything leading police to his doorstep was
Speaker 1: just one big coincidence. The witnesses who'd seen him and
Speaker 1: his van cruising through their neighborhood asking about homes for sale,
Speaker 1: they were all mistaken. It was just a case of
Speaker 1: bad luck and bad timing, good luck convincing the investigators
Speaker 1: or a jury for that matter, of any of that.
Speaker 3: Tony, what's happened?
Speaker 15: Okay, Thursday, more than three different people identified you as
Speaker 15: coming to their place.
Speaker 8: Inquiring about purchasing a residence.
Speaker 3: Well, they're mistaken. Let me tell you how serious this is.
Speaker 16: I would appreciate it because I feel like I'm getting
Speaker 16: pretty banged here and I don't even.
Speaker 3: Know what's for.
Speaker 8: She's dead. I don't know if you notice when you
Speaker 8: walked in here, this is a homicide.
Speaker 16: Un well, okay, wow, I'm sitting there thinking we're talking
Speaker 16: about burglary and we're talking about a murderer. As badly
Speaker 16: as I feel for this woman here, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 16: you guys are barking up the wrong tree, and I
Speaker 16: don't care how hard you dig, you're not going to
Speaker 16: find me committing any crime like that.
Speaker 1: His lies, his evasions, the statements, and the evidence, all
Speaker 1: of it made one thing clear. They were sitting across
Speaker 1: from a man who had strangled a woman to death.
Speaker 15: We can sit here and say, well, it might be
Speaker 15: somebody that resembles you or looks at it.
Speaker 3: They picked you out, not.
Speaker 15: A friend, not somebody that looks like they picked you out.
Speaker 15: They had a conversation with you. A lady took your
Speaker 15: license plate number down after you came and started asking.
Speaker 14: Some really.
Speaker 8: She what did she call it?
Speaker 15: Some unsettling conversation that she had with you, And she
Speaker 15: said she would never forget your face again.
Speaker 7: And she didn't five different people who live in five
Speaker 7: different areas, who all.
Speaker 3: I'm not just pick you out. You know you're being there.
Speaker 5: Your van got your license plate. I mean that.
Speaker 3: I'm not disputing whether someone thinks they've seen me, Okay,
Speaker 3: but I'm telling.
Speaker 8: You what about your van?
Speaker 3: Well, I can't explain that. I can't explain it.
Speaker 16: You know, that may be coincidental, but there's a whole
Speaker 16: lot of coincidences in life.
Speaker 3: I can't do nothing about that.
Speaker 5: But I don't think that's a coincidence.
Speaker 7: Okay, I mean, I just don't you know, too many people.
Speaker 7: You know, if it was one person, maybe, but.
Speaker 3: Three four five, well, not just this.
Speaker 5: Particular day, but another day that was a month ago.
Speaker 1: For weeks, sir, probably much longer. Patrick had been cruising
Speaker 1: the streets of Austin in his van, playing the part
Speaker 1: of the classic predator. He wasn't looking for a house
Speaker 1: to buy. It was hunting for a victim, and tragically
Speaker 1: he found one in Diane Hullick.
Speaker 3: I don't know what all you have that you're dealing with.
Speaker 7: Well, I'm dealing with a woman that's dead, and I'm
Speaker 7: dealing with a neighborhood that's in a panic because a
Speaker 7: man came to several of their houses that same day.
Speaker 7: Some people spent quite a bit of time with that man.
Speaker 16: What am I supposed to say? You all want me
Speaker 16: to say that I did something I didn't do, That's.
Speaker 8: What I know.
Speaker 7: I just want you to tell the.
Speaker 3: Truth, that's all. Well, I'm trying to, but you guys
Speaker 3: don't want to hear the truth. Do you want me
Speaker 3: to hear me say that?
Speaker 7: I would else would have had your van on Thursday
Speaker 7: up in that neighborhood that you've already put yourself in.
Speaker 3: Well, in a rainstorm, who has your van? Nobody has
Speaker 3: my van except.
Speaker 5: Me, So I mean, how do you explain that?
Speaker 3: Well, I can't explain it.
Speaker 7: In the same neighborhood that you were seeing by several
Speaker 7: other people. That's suspicious. We'd be remiss if we weren't
Speaker 7: looking into that.
Speaker 16: Well, and I'm not knocking you guys for that, Okay,
Speaker 16: I'm not knocking you, But if you.
Speaker 3: Want me to say something that isn't true.
Speaker 1: Investigators pressed harder, confronting Patrick with all kinds of evidence,
Speaker 1: but no matter how much they threw at them, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't buch. He doubled down, denying, deflecting, and then deny
Speaker 1: all over again.
Speaker 16: Well, I can assure you this one thing. I haven't
Speaker 16: murdered anybody, haven't robbed anybody. I haven't burglarized any houses.
Speaker 16: And no matter I don't care how bad it looks
Speaker 16: on me, I haven't done anything to anybody. And you
Speaker 16: can search my house what you've done. I haven't done anything.
Speaker 16: That's what I'm telling you.
Speaker 3: Were you in this neighborhood, No, you weren't talking to
Speaker 3: any of these people. No, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: Eventually this interview ran its course, and to Patrick's surprise,
Speaker 1: the detectives didn't arrest them. Instead, they placed him and
Speaker 1: his wife, Janet, in the same room. The moment she
Speaker 1: walked in, Patrick broke down, sabbing and pleading with her
Speaker 1: to believe he was innocent.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry you're going through this. I promise you
Speaker 3: I never did anything to anybody, and I can't explain it.
Speaker 8: I can't that.
Speaker 3: I can promise you all my heart they're wrong.
Speaker 18: But I can promise you to just listen. I promise
Speaker 18: you it doesn't matter what anybody says or does do
Speaker 18: is I'm telling you chan't it, no matter what anything
Speaker 18: looks like. I'm not little to anything.
Speaker 1: After his emotional display, Patrick was allowed to leave the station,
Speaker 1: but his freedom didn't last long. The very next day,
Speaker 1: detectives arrested him and brought him back in. Up to
Speaker 1: that point, Patrick had flatly denied ever cruising through Austin
Speaker 1: or asking about homes for sale, But now he had
Speaker 1: a problem. At one of those houses where witnesses had
Speaker 1: identified him, investigators had found his fingerprints.
Speaker 21: When police released a picture of Russou, another woman called
Speaker 21: saying Russo had said the same thing to her. Police
Speaker 21: say fingerprints left in her home matched Russeau's.
Speaker 1: Even with this evidence, the police didn't charge Patrick with
Speaker 1: Diane's murder, at least not yet. Instead, they booked him
Speaker 1: on a parole violation, which was clearly a strategic move
Speaker 1: to keep a suspected killer behind bars while they built
Speaker 1: a stronger case against them. Part of that effort included
Speaker 1: executing a search warrant on Patrick's home, but when they did,
Speaker 1: Diane's engagement ring was nowhere to be found. To this day,
Speaker 1: it has never been recovered. Nonetheless, Patrick's arrest gave investigators
Speaker 1: a chance to interrogate him again and maybe this time
Speaker 1: get a confession.
Speaker 16: Surely I don't have the only Pewter four minivan in
Speaker 16: this entire town.
Speaker 22: You have the only Pewter four mini men in this
Speaker 22: entire town, or in the entire Stata taxas that has.
Speaker 3: That laughing played on them.
Speaker 16: That's true, That is true. I'm just saying, if someone
Speaker 16: wrote that number on my license plate down and they're mistaken,
Speaker 16: because it's not me, coincidences happened. If they didn't, they
Speaker 16: wouldn't be called coincidences. I'm sure of one thing that
Speaker 16: I didn't murder anybody.
Speaker 1: Despite the arrest and despite all of the evidence. Patrick
Speaker 1: continued to play his tired old game.
Speaker 22: I'm a little, frankly, a little fit up with all
Speaker 22: this coincidence. It's not and you know it done that,
Speaker 22: and we know it done that, and we looked good.
Speaker 3: But I'm telling you I didn't murder him.
Speaker 7: Ok And you say you didn't murder somebody, Maybe you didn't, Okay,
Speaker 7: But you were in that neighborhood, Tony, and you talked
Speaker 7: to several people in that neighborhood.
Speaker 5: They said that you were there at their home.
Speaker 7: And it wasn't at four o'clock in the afternoon, it
Speaker 7: was earlier than that.
Speaker 22: And you've been in other places in Austin doing similar stuff, sir,
Speaker 22: with your van and your fingerprint being written down.
Speaker 7: The license plate of that band was written down at
Speaker 7: another time, not just this past time, but another time.
Speaker 5: And you told me.
Speaker 12: Yesterday that nobody else drives your van except for you.
Speaker 1: In the short time between Patrick's first interview in his arrest,
Speaker 1: investigators uncovered a few new details about him, details that
Speaker 1: were deeply unsettling. It turned out that the Diane Hall
Speaker 1: case wasn't the only active investigation where the name Patrick
Speaker 1: Russo had come up.
Speaker 12: You know, what let me ask you something.
Speaker 7: We called like Jackson yesterday and we talked to several detectives.
Speaker 3: Who knew Patrick Russo really, really well.
Speaker 7: We had some very interesting conversations about some cases that
Speaker 7: you were involved in that you were never filed on for.
Speaker 7: And you know those cases involved Those cases involve you
Speaker 7: choking women. You tying women up and choking them. I
Speaker 7: find that very interesting.
Speaker 3: Another one of those coincidences.
Speaker 5: I suppose that's a coincidence.
Speaker 1: Naturally, Patrick had even more denials and excuses about all
Speaker 1: of these other eerily similar investigations.
Speaker 7: They have multiple women over there that were choked by
Speaker 7: Patrick Russo, and.
Speaker 12: They all picked you out.
Speaker 7: You admitted to the one that you knew you were
Speaker 7: busted on because you were picked out of that lineup.
Speaker 3: I'm in it too. Every single thing that I've been
Speaker 3: in trouble with.
Speaker 7: You never said anything about choking any of those other women,
Speaker 7: tying them up.
Speaker 3: I tied up one person when I have my nervous breakdown.
Speaker 12: I'm talking about the ones that you didn't talk about.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about the women that you.
Speaker 12: Did tie up and choke that she didn't talk about.
Speaker 16: I have not tied up anybody and choked anybody.
Speaker 3: Really, I have assaulted a couple of people that I
Speaker 3: have tied up.
Speaker 12: Women are men, there were women, That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: They have at least five cases.
Speaker 22: They got a stack of women who said, yeah, that's
Speaker 22: the guy that choked me.
Speaker 7: You only told us that one because that's the one
Speaker 7: you got convicted on.
Speaker 12: There's multiple cases that they could have filed on you.
Speaker 5: And why they didn't, I don't know. And you know
Speaker 5: what they were like, I can't believe.
Speaker 12: He's out of jail.
Speaker 5: There's several women that said.
Speaker 12: You tied him up, You tied their hands up.
Speaker 7: How about the one who came out of her bedroom
Speaker 7: and the other one was tied up and then he
Speaker 7: had to tie her up too.
Speaker 3: You guys are twisting things up because they told them.
Speaker 3: You need to read the police report.
Speaker 16: Don't listen to overtalk from ten years ago, because it's
Speaker 16: really easy to.
Speaker 3: Start confusing things.
Speaker 16: You read my files and see what was said and
Speaker 16: written in those things, and then come talk to me
Speaker 16: about them.
Speaker 1: As the investigation into Patrick deepened, a disturbing pattern became
Speaker 1: very clear when that pointed to a twisted fascination with
Speaker 1: choking women. That dark obsession was also confirmed by statements
Speaker 1: from his own wife.
Speaker 19: He has always been fast. I will say this, He's
Speaker 19: always been fascinated with my neck. I guess the glass
Speaker 19: is a skinny little neck. I mean, I will say
Speaker 19: that he does tend to put his hand on my neck.
Speaker 19: But if I say let go or I can't.
Speaker 6: Airways getting restricted, you know, then and he's he always
Speaker 6: lets go.
Speaker 8: I mean, he realizes, you know.
Speaker 7: And what would you say if I told you that
Speaker 7: your wife told Detective Gilchrist that you choke her during sex?
Speaker 5: What would you say to that?
Speaker 16: I would say that what I do in my sex
Speaker 16: life is nobody's business.
Speaker 7: It may not be, but I think it's very pertinent
Speaker 7: in this case. And what's happened here and what's happened
Speaker 7: in your past.
Speaker 5: You like to choke women, that's obvious. Why would you
Speaker 5: choke your wife during sex?
Speaker 16: You guys after my phone call came in here and
Speaker 16: are instantly hostile.
Speaker 7: Why?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, this is my life here, this is my
Speaker 4: life is it's on the line.
Speaker 3: Here right now.
Speaker 4: I didn't do anything to hurt anybody else's wife. And yes,
Speaker 4: I have a reason to feel the way I feel.
Speaker 1: Patrick kept up his act, the cooperative, rightfully accused man,
Speaker 1: just trying to clear his name, but it never worked.
Speaker 1: The web of so called coincidences and mounting evidence have
Speaker 1: become far too much for him to overcome.
Speaker 3: I've tried to cooperate with you, guys. You know what.
Speaker 3: You're not trying to cooperate. You're trying to snow us.
Speaker 22: You're trying to get over on this so they will
Speaker 22: think that you're this.
Speaker 23: High and mighty religious whatever, that is so much better
Speaker 23: than your past, that you've done, all that, you're through
Speaker 23: with all that and nothing happened.
Speaker 3: You're innocent.
Speaker 22: You couldn't have been anywhere that we said you were when.
Speaker 24: The facts, indisputable, concrete facts say different. Quit all this
Speaker 24: crap about coincidences and no I wasn't here, No I
Speaker 24: wasn't there, And get right, it meant to what you did,
Speaker 24: and maybe we can get to the forgiveness part, because
Speaker 24: this is just crap.
Speaker 3: It's just bullshit, and you know it.
Speaker 1: Like his first interview, this interrogation eventually ran its course.
Speaker 1: Patrick held firm to his story. He clung on to
Speaker 1: his lies and refused to confess.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what I am.
Speaker 16: I'm in a real big days here because I can't
Speaker 16: believe this has happening in my life.
Speaker 3: Well you better believe it.
Speaker 5: And you knew it yesterday. You knew it yesterday. You
Speaker 5: know exactly what's going on.
Speaker 3: Patrick, I know what's going on. You can't help it
Speaker 3: if I can't believe what's happening.
Speaker 7: The well, you know what, We're going to prove that
Speaker 7: you did it and it isn't going to be that
Speaker 7: hard because you're there.
Speaker 5: Everybody saw you there.
Speaker 12: You're just making it worse for yourself.
Speaker 3: I did not kill anybody.
Speaker 5: You're just making it worse for yourself.
Speaker 1: But Patrick sat in jail on his parole violation, Investigators
Speaker 1: kept working the case, and before long they had enough
Speaker 1: to move forward. Formal murder charges were filed against him.
Speaker 21: In May, Russo was indicted for the November two thousand
Speaker 21: and one murder of Diane Hollick. Hollick's Northwest Austin home
Speaker 21: was up for sale. Police think Russo posed as an
Speaker 21: interested buyer and arrest. Warren explains, November fifteenth, Hollock told
Speaker 21: a friend a man was going to sell his ranch
Speaker 21: and buy her home.
Speaker 14: The next day, police found her strangled body.
Speaker 1: As expected, Patrick pleaded not guilty, and what followed were
Speaker 1: months of motions, hearings, and seemingly endless days.
Speaker 21: This is supposed to be a hearing where Patrick Russo's
Speaker 21: defense finds out what evidence of prosecution has against it,
Speaker 21: but the judge decides to focus on other capital murder.
Speaker 14: Cases first and postpones the hearing.
Speaker 16: I'm absolutely you know, saying, I don't think this are
Speaker 16: having here for two years my life.
Speaker 14: It's a setback for Russo and his family.
Speaker 25: One of the things that I think has just really
Speaker 25: been frustrating is the fact that with all the postponements,
Speaker 25: it doesn't seem to be a system that brings about
Speaker 25: justice the way that maybe we thought it would.
Speaker 21: Russo's family members don't want to talk about details, afraid
Speaker 21: it might hurt the case, but say they know Russo's
Speaker 21: innoc and just want the chance to tell his side
Speaker 21: and get him home.
Speaker 25: Basically, our lives are on hold right now until this
Speaker 25: situation gets resolved.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and three, Patrick's case finally went to trial,
Speaker 1: nearly two years after Diane Hollick's murder. Prosecutors laid out
Speaker 1: a chilling case They told jurors that Patrick Russo had
Speaker 1: spent months cruising neighborhoods around Austin posing as a cash
Speaker 1: buyer interested in homes for sale. Nearly every person he
Speaker 1: approached was a woman. He'd introduced himself with different names,
Speaker 1: spends stories about selling a ranch, and insist on meeting alone.
Speaker 1: They presented witnesses, realtors, and homeowners who identified Patrick as
Speaker 1: the man who'd made them uncomfortable with his behavior. Then
Speaker 1: came the forensic evidence DNA from Diane's left hand that
Speaker 1: matched Patrick and Hare's found on a towel inside her
Speaker 1: home that could exclude him as the source. But what
Speaker 1: truly unsettled the courtroom was testimony from Patrick's first wife.
Speaker 1: She told jurors that during their marriage, Patrick had a
Speaker 1: disturbing sexual affixation that he could only climax while joking her.
Speaker 1: In part, that testimony helped prosecutors expose what they believed
Speaker 1: to be Patrick's motive on his home computer. Investigators had
Speaker 1: also uncovered over a thousand images from an exphyxiation themed
Speaker 1: porn site called necrobabes dot com. You're welcome, Weirdo. To
Speaker 1: the prosecution, this wasn't just pornography. It was Patrick's violent
Speaker 1: fantasy brought to life in the murder of Diane Hollick.
Speaker 3: Well, why would y'all even think that I would do
Speaker 3: something like that? What motive I would have had to
Speaker 3: do something like that?
Speaker 5: I have no idea.
Speaker 3: Was it burglary, was it a robbery?
Speaker 5: Was it rape? I don't know. I mean that woman
Speaker 5: never did anything to hurt anybody.
Speaker 3: Everybody loved that woman.
Speaker 7: I mean, I haven't heard one person say a bad
Speaker 7: thing about this person.
Speaker 5: I mean, it had no enemies. There's no reason for it,
Speaker 5: none whatsoever.
Speaker 1: After learning that Diane had been murdered, her family, friends,
Speaker 1: and investigators all struggled to understand why that would someone
Speaker 1: tie her up and strangle her for no apparent reason.
Speaker 1: In the end, the answer wasn't complicated, just horrifying. Patrick
Speaker 1: Russo had a fantasy, an overwhelming compulsion to choke women,
Speaker 1: one that overpowered reason, empathy, and even his own fear
Speaker 1: of losing his freedom. What he did wasn't driven by rage.
Speaker 1: That was driven by a perverse need for power and control. Deliberate, predatory,
Speaker 1: and obsessive. This reality paints a chilling picture of Diane's
Speaker 1: final moments we know that Patrick went to her home,
Speaker 1: tied her up, and strangled her to death, before maliciously
Speaker 1: cleaning the scene and fleeing, but Patrick never confessed. The
Speaker 1: most haunting details remain unknown. How did he gain control
Speaker 1: of Diane? How long did he keep her restrained before
Speaker 1: deciding to kill her? What did he say to her?
Speaker 1: What did she say to him? Did she beg for
Speaker 1: her life? Did Diane know she was going to die?
Speaker 1: All these questions and so many others will likely never
Speaker 1: be answered.
Speaker 3: Try to live my life and do what's right.
Speaker 7: And you say that, but would you really admit to
Speaker 7: it if he did? If I didn't do the Christian thing,
Speaker 7: I mean, I will tell you you wouldn't hide behind
Speaker 7: this whole Christian cloak thing.
Speaker 16: It's not a cloak thing, it's a for real thing,
Speaker 16: And as a Christian, I wouldn't do.
Speaker 3: Something like that.
Speaker 1: Patrick could spent years constructing a mask to the world.
Speaker 1: He was a man of faith, a Christian, a music minister,
Speaker 1: a husband, a family man. But behind the facade was
Speaker 1: something else. He was a predator, prowling for women and
Speaker 1: attempting to perfect his routine over and over until the
Speaker 1: day he finally struck.
Speaker 7: It's disgusting to sit here and listen to you talk
Speaker 7: about being such a devout Christian and forgiveness and how
Speaker 7: much you've turned.
Speaker 20: Your life around, when this one coincidence after another, this
Speaker 20: whole thing goes back to similarity that I'm sure a
Speaker 20: coincidence so back in nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety nine too, you.
Speaker 5: Know, But you're this reborn Christian.
Speaker 12: And you're gonna sit here and lie about it.
Speaker 1: The split between the life Patrick performed and the darkness
Speaker 1: he concealed is ultimately what defines him, and it's what
Speaker 1: stripped away any doubt about who he truly was. Not
Speaker 1: a man of God, not a misunderstood soul, but a
Speaker 1: monster hiding in plain sight. Tragically, the person who paid
Speaker 1: the ultimate price for this monster's desires was an ordinary woman,
Speaker 1: someone simply trying to sell her home and start a
Speaker 1: new life with her fiance.
Speaker 5: I mean, tell me what her daily routine is, do
Speaker 5: you know?
Speaker 9: Gets up about a fifteen, it's right over to the computer,
Speaker 9: it's see make sure the dogs are fine, and she
Speaker 9: just starts cranking away till you know, like noon. And
Speaker 9: I think she usually takes a shower and gets dressed
Speaker 9: from his errands or whatever, and then cranks till whenever
Speaker 9: she needs to crank till she'll go workout or announce
Speaker 9: it sound like.
Speaker 11: She'd liked to go out to have sue. She once
Speaker 11: in a while, she wasn't a big as a lad.
Speaker 11: In the next couple of years big going out in person,
Speaker 11: whils she's staying at home. She did a lot of
Speaker 11: eating at home. Her kids were alife, adults. Dog was
Speaker 11: going over kids is what I go into. They were
Speaker 11: very important to her, so she as took care of them.
Speaker 11: She leaned by themselves, so she was That was her
Speaker 11: her family.
Speaker 3: I gives.
Speaker 1: On May ninth, two thousand and three, the Texas jury
Speaker 1: returned a guilty verdict for Patrick Russo, but because they
Speaker 1: couldn't reach a unanimous decision on the sentencing, the judge
Speaker 1: imposed an automatic sentence of life in prison without the
Speaker 1: possibility of parole, sparing him the death penalty. Her investigators,
Speaker 1: this conviction was the end of a long and difficult
Speaker 1: case for Diane's friends and family. It was the end
Speaker 1: of something far greater, a life that never should have
Speaker 1: been taken. As for Patrick, he will spend the rest
Speaker 1: of his life behind bars, remembered not for his music
Speaker 1: or his faith, but for the false life he built
Speaker 1: in the violence that exposed it. If you like that,
Speaker 1: and if you like things like that, head on over
Speaker 1: to Swordinscale dot com, download the app on your Apple
Speaker 1: iPhone or your Android whatever, and uh, you know, just
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Speaker 1: extra content, including uh, commercial free episodes of everything, including Nightmares,
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Speaker 1: can get, you know, commercial free versions of this show
Speaker 1: for the last thirteen years. Again, this is episode threehundred
Speaker 1: and forty eight. There's three hundred and forty eight of them,
Speaker 1: plus one hundred I don't know, fifteen hundred and sixty
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Speaker 26: Go get it, Go get it right now, Go get
Speaker 26: it right now.
Speaker 6: Of to.
Speaker 9: A to A