November 8, 2023 • 39 mins
November 15, 2001 was a day of catastrophic storms for Austin, Texas. Diane Holik's coworkers were unable to get in touch with her the next day, so they called the police to do a welfare check on her. They found her body upstairs in the guest room. They would learn through their investigation that there was a strange man going around to homes listed for sale in the area trying his hardest to get in the homes when the women were home alone. Could this be Diane's killer?
Sources for this episode:
Caselaw - Russo v. State
Oxygen - Patrick Russo Is Convicted of Killing Texan Diane Holik
MRT - Jury convicts man who posed as homebuyer to kill
Medium - Texas Church Minister Killed A Woman For His 'Erotic Horror' Fetish
Spectrum News 1 - 15 Years Ago Today: Historic Texas Flood
Find A Grave - Diane Tammy Holik
Sources for this episode:
Caselaw - Russo v. State
Oxygen - Patrick Russo Is Convicted of Killing Texan Diane Holik
MRT - Jury convicts man who posed as homebuyer to kill
Medium - Texas Church Minister Killed A Woman For His 'Erotic Horror' Fetish
Spectrum News 1 - 15 Years Ago Today: Historic Texas Flood
Find A Grave - Diane Tammy Holik
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Crime on My Coffee.This podcast contains graphic descriptions and adult content
mature audiences only. Please Hi,y'all, and welcome to Crime with My
(00:31):
Coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess withthe most June, and I'm Suzanne.
We're gonna tell you some stories you'veheard, some you haven't, and some
you'll wish you hadn't. All witha Texas twang. Welcome back, Welcome
back, everybody. Glad you couldjoin us, absolutely, And if you're
(00:52):
here for the first time, goback and after you listen to this episode,
but go back and you can choosesomething else and just start listening to
all of them. We have lotsover one hundred and sixty. Oh my
god, that's crazy. We'll bedoing episode two hundred sometime next year.
(01:14):
What oh wow, I haven't satin count of the weeks, but you
know it's coming up. It's comingup. That's that's amazing, you know,
I absolutely So what's in your mouththis week? Well, in my
mug, I'm actually I made apot of coffee because I got a lot
going on this weekend, you know, trying to get the last mow in.
(01:36):
I guess if it doesn't rain orsomething anyway. So I've just been
busy. So I made a potof coffee, but I made it with
a pot of some coffee that youhad left for me to try. It's
the Bones Coffee Company, the Crusader'sCup. It's the Indiana Jones Yes coffee
that they made, and oh mygod, it's amazing. It is amazing.
(02:04):
I could not figure out the sweetnessabout it, you know. I
mean it smelt great. I meanjust when I opened the jar that I
had put it in, it smelledamazing. But as it was brewing,
it was just I was like,oh my god. But I'd already put
some creamer in my coffee cup,not a whole lot, but a little
bit of French vanilla creamer and thiscoffee, luckily, it was just a
(02:30):
little bit. And I'm so gladbecause I could really taste the coffee.
It's and I actually had to lookit up because I was like, what
is this sweetness that I'm tasting.I couldn't figure it out. So I
actually looked it up. And inthis coffee it has hints of nutty chocolate,
(02:53):
butterscotch, and caramel, and itwas the butterscotch that I was tasting.
I just couldn't put my finger onit. But oh my god.
So now I don't have any leftill and I don't think they're making it
anymore either. I was like,I'm going to buy some next time they
(03:15):
do this because this stuff was sois so good. I just I was
blown away, that's all I cansay. Blown away. So anytime y'all
are able to get the Indiana JonesCrusader's Cup from Bones Coffee Company, oh
(03:37):
dude, grab it because you willnot be disappointed. I still, okay,
I'm going to order some because itis still currently available. Well,
next time I make some, Andnext time I make some, I'm actually
gonna try to drink it without creamerin it. I think that I can
(03:57):
do that because this coffee is superb. It's so good. Anyway, enough
about my coffee. What do youhave in your mug today? I am
drinking the Tim Hortons Canadian medium Roast, just your regular, non flavored,
nothing fancy coffee. I ordered myCanadian chips the other day nice and they
(04:23):
came in. I only ordered themabout once a year or so because they
have to import them from Canada andit's like seventeen dollars a bag of chips.
Oh my god, because they don'tmake them in the United States anymore,
right, and it makes me sadbecause they're really good. So usually
right around my birthday, I willadd a bag to our Amazon car and
(04:45):
eventually the husband or I will orderthem. And I ordered them and they
finally came in, and so Iwas like, you know what, Canadian
chips. I'm gonna have my Canadiancoffee. I don't have Canadian coffee creamer.
I have Dunkin Donuts extra extra creamer. But you know, we're doing
the Canadian thing today. Nice,very very nice. So well, I
have got a case for us thisweek. Woooo. It means I can
(05:11):
just veg out for a little bitand enjoy this coffee. Yes, enjoy
your coffee while I drink mine andget frustrated again. Oh okay, I'm
ready. Okay, So we don'treally have a geography lesson this week.
Instead, I did kind of aweather history type lesson. Ooh nice,
(05:32):
something different. I like that,something different. So on November fifteenth and
sixteenth of two thousand and one,the city of Austin, Texas saw some
hecking crazy weather. They ended upgetting about fourteen total inches of rainfall wow
(05:55):
on those two days. Like that'smore than they usually get in the entire
fall season. Yeah, and theygot it in two days. Wow.
It started at the storms and rainand all that started at about three point
thirty pm on the fifteenth, andit spawned a few tornadoes. I want
(06:15):
to say I read or heard somewhereit was like fourteen tornadoes in the general
Austin area that day. Wow.Caused some flood damaging, obviously, and
it ended up flooding nine hundred andsixty eight homes and damages to public property
(06:36):
was a little over eleven million dollars. I can see it. With all
that water, I can see it. As as many as ten people were
reportedly killed by this particular two daystorm. Okay, but we're going to
talk today about Diane Pollock Pollock whichshe was born on September tenth of nineteen
(07:03):
fifty eight in Bay Shore, NewYork. She worked hard in school,
she got good grades, and eventuallyshe would land a job with IBM.
There she worked hard and she workedher way up the corporate ladder until eventually
she reached the wrong of the ladderthat was labeled executive whole sweet, I
(07:25):
know she's kicking ass anyway. Soshe's doing a lot of traveling for work.
One of these travel trips took herto Austin, Texas, and evidently
at that point she said, youknow what, I'm just going to live
here. And in nineteen ninety sixthat's what she did. She packed up
and she moved to Austin. Nice, she bought a home. She's still
(07:45):
working for IBM. A lot ofher work she was able to do from
home because you know, I mean, come on, she's like way up
towards the top of this ladder here. She can do what she wants.
Yes, so a lot of herwork was done remotely, but she was
in contact with other people in thiscompany across the country on a daily basis.
(08:07):
Okay. In two thousand, shejoined a dating website. She was
ready to settle down completely, likenot just her home life, but just
completely settled down nice. On thisdating website, she met a guy named
Dennis, and after about two monthsor so of dating, Dennis popped the
(08:30):
question, Wow, that was veryquick. Now how old is she about
this time? Well, she wasborn in fifty eight and this is in
two thousand, so okay forty two, yeah, yeah, three yeah,
why waste time, I get it. Yeah, early forties. So anyway,
(08:52):
so her and dnnis they're they're nowengaged. The only problem is Dennis
lives in Houston, Texas. Okay. So at that point, Diane said,
you know what, here's what we'regonna do. I'm gonna put my
house on the market. I'm goingto sell my house and I'm going to
move to Houston to be with you. Ah. That's sweet of her,
(09:13):
and Dennis was like, all right, cool. So she calls up her
neighbor and her friend. We're gonnacall her Charlotte. Okay, well Charlotte
not only was a friend and aneighbor, but she also happened to be
a realtor. Ah nice. Soshe asked Charlotte to list her home for
sale. It was listed for aboutfour hundred and thirty five thousand dollars.
(09:37):
Geez, wow, yeah in twothousand, so you know, twenty three
years ago. Wow, I don'teven want to imagine what this house.
The market wouldn't say it's worth now, right, this girl was banking.
That ain't no joke. But Unfortunatelyfor Diane, the housing the market was
(10:00):
a little slow at this time.Ah so her home had been on the
market for about a month or soby the time the storms blew in in
mid November. Well, a littleafter lunchtime on the fifteenth, Diane called
one of her co workers and said, Hey, I'm sorry, I'm calling
in for this you know, conferencecall or whatever, a little late.
(10:22):
But I just had this guy here. I was kind of showing him my
house. He really liked it.He's going to come back this weekend with
his wife and we're going to callCharlotte over here, and you know,
he's going to look at the housethen, and her coworker said, excuse
me, missy, miss you donot do crazy, insane things like that.
(10:43):
You do not let complete strangers inyour home, especially when it's a
man and you're a woman living aloneand it's just the two of you there.
What is wrong with you? Don'tdo these things right? And then,
you know, she scolded her,and then they went on about their
business, you know, handling businesses. You ual, possibly a little chit
chat or whatever, because they're they'refriends and co workers, you know.
(11:05):
Yeah, Well, that afternoon,the storm started up, and Diane was
on a call with another coworker andsaid, hey, look I've really got
to go now. The storm isreally amping up. You know, I
got to get off the phone,I got to shut down my computer,
I got to get everything shut downright. Well, on the next morning,
the sixteenth, there were a coupleof different people that were trying to
(11:26):
get a hold of Diane. Shehad other conference call scheduled and stuff like
that. They called her a fewtimes, didn't get an answer, called
her cell phone, didn't get ananswer, shot her a couple of emails.
Still no reply. Well that's probablybecause everything is drownded there, and
you know, well that's these coworkers, you know, are now calling
(11:48):
other co workers, you know,across the country and they're going, you
know, we know they had somepretty pretty bad storms last night in Austin.
We know there were a couple oftornadoes that were there that touched down.
Maybe her house got damaged. Maybeshe's trapped in her house, you
know, Oh my gosh. Sothey call the Austin Police Department and they
ask, you know, hey,can you go check on Diane, And
(12:09):
they said, sure, absolutely,not a problem. So the cops go
out there and they notice, youknow, there's not really any damage done
to her house, thank goodness.Yeah, the doors are locked, the
windows are locked, but they're peekingkind of in through the windows, you
know, trying to see if everythinglooked okay on the inside, right,
And they noticed that her dogs hadpottied all over the floor. Oh so
(12:35):
they're like, okay, well thedogs have been locked up for quite a
while obviously. Yeah, And that'swhen Charlotte noticed the cops over there.
And Charlotte comes over and she goes, hey, what's going on? And
they said, oh, we werecalled to do this welfare check. And
she goes, oh, well,I have a key, I can let
you in. And they said okay, So she unlocks the door for them
and the cops go in and theywalk in and nothing really looks out of
(12:56):
place, well except for one thing. They noticed a howl kind of draped
over the back of a love seator a couch or something, just not
too far from the entryway of thishouse. And they were like, well,
that's kind of odd because everything elseis like pristine, Like this house
is immaculate, like you know,it's set up for showings, it's it's
spotless. You know, nothing looksweird, you know, except for this
(13:20):
towel and you know, the dogpoop and the dog pee. Right.
So they're going through the house andthey don't see anything, and they go
upstairs and they're checking all the roomsand it was in a guest bedroom upstairs
that they actually found Diane's body body. Oh, I don't like that at
all. Yeah. At first theythought maybe she had killed herself, because
(13:46):
you know, she's just laying therefully clothed in the floor dead and they're
like, you know, so it, you know, and everything in the
house looks like it's supposed to,right. But then they got to looking
and they realized it looked like shehad marks on her wrists where she had
been zip tied. Oh no,and she had a ligature mark around her
(14:07):
neck up. Definitely not self inflicted. Definitely not self inflicted because they found
no zip ties, they found noligatures around they found nothing. Very So
they're looking around and they're talking tosome neighbors and some friends and they had
just a couple of clues, notreally a whole lot to go on now,
(14:30):
but they did realize that her seventeenthousand dollars engagement ring was missing.
Cool oh, along with the jewelrybox from her master bedroom that contained other
jewelry. Not cheap, I'm surenot. No. They also were informed
(14:52):
that her spare door key that shekept downstairs was also missing, which would
explain how the house was locked up. Yes, with no bad guy in
it. Yeah. One neighbor toldthe cops that when he was coming home
the day before, about five orfive fifteen or so, he noticed this
brown or gold colored van at herhouse, but he didn't think too much
(15:16):
of it because he was like,oh, it's probably a potential buyer looking
at the house or getting one ofthose flyers out of the front yard or
you know whatever. Didn't think nothingof it, but just in case,
I did notice this van, youguys, well, the cops had two
potential suspects on their radar. Dennisobviously, because the boyfriend husband fiance is
(15:37):
or you know, girlfriend wife fianceis always the first one they tend to
look at in a murder situation.Yes, you start from the inner circle
and work your way out. Butthere was also a coworker whom we're gonna
call Roger, that they had ontheir radar. See Roger while they're you
know. Not long after they haddiscovered her body, Roger showed up at
(15:58):
the house and he was like,oh, well, you know, I
work with her. We're really goodfriends. We're super close, and I
hadn't been able to get a holdof her today and so I came by
to check on her, and youguys are here. But you know what,
while you're here, and since youtold me she's dead, I'm here
to help in any way, Ican just placing myself right here, gotcha.
Absolutely, So they're like, hmm, that's a little suspicious. So
(16:23):
Roger, he would often watch herdogs. He would come by and help
her with stuff. He had akey to her house. Oh okay,
Diane had out the extra key thatwas usually downstairs. Correct, he had
his own key, Okay, allright, Well they'd die in good friends.
(16:44):
Then. Diane had even confided insome of her other friends that she
thought Roger was kind of infatuated withher, but she didn't have the same
feelings for him. So the copsare thinking, hmm, he's inserting himself
here into our investigation. Quite earlyon, he's maybe he's been rejected one
too many times by Diane. Weneed to talk to this guy. So
(17:07):
they take him down to the stationand they're talking to him and he said,
no, I was at work.He was able to have his alibi
confirmed. He didn't have anything todo with the murder of Diane. So
they let him go. That's good, and they're still trying to get in
touch with Dennis, though after ahot minute, I want to say,
it was a day or two beforethey were finally able to get a hold
(17:29):
of Dennis. Dennis swore to them, you know, dude, I've been
in Houston this whole time, youknow, working. I've got credit card
receipts to back me up. I'vegot you know, phone records to back
me up. I've got all thisstuff to prove that, you know,
I was in Houston, I wasnot in Austin. I had nothing to
do with this. And they checkhim out and they clear him, and
they're right back at square one withno suspects at all, and they're starting
(17:52):
to get a little worried, thinkingmaybe this is just some sort of random
stranger murder and the odds of ussolving that are so slim. We don't
like this right right. Oh.Also side note, during the autopsy,
of Diane. They found that itdidn't seem like she had been sexually assaulted.
(18:15):
Well just good, just restrained andstrangled. Okay, So the so
the cops are doing their investigation,and it came to their attention that several
other homeowners in the area that Dianehad lived in, they had their homes
listed for sale, and they hadbeen by a man. They had been
approached by a man that they didn'tknow, knocking on their door, you
(18:38):
know, giving them the same storythat Diane had given her coworker over the
phone that day. He had justsold a ranch, he was looking to
buy a house in the area.He was looking to do it quick,
he was looking to pay cash.He wanted to look at the house.
He and his wife would come backlater that weekend with a realtor and look
at the house. They described tothis guy as being in his thirties or
(19:03):
forties, well dressed, about fiveeleven six foot tall. Uh said,
he looked like he came from moneyand a lot of these homeowners. Oh.
One thing that these homeowners all hadin common, uh huh. They
were all women that were home alonewhen he knocked on their door. Oh.
Well, in that convenient for him. Yeah. One lady said that
(19:27):
she let him in and let himwalk around her house on his own,
which she later regretted. She saidit wasn't long after he came in that
she started getting kind of creeped outbecause she noticed he wasn't really turning on
lights in rooms, he wasn't openingdoors. I'm sorry. If I'm looking
at a house, I'm opening everydoor, whether it's a cabinet door,
medicine cabinet, you know, closetdoor, whatever, back door. I'm
(19:52):
opening all the doors. Oh yeah, me too, turning on all the
lights. And I'm like, yes, I'm oh yeah, I'm flipping all
the switches that way. If Ido buy this house when I move in,
if I don't know what that switchcontrols, like, we have a
problem. I should know what allmy switches do before I buy this house.
Yep, I feel you. Yes, So she's she was like,
you know that that was really oddto me. And then he made his
(20:15):
way up the stairs to go lookat the bedrooms and stuff. And when
he got upstairs, he started shoutingdown questions and saying, you know,
hey, why don't you come showme this? Hey, why don't you
come up here and show me that. And she was like, hmm,
I was super creeped at that point, and I just would yell the answers
up to him. I was notgoing up those stairs with this guy.
Good for her, And after hecouldn't get her to go up the stairs,
(20:37):
he finally came downstairs and said,you know, hey, all right,
you know, I'll be back laterthis weekend with my wife to look
at the house. She never sawthis guy again, mm hmm. But
he did give her a name.Oh nice. He told her his name
was Walter Miller. And yes,she did know what he looked like because
(21:00):
this happened just very recently, andshe was totally willing to sit down with
the sketch artist and come up witha composite drawing of this guy. Nice.
So she sits down with the sketch. The cops are going to release
it to the news channels later thatevening. They're gonna, you know,
put it in the newspapers and getthis picture out. You know, hey,
maybe this guy knows something, notnecessarily that he's the guy that did
(21:22):
it, but maybe he knows something. Right, So they go and they
do their fancy cop google search onthe name Walter Miller, and they come
up with two possibilities. They rolledboth of them, both of them out
though, and realized that this guywas probably giving a fake name to everybody,
and this was probably a fake storyto get in these houses. And
(21:44):
they had a bigger case and moretrouble than they originally had bargained for.
See, they were able to ruleout these two Walter Millers because this guy
had been described as being in histhirties or forties. One of the Walter
Millers was in his early fifties,the other Walter Miller was one hundred and
one. Wasn't that guy, No, wasn't the guy. And then again,
(22:08):
like I said, they were gettingmore and more calls about, you
know, from all these women saying, Hey, I had this creepy guy
show up at my house too.Yeah. One woman said that he had
come to her house earlier in theyear, but she wouldn't let him in.
She said, no, I'm notgonna let some strange guy in my
house while I'm home alone to lookat my house. That's not gonna happen.
(22:30):
Call the realtor, call your ownrealtor, you know, set up
a time to come see the house. It's fine, smart girl. And
he got kind of pissy, buthe left. But she said that he
came back a few months later whatand was like, no, I really
need to see her house. Andshe absolutely refused to let him in the
(22:52):
house. And he was getting morepersistent and he was being more bitchy about
it and more rude, and shejust finally said, dude, get off
my porch and closed the door andlocked it and went and wrote down his
license plate number. Oh, bythe way, mister Coppicer, I still
have his license plate number. Hereyou go, sweet. And she also
(23:15):
said that she had seen his picturein the paper, this composite sketch,
and she goes, m yeah,I'm that could totally be the guy that
showed up at my house. Oh, here's his license plate number. Oh
sweet. Another lady said that theguy in the sketch had come by her
house and she happened to see himas he was, you know, he
pulled a flyer out of her yardby this for sale sign or whatever.
(23:38):
And he pulls this flyer out andhe starts walking up towards her house and
she sees this and she's like,oh, crap, I just put my
two little kids down for a nap. I don't want him ringing the doorbell.
So she opens the door and shesays, hey, can I help
you? And he was like,you know, yeah, I wanted you
know, do you have a floorplan of your house? And she was
like, well, I don't haveone that I can give you. He
goes, well, can I lookat you know, can I come in
and look around? And she said, well, okay, fine. You
(24:02):
know, she's she's trying to bepolite. So she puts her dog up
in one of the rooms downstairs,locks her dog up and says, you
know, but she can't go inthese rooms because my kids are sleeping,
you know, and I don't wantyou to wake the kids. And he
goes, okay, that's fine.So he's looking around the house and she's,
you know, kind of leading himthrough this house on this tour of
her house. And she said theygot into one of the bedrooms upstairs,
(24:25):
and she turned around and she's lookingat him, talking to him, and
all of a sudden, his demeanorjust changed and he went from this friendly
looking guy to like he just lookedtotally evil and demented and horrible. And
she got super creeped out and superscared, and she was terrified, and
it was at that time that herbaby started crying, So she takes that
(24:45):
opportunity to run out of the room, grab her baby, let her dog
out of the room that he waslocked in. And then this guy comes
downstairs and he's like, you know, oh, you know, is your
dog friendly? Does your dog calmdown if you know somebody pets it?
What about the securities system that youhave on your house, your alarm systems?
You have that set during the day, you know, what time is
your husband coming home? So usmen folks can talk, you know,
(25:07):
and work out the details and stuff. And the lady's like, uh,
dude, I'm not answering those questions, like are you kidding me? So
he said, okay, well,my wife and I'll be back this weekend
and he left. But she realizedthat he had left the flyer on her
countertop that he had gotten out ofher yard, right, So she called
the cops and said, you know, I still have this flyer. I'm
(25:29):
sure you can get his fingerprints offof it. Nice, very nice.
Yeah, So now they have adescription of this guy. He's telling all
these people this same story they've gota license plate number, they've got a
description of a van that was atDiane's house, and they have fingerprints nice
possibly, So they go to pickup this flyer, you know, so
(25:51):
they can run all the tests onit and get all the fingerprints that they
can and such, and everything cameback to this guy named Anthony Russo.
Actually his name was Patrick Anthony Russo, but he went by Anthony Russo and
that's what everything except his court paperscalled him. So we're just gonna call
him Anthony Russo, okay. Andthey're kind of looking into him, and
(26:12):
they're thinking, well, I,no, I really don't think this could
be our guy, because you know, he was the lead singer in a
Christian band. He was the musicdirector at his church over in Bastrup,
which was about forty miles or soaway from Austin. We really don't think
this could be our guy, butlet's go ahead and run him through this
(26:34):
cop Google search just in case,you know. And they run him through
that and they realize, oh,well, maybe we should look into this
guy because he's actually out on parolebecause he had been in prison for aggravated
kidnapping and he was suspected in severalother attacks on women where their assailant had
(26:56):
gotten them alone and then strangled them. Oh wow, what a coincidence there.
So they get a search warrant forhis house and then drive out to
his house. He's there. He'sat the house. He tells his wife,
you know, hey, I'm sureit has something to do with my
parole. They want me to cometalk to him. I'm sure it's just
(27:17):
formalities. It's fine, I'll beback in a little bit. So he
goes to the station with them andthey're searching his house. They're looking for
jewelry or you know, these zipties or anything that would tie him to
this crime scene. Right. Theyfound nothing. Ugh, dang it.
I know. At the station,he tells them, you know, yeah,
I was in Austin on that day, but I wasn't. I'm not
(27:41):
looking for any houses. I'm notlooking to buy a house. I'm not
looking to move. I was actuallyonly in Austin because I was going to
this radio station to drop off aCD demo because I'm trying to promote my
band. And they said, oh, oh, okay, okay. He
goes, you know, but youknow, I did get lost in the
storm. You know, I wentto the radio station and the door was
(28:03):
locked, and I knocked on thedoor and nobody came to the door.
So I left. And then thestorms came in and I got kind of
lost in the storms, and Iended up in a residential neighborhood and I
knocked on this one door and thisold guy came to the door and I
was like, dude, I'm lost. Where am I? How do I
get out of here? And hewas like, oh, you know,
you do this? And then Icame home and that was it. Yeah,
And they're like, okay, okay, they they weren't really buying all
(28:26):
of this, but they didn't reallyhave anything to hold him on, especially
since they didn't find anything in hishouse, right right, So they have
to let him go, even thoughit's against their better judgment. They really
think they have their guy. Well, they go to the radio station to
check his story out, and thestation manager said, oh, yeah,
I know that guy. You know, he's been here before, but he
(28:47):
wasn't here that day. Oh well, there you go. And they said,
are you sure he wasn't maybe,you know, could you have just
missed him? And he goes,oh no, Because the storms were coming
in. We knew the storms werecoming in, and we knew they were
going to be so we had pulledeveryone in this building into the lobby and
we opened the front doors to thisbuilding. That way, if there were
(29:07):
tornadoes, it would help equalize thepressure and maybe not explode all the glass
in these doors. We were inthe lobby, straight shot to the doors.
We would have seen him had hebeen here. He was not here
that day. Nice and they said, all right, all right. Well,
they also started getting some calls fromsome women realatures saying, you know,
(29:30):
hey, we've received phone calls fromthis guy pretty much basically almost the
same story. He sold a ranch, wanted to buy a house, wanted
to do it in cash, wantedto do it quick, and he wanted
us to show him these homes.But he was very specific that he only
wanted to see vacant homes and heonly wanted the female realature to be the
only one to show up to showhim these homes. Ow, that's creepy
(29:55):
right there. Yeah, definite redflag, red flags all over the place.
This looks like a freakin' poncho's yep, yep. Actually I think those
flags were green, but whatever.Yeah, I think they were red and
green maybe maybe. Yeah. Well, they were able to verify that these
phone calls did in fact come fromRusso, you know, from his cell
phone records and stuff like that.And they were also able to verify that
(30:21):
his phone was pinging off of thetowers in the area of Diane's home the
afternoon of her murder. Oh well, look at that. They were pretty
sure they had their guy. Sothey go and they arrest him, and
they have fifteen of these homeowners thathad called in about this creepy guy.
They had them come in for alive lineup. Ten of these homeowners pick
(30:47):
out Russo and said that's El Creepo. Yes it is. Well, they
also did a search of his computerand they found some crazy stuff on his
computer. He was a member ofthis website that was described by investigators as
tastefully erotic death scenes ew ew.He had over a thousand pictures of women
(31:15):
being strangled that he had saved orviewed there on his computer from this website.
And they also found a video thathe had downloaded a couple of days
before Diane's murder. And in thisvideo, the guy talks his way into
the home of a woman by sayinghe was interested in buying her home.
(31:36):
He strangles her, and then hemakes it look like a robbery by taking
some things. Basically a play byplay of what they were pretty sure had
happened to Diane. Yep. Nowremember that towel that I told you they
thought was kind of out of place. Yes, So, they did find
a couple of hairs on this towel. Unfortunately, they didn't have the root
(31:57):
intact, so all they could getwas my codrial DNA from these hairs.
They couldn't get a full DNA profile. But they also found DNA on Diane's
left hand that wasn't hers nah.Nice, So between the mitochondrial DNA and
the hair, the DNA that wason her left hand, and the DNA
sampled that they took from Russo,they were able to say, that's probably
(32:23):
ninety percent sure that's Russo's hair onthat towel. This DNA on her hand
belongs to Russo. We got ourguy. We're going to trial, nice,
very nice. So he goes totrial, he enters a plea of
not guilty, and the state presentstheir case, hands it over to the
jury. Eleven hours of deliberation,and the jury comes back and said,
(32:45):
nope, this guy is guilty ofcapital murder. It took him eleven hours.
Eleven hours, yes, wow,okay, but they came back said
he's guilty of capital murder. Hewas sentenced to life in prison, and
he will be eligible for parole inthe year twenty forty four when he is
around eighty or so. And that'smy case. Well, maybe he'll die
(33:07):
there before he turns eighty or so. And wow, that's crazy women.
Watch you backs. Yeah, Idon't like nobody in my house. Are
you kidding me? Me? Neither. I don't like nobody coming to my
house. I don't care if Iknow you are not me neither. And
(33:27):
I'm going to tell you right now. Sometimes I do sell things on like
Facebook, Marketplace or whatever. Youknow, I'll meet you polastation, I'll
I'll give it to you there.Well, you know a lot of places
do have places at their local policedepartments, you know, that are safe
meet places or whatever. I'm notsure if my town has that or not.
I don't know. I've always metthem in very public places like our
(33:49):
water park or the grocery store parkinglot or something like that you know,
and it's in the daytime, welllit area, plenty of people or around.
And when I am meeting somebody,I always text my husband or you
know, one of my kids thatare grown ups now, or somebody and
(34:12):
let them know, Hey, I'mleaving the house meeting this person at this
place. This is what they're supposedto be driving. This is the name
that I have for them, right, And then when you know, I
text them, Okay, so andso picked up the item or I picked
up the item from so and so, you know whatever, going home now,
and then text them again. Iam home all by myself. Everything
(34:32):
is safe and sound, sweet everystep of the way, I'm letting somebody
know what's going on. If I'mgoing by myself, well, that's awesome,
that's awesome. I don't know.I still pick up pitch hackers.
No, I'm just kidding. Youprobably would. I mean it's possible.
I don't know, but when theyask you, you know, but what
(34:57):
if I'm an expert er, that'swhen you just look at them and go
But what are the odds that therewould be two of us in the same
car? Really, what are theodds both of us are serial killers?
Exactly. I don't think they'd bein your car very long. No,
but this is my stop. Wellwe just go. I mean, we're
still on the highway. I hadn'teven made it to the next exit,
(35:19):
I know, but this is whereI was going right here. Okay,
see you later. Wow. Butyeah, yeah, that's that's my case.
That's what I got for you thisweek. Watch backs. Yeah,
that's crazy. And to think,I know, oh, go ahead,
I was gonna say. And tothink that this happened, you know,
that long ago, you know,one years with the you know, twenty
(35:45):
years. It was two thousand andone, right right, and it's twenty
three now, so yeah, twentyyears. I don't mouth. It's fine,
it's fine, it's fine, youknow. I mean just to think
that, I don't know, it'scrazy to me that people are just the
way that they are. Some people, some people's kids. I can't.
(36:05):
I just so I know. Iknow a lot of us are taught,
you know, be polite, bepolite to people, you know, be
polite to strangers. I say thatyou look out for you. Yeah.
Yeah, and if that means beingrude, be rude, it's fine.
You'll still be like I was rudeto a guy at Walmart. I mean,
I was pretty sure he was followingme around the store. I kind
(36:27):
of caught onto it, and Iwas like, I think this guy's following
me. And then I started beingcompletely random on where I was going and
zigzagging from one corner to the othercorner back to this corner. Like I
would go from looking at the grapesto looking at shoes, to looking at
you know, just sewing kits,to looking at you know, dog treats
or whatever. And this guy waseverywhere and he never had anything with him,
(36:49):
and I was. I finally turnedaround and I was like, excuse
me, can I help you?And he was like no, never saw
him again after that. Nay,cause a scene. They don't want you
to cause a scene. Cause ascene. Be rude. No, No,
I mean, don't be rude forno reason, right, But I
mean usually don't be polite. Youdon't have to be polite, you know.
(37:14):
I can tell you that if I'mat a store and some other female
comes up to me and goes,I haven't seen you in so long,
bitch, I'm playing along with you. Yep, we are mestis friends.
And I got your backslutely. Absolutelyabsolutely, Oh my god, Becky,
is that you seriously you've changed somuch. You look wonderful. Come on,
(37:38):
let's go have a coffee and talk. Oh yeah, absolutely, yes,
yes, so wow, Well thatwas a crazy, crazy story.
I'm glad that he was caught.And I mean, wow, I wonder
how many times because he was alreadyin prison for just doing creepy stuff like
(38:00):
that anyway, So I wonder howmany times, you know, and he
was going outside of where he lived, you know what I mean, how
many times did he do that?Really? Yeah? Wow? Wow?
So crazy? So so crazy?Oh absolutely wow. Well, thank you
(38:22):
for sharing very much. I appreciatethat. And like I said, most
women, if you or another womanand you go up to them and you
need somebody with you, most womenare they got you back. Yeah.
And I tell you right now,my husband is one of those that if
you walk up to him, he'sgoing to play along too. So will
(38:42):
my son yep, yep, somy son in law. He'd be like,
I don't want to be in public, So he's going to be at
his house because he just doesn't likepeople in general. I get it.
It's fine, Yeah, he won'tbe there. You won't see him at
the store. But no, youwon't see him at the store. He
tries not to go. I meanI feeling anyway. Well, thank you
(39:07):
very much for Sharon. I appreciatethat, I really do. Yeah.
Yeah, that's what we got foryou this week. We'll be back again
next week with another new episode.So until then, you guys, see
you later, Okay, bye bye
Welcome to Crime on My Coffee.This podcast contains graphic descriptions and adult content
mature audiences only. Please Hi,y'all, and welcome to Crime with My
(00:31):
Coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess withthe most June, and I'm Suzanne.
We're gonna tell you some stories you'veheard, some you haven't, and some
you'll wish you hadn't. All witha Texas twang. Welcome back, Welcome
back, everybody. Glad you couldjoin us, absolutely, And if you're
(00:52):
here for the first time, goback and after you listen to this episode,
but go back and you can choosesomething else and just start listening to
all of them. We have lotsover one hundred and sixty. Oh my
god, that's crazy. We'll bedoing episode two hundred sometime next year.
(01:14):
What oh wow, I haven't satin count of the weeks, but you
know it's coming up. It's comingup. That's that's amazing, you know,
I absolutely So what's in your mouththis week? Well, in my
mug, I'm actually I made apot of coffee because I got a lot
going on this weekend, you know, trying to get the last mow in.
(01:36):
I guess if it doesn't rain orsomething anyway. So I've just been
busy. So I made a potof coffee, but I made it with
a pot of some coffee that youhad left for me to try. It's
the Bones Coffee Company, the Crusader'sCup. It's the Indiana Jones Yes coffee
that they made, and oh mygod, it's amazing. It is amazing.
(02:04):
I could not figure out the sweetnessabout it, you know. I
mean it smelt great. I meanjust when I opened the jar that I
had put it in, it smelledamazing. But as it was brewing,
it was just I was like,oh my god. But I'd already put
some creamer in my coffee cup,not a whole lot, but a little
bit of French vanilla creamer and thiscoffee, luckily, it was just a
(02:30):
little bit. And I'm so gladbecause I could really taste the coffee.
It's and I actually had to lookit up because I was like, what
is this sweetness that I'm tasting.I couldn't figure it out. So I
actually looked it up. And inthis coffee it has hints of nutty chocolate,
(02:53):
butterscotch, and caramel, and itwas the butterscotch that I was tasting.
I just couldn't put my finger onit. But oh my god.
So now I don't have any leftill and I don't think they're making it
anymore either. I was like,I'm going to buy some next time they
(03:15):
do this because this stuff was sois so good. I just I was
blown away, that's all I cansay. Blown away. So anytime y'all
are able to get the Indiana JonesCrusader's Cup from Bones Coffee Company, oh
(03:37):
dude, grab it because you willnot be disappointed. I still, okay,
I'm going to order some because itis still currently available. Well,
next time I make some, Andnext time I make some, I'm actually
gonna try to drink it without creamerin it. I think that I can
(03:57):
do that because this coffee is superb. It's so good. Anyway, enough
about my coffee. What do youhave in your mug today? I am
drinking the Tim Hortons Canadian medium Roast, just your regular, non flavored,
nothing fancy coffee. I ordered myCanadian chips the other day nice and they
(04:23):
came in. I only ordered themabout once a year or so because they
have to import them from Canada andit's like seventeen dollars a bag of chips.
Oh my god, because they don'tmake them in the United States anymore,
right, and it makes me sadbecause they're really good. So usually
right around my birthday, I willadd a bag to our Amazon car and
(04:45):
eventually the husband or I will orderthem. And I ordered them and they
finally came in, and so Iwas like, you know what, Canadian
chips. I'm gonna have my Canadiancoffee. I don't have Canadian coffee creamer.
I have Dunkin Donuts extra extra creamer. But you know, we're doing
the Canadian thing today. Nice,very very nice. So well, I
have got a case for us thisweek. Woooo. It means I can
(05:11):
just veg out for a little bitand enjoy this coffee. Yes, enjoy
your coffee while I drink mine andget frustrated again. Oh okay, I'm
ready. Okay, So we don'treally have a geography lesson this week.
Instead, I did kind of aweather history type lesson. Ooh nice,
(05:32):
something different. I like that,something different. So on November fifteenth and
sixteenth of two thousand and one,the city of Austin, Texas saw some
hecking crazy weather. They ended upgetting about fourteen total inches of rainfall wow
(05:55):
on those two days. Like that'smore than they usually get in the entire
fall season. Yeah, and theygot it in two days. Wow.
It started at the storms and rainand all that started at about three point
thirty pm on the fifteenth, andit spawned a few tornadoes. I want
(06:15):
to say I read or heard somewhereit was like fourteen tornadoes in the general
Austin area that day. Wow.Caused some flood damaging, obviously, and
it ended up flooding nine hundred andsixty eight homes and damages to public property
(06:36):
was a little over eleven million dollars. I can see it. With all
that water, I can see it. As as many as ten people were
reportedly killed by this particular two daystorm. Okay, but we're going to
talk today about Diane Pollock Pollock whichshe was born on September tenth of nineteen
(07:03):
fifty eight in Bay Shore, NewYork. She worked hard in school,
she got good grades, and eventuallyshe would land a job with IBM.
There she worked hard and she workedher way up the corporate ladder until eventually
she reached the wrong of the ladderthat was labeled executive whole sweet, I
(07:25):
know she's kicking ass anyway. Soshe's doing a lot of traveling for work.
One of these travel trips took herto Austin, Texas, and evidently
at that point she said, youknow what, I'm just going to live
here. And in nineteen ninety sixthat's what she did. She packed up
and she moved to Austin. Nice, she bought a home. She's still
(07:45):
working for IBM. A lot ofher work she was able to do from
home because you know, I mean, come on, she's like way up
towards the top of this ladder here. She can do what she wants.
Yes, so a lot of herwork was done remotely, but she was
in contact with other people in thiscompany across the country on a daily basis.
(08:07):
Okay. In two thousand, shejoined a dating website. She was
ready to settle down completely, likenot just her home life, but just
completely settled down nice. On thisdating website, she met a guy named
Dennis, and after about two monthsor so of dating, Dennis popped the
(08:30):
question, Wow, that was veryquick. Now how old is she about
this time? Well, she wasborn in fifty eight and this is in
two thousand, so okay forty two, yeah, yeah, three yeah,
why waste time, I get it. Yeah, early forties. So anyway,
(08:52):
so her and dnnis they're they're nowengaged. The only problem is Dennis
lives in Houston, Texas. Okay. So at that point, Diane said,
you know what, here's what we'regonna do. I'm gonna put my
house on the market. I'm goingto sell my house and I'm going to
move to Houston to be with you. Ah. That's sweet of her,
(09:13):
and Dennis was like, all right, cool. So she calls up her
neighbor and her friend. We're gonnacall her Charlotte. Okay, well Charlotte
not only was a friend and aneighbor, but she also happened to be
a realtor. Ah nice. Soshe asked Charlotte to list her home for
sale. It was listed for aboutfour hundred and thirty five thousand dollars.
(09:37):
Geez, wow, yeah in twothousand, so you know, twenty three
years ago. Wow, I don'teven want to imagine what this house.
The market wouldn't say it's worth now, right, this girl was banking.
That ain't no joke. But Unfortunatelyfor Diane, the housing the market was
(10:00):
a little slow at this time.Ah so her home had been on the
market for about a month or soby the time the storms blew in in
mid November. Well, a littleafter lunchtime on the fifteenth, Diane called
one of her co workers and said, Hey, I'm sorry, I'm calling
in for this you know, conferencecall or whatever, a little late.
(10:22):
But I just had this guy here. I was kind of showing him my
house. He really liked it.He's going to come back this weekend with
his wife and we're going to callCharlotte over here, and you know,
he's going to look at the housethen, and her coworker said, excuse
me, missy, miss you donot do crazy, insane things like that.
(10:43):
You do not let complete strangers inyour home, especially when it's a
man and you're a woman living aloneand it's just the two of you there.
What is wrong with you? Don'tdo these things right? And then,
you know, she scolded her,and then they went on about their
business, you know, handling businesses. You ual, possibly a little chit
chat or whatever, because they're they'refriends and co workers, you know.
(11:05):
Yeah, Well, that afternoon,the storm started up, and Diane was
on a call with another coworker andsaid, hey, look I've really got
to go now. The storm isreally amping up. You know, I
got to get off the phone,I got to shut down my computer,
I got to get everything shut downright. Well, on the next morning,
the sixteenth, there were a coupleof different people that were trying to
(11:26):
get a hold of Diane. Shehad other conference call scheduled and stuff like
that. They called her a fewtimes, didn't get an answer, called
her cell phone, didn't get ananswer, shot her a couple of emails.
Still no reply. Well that's probablybecause everything is drownded there, and
you know, well that's these coworkers, you know, are now calling
(11:48):
other co workers, you know,across the country and they're going, you
know, we know they had somepretty pretty bad storms last night in Austin.
We know there were a couple oftornadoes that were there that touched down.
Maybe her house got damaged. Maybeshe's trapped in her house, you
know, Oh my gosh. Sothey call the Austin Police Department and they
ask, you know, hey,can you go check on Diane, And
(12:09):
they said, sure, absolutely,not a problem. So the cops go
out there and they notice, youknow, there's not really any damage done
to her house, thank goodness.Yeah, the doors are locked, the
windows are locked, but they're peekingkind of in through the windows, you
know, trying to see if everythinglooked okay on the inside, right,
And they noticed that her dogs hadpottied all over the floor. Oh so
(12:35):
they're like, okay, well thedogs have been locked up for quite a
while obviously. Yeah, And that'swhen Charlotte noticed the cops over there.
And Charlotte comes over and she goes, hey, what's going on? And
they said, oh, we werecalled to do this welfare check. And
she goes, oh, well,I have a key, I can let
you in. And they said okay, So she unlocks the door for them
and the cops go in and theywalk in and nothing really looks out of
(12:56):
place, well except for one thing. They noticed a howl kind of draped
over the back of a love seator a couch or something, just not
too far from the entryway of thishouse. And they were like, well,
that's kind of odd because everything elseis like pristine, Like this house
is immaculate, like you know,it's set up for showings, it's it's
spotless. You know, nothing looksweird, you know, except for this
(13:20):
towel and you know, the dogpoop and the dog pee. Right.
So they're going through the house andthey don't see anything, and they go
upstairs and they're checking all the roomsand it was in a guest bedroom upstairs
that they actually found Diane's body body. Oh, I don't like that at
all. Yeah. At first theythought maybe she had killed herself, because
(13:46):
you know, she's just laying therefully clothed in the floor dead and they're
like, you know, so it, you know, and everything in the
house looks like it's supposed to,right. But then they got to looking
and they realized it looked like shehad marks on her wrists where she had
been zip tied. Oh no,and she had a ligature mark around her
(14:07):
neck up. Definitely not self inflicted. Definitely not self inflicted because they found
no zip ties, they found noligatures around they found nothing. Very So
they're looking around and they're talking tosome neighbors and some friends and they had
just a couple of clues, notreally a whole lot to go on now,
(14:30):
but they did realize that her seventeenthousand dollars engagement ring was missing.
Cool oh, along with the jewelrybox from her master bedroom that contained other
jewelry. Not cheap, I'm surenot. No. They also were informed
(14:52):
that her spare door key that shekept downstairs was also missing, which would
explain how the house was locked up. Yes, with no bad guy in
it. Yeah. One neighbor toldthe cops that when he was coming home
the day before, about five orfive fifteen or so, he noticed this
brown or gold colored van at herhouse, but he didn't think too much
(15:16):
of it because he was like,oh, it's probably a potential buyer looking
at the house or getting one ofthose flyers out of the front yard or
you know whatever. Didn't think nothingof it, but just in case,
I did notice this van, youguys, well, the cops had two
potential suspects on their radar. Dennisobviously, because the boyfriend husband fiance is
(15:37):
or you know, girlfriend wife fianceis always the first one they tend to
look at in a murder situation.Yes, you start from the inner circle
and work your way out. Butthere was also a coworker whom we're gonna
call Roger, that they had ontheir radar. See Roger while they're you
know. Not long after they haddiscovered her body, Roger showed up at
(15:58):
the house and he was like,oh, well, you know, I
work with her. We're really goodfriends. We're super close, and I
hadn't been able to get a holdof her today and so I came by
to check on her, and youguys are here. But you know what,
while you're here, and since youtold me she's dead, I'm here
to help in any way, Ican just placing myself right here, gotcha.
Absolutely, So they're like, hmm, that's a little suspicious. So
(16:23):
Roger, he would often watch herdogs. He would come by and help
her with stuff. He had akey to her house. Oh okay,
Diane had out the extra key thatwas usually downstairs. Correct, he had
his own key, Okay, allright, Well they'd die in good friends.
(16:44):
Then. Diane had even confided insome of her other friends that she
thought Roger was kind of infatuated withher, but she didn't have the same
feelings for him. So the copsare thinking, hmm, he's inserting himself
here into our investigation. Quite earlyon, he's maybe he's been rejected one
too many times by Diane. Weneed to talk to this guy. So
(17:07):
they take him down to the stationand they're talking to him and he said,
no, I was at work.He was able to have his alibi
confirmed. He didn't have anything todo with the murder of Diane. So
they let him go. That's good, and they're still trying to get in
touch with Dennis, though after ahot minute, I want to say,
it was a day or two beforethey were finally able to get a hold
(17:29):
of Dennis. Dennis swore to them, you know, dude, I've been
in Houston this whole time, youknow, working. I've got credit card
receipts to back me up. I'vegot you know, phone records to back
me up. I've got all thisstuff to prove that, you know,
I was in Houston, I wasnot in Austin. I had nothing to
do with this. And they checkhim out and they clear him, and
they're right back at square one withno suspects at all, and they're starting
(17:52):
to get a little worried, thinkingmaybe this is just some sort of random
stranger murder and the odds of ussolving that are so slim. We don't
like this right right. Oh.Also side note, during the autopsy,
of Diane. They found that itdidn't seem like she had been sexually assaulted.
(18:15):
Well just good, just restrained andstrangled. Okay, So the so
the cops are doing their investigation,and it came to their attention that several
other homeowners in the area that Dianehad lived in, they had their homes
listed for sale, and they hadbeen by a man. They had been
approached by a man that they didn'tknow, knocking on their door, you
(18:38):
know, giving them the same storythat Diane had given her coworker over the
phone that day. He had justsold a ranch, he was looking to
buy a house in the area.He was looking to do it quick,
he was looking to pay cash.He wanted to look at the house.
He and his wife would come backlater that weekend with a realtor and look
at the house. They described tothis guy as being in his thirties or
(19:03):
forties, well dressed, about fiveeleven six foot tall. Uh said,
he looked like he came from moneyand a lot of these homeowners. Oh.
One thing that these homeowners all hadin common, uh huh. They
were all women that were home alonewhen he knocked on their door. Oh.
Well, in that convenient for him. Yeah. One lady said that
(19:27):
she let him in and let himwalk around her house on his own,
which she later regretted. She saidit wasn't long after he came in that
she started getting kind of creeped outbecause she noticed he wasn't really turning on
lights in rooms, he wasn't openingdoors. I'm sorry. If I'm looking
at a house, I'm opening everydoor, whether it's a cabinet door,
medicine cabinet, you know, closetdoor, whatever, back door. I'm
(19:52):
opening all the doors. Oh yeah, me too, turning on all the
lights. And I'm like, yes, I'm oh yeah, I'm flipping all
the switches that way. If Ido buy this house when I move in,
if I don't know what that switchcontrols, like, we have a
problem. I should know what allmy switches do before I buy this house.
Yep, I feel you. Yes, So she's she was like,
you know that that was really oddto me. And then he made his
(20:15):
way up the stairs to go lookat the bedrooms and stuff. And when
he got upstairs, he started shoutingdown questions and saying, you know,
hey, why don't you come showme this? Hey, why don't you
come up here and show me that. And she was like, hmm,
I was super creeped at that point, and I just would yell the answers
up to him. I was notgoing up those stairs with this guy.
Good for her, And after hecouldn't get her to go up the stairs,
(20:37):
he finally came downstairs and said,you know, hey, all right,
you know, I'll be back laterthis weekend with my wife to look
at the house. She never sawthis guy again, mm hmm. But
he did give her a name.Oh nice. He told her his name
was Walter Miller. And yes,she did know what he looked like because
(21:00):
this happened just very recently, andshe was totally willing to sit down with
the sketch artist and come up witha composite drawing of this guy. Nice.
So she sits down with the sketch. The cops are going to release
it to the news channels later thatevening. They're gonna, you know,
put it in the newspapers and getthis picture out. You know, hey,
maybe this guy knows something, notnecessarily that he's the guy that did
(21:22):
it, but maybe he knows something. Right, So they go and they
do their fancy cop google search onthe name Walter Miller, and they come
up with two possibilities. They rolledboth of them, both of them out
though, and realized that this guywas probably giving a fake name to everybody,
and this was probably a fake storyto get in these houses. And
(21:44):
they had a bigger case and moretrouble than they originally had bargained for.
See, they were able to ruleout these two Walter Millers because this guy
had been described as being in histhirties or forties. One of the Walter
Millers was in his early fifties,the other Walter Miller was one hundred and
one. Wasn't that guy, No, wasn't the guy. And then again,
(22:08):
like I said, they were gettingmore and more calls about, you
know, from all these women saying, Hey, I had this creepy guy
show up at my house too.Yeah. One woman said that he had
come to her house earlier in theyear, but she wouldn't let him in.
She said, no, I'm notgonna let some strange guy in my
house while I'm home alone to lookat my house. That's not gonna happen.
(22:30):
Call the realtor, call your ownrealtor, you know, set up
a time to come see the house. It's fine, smart girl. And
he got kind of pissy, buthe left. But she said that he
came back a few months later whatand was like, no, I really
need to see her house. Andshe absolutely refused to let him in the
(22:52):
house. And he was getting morepersistent and he was being more bitchy about
it and more rude, and shejust finally said, dude, get off
my porch and closed the door andlocked it and went and wrote down his
license plate number. Oh, bythe way, mister Coppicer, I still
have his license plate number. Hereyou go, sweet. And she also
(23:15):
said that she had seen his picturein the paper, this composite sketch,
and she goes, m yeah,I'm that could totally be the guy that
showed up at my house. Oh, here's his license plate number. Oh
sweet. Another lady said that theguy in the sketch had come by her
house and she happened to see himas he was, you know, he
pulled a flyer out of her yardby this for sale sign or whatever.
(23:38):
And he pulls this flyer out andhe starts walking up towards her house and
she sees this and she's like,oh, crap, I just put my
two little kids down for a nap. I don't want him ringing the doorbell.
So she opens the door and shesays, hey, can I help
you? And he was like,you know, yeah, I wanted you
know, do you have a floorplan of your house? And she was
like, well, I don't haveone that I can give you. He
goes, well, can I lookat you know, can I come in
and look around? And she said, well, okay, fine. You
(24:02):
know, she's she's trying to bepolite. So she puts her dog up
in one of the rooms downstairs,locks her dog up and says, you
know, but she can't go inthese rooms because my kids are sleeping,
you know, and I don't wantyou to wake the kids. And he
goes, okay, that's fine.So he's looking around the house and she's,
you know, kind of leading himthrough this house on this tour of
her house. And she said theygot into one of the bedrooms upstairs,
(24:25):
and she turned around and she's lookingat him, talking to him, and
all of a sudden, his demeanorjust changed and he went from this friendly
looking guy to like he just lookedtotally evil and demented and horrible. And
she got super creeped out and superscared, and she was terrified, and
it was at that time that herbaby started crying, So she takes that
(24:45):
opportunity to run out of the room, grab her baby, let her dog
out of the room that he waslocked in. And then this guy comes
downstairs and he's like, you know, oh, you know, is your
dog friendly? Does your dog calmdown if you know somebody pets it?
What about the securities system that youhave on your house, your alarm systems?
You have that set during the day, you know, what time is
your husband coming home? So usmen folks can talk, you know,
(25:07):
and work out the details and stuff. And the lady's like, uh,
dude, I'm not answering those questions, like are you kidding me? So
he said, okay, well,my wife and I'll be back this weekend
and he left. But she realizedthat he had left the flyer on her
countertop that he had gotten out ofher yard, right, So she called
the cops and said, you know, I still have this flyer. I'm
(25:29):
sure you can get his fingerprints offof it. Nice, very nice.
Yeah, So now they have adescription of this guy. He's telling all
these people this same story they've gota license plate number, they've got a
description of a van that was atDiane's house, and they have fingerprints nice
possibly, So they go to pickup this flyer, you know, so
(25:51):
they can run all the tests onit and get all the fingerprints that they
can and such, and everything cameback to this guy named Anthony Russo.
Actually his name was Patrick Anthony Russo, but he went by Anthony Russo and
that's what everything except his court paperscalled him. So we're just gonna call
him Anthony Russo, okay. Andthey're kind of looking into him, and
(26:12):
they're thinking, well, I,no, I really don't think this could
be our guy, because you know, he was the lead singer in a
Christian band. He was the musicdirector at his church over in Bastrup,
which was about forty miles or soaway from Austin. We really don't think
this could be our guy, butlet's go ahead and run him through this
(26:34):
cop Google search just in case,you know. And they run him through
that and they realize, oh,well, maybe we should look into this
guy because he's actually out on parolebecause he had been in prison for aggravated
kidnapping and he was suspected in severalother attacks on women where their assailant had
(26:56):
gotten them alone and then strangled them. Oh wow, what a coincidence there.
So they get a search warrant forhis house and then drive out to
his house. He's there. He'sat the house. He tells his wife,
you know, hey, I'm sureit has something to do with my
parole. They want me to cometalk to him. I'm sure it's just
(27:17):
formalities. It's fine, I'll beback in a little bit. So he
goes to the station with them andthey're searching his house. They're looking for
jewelry or you know, these zipties or anything that would tie him to
this crime scene. Right. Theyfound nothing. Ugh, dang it.
I know. At the station,he tells them, you know, yeah,
I was in Austin on that day, but I wasn't. I'm not
(27:41):
looking for any houses. I'm notlooking to buy a house. I'm not
looking to move. I was actuallyonly in Austin because I was going to
this radio station to drop off aCD demo because I'm trying to promote my
band. And they said, oh, oh, okay, okay. He
goes, you know, but youknow, I did get lost in the
storm. You know, I wentto the radio station and the door was
(28:03):
locked, and I knocked on thedoor and nobody came to the door.
So I left. And then thestorms came in and I got kind of
lost in the storms, and Iended up in a residential neighborhood and I
knocked on this one door and thisold guy came to the door and I
was like, dude, I'm lost. Where am I? How do I
get out of here? And hewas like, oh, you know,
you do this? And then Icame home and that was it. Yeah,
And they're like, okay, okay, they they weren't really buying all
(28:26):
of this, but they didn't reallyhave anything to hold him on, especially
since they didn't find anything in hishouse, right right, So they have
to let him go, even thoughit's against their better judgment. They really
think they have their guy. Well, they go to the radio station to
check his story out, and thestation manager said, oh, yeah,
I know that guy. You know, he's been here before, but he
(28:47):
wasn't here that day. Oh well, there you go. And they said,
are you sure he wasn't maybe,you know, could you have just
missed him? And he goes,oh no, Because the storms were coming
in. We knew the storms werecoming in, and we knew they were
going to be so we had pulledeveryone in this building into the lobby and
we opened the front doors to thisbuilding. That way, if there were
(29:07):
tornadoes, it would help equalize thepressure and maybe not explode all the glass
in these doors. We were inthe lobby, straight shot to the doors.
We would have seen him had hebeen here. He was not here
that day. Nice and they said, all right, all right. Well,
they also started getting some calls fromsome women realatures saying, you know,
(29:30):
hey, we've received phone calls fromthis guy pretty much basically almost the
same story. He sold a ranch, wanted to buy a house, wanted
to do it in cash, wantedto do it quick, and he wanted
us to show him these homes.But he was very specific that he only
wanted to see vacant homes and heonly wanted the female realature to be the
only one to show up to showhim these homes. Ow, that's creepy
(29:55):
right there. Yeah, definite redflag, red flags all over the place.
This looks like a freakin' poncho's yep, yep. Actually I think those
flags were green, but whatever.Yeah, I think they were red and
green maybe maybe. Yeah. Well, they were able to verify that these
phone calls did in fact come fromRusso, you know, from his cell
phone records and stuff like that.And they were also able to verify that
(30:21):
his phone was pinging off of thetowers in the area of Diane's home the
afternoon of her murder. Oh well, look at that. They were pretty
sure they had their guy. Sothey go and they arrest him, and
they have fifteen of these homeowners thathad called in about this creepy guy.
They had them come in for alive lineup. Ten of these homeowners pick
(30:47):
out Russo and said that's El Creepo. Yes it is. Well, they
also did a search of his computerand they found some crazy stuff on his
computer. He was a member ofthis website that was described by investigators as
tastefully erotic death scenes ew ew.He had over a thousand pictures of women
(31:15):
being strangled that he had saved orviewed there on his computer from this website.
And they also found a video thathe had downloaded a couple of days
before Diane's murder. And in thisvideo, the guy talks his way into
the home of a woman by sayinghe was interested in buying her home.
(31:36):
He strangles her, and then hemakes it look like a robbery by taking
some things. Basically a play byplay of what they were pretty sure had
happened to Diane. Yep. Nowremember that towel that I told you they
thought was kind of out of place. Yes, So, they did find
a couple of hairs on this towel. Unfortunately, they didn't have the root
(31:57):
intact, so all they could getwas my codrial DNA from these hairs.
They couldn't get a full DNA profile. But they also found DNA on Diane's
left hand that wasn't hers nah.Nice, So between the mitochondrial DNA and
the hair, the DNA that wason her left hand, and the DNA
sampled that they took from Russo,they were able to say, that's probably
(32:23):
ninety percent sure that's Russo's hair onthat towel. This DNA on her hand
belongs to Russo. We got ourguy. We're going to trial, nice,
very nice. So he goes totrial, he enters a plea of
not guilty, and the state presentstheir case, hands it over to the
jury. Eleven hours of deliberation,and the jury comes back and said,
(32:45):
nope, this guy is guilty ofcapital murder. It took him eleven hours.
Eleven hours, yes, wow,okay, but they came back said
he's guilty of capital murder. Hewas sentenced to life in prison, and
he will be eligible for parole inthe year twenty forty four when he is
around eighty or so. And that'smy case. Well, maybe he'll die
(33:07):
there before he turns eighty or so. And wow, that's crazy women.
Watch you backs. Yeah, Idon't like nobody in my house. Are
you kidding me? Me? Neither. I don't like nobody coming to my
house. I don't care if Iknow you are not me neither. And
(33:27):
I'm going to tell you right now. Sometimes I do sell things on like
Facebook, Marketplace or whatever. Youknow, I'll meet you polastation, I'll
I'll give it to you there.Well, you know a lot of places
do have places at their local policedepartments, you know, that are safe
meet places or whatever. I'm notsure if my town has that or not.
I don't know. I've always metthem in very public places like our
(33:49):
water park or the grocery store parkinglot or something like that you know,
and it's in the daytime, welllit area, plenty of people or around.
And when I am meeting somebody,I always text my husband or you
know, one of my kids thatare grown ups now, or somebody and
(34:12):
let them know, Hey, I'mleaving the house meeting this person at this
place. This is what they're supposedto be driving. This is the name
that I have for them, right, And then when you know, I
text them, Okay, so andso picked up the item or I picked
up the item from so and so, you know whatever, going home now,
and then text them again. Iam home all by myself. Everything
(34:32):
is safe and sound, sweet everystep of the way, I'm letting somebody
know what's going on. If I'mgoing by myself, well, that's awesome,
that's awesome. I don't know.I still pick up pitch hackers.
No, I'm just kidding. Youprobably would. I mean it's possible.
I don't know, but when theyask you, you know, but what
(34:57):
if I'm an expert er, that'swhen you just look at them and go
But what are the odds that therewould be two of us in the same
car? Really, what are theodds both of us are serial killers?
Exactly. I don't think they'd bein your car very long. No,
but this is my stop. Wellwe just go. I mean, we're
still on the highway. I hadn'teven made it to the next exit,
(35:19):
I know, but this is whereI was going right here. Okay,
see you later. Wow. Butyeah, yeah, that's that's my case.
That's what I got for you thisweek. Watch backs. Yeah,
that's crazy. And to think,I know, oh, go ahead,
I was gonna say. And tothink that this happened, you know,
that long ago, you know,one years with the you know, twenty
(35:45):
years. It was two thousand andone, right right, and it's twenty
three now, so yeah, twentyyears. I don't mouth. It's fine,
it's fine, it's fine, youknow. I mean just to think
that, I don't know, it'scrazy to me that people are just the
way that they are. Some people, some people's kids. I can't.
(36:05):
I just so I know. Iknow a lot of us are taught,
you know, be polite, bepolite to people, you know, be
polite to strangers. I say thatyou look out for you. Yeah.
Yeah, and if that means beingrude, be rude, it's fine.
You'll still be like I was rudeto a guy at Walmart. I mean,
I was pretty sure he was followingme around the store. I kind
(36:27):
of caught onto it, and Iwas like, I think this guy's following
me. And then I started beingcompletely random on where I was going and
zigzagging from one corner to the othercorner back to this corner. Like I
would go from looking at the grapesto looking at shoes, to looking at
you know, just sewing kits,to looking at you know, dog treats
or whatever. And this guy waseverywhere and he never had anything with him,
(36:49):
and I was. I finally turnedaround and I was like, excuse
me, can I help you?And he was like no, never saw
him again after that. Nay,cause a scene. They don't want you
to cause a scene. Cause ascene. Be rude. No, No,
I mean, don't be rude forno reason, right, But I
mean usually don't be polite. Youdon't have to be polite, you know.
(37:14):
I can tell you that if I'mat a store and some other female
comes up to me and goes,I haven't seen you in so long,
bitch, I'm playing along with you. Yep, we are mestis friends.
And I got your backslutely. Absolutelyabsolutely, Oh my god, Becky,
is that you seriously you've changed somuch. You look wonderful. Come on,
(37:38):
let's go have a coffee and talk. Oh yeah, absolutely, yes,
yes, so wow, Well thatwas a crazy, crazy story.
I'm glad that he was caught.And I mean, wow, I wonder
how many times because he was alreadyin prison for just doing creepy stuff like
(38:00):
that anyway, So I wonder howmany times, you know, and he
was going outside of where he lived, you know what I mean, how
many times did he do that?Really? Yeah? Wow? Wow?
So crazy? So so crazy?Oh absolutely wow. Well, thank you
(38:22):
for sharing very much. I appreciatethat. And like I said, most
women, if you or another womanand you go up to them and you
need somebody with you, most womenare they got you back. Yeah.
And I tell you right now,my husband is one of those that if
you walk up to him, he'sgoing to play along too. So will
(38:42):
my son yep, yep, somy son in law. He'd be like,
I don't want to be in public, So he's going to be at
his house because he just doesn't likepeople in general. I get it.
It's fine, Yeah, he won'tbe there. You won't see him at
the store. But no, youwon't see him at the store. He
tries not to go. I meanI feeling anyway. Well, thank you
(39:07):
very much for Sharon. I appreciatethat, I really do. Yeah.
Yeah, that's what we got foryou this week. We'll be back again
next week with another new episode.So until then, you guys, see
you later, Okay, bye bye
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