Episode 348

When 43-year-old Diane Holik was found dead inside her Austin home, homicide investigators were left with more questions than answers. Diane had no enemies. There was no apparent reason for anyone to want her dead. But as detectives dug deeper, they uncovered a web of obsession, deceit, and darkness that defied understanding and revealed a killer hiding in plain sight. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Boudet?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Fortability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer. Make a smart buy on the off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and long-lasting trucks. Built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventures, and the rugged style for everything in between. Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus available hybrid power

• 0:43Mike Boudet?

  on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way. And long after you leave a lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you can trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:14Speaker 01

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• 1:43Speaker 02

  Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

• 1:56Speaker 03

  You guys came in here and are instantly hostile. Why, I don't know. Because we're fed up. Well, you know, look, this is my life here. This is my life that's on the line here. Right. Now, I didn't do anything to hurt anybody else's life, and yes, I have a reason to feel the way I feel.

• 2:23Mike Boudet?

  Austin, Texas is known for its music, its culture, and its easy charm. But on the gray November morning of 2001, that charm didn't reach the Travis County Sheriff's Office. In a small interview room, detectives sat across from a middle-aged woman and told her something that she could have never imagined.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  Okay. Let's talk a little bit about where we're going with all this. Have you noticed the signs on the building we came in?

• 2:56Speaker 05

  I figured it was, aren't we in homicide?

• 2:59Speaker 04

  We're investigating a murder. I'm trying to figure out why your van would be in Austin. We have several witnesses that have described a man driving this van.

• 3:20Mike Boudet?

  The detectives told the woman that they suspected her van-driving husband was a murderer. She claimed this news frightened her, yet her demeanor remained unnervingly calm, cold, and composed.

• 3:35Speaker 05

  It's like I'm living in a dream right now, because it's, up until I met him, I just, I didn't have any contact with the law other than, I guess I don't want to believe this, that it's even happening. But I am very scared.

• 3:54Mike Boudet?

  This interview was just one piece of a much larger investigation, one that centered on a 43-year-old woman named Diane Hollick.

• 4:03Speaker 06

  Let's talk a little bit about Diane's work. She works for...

• 4:08Speaker 07

  IBM.

• 4:09Speaker 06

  And she doesn't, does she work out of an office, or does she work out of her home?

• 4:12Speaker 07

  She worked out of her home.

• 4:13Speaker 06

  Okay, and how long has Diane worked for IBM?

• 4:15Speaker 07

  God, 24 years.

• 4:19Speaker 06

  What does she do exactly for IBM?

• 4:20Speaker 07

  She... IBM is very specialized. They have managers for people going to the bathroom. She managed people that were reaching their second year in IBM and she was developing programs for them for career development.

• 4:39Mike Boudet?

  By 2001, Diane had spent many years working as a supervisor at IBM, helping guide new employees through their training. She took pride in her job, but her greatest joy came from something outside of the office: her two dogs. Diane and those dogs were...

• 4:58Speaker 06

  That's when I heard that they were her life...

• 4:59Mike Boudet?

  Very, very tight. Diane lived alone with her two dogs, but she wasn't without company. She'd never lacked attention from men. She was attractive, full of life, and she had the kind of personality that drew people in. She'd been married twice and divorced twice as well.

• 5:19Speaker 06

  I saw some wedding pictures.

• 5:20Speaker 07

  She was married twice before, once for, I think, four years, again only for like four months to some jerk, I guess, that, you know, just totally took advantage of her.

• 5:35Mike Boudet?

  After her second divorce, Diane signed up for a dating service, the kind where you filled out forms, not a profile. It was the early 2000s. It was a different time. There was no Tinder and Facebook didn't exist yet. The service eventually matched Diane with a 45-year-old man who worked in the computer industry, a Houston business owner named Dennis Conley.

• 5:59Speaker 06

  How long have you known Diane? When did you... how did you guys meet?

• 6:01Speaker 07

  We met through a dating service, It's Just Lunch, about 13 months ago.

• 6:09Speaker 06

  That's the name of the dating service?

• 6:10Speaker 07

  It's Just Lunch.

• 6:11Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 6:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, you have to pay to join and it's like, you know, I mean, they just, they don't, it's not a computer thing or anything like that. They've tried to match you up.

• 6:23Speaker 06

  And I take it you guys hit it off pretty good?

• 6:25Speaker 07

  Yeah, we did immediately.

• 6:27Mike Boudet?

  Diane and Dennis's relationship was a classic fools rush in scenario. Things got serious fast, too fast, and before long, they were already talking about moving in together and getting married.

• 6:40Speaker 07

  We met each other on the 5th of October of last year. We both agreed that we would move to Houston because we got engaged, I believe, around the, like, the middle of December. You know, we both knew it was kind of crazy, but I was just totally happy.

• 7:02Mike Boudet?

  Within two months of meeting, Diane and Dennis were engaged in planning a fresh start, which included a new home in Houston and a new life together. But it didn't take long for the cracks to show. Like many whirlwind romances, the couple started to realize they might not be as compatible as they first thought.

• 7:24Speaker 07

  Like, March, everything was going pretty good, and then we ran into some rough spots. We were gonna build a house in Houston, and I decided that, you know, given the fact that we weren't getting along together very well, I mean, there was no fight, I mean, we don't fight, it's just, you know, everybody carries baggage into your relationships at this age, and our baggage was clashing, and we were working on it, but we decided not to be engaged anymore. But steadily, I mean, we'd been to therapy together, and, I mean, we were really, really making breakthroughs, you know, and, in fact, you know, I was gonna ask her to marry me again over Thanksgiving while we were out with my parents.

• 8:06Mike Boudet?

  They kept trying to make it work, and eventually Diane decided she would still move to Houston and live with Dennis.

• 8:13Speaker 06

  And she, when did she decide to sell her home?

• 8:17Speaker 07

  When she started looking at places in Houston about, I'm gonna say, a month ago. Well, the plan was, is, you know, she was gonna sell that and move in with me.

• 8:30Mike Boudet?

  As Diane prepared to move, she put her house up on the market. But the news of her move didn't sit well with another man in her life. Someone who didn't want to see her go.

• 8:40Speaker 07

  Has anybody gotten ahold of Ray?

• 8:43Speaker 06

  No, we're trying to figure out who Ray is. We've heard about Ray. How old is he?

• 8:47Speaker 07

  He's like thirty something. He just got out of the army a couple. He's very, very, very smart. He's probably one of the smartest programmers that IBM has. He's very, very smart. But he's, he's out there. He's on the edge.

• 9:02Mike Boudet?

  Thirty-year-old Ray Clancy worked with Diane at IBM. In fact, she had hired him. And over time, they had become very close friends.

• 9:12Speaker 06

  Some people said you guys were pretty close.

• 9:14Speaker 08

  We were very close. I know Diane probably better than most people in the town. I've watched her house for the last couple of years, her dogs. I have keys, I think she's got garage door openers. Of course, it doesn't work right now.

• 9:25Speaker 07

  They have known each other since, I think Diane's been here. He's from Louisiana.

• 9:32Speaker 06

  What was their relationship? Did they date at one time?

• 9:35Speaker 07

  No, it was a very odd relationship because...

• 9:38Speaker 06

  What does that, explain that to me. What does that mean?

• 9:40Speaker 07

  Like, in other words, the way Diane described it to me. He seemed to worship the ground she walks on.

• 9:52Mike Boudet?

  Ray liked Diane a lot. And while Diane didn't feel the same way, she valued his friendship. Ray often offered to help her with things around the house, or to watch her dogs when she was away. It wasn't romantic, but everyone who knew about their relationship thought it was a little unusual.

• 10:16Speaker 08

  I was, I fixed everything in her house that was broken. I'm a fix-it man too. I can do about anything in a house, so. Anytime she had a repair in her house, I did it for her, helped her out. Almost everything. Putting new locks on the doors and all that kind of good stuff. Because the house came with crap.

• 10:28Speaker 06

  I mean, y'all weren't dating.

• 10:30Speaker 08

  Because she didn't want to date you or her guy. She didn't want to, because I have six kids. She doesn't want a kid.

• 10:34Speaker 06

  Oh, my lord.

• 10:35Speaker 08

  Okay, you had our kids.

• 10:37Speaker 06

  We don't have six kids in this day and age.

• 10:38Speaker 07

  Yeah, he watches the dogs, so it's great to have somebody to watch the dogs and... And he did. The dogs were crazy about him and he did take good care of him and he did lots of stuff around the house for her. You know, he fixed her garage door like in numerous mobile times. And my whole thing was, hey, he seems like a nice guy, Diane. Geez, he's watching your dogs and he's fixing your stuff. He seems pretty harmless, so why don't you lighten up on him. And for a long time, up until that last falling out, that appeared to be the case.

• 11:08Mike Boudet?

  For all his effort, Diane had firmly planted Ray in the friend zone. And everyone seemed to know it, except him. Eventually, he and Diane had a falling out. He stopped returning her calls as quickly and became less eager to help with the little things. Then a few weeks later, Diane missed an important employee meeting at IBM.

• 11:33Speaker 06

  Diane had not made an appointment or done whatever business she was supposed to do on Friday. That's when she became concerned. And that's when she called the police department.

• 11:44Mike Boudet?

  After Diane missed this meeting, one of her coworkers requested a police welfare check. When officers arrived at her home, no one answered the door. They went inside and eventually found Diane's lifeless body.

• 11:58Speaker 08

  Did they know where they found her? Wasn't there any living room in the bedroom?

• 12:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, she was in the upstairs bedroom with the, where the, um...

• 12:06Speaker 08

  She never goes upstairs, ever.

• 12:08Mike Boudet?

  Diane was found on the floor of the upstairs bedroom. She was fully clothed and had been brutally strangled to death. There were no signs of what led up to it. No argument, no forced entry, no warning at all. And no sign of how the killer had managed to disappear without a trace.

• 12:30Speaker 06

  I can tell you that it was ruled homicide by a strangulation. Okay? And I won't give you any of the other details, um, right now.

• 12:42Speaker 07

  I just can't imagine why anybody would do that to her.

• 12:46Mike Boudet?

  Dennis claimed that he couldn't understand why anyone would want to hurt Diane. But detectives weren't so sure he was being honest. Not just about Diane's murder, but about their relationship in general. Much of what he told them about how they got along screamed of minimization. At the same time, detectives were equally puzzled by Diane's friend, Ray Clancy, a man who seemed to orbit her life long after she'd made it clear she wasn't interested. His behavior, his access to her home, and his attitude after her death all raised red flags. Between the two of them, detectives couldn't shake the feeling that one was hiding something.

• 13:32Mike Boudet?

  The challenge was figuring out where the truth stopped and where the lie started.

• 13:54Mike Boudet?

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• 14:38Mike Boudet?

  you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you can trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. ShopToyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota.

• 15:07Mike Boudet?

  Let's go places.

• 15:08Speaker 09

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 15:23Speaker 10

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 15:34Speaker 09

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 15:39Speaker 11

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 15:45Speaker 09

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 16:05Speaker 12

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• 16:46Mike Boudet?

  On November 15, 2001, 43-year-old Diane Hollick was at her northwest Austin home, preparing for a move that would mark the next chapter of her life. But by the following morning, she was dead, found strangled in an upstairs bedroom of her home. In the days that followed, detectives started piecing together the timeline of her final hours.

• 17:14Mike Boudet?

  They processed her house and collected evidence.

• 17:17Speaker 06

  We have the house sealed for right now, and we're gonna keep it that way until we, you know, gather a lot more information, trying to focus in on the things that are important. Obviously, we've done a lot of the forensic, most of the forensic stuff.

• 17:31Mike Boudet?

  The crime scene was strange and ominous, not because of what was found, but because of what wasn't. Diane was discovered face down on the floor of an upstairs bedroom. She was fully dressed, with marks on her wrists consistent with being bound, and deep ligature marks around her neck. There were no signs of forced entry, no struggle, and nothing to suggest sexual assault. The scene was eerily clean, so clean, in fact, that even Diane's own fingerprints were missing from places police expected to find them.

• 18:08Speaker 08

  Was she raped?

• 18:10Speaker 06

  Doesn't appear so. We won't know, obviously, until all the test results come back, but doesn't appear. She was fully clothed.

• 18:19Mike Boudet?

  As for suspects, detectives quickly focused on two men: her fiance, Dennis Conley, and a coworker who, by all accounts, wished he was Diane's fiance. His name was Ray Clancy. When questioned, both men offered nearly identical statements about Diane and her background. They told police that Diane had no enemies, that everyone who knew her loved her.

• 18:47Speaker 06

  Can you think of anybody that would want to hurt Diane?

• 18:49Speaker 08

  Yeah. Everybody loved her. Everybody that mattered. Diane had no enemies, nobody that didn't like her, nobody who didn't like Diane. Her personality was fantastic. It was gorgeous. She was a beautiful person.

• 19:03Mike Boudet?

  Initially, investigators turned their attention to Dennis, but he looked clean, at least on paper. He had no criminal record and no history of violence.

• 19:14Speaker 07

  This is the first time I've ever been in a police station, so, other than when I was a legal officer in the Marine Corps and I took people there myself.

• 19:24Mike Boudet?

  According to Dennis, his last contact with Diane was on the afternoon of her death. They exchanged messages online during the workday, and Diane mentioned she may have found someone interested in buying her house.

• 19:37Speaker 07

  Yeah, she said somebody was really super interested in her house Thursday afternoon online. She goes, "Keep your fingers crossed."

• 19:45Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 19:46Speaker 07

  And she doesn't usually say that unless somebody's really interested. So, well, one of the questions that I have for you, and you don't have to answer this.

• 19:53Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 19:54Speaker 07

  But I think may fit into this as well is, you know, did she still have her engagement ring on? Because if she didn't, then that's, that's what I think might have happened, is somebody came in.

• 20:06Speaker 06

  Yeah, we need to talk about all her jewelry. I mean, there's gonna be things.

• 20:09Speaker 07

  Yeah, just go ahead and fire away.

• 20:11Speaker 06

  And that's why I needed you to really come down here, and I don't want to have to talk to you in front of all those people.

• 20:15Speaker 07

  That's fine, that's fine. I'm just upset.

• 20:16Speaker 06

  I understand that.

• 20:17Mike Boudet?

  One thing that stood out about Diane's interview was how eager he seemed to offer up theories. Any theory about what might have happened to Diane. Maybe it was genuine speculation, or maybe it was a way to steer attention away from himself. One theory he floated was that Diane could have been showing her home to a potential buyer who noticed her engagement ring and decided to rob her. Maybe she fought back and things turned violent. Maybe this murder was a robbery gone wrong. Or maybe Dennis just wanted to make it look that way.

• 20:57Speaker 06

  Do you have a photograph of the ring or any information on that ring?

• 21:02Speaker 07

  I can get it.

• 21:03Speaker 06

  Okay. We're probably gonna need it because we can't find the ring. My understanding was from Mrs. Brown was that she always wore that ring.

• 21:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, she did. And I told her, you know, I told her, I said, "You know, when you go down to the park or whatever, you oughta, you oughta not, you know, be flashing that thing around."

• 21:22Speaker 06

  What, it's a diamond? Is it a diamond?

• 21:24Speaker 07

  It was a $20,000, you know, I mean, it was a beautiful ring.

• 21:28Speaker 06

  Did you buy it for her?

• 21:30Speaker 07

  Yes, I did. She's so goddamn stubborn though. If they were trying to take the ring, I'll bet she fought tooth and nail for that.

• 21:36Speaker 06

  Um, you know, and certainly robbery is a motive. There's no doubt.

• 21:40Speaker 07

  I will tell you, she would have had that ring on. There's no doubt in my mind.

• 21:45Speaker 06

  Uh, well, it's missing right now.

• 21:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 21:48Mike Boudet?

  Like Dennis, Ray also confirmed that Diane always wore her engagement ring. The obvious assumption was that whoever committed the murder had taken it.

• 21:58Speaker 06

  The ring.

• 22:00Speaker 08

  Three carat or something like that?

• 22:01Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:02Speaker 08

  It's a big one.

• 22:02Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 22:03Speaker 08

  I've never seen her without wearing it. And I always been to ask her, if you were breaking up, why did you wear a ring? But I never would. That's kind of insulting. I've never seen her take it off before. Even whenever they were split apart and fighting, she never took it off.

• 22:15Mike Boudet?

  As for Dennis, if he was the killer, investigators had to consider possible motives. He'd admitted that his relationship with Diane wasn't perfect, but the problems he described seemed pretty mild, especially for a couple that had recently called off their engagement. Perhaps things with Dennis and Diane were much worse than he was letting on.

• 22:38Speaker 07

  Uh, yeah, we had our ups and downs, no question, but they weren't, you know, it wasn't like it was very-

• 22:42Speaker 06

  No physical fights?

• 22:43Speaker 07

  Nothing. Never. Never. Never even angry or loud words or anything.

• 22:47Speaker 06

  What were your big issues? Money?

• 22:49Speaker 07

  No, no.

• 22:50Speaker 06

  Other people in the relationship?

• 22:51Speaker 07

  Nope, nope. It was just, uh, it's stupid, you know? That's one of the things I think I'll learn out of this deal is the little things aren't really that important. That's where I was getting to too, but...

• 23:02Mike Boudet?

  According to Dennis, a major point of tension in their relationship was what he saw as Diane's obsession with her dogs. He wasn't thrilled about the idea of buying a new house together only to have the two large dogs tear it up. But for Diane, her dogs were her family. She referred to them as her kids, and they weren't negotiable.

• 23:27Speaker 08

  Mostly it was the dogs, you know?

• 23:29Speaker 06

  Right.

• 23:29Speaker 08

  He hates, I won't say he hates the dogs, but he's not a doggy person.

• 23:32Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:33Speaker 08

  Uh, and she, in her mind, it was important for him that he liked the dogs. If he didn't like them, that was too goddamn bad. He wouldn't get, find somebody else.

• 23:41Mike Boudet?

  Dennis told detectives that he did eventually come around. He realized that his issue with the dogs wasn't worth losing Diane.

• 23:51Speaker 07

  The thing that got me back and really, really cemented it was that, you know, she's, I remember her saying, you know, that she would, she loved me and that she would jump at the chance to be in a relationship and marry me and, you know, no matter how long it took. And, and that really just settled in my heart. And I just said, you know, I'm not gonna ever find anybody that loves me as much as she does, so...

• 24:17Mike Boudet?

  Dennis's version of the relationship was that he and Diane had worked through their rough patches. The engagement might have been called off, but he said things were improving and that he planned to propose to her again.

• 24:32Speaker 06

  Did you guys set a wedding date?

• 24:34Speaker 07

  No, but we talked about it last weekend. We were together here. We had a great weekend, no issues. You know, she goes, "So when are we getting married?" And I said, "I'm thinking, you know, October, but, you know, next year, but we might move that up, you know, depending on how things go."

• 24:51Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 24:52Speaker 07

  So, yeah, I mean, we had not set a date, but then again, I hadn't officially asked her to marry me again, and I was going to save that for, you know, around the same time that I asked her last year, just kind of as a special thing.

• 25:04Mike Boudet?

  While keeping a close eye on Dennis, investigators also focused their attention on another man in Diane's life, her friend and coworker, and someone who clearly had feelings for her, Ray Clancy.

• 25:18Speaker 06

  And Ray, what's the deal with Ray?

• 25:20Speaker 07

  Okay, so Ray is a very dysfunctional person from my standpoint in the fact that he seems to be attracted to women that are not attracted to him.

• 25:35Mike Boudet?

  Ray freely admitted that he had romantic feelings for Diane, but he denied that his willingness to help her, watching her dogs, fixing things around her house, had anything to do with that. He said he was simply trying to repay her for bending a few rules at IBM to help get him hired.

• 25:52Speaker 06

  People say you might have had a little crush on her?

• 25:55Speaker 08

  Diane, oh, hell, yeah. I've always had a crush on Diane, since I remember. She hired me, but IBM wouldn't hire me. I had behind a GPA, and they refused to hire me at IBM. So she broke the rules and she hired me. And I've been all over the world, 20 countries, I made a lot of money at IBM, did all kinds of stuff, I could do anything with a computer, because she broke the rules for me. So I had a, I'm caging, we have all the rules, it's all a obligation to people that we like, our family, our friends. And so I always had this obligation to take care of her and watch her house and take care of her kids, because she just looked to me that nobody else would ever do.

• 26:25Mike Boudet?

  It was no secret that Ray had a thing for Diane, and it was also no secret that she just didn't feel the same way about him. Even Ray admitted as much, insisting that he just accepted it.

• 26:38Speaker 06

  And Diane didn't reciprocate your feelings?

• 26:41Speaker 08

  No, no, she just screamed.

• 26:42Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 26:45Speaker 08

  I don't know, just never was, never had any clean or any of that kind of stuff. Just had to get friends, always had been.

• 26:51Speaker 06

  Did they ever cause problems between you?

• 26:52Speaker 08

  No, never.

• 26:53Speaker 06

  No?

• 26:54Speaker 08

  In the beginning it-

• 26:55Speaker 06

  Arguments and stuff?

• 26:56Speaker 08

  No, in the beginning I always wanted to, I always pampered her and took care of her and, and, uh, butterflies, all that kind of good stuff. It used to make her nervous, uncomfortable, because she didn't like guys pampering her. You never had a relationship with her? No, she asked me that too. No, I never did. No sexual relationship? Never even kissed her. Never even. Do you want to? Always wanted to, but never did.

• 27:15Mike Boudet?

  Naturally, the investigators had to consider the possibility that Ray hadn't accepted being just Diane's friend. Maybe he was tired of helping her and getting nothing in return. Maybe he just felt like she owed him. Maybe he tried to make a move and when she turned him down, things got violent.

• 27:41Speaker 08

  Well, one thing that you said and then you kind of took it back, I, I, you thought she was good looking? I did. Get a nice body? She did. Said you didn't want to have sex with her, and then you said, earlier on, you said, "Yeah, you, you did, but it just never..." Did you or not? It was full, it was full of friendship if we did. For me? It was full of friendship if we did something like that, both of us knew, just something we understood. Anytime you sleep with a lady, it's, it changes everything. You get the feeling from a lady that- You made a pass at her and she said no? No, I didn't make a pass at her. I don't make passes at her. You didn't? No, I don't. And I like over women, you know? You don't make, you don't make a pass at her because it's kind of insulting, because she said no, then you get no friendship anymore. Oh yeah, you do.

• 28:22Speaker 08

  No, you don't, because Diane's really sensitive to that kind of stuff. You don't, I didn't want to spoil the friendship with her, so I didn't, I didn't push her, I didn't make a pass at her, all that kind of stuff. Just stuff I didn't really do. Did you love her? Did I love her? Uh, I guess, like a friend, like her sister. Did you ever tell anybody you loved her?

• 28:38Speaker 08

  Well, I love how, like I love dogs. I love dogs too.

• 28:40Speaker 07

  Did you tell anybody you loved her?

• 28:43Speaker 08

  I don't think I would've said that, no.

• 28:46Mike Boudet?

  The bizarre thing about Ray was that he came off as a genuinely nice guy. Yet if he had killed Diane, it wouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone.

• 28:57Speaker 06

  So you think he pretty much is obsessed with her?

• 29:00Speaker 07

  I, I wouldn't even, I don't, I don't wanna go there. I just wanna say that...

• 29:06Speaker 06

  What was there falling out about? Let me ask you that, you know?

• 29:08Speaker 07

  I, I don't know. It's, Ray's a presses. He presses like, you know, he's always wanting, uh, validation and, honestly, if I, if I was a, if I was a woman, I, he would give me the creeps.

• 29:26Speaker 06

  Oh, really?

• 29:27Speaker 07

  Yeah. And again, it seems like the worse women treat him, you know, the more he, uh, he gravitates toward. It's, it's a very unhealthy situation.

• 29:39Mike Boudet?

  For many of Diane's friends, there was something unsettling about Ray. Something they couldn't quite put their finger on. Yet somehow, he mostly came across as friendly and harmless. So, the big question just loomed. Was Ray just a hopeless romantic with a unreturned crush, let's say? Or was he something darker? Was he a man willing to take what he wanted by force? By violence, by murder? Was Ray a monster?

• 30:24Speaker 06

  Um, did she ever tell you about anything inappropriate that he did that made her feel awkward?

• 30:28Speaker 07

  Well, yes. Uh, then this was before we started dating.

• 30:33Speaker 06

  Uh-huh.

• 30:34Speaker 07

  He would press her on, uh, just like things that were not appropriate for friends to press on. And it wasn't sexual, it was just a lot of, lot of neediness. And apparently, that, I do remember now, that that's what the last conversation was about. I guess he was pressing on something and either, either she hung on by him or he hung on by her. She, she just had no patience with that.

• 31:02Speaker 06

  Do you think he's capable of doing something bad? Have you ever seen him lose his temper? Has she ever told you about anything?

• 31:09Speaker 07

  I do not specifically ever remember anything like that, no.

• 31:16Mike Boudet?

  With both Dennis and Ray looking like plausible suspects, investigators turned their focus to the evidence. Maybe the crime scene could point to which man had killed Diane. There were no signs of forced entry, meaning whoever did it was either invited inside or they had a key.

• 31:37Speaker 06

  To your knowledge, who has a key to that house?

• 31:40Speaker 07

  I may have. There was one in my car that I... I do not have a key on my keychain, because I never had the need to.

• 31:47Speaker 06

  Okay. Do you know if Ray has a key?

• 31:51Speaker 08

  He has a key to our house, too. He should need copies of them for you. You can make prints of them, or if you need...

• 31:55Speaker 06

  To your house?

• 31:56Speaker 08

  Or to her house.

• 31:57Speaker 06

  No, I'm gonna take those keys.

• 31:58Speaker 08

  Okay.

• 31:59Speaker 06

  She's deceased, and there's really no need for you to be in the house anymore.

• 32:04Mike Boudet?

  Both Dennis and Ray had keys to Diane's house. That detail, unfortunately, didn't help narrow things down. So investigators shifted their focus to each man's alibi, and when they each last saw or spoke with Diane.

• 32:21Speaker 06

  When's the last time you saw her?

• 32:23Speaker 08

  Saturday, two weeks ago. Saturday night at Dallas nightclub. She was with a young lady. I don't read no reading. But I haven't heard from her since then. No word, no phone contact, nothing for about two weeks.

• 32:34Mike Boudet?

  Ray said that the last time he saw Diane was weeks before the murder. Dennis told police that his last contact with her was through an online chat while he was at work. When investigators checked on this, both stories appeared to hold up, which raised a new question: Were they looking at the wrong men altogether? Maybe Dennis and Ray were both innocent.

• 32:58Speaker 07

  What do you think happened?

• 33:00Speaker 08

  What she told me, since the devil went upstairs and her house is on the market, and you said she was stranded, I don't know what time, you didn't tell me what time, I would guess that she was showing somebody the house.

• 33:10Mike Boudet?

  Interestingly, when Ray was asked what he thought might have happened to Diane, his answer was almost identical to the answer that Dennis had given. Both men suggested that Diane could have been showing the house to a potential buyer, and then things turned violent. With no sign of forced entry, they reasoned that Diane must have let someone inside, and maybe that someone killed her. Investigators soon discovered that this theory wasn't far-fetched at all. While canvassing Diane's neighborhood, they learned that several residents had been approached

• 33:51Mike Boudet?

  by a strange man, someone going door to door, claiming to be a rancher and asking about homes for sale. Not only that, but they later confirmed that Diane herself had been approached by this man in the afternoon on the same day that she was killed.

• 34:11Speaker 06

  This man comes in and claims that he's a rancher and claims that he's going, that he can pay cash for the house. But he's not, he needs to get with his wife, and that he was going to come back the following day with his wife to see the house. We don't know if he has anything to do with it, I don't know. We're looking into it, it seems suspicious. We're going to try to get a composite, an older man, apparently he went to an older man's house Thursday, probably around noon.

• 34:45Speaker 07

  Yeah, because that's what Diane said, that she thought she had sold the house. That was like about 3 o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday.

• 34:54Speaker 06

  And I guess she had talked to her friend Tina, that this guy had come to the house, but he didn't have a real estate agent with him, he came by himself. And, you know, I think she thought it was odd, but apparently she let him into the house. But he left.

• 35:14Mike Boudet?

  For several days, investigators tried to untangle the stories of two men, a fiance who might have been angry about a failed engagement, and a coworker who might have been angry that Diane didn't love him back. But as the investigation moved forward, something much darker started to surface, something beyond jealousy or heartbreak.

• 35:40Mike Boudet?

  In a disturbing twist, the evidence pointed to a different kind of motive altogether. One rooted not in love, but in perversion. And it suggested that whoever killed Diane Hollick hadn't come to win her heart. He'd come to feed a fetish.

• 36:23Mike Boudet?

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• 37:07Mike Boudet?

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• 37:38Speaker 09

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• 37:53Speaker 10

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 38:03Speaker 09

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 38:09Speaker 11

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 38:15Speaker 09

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

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• 39:17Mike Boudet?

  In the days after Diane Holik's murder, investigators pulled at every thread. Jealousy, rejection, heartbreak, trying to figure out who could have killed her and why. But none of it fit. When they circled back to the most obvious suspect, her fiance, Dennis, it gave them an alibi that couldn't be broken.

• 39:43Speaker 06

  OK, so the last time you actually spent time with Diane was last weekend? OK. And you drove back to Houston? And did you work all week?

• 39:52Speaker 07

  Yeah. I got a friend staying with me.

• 39:57Speaker 07

  You can vouch for me if it comes to that.

• 39:59Speaker 06

  No, I just, you know, we gotta do it.

• 40:01Speaker 07

  I understand, I understand.

• 40:03Mike Boudet?

  Investigators eventually confirmed that when Diane was killed, her fiance Dennis was 200 miles away in Houston, working at his office. He was eliminated as a suspect. Likewise, Diane's coworker Ray Clancy was also at work at the time of her death, and in fact, hadn't spoken to Diane in about two weeks.

• 40:27Speaker 06

  The night of the storm, tornadoes, know that.

• 40:30Speaker 08

  10:30, 10:30 went home last night, 10:30 that night, because the traffic was horrible. I got home and that's the night I stayed home and didn't go anywhere, I didn't sleep. I don't know what time I went to sleep, doors a little closed. Back to work the next morning about, got to work I guess 8 o'clock, 8 o'clock or so.

• 40:46Mike Boudet?

  With both Ray and Dennis ruled out, investigators turned their attention to a new lead. During an interview with Diane's friend Tina, they learned that a strange man had recently come to Diane's house claiming to be interested in buying it.

• 41:03Speaker 06

  And she had said that a man had come over that was very nicely dressed, probably in his mid-30s, had come over and told her that he was interested in her house and that he didn't have a real estate agent, that he was a rancher. And that's, I mean, she had that conversation with Tina, but she also made a comment to Tina that the man kinda gave her the creeps. And we don't know if this guy came back, but clearly, he used the same ruse, so to speak, with an older man that lived down the street, prior to going to Diane's house.

• 41:38Mike Boudet?

  On the surface, none of this seemed unusual. After all, Diane was trying to sell her home and there was a big "for sale" sign out front. It wouldn't be at all strange for someone to stop by unannounced and ask about the property. But what caught investigators' attention was that this same man had been supposedly house shopping all over Austin for weeks. And nearly everyone who'd encountered him described him the same way. Creepy and strange. And just a little bit threatening.

• 42:16Speaker 06

  Probably by Monday, we'll be putting out that on the news, that we are, you know, trying to speak with that man. Hopefully, somebody will call in.

• 42:25Mike Boudet?

  When a composite sketch was released to the media, it didn't take long for investigators to track down the strange home shopping man. One woman who'd encountered him had been so unnerved by his behavior that she actually wrote down his license plate number. That plate number led investigators to a van registered to a Patrick Anthony Russo.

• 42:50Speaker 06

  Patrick Russo, right?

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 42:53Speaker 06

  Okay. And how old are you?

• 42:56Speaker 03

  Thirty-eight.

• 42:57Speaker 06

  Thirty-eight.

• 42:58Mike Boudet?

  Thirty-eight-year-old Patrick, who sometimes went by his middle name Tony, lived in Elgin, Texas, about 25 miles east of Austin. Patrick was a born-again Christian who worked part-time at his local church.

• 43:15Speaker 06

  What's the name of that church?

• 43:17Speaker 03

  New Life in Christ.

• 43:18Speaker 06

  New Life in Christ?

• 43:20Speaker 03

  Yes, ma'am.

• 43:21Speaker 06

  Okay. And what do you do for them?

• 43:23Speaker 03

  I'm the music minister there.

• 43:24Speaker 06

  You said, and you're married? Your wife's name?

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Correct. Janet.

• 43:29Speaker 06

  Janet. And the two boys are yours?

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:33Mike Boudet?

  Patrick lived with his second wife Janet. They had two children from a previous marriage, though they didn't live with them. On the morning of November 21, 2001, Texas deputies arrived at Patrick's home and asked both him and Janet to come down to the station for interviews. They agreed.

• 43:55Speaker 06

  You're not under arrest? Okay.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  I am curious, though. If someone would be knocking on my door this early in the morning.

• 44:03Speaker 14

  This has to do with an incident that happened here in Austin, in northwest Austin. Some things are missing. I brought a calendar of November. If you can tell us, if you could start maybe the 12th and go through and tell us what you remember, where you were and what you did.

• 44:25Mike Boudet?

  Before revealing why they brought him to the station for questioning, investigators asked Patrick about his whereabouts during the week of Diane's murder. They quickly focused on the actual day she was killed, which was a Thursday. That day, a massive thunderstorm had swept through Austin.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  That was that big storm day, wasn't it? That is not a problem. Thursday, I spent some time at the church again. I went to go to KNE here in Austin.

• 44:59Mike Boudet?

  What time was that?

• 45:01Speaker 03

  I think it was about, let's see, I talked to my wife. I was pulling in the parking lot, so that would have been about four o'clock, I believe.

• 45:15Mike Boudet?

  Patrick told investigators that on the day Diane was killed, he'd driven into Austin to visit a local radio station. He said he was supposed to meet someone there who was helping him set up a website for his Christian rock band.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  We have a website that we've been trying to get up for about four months, and I have spent so much time with them trying to get it up. So I went up there to try to see about getting that up, since we got all the information that they needed. And when no one came to the door, I went ahead and left.

• 45:47Mike Boudet?

  Who did you talk to over at KNE?

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Actually, I didn't talk to anybody because nobody answered the door.

• 45:54Mike Boudet?

  So you made the trip up there for nothing, basically?

• 45:58Speaker 03

  Pretty much.

• 45:59Mike Boudet?

  You didn't call ahead and say you were coming? Patrick told investigators that his trip to the radio station had been spontaneous. He hadn't made an appointment or even called ahead. When he arrived, no one was there to meet him. And no one at the radio station remembered ever seeing him, which meant Patrick had no alibi.

• 46:23Mike Boudet?

  After leaving the station, the storm rolled in. The heavy rain and low visibility caused Patrick to get lost. At least, that's what he said had happened.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  I made a right-hand turn and made an illegal U-turn. There was only way you could get around everybody. And then I went back out and got on the highway going back towards Bass Drive. Probably took me about another 15 minutes to get home, when it normally was a little bit quicker than that. So what time did you get home? 5:30, I guess, or 6:00, somewhere. I'm not really sure exactly the timeframe.

• 47:04Mike Boudet?

  Patrick told investigators he got home around 6 o'clock in the evening. But his wife Janet gave a different time.

• 47:12Speaker 05

  When we got to the station, there wasn't anybody there that was doing the website. So he was coming home. I know we were on the phone an hour because he was coming through all that storm. So we were on the phone probably from 6:00 to 7:00.

• 47:28Speaker 03

  What time did you get home?

• 47:30Speaker 05

  Should have been shortly after 7:00. Probably between 7:00 and 7:15, I'm thinking.

• 47:36Mike Boudet?

  The couple's timelines were off by an hour. In a lot of cases, that kind of discrepancy might not mean much. But in a murder investigation, one hour can change everything. It can be the difference between being miles away from a crime scene or standing inside it.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Did you ever stop to get out to talk to anybody? Hmm, I believe I knocked on someone's door, asking for directions and... When you say someone's door, was that a residential door? Was that a business door? No, it was a residential door. Do you remember what that person looked like? No, I have no clue.

• 48:22Mike Boudet?

  Imagine this, just a few days ago, you're driving home when a brutal thunderstorm rolls in. The rain's coming down in sheets. Visibility's gone, and you take a wrong turn into a neighborhood you've never seen before. You're so disoriented that you stop at a random house, knock on the door, and ask a stranger for directions. Wouldn't you, I don't know, remember that? Wouldn't that whole encounter kinda, oh, I don't know, stick in your mind a little bit? Don't you think? Apparently, for Patrick, nah.

• 49:05Speaker 14

  I want to ask you a little bit more about Thursday. You talked about going to KNL, and no one was there to tell us that you were there, okay? And then, you talked about driving around and getting back on 183, and now you're telling us about maybe stopping at a residential area and talking to a gray-haired man. Is there any other places that you stopped while you were in this neighborhood?

• 49:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 49:31Speaker 14

  You didn't stop to talk to anybody else?

• 49:34Speaker 03

  No. I'm not lying to you if that's what you're asking.

• 49:38Speaker 14

  That's what I'm asking.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  I'm not lying to you.

• 49:40Speaker 14

  Plain and simple, you only stopped at one house.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 49:43Speaker 14

  You talked to one man, an older man, and the gist of the conversation was you needed directions to get back to 183.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 49:51Mike Boudet?

  Needless to say, investigators didn't buy Patrick's story. They were convinced that the house he stopped at wasn't random, and that the person who answered the door was their murder victim, Diane Hollick.

• 50:06Speaker 14

  So you're saying you've never seen this woman, never been to her house, never been to her doorstep, never been inside her house, never been invited to look around? There would be no reason for... Anything to come back to say that you were in her house?

• 50:23Speaker 03

  No, sir. If she's saying that I've stole something from her, then I'm sorry. I don't, I don't know what to say.

• 50:30Mike Boudet?

  Interestingly, when investigators showed Patrick a photo of Diane, he not only denied ever being in her house, but also spoke about her as if she were still alive. He seemed to believe, or wanted detectives to think he believed, that this was all about a simple burglary or break-in, and not a homicide investigation. Of course, investigators weren't fooled by this performance, and they had more than a few reasons to suspect that Patrick was their man. This wasn't his first brush with the law. Patrick was on parole at the time, and had already spent eight nights in prison for kidnapping a woman and tying her up.

• 51:15Speaker 03

  I had a nervous breakdown while on the job. I was trying to seek out a new life, which wasn't really going all that great. It ended up where I had nervous breakdown, and I ended up holding the receptionist against her will, and basically I broke down crying and just telling her all my problems, and then I left.

• 51:39Speaker 14

  How did, how did you hold her? How did you?

• 51:41Speaker 03

  I tied her up. I needed, I just needed someone to talk to. I didn't feel like anybody, and I forced her to. I forced her to listen to my problems, and you'll see what it says in the case. It'll tell you.

• 51:51Speaker 14

  Did you hurt her?

• 51:53Speaker 03

  I believe that the, anybody that ties anybody up does some damage. Physical damage? No, I didn't hurt her. Emotionally, I probably ruined her life.

• 52:05Mike Boudet?

  Patrick claimed that prison had changed him. He said that after his conviction, he found God, embraced faith, and left his old criminal life behind. He supposedly transformed himself into a humble Christian man.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  I'm gonna tell you what I've done to get my life in order, okay? I spent my entire eight years in prison, doing nothing but engulfing myself in a better life. I've got my GED, I went to college, I studied for theology to become a minister. I took every kind of anger management program because that was my big problem back then was, I went through the drug rehabs because I had an old drug habit that really took a toll on me.

• 52:56Mike Boudet?

  After his release from prison, Patrick wrote a book, joined a ministry, and even started a Christian rock band. All of this, he claimed, was part of his mission to help others find faith.

• 53:08Speaker 03

  When I got out, I've done everything from put a book out to try to help inmates and other people get their life in order through Christ. I have been a music minister, I have a ministry that I go into prisons with.

• 53:23Mike Boudet?

  Unfortunately for Patrick, the investigators weren't convinced by his supposed moral awakening. To them, this new Patrick looked a lot like the old one. A man with a history of violence and a record that included not just kidnapping, but also burglary. And of course, Patrick had an excuse for that as well.

• 53:47Speaker 06

  What about the burglaries?

• 53:49Speaker 03

  All my offenses have to do with just anger.

• 53:53Speaker 06

  Was there somebody in the house when you did the burglary?

• 53:55Speaker 03

  Yes. Well, I didn't burglarize the house. I assaulted someone through their doorway, and so I got a burglary of a habitation with the intent to commit bodily harm when the burglary had nothing to do with it because it wasn't a burglary. I was actually looking for a friend of mine, I was looking for a drug fix.

• 54:15Mike Boudet?

  When investigators pressed Patrick about his criminal past, he grew uneasy. But detectives didn't let up. They hadn't brought him in to rehash his old crimes. Their focus was on the murder of Diane Hollick.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  I'm trying to stay relaxed about this whole thing, but y'all are starting to grill me pretty hard for stuff, and I don't even have a slightest clue what's going on. But I do know that, you know, I'm trying to be as honest as I can with you guys.

• 54:47Speaker 06

  Are you? I mean, are you really?

• 54:50Speaker 03

  Yes, I am.

• 54:52Speaker 06

  Are you in the market to buy a house?

• 54:54Speaker 03

  No.

• 54:55Speaker 06

  No? Is there any reason why you'd be in a neighborhood looking for a house?

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 55:04Speaker 06

  Do you think it's a little coincidental that several people said that they saw you in a neighborhood?

• 55:11Speaker 03

  I think it's, well, it has to be coincidental because I hadn't been in any neighborhood.

• 55:17Mike Boudet?

  Patrick insisted that everything leading police to his doorstep was just one big coincidence. The witnesses who'd seen him and his van cruising through their neighborhood, asking about homes for sale, they were all mistaken. It was just a case of bad luck and bad timing. Good luck convincing the investigators, or a jury for that matter, of any of that.

• 55:40Speaker 14

  Tony, what's happened, okay? Thursday, more than three different people identified you as coming to their place, inquiring about purchasing a residence.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  Well, they're mistaken.

• 55:57Speaker 14

  Let me tell you how serious this is.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  I would appreciate it because I feel like I'm getting pretty banged here and I don't even know what it's for.

• 56:06Speaker 14

  She's dead.

• 56:08Speaker 14

  I don't know if you noticed when you walked in here, this is the homicide unit.

• 56:12Speaker 03

  Well, okay, wow. I'm sitting here thinking we're talking about burglary and we're talking about a murderer. As badly as I feel for this woman here, I'm sorry, but you guys are barking up the wrong tree and I don't care how hard you dig. You're not gonna find me committing any crime like that.

• 56:34Mike Boudet?

  His lies, his evasions, the statements and the evidence. All of it made one thing clear. They were sitting across from a man who had strangled a woman to death.

• 56:47Speaker 14

  We can sit here and say, "Well, it might be somebody that resembles you," or looks at you. They picked you out. Not a friend, not somebody that looks like you. They picked you out. They had a conversation with you. A lady took your license plate number down after you came and started asking some really,

• 57:06Speaker 14

  what did she call it, some unsettling conversation that she had with you. And she said she would never forget your face again, and she didn't.

• 57:16Speaker 06

  Five different people who live in five different areas who all

• 57:20Speaker 03

  I'm not, I'm not just

• 57:21Speaker 06

  pick you out. You know, you're being there, your van, got your license plate. I mean, that

• 57:27Speaker 03

  I'm not disputing whether someone thinks they've seen me, okay, but I'm telling you

• 57:33Speaker 06

  What about your van?

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Well, I can't explain that. I can't explain it. You know, that may be coincidental, but there's a whole lot of coincidences in life. I can't do nothing about that, but

• 57:44Speaker 06

  I don't think that's a coincidence.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 57:47Speaker 06

  I mean, I just don't, you know, too many people, you know, if it was one person, maybe, but three, four, five.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  Well

• 57:55Speaker 06

  Not just this particular day, but another day that was a month ago.

• 58:00Mike Boudet?

  For weeks, or probably much longer, Patrick had been cruising the streets of Austin in his van, playing the part of the classic predator. He wasn't looking for a house to buy. He was hunting for a victim. And tragically, he found one in Diane Hollick.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  I don't know what all you have that you're dealing with.

• 58:27Speaker 06

  Well, I'm dealing with a woman that's dead and I'm dealing with a neighborhood that's in a panic because a man came to several of their houses that same day. Some people spent quite a bit of time with that man.

• 58:38Speaker 03

  What am I supposed to say? Y'all want me to say that I did something I didn't do? That's what you want?

• 58:43Speaker 06

  I know. I just want you to tell the truth, that's all.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  Well, I'm trying to, but you guys don't want to hear the truth. You want me to hear me say that I went up-

• 58:48Speaker 06

  Who else would've had your van on Thursday up in that neighborhood that you've already put yourself in?

• 58:53Speaker 03

  Well, you know-

• 58:54Speaker 06

  Lost in a rainstorm. Who has your van?

• 58:57Speaker 03

  Nobody has my van, except me.

• 58:59Speaker 06

  So, I mean, how do you explain that?

• 59:02Speaker 03

  Well, I can't explain it. I'm not, I mean-

• 59:05Speaker 06

  A girl is dead in the same neighborhood that you were seen in by several other people. That's suspicious. We'd be remiss if we weren't looking into that.

• 59:12Speaker 03

  Well, and I'm not, I'm not knocking you guys for that, okay? I'm not knocking you, but if you, you want me to say something that isn't true?

• 59:22Mike Boudet?

  Investigators pressed harder, confronting Patrick with all kinds of evidence. But no matter how much they threw at him, he wouldn't budge. He doubled down, denying, deflecting, and then denying all over again.

• 59:38Speaker 03

  Well, I can assure you this one thing. I haven't murdered anybody, I haven't robbed anybody, I haven't burglarized any houses. And no ma- I don't care how bad it looks on me, I haven't done anything to anybody. And, and, and you can search my house-

• 59:54Speaker 14

  Well, tell us what you've done.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  I haven't done anything, that's what I'm telling you.

• 59:57Speaker 14

  Were you in this neighborhood?

• 59:59Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:00:00Speaker 14

  You weren't talking to any of these people?

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  No, I wasn't.

• 1:00:02Speaker 14

  Okay.

• 1:00:03Mike Boudet?

  Eventually, this interview ran its course, and to Patrick's surprise, the detectives didn't arrest him. Instead, they placed him and his wife Janet in the same room. The moment she walked in, Patrick broke down, sobbing and pleading with her to believe he was innocent.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  I'm so sorry you're going through this. I promise you, I never did anything to anybody.

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  And I can't explain it, I can't, but I can promise you all my heart, they're wrong. But I can promise you this, listen. I promise you this, it doesn't matter what anybody says or does.

• 1:00:48Speaker 03

  Because I'm telling you Janet, no matter what anything looks like, I'm not guilty of anything.

• 1:00:53Mike Boudet?

  After his emotional display, Patrick was allowed to leave the station. But his freedom didn't last long. The very next day detectives arrested him and brought him back in. Up to that point, Patrick had flatly denied ever cruising through Austin or asking about homes for sale. But now, he had a problem. At one of those houses where witnesses had identified him, Investigators had found his fingerprints.

• 1:01:23Speaker 15

  When police released a picture of Russo, another woman called saying Russo had said the same thing to her. Police say fingerprints left in her home matched Russo's.

• 1:01:32Mike Boudet?

  Even with this evidence, the police didn't charge Patrick with Diane's murder. At least, not yet. Instead, they booked him on a parole violation, which was clearly a strategic move to keep a suspected killer behind bars while they built a stronger case against him. Part of that effort included executing a search warrant on Patrick's home. But when they did, Diane's engagement ring was nowhere to be found. To this day, it has never been recovered. Nonetheless, Patrick's arrest gave investigators a chance to interrogate him again. And maybe this time get a confession.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Surely I don't have the only Peter Ford minivan in this entire town.

• 1:02:20Speaker 16

  You have the only Peter Ford minivan in this entire town or in the entire state of Texas that has that license plate on it.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  That's true. That is true. I'm just saying if someone wrote that number on my license plate down, then they're mistaken because it's not me.

• 1:02:38Speaker 16

  Coincidences happen. If they didn't, they wouldn't be called coincidences. Um, I'm sure of one thing, that I didn't murder anybody.

• 1:02:48Mike Boudet?

  Despite the arrest and despite all of the evidence, Patrick continued to play his tired, old game.

• 1:02:57Speaker 16

  I'm a little, frankly, a little fed up with all this coincidence stuff. It's not adding up. And you know it doesn't add up. And we know it doesn't add up. And I know it doesn't look good, but I'm telling you, I didn't murder anybody.

• 1:03:12Speaker 06

  Okay, then you tell us why. You say you didn't murder somebody. Maybe you didn't, okay? But you were in that neighborhood, Tony, and you talked to several people in that neighborhood. They said that you were there at their home, and it wasn't at four o'clock in the afternoon. It was earlier than that.

• 1:03:28Speaker 16

  And you've been in other places in Austin, doing similar stuff. No, sir.

• 1:03:33Speaker 06

  With your van.

• 1:03:34Speaker 16

  And your fingerprint.

• 1:03:35Speaker 06

  Being written down. The license plate of that van was written down at another time. Not just this past time, but another time.

• 1:03:44Speaker 16

  I'm telling you that.

• 1:03:46Speaker 06

  And you told me yesterday that nobody else drives your van except for you.

• 1:03:50Mike Boudet?

  In the short time between Patrick's first interview and his arrest, investigators uncovered a few new details about him. Details that were deeply unsettling. It turned out that the Diane Hollick case wasn't the only active investigation where the name Patrick Russo had come up.

• 1:04:10Speaker 06

  You know what? Let me ask you something. We called Lake Jackson yesterday and we talked to several detectives who knew Patrick Russo really, really well. We had some very interesting conversations about some cases that you were involved in that you were never filed on for. And you know what those cases involved? Those cases involved you choking women, you tying women up and choking them.

• 1:04:38Speaker 06

  I find that very interesting.

• 1:04:40Speaker 16

  Another one of those coincidences.

• 1:04:41Speaker 06

  I suppose that's a coincidence.

• 1:04:44Mike Boudet?

  Naturally, Patrick had even more denials and excuses about all of these other eerily similar investigations.

• 1:04:53Speaker 06

  They have multiple women over there that were choked by Patrick Russo, and they all picked you out. You admitted to the one that you knew you were busted on because you were picked out of that lineup.

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  I admitted to every single thing that I've been in trouble with.

• 1:05:07Speaker 06

  You never said anything about choking any of those other women.

• 1:05:10Speaker 03

  I got arrested.

• 1:05:11Speaker 06

  Tying them up?

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  I tied up one person when I had my nervous breakdown.

• 1:05:18Speaker 06

  I'm talking about the ones that you didn't talk about. I'm talking about the women that you did tie up and choke, but you didn't talk about.

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  I have not tied up anybody and choked anybody.

• 1:05:29Speaker 06

  Really?

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  Now, I have assaulted a couple of people, and I have tied up-

• 1:05:33Speaker 06

  Women or men?

• 1:05:34Speaker 03

  They were women.

• 1:05:35Speaker 06

  That's what I'm talking about.

• 1:05:36Speaker 16

  They have at least five cases-

• 1:05:38Speaker 06

  They got a stack.

• 1:05:39Speaker 16

  -of women who said, "Yeah, that's the guy that choked me."

• 1:05:44Speaker 06

  You only told us that one because that's the one you got convicted on. There's multiple cases that they could have filed on you, and why they didn't, I don't know. And you know what? They were like, "I can't believe he's out of jail." There's several women that said you tied them up. You tied their hands up. How about the one who came out of her bedroom when the other one was tied up, and then you had to tie her up too?

• 1:06:08Speaker 03

  You guys are twisting things up.

• 1:06:10Speaker 16

  We're just repeating what they told us.

• 1:06:12Speaker 06

  That's what they told us.

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  You need to read the police report. Don't listen to over talk from 10 years ago, because it's real easy to start confusing things. You read my files and see what was said and written in those things, and then come talk to me about them.

• 1:06:26Mike Boudet?

  As the investigation into Patrick deepened, a disturbing pattern became very clear, one that pointed to a twisted fascination with choking women. That dark obsession was also confirmed by statements from his own wife.

• 1:06:43Speaker 05

  He has always been fas- I will say this, he's always been fascinated with my neck.

• 1:06:49Speaker 05

  I guess the lab has a skinny little neck. I mean, I will say that he does tend to put his hand on my neck, but if I say let go or I can't, airways getting restricted, you know, then, and he's, he always lets go. I mean, he realizes, you know, and...

• 1:07:07Speaker 06

  What would you say if I told you that your wife told Detective Gilchrist that you choke her during sex? What would you say to that?

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  I would say that what I do in my sex life is nobody's business.

• 1:07:22Speaker 06

  It may not be, but I think it's very pertinent to this case and what's happened here and what's happened in your past. You like to choke women, that's obvious. Why would you choke your wife during sex?

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  You guys, after my phone call, came in here and are instantly hostile. Why, I don't know.

• 1:07:40Speaker 16

  Because we're fed up.

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  Well, you know, look, this is my life here. This is my life that's on the line here.

• 1:07:47Speaker 16

  Right.

• 1:07:48Speaker 03

  Now, I didn't do anything to hurt anybody else's life, and yes, I have a reason to feel the way I feel.

• 1:07:54Mike Boudet?

  Patrick kept up his act. A cooperative, wrongfully accused man, just trying to clear his name, but it never worked. The web of so-called coincidences and mounting evidence had become far too much for him to overcome.

• 1:08:11Speaker 03

  I tried to cooperate with you guys.

• 1:08:13Speaker 16

  You know what? You're not trying to cooperate. You're trying to snow us. You're trying to get over on us so they will think that you're this high and mighty religious whatever that is so much better than your past, that you've done all that, you're through with all that, and nothing happened, you're innocent, you couldn't have been anywhere that we said you were, when the facts, indisputable, concrete facts, say different. Quit all this crap about coincidences and, and no, I wasn't here, no, I wasn't there, and get right, admit to what you did, and maybe we can get to the forgiveness part. Because this is just crap. It's just bullshit, and you know it.

• 1:08:59Mike Boudet?

  Like his first interview, this interrogation eventually ran its course and Patrick held firm to his story. He clung on to his lies and refused to confess.

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  I'll tell you what I am. I'm in a real big daze here because I can't believe this is happening in my life.

• 1:09:16Speaker 06

  Well, you better believe it, and you knew it yesterday. You knew it yesterday. You know exactly what's going on, Patrick.

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  I know what's going on. Can't help it if I can't believe what's happening, that's all.

• 1:09:27Speaker 06

  Well, you know what? We're going to prove that you did it. And it isn't going to be that hard. Because you're there. Everybody saw you there. You're just making it worse for yourself.

• 1:09:39Speaker 03

  I did not kill anybody.

• 1:09:40Speaker 06

  You're just making it worse for yourself.

• 1:09:43Mike Boudet?

  While Patrick sat in jail on his parole violation, investigators kept working the case. And before long, they had enough to move forward. Formal murder charges were filed against him.

• 1:09:56Speaker 15

  In May, Russo was indicted for the November 2001 murder of Diane Hollick. Hollick's northwest Austin home was up for sale. Police think Russo posed as an interested buyer. An arrest warrant explains November 15th, Hollick told a friend a man was going to sell his ranch and buy her home. The next day, police found her strangled body.

• 1:10:14Mike Boudet?

  As expected, Patrick pleaded not guilty. And what followed were months of motions, hearings, and seemingly endless days.

• 1:10:23Speaker 15

  This is supposed to be a hearing where Patrick Russo's defense finds out what evidence the prosecution has against him. But the judge decides to focus on other capital murder cases first and postpones the hearing.

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  I'm absolutely innocent. And I don't think that sitting around in here for two years of my life...

• 1:10:41Speaker 15

  It's a setback for Russo and his family.

• 1:10:43Speaker 17

  One of the things that I think has just really been frustrating is the fact that with all the postponements, it doesn't seem to be a system that brings about justice the way that maybe we thought it would.

• 1:10:58Speaker 15

  Russo's family members don't want to talk about details, afraid it might hurt the case. But say they know Russo's innocent and just want the chance to tell his side and get him home.

• 1:11:07Speaker 17

  Basically, our lives are on hold right now until this situation gets resolved.

• 1:11:12Mike Boudet?

  By 2003, Patrick's case finally went to trial, nearly two years after Diane Hollick's murder. Prosecutors laid out a chilling case. They told jurors that Patrick Russo had spent months cruising neighborhoods around Austin, posing as a cash buyer interested in homes for sale. Nearly every person he approached was a woman. He'd introduce himself with different names, spin stories about selling a ranch, and insist on meeting alone. They presented witnesses, realtors and homeowners, who identified Patrick as the man who'd made them uncomfortable with his behavior. Then came the forensic evidence.

• 1:11:56Mike Boudet?

  DNA from Diane's left hand that matched Patrick, and hairs found on a towel inside her home that couldn't exclude him as the source. But what truly unsettled the courtroom was testimony from Patrick's first wife. She told jurors that during their marriage, Patrick had a disturbing sexual fixation, that he could only climax while joking her. In part, that testimony helped prosecutors expose what they believed to be Patrick's motive. On his home computer, investigators had also uncovered over a thousand images from an

• 1:12:38Mike Boudet?

  asphyxiation-themed porn site called Necrobabes.com. You're welcome, weirdo. To the prosecution, this wasn't just pornography. It was Patrick's violent fantasy, brought to life in the murder of Diane Hollick.

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  Why would you all even think that I would do something like that? What motive would I have had to do something like that to somebody?

• 1:13:06Speaker 06

  I have no idea. Was it burglary? Was it a robbery? Was it a rape? I don't know.

• 1:13:14Speaker 06

  I mean, that woman never did anything to hurt anybody. Everybody loved that woman. I mean, I haven't heard one person say a bad thing about this person. I mean, had no enemies. There's no reason for it. None whatsoever.

• 1:13:28Mike Boudet?

  After learning that Diane had been murdered, her family, friends, and investigators all struggled to understand why. Why would someone tie her up and strangle her for no apparent reason? In the end, the answer wasn't complicated, just horrifying. Patrick Russo had a fantasy, an overwhelming compulsion to choke women, one that overpowered reason, empathy, and even his own fear of losing his freedom. What he did wasn't driven by rage. It was

• 1:14:06Mike Boudet?

  driven by a perverse need for power and control, deliberate, predatory, and obsessive. This reality paints a chilling picture of Diane's final moments. We know that Patrick went to her home, tied her up, and strangled her to death before maliciously cleaning the scene and fleeing. But Patrick never confessed. The most haunting details remain unknown. How did he gain control of Diane? How long did he keep her restrained before deciding to kill her? What did he say to her? What did she say to him? Did she beg

• 1:14:50Mike Boudet?

  for her life? Did Diane know she was going to die? All these questions and so many others will likely never be answered.

• 1:15:01Speaker 03

  Trying to live my life and do what's right.

• 1:15:03Speaker 06

  I mean, you say that, but would you really admit to it if you did?

• 1:15:08Speaker 03

  If I did it?

• 1:15:08Speaker 06

  Would you do the Christian thing?

• 1:15:10Speaker 03

  Well, I would tell you as a Christian...

• 1:15:11Speaker 06

  You wouldn't hide behind this whole Christian cloak thing?

• 1:15:14Speaker 03

  It's not a cloak thing. It's a for-real thing. And as a Christian, I wouldn't do something like that.

• 1:15:20Mike Boudet?

  Patrick had spent years constructing a mask. To the world, he was a man of faith, a Christian, a music minister, a husband, a family man. But behind the facade was something else. He was a predator, prowling for women and attempting to perfect his routine, over and over, until the day he finally struck.

• 1:15:45Speaker 06

  It's disgusting to sit here and listen to you talk about being such a devout Christian, and forgiveness, and how much you've turned your life around, when this one coincidence after another, this whole thing goes back to similarities that I'm sure are coincidental, back in 1989, 1990, 91, 92, you know? But you're this reborn Christian? And you're gonna sit here and lie about it?

• 1:16:11Mike Boudet?

  The split between the life Patrick performed and the darkness he concealed is ultimately what defines him. And it's what stripped away any doubt about who he truly was. Not a man of God, not a misunderstood soul, but a monster hiding in plain sight. Tragically, the person who paid the ultimate price for this monster's desires was an ordinary woman, someone simply trying to sell her home and start a new life with her fiance.

• 1:16:45Speaker 06

  I mean, tell me what her daily routine is, do you know?

• 1:16:48Speaker 07

  Gets up about 8:15, heads right over to the computer, gets a tea, make sure the dogs are fine, and she just starts cranking away till, you know, like noon. And I think she usually takes a shower and gets dressed, runs errands or whatever, and then cranks till whenever she needs to crank till. And she'll go work out or go down to Tom Lake or...

• 1:17:18Speaker 08

  She liked to go out to have sushi once in a while. She wasn't a big, not as of late in the last couple of years, big going out person. Mostly staying at home. She did a lot of eating at home. Her kids were her life, her dogs, sorry.

• 1:17:30Speaker 06

  Her dogs?

• 1:17:31Speaker 08

  I forgot what her kids, that's what I go into. They were very important to her, so she always took care of them. She didn't leave by themselves. So she was, that was her, like her family, I guess.

• 1:17:41Mike Boudet?

  On May 9th, 2003, the Texas jury returned a guilty verdict for Patrick Russo. But because they couldn't reach a unanimous decision on the sentencing, the judge imposed an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, sparing him the death penalty. For investigators, this conviction was the end of a long and difficult case. For Diane's friends and family, it was the end of something far greater: a life that never should have been taken. As for Patrick, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars, remembered not for his music or his faith,

• 1:18:23Mike Boudet?

  but for the false life he built and the violence that exposed it.

• 1:18:51Mike Boudet?

  If you like that, and if you like things like that, head on over to swordandscale.com, download the app on your Apple, iPhone, or your Android, whatever, and, uh, you know, subscribe to Plus. You can get all kinds of extra content, including, uh, commercial-free episodes of everything, including Nightmares, Sword and Scale, our old Plus show. Um, this doesn't happen to people like me. We've done all these other podcasts, so you could go get all of that stuff. You can get, you know, commercial-free versions of this show, uh, for the last 13 years. Again, this is episode 348. There's 348 of them, plus 100 and, I don't know, 50, 160-plus episodes,

• 1:19:35Mike Boudet?

  plus 60-something Nightmares of, I don't know, there's a lot of stuff. Go get it. Go get it right now. Go get it right now!

• 1:20:21Speaker 12

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