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Chapter 1: What happened to Diane Holik and how was her body discovered?
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You guys came in here and are instantly hostile. Why? I don't know. Okay. Because we're fed up. 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.
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. Okay.
Let's talk a little bit about where we're going with all this, um, Did you notice the signs on the door when we came in?
I figured it was, aren't we on homicide?
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.
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.
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Chapter 2: What were the initial reactions of the detectives investigating the case?
She works for... IBM. And she doesn't... Did she work out of an office or did she work out of her home?
She worked out of her home.
Okay, and how long has Diane worked for IBM?
God, 24 years.
Okay. What does she do exactly for IBM?
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.
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 lived alone with her two dogs, but she wasn't without company. She 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.
I saw some wedding pictures. 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.
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Chapter 3: How did Diane's relationships play a role in the investigation?
No, we're trying to figure out who Ray is. We've heard about Ray.
How old is he? He's like 30-something. He just got out of the Army. 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 out there. He's on the edge.
30-year-old Ray Clancy worked with Diane at IBM. In fact, she had hired him. And over time, they had become very close friends.
Some people said you guys were pretty close.
We were very close.
Yeah.
I know Diane probably better than most people in the town. I've watched her house for the last couple of years, her dogs, have keys to everything she's got, garage door openers. Of course, it doesn't work right now. They have known each other since I think Diane's been here. He's from Louisiana.
What was their relationship? Did they date at one time? They were, no.
It was a very odd relationship because...
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Chapter 4: What was the timeline of events leading up to Diane's murder?
Not just about Diane's murder, but about their relationship in general. Much of what he'd 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. The challenge was figuring out where the truth stopped and where the lie started.
On November 15, 2001, 43-year-old Diane Holick 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. They processed her house and collected evidence.
We have the house sealed for right now, and we're going to keep it that way until we 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.
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. Is she raped?
Doesn't appear so. We won't know, obviously, until all the test results come back, but it doesn't appear she was fully clothed.
As for suspects, detectives quickly focused on two men, her fiancé, Dennis Conley, and a co-worker who, by all accounts, wished he was Diane's fiancé. 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.
Can you think of anybody that would want to hurt Diane? Yeah.
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Chapter 5: Who were the main suspects in Diane's murder case?
I'm thinking, you know, October, but, you know, next year, but we might move that up, you know, depending on how things go. Okay. 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.
While keeping a close eye on Dennis, investigators also focused their attention on another man in Diane's life. her friend and co-worker, and someone who clearly had feelings for her, Ray Clancy.
And Ray, what's the deal with Ray? 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.
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.
People say you might have had a little crush on her.
Diane?
Oh, hell yeah. I always had a crush on Diane, since I remember. She hired me when IBM wouldn't hire me. I didn't have a high enough 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, doing all kinds of stuff. I could do anything with a computer because she broke the rules for me.
So I had a, I'm Cajun. We have a real sense of 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 did something that nobody else would ever do.
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.
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Chapter 6: What evidence pointed to Patrick Russo as a suspect?
Oh, really?
Yeah. And again, it seems like the worse women treat him, the more he gravitates toward it.
It's a very unhealthy situation. 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 an 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?
Did she ever tell you about anything inappropriate that he did that made her feel awkward?
Well, yes. Then this was before we started dating. You would press her on just like things that were not appropriate for friends to press on. And it wasn't sexual. It was just a lot of neediness. And apparently, I do remember now that that's what the last conversation was about. I guess he was pressing on something and either she hung up on him or he hung up on her.
She just had no patience with that.
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 where she was afraid of him?
I do not specifically ever remember anything like that, no.
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Chapter 7: How did the investigation uncover Patrick's criminal history?
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 fiancé, Dennis, he gave them an alibi that couldn't be broken.
Okay, so the last time you actually spent time with Diane was last weekend... Okay. And you drove back to Houston? And did you work all week?
Yeah. I've got a friend staying with me. So you can vouch for me if it comes to that.
No, I just, you know we gotta do it.
I understand.
I understand.
Investigators eventually confirmed that when Diane was killed, her fiancé 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.
The night of the storm, tornadoes and all that.
10.30, 10.30 I 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, didn't sleep. I don't know what time I went to sleep, or was the load closed. Back to work the next morning about, got to work I guess 8 o'clock, 8 o'clock or so.
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Chapter 8: What were the outcomes of Patrick Russo's trial and sentencing?
And then I went back out and got on the highway going back towards Bastrop. Probably took me about Another 50 minutes to get home. Normally it was a little bit quicker than that.
So what time did you get home?
5.30, I guess, or 6, somewhere. I'm not really sure exactly the time frame.
Patrick told investigators he got home around 6 o'clock in the evening. But his wife, Janet, gave a different time.
When we got to the station, there wasn't anybody there that was doing the website work. 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.
Did you ever stop to get out to talk to anybody? I believe I knocked on someone's door asking for directions and... When you say someone's door, was that a residential door or was that a business door? No, it was a residential door. Do you remember what that person looked like? No, I have no clue.
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 kind of, oh, I don't know, stick in your mind a little bit? Don't you think? Apparently for Patrick...
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