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Hi friends, how are you today? Today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery, and makeup Monday. Shudder, shudder, shudder, shudder, shudder, shudder, shudder, shudder. Shudder.
Thank you, thank you. If you are new here, hi, I'm Bailey. And on Mondays, I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin. And I do my makeup at the same time. So today's story takes place in Colorado Springs in 1990. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
That's where we're going, babe. Now I guess it's like a super charming, cute little town. Never been. Maybe I can go one day. So Colorado Springs today has a population around 500,000 people. But I guess back then around the 1980s, early 90s, the population was around 250,000. Great. I think that's a good amount, right? Yeah. But I guess it's considered a small town. Okay. It has a very large military area.
and it's right near several army bases. And it's also home to the Air Force Academy. So maybe you can get like a sense of what the area and the people might be like, army spouses, church going folk, locals who work in flower shops, that kind of thing. Our story begins on a September evening, again in Colorado Springs.
where a woman by the name of Diane Hood, she was coming out of a local community center. They held weekly support groups for people who had been diagnosed with lupus and Diane would attend the support group. If you are unfamiliar with what lupus is, according to lupus.org,
Lupus is a chronic long-term disease that can cause inflammation and pain in any part of your body. It's an autoimmune disease, which means that your own immune system, the system within you that usually fights off infections, it attacks healthy tissue instead.
So your body's kind of like attacking itself. Diane was diagnosed with lupus in the 1980s, long after she had moved to Colorado with her husband. His name was Brian, Brian Hood. He and Diane, they had met at Angelo State University in Texas, where she was a cheerleader and Brian, he was like a big college football star.
like super cute, very lifetime movie of them, you know, just like a football player and the cheerleader together. So they met, they dated, and once they were out of college, they went on to get married in 1980. Their friends would describe them as super cute, this perfect couple, you know,
I'm going like, you know, it's just like people don't really know. We gotta stop giving opinions on couples because you don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Okay? You don't know. After all these stories we've done, I'm like, we gotta stop making comments on people and how perfect they are. And according to all of our friends and stuff, Diane just loved Brian. Like that was obvious. It was just, she was, they were just infatuated with one another.
So right after they got married, they moved to Colorado Springs, had three children and in 1986, Brian gave up his job. He was selling liquor and he became an insurance salesman. Now after that, he quickly, not quickly, but like over time he converted to Christianity and then he became born again, got like baptized in the church. Brian got heavily involved with the church
And he would actually go on to become some kind of leader within the church. So he was killing it.
So that's a little bit about Brian and Diane. So let's get back to that evening in September. Diane, she's coming out of her regular meeting. She's walking to her car and then all of a sudden she feels her purse gets yanked from under her arm and she's like, what the fuck? So she turns around and she sees that someone's holding a gun
at her close by holding a gun to her now diane can't tell who it is because whoever this person is they're covered head to toe um ski mask they had military pants camouflage jacket just prepared for the situation it seemed now diane she does the smart thing the thing you should do where you just throw your your purse at them and you say take it and then you
So she does that, she throws her purse and she tells them just to take it. So Diane is running back to her car. She thinks, okay, the robber, whoever this person was, they got what they wanted. They got her bag. So she's just taken off, right? Well, whoever this person was, they ended up catching up to her and they kind of grab her. They turn her around and kind of
sort of like throw her to the ground. And as she's falling, this person shoots Diane right through her shoulder. She must've been in pain too, because witnesses, there are witnesses there. And they said that she was screaming on the pavement, crawling away and begging whoever this person was not to kill her. Or maybe, you know, she was just afraid for her life, not in pain either way. But the shooter was just not giving up.
Whoever this person was, well they walked up to where Diane was crawling, re-cocked their gun, and shot Diane again, this time through the chest, before taking off running with Diane's purse. Now you can call me crazy, but I believe that is not a robbery, that's just a straight execution. Sadly, Diane, she did die in that parking lot, and it left people with so many questions, like who killed Diane? And why?
Now I know a lot of you at home are probably thinking, it's the husband, it's Brian, he did it. 'Cause it's always the husband, you know? But a witness who was there at the scene described the killer as a five foot six thin man. Now Brian, Brian, Diane's husband, he was six foot two, muscular, I guess like an athletic build. So,
Brian's out. Brian is out. So of course investigators, they have to go and talk to Brian because that's, you know, they have to start somewhere. So they go to Brian and Diane's home where their three kids are at. They tell him the bad news and ask him like where he was at that day around the time. And he was like, I was at home watching my beautiful children whom my wife gave birth to. God bless her. Like that was his response. Okay.
I mean, it's not funny, but like, it was just a little different. It was just a little unusual for finding out your wife just got murdered in the parking lot. So Brian's out, police are thinking, okay, what are some other details? Well, witnesses said like the killer was wearing camouflage,
military looking get up, okay, noted. Well, police had their dogs come out and sniff around the area where Diane was killed at. They found the whole outfit not far from where Diane was. I'm talking about the whole outfit. Like someone had to strip down naked, I guess, because it was every article of clothing plus like the gloves, the mask. I mean, it was just thrown, it was thrown away nearby.
So it was like, okay, we got a streaker? I don't know. And then not far from where all the clothes were found, that's where they found Diane's purse with all the money and credit cards removed. So...
It looks like a robbery, could be. So investigators are a little puzzled, like why Diane? And why would they rob her? Because when they look into Diane and her family's background, I mean, they're not necessarily like super wealthy. She was going to like this support group. It's like a high rollers club. And out of all the people, why Diane? Like, it just doesn't make any damn sense. You know, what did they think she had?
Now, what really sticks out about this supposed robbery was how the killer seemed like they wanted to make sure Diane was dead before running off because they had the bag, they had her purse. So why did this person go back and shoot Diane a second time? Like that just didn't make any sense. Sure does not. So police ran ballistics
on the gun that killed Diane and it brought up even some stranger results.
Oh yes, it did. The analysis confirmed that the weapon in the case was most likely a revolver from the 1870s, an antique called the Peacemaker. I know, what in the time travel is going on right now? Are we in Clue? Now, this is not exactly the kind of thing you'd find at your local gun store or like go into a Walmart and pick it up really quick. This is a collector's piece, this gun.
Literally though, like not everybody has it. But it does make sense to the overall story because there was a witness who called 911 when the attack was happening. And they said that the killer was standing over Diane and this person cocked the gun, which on most modern handguns, you don't need to re-cock.
Yeah, I guess they do it for you. But with the peacemaker, that's not the case. You have to cock the weapon every time you wanna fire it. Meaning whoever killed Diane did so with intent enough to stand over her, taking the time to cock the weapon again and finish the job. Like it just, it took some work. It wasn't just an easy like, "Bang, bang, give me your bag."
You get what I'm laying down. And then that made me think like maybe that's why they call it the peacemaker. Because like by the time you reload, re-cock or whatever, you probably had enough time to make peace with the person you're attempting to shoot. That's my theory. I could Google it, but I like my assumption better. The peacemaker. I made it up, so don't go...
I don't know if it's true. So just don't put me somewhere on that one. Now some might think this is very small detail, but nay nay, of course not. This is actually a very important detail. A revolver from the 1870s was used in this murder. You're not just gonna find that like on anyone, this revolver. You're not just gonna go up to some random guy's house and find an 1870 revolver. You know, like this is a big deal. So police are like,
Yay. Now the downside is that they really had no leads or like they didn't know where to go from here. Who could have done this? It wasn't the husband. Some of the investigators are believing that it was a robbery gone wrong, but I mean, all signs were pointing to this
to being really impossible, okay? I mean, yeah, her bag and her stuff, well, her credit cards and money were missing, but that's about it. There were just too many strange details mixed in. Things were not adding up. Investigators had no leads. So this case could have gone cold, but if it wasn't for what happened next, it probably wouldn't have been solved.
So a day after Diane was murdered, the owner of a local flower shop called in to give a tip to the Colorado Spring Police.
The owner of this flower shop said that he read about Diane's death in the local paper and he was just feeling really uneasy about it. And police are like, why sir? Why are you feeling so uneasy about it? And the owner, the owner tells them that he knew Diane's husband, Brian, was having an affair. But it wasn't the husband, don't get ahead of yourself.
Is that right? Is that what he was doing? Interesting. Now we're getting somewhere, right? Brian's alibi was pretty airtight. He wasn't the one who did it, but he's having an affair. It doesn't prove anything, but it's something, you know? So, Polika's need more details before they can like move forward. So, they go down to the flower shop and they ask the owner who Brian was having an affair with. Like, did they, did this person know who,
That's when police first hear the name Jennifer Rioli. Ooh, Jennifer. Okay, so who's this Jennifer girl, right? So Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer. She's a 28 year old mother of two who moved to Colorado Springs in 1989, around the same time that Diane was diagnosed with lupus. The man that she was dating, his name was Ben. Yeah, Jen and Ben. And he was a little bit older than her.
He was in the army and then they were stationing him at nearby Fort Carson. So Jennifer dropped out of college, married Ben and then moved with him. You get it. As the year goes by, you know, Jennifer, she's just like a local mom, an army wife, involved with her family. And then she's also working at the flower shop.
Interesting. So clearly she's a person of interest. Now police, they go and they question Jennifer and she's adamant that her relationship with Brian, they were strictly friends, nothing more, friends only. No, friends, yes. So when police ask like, "Well, how'd you guys meet? "What do you guys do as friends?" Jennifer tells the police that she and Brian, they met at the gym.
and they go to the gym a lot and they hang out in the gym jacuzzi, which is like, okay. As friends, we hang out in the jacuzzi and they just chat about their families and yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And Jennifer was telling investigators that the two, again, nothing but friends, gym buddies, if anything. Okay, police go to the gym and they question employees who work there. Now these employees tell police a different story. These gym employees describe Jennifer and Brian as a couple. They were always with each other. You never just saw one of them. Like you would always see them together.
at the gym and they seemed very not friends like, more lovey-dovey. Jennifer, Jennifer, your story isn't making a lot of sense, girl.
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So police, they go to Jennifer's house and they decide to question Jennifer's husband. Police go to their house, remember, great. And they're talking with him. Ben invites them in. And that's when they find out that Ben over here, he has a collection of antique guns. Yeah, and take one guess what gun they found there. Right there in like all the antiqueness. Oh, it's the 1870s Colt Single Action Army
Peacemaker gun. It's a peacemaker. Huh, weird. It's right there. Look right at it. So that's pretty hard to ignore, right? I mean, that's the smoking gun. I mean, how many people in Colorado Springs has an antique gun collection and not to mention this specific weapon? So.
Police are pretty sure that again, they found their smoking gun. So they actually end up showing Ben the clothes that they found with Diane's purse. And they're like, this actually, these look like your clothes. Are these your clothes? Because it's an army jacket. It's like military fatigues, just all of it.
But he tells police like, "Yeah, that kind of looks like my stuff." And not only that, but police, they found dog hairs on the clothing that matched what they had collected from Ben and Jen's house and also from inside their car. Yep, all signs are pointing to one of you. Okay, well, luckily for Ben, he had an alibi. He worked at Fort Carson. Now, anytime he went to work forever to like,
cock it or whatever and shoot it. Thanks babe. Thanks. So kind of you. Ben told police that Jen, she had only kept the gun for a few days and then she like came back and was all kind of like demanding that he take the gun back and it was weird but it was like
Okay, and that was like right before he ended up meeting with police. So, hmm. What oh. Police, they come to Jennifer with all this information. They lay it out all in front of her and in front of Ben and they're like, look, look you little kitty cats.
We know your husband owns the murder weapon and we know he lent it to you, Jennifer. And we know the clothes are his. And we know the hair on these clothes matches what we found in your car. There's just lots of we knows going on.
and putting her on the spot, calling her out, also in front of her husband. Jennifer, she can't deny. She can't deny the evidence that they have. And she's just a total slop. Jennifer realizes that she has no way out of this, babe. She is in, she has no way out, right? She's cornered. Oh no. Oh dear. What do I do?
She cracks, she ends up admitting to everything right on the spot. She tells the cops that like, yes, she was having an affair with Brian. And not only that, but Jennifer admitted that yes, she had indeed killed Diane. So boom shakalaka, case closed. Jennifer killed Diane 'cause she's sleeping with Diane's husband, right? Well, no, yes, nay nay, but no.
But yes, but Jennifer, she still had so much more to say. She's like, let me tell you though, 'cause that's not all. Let me tell you. If she's going down, everyone's going down with her. So Jennifer is spilling her guts out to the police. She's telling them everything, all in front of her husband too. Her husband's like right next to her. Not only did Jennifer kill Diane, but she told police that it was Diane's husband, Brian, who put it up to her.
During her confession, Jennifer admitted that her and Brian's relationship was way more than just friends, right? We said that. They'd been meeting at the fitness club in the jacuzzi for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I guess one day Jen told Brian that her husband, Ben, was going out of town on military duty. She's like, you know, "So I'm gonna be home alone." And naturally Brian saw this as like an opportunity to hang out with her.
just as friends though. But that night things were taken to the next level. The two would end up having sexual relations at her place. And this is where it all started. After that, the two of them were hooking up left and right, well, as much as they could. So after the two of them hook up, Jennifer goes on to say that Brian tells her that they've become one in God's eyes.
Like that's literally what he said after they hooked up, which would be a little weird to say after you just got done slapping meats together, but okay, Brian, you know. Well, Brian tells Jennifer that their union isn't considered a sin under God because it is his will that they are together. So it's like not a sin because they're supposed to be together. He's able to convince Jennifer that it would be a much greater sin for him to divorce his wife while she was ill with lupus than have an affair
with Jennifer. Like that was the most appropriate way for them to be together. What a fucking winner. In other words, Brian was bringing God into their relationship or into the conversation to justify the affair. And remember he's a church leader. So maybe it was easy to believe. I'm not sure, but poor God. He's like, why are you guys always bringing me into this bullshit? Leave me out of this.
I got miracles to do. That's my impression of God. Just kidding. Yeah, so great. Brian and Jennifer, they would keep hooking up for like months and months and months. They'd often meet or try to meet in secret locations or go to places where they thought nobody would recognize them because it was such a small town. I mean,
They tried to go just anywhere they could find where no one would see them. But it kind of seemed like that wasn't a main priority for them and they didn't really try that hard because for example, there was one time or not even one time, there was numerous times when the meetup spot would be at Jennifer's work, the flower shop.
Yeah, so the owner of the flower shop saw the two of them and he's the one who eventually tipped off the cops as to what was going on. So that little sneaking around thing didn't really work for them, which is good, right? 'Cause then they got caught, but they're just so stupid. How can you be so dumb?
Okay, so during the affair, as Brian and Jennifer are getting more involved with each other and start sharing more of themselves, Brian talks a lot more about his wife. He started telling Jennifer that now that they were quote unquote one, it was God's plan for them to be together and the timing, it couldn't be any better. Brian would eventually tell Jennifer that it was God's plan that she killed Diane so the two of them could be together. And she's like, oh my God,
I can't kill Diane, whatever, I can't do that. But Brian ends up convincing her that this sin would be forgiven because it would be necessary for them to become one. Therefore, God will forgive you for murdering somebody. And he's like a higher up, so I think she believes him. I'm not sure what her thought process was. When Jennifer was revealing all this during her trial, she said that,
He felt in his mind that to murder her was less of a sin than to divorce her. Mm-hmm.
And she also went on to say that morning of the murder, Brian, he had called her and he told her, "Hey, Diane, she's gonna be at that weekly meeting Shoai's goes to later that day. Just letting you know." Apparently the two of them had been planning this like robbery act for quite some time with the goal of it looking like a random attack.
And allegedly Brian told Jennifer, "If you love me, you can do this and we can have a life together." I fricking roll. Yuck. No dude is that great that you need to murder someone for them. Yeah, no, no. Let me think. No. Well, after he tells her that like, "You'll do this if you love me," you know, and then he tells Diane, "Make sure to shoot her twice just to make sure."
What a dick. I'd be like, why don't you do it yourself then you little bitch? So then the trial. Jennifer, she was arrested just two days after killing Diane Hood on September 14th, 1990. She was charged with murder in the first degree. And because of her thorough confession and her testimony, police also arrested Brian as they should, as they should.
After Jennifer told the police her whole story, that's when they started looking a little bit more into Brian. Turns out he had been having conversations with his friends about possibly killing his wife, like for a while now. And none of them said anything? Okay. Like he was not quiet about it. This dude is just yip yapping. And not only that, this sloppy ass also took out $100,000 life insurance policy on her before the killing.
Give me a fucking break. So it's not looking great for those two, is it? Brian's lawyer, not thrilled. He's not excited. He's like, "Hold on a minute, you guys. Everybody calm down. Brian is not to be blamed here." Mm-hmm. He said it was Jennifer.
Jennifer's the one who murdered Diane, not Brian. Brian was at home. And Brian's attorney also said that during the phone conversation they had that morning between Brian and Jennifer, 'cause he did call her. But during that phone conversation, Brian actually broke up with Jennifer and she acted on her own to get revenge. That was his defense.
So it kind of sounds like, oh, big eye roll, right? But Diane's brother, David, he took the stand to defend Brian. Yeah, he took the stand and said like, I don't believe Brian is guilty. I believe this woman, she took my sister and now she's trying to take Brian away from us, like the family. She's ruined all of us.
I mean, like to have the brother of the victim come to Brian's defense was a pretty big deal. If Brian was involved, the family really didn't think so. Which is like, I don't know if it's just me, but it's kind of hard to believe, right? Like why didn't they want to, I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. Jennifer's mother-in-law, well, it was her former mother-in-law because Ben divorced Jennifer by the time this took place. But anyway, she testified that Jennifer, her mother-in-law said that she could fake her way through anything and that Jennifer was not the type of person who could be manipulated. In other words, there's no way that Brian manipulated her to kill Diane. So after six weeks of deliberation, the jurors,
acquitted Brian of first degree murder. Instead, they charged him with murder in the second degree, conspiracy to commit murder and criminal solicitation. He was sentenced to 37 years in prison, which I mean, okay. I don't know. I think he was more involved than that. Hello? I think the life insurance policy says it all, but what do we know? Jennifer, Jennifer, she was also found guilty
guilty and she was given a life sentence in prison. Now some were very disappointed with this conviction. Yeah, because many believe that Brian did indeed manipulate Jennifer and they believe that he should have gotten a bigger sentence, but
I don't know what happened. Now, Jennifer, you could tell the weight of like everything she had done was taking a toll on her. I don't think, 'cause during her trial, it was said that she was pretty calm and didn't show any emotion. And then by the end of the trial, it was like she,
I think she realized that like this was real, that she's probably going to prison for a very long time. And she was, she was supposed to go to prison for the rest of her life. But in 2011, after 19 years, the governor of Colorado commuted her sentence as a thanks for her cooperation in Brian's trial and investigation.
So this meant that she was gonna be up for parole later that year. And it was like almost two decades earlier than expected, which is wild. Like, oh, okay, you could just murder someone and just be like, okay, just kidding, you're out. However, while she was in prison,
She, Jennifer, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And in 2014, she started receiving treatment for it, which was chemotherapy. And by the time she was up for parole, her hair was like all gray. She was very frail. She wasn't doing too well. And then in December of 2017, Jennifer was released on parole. Wild. I was going to say this is karma. I don't know if this is karma. I don't know.
'Cause only three months later on March 24th, Jennifer died pancreatic cancer, which is sad. I mean, a lot of mixed feelings because it's like, I feel bad for her 'cause I think maybe she was manipulated and didn't deserve to be. Well, she did kill somebody.
I don't know. Now Brian's ass, Brian, Brian over here, his time in prison was a little bit more eventful, I guess you could say. While he was put away, he was charged with two other crimes that prevented his initial attempts at parole. One of these crimes, he tried to escape from prison. Yeah, not kidding. Okay, he was like part of a prison break. Someone like put together this whole idea, we're all gonna put stuff together. This plan, right? He was part of it. And Brian's ass ended up getting caught.
He didn't make it that far. And because of that, even though he's qualified for parole for his charges relating to Diane's murder, he had to spend 15 more months in jail before he was let out. Oh yeah, he was let out. No idea where he is now. Where's Brian now?
Where is he now? Let's do an update, shall we? Brian, come on in. Just kidding, I don't know where he is now. Hey, Bri, hey, sweetie, you should go back to prison. Sorry about that. So yeah, that's today's story. Do you think they should have equally been to blame or did Jennifer deserve to be in for life and Brian not so much? Do you believe that Jennifer was tricked or do you think she was making that up for her own reasons?
But Brian, he put the life insurance policy on her. There was something going on. There was some kind of plan. I wonder if they were gonna get rid of Ben, Jennifer's husband. Hmm, I don't know. So many questions, not a lot of answers. I love and appreciate you for hanging out with me today. Let me know who you want me to talk about next week. But other than that, I hope you have a wonderful day. You make good choices and I'll be seeing you guys later.
