Victim's mother blasts 'Dateline' for Zamora interview
By PAUL BOURGEOIS
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Diane Zamora, who is serving a life sentence for killing Mansfield teenager Adrianne Jones in 1995, tells her story on NBC's Dateline this Sunday in what the network is calling an "exclusive" and "explosive interview," but Tarrant County prosecutor Mike Parrish is unimpressed.

"What is this? Sweeps week?" asked Parrish, who was lead prosecutor in the 1998 trial.

Linda Jones, contacted Friday, said her family still struggles with the death of her daughter, and is disappointed that the network is giving any credence to Zamora's "whining."

I caught a large part of the Dateline show. I didn't think Zamora came out of it so well. She came across as a liar and manipulator. She also crashed and burned on the lie detector test she had requested. Very little of what she said rang of the truth. She is in the right place.

JAS

Yes, the conclusion of the show was the confrontation of Zamora with her flunked polygraph, suggesting she should own up to her lies. Funny how they didn't really tell the public about that, just teasing them with the possibility she was going to say something new and true.

I joined the show after it started and, from all the hype, thought the producers had something up their sleeves that relieved Zamora of responsibility. I can understand why the victim's family is upset--especially if they were not forewarned. I don't approve the show's tactics either on this program or on their child-porn sweeps. They are selling air time at the expense of those already victimized, as in this case, and adding confusion to poor investigation/reporting of the child-porn sweeps. The shows seriously warp the public's perception of the criminal justice system. We have the "CSI effect" and now the "Dateline effect." Let it stop, already.

JAS

In the online version, out of 13,000+ persons polled, 94% think she is a liar.

My ardent prayer is that we continually are able to identify that very strange 6% during jury selection.

We would need a foolproof system for identifying the gullible and cavepeople! Cave people being citizens against virtually everything.

JAS