Naman Shrestha
When Diane Malone, a mother of three, was found murdered in her residence, shockwaves were sent across the entire community. What’s more tragic about the case was the fact that her five-year-old daughter first came across her mother’s body. In the episode titled ‘I Saw Dad Kill Mom’ of Investigation Discovery’s ‘American Monster,’ all the intricate details about the case are presented in front of the viewers, including the kind of impact Diane’s death had on her loved ones, with the help of exclusive interviews with them.
Diane Malone’s Body Was Found by Her Eldest Daughter
Diane Audrey Malone (née Gabrinowitz) entered the lives of Diane and Joseph Gabrinowitz as a little bundle of joy on March 7, 1972, in the hamlet of Coram in New York’s Long Island. In the company of her loved ones, including her three siblings, Joseph “Joe” Gabrinowitz, Dorothy Anzalone, and Karen Laibach, Diane grew up to be a wonderful human who could light up even the dullest of rooms with positivity. After completing her education with flying colors, she married David Malone in the 1990s, and in the subsequent years, the couple gave birth to three adorable children — Audrey, Matthew, and Nathan.
At some point in her life, she also worked at a gym in Long Beach, New York. After entering motherhood, she became devoted to her children, always ensuring that they were taken care of. With their entire future to look forward to, Diane had plenty of dreams and aspirations for them. However, they could not be realized as the 32-year-old mother of three met her untimely demise on September 13, 2004. On the fateful night, six-year-old Audrey witnessed the traumatizing sight of her mother’s body and immediately ran to one of the neighbors, informing them that her mother could not wake up.
When the neighbor entered the Malone residence to check up on Diane, they discovered her lying in a pool of her blood. Without wasting any time, the police were informed of the incident. As the police rushed to the crime scene, they taped the scene and began inspecting the body and the entire house for evidence. They found out that Diane had been stabbed multiple times, including once in the heart, and was also bludgeoned. All these injuries became the cause of her tragic death.
Someone Close to Diane Malone Murdered Her
The investigators interviewed Diane Malone’s neighbors and loved ones to gain insight into her life and find potential leads. They learned that she and her husband, David Malone, had been separated and did not share an amicable bond. This made him a person of interest in the eyes of the police, but the 35-year-old man could not be located anywhere. Sharing a toxic relationship, the couple had separated numerous times in the previous years. The tension between Diane and David was evident even to the neighbors, as they testified to hearing yelling and screaming from their residence quite regularly.
The Long Beach police were also involved, as they had responded to reports of domestic disturbances in their house seven times in the past year. Most of their arguments were over money. As per the claims of one of the neighbors, David was a rather nice guy but a completely different and jealous person with his wife. He told LiHerald, “To see them walking around the neighborhood with the kids, you’d never think anything, but they used to fight all the time. I think that he might have been hitting her. But I never thought he’d have this in him.” When it became difficult for them to live under the same roof, Diane left the couple’s residence briefly, leaving their children with David, a carpenter.
Although David moved out of the house and Diane moved back in soon, the former stopped providing financial support to his wife. After the separation, Diane’s family and friends claimed that they began seeing other people. In July 2004, Diane was also granted an order of protection from David until January of the next year. While Diane’s family was convinced that David was somehow responsible for her murder, the police kept searching for him. According to reports, after killing his wife on September 13, 2004, David allegedly escaped and stayed hidden in an empty Wisconsin house across the street from his mother’s house on Wisconsin Avenue on the South Shore of Long Island.
During his time in hiding, he reportedly contacted many of his friends and asked if anyone could help him escape. However, after evading the police for four days, the authorities received a tip and found him on Beach Street on September 16, 2004. They arrested him around 11:05 pm at night. As they dug deeper into David’s past, they learned that he had several run-ins with the law. For instance, he was arrested for assaulting a Long Beach police officer in 1990 and a co-worker in 2001. During his interrogation, he claimed that Diane had asked him to come over and take care of their children while she went shopping at a supermarket.
David Malone is Waiting For His Release Date While Serving His Sentence
Despite there being pointers to him being guilty of Diane Malone’s murder, David Malone pleaded not guilty to the charges against him at first. However, his stance soon changed, and in August 2005, he decided to plead guilty to murdering his wife and cut a deal with the prosecutors for a shorter sentence. At the sentencing of the convict, David addressed the court and the victim’s family, in particular, and expressed his guilt. He stated, “From the bottom of my heart, I am so very sorry for what I have done. I do not recognize the man I was that night. He was certainly not the man who loved his wife and children with all his heart and soul.”
Furthermore, he elaborated, “This sentence will be difficult. But it pales in comparison to the sentence I inflicted on Diane and our families. I would trade places with Diane in a heartbeat if that would bring her back.” In October 2005, David Malone was ultimately given a 17-year imprisonment sentence for the murder of his 32-year-old wife, Diane Malone. Currently, he is serving the last few years of his sentence at NYSDOC Ulster Correctional Facility in Napanoch, New York, and is awaiting his parole eligibility date.
