Diane Downs

When I started reading true crime books, like many, I really liked Ann Rule and her book, Small Sacrifices, was one of the first that I read. I am in the minority now, although not alone, in the fact that as time went on I began to not like Ann Rule's books at all. But, that is for another time. The Diane Downs story is sensational even today, more than thirty years after she committed her crime. To be fair, Diane Downs does have some supporters on her side, mainly her family, who believe that she has spent the last thirty-four years in prison for a crime she did not commit. But, to put it in perspective there are more people who believe Casey Anthony did not murder her child than there are that believe in Diane Downs innocence.

Late in the night of May 19, 1983 Diane Downs pulled up at the Emergency Room of a hospital in Springfield Oregon. She, and all three of her children had been shot. Seven year old Cheryl was pronounced dead on arrival. Both eight year old Christie and three year old Danny were in critical condition and rushed to surgery. Diane had been shot in the left forearm. These facts alone would raise the antennae of anyone, let alone an investigator or a doctor but Diane would add to that suspicion with her story and with her behavior and demeanor. Soon after arriving at the hospital Christie would suffer a stroke and it would leave her unable to communicate for several months, at least verbally. Danny would suffer a spinal cord injury that would leave him paralyzed from the chest down. A report in 2008 confirms that he has never regained functioning in his limbs and will remain in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Diane, whose first name is Elizabeth, told police that she and the children had been visiting a friend that evening and on the way home she had decided to do some sightseeing and took a deserted country road. She claimed that a “shaggy-haired” man had flagged her down and when she stopped and asked what he wanted he had told her he wanted her car. She claims that he then pushed her aside, shot her children and she struggled with him while he shot her in the arm. She claimed she then faked throwing the keys into a field, got in her car and sped to the hospital. Immediately investigators were suspicious. It was after 10:00 at night... who goes sightseeing when it is pitch dark out and does so on a deserted rural road?

Soon doctors and nurses in the hospital would also become suspicious. It seemed that ever time Diane went into Christie's room despite her inability to speak they believed she was fearful of her mother. Not only would they claim that she had a look of fear on her face but her vital signs would jump as a sign of distress. When she was finally able to speak, several months after the shooting Christie would become the key witness against her mother. She would tell investigators that there was no shaggy-haired man in the road as her mother had claimed but it was Diane who had shot her.

In the meantime it seems Diane would change her story from time to time. And, as investigators would later say Diane became her own worse enemy. She granted several interviews to the media. It was in these interviews they would catch more inconsistencies in her stories and observe her behavior. This was a woman who had lost one of her children and her two remaining children not only were clinging to their lives, but would receive permanent, life long damage and she appeared to be very calm and collected.

Even still it took until February 28, 1984 before investigators felt they had enough evidence to arrest and charge Diane with one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder and two counts of criminal assault. Her trial would begin on May 10, 1984 and last six weeks. While Christie would be the “star” witness against her mother, there had been a lot of information gathered throughout the investigation. But one of the most interesting things going on at the time had nothing to do with the trial itself. When her trial began Diane walked into the courtroom nearly eight months pregnant. The father of the child was reportedly a newspaper reporter who Diane had what was only described as “a brief fling” with.

A search had uncovered what were said to be “secret diaries” belonging to Diane. In those diaries she spoke of a man named Robert Knickerbocker. Diane and Robert had been co-workers when they both lived in Arizona. He was married at the time but was separated from his wife. He would later tell police that she became overly possessive and had actually stalked him after he had ended the affair and returned to his wife. He admitted that he had told Diane he had no interest in “being Daddy” to her children but it appears that the reasons he ended the affair had less to do with the fact that she was a mother, than her own behavior. But, according to the diaries it seems that Diane believed that if she did not have her children Robert would come back to her. She had even taken to calling him from the hospital when she was visiting her children. It was through Robert Knickerbocker that police learned that Diane owned a .22 caliber pistol, or at least she had when she lived in Arizona. It is not clear whether she had failed to mention this or had actually lied to investigators about ever owning such a weapon. The gun was never found but unfired casings in her home did match those recovered from the crime.

The prosecution had at least one witness who would testify that they had been driving in the same direction as Diane on the night of the shooting and she had been driving so slow that they had to pass her vehicle. This was in direct contrast to her statement that she had sped as fast as possible to the hospital in order to get help to her children. The prosecutors would claim that she shot her children to be free of them and continue her affair with Robert Knickerbocker who in her mind had let it be known he did not want children in his life. But, regardless of what the prosecutors believed, or even told the jury it was what Christie had to say that sealed Diane's fate. She would testify how her mother had parked on the side of the road, shot her and her siblings and then shot herself in the arm. Diane's superficial wound was already suspicious but considering she was right handed and the gunshot was in her left forearm, clearly an area she could have easily done herself, made things worse for her.

Experts would testify the blood splatter and gunshot residue tests did not mesh with Diane's story of how things happened and where people were positions. Medical experts also testified that they believed Diane suffered from “narcissistic, histrionic and anti-social personality disorders.” It had also been discovered that at some point, years before the shooting, Diane had wanted to be a surrogate mother but had failed two psychiatric exams. One had even called her “smart but psychotic.” Then in 1981 she was finally accepted and carried a baby to term and received $10,000. By that time she and her first husband, Steven Downs were divorced and it seemed that she had done this venture for the money.

Despite the evidence against their client it seems that the defense simply argued that Diane was innocent and kept with the “carjacking” story, although it appears that even she could not do that completely. Just prior to her arrest she had told the media that the bushy-haired man may have been someone who knew her because they called her by her name. This was the first she had mentioned it. She has also claimed at some point that there was more than one man at the scene although to be fair I am unsure if this claim has been before or after her conviction. Although I found nothing specific where the defense made any reference to her current pregnancy I would gander to guess it was likely brought up in some manner. Diane had told reporters that she had basically become pregnant on purpose to not necessarily “replace” her children but in essence “fill” the hole she had without them. While Cheryl had died, the other two children had been removed from her custody also. Any attorney worth their salt would have likely used this to make a point it would make no sense for her to get pregnant and have another child if the prosecution theory that she had shot her children to rid herself of them was true. Those who believed her to be guilty however saw this less as a way to “fill” the hole as she had said but to attempt to garner sympathy at her arrest and trial. Regardless, it is obvious that the jury believed the prosecution in the fact that Diane Downs had shot her own children, killing one and permanently injuring the other two.

Diane was convicted on June 17, 1984. Ten days later she gave birth to a baby girl that she named Amy but would be adopted and re-named Rebecca. The following month there was a sentencing hearing. I believe that it may have been at this point that the defense alleged that as a child Diane had been molested by her father. Although to be fair, this may have been a statement she had made in one of her many interviews with the media. Her parents would deny this occurred and sometime later Diane herself would recant the statement. The judge in this case sentenced Diane to a life sentence plus fifty-five years. The judge made it clear in his statements that his intentions were to keep her in prison for the rest of her natural life despite the fact that parole would be an option. Her first chance at parole occurred in 2008 in which she was denied. At that time she would be eligible for parole every two years so she was again denied in 2010. And then the law changed in Oregon. Violent offenders now no longer are allowed to seek parole every two years, but every ten. She is not eligible again until the year 2020 when she will be sixty-five years old. It has been said that part of the reason she had been denied parole has to do with the fact that while she seems to tell different stories as to what occurred on that night in 1983 none of them have her accepting any responsibility.

Normally my blog would likely end here because the story would end here. That is not the case though. This case and Diane continued to make headlines for several more years, even decades. Of course there was Ann Rule's book and in 1989 it was turned into a television movie with Farrah Fawcett. But, Diane had made headlines even before that.

In 1987 she escaped from the Oregon prison she was being held. She was found ten days later in the home of the husband of a fellow inmate at the prison, just a few miles away. She was given an additional five year sentence for that. But, she was also then moved to a prison in New Jersey. The prosecutor from her trial, Fred Hugi, had made headlines himself when he and his wife had adopted both Christie and Danny in 1986. This fact would be used by defense attorney's in later appeals who would argue that Christie had been influenced by Hugi to lie against her mother but their efforts would fail. But, at the time of Diane's escape the Hugi family lived only about sixty miles away and Fred Hugi requested that she be transferred to a prison in another state as they had lived in fear while she on the loose. His request was granted and this is how she ended up in New Jersey. While she was there she continued to make the news. An article from about that time stated she was planning to marry a former police officer from Oregon. I came across a name later but I am unsure that this was the same person as she talked about in her interview. Then, in 1989 she released her own book called Best Kept Secrets. To be fair, until I did the research on this case I had not heard about this and even still I have no desire to read it. In 1994 she was again transferred. This time she ended up in a prison in California. It appears that she remained there until 2014 when that particular prison became an all male prison. As of late 2017 Diane remained in California as far as I can tell. It looks as after the conversion of the Valley State Facility to all male inmates she was sent to Central California Women's Facility, or at least this is where she appears to be in 2017. I came to this conclusion based on her father's September 2017 obituary as it listed her as being in Chowchilla California and these are the only two prisons listed in that area. It seems that her Oregon escape was not the only one that she at least planned out. It has been alleged that she has either planned or attempted to escape on several occasions over the years, especially early on.

In 2010 the child that Diane had given birth to after her trial was revealed to the public. Rebecca was now more than twenty-five years old and made appearances on shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show and others. She had learned through a babysitter when she was a young child about her biological mother. This revelation and the things she would later learn, according to Rebecca led to difficult teenage years while she grappled with her apparent heritage. She contacted Diane through letters around 2006 but says that the letters became “weird,” referring apparently to some of Diane's claims and her lack of accepting responsibility for her actions and Rebecca had ended contact with her.

Despite the evidence presented against Diane, including the testimony from their own grandchild, Diane's parents, Wes and Willadene Frederickson believed in her innocence. As I stated above, her father died in September of 2017 but by all accounts her mother and four siblings are still living and reside in Texas. It is unclear how the others feels about her culpability but her father ran a website for quite some time offering a reward to anyone able to prove her innocence. He would claim that a woman named Fran Werta claimed that her son in law, James Hanes, who died in June of 2013 was the person responsible for the shooting and it seems that Wes Frederickson believed this story.

Time will only tell if Diane Downs will ever breath free air again. If she is denied parole again in 2020 she will not be eligible again until the year 2030 at the age of seventy-five. The only solace to come if she is ever released from prison is the fact that she could not have any more children, but that does not mean society would be safe.