September 29, 2020 • 31 mins
The trial of Diane Downs begins, sparking a media circus as reporters scramble for details. Christie Downs makes a remarkable recovery from her stroke and is able to testify in front of the jurors.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When the trial was finally ready to convene in I
think it was May of nineteen eighty four, so it's
been just about a year since the incident on Old
Mohawk Road. The press was given the first row, so
if you're a reporter, you've got a guaranteed seat, but
you still had to get there fast because the only
about eight where nine people could squeeze in there, and
(00:22):
you did have some national media representation, You had courtroom
artists who would take up a little bit more of
their room, but the rest of those seats were jammed
from a line that would form every day of one
hundred and fifteen people hoping to get into the eighty
or eighty four seats that were available. It was the
place to be.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Reporter Dana Tims was there from the beginning of Diane's
story and remembers vividly how she played to the press.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
By the time a trial came around, she was looking healthier.
She was like much more pregnant. She dressed in a
different outfit every day. It was kind of funny because
she had a red wristband that she wore signifying to
jail deputies she was a prisoner of significant danger. Perhaps,
(01:14):
And there was more than a few times when she
would kind of make that bracelet the kind of thing
they might slap on you at a hospital for identification,
part of her outfit.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
She would kind of have a.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Red matching dress to go with her matching bracelet. I thought, assessorized,
you know, she's got it going on.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
When Diane's trial began in nineteen eighty four, not only
was she pregnant, but she carried herself with the air
of someone who knew that they were the center of
attention and reveled in it. Eric Mason recalls what it
was like to see Diane enter the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So literally, and and myself and other reporters are to
a few feet away from where they bring Diane in
from the sally port with chains around her wrists and ankles,
and it's almost like, for Diane, this is a show.
(02:17):
This is almost like, Wow, this is the circus, and
I am the main performer, not oh my god, my
children are shot and now I'm being accused, which is awful,
but it's almost like I am the cool rock star
mom who is now on trial. And if I could
(02:37):
come into some better music and sort of move to
the music I do it. It was odd. It was
strange to see that. And so before the jury gets there,
all the chains are taken off so that they never
see that. But when she gets off that van, it's
almost like somebody backstage at a rock concert ready to
(02:59):
go out on stage. It's almost like I'm a performer.
I'm here, you know, which is type a narcissist behavior.
It was just unreal. There was this feeling kind of
like I'm going to shake my hips, I'm going to
move my body in a way that sexual, i am
going to sort of like nod my head, and I'm
(03:20):
going to move past these reporters, almost as if i
am the center of attention. But I'm enjoying it. I
like what's going on, and almost as if I'm probably
going to walk out of this because no one's going
to believe I shot my kids. But also there was
this feeling almost like there was satisfaction in it, and
(03:45):
so that's what I think the jury felt that vibe
from her that it was a moment not like poor me.
It's more of a moment like I am going to
give you a show and I'm going to carry this
off like it's a performance. That's odd.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Diane's odd behavior began the night of the shooting and
continued throughout the reenactment and into her press appearances leading
up to the trial. Prosecutor Fred Hugy leaned into this
when presenting his case to the jury.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Well, you certainly had the prosecution going first. So Fred
Hugey putting on first on the doctors and nurses from
Mackenzie a Lambat hospital that had treated her that night.
So I'm sure he was a very methodical guy and
wants to kind of lay out, here's what happened the
very first night. Anyone knew about this, here's what's going on,
(04:40):
and along the way then people would be talking about
And this was certainly a theme during the trial in
terms of Diane's odd reactions that other people might not
have reacted that way. She had ever been shot through
her left forearm and had apparently been allowed into the
bathroom by herself, and one of the nurses heard water running.
(05:02):
So if you're going to be looking for a gunshot
residue on hands, I think that's that's an indication that
not just that nobody was thinking about her at that point,
but you have doctors and nurses on duty, not cops
who would have probably not let that happen.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Jim Jagger was Diane's defense attorney. Unlike Hugi, he had
very little to go on. He tried to portray Diane
as an abused wife and accused police of not spending
enough time searching for the shaggy haired stranger. Diane described so,
Jim Jagger was kind of the typical defense attorney.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I remember him opening with this, We're going to show
you a lot of family photos. And these photos you're
going to be able to look at them and see,
here's a mom who loves her kids, and here's a
mom who would never ever think arming them. And so
(06:02):
we're going to talk about pictures first. And so there
were quite a number of photo arrays, and you know,
this is Diane at the lake with kids, and this
is them at the Mackenzie River, and this is out
at Heather Bloord's house, you know, you know, or whatever
was being shown at the time. And so I think
(06:24):
Jim Jagger didn't have a lot of facts on his side.
You know, here he was with really horrible facts. So
he was going to have to really pound home the
shaggy heard stranger and how many people that could fit
and so reasonable that was everything, and pounding home reasonable
(06:47):
doubt the fact that the police really never made a search,
and he got the detective to say, how often have
you looked for this composite? What have you really done? Well,
we really didn't think there was much to it, said,
you know, the detectives. So he was really trying to
build a case around the fact that here was somebody
(07:09):
who'd been identified and there was a sketch and the
police had really done very little to find this person,
or even find anybody even from the ranks of the
homeless in downtown Eugene or going out to the Mohawk
store and saying, hey, does this look like somebody that's
(07:30):
been out here? And so I think he did a
fairly good job of really trying to raise reasonable doubt.
But he really didn't have a lot to work with.
But you know, he was kind of, you know, dashing,
nice looking, the guy with the nice briefcase and that
he had, you know, obviously spent time in a courtroom
(07:52):
in front of a jury and telling a really good
narrative about a woman who was headed out to her
friend's house that night, and he painted really good pictures,
and so he knew how to spin a tail. The
problem was that it was the mountain of circumstantial evidence
(08:13):
that was, you know, up against Diane. It was tough,
tough to deal with.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
So it was part of the narrative that he spun
was that Diane was an abused woman. Do you remember
any of that in the courtroom?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I think there was. I think there was some of that,
And I remember Fred Hugey objecting to relevance on some
of it because it just was so far afield of
what it was that was being talked about. And you
know what, I can't remember how much of that made
it in I know, and I think I remember parts
(08:50):
of the story being offer of proof, and then I'm
not sure how much of it made it in front
of the jury because of the relevance question of how
close it came to whether or not it was a
fact of the case or not.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
In the reenactment and subsequently, when describing the events of
the shooting, Diane made a point to mention a song
that was playing on the radio. For many people, this
would be triggering a reminder of a traumatic event, particularly
the death and attempted murder of one's children. But not Diane.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Another key moment of this trial, and maybe the most haunting,
that Diane claimed that the album she was playing the
night of the shooting, at least the song that was
on by Duran Duran going back to the mid eighties.
There was a hungry like the Wolf, something pulsating kind
(09:42):
of post disco era song, and the singer is sing
I'm on the hunt, I'm after you. Well, Diane is
claiming that song is playing during the shooting of her kids.
So Fred Huge brings in a music player and plays
that song, and it doesn't take more than a few
(10:06):
beats before people realize Diane is tapping her toe and
bobbing her head in time with the music and mouthing
the words, and maybe for the first time, Fred Hughey
in the courtroom. The entire courtroom's packed. The song is blaring,
and Diane alone is up there mouthing the words and
bopping along to this thing. And Hugh, who hadn't really
(10:30):
spent much time looking at Diane, just couldn't help himself.
Nobody could. We all just stared, aghast and horrified. She
didn't really have the benefit of the doubt, even though
you do in the American justice system of innocence, it
felt like there was something else here. But looking at that,
for my skeptical self, I think a lot of other
(10:51):
people if I had any doubt, I mean, not that
you could convict on that, but my goodness, So.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
A natural connection of one who remembers Hungry Like Wolf
by Duran Duran as a background to this horrible shooting,
that she's somehow moving to the beat of this music
and that to her is just another rock and roll song.
I think the jury is watching that really closely. That's
(11:21):
like the most cognitive dissonance you could have, that someone
would be remembering this moment where her children are being
shot by somebody, and that she's somehow moving to the beat,
like she's dancing to it.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
You're saying, this music, the song Hungry Like the Wolf
was playing the night or the moment of, or was
in the background of when the shooter shot correct the children.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Because that's on the radio, and that's what she says,
is on the radio, and so for them to be
playing that in the courtroom and for her to have
that reaction certainly is not the usual reaction of somebody
who's gone through this horrible traumatic thing.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Aside from Diane's strange behavior. A critical piece of testimony
came from the forensic scientist Jim Pecks. Most of the
credit is given to Christy's testimony, but the blood evidence
and forensics poked holes in Diane's story. His blood spatter analysis,
a technique that is today considered somewhat controversial, proved to
be critical in the prosecution's case.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
There was home late in the evening, and as we
went forward to respond to the standard call out, I
was told that there was a shooting that involved children
and that there was a vehicle to be processed. And
so that's where the scene begins. It's in the processing
the vehicle. After the initial processing that night, I went
(13:12):
back in the daytime because it's sometimes it's always easier
to see these things. On the passenger side rock panel
below the door, there was a number of very small
blood droplets, which is unusual. I've been told preliminarily that
(13:32):
miss Downs had stopped for some stranger along the roadside,
that there had been an altercation, that he stood in
the driver's door and.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Shot the children.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
The blood spatter on the rocker panel was documented. We
had it removed to preserve it, but at that time
it's evidence, But you don't you know how this fits
into the overall scheme of things time, I don't know,
but it's something we will pursue and look further.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
The defense leaned on the idea of the shaggy haired stranger,
relying heavily on Diane's recounting of the events for their narrative,
but the facts Gym presented made it difficult for Diane's
story to hold together under scrutiny.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
As we researched it and eliminate other possibilities, we come
down to the to the observation and viewpoint that someone
was shot outside the vehicle. She also said that the perpetrator,
the bushy haired stranger, was standing outside the driver's door
when all the shots were fired, and based upon what
(14:42):
we see on the rocker panel, that's not a possibility.
The choice that we felt most comfortable with was a
person who fired the shot to have reached in clear
cross the dry receipt the passenger seat and reached out
the driver's door, because that spatter pattern has to come
(15:06):
back towards the weapon, and if a person went around
the vehicle and stood on the other side, then that
spatter pattern would have been in the other direction.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
So the shooter would be sitting in the driver's seat,
shoot the passenger, and then that passenger would be the
victim would be opening up their door and falling out
of the car.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
That's the theory is. There is no physical evidence that
specifically states the movements of Cheryl who was in the
front seat. You have the bullet that was fired that
I found under the carpet in the vehicle, and so
(15:56):
one of her injuries was an entrance that would align
with where that bullet struck. So that was probably the
first shot at someone. Somehow the door was opened and
she was outside when the second shot was fired, and.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
The second shot would have been fired from inside the
vehicle or outside of the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
The best.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Match to the bloodstained pattern would be someone would have
to reach clear across the passenger's seat and shoot. Well,
she's on the ground, Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That paints a very different story than what happened with
Diane shared.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Yes, what it found was that the markings that were
on the cartridges that came from the rifle were a
match to the ones that were found in the vehicle.
The casings that were left behind and which meant that
the cartridges that were in the rifle at one time
(17:05):
had been worked through the mechanism of the same weapon
that discharged those casings in the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And that rifle was not You couldn't find that rifle.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
Rifle wasn't it. There was another It came from another weapon,
but there was a relationship between those cartridges and the
casings from the scenes.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Proponents of Diane's innocence often bring up the lack of
gunshot residue on her hands. The claim has been made
that she washed her hands before analysis, but according to Jim,
neither would have mattered because a composition of the primer
in twenty two caliber ammunition at the time would not
have contained barim and antimony, which would have made the
GSR test inconclusive.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
GSR is a.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
Three letter word that encompasses a lot of different aspects
of a shooting scenario, but in the analysis of a
person's hands, which are looking forward to see if they
fired a weapon or not, there is no barium in
animony in twenty two ammunition.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Jim went as far as to have part of the
car reconstructed for the courtroom demonstration. He presented evidence in
a way that was not only novel, but clear and direct,
ensuring that the jurors understood.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
One of the detectives coming to work one morning, went
by a shop and there was a guy in there
who was making a store window displays and was doing
a pretty nice job. And he says, well, could you
build an inside of a vehicle? And the guy said, well, sure,
no problem, and he did. He built that mockup, and
(18:42):
it was even on a stand wherehere I could turn
it towards the jury so they could see what I saw.
And within that styrofoam mock up, I was able to
circle and indicate areas where blood was found, where the
cartridge casings were found, and then we had the dolls
that we placed in it as well, and do it
(19:04):
basically a scene recreation using that mock up.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
And when you were in the trial room displaying and
explaining the vehicle, did you have a chance to look
at the jurors and see their facial expressions where they
interested in what you were revealing to them.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
That's our job. Communicating with the jury is everything. And
if you're you know, halfway pison of what you do,
that's where you're going to spend your time. I had
PowerPoint presentations, we had the vehicle mockup, we had the dolls.
And then another thing that I did that I don't
(19:46):
know that had ever been done before, is I used
overhead transparencies back in the old days. You know, you
put it on a machine and it broadcast up on
the screen, these transparencies. And so what I had a
number of them, And what I did is I made
a notebook with all of these transparencies in the notebook,
(20:07):
and we gave a copy of those to each yure,
the judge, and the attorneys in the courtroom. So as
I put up a transparency and talked about it, they
could write write on that notebook, you know, whatever thoughts
or ideas they had. And that was a kind of
a new and novel way of presenting scientific evidence at
(20:30):
the time.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Jim's evidence essentially destroyed Diane's version of the events of
that night. At this point, the prosecution's case was more
or less sealed, with only circumstantial evidence on the defensive side.
And then came Christy. She had recovered from her stroke
well enough to provide testimony at the trial. Dana Tims
recalls Christy's testimony.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Diane made a real point early on saying how much
smarter she was in the cops. For sure, she talked
about her intelligence, and also, I'll grant her that, but
I think we can infer that her then nine year
old daughter was a pretty smart girl also, and she
(21:16):
could remember, and I think she remembered from the start
that she couldn't necessarily speak that or have the emotional
strength to certainly express that to a big group of
people in a courtroom, but she got to the point
she could. But then we had finally near the end
of the prosecution's case. We knew Christy was going to testify,
didn't know exactly which day, but here's that day. A
(21:40):
little kid comes into the courtroom and all eyes kind
of swing toward her. Diane didn't look at her. Takes
a stand. This little girl whose head barely pokes above
the witness box. She has a bit of a lisp,
probably from the stroke. She's been getting speech therapy to
be able to just increase her mobility and speak better.
(22:04):
And Fred Hughuy, the prosecutor, just sort of had to
establish Christy you know right from wrong, don't you, And
he was just kind of establishing a baseline for her testimony,
but then kind of walks her through it, and it
was just given all that we had known about that
(22:26):
and here's this little girl and now she's on the
stand with her mom twelve feet away, staring intently at her,
not glaring, but almost as if I could put a
thought into your head, little girl, I would have you
say this. But Fred asks do you know who shot you?
(22:49):
And she said, my mom?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And what was the reaction of the courtroom.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Oh, it's just a gasp. I mean, it was the nail.
At that point in my mind, it was done. I
never had a doubt that after that point the outcome
of that trial would go any other way.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Than it did.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Did you look at the jurors.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah, they were transfixed. Well, I think maybe some were
because Christy was crying off and on during that time.
She was asked do you need a break? And she's
indicated knows she could go on. So I think I'm
recalling that nine of the twelve jurors were women, and
there was a bit of a gender breakdown, but I
think a lot of them were pretty teary because it
(23:34):
was just a tough moment. Here's this little girl rekind
of the worst thing in her or anybody else's experience
in that courtroom, and yet she was still keeping it together,
and you know, speaking on behalf of her dead sister
and her wounded brother was very, very powerful.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
And then came the deliberation and Diane's sentencing.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
It had been a six week trial, so had a
lot of time as well. The defense case put a
couple of guys on who talked about I saw somebody
else along that or in that vicinity that night. But
these guys, there are two of them, they just seem
to have no credibility. Didn't seem believable. So at the
end of a six week trial, I'd be pretty rare
(24:19):
to have, you know, a ten minute deliberation before conviction.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
So it was three full days.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
In fact, this went on into the weekend, and so
it was early Sunday morning when we were told that
there's a verdict, and so you know, it's getting close
to one in the morning and people are convening back
in court and getting ready to hear what it is.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
What did you feel the verdict would be.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Did you have your own intuition about that?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, I had my feeling. I thought it was going
to be guilty. In the course of most murder trials,
I think that prosecutors are sort of loath to bring
a case they don't think that they can win. So
my feeling was, I think we're going to get a
conviction here. In my sense was that people sort of
felt the same way. But when they did read out
(25:10):
the verdicts, there was one murder charge, two aggravated assaults,
and two attempted murder for the other kids who survived,
found guilty in all five and Judge Foot sentenced her
that night to fifty years in prison, with a minimum
(25:30):
of thirty to be served. And he said something, and
this was later. He just indicated, I don't think you
should ever be in society again, and I've done my
best to make sure that that's the case.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And so Diane was put in jail, and then the
fate of the two living Down siblings was decided. The prosecutor,
Fred Huge, officially adopted Danny and Christy.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Well. To start with, Fred Hugy looks like the sad
eyed basset hound dog who hates to have to tell
you this story. He hates to have to tell you
that this mom shot her kids, and so he kind
of looks like a bloodhound almost. He never smiles. He's
(26:34):
always serious, and it's almost painful for him as the
various witnesses come up to get the details. So obviously
this man, who is very protective of these kids, is
thinking to himself, these kids are so traumatized by this.
(26:56):
I hate to have to bring you this jury. But
here's the girl in the car, and she's going to
tell you what she saw. And so I think as
he's asking her the questions and ending up with who
did this shooting, it's almost like apologetic in a way
(27:19):
that he's going to have to lay this out for
you because the thought of it is so terrible, and
I'm going to have to bring it to you, and
I'm the bearer of bad news. But here it is,
and the mom is responsible for this girl being shot.
So when it comes out that he is going to
adopt these kids, it was not a shock to a
(27:42):
lot of the people who were surrounded the case because
it almost seemed to pain him to the point of
that he was feeling that. You almost felt as though
these kids were his kids. I think because he spends
so much time around them, and he'd spent so much
time pulling these awful details out that he felt that
(28:05):
responsible and that protective of them, that here he was
with these very vulnerable kids just a few feet away
from the trigger person, the shooter. She's right there, she's
just feet away. And then she's getting more pregnant, of
course as time goes on, which is even a crazier
(28:25):
little angle to the whole thing. And here she is
ready to, you know, give birth to yet another child.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Fred Hugie clearly felt a responsibility in connection to the children,
something that he never openly discussed to any extent.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
That was riding my bike along the Willamte River and
the bike paths, and this was not long after the
word of the adoption of the Hugues had been public.
I see this guy running and he's it's I can
tell it's Fred. He's in his army boots, is out
for a run. So I just kind of lighted up
(29:00):
beside him. I said, I think I called him mister Hughy,
not Fred. And he's just he's running and he doesn't
look at me, and he says yeah. I said, hey,
Dana Timmesotheragonian and I didn't have a very comfortable relationship
with a lot of Eugene cops because of some of
the stories that I wrote, but I never censored the animosity,
and he's just kind of yeah, And I just said,
(29:22):
I think it's pretty amazing that you adopted those kids,
and he said thanks, and I pedaled on.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
In the meantime, Diane, pregnant and convicted, went into labor
shortly after the verdict.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
About ten days after that night, Diane is driven to
Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene by Doug Welch and another
deputy who had tended to Diane during the trial, and
basically they induced labor and she delivered the child. She
had been so pregnant with that trial, and she was
able to hold her baby for four or five hours.
(30:01):
Doug Welch said Diane even let him hold the baby, which,
since Diane had kind of sparred with him throughout, he
thought it was the nicest thing she had shown toward
him anyway. And from there, you know, she was on
her way to the Women's State Prison in Salem for
intake and processing. And so those two eventually, you know,
(30:23):
not too long after that, drove her up and dropped
her off in Salem. And even then people figured, oh well,
that's that's the end of that.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Then what did she deliver?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
A baby girl or a baby she had a baby girl.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
On the next episode of Happy Face Presents to Face,
we checked back in with DNA Detective Michelle with the
first round of results tracing Becky's maternal lineage in order
to determine once and for all that the baby girl
Diane gave birth to that day was, in fact Becky Babcock.
Ten Bolan is our executive producer, Melissa Moore is our
(31:03):
co executive producer. Maya Cole is our primary producer, Paul
Decand is our supervising producer. Sam T. Garnan is our researcher,
and Matt Riddle is our story editor. Featured music by
dream Tent. Happy Face Presents to Phase is a production
of iHeartRadio
When the trial was finally ready to convene in I
think it was May of nineteen eighty four, so it's
been just about a year since the incident on Old
Mohawk Road. The press was given the first row, so
if you're a reporter, you've got a guaranteed seat, but
you still had to get there fast because the only
about eight where nine people could squeeze in there, and
(00:22):
you did have some national media representation, You had courtroom
artists who would take up a little bit more of
their room, but the rest of those seats were jammed
from a line that would form every day of one
hundred and fifteen people hoping to get into the eighty
or eighty four seats that were available. It was the
place to be.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Reporter Dana Tims was there from the beginning of Diane's
story and remembers vividly how she played to the press.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
By the time a trial came around, she was looking healthier.
She was like much more pregnant. She dressed in a
different outfit every day. It was kind of funny because
she had a red wristband that she wore signifying to
jail deputies she was a prisoner of significant danger. Perhaps,
(01:14):
And there was more than a few times when she
would kind of make that bracelet the kind of thing
they might slap on you at a hospital for identification,
part of her outfit.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
She would kind of have a.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Red matching dress to go with her matching bracelet. I thought, assessorized,
you know, she's got it going on.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
When Diane's trial began in nineteen eighty four, not only
was she pregnant, but she carried herself with the air
of someone who knew that they were the center of
attention and reveled in it. Eric Mason recalls what it
was like to see Diane enter the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So literally, and and myself and other reporters are to
a few feet away from where they bring Diane in
from the sally port with chains around her wrists and ankles,
and it's almost like, for Diane, this is a show.
(02:17):
This is almost like, Wow, this is the circus, and
I am the main performer, not oh my god, my
children are shot and now I'm being accused, which is awful,
but it's almost like I am the cool rock star
mom who is now on trial. And if I could
(02:37):
come into some better music and sort of move to
the music I do it. It was odd. It was
strange to see that. And so before the jury gets there,
all the chains are taken off so that they never
see that. But when she gets off that van, it's
almost like somebody backstage at a rock concert ready to
(02:59):
go out on stage. It's almost like I'm a performer.
I'm here, you know, which is type a narcissist behavior.
It was just unreal. There was this feeling kind of
like I'm going to shake my hips, I'm going to
move my body in a way that sexual, i am
going to sort of like nod my head, and I'm
(03:20):
going to move past these reporters, almost as if i
am the center of attention. But I'm enjoying it. I
like what's going on, and almost as if I'm probably
going to walk out of this because no one's going
to believe I shot my kids. But also there was
this feeling almost like there was satisfaction in it, and
(03:45):
so that's what I think the jury felt that vibe
from her that it was a moment not like poor me.
It's more of a moment like I am going to
give you a show and I'm going to carry this
off like it's a performance. That's odd.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Diane's odd behavior began the night of the shooting and
continued throughout the reenactment and into her press appearances leading
up to the trial. Prosecutor Fred Hugy leaned into this
when presenting his case to the jury.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Well, you certainly had the prosecution going first. So Fred
Hugey putting on first on the doctors and nurses from
Mackenzie a Lambat hospital that had treated her that night.
So I'm sure he was a very methodical guy and
wants to kind of lay out, here's what happened the
very first night. Anyone knew about this, here's what's going on,
(04:40):
and along the way then people would be talking about
And this was certainly a theme during the trial in
terms of Diane's odd reactions that other people might not
have reacted that way. She had ever been shot through
her left forearm and had apparently been allowed into the
bathroom by herself, and one of the nurses heard water running.
(05:02):
So if you're going to be looking for a gunshot
residue on hands, I think that's that's an indication that
not just that nobody was thinking about her at that point,
but you have doctors and nurses on duty, not cops
who would have probably not let that happen.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Jim Jagger was Diane's defense attorney. Unlike Hugi, he had
very little to go on. He tried to portray Diane
as an abused wife and accused police of not spending
enough time searching for the shaggy haired stranger. Diane described so,
Jim Jagger was kind of the typical defense attorney.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I remember him opening with this, We're going to show
you a lot of family photos. And these photos you're
going to be able to look at them and see,
here's a mom who loves her kids, and here's a
mom who would never ever think arming them. And so
(06:02):
we're going to talk about pictures first. And so there
were quite a number of photo arrays, and you know,
this is Diane at the lake with kids, and this
is them at the Mackenzie River, and this is out
at Heather Bloord's house, you know, you know, or whatever
was being shown at the time. And so I think
(06:24):
Jim Jagger didn't have a lot of facts on his side.
You know, here he was with really horrible facts. So
he was going to have to really pound home the
shaggy heard stranger and how many people that could fit
and so reasonable that was everything, and pounding home reasonable
(06:47):
doubt the fact that the police really never made a search,
and he got the detective to say, how often have
you looked for this composite? What have you really done? Well,
we really didn't think there was much to it, said,
you know, the detectives. So he was really trying to
build a case around the fact that here was somebody
(07:09):
who'd been identified and there was a sketch and the
police had really done very little to find this person,
or even find anybody even from the ranks of the
homeless in downtown Eugene or going out to the Mohawk
store and saying, hey, does this look like somebody that's
(07:30):
been out here? And so I think he did a
fairly good job of really trying to raise reasonable doubt.
But he really didn't have a lot to work with.
But you know, he was kind of, you know, dashing,
nice looking, the guy with the nice briefcase and that
he had, you know, obviously spent time in a courtroom
(07:52):
in front of a jury and telling a really good
narrative about a woman who was headed out to her
friend's house that night, and he painted really good pictures,
and so he knew how to spin a tail. The
problem was that it was the mountain of circumstantial evidence
(08:13):
that was, you know, up against Diane. It was tough,
tough to deal with.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
So it was part of the narrative that he spun
was that Diane was an abused woman. Do you remember
any of that in the courtroom?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I think there was. I think there was some of that,
And I remember Fred Hugey objecting to relevance on some
of it because it just was so far afield of
what it was that was being talked about. And you
know what, I can't remember how much of that made
it in I know, and I think I remember parts
(08:50):
of the story being offer of proof, and then I'm
not sure how much of it made it in front
of the jury because of the relevance question of how
close it came to whether or not it was a
fact of the case or not.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
In the reenactment and subsequently, when describing the events of
the shooting, Diane made a point to mention a song
that was playing on the radio. For many people, this
would be triggering a reminder of a traumatic event, particularly
the death and attempted murder of one's children. But not Diane.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Another key moment of this trial, and maybe the most haunting,
that Diane claimed that the album she was playing the
night of the shooting, at least the song that was
on by Duran Duran going back to the mid eighties.
There was a hungry like the Wolf, something pulsating kind
(09:42):
of post disco era song, and the singer is sing
I'm on the hunt, I'm after you. Well, Diane is
claiming that song is playing during the shooting of her kids.
So Fred Huge brings in a music player and plays
that song, and it doesn't take more than a few
(10:06):
beats before people realize Diane is tapping her toe and
bobbing her head in time with the music and mouthing
the words, and maybe for the first time, Fred Hughey
in the courtroom. The entire courtroom's packed. The song is blaring,
and Diane alone is up there mouthing the words and
bopping along to this thing. And Hugh, who hadn't really
(10:30):
spent much time looking at Diane, just couldn't help himself.
Nobody could. We all just stared, aghast and horrified. She
didn't really have the benefit of the doubt, even though
you do in the American justice system of innocence, it
felt like there was something else here. But looking at that,
for my skeptical self, I think a lot of other
(10:51):
people if I had any doubt, I mean, not that
you could convict on that, but my goodness, So.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
A natural connection of one who remembers Hungry Like Wolf
by Duran Duran as a background to this horrible shooting,
that she's somehow moving to the beat of this music
and that to her is just another rock and roll song.
I think the jury is watching that really closely. That's
(11:21):
like the most cognitive dissonance you could have, that someone
would be remembering this moment where her children are being
shot by somebody, and that she's somehow moving to the beat,
like she's dancing to it.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
You're saying, this music, the song Hungry Like the Wolf
was playing the night or the moment of, or was
in the background of when the shooter shot correct the children.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Because that's on the radio, and that's what she says,
is on the radio, and so for them to be
playing that in the courtroom and for her to have
that reaction certainly is not the usual reaction of somebody
who's gone through this horrible traumatic thing.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Aside from Diane's strange behavior. A critical piece of testimony
came from the forensic scientist Jim Pecks. Most of the
credit is given to Christy's testimony, but the blood evidence
and forensics poked holes in Diane's story. His blood spatter analysis,
a technique that is today considered somewhat controversial, proved to
be critical in the prosecution's case.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
There was home late in the evening, and as we
went forward to respond to the standard call out, I
was told that there was a shooting that involved children
and that there was a vehicle to be processed. And
so that's where the scene begins. It's in the processing
the vehicle. After the initial processing that night, I went
(13:12):
back in the daytime because it's sometimes it's always easier
to see these things. On the passenger side rock panel
below the door, there was a number of very small
blood droplets, which is unusual. I've been told preliminarily that
(13:32):
miss Downs had stopped for some stranger along the roadside,
that there had been an altercation, that he stood in
the driver's door and.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Shot the children.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
The blood spatter on the rocker panel was documented. We
had it removed to preserve it, but at that time
it's evidence, But you don't you know how this fits
into the overall scheme of things time, I don't know,
but it's something we will pursue and look further.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
The defense leaned on the idea of the shaggy haired stranger,
relying heavily on Diane's recounting of the events for their narrative,
but the facts Gym presented made it difficult for Diane's
story to hold together under scrutiny.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
As we researched it and eliminate other possibilities, we come
down to the to the observation and viewpoint that someone
was shot outside the vehicle. She also said that the perpetrator,
the bushy haired stranger, was standing outside the driver's door
when all the shots were fired, and based upon what
(14:42):
we see on the rocker panel, that's not a possibility.
The choice that we felt most comfortable with was a
person who fired the shot to have reached in clear
cross the dry receipt the passenger seat and reached out
the driver's door, because that spatter pattern has to come
(15:06):
back towards the weapon, and if a person went around
the vehicle and stood on the other side, then that
spatter pattern would have been in the other direction.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
So the shooter would be sitting in the driver's seat,
shoot the passenger, and then that passenger would be the
victim would be opening up their door and falling out
of the car.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
That's the theory is. There is no physical evidence that
specifically states the movements of Cheryl who was in the
front seat. You have the bullet that was fired that
I found under the carpet in the vehicle, and so
(15:56):
one of her injuries was an entrance that would align
with where that bullet struck. So that was probably the
first shot at someone. Somehow the door was opened and
she was outside when the second shot was fired, and.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
The second shot would have been fired from inside the
vehicle or outside of the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
The best.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Match to the bloodstained pattern would be someone would have
to reach clear across the passenger's seat and shoot. Well,
she's on the ground, Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That paints a very different story than what happened with
Diane shared.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Yes, what it found was that the markings that were
on the cartridges that came from the rifle were a
match to the ones that were found in the vehicle.
The casings that were left behind and which meant that
the cartridges that were in the rifle at one time
(17:05):
had been worked through the mechanism of the same weapon
that discharged those casings in the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And that rifle was not You couldn't find that rifle.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
Rifle wasn't it. There was another It came from another weapon,
but there was a relationship between those cartridges and the
casings from the scenes.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Proponents of Diane's innocence often bring up the lack of
gunshot residue on her hands. The claim has been made
that she washed her hands before analysis, but according to Jim,
neither would have mattered because a composition of the primer
in twenty two caliber ammunition at the time would not
have contained barim and antimony, which would have made the
GSR test inconclusive.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
GSR is a.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
Three letter word that encompasses a lot of different aspects
of a shooting scenario, but in the analysis of a
person's hands, which are looking forward to see if they
fired a weapon or not, there is no barium in
animony in twenty two ammunition.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Jim went as far as to have part of the
car reconstructed for the courtroom demonstration. He presented evidence in
a way that was not only novel, but clear and direct,
ensuring that the jurors understood.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
One of the detectives coming to work one morning, went
by a shop and there was a guy in there
who was making a store window displays and was doing
a pretty nice job. And he says, well, could you
build an inside of a vehicle? And the guy said, well, sure,
no problem, and he did. He built that mockup, and
(18:42):
it was even on a stand wherehere I could turn
it towards the jury so they could see what I saw.
And within that styrofoam mock up, I was able to
circle and indicate areas where blood was found, where the
cartridge casings were found, and then we had the dolls
that we placed in it as well, and do it
(19:04):
basically a scene recreation using that mock up.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
And when you were in the trial room displaying and
explaining the vehicle, did you have a chance to look
at the jurors and see their facial expressions where they
interested in what you were revealing to them.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
That's our job. Communicating with the jury is everything. And
if you're you know, halfway pison of what you do,
that's where you're going to spend your time. I had
PowerPoint presentations, we had the vehicle mockup, we had the dolls.
And then another thing that I did that I don't
(19:46):
know that had ever been done before, is I used
overhead transparencies back in the old days. You know, you
put it on a machine and it broadcast up on
the screen, these transparencies. And so what I had a
number of them, And what I did is I made
a notebook with all of these transparencies in the notebook,
(20:07):
and we gave a copy of those to each yure,
the judge, and the attorneys in the courtroom. So as
I put up a transparency and talked about it, they
could write write on that notebook, you know, whatever thoughts
or ideas they had. And that was a kind of
a new and novel way of presenting scientific evidence at
(20:30):
the time.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Jim's evidence essentially destroyed Diane's version of the events of
that night. At this point, the prosecution's case was more
or less sealed, with only circumstantial evidence on the defensive side.
And then came Christy. She had recovered from her stroke
well enough to provide testimony at the trial. Dana Tims
recalls Christy's testimony.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Diane made a real point early on saying how much
smarter she was in the cops. For sure, she talked
about her intelligence, and also, I'll grant her that, but
I think we can infer that her then nine year
old daughter was a pretty smart girl also, and she
(21:16):
could remember, and I think she remembered from the start
that she couldn't necessarily speak that or have the emotional
strength to certainly express that to a big group of
people in a courtroom, but she got to the point
she could. But then we had finally near the end
of the prosecution's case. We knew Christy was going to testify,
didn't know exactly which day, but here's that day. A
(21:40):
little kid comes into the courtroom and all eyes kind
of swing toward her. Diane didn't look at her. Takes
a stand. This little girl whose head barely pokes above
the witness box. She has a bit of a lisp,
probably from the stroke. She's been getting speech therapy to
be able to just increase her mobility and speak better.
(22:04):
And Fred Hughuy, the prosecutor, just sort of had to
establish Christy you know right from wrong, don't you, And
he was just kind of establishing a baseline for her testimony,
but then kind of walks her through it, and it
was just given all that we had known about that
(22:26):
and here's this little girl and now she's on the
stand with her mom twelve feet away, staring intently at her,
not glaring, but almost as if I could put a
thought into your head, little girl, I would have you
say this. But Fred asks do you know who shot you?
(22:49):
And she said, my mom?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And what was the reaction of the courtroom.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Oh, it's just a gasp. I mean, it was the nail.
At that point in my mind, it was done. I
never had a doubt that after that point the outcome
of that trial would go any other way.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Than it did.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Did you look at the jurors.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah, they were transfixed. Well, I think maybe some were
because Christy was crying off and on during that time.
She was asked do you need a break? And she's
indicated knows she could go on. So I think I'm
recalling that nine of the twelve jurors were women, and
there was a bit of a gender breakdown, but I
think a lot of them were pretty teary because it
(23:34):
was just a tough moment. Here's this little girl rekind
of the worst thing in her or anybody else's experience
in that courtroom, and yet she was still keeping it together,
and you know, speaking on behalf of her dead sister
and her wounded brother was very, very powerful.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
And then came the deliberation and Diane's sentencing.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
It had been a six week trial, so had a
lot of time as well. The defense case put a
couple of guys on who talked about I saw somebody
else along that or in that vicinity that night. But
these guys, there are two of them, they just seem
to have no credibility. Didn't seem believable. So at the
end of a six week trial, I'd be pretty rare
(24:19):
to have, you know, a ten minute deliberation before conviction.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
So it was three full days.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
In fact, this went on into the weekend, and so
it was early Sunday morning when we were told that
there's a verdict, and so you know, it's getting close
to one in the morning and people are convening back
in court and getting ready to hear what it is.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
What did you feel the verdict would be.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Did you have your own intuition about that?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, I had my feeling. I thought it was going
to be guilty. In the course of most murder trials,
I think that prosecutors are sort of loath to bring
a case they don't think that they can win. So
my feeling was, I think we're going to get a
conviction here. In my sense was that people sort of
felt the same way. But when they did read out
(25:10):
the verdicts, there was one murder charge, two aggravated assaults,
and two attempted murder for the other kids who survived,
found guilty in all five and Judge Foot sentenced her
that night to fifty years in prison, with a minimum
(25:30):
of thirty to be served. And he said something, and
this was later. He just indicated, I don't think you
should ever be in society again, and I've done my
best to make sure that that's the case.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And so Diane was put in jail, and then the
fate of the two living Down siblings was decided. The prosecutor,
Fred Huge, officially adopted Danny and Christy.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Well. To start with, Fred Hugy looks like the sad
eyed basset hound dog who hates to have to tell
you this story. He hates to have to tell you
that this mom shot her kids, and so he kind
of looks like a bloodhound almost. He never smiles. He's
(26:34):
always serious, and it's almost painful for him as the
various witnesses come up to get the details. So obviously
this man, who is very protective of these kids, is
thinking to himself, these kids are so traumatized by this.
(26:56):
I hate to have to bring you this jury. But
here's the girl in the car, and she's going to
tell you what she saw. And so I think as
he's asking her the questions and ending up with who
did this shooting, it's almost like apologetic in a way
(27:19):
that he's going to have to lay this out for
you because the thought of it is so terrible, and
I'm going to have to bring it to you, and
I'm the bearer of bad news. But here it is,
and the mom is responsible for this girl being shot.
So when it comes out that he is going to
adopt these kids, it was not a shock to a
(27:42):
lot of the people who were surrounded the case because
it almost seemed to pain him to the point of
that he was feeling that. You almost felt as though
these kids were his kids. I think because he spends
so much time around them, and he'd spent so much
time pulling these awful details out that he felt that
(28:05):
responsible and that protective of them, that here he was
with these very vulnerable kids just a few feet away
from the trigger person, the shooter. She's right there, she's
just feet away. And then she's getting more pregnant, of
course as time goes on, which is even a crazier
(28:25):
little angle to the whole thing. And here she is
ready to, you know, give birth to yet another child.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Fred Hugie clearly felt a responsibility in connection to the children,
something that he never openly discussed to any extent.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
That was riding my bike along the Willamte River and
the bike paths, and this was not long after the
word of the adoption of the Hugues had been public.
I see this guy running and he's it's I can
tell it's Fred. He's in his army boots, is out
for a run. So I just kind of lighted up
(29:00):
beside him. I said, I think I called him mister Hughy,
not Fred. And he's just he's running and he doesn't
look at me, and he says yeah. I said, hey,
Dana Timmesotheragonian and I didn't have a very comfortable relationship
with a lot of Eugene cops because of some of
the stories that I wrote, but I never censored the animosity,
and he's just kind of yeah, And I just said,
(29:22):
I think it's pretty amazing that you adopted those kids,
and he said thanks, and I pedaled on.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
In the meantime, Diane, pregnant and convicted, went into labor
shortly after the verdict.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
About ten days after that night, Diane is driven to
Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene by Doug Welch and another
deputy who had tended to Diane during the trial, and
basically they induced labor and she delivered the child. She
had been so pregnant with that trial, and she was
able to hold her baby for four or five hours.
(30:01):
Doug Welch said Diane even let him hold the baby, which,
since Diane had kind of sparred with him throughout, he
thought it was the nicest thing she had shown toward
him anyway. And from there, you know, she was on
her way to the Women's State Prison in Salem for
intake and processing. And so those two eventually, you know,
(30:23):
not too long after that, drove her up and dropped
her off in Salem. And even then people figured, oh well,
that's that's the end of that.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Then what did she deliver?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
A baby girl or a baby she had a baby girl.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
On the next episode of Happy Face Presents to Face,
we checked back in with DNA Detective Michelle with the
first round of results tracing Becky's maternal lineage in order
to determine once and for all that the baby girl
Diane gave birth to that day was, in fact Becky Babcock.
Ten Bolan is our executive producer, Melissa Moore is our
(31:03):
co executive producer. Maya Cole is our primary producer, Paul
Decand is our supervising producer. Sam T. Garnan is our researcher,
and Matt Riddle is our story editor. Featured music by
dream Tent. Happy Face Presents to Phase is a production
of iHeartRadio
Happy Face News
Hosts And Creators
Melissa Moore
Lauren Bright Pacheco
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