#20: The Mother and the Midnight Road - Shots in the Dark

"A mother’s story. A quiet road. And a truth no one wanted to hear."

May 1983 – Springfield, Oregon.

A red car pulls into the emergency bay of McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. Inside are three young children—each shot at close range. One is dead on arrival. Another is paralyzed. The third is barely clinging to life. Their mother, 27-year-old Diane Downs, tells staff they were ambushed on a dark, rural road by a man who stepped into their path, demanded her car, and opened fire.

News of the shooting spreads quickly. A mother attacked. Her children the victims of a senseless act of violence. Local papers cover the case closely. Sympathy pours in from the community. But as investigators begin piecing together what happened on Old Mohawk Road, questions begin to emerge. There’s no physical evidence of a struggle. No sign of a suspect. The crime scene is quiet. Too quiet.

In this episode, we examine the events of that night, the immediate police response, and the growing public attention surrounding a case that would grip the country. From the first emergency call to the haunting testimony that followed, this is the story of three children, a quiet road, and a night that left Oregon forever changed.

LISTEN AD-FREE AND A DAY EARLY ON - https://patreon.com/NightwatchFiles

 www.nightwatchfiles.com

SUPPORT THE SHOW & LISTEN AD-FREE
Join our Patreon and unlock ad-free episodes directly in Apple Podcasts or Spotify after you connect your Patreon account.

Patreon: patreon.com/NightwatchFiles
Apple (after joining): bit.ly/4i7XcNW
Spotify (after joining): bit.ly/4oVVEsT

 www.nightwatchfiles.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before we begin. Do you have a theory about this
case or a story of your own? Leave a message
on our socials. Our handles are all just night watch
Files without the space, or head over to nightwatchfiles dot
com to find them all in one place. Your insights
might be featured in a future episode. I'm Harper Finley
and this is night Watch Files. Just a quick note,

(00:27):
this is our final episode of season one. The podcast
will take a two week break as we prepare new
stories for season two, which premieres on August second. If
you support us on Patreon, you'll get early access to
the new season on August first, completely add free. It's
just three dollars a month, and the link to sign
up is in the show notes. Springfield, Oregon, a Thursday

(00:52):
night in late May nineteen eighty three. By ten thirty,
the emergency room at Mackenzie willamme At Hospital had settled
into its usual rhythm. The nurses were catching up on paperwork.
The receptionist sat behind a desk marked by years of wear,
scuffed chrome, legs, worn vinyl, A faint trace of antiseptic
in the air. Then a horn blared in the circular driveway.

(01:15):
The shouting followed. Judy Patterson, working her second shift of
the day, rose from the desk and glanced toward the entrance.
A red foreign car was pulled up under the rain roof,
its doors flung open. The woman standing outside it wasn't screaming,
wasn't crying, just pale, brisk and demanding help. Rosy Martin
and r n in her second trimester of pregnancy, stepped

(01:37):
through the hospital's double doors and reached the car first inside.
Slumped across the back seat was a child. Rosy didn't
stop to ask questions. She lifted the small figure, a girl,
long brown hair, and carried her straight through the ear
behind her. She called out a warning to the receptionist, Judy,
call a code. It's bad. The code summoned every one available.

(02:00):
More staff rushed outside. A second child was spotted in
the back seat, a toddler, motionless. Doctor John Mackie, the
e r physician, arrived, took one look and muttered, oh
Jesus Christ. He reached in, lifted the little boy into
his arms, and then saw another body, a girl. She
was hidden in the foot well of the front passenger side,

(02:20):
her small frame covered with a dark sweater. She didn't
respond when touched. Her mother presented herself as Elizabeth Downs,
though she went by Diane. Her arm was wrapped in
a colorful towel and she had a wound deep, raw,
but not life threatening. She explained to Judy Patterson that
she and her three children, Christie age eight, Cheryl seven,

(02:43):
and Danny, just three, had been driving along Old Mohawk
Road after visiting a friend when they encountered a man
standing in the road. She thought he needed help. Instead,
he demanded her car. She told him, you've got to
be kidding, and claimed he then shoved her aside and
opened fire on her children. She said she fained tossing

(03:03):
the car keys, then jumped in and sped away toward
the hospital after being shot herself. The medical team moved quickly,
but it was already too late for Sheryl Lynne. She
had been covered by Diane's postal sweater and lay across
the floor of the front seat. There were two gunshot
wounds to her upper torso, one near contact through the

(03:24):
left shoulder blade, the other close range over her right.
Her aorda had been torn. She had bled to death
in the car. Stephen Danny Downs was found on the
rear seat. He was still alive, though barely, with a
bullet wound to the center of his spine. The shot
had shattered his vertebrae and left him struggling for breath.
Doctors would would later confirm he was paralyzed from the

(03:46):
chest down. Christianne had been hit twice. One bullet entered
near her left nipple and exited her back. Another struck
near the base of her neck. She was ice cold,
barely breathing, her heart beat erratic. A stroke from blood
loss had paralyzed her right arm. A white male around
five foot nine, shaggy, dark hair, stubbled beard, dirty T shirt,

(04:10):
Levi jacket, blue jeans, possibly driving a beat up yellow
Chevrolet Chevelle. This was the man Diane Downs claimed had
ambushed her on a quiet Oregon road and opened fire
on her children. But for those who'd witnessed her arrival
that night, something didn't feel right, and before long the
questions would begin. On August seventh, nineteen fifty five, at

(04:53):
seven thirty five PM on a sweltering Sunday evening in Phoenix, Arizona,
Elizabeth Diane Frederickson was born to West and Willadeine Frederickson
Wes was twenty five, Willideine just seventeen. Both parents came
from large families and were devout members of a fundamentalist
Southern Baptist church, where traditional gender roles were strictly observed.

(05:14):
Wilideine was expected to defer to her husband in all matters,
and discussions about sexuality were forbidden. Diane would later describe
her childhood as bleak. She remembered herself as a skinny,
wistful little girl, ignored by her mother, tormented by her father.
She felt invisible, like a child caught behind a wall
of glass, screaming and screaming for someone to notice her

(05:36):
and rescue her. When overwhelming situations arose, Diane developed a
coping mechanism. She would blank out or go inside herself,
slipping into what she described as blurry places without memory.
Her father, Wess, was the family disciplinarian. The children were
taught not to be cry babies and to be tough.

(05:57):
Diane learned to laugh, even when inappropriate, because she was
never allowed to cry. She detested her father intensely. Between
ages eleven and twelve, when her mother began working late shifts,
Diane was sexually molested by her father. She later described
it as talking, touching, fondling. At thirteen, she cut her wrists,

(06:18):
though the wounds were only superficial scratches. The abuse stopped
after a state trooper spoke to Wes. Though Diane lied
to protect her family during the interview, her rage toward
her father eventually turned inward. She would rake her nails
down her own face. Despite these challenges, Diane excelled academically.
She scored a full scale IQ of one twenty five,

(06:40):
placing her just below genius level. However, she felt unpopular
and had few friends. Around age fourteen, Diane became a
compulsive talker, desperately yearning to be noticed. At fifteen, she
met Steve Down's, seven months her senior. Steve walked with
a swagger and possessed a sensuality that attracted women. He
represented everything Diane's conservative parents opposed. Within months, the now

(07:05):
sixteen year old Diane was sleeping with Steve. She confided
in him about her father's abuse, but Steve mumbled something
and changed the subject. After Steve joined the Navy, Diane
worked as a waitress and in an office in North Phoenix,
waiting for his return. They married on November thirteenth, nineteen
seventy three, when Diane was eighteen. She later admitted she

(07:28):
saw Steve primarily as her ticket out of her parents home.
The marriage quickly revealed its limitations. Steve's interest was purely sexual,
and he immediately changed his mind about having children. Diane
realized he didn't love her the way she desperately desired.
Without telling Steve, Diane threw away her birth control pills.

(07:48):
She wanted to conceive her own source of love, what
she called pure love that would be an extension of herself.
Christy Anne was born on October seventh, nineteen seventy four. However,
Christie's birth didn't solidify the marriage. Diane's love for Christie
seemed to make Steve's love feel vile to her. Steve
was often impatient and angered by babies crying. In nineteen

(08:12):
seventy five, Diane conceived again, explicitly stating she needed to
fight back against unhappiness and build a wall of love
with two children. Cheryl Lynne was born January tenth, nineteen
seventy six. Diane described Cheryl as a fussy, screaming creature
who wasn't even cute. When Diane became pregnant again, She
had an abortion because she couldn't take one more pressure

(08:35):
and the baby wouldn't have been loved. Initially, she felt
no guilt about the abortion, but a revelation in fall
nineteen seventy eight led her to believe the child she
had destroyed returned to haunt her. To make amends for
her abortion and find what she called a good specimen
to father her next child. After Steve's vasectomy, Diane engaged

(08:55):
in three affairs at her workplace, the Palm Harbor Mobile
Home Company in Mesa, Arizona. She described this as genetic research,
seeking attractive, healthy men who were not abusive. She seduced
nineteen year old Russ Phillips and conceived in one encounter.
Steve discovered the affair and confronted them both. Diane then

(09:16):
gave birth to Stephen Daniel Danny Downs on December twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy nine. Steve eventually adored Danny, but Diane didn't
recognize his love as the pure love she sought. Their
home became what she called an armed camp, with physical
fights lasting far into the night. Diane's depression returned and
she began to relish punching her husband. She also lashed

(09:39):
out at her children with pinches, hair pulling, spanking, and screaming.
Following a definitive rejection from Lou Lewiston, a married co
worker with whom she'd been having an affair, Diane realized
he wasn't going to Oregon as she'd hoped. Her surrogate
parenting business had failed to get off the ground, leaving
her with no additional income. In this context, Diane requested

(10:01):
a transfer from the Chandler Arizona post office she was
now working at to the Eugene area. Her father, Wes Frederickson,
was the postmaster of Springfield, Oregon, and had assured her
employment would be no problem. Her parents wanted her and
the children to move to Oregon. Chandler postal administrators accepted
her transfer application with enthusiasm. They considered her a strange,

(10:26):
disruptive woman whose affairs and temper tantrums were common knowledge.
At work, Diane was known to undergo what colleagues described
as a complete metamorphosis. While sullen at home, she became
vivacious and fun at work. Blooming scarlet and lush. She
and her co workers Jack Lenta and Lou Lewiston prided

(10:47):
themselves on being the swiftest mail carriers. Diane's move to
Oregon became effective in April nineteen eighty three. She drove
there over two days, envisioning it as a fantasy land.
She went ahead to prepare a place for him, still
believing Lou might join her. She convinced herself that her
children's presence wouldn't bother Lou because they were terribly independent

(11:09):
and require very little care. Upon moving to Oregon, she
transferred to the Cottage Grove Post Office. Officials said she
wanted a smaller facility to learn all aspects of the
postal business. She started with a rural route, but soon
earned a city route. Her new supervisor, Floyd Goen, described
her as a number one worker and quick to pick

(11:30):
up new skills, and was one of the best electricians
on the line. Ron Sartin, superintendent of the Cottage Grove
Post Office, also praised her work. She was known for
bringing home baked goods to share with colleagues. However, investigators
developed what they called a hinky feeling about her story
from the beginning. Police detectives Dug Welch and Dick Tracy

(11:53):
found her demeanor flat, almost brittle, and observed her laughing
inappropriately prosecuted. Fred Hugey noted her brittle shell of vivacious
cooperation and described her words as verbal vomit constantly flowing.
Her colleagues and Chandler often had mixed or negative feelings.
Many thought she was a slut due to her affairs.

(12:15):
Carl Gamersfelder, her supervisor, recalled Diane admitting she'd hit the kids.
Informants described her as having single mindedness and abrasive frankness.
Some flatly stated Diane didn't care for her kids. Diane's
not a good mother. The children were a hindrance to her.
Others found her moody, flippy, floppy, up and down, mad

(12:35):
and sad. Some called her pure poison and whacked out.
In Oregon, Diane initially came on to males in her
new post office. Cord Samuelson, an instructor, found her to
like punk, rock, bourbon and coke and sex. However, as
the investigation progressed, her Cottage Grove coworkers who were once
supportive had dropped away. She had no friends, male or female.

(12:59):
Diane Anne frequently left her children unsupervised or with others.
Especially when pursuing her own interests or affairs. Lou Lewiston
noted that he wouldn't be with her if the children
were around, and that Diane shuttled the kids around between
Steve mary Ward, who was a neighbor of the Downs
and Chandler and her aunt Irene. After Cheryl came home

(13:21):
from morning kindergarten, she was often left alone because Diane
couldn't afford to send her to daycare. Cheryl would either
sit on the porch of the locked house waiting for
Diane to return hours later, or wander off to find
someone in the neighborhood who would let her in. Mary
Ward's concern for Cheryl reached a point where she had
to intervene. Diane admitted she'd been abusive, though claimed she'd

(13:44):
stopped Cheryl once darted in front of a car, saying
it doesn't matter, nobody cares. When there were no willing sitters,
Diane left the kids home alone when Christie was six,
Cheryl five, and Danny fifteen months. In fall nineteen eighty one,
when Diane was pregnant with a surrogate baby, her children
were sick all winter. Danny's strep infections were exacerbated by

(14:09):
playing outside with bare feet and no coat. They often
ate fast food or Christy made peanut butter sandwiches for them.
Lewiston was angered when Diane told him she'd left the
kids alone, stating that eight wasn't old enough for a
little girl to look after two other little kids. A
coworker noted, when she picked the kids up and Danny
wanted affection, she pushed him away. She would come to

(14:32):
visit and leave the kids home alone from thirty minutes
to two hours. Diane's flirtatious behavior was noted by many,
particularly her male co workers at the Palm Harbor Mobile
home company. She worked around lots and lots of guys,
and quote met men who treated me like a woman.
She set out to work her way sexually through the

(14:53):
male employees of the Chandler Post Office. She easily attracted
lovers by being available, submissive, and gigglingly flirtatious. Her affair
with Tim Lowry, another co worker there, began when she
invited him home for lunch, and it ended up in bed.
Tim observed that Diane craved attention. She moved from man

(15:13):
to man, draining power from married men and finding excitement
and forbidden relationships. She openly stated, I love them all.
I just don't go to bed with people I love them.
She pursued Lou Lewiston persistently, even choreographing their affair. Lou
initially saw their relationship as a brief fling, not a
lasting alliance. A Springfield woman observed Diane at a dance

(15:36):
hall approaching a man she didn't know, dancing, necking, and
then leaving with him, describing it as just like that.
Her behavior was said to verge on nymphimania. She told
men she had perfected the art of sex and openly
admitted to prosecutor Huge that I flirt with everybody. Quick

(16:04):
break ads keep the show running, but if you want
to skip them, the ad free versions on Patreon for
just three bucks a month, links in the show notes
and we're back. Thanks for sticking through that. Let's get
back to it at Mackenzie will Lamb. At hospital, medical

(16:27):
teams worked in tense silence. Every second counted. One child
was already gone, another might not make it through the night.
The third just a toddler, was struggling to breathe. Cheryl Lynne,
seven had arrived without a pulse. She'd been lying face
down on the floor of the passenger seat, partially covered
with her mother's postal sweater. Two close range bullet wounds

(16:50):
to her upper back had torn through her AORDA three
year old Danny was found on the rear seat. His wound,
a single bullet to the spine, was almost centered. The
doctor's noted black powder and unburnt residue, suggesting the shot
had been fired from close range. He was paralyzed from
the chest down. Whether it was permanent was still unknown. Christie,

(17:11):
the oldest, had taken two bullets, one passed near her heart,
the other just below her neck. Her skin was cold,
her lips were blue, her heart beat flickered. She had
bled out so severely she'd suffered a stroke. Her right
arm hung limp, but she was still alive, barely. At
ten forty eight p m, Officer rich Charboneau arrived at

(17:33):
the hospital. Diane's parents, Wess and Willdeine, lived less than
two miles away and had rushed over after a call
from the hospital. Inside the ear Diane was being tended
to for a single gunshot wound to her forearm. It
looked painful, but not serious to some of the staff.
She seemed composed, too composed. Detective Dick Tracy would later

(17:53):
describe her as rational under the circumstances, but Officer Doug
Welch found her tone frangible. There was laughter where there
shouldn't have been, and an absence of the emotional chaos
expected from a mother whose children had just been gunned down. Still,
there was a job to do. Judy Patterson had phoned
the Springfield Police Department, initially assuming a domestic dispute. If

(18:18):
someone was willing to shoot three children, she reasoned, he
might still be coming. Diane told the police the shooting
happened somewhere between Mohawk and Marcola Roads, but the details
were unclear. She was angry at the delay in response,
so when Charboneau arrived, she snapped, it's about time you
got here. There's some maniac out there shooting people. Charboneau

(18:39):
quickly realized the scene was outside the city limits and
contacted the Lane County Sheriff's Office. Sergeant Robin Rutherford responded.
He listened carefully to Diane's version of events, then asked
if she would return to the location with him. She agreed.
Despite her injury, she seemed eager to have something to do.

(19:00):
As Rutherford and Diane drove the stretch of Old Mohawk Road,
Diane pointed out the area where she claimed the shooting occurred.
Her father West followed behind. Diane described the gunmen as
a white male, late twenties, five foot nine, one hundred
fifty to undred and seventy pounds, dark shaggy hair and
a stubble beard. He wore a Levi jacket, jeans, and

(19:21):
a dirty off white T shirt. She said he stepped
into the road, asked for her car, and when she refused,
pushed her aside and started shooting. By eleven forty p m.
Lane County had issued a state wide teletype. The suspect
was said to possibly be driving a yellow Chevrolet Chevelle
from the nineteen sixties or seventies, beaten up, possibly abandoned.

(19:42):
Near By Search teams fanned out. Officers used metal detectors
and brought in search dogs. Boy scouts joined the sweep.
Divers scanned the Little Mohawk River. Helicopters flew overhead. The
stretch between Haydenbridge and Marcola was combed with machetes and
brush hooks. Jim Pecks a senior criminalist from the Oregon
State Police Lab arrived the next morning. By then the

(20:05):
area had been turned over. Only two twenty two caliber
bullet casings were found on the pavement, no gun, no
signs of a struggle. A few beer cans, some bubble gum,
and tractor tire tracks were collected, but nothing directly linked
to a shooter. The down's vehicle, a red Nissan Pulsar,
was towed for inspection. There was no damage to the

(20:26):
car's exterior, no sign of forced entry. The interior covered
in deep red fabric made it difficult to spot blood stains,
but there was one detail that stood out. The driver's
side was clean. No blood on the steering wheel, no
visible transfer on the controls, nothing to suggest the shooter
had reached inside from the outside. The inconsistencies weren't lost

(20:49):
on investigators. Dian had said the man leaned in or
perhaps stuck his arm inside and began firing, but whether
he approached on foot, jogged up to the window, or
waited in the road was already starting to shift in
her retelling. Still, no conclusions were drawn publicly. There were
no press briefings suggesting disbelief, no statements hinting at suspicion,

(21:12):
but privately, within the ranks of law enforcement, doubts had
already begun to surface, and they were growing. In the
days that followed, the shooting of Diane Down's three children

(21:34):
became the central story across Lane County. What had started
as a horrifying local crime began to spread through the
regional press, then rapidly to a national audience. The first
headlines focused on tragedy, a mother ambushed on a rural road,
her children gunned down by a stranger. The public was
squarely behind Diane Downs. Floral offerings and cards flooded her

(21:57):
hospital room, and she was viewed as a bereaved mother.
Floyd Gohen stated she was as good a mother as
an employee. Superintendent Ron Sartin expressed public outrage, saying, here's
a goal with three kids, and something like this happens
out of the blue. Strangers wrote letters of support. Local
papers like the Eugene Register Guard, the Springfield News, and

(22:21):
the Cottage Grove Sentinel ran updates across their front pages.
The case touched a nerve in the community, but as
spring turned to summer, the story shifted. Diane Downs didn't
retreat from public view, she made herself available almost constantly.
She gave interviews to newspapers and television, both local and national.

(22:42):
She held press conferences outside the hospital and later from home.
She spoke to reporters at length, recounting the night of
the shooting, sometimes offering new theories, sometimes minor new details.
She believed it was her duty to keep the public informed,
that if the police wouldn't listen, she had to go
on television and make them listen. She told journalists she

(23:04):
was smarter than the investigators and that they were missing
obvious clues. In private, detectives noted how eager she seemed
to regain control of the narrative. She contacted reporters with
supposed new memories. She showed some where her children used
to live. She invited others to breakfast. The spotlight suited her,

(23:24):
but to the public, the tone finally began to feel off.
Her laughter, her ease in front of the camera, her
willingness to talk at length about herself. These things began
to sit uncomfortably with viewers. Sympathy gave way to uncertainty.
The first sign that something was shifting came when her
attorney filed a motion to prevent further interviews with the children.

(23:47):
It was a standard legal maneuver, but its meaning wasn't
lost on the public. Why would questioning need to stop
unless there was something to hide? More questions followed. Doctors
who treated Diane mckenn's Ziwillammet spoke of her composure, not
just the absence of tears, but a steady, almost mechanical calm.
There was no visible grief, no collapse. One surgeon recalled

(24:11):
her asking about her car and whether it had been damaged.
Another noted her concern that her planned vacation had been ruined.
She spoke of Cheryl in the past, tense but with detachment.
When told Christie had likely suffered brain damage, she responded
not with panic, but by saying she didn't want her
daughter's life prolonged if she wouldn't recover. It wasn't just

(24:33):
what she said, it was how she said it. There
were moments of inappropriate laughter, times when she seemed to
treat her story as if she were retelling something from
a distance. During a filmed reenactment for television, Diane demonstrated
how she supposedly escaped the gunman. She smiled throughout Reporters

(24:53):
and detectives alike noticed her behavior around men. She was
flirtatious with those she liked, cold towards she didn't. She
offered select detectives new information if they'd agree to meet
her alone. She dismissed some officers as offensive or provincial,
while speaking warmly of others. She often treated interviews like conversations,

(25:14):
not interrogations. She said she didn't trust the police, that
they were twisting her words, that she needed to keep
telling the story to set the record straight. And she
did tell it over and over again, the same outline,
the same central claim, a bushy haired stranger, a demand
for her car, gunfire escape. The story itself didn't change,

(25:37):
but it didn't develop either. She was vague on details,
at times contradictory. She'd fill in gaps with assumptions or
shift descriptions slightly. Was he leaning in the window or
reaching through it? Did he run to the car or
stand in the road where the children awake or asleep?
When pressed, she'd respond with confidence. Her words flowed quickly,

(25:57):
as if she were talking over something rather than through it.
Investigators said it was like listening to a prepared speech.
To many, it started to feel rehearsed. What had once
been viewed as strength began to feel like something else entirely,
and with each public appearance, the unease grew. At Mackenzie

(26:29):
Wi lam At hospital, the trauma team worked in silence
and urgency. Christie Anne Downs eight arrived in a state
best described as suspended, between life and death. A scan
revealed that Christie had suffered a stroke which had damaged
broca's area, the section responsible for speech. It had also
paralyzed her right arm. She had survived, but now she

(26:51):
could no longer speak. Investigators already understood that Christie might
hold the only clear memory of what had happened in
the car that night. Detectives Dick tre and Doug Welch
took early note of her significance, but it was Deputy
District Attorney Fred Hugey who became her protector. He visited her,
often stood by her bedside, and made it quietly known

(27:11):
among the team they would wait, however long it took.
He told his colleagues that they would not rush and
arrest without Christie's words. If they acted too early, if
they went to trial with only circumstantial evidence, Diane Downs
might walk free. And if she did, Christie and Danny
would go back into her custody. That possibility haunted Hugi.

(27:33):
He believed that Christie would speak, and that when she did,
her voice would be enough, but it had to come
in her time and safely. In the meantime, other signs
began to surface. Paul Alton, an investigator with the DA's office,
happened to be in the ICU when Diane Downs arrived
to visit Christie for the first time. Alton wasn't prepared

(27:54):
for what he saw. As Diane approached, he glanced at
the monitor. Christie's heart rate was ella, already one hundred
and four beats per minute. As Diane took her hand,
repeating the words Christie, I love you, the monitor climbed again,
one hundred and forty seven beats per minute. The doctor's
in the room said nothing. Christie's face stayed still, but

(28:15):
her body betrayed her. Her heart, Alton would later recall,
was telling the truth. He didn't know what to call
the expression he saw in Christie's eyes as she looked
up at her mother, not at first, but eventually he
settled on a word fear. Doctors confirmed it when Diane
entered the room. Christie's physical reactions were consistent, heart rate spikes, stiffness,

(28:37):
no words, just the signal of alarm. Diane meanwhile, remained calm.
Her speech was controlled, her tone soft, her composure never broke.
For nearly a year, the question of what happened inside
the red Nissan Pulsar on Old Mohawk Road remained unanswered. Officially,
Christy Anne Downs had survived two bullets, massive blood loss,

(28:58):
and a stroke that damaged the speech center of her brain.
In the early days, doctors weren't sure she would live.
She was pale, silent, and afraid, but her comprehension remained intact.
She could understand what was said to her, but she
couldn't speak. At times, she couldn't even nod. Her recovery
was slow and deliberate. She was moved to the Foster

(29:21):
home of Ray and Evelyn Slaven, where her nightmares became
less frequent and her sense of safety began to return.
Doctors noticed subtle signs of improvement, the way her eyes
followed people around the room, the way she stiffened when
certain names were spoken. The most alarming response was always
the same when her mother entered the room. Christie's heart

(29:42):
rate spiked, her muscles tensed, and her expression flattened into
something unratable. Doctor Carl Peterson, a child psychologist, began working
with Christie in the summer of nineteen eighty three. He
believed that with the right conditions, she would eventually be
able to articulate what she rosted remembered. He met with
her weekly. He never pushed. In those early sessions. Christie

(30:05):
didn't speak about the shooting directly, but she didn't deny
it either. When asked whether anyone unfamiliar had been in
the car that night, she shook her head. When asked
if it had just been her family, she nodded. Over time,
Petersen developed quiet, indirect methods to help her communicate what
she couldn't yet say aloud. In one exercise, he gave

(30:26):
her slips of paper and asked her to write down names.
She would seal them in envelopes and burn them in
a small metal dish. Later, she stopped burning them. Eventually
she allowed them to be opened. The handwriting was careful,
the letters large and uncertain, but the meaning was unambiguous.
When asked who shot Cheryl, she had written mom. When

(30:46):
asked who shot Christie again, Mom, from the beginning, detectives

(31:08):
had harbored doubts the story was too neat, too implausible,
and lacked any clear motive on the part of the
supposed assailant. But it wasn't until they began layering physical
evidence over Diane's own narrative that those suspicions deepened into
something firmer. Jim Pecks, a criminalist with the Oregon State Police,
conducted a detailed analysis of the red Nissan Pulsar. He

(31:31):
examined it both at the scene and later in daylight,
looking for any trace that could corroborate or contradict what
Diane had told police. According to Diane, she had stopped
the car when she saw a man in the road.
A stranger who approached her demanded the vehicle and then
opened fire on the children inside. But Pecks found no
gunpowder residue on the driver's side door or window. When

(31:54):
a firearm is discharged, it releases a mix of gas, soot,
and unburned powder. These particles spread outward in a distinct pattern,
particularly in close ranged shootings, and yet there was nothing
no residue on or around the door where Diane claimed
the shots were fired. There was However, a misting of
dark red specks along the rocker panel beneath the passenger

(32:17):
side door. PEX recognized it instantly. It was high velocity
back spatter blood expelled in the opposite direction of a
gunshot wound. That pattern and its placement low on the
vehicle told a different story. Some one had likely been
shot outside the car at or near ground level. That
person had not survived. The interior of the pulsar told

(32:40):
its own story. Blood had pulled in the passenger seat
and rear floor boards, but not on the steering wheel,
not on the driver's seat, and not around the keys.
And those keys, despite Diane's claim that she threw them
as a distraction, were still in the ignition When police arrived,
PEX discovered something else. The car's cassette player only operated

(33:00):
if the keys were in place. When Christie later indicated
that Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf was playing during
the shooting, it rendered Diane's account impossible. If the keys
had been removed, the song would have stopped. There was
no evidence of forced entry, no damage to the doors
or locks, no drag marks on the gravel, and no

(33:21):
shell casings inside the vehicle. Only two found on the
asphalt nearby. There were no footprints leading away from the road,
no tire tracks that matched a yellow chevelle, no sign
that anyone had been lying in wait for detectives like
Dick Tracy and Doug Welch. These gaps weren't just troubling,
they were telling. Then came the diary. Shortly after the shooting.

(33:45):
Diane had asked Sergeant Jerry Smith to retrieve her spiral
bound notebook from home. She said she wanted it for comfort,
something familiar during her stay at the hospital, But when
Smith handed it over to investigators, its contents changed the
direction of the case. The entries were written in the
form of letters. All were addressed to a man named Lou.

(34:07):
It was Lou Lewiston, her former co worker from Arizona,
a married man. The relationship had ended months earlier. Lou
had made it clear he did not want children, but
Diane's diary painted a different picture. She wrote about how
they would be together. She expressed confusion as to why
Lou hadn't followed her to Oregon. She wrote that the

(34:28):
children would not be a problem, that they wouldn't interfere
to the prosecution. The motive began to emerge. Diane wanted
to be with lou. The children stood in the way.
It was this theory that DA investigator Fred Hugy began
to follow, not just as a hypothetical, but as the
only explanation that made sense of Diane's actions. Her behavior

(34:50):
in the weeks following the shooting only reinforced those concerns.
She brought a unicorn to Christie's hospital room, a shiny figurine,
soft and childish, the kind of thing a parent might
bring to comfort a child. But Diane told Christie that
the unicorn belonged to Cheryl now, and that unicorns never died.
She said it with a smile. Fred Houji saw it

(35:11):
as a gesture of preparation, a child's memorial wrapped in fantasy.
Diane had also been heard talking about reincarnation, that Cheryl
might return some day, that maybe her fourth child, the
baby she was carrying as a surrogate, was the spirit
of Carrie, the child she had aborted years earlier. Doctors
and nurses were disturbed by the way she spoke, the

(35:33):
absence of grief, the fixation on her vacation, the concern
for the car So when Christie began to recover her
speech and explicitly named her mom as the shooter. Everything changed.
It was clear now that there had been no stranger,
no bushy haired man. The final thread came from Diane herself.
Over time, her own story began to shift. She admitted

(35:55):
that she might have exaggerated certain things that she had faked,
throwing the key ease that some of the changes were
due to dreams. She mentioned two gunmen at one point,
then returned to one. The shifts were subtle but cumulative.
Diane said she changed details because she was tired of
being hassled because the detectives didn't ask the right questions.

(36:17):
But her story, once stable, had begun to erode. Piece
by piece. The structure fell away, and underneath it, the
picture that remained was growing clearer. Quick break ads keep

(36:49):
the show running, but if you want to skip them,
the ad free versions on Patreon for just three bucks
a month. Links in the show notes and we're back.
Thanks for sticking through that. Let's get back to it.

(37:11):
Nine months and one week after the shooting that left
one child dead and two gravely injured, Diane Downs was
arrested on February twenty eighth, nineteen eighty four, following a
secret indictment charging her with one count of murder, two
counts of attempted murder, and two counts of first degree assault.
The delay, while criticized by some within law enforcement who

(37:32):
wanted a quicker resolution, had been intentional. District Attorney Fred
hugi had insisted on building a case that would hold,
not one that simply cast suspicion, but one grounded in
evidence strong enough to secure a conviction. He knew that
a premature arrest could lead to acquittal, and if that happened,
Diane would not only walk free, but could potentially regain

(37:55):
custody of Christie and Danny. Hugie's strategy relied not just
on physical evidence, but on testimony, particularly from Christie, and
he waited until she could speak clearly enough to testify
before moving forward. Diane was arrested at her job in
Cottage Grove. Detectives Doug Welch and Ray Broderick arrived, alongside
female deputy Chris Rosage, who carried out the arrest. Diane

(38:19):
was informed of her Miranda rights and the charges against her.
She wasn't handcuffed on the way to jail. Diane talked continuously,
bringing up past trauma, including an allegation that her father
had molested her and that she had been thrown out
of the house for fear. She would tell on him,
seeming less anxious about the arrest itself than about the

(38:39):
uncertainty that had preceded it. In some ways, she appeared
relieved by the time of her arrest. Diane was visibly pregnant.
During a December nineteen eighty three court hearing, it had
been revealed that she was two to three months along,
meaning she had conceived around mid October, squarely in the
middle of the investigation. Diane later explained that she had

(39:03):
wanted another child because she missed the love she received
from Christy, Danny, and Cheryl, and had been trying for
a year to get pregnant again, even attempting to conceive
at a fertility clinic in Louisville. Fred Huji worried the
pregnancy would delay the trial or affect how a jury
might view the case. Trying a visibly pregnant woman for

(39:25):
the attempted murder of her surviving children and the murder
of her middle child risk triggering complex emotions and jurors
in her mugshot. Her pregnancy was obvious. She was placed
in an isolated intake cell, and during the trial she
frequently cradled her abdomen or stroked it absent mindedly, drawing
attention to it without speaking a word. The baby, a

(39:49):
girl Diane named Amy Elizabeth Downs, was born at ten
o six p m. On June sixteenth, nineteen eighty four.
While Diane remained in custody, as permitted to hold the
child for an extended time before the infant was taken
from her in accordance with a juvenile court order that
stripped her of parental rights. The trial began on May eighth,

(40:09):
nineteen eighty four. Prosecutors had meticulously prepared Christie's testimony, understanding
that her account could make or break the case. While
Diane had given dozens of interviews and press conferences, none
of them amounted to a direct confession, and without a
murder weapon or a surviving witness besides the children, the

(40:31):
prosecution had long known that Christie's voice would be pivotal.
She had recovered slowly but steadily from the stroke that
left her speech impaired, living in the Sloven Foster Home
away from the pressure of the investigation and the presence
of her mother, which had caused her visible distress during
hospital visits. Doctors Karl Peterson and Robert Becker had worked

(40:53):
with her in therapy, guiding her through the trauma without
leading her. They prepared the jury for her halting speech
and warned that she might show signs of emotional strain
on the stand. Christie took the stand on Monday, May fourteenth,
her right arm hung limp at her side. Her posture
was rigid, her face full of fear. Diane, seated at

(41:16):
the defence table, leaned forward and smiled at her daughter,
a smile that didn't waver, as though it might somehow
soften what was coming. Fred Hugie, known to Christie from
prior visits, asked her who had shot Cheryl. Christie, already crying,
answered my mom. When asked who had shot her, she
repeated the same. She confirmed that no stranger had been present,

(41:37):
and that she had watched the events unfold from the
back seat. She described seeing both along and a short
gun in the trunk that night, and said her mother
had put them there. She remembered the music Hungry like
the Wolf playing as the shots were fired, and she
said Diane was not crying afterward, or if she had cried,
it wasn't much. Doctor Peterson testified that christ He had

(42:00):
never indicated any one other than her mother as the shooter,
not once, not even in therapy sessions where she might
have felt safe offering another version. The physical evidence supported
her words. The two twenty two caliber shell casings found
at the scene bore microscopic extractor marks identical to those

(42:20):
on cartridges retrieved from Diane's Glenfield rifle, which was located
in her closet. Although the rifle itself had not been fired,
the markings proved that the bullets had been chambered through
the same firearm, while the murder weapon, the twenty two
Ruger semi automatic pistol, was never found. Testimony from Steve Downs,
Diane's ex husband, placed the gun in her possession shortly

(42:43):
before she moved to Oregon. He said he had last
seen it in the trunk of her car. Forensic scientist
Jim Pecks testified that a pistol in a zippered case
could float, possibly explaining why divers failed to recover it
from the river despite repeated searches. Diane claimed she only
owned a twenty two rifle and a thirty eight revolver

(43:04):
both accounted for. She insisted she no longer had the ruder,
and at one point told lou Lewiston that Steve had
taken it back, but the evidence told a different story Lewiston.
Diane's former lover also took the stand, a married man
who had worked with Diane as a mail carrier in Arizona.
He described their affair in blunt terms. He said Diane

(43:26):
was obsessed with him and that she had pressured him
to leave his wife, promising they could build a life together.
He said plainly that he had told her he did
not want children ever, and that he had no desire
to be a father. The prosecution used his testimony, along
with Diane's own diary, entries and recordings, to argue motive. Diane,

(43:47):
they claimed, saw her children not as love dependents, but
as obstacles to a fantasy future with a man who
did not want them. Houji leaned heavily into this point,
describing a life full of failed ambitions, Diane's dreams of
becoming a doctor or a successful entrepreneur long since abandoned,
leaving behind a sense of futility that in the state's view,

(44:09):
twisted itself into a solution, removed the children, free herself
to chase what she believed was still within reach. From
the moment of her arrest through the final days of
the trial, Diane showed little change and demeanor. She smiled
in court, often at inappropriate times. She maintained her innocence,
clinging to the story of the bushy haired stranger, but

(44:31):
that version had begun to collapse from the inside, and
by the time the jury heard from her own daughter,
it no longer resembled a story at all. The trial

(44:51):
of Diane Downs concluded in the early hours of a
Saturday morning, after six and a half weeks of testimony
and twenty two hours of deliberation. The jury had retired
late Friday night, and just after midnight at twelve twenty
a m. They returned with a verdict. In a hushed
court room, jury foreman Daniel Bent read out the findings.

(45:13):
Guilty of murder in the first degree for the death
of Sheryl Lynne, guilty of attempted murder and first degree
assault for the attacks on Christie and Danny Downs. The
verdict was unanimous. Diane, who had remained composed Throughout most
of the proceedings turned visibly pale. As the verdicts were
announced for the first time since the shootings, her facade

(45:34):
showed signs of cracking. She trembled, her posture stiffened, but
even then she tried to maintain control. Observers noted how
she managed a strained smile as she was led from
the court room. When asked for a reaction, she responded
blankly that she didn't know what she was supposed to think.
It wasn't until she was placed in the jail wagon,

(45:56):
away from the public eye, that she finally cried. Her
defense attorney, Jim Jagger, later acknowledged he had expected this outcome.
He revealed that the jury had reached a consensus on
the four lesser charges early in their deliberations, and that
only one juror had initially hesitated on the murder count,
though that too was resolved before the night was over.

(46:19):
Two months later, on August twenty eighth, nineteen eighty four,
Diane appeared again in court for sentencing. Under Oregon law,
a conviction for murder carried a mandatory life sentence, but
the court had the discretion to impose additional time if
the defendant was deemed a dangerous offender. The state had
prepared for this. Doctor Barbara Suckow, the psychiatrist who examined

(46:41):
Diane on behalf of the prosecution, testified that Diane met
the criteria. She was diagnosed with narcissistic, histrionic, and anti
social personality disorders, conditions that taken together, painted the picture
of a woman deeply self absorbed, manipulative, and dangerously detached
from the consequences of her actions. Before sentencing, Diane was

(47:03):
given the chance to speak. She insisted she was a
law abiding citizen, told the court she would serve her
time for this man, again blaming the fictional bushy haired stranger,
and professed her love for her children, including the infant
daughter she had only held for four hours. She vowed
to find the real killer, repeating the story that had

(47:25):
unraveled over the previous year. Judge Gregory Foote, unmoved, addressed
her directly. He acknowledged the horror inflicted not just on
the victims, but on the entire community, and spoke plainly
about her inability to express genuine remorse. He described her
actions as the calculated disposal of her children objectified. He

(47:46):
said like useless baggage. His words were precise and his
tone unyielding. To make certain that future parole boards would
remember the full weight of her crimes, Judge foot ruled
that the sentences would run consecutive. For the murder of
Sheryl Lynne Downs, Diane received life in prison plus an
additional five years for the use of a firearm. For

(48:08):
the attempted murders of Christie and Danny, she was given
thirty years with a fifteen year mandatory minimum. For the assaults,
she received twenty years with ten year minimums. In total,
Diane Downs was sentenced to life plus fifty years, with
twenty five of those years to be served before any
possibility of parole. Judge Foote concluded with a clear statement

(48:31):
of his intent that Diane Downs would never be free again.
The Oregon Parole Board affirmed this decision, stating she would
not be eligible for parole until two thousand nine, at
which point she would be fifty four years old. Fred
Hugi called her a cold blooded, cruel, vicious murderer, noting
that her testimony remained a denial from start to finish.

(48:53):
She expressed no regret, no introspection, even after giving birth
to Amy Elizabeth in custody, an event that might have
softened or shifted her outlook. There was no sign of
postnatal depression or emotional struggle over the separation from the child. Instead,
she radiated what prison staff later described as joy and
a sense of renewed purpose, even blaming mat Jensen, the

(49:16):
baby's father, for the loss, asking him pointedly whether he
would miss her. Inside prison, Diane's behavior remained troubling. She
was cheerful, She still insisted on her innocence. She pushed
autopsy photographs of Chryl in front of guards and fellow inmates,
demanding they look. She referred to herself as just a

(49:37):
little girl and insisted she posed no threat. But by
then the story she once controlled had taken on a
life of its own. The court room had seen through
the mask, the jury had believed her daughter, and the
sentence was final. Just before midnight on June fourteenth, nineteen

(50:05):
eighty four, Diane Downs gave birth inside a secured hospital room,
with a uniform deputy at her side, to a baby
girl she named Amy Elizabeth Downs. The new born eight
pounds five ounces, with delicate, almond shaped eyes and long,
slender fingers bore a strong resemblance to Christie at birth.
Diane had briefly considered naming her Charity Lynn, but changed

(50:27):
her mind after hearing Fred Huge refer to her children
as fungible during the trial, a word that seemed to
strike a nerve. Diane was allowed to hold the child
for an extended period, far longer than most in custody deliveries,
and Chris Rosage, the female deputy present during the arrest,
stayed with her at Diane's request, But this moment was quiet, uncelebrated,

(50:49):
watched only by state officials, and marked not by joy
but by finality. Within hours, Diane was back in her
jail cell, alone, and by her own words, feeling emptied
of the love and presence that the pregnancy had given
her during the preceding months. She later wrote to Matt Jensen,
the child's likely father, blaming him for the loss of

(51:11):
their daughter, warning him he would never see her, and
explicitly stating that she hoped to pass her pain on
to him. Jensen had already signed documents relinquishing his parental rights,
adding only a note of uncertainty, I believe I could
be the biological father and expressing no desire for involvement,
though he wished the child a good life. That baby

(51:33):
later adopted and renamed Rebecca Becky Babcock grew up far
from the courtroom in a quiet high desert home, surrounded
by eighty acres of serenity and the care of adoptive parents,
Chris and Jackie Babcock, who already had one adopted daughter,
and had no intention of disclosing the details of Becky's
biological heritage unless it became necessary. For years it didn't,

(51:57):
But when Becky was sixteen, watching television with her boyfriend,
a dramatization of Diane Down's story appeared on screen. The
moment Farah Fawcett screamed, someone just shot my kids. There's blood,
blood everywhere, Becky felt a jolt of unease, then the
creeping realization that this wasn't just another true crime movie.
It was her origin story. She had always known she

(52:20):
was adopted, and she was vaguely aware that her birth
mother was incarcerated, but no one had told her why,
and she had never felt the need to ask. That
night changed everything, watching her birth mother's crimes played out
in front of her. She described the experience as watching
horror shift from fiction to memory, the crime moving from

(52:42):
something that happened to something that was now inextricably part
of her life. She would later learn that her adoptive
parents had been warned of Diane's prison escape in nineteen
eighty seven, just three years after her birth. Authorities feared
she might try to find her newborn daughter, and Becky
He's parents were advised to alert her preschool and babysitter.

(53:05):
Three years into her sentence, Diane Downs orchestrated a daring
escape from the Oregon Women's Correctional Institute that would briefly
terrorize the community and expose serious security flaws in the
prison system. On the morning of the escape, Diane walked
into the unsupervised prison recreation yard and scaled an eighteen
foot fence, maneuvering over rolls of razor ribbon before jumping

(53:29):
to freedom. The perimeter alarm system was triggered, but she
was already out and heading toward a vehicle by the
time an officer responded. After hiding under a truck, Diane
ran to State Street, where she hitched a ride from
a Salem woman, claiming she was involved in a car
accident and her boyfriend was injured. She was dropped off

(53:49):
at a family restaurant about one mile from the correctional facility,
then traveled on foot into town. Authorities considered her cunning
and dangerous given her history. The escape forced correction center
administrators to confront the reality that their security system had
failed to prevent three breakouts in that area of the
prison in the last ten years. The perimeter fence, though alarmed,

(54:14):
and the interior fence, which was not, were deemed not
an effective deterrent. Salem, Marion County and state police officers
joined forces combing the downtown area with air patrol support.
Officers noted the escape was not well planned and checked
prison visiting lists while patrolling areas where most of Diane's

(54:35):
friends lived. Ten days later, Diane was captured at a
house in Salem, just blocks from the prison. The breakthrough
came when authorities found a blank piece of paper with
indentations in her cell. Sophisticated equipment revealed a map and
an address that had been written on a sheet above it.
When police arrived at the house, they found Diane upstairs

(54:56):
in a bedroom with Wain Cipher, a man who claimed
he didn't know her. When she first arrived, Cipher later
stated she came over, said she'd just got out of prison,
and he allowed her to stay for a couple nights.
He found her the most honest girl I'd ever talked
to in my life. Upon arrest, Diane just kind of
stood there in the room like she didn't know what

(55:18):
to do. She was subsequently held in strict isolation in
a secluded cell with no personal belongings, and faced charges
for second degree escape, which could add another five years
to her prison sentence. By age eight, Becky had begun
asking questions. Her mother offered little, describing a blonde haired,
green eyed woman who had done something bad, and promising

(55:42):
to explain more when Becky was older. Curious, Becky convinced
a babysitter to tell her Diane's full name and to
mention a book that had been written about her. Becky
found the book at a Barnes and Noble, flipped through
the pages, saw the photographs, and quietly returned it to
the shelf. I wasn't ready, she later said, I was

(56:02):
still playing with barbies. Years later, when she was seventeen
and pregnant, Becky decided she couldn't carry the secret alone.
She gave birth to a son, Christian, in two thousand two,
and though she loved him deeply, she continued to struggle
with the weight of her biological inheritance. Her teen years
had been unstable. She experimented with drugs cycled through older partners,

(56:26):
and believed that some part of her destructive behavior stemmed
from her bloodline, thinking maybe this is Diane and me.
The fear of becoming her birth mother never left her.
She found herself addicted to male attention in ways that
seemed to echo Diane's patterns, and admitted to questioning whether
her sense of morality could be trusted at all. Becky

(56:49):
would go on to place a second child for adoption
during a period of unemployment and emotional instability. She described
the process of handing over her newborn to another mother
as the heart artest moment of her life, but also
as a defining one. That night, she found the prison
address an ex boyfriend had once given her he'd been

(57:09):
obsessed with the Diane Downs case, and wrote to her
birth mother. She kept her message simple, unsure what response
she wanted, but when Diane replied, Becky described her physical
reaction as a near panic. Her chest tightening her pulse racing.
The first letter was affectionate, warm, almost innocent, but the second,

(57:30):
sent the next day, was disjointed, paranoid, and deeply unsettling,
filled with references to a mysterious protector who had watched
over you for me, and claims that Diane had been
framed by the real killer. More letters followed, each stranger
than the last, until Becky asked her to stop. Diane
responded with a bitter note, you are a piece of work, Rebecca,

(57:51):
and warned that Christian might grow up to be a
killer too. Becky regretted ever making contact. She said later,
I didn't want a murderer to love me. After that,
things shifted. Becky stopped blaming herself. She stopped chasing some
missing piece she thought only Diane could provide. She returned
to school, made the dean's list, and found purpose in proving,

(58:14):
mainly to herself, that her life would not be defined
by blood. She credits her adoptive parents with helping her
believe that nurture could overpower whatever damage was passed down
through genetics. She refuses to read the full details of
Diane's case to this day, describing it as a Pandora's box,
she has no desire to open. Diane's father once reached out,

(58:36):
but she declined a relationship, especially after discovering he operated
a website dedicated to Diane's innocence. She has no interest
in learning the identity of her biological father. Jackie Babcock
remains her closest confidant. Chris, her adoptive father, is her hero.
Her son, Christian, now grown, has Diane's green eyes and

(58:58):
slender fingers, but Becky's says he is kind, respectful, and safe.
While Becky struggled to make peace with a past she
never asked for, Christie and Danny Downs found something closer
to stability during the investigation. The children were placed under
temporary protection by the state after Diane attempted to remove
them from the hospital, and their exposure to her was

(59:20):
tightly controlled from that point on. Doctors and caseworkers noted
that Christie, in particular, began to show more clarity and
less fear once her mother's visits ended. In nineteen eighty six,
two years after the trial concluded, both children were legally
adopted by Joanne and Fred Hugy, Fred, the man who

(59:40):
had prosecuted their mother, and coaxed the truth from a
terrified little girl on the witness stand, became their legal father.
The adoption severed all legal ties to Diane Downs. Christie,
who continued to suffer speech and physical impairments, eventually regained
confidence in the safety of her surroundings. Annie, who remained

(01:00:00):
paralyzed from the chest down, was given assistive care and support.
The Hugess raised the children with little fanfare, describing their
approach simply as love and protection. Diane Downs meanwhile remained
in prison. Her behavior was consistent, cheerful when it suited her,
defiant when challenged, always maintaining her innocence, She insisted the

(01:00:23):
jury had been swayed by the press. She predicted she
would be out in five to seven years, then revised
her forecast to six months to two years, then doubled
down on her claim that she'd been framed. Even after
decades behind bars, her story never changed, only its context did.
The story of Diane Downs and the children she nearly

(01:00:43):
destroyed left behind more than a record of tragedy. It
left behind children who survived, a daughter who was born
in the shadow of violence, but who reclaimed her life,
and a court room that witnessed the collapse of a
lie told too many times. There are still those who
believe her story, and Diane herself continues to write letters,
grant interviews, and spin alternate versions of the truth. But

(01:01:07):
those who were there, those who heard Christie speak, who
saw Danny's injuries, who listened as the courtroom fell silent
while the verdicts were read, have long since moved on,
leaving Diane behind, not as a mystery but as a fact.

(01:01:32):
Quick break ads keep the show running, but if you
want to skip them, the ad free versions on Patreon
for just three bucks a month, links in the show
notes and we're back. Thanks for sticking through that. Let's
get back to it. In cases such as this, the

(01:02:03):
distance between appearance and reality can be vast and heartbreakingly so.
Diane Downs arrived at the hospital carrying the weight of
a story she would tell over and over, one that
cast her as the desperate mother, the victim of a
ruthless stranger. Yet beneath that narrative, a darker truth was unfolding,
one written not in shadows but in blood and silence.

(01:02:26):
Her children, innocent and vulnerable, became the unwilling witnesses to
a crime whose perpetrator hid behind the guise of motherhood.
The evidence painstakingly gathered by investigators, and the brave testimony
of a child forced to speak the unspeakable, revealed a
story of betrayal and violence far removed from the version

(01:02:46):
Diane offered. Christie Downs, only eight years old, summoned the
strength to break through layers of confusion and fear, speaking
words that shattered the carefully constructed illusion. Her voice became
a beacon of true truth in a case clouded by deception,
and the court listened. The impact of her testimony resonated
through the courtroom and beyond, reminding all who heard that

(01:03:09):
the smallest voice can carry the heaviest weight. Diane's story,
repeated countless times and interviews in courtroom appearances never fully changed,
but the cracks grew wider, the inconsistencies deeper. Her composure,
often described as cold and detached, contrasted sharply with the
devastation around her. The children she claimed to love were

(01:03:32):
left forever marked physically, emotionally, and psychologically by a night
that altered their lives irreparably. In the years that followed,
the consequences of that night rippled outward. A daughter born
in confinement, raised far from the shadows of the past,
children adopted by those who sought to give them safety
and love. A community struggling to reconcile the horror of

(01:03:55):
what happened with the seeming normality of those involved. Diane
Downs remains in garcerated, a figure of fascination and revulsion,
her narrative unchanged. Despite the passage of decades, the Diane
Down's case stands as a chilling reminder that evil sometimes
wears the most familiar face, and that the truth can
emerge from the most fragile voices. It challenges assumptions about family,

(01:04:19):
trust and the instinct to protect. At its core lies
a story of survival and courage, one that endures long
after the headlines fade, carried forward by those who refuse
to remain silent. A