The Disturbing Lies of Murderous Mother Diane Downs
46:01 Share

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole?

So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes in details. Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So happy to have you here for another video today. And today we are going to be talking about Diane Down. And this case is truly...

I don't even have words. I really don't. I'm surprised that I haven't covered this on my channel yet. I've covered it on my podcast, but it's one of those cases that has always intrigued me, scared me, frustrated me, but also fascinated me because Diane Downs is up there with some of the most bizarre people out there, some of the most

genuinely evil people out there. I think she's right up there with Casey Anthony, Jodi Arias. She is rotten to the core. And I'm honestly surprised that more people don't talk about this case, that it's not more well known to the average person because it is truly one of the craziest true crime stories out there. So if you haven't yet heard of Diane Downs, get ready because

This is going to be a wild one. Let's go ahead and get started. She was born on August 7th, 1955 in Phoenix, Arizona to her parents, Wellesley and Willanine Fredrickson. She had three younger siblings and Diane grew up in a very conservative home, very strict

They also moved around a lot for Wellesley's work. He ended up finally working in the post office, so they ended up settling in Phoenix when she was about 11. And eventually she attended Moon Valley High School. Up until high school, Diane was a pretty well-behaved kid. She was okay.

But when she got into high school, she really started rebelling against her strict conservative parents. This mainly seems to be driven by a need to feel accepted by the popular crowd. She wasn't really feeling true acceptance and love at her house, so she really was seeking it elsewhere.

At the age of 14, she started going by the name Diane. Also around this time, she cut her hair really short, dyed it bleach blonde, and started dressing pretty edgy, just trying to be more in style for the time. And Diane was described by a lot of people as boy crazy and was always looking for the next person to date. And this directly went against her parents' rules. She was not allowed to date yet, but she did it anyway.

and eventually she started dating this 16 year old boy who lived pretty close to her and his name was Steve Downs. And of course, when her parents found out, they didn't approve of it at all, but that did not stop Diane. She really liked this guy, Steve. But after graduation, they went separate ways. Steve ended up joining the Navy and Diane went to the Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College in Oregon, California. But the two of them were really in love. They considered themselves to be high school sweethearts. So they wanted to continue their relationship

long distance. He promised to be faithful to her and she promised that she would be faithful to him back. But that did not last very long. And as soon as they were separated, Diane started hooking up with several different guys. And she also started getting in trouble a lot at school. And after a year at the Baptist Bible College that she was at, she was expelled for promiscuous behavior. So she moved in with her parents again, which of course was Diane's worst nightmare because they were super strict.

and living with them was not fun. She felt kind of suffocated being under their rules once again. So Steve was also back around this time. So the two of them decided to get back together and run away together. And they decided to go ahead and get married on November 13th, 1973. And it was a rocky marriage right from the start. It was built on a pretty bad foundation, you know, previous cheating pretty much in a failed relationship. People who were around them said that they fought

all the time, especially about finances and about the possibility of Diane cheating again. And every time they got in a big fight, Diane would run back to her parents' house. And to make matters even more dicey, they ended up having a child in 1974.

her name was Christy Ann. And then just six months after Christy was born, Diane left her and went and joined the Navy. So Steve had to take care of their baby by himself. But luckily for Steve, this whole Navy thing didn't last long. Diane only made it through three weeks of training before coming home. And at the time,

Diane said that she had to leave the Navy because of severe blisters. But later on in other interviews, she claims that it's because Steve was neglecting the baby and she had to go home and take care of her. So eventually they have another child in 1976. Their second child is named Cheryl Lynn. And after Cheryl was born, Steve decided to have a vasectomy.

Shortly after this, Diane ended up getting pregnant again. So you might be wondering how that happened since Steve got a vasectomy, but it turns out Diane had an affair. She ended up having an abortion actually, but before she did, she named the baby. She named her Carrie.

But they stayed together through this and a few years later, they moved to Mesa, Arizona. Diane and Steve both got jobs working for a mobile home manufacturing company. And it wasn't long until Diane met some new coworkers and started having affairs with them. Eventually Diane got pregnant once again.

And this time she decided to go through with the pregnancy and she gave birth to a baby boy in 1979 and his name was Steven Daniel. Now, Diane was one of those people who would use pregnancy to get what she wanted from men. She became a mom for all the wrong reasons. She did not actually care about being a mom whatsoever. It was a way to manipulate situations.

And even though Diane was still sleeping with other men and had cheated on him many times, Steve continued to stay with her, mainly for the sake of their kids, he said. He even knew that Danny wasn't his kid, but he wanted to be like a father figure to him. But this did not last, and they ended up getting divorced in 1980.

For the next couple of years after that, Diane continued to hook up with several different men, both single and married men. And sometimes Diane would even move in with these guys for a short amount of time, which was really weird. She was constantly between places, so obviously it was a very unstable situation for her kids. Of course, after Steve finally left her, Diane felt an increased pressure

to take care of her kids, to provide for them. And pregnancy seemed to be something she was good at. She was good at getting pregnant and having babies. So she decided to become a surrogate. And of course you can't just become a surrogate, thankfully. You do have to pass some tests, pass some evaluations. Diane ended up failing two of the psychiatric exams. One actually noted that she was psychotic.

But she was still accepted as a surrogate, which is very concerning. In 1982, she gave birth to a little girl named Jennifer and was paid $10,000 for that. After that, she felt like she really wanted to jump into the surrogate industry a little more and start her own surrogacy clinic.

but that failed before it even got off the ground. So meanwhile, she was dating a coworker who was named Robert Nickenbacher. He also went by Nick and she said that he was the love of her life. Now this guy, Nick was married, but he was separated from his wife at the time. So the two of them had a relationship going, but he said that the relationship was very intense and a bit overwhelming for him.

So eventually he broke it off. And one of the reasons why he broke it off was because he did not like kids in general, didn't really like her kids. So, you know, he just felt like it wasn't a good fit, but Diane was absolutely devastated and it really made her feel angry at her kids. She felt like she lost the man of her dreams because of them. And Diane started to resent her own children.

When Diane was 27 years old, she moved with her kids to Cottage Grove, Oregon and took a job at the post office there. Cottage Grove is a pretty small place. It's a friendly town known for its outdoor activities and hiking trails. It's a pretty quiet area. You know, most of the people know each other that live there and look out for each other.

But even after Diane moved there, she was still obsessed with Robert and was obsessively writing him letters. One time she even visited him in 1983, but he made it clear when they were in person that it was over. And you might be wondering where her kids would be when she was out writing

working or with men and most of the time they were with her parents but some of the time they were with their fathers but oftentimes they were just left home alone and the six-year-old Christy was left in charge of watching the other younger

Also, their neighbors started to notice that the kids didn't seem very well taken care of at all. They were often hungry and sometimes they were out in the cold without jackets or coats. And Diane reportedly seemed to pay the least amount of attention to her middle child.

Cheryl. And when Cheryl was six or seven years old, she actually told one of their neighbors that she was afraid to be around Diane. So Diane's life is quite a mess. She doesn't take good care of her children. They are not happy with her at all. And she holds a lot of resentment against them for her failed relationship, for holding her back in life. It was an absolutely toxic situation. So that brings me to Thursday, May 19th,

Diane and her kids had just gotten done visiting a friend's house and they stayed pretty late. I mean, the kids were fairly young. Christie was eight, Cheryl was seven and Danny was just three years old and they didn't leave until about 9:30.

But at 9:30, Diane gets all of her kids in the car and they're gonna start heading home. Cheryl was sitting up front with Diane and the other two kids were sitting in the backseat. And according to Diane, here's how the car ride went. Even though it was late at night for her kids to be out, Diane decides to go on the scenic route,

And all the kids, according to her, were asleep in the car at that point. And Diane said this is something that she did often. She liked to just drive on roads they hadn't been on before and kind of explore. So Diane and her kids are driving down this rural road near Springfield, Oregon and exploring. And while they're driving down this scenic route, the song "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran is playing on the radio, which is quite a weird song to be playing in this moment. ♪ I'm hungry like the wolf ♪

She said they were just driving along, listening to the song when all of a sudden she sees this man standing in the road and he's like flagging her down. It was about 10:00 PM at this point, but that did not stop Diane from pulling over for this strange man in the middle of nowhere with a car full of kids. She pulls over at the intersection of Markola road and old Mohawk road.

On one side of this intersection is the McKenzie River and on the other side is this kind of empty field. It's a very isolated spot. Diane said that she stopped the car, looked behind her and saw her kids sleeping in the back. So she decided to get out and talk to this

bushy haired stranger. That's how Diane described this guy. She walks up to the bushy haired stranger and he automatically demands her car keys. At this point, Diane tries to fight with him. They have some type of struggle and he shoots her in the left arm.

Then Diane throws her car keys in a bush. The guy believes that they're in the bush, but she actually still has them on her. So she runs over to the car, the guys over at the bush, and she has just enough time to jump in the car and take off with all three of the kids who were lying in the back and had been shot. Then she says she starts driving wildly like a lunatic to the hospital.

But that's actually not the case. Diane drove really slow, actually. Finally, Diane gets to the hospital, and by the time she gets there, Cheryl is unfortunately already dead. The others were in horrible condition. Christy had been shot twice in the chest, and Danny had been shot in the back.

Danny could barely even move and both of them were barely alive at this point. Diane's injury was of course the least serious injury. She had just been shot in her arm, conveniently. The bullet shattered her radius and it exited in two different places and Diane said it was a horrible injury for her. So clearly the whole hospital staff was just shocked to see this woman pull up with these children all shot. It was a terrible, terrible scene.

And they expected the mother of these children after working on them to be just devastated when they interviewed her, when they tried to figure out what happened. But when they started talking to Diane, they were shocked that she had no emotion whatsoever. She did not seem upset at all that her kids were clinging to life and that one was dead. She was completely emotionally flat with the police and the doctors.

I'm just kidding. God, do what's best. You know, if they gotta die, let them die, but don't let them suffer.

Another thing they noticed is that Diane had a towel wrapped around her own wound when she arrived at the hospital, but she had not attempted to wrap any type of towel or clothing items around her children's wounds. Also, the backseat of her car was completely covered in blood, but none of it was on Diane. And one thing that was very odd to them is that Diane seemed very concerned about the fact that her car, her new car, had blood on it. And she seemed way more concerned about that.

than the current condition of her children. And when she was told that Cheryl was dead, she accepted it right away. In fact, she seemed relieved. Of course, normally when a parent is informed that their child is dead, they have a horrible reaction. It's the worst moment of their lives, but Diane didn't even seem to be fazed by this at all. Then they told her that Danny was hit in the spine and was paralyzed, and her response wasn't any type of concern. It was shock.

that he wasn't hit in the heart. So the people at the hospital definitely knew something was up right away. I mean, Diane was acting completely bizarre. - And to my complete surprise, Diane was non-emotional, not a tear in her eye.

And then she says, "That really ruined my new car. I got blood all over the back of it." I've never seen a reaction like that at all. She called Robert right away from the hospital, but she didn't even try to call Steve or Danny's father. And of course, a lot of these details were not made public at first, so most people felt really bad for Diane. They were horrified to hear about this child killer.

out on the loose. People felt like this guy could strike at any time. People were scared to bring their kids out, scared to drive alone. A lot of women stopped going out at night at this time, and especially with young children. Danny was only three years old, and these gunshot wounds had left him completely paralyzed. And the fact that Cheryl had died just really scared people.

However, Christy was still alive. She had had a stroke though, so she was in and out of consciousness and unable to communicate at all. So that means the only witness was Diane. And even though the public had a lot of sympathy for Diane at first and felt really bad for her, the police had mixed feelings on her from the start.

But they decided to go out and search the area where she said all of this happened and tried to look for this bushy haired man. They searched the whole area. They even had divers go and search the McKenzie River since it was right next to it.

And all that they found was a few bullet casings on the ground. They had Diane give them an official description of the suspect, but this didn't really lead anywhere. Here's the composite sketch that they came up with. And of course, the media was really interested in this case. It was very unusual and people wanted answers as to what happened that night. So she started giving interviews and Diane started saying some really weird shit. We were just out, I guess, sightseeing, I guess you'd say.

And the kids got tired. They fell asleep in the car. So I decided to just head on home. But I saw a road I hadn't been on before. We like to take back roads. And just went down that road. And there was a guy standing in the road, flagging me down. So I stopped. Everything was done in a matter of five or ten seconds. He swung himself around and fired twice. One caught him in the arm. The other one I went off somewhere. Danny cried the whole way. I could hear him softly just moaning. And Christy was dying.

God, all the blood, all the pain. This man shot my daughter. My first reaction was to snap back to my childhood, to the pain that had happened to me back then, my marriage, my entrapment by society. This man was bigger than me. He was stronger than me. He had more power because he had a gun. And I stood there and I looked at Christy reaching and the blood that just kept gushing out of her mouth. And what do you do?

So the public sympathy for Diane did not last long. People started to quickly question her whole story. It was very suspicious. Why was she on this dark rural road so late at night with three kids in the car? And of course, why would she pull over to help some strange man in the middle of nowhere? And not only that, why did she get out of the car and put herself in that situation? - We were always out on dark roads, light roads, city roads, country roads. I was a single woman.

I had been divorced for a couple of years and quite frankly I got pretty used to driving by myself with the kids. So late at night 9:30, 9:45, 9:50, 10 o'clock at night, the stranger is in the middle of the road and so it didn't even occur to you that maybe I shouldn't stop?

Well, I picked up many hitchhikers before. This man was not a hitchhiker, but I had picked up hitchhikers before and nobody ever shot us before. And quite frankly, nobody had ever been, no strange man had ever treated me or my children in such a way. And I just had no preconceived notion that he might do those things. How did this man know your children were in the car? Because if the children were sleeping and lying down in the back of the car, it's dark on the road, how would he know to reach into the car and shoot three kids?

children separately? Oprah, I can only give you my conclusion as to what I think might have happened, because I don't know. I didn't take the time to ask him how or why. But when he got inside the car, there was a light on inside the car. He could have easily seen the children. If you want an opinion, in my opinion, it is

possible. There were witnesses that saw him out there on the road that night, about 30 people that saw him and all agreed that he looked like he was drugged in some way. Things were definitely not adding up for the public and for the police. So the police tried to understand a little better how the night unfolded and they decided to have Diane actually act

act out what happened. And this to me is one of the scariest clips in true crime, honestly. The way that she acts really freaks me out. Diane looks like she was having fun.

as she is reenacting her kids being murdered. You can even see her kind of primping her hair, getting ready before they started to roll the camera. She's joking around, she's laughing. I mean, most mothers in this situation would barely be able to function and talk, you know, wouldn't even be able to actually reenact something like this. I mean, it would be so traumatizing to kind of relive it all again, but Diane seemed to be having a great old time.

I got him in the car, jumped in, put the keys in. I just hit my cast!

Started the car and left. The car door shut itself. This is worse than me. Okay. I'm sure he didn't intend to shoot my arm. Towards the end of that, you see she bangs her arm and investigators to this day believe that she was gonna say, that was worse than when I shot myself. So even after she reenacts all of this, it doesn't make any more sense to police. I mean, why would this guy believe that you threw your keys and...

You know, it just didn't seem plausible, the whole story. And of course, seeing Diane's mood and behavior in this reenactment, police felt like she definitely did something here. I mean, she is lying for sure. There was a lot of red flags, but they didn't have the evidence that Diane had done it yet.

So Diane continued living her life as normal and started doing some more TV interviews. Diane definitely seemed to like the attention. She was one of those people who just thrives off of it, positive or negative. And in these interviews, she doesn't even try to seem emotional at all. She seems completely unfazed by the whole thing. In fact, she seems more concerned about herself. Sometimes she even had a disgusting like

smirk when she was speaking as if she was kind of getting off on what she was saying and reliving it in her head when he swung around he was pointing when he swung around it hit the tips of my fingers the gun hit the tips of my fingers and that snapped me and I went wait a minute I'm not trapped by society I don't care if he is bigger if I stand here and I say yeah here take the keys I mean there's nothing I can do you win because you have the gun my kids are gonna die

and I'm not gonna let my kids die. And so instead of giving him the keys, I feigned throwing the keys. - Diane explained that the whole ordeal only took like five to 10 seconds,

which is a pretty short amount of time for someone to kill three children. But of course it's possible. She said the man had actually shot at her twice. She'd only been hit once in the arm, but one of them he just missed. And then he walked over and shot all three kids. So that's quite a lot to happen in that short of a time. And hearing her say that the whole thing was so short made even more people question her story. And people started to be more vocal about this. And Diane did not like the criticism.

In one interview, she sounds just irritated that people are asking any questions.

So then one day, Diane decides to go and visit her daughter, Christy, in the hospital. Her vitals were stable at this point, but she was still unable to communicate verbally. But

But when Diane walked in the room, her heart rate spiked. The medical staff instantly knew that she was afraid of her mom. So they reported this to detectives who took note of it. And as far as what the police knew at this point from what Diane had told them, she had hopped right in the car after tricking this guy and drove straight to the hospital as fast as she can. That she drove like a lunatic.

But in reality, like I mentioned, she was driving really slow. And the police actually found out about this by interviewing a witness who was driving behind Diane on the way to the hospital. And this guy that was driving behind her said that she was driving so slow and seemed to be purposely going slow to like piss him off.

And he ended up having to just drive around her. And then it came out that police had actually searched Diane's car and they found blood on her passenger side door, which does not make sense with her story. She said that this man had shot her kids on the driver's side of the car. No one was ever on the passenger side. So how did this blood get there? The victims had been shot with 22 caliber bullets, but Diane denied even owning a handgun.

However, the police had talked to Steve and he confirmed that Diane did own a handgun. And when police searched her house, they found a rifle and bullet cartridges that had been tampered with. And these bullet cartridges had been ejected from another weapon. The extraction marks on the bullets were unique though. And they matched the casings that were found at the crime scene. But they also confiscated Diane's diaries.

And they read several entries about that guy, Robert, that Diane was really obsessed with, the guy who broke her heart. And they also found several letters that were addressed to him. She wrote things like, I still think of you as my best friend and my only lover. You keep telling me to go away and find somebody else. You have got to be kidding. In her diary entries, she talks about how Robert didn't want to have kids and how sad it was making her.

She also wrote some poems about him. One of them said, I love you more than could your wife. Yet it's brought sorrow to my life. I just keep hoping and hanging on. How much longer can I be strong? And in the diary entry, she talked a lot about how Robert didn't want to have kids and how she was sad about it.

So they started to feel like maybe it was possible that Diane got rid of her kids because she felt like they were holding her back from finding love or that maybe she could be with Robert if she didn't have the kids. And of course, during this whole time, Diane continues to blab on to the media. She's doing interviews and eating up all the attention, but public support is really starting to shift.

He said then that he was afraid because he believed that you had shot your children because of him. Yeah.

People could tell that there was something off about her.

I mean, the way she talked, her lack of emotion, lack of empathy. At one point, she even insisted that Danny wasn't really paralyzed. Danny's going to walk again. I don't care if we just have to will him to walk. I think he's going to walk. The doctors all say he won't. And I know that your mind controls your body. And if I can love him enough and encourage him enough, I believe he'll walk.

And she seemed oblivious to what was actually going on. She seemed so dead set in her story and convinced herself that other people were convinced by her. She really thought that everyone was believing everything that she said. Eventually, after finding some more evidence, detectives brought Diane back in for some more questioning. They did a two-hour interrogation with her, and during this time, Diane changed her story several times.

Diane's one of those people who lies so much that she can't keep track of her lies and they start to get twisted. At first, she started telling them that there were actually two attackers and that one of them at least knew her by name and knew about her tattoo.

Then she starts claiming that she knew the person who shot her and she just wasn't saying who it was for some reason. And when police pushed her to try to get a name out of her, she got really mad and ended up storming out of the room.

Come on, Diane. It's your turn at bat. Since you guys seem to think that I should have brought Diane with me, I will get it myself. Because I know who did it. You do know who did it? Yes, I do. I damn sure do. You know him by name? Yes, I do. You saw him shoot your kid? Yep. That's pretty important. And I saw him grab my arm and yank my arm out and shoot my arm and say, now try to get away with it.

And I'm leaving because I know who did it. Bye. The time is now 17:46 and Diane has just departed the office. By this time, people were completely over Diane. I mean, no one was really believing her and people wanted her to be held accountable.

People were really calling for her arrest and the police wanted to arrest her too, but they needed a little bit more evidence. And the one thing that they wanted to do was talk to Christy, but she was still unable to talk. However, she was on the path to recovery and they felt like if they waited a little while that eventually they would be able to talk to her.

Now they knew that Christy had to be extremely emotionally traumatized after being in that car ride and seeing her siblings get shot, potentially by her own mother. So they knew they had to just go about this really slow. They didn't want her to be scared and question her own memory of what happened that night or feel like she needed to defend and protect her mom in any way, so they decided it was best that she start by working with a therapist.

So she did. She started seeing a therapist and eventually this therapist really started to gain her trust. And the therapist starts having her write down the name of who hurt her that night and then throw it into a fire. And hopefully one day she won't want to burn it was the idea. She did this over and over again and eventually she was comfortable enough to let the therapist read the piece of paper.

And on the piece of paper that she gave her therapist, she wrote down, "My mom." At this point, it was clear to everyone that the shooter was Diane Downs. So nine months after the shooting took place, Diane was arrested on February 28th, 1984. Of course, once the arrest happened, media coverage totally blew up and she was back in the spotlight again.

And Diane seemed to really enjoy the renewed media attention. Diane was said to be flirting a lot with the officers and the guards, and she would smile for cameras. Like, none of it really mattered to her. She acted so lighthearted about it all.

She didn't seem to have any guilt. Diane was charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder and criminal assault. And by the time the trial started on May 10th, 1984, Diane was noticeably pregnant. Yep, that's right. Diane was pregnant once again. There's a clip of her walking into the courtroom, showing off her pregnant belly and smiling as if she's very proud of herself.

for getting pregnant once again. Later on, they interviewed her and she said that the reason she got pregnant again is because she missed her children and she was lonely. Once again, it was clear that Diane was using pregnancy to get something that she wanted. And this time it was sympathy. Maybe Diane thought she would get better treatment in jail or have a better outcome on her case if she was pregnant. You know, maybe she thought that the jury would be emotional about sending an expecting mother to prison. I

I was extremely lonely. I miss my kids desperately. I had just seen Christy on the 2nd of October. It's like opening a wound and pouring salt in. I was extremely lonely, beyond belief and beyond explanation. And on October 13th...

just went and got pregnant because I was so lonely I love my children I miss my children and I know that sounds simplistic it really does and I have to admit that and that's why I say there's so much more feeling inside that I can give in two minutes I got pregnant because I miss Christy and I miss Danny and I miss Cheryl so much I'm never gonna see Cheryl on earth again and I just you can't replace children but

But you can replace the effect that they give you. And they give me love, they give me satisfaction, they give me stability. They give me a reason to live and a reason to be happy. And that's gone. They took it from me. But children are so easy to conceive.

And going into trial, Diane seemed very confident that she was going to get away with this. I mean, Diane's confidence really never slipped. And the way that she was acting in the courtroom was just as bizarre as her media interviews. To really paint a picture in the jury's mind, the prosecution played Hungry Like the Wolf in the courtroom.

And Diane was dancing to it, like tapping her feet, having a good old time. They also played her interrogation tapes and while she was watching them, she still had absolutely no emotion. The prosecution also brought in a model of her car and they use dolls in the car to demonstrate how Diane would have killed her children. And this was very effective in court because it really helped the jury.

see how this would have happened and understand how the blood would have gotten on the passenger side door. And it really painted a picture for them of how injured the kids were and how heartless Diane had to be to drive slowly to the hospital. I mean, it was obvious that she thought the longer that she took

the less of a chance the kids would have of surviving. They brought in a mock-up of the car and Fred Hugie got a gun and he was reenacting the crime. And when he was

going through the motions of firing the gun at the Christy doll and at the Cheryl doll and at the Danny doll, he couldn't shoot the Danny doll because the Danny doll was back here. And he raised up and he looked at me and I went like this and he went, his face, he had a look of incredulation on his face and his mouth started to open and

And I nodded my head yes, and he had to switch the gun to the left hand. A right-handed person could not have shot the Danny doll. They also made the very difficult decision to have Christy actually testify, but it was vitally important. They were worried that Christy may not be able to handle it, you know, testifying with her mother in the room against her, that maybe she would be just too unkind.

emotionally traumatized to even talk about it in front of people. Christie was only nine years old. She had survived a horrific incident and they just had no idea how she would handle all of that pressure, but she did a really good job. She told the court that she remembered her mom stopping the car, getting out and going back to the trunk to get something out. She said that Cheryl was in the front seat and that her and Danny were in the back. And then Diane came around the car with something in her hand. And she recalled her mother

leaning into the car and shooting Cheryl first at point blank range. And Christie was watching all of this. Then she leaned over the back seat and shot Danny and then reached over and shot her as well. Then she said she watched Diane shoot herself, wrap a towel around her arm and

get back in the car and start driving slowly towards the hospital. Now there's no video of this testimony, but according to everyone that was there, it was extremely emotional listening to Christy describe all of this happened. And then she was cross-examined and a defense attorney actually tried to get her to admit that someone coached her into saying all of this, but she stayed strong and said that her mom shot her.

and her siblings. So then Diane gets up there and testified as well and claimed that she was innocent. She tried to deny everything, but then she also blamed a lot of her behavior on her multiple affairs, her obsession with Robert and on her abusive childhood as well. In fact, she accused her father in court of molesting her when she was about 12 years old. The defense also tried to argue that the bullet casings that were found on the ground were placed there by police in order to frame Diane.

But clearly that's not true. They also tried to argue that she was manipulated by detectives when she was being interviewed.

Anyone who listens to the interview can tell that that's not true either. Luckily, the jury was not buying any of this. They knew that Diane was guilty. There are nine women on the jury and three men, and they ended up deliberating for over 36 hours trying to come to a conclusion. But after all that, luckily, the verdict was unanimous. Diane was guilty. What is the matter?

After she was found guilty, Diane still tried to convince people that she was innocent. In fact, she still tries to claim that she's innocent to this day. I wouldn't walk in there and say, this weird person came up out of nowhere and shot us for no reason and just left. I mean, that's not a believable story. If I had done this, I could have come up with a believable story. It really happened. I could smell the blood. I could smell the gunpowder. I could...

It was just a really, really horrible feeling. But before she was even sentenced, 10 days before she was supposed to be sentenced, she gave birth to a baby girl who was named Amy Elizabeth. Of course, she only saw this baby once before she was taken away from her. And she was adopted and renamed Rebecca, nicknamed Becky.

Around this time, Diane was also examined by psychiatrists and she was diagnosed with being narcissistic and had antisocial personality disorders. Luckily, Diane Downs ended up being sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years and she wouldn't even be given the chance for a possible parole for 25 years after that, but

very unlikely that she would ever get parole. Her father, Wes, denied her accusations of the sexual abuse and Diane later admitted that she just made it all up. But even after all these false allegations were made against him, he continued to support his daughter and believe that she was innocent. He passed away in 2017, but up until

until he died he believed that Diane was in prison for something she didn't do so then in July of 1987 Diane decided to try and escape prison she was out in the exercise yard getting some fresh air when she decided to execute her plan she climbed a 16-foot fence somehow used her jacket to get over the top and

and actually escape. She hid underneath a car outside of the jail and then when it was clear, she just ran. And Diane is considered to be a very dangerous person so a massive manhunt for her started. The story was reported on the news in multiple states and they had searches across multiple states to make sure that Diane was found. People were really worried at the time that she could possibly go after Christy.

Detectives searched the cell phone that she had in jail with her. Yeah, she had a cell phone. And they didn't find any clues about where she possibly could have gone, any details about her escape. All they found was a clipboard with a piece of blank paper on it. But they noticed that there were indentations in the paper.

clearly another piece was pulled off the top. So they did that classic trick where you sketch over the bottom piece and you can see what was written on the paper that was before it. And there was actually a drawing with a map

and an address, 2262 State Street, which is just a few blocks from the prison. And this address ended up being her former cellmate's husband. So they went there and it turns out Diane had been hiding there the entire time with this girl's husband.

And she had managed to stay there for 11 days before they finally brought her back to the prison. And because of her attempted escape, they tacked on an extra five years to her sentence. After this, Diane was transferred to a maximum security prison in New Jersey and was denied parole multiple times while she was there. And by this point, she was looking pretty rough.

So now that Diane was back in prison, hopefully Danny and Christie could move on with their lives after being through so much trauma. But luckily they were both alive. Her youngest daughter, who is now named Becky and had been adopted, was living a really good childhood, thankfully, away from Diane and had no idea that Diane existed or anything about her biological mother.

But as she got older, she started to have suspicions that there was a reason that her parents didn't want her to know who her biological mother was. And when Becky was 11 years old, she came up with a plan to trick a babysitter into telling her who her mother was. Basically, she pretended to know who it was when she really didn't.

and the babysitter just said it. Then she found the book "Small Sacrifices" by Anne Ruhle at a local bookstore. And this is the most famous book that's been written on Diane Downs. Anne Ruhle is a very famous author, but finding this book was absolutely shocking to her. Finding out who her mother really was

scared her so much. Finding out that her biological mother attempted to kill her other siblings was devastating to her. Becky was so upset at the time that she just left the bookstore and tried to kind of forget about it all. Then she was hanging out with one of her boyfriends and she watched a mini series on Diane Downs. And something about that just really got to her. It just really made it all sink in.

and she was devastated by the time she left his house. Becky felt totally lost. I mean, she was scared that she had come from this woman, scared that she could have ended up with her. - A part of me was afraid that that's where I came from. Does that mean where I'm going?

And with all the stress, she ended up turning to drugs. She dropped out of school and she ran away from her parents' house. At this point, her life just spun out of control and she was severely traumatized for years after finding out who her mother really was. Becky got pregnant young, just like her mother, when she was 17 and her child was taken away from her right away. She got pregnant again at 21 and at this time she was living in a homeless shelter.

And she made the decision to put this baby up for adoption. After that, she wanted to reach out to Diane. And so she ended up writing her letters in prison. And surprisingly, Diane actually got back to her and she had seen pictures of her. And the first thing that she said to her in the letters was, wow, you look just like me.

Don't you hate that chin we have? In the beginning of the letter, she was talking about how Becky was beautiful and it was great to hear from her, blah, blah, blah. But as it continued, she started accusing Becky of being involved in a mass conspiracy against her. She accused Becky of being a spy. So Becky decided that it was time to stop talking to Diane.

After some time and some self-healing, Becky came to the conclusion that just because she was biologically related to Diane, it didn't mean that she had to be anything like her. She worked really hard and ended up getting her life together and was a really great mom to her son Chris after all.

She got a degree in psychology and ended up working as a behavioral health coordinator for children. And there was also somewhat of a happy ending for Diane's other two children, Christy and Danny. They were actually both adopted by one of the prosecutors in this case, Fred Hugie, and his wife, Joanne. Danny tragically was paralyzed from the waist down.

because of his injuries. And Christie also has a speech impediment. But they were adopted by great people and they made sure that they had all the resources that they could to heal and process everything that they had been through. - He adopted my children and according to Christie never said a bad word against me, ever. That was out of Christie's mouth.

Fred Hugie, in all the time that he raised her, never spoke ill of me. I believe that Fred Hugie knows that there is a man out there that was hunting my children. And it wasn't until after Christy told her schoolmates, she drew pictures in school, and she said, this is the man who shot us.

I didn't, I lied in court because they wanted me to say this and they wouldn't leave me alone. Dr. Peters, she said, Dr. Peterson kept pressuring me and he wouldn't leave me alone. They now live a very quiet and peaceful life with their families and they stay out of the media. Diane is currently in the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California. And in 2020, she actually got COVID and had

pretty bad symptoms but she said she worked really hard through it she actually said i dragged myself to work on the 11th and 12th of march exhausted and fuzzy in the brain dry cough headache sinuses clogged with very thick mucus i showered and slept for four hours woke up and drank water and then went back to sleep for 16 more hours

When I see what others have suffered, I think my boss probably saved my life." She also spoke about her children and said, "Every time the world news shows big red circles on the national map, I look at Oregon because that's where Christy and Daniel are." Compared to other states, it appears that Oregon's red circle is smaller than most places. "Is Oregon relatively virus-free, or are my children in greater danger than the red circle size suggests? I still worry about them and love them, though they will never know it."

So clearly Diane is still in complete denial and she probably will never show any type of remorse for what she did to her children that night. You remember now pretending to throw the keys?

Yes, I do. And that was after he turned back towards me. And kicking him and managing to jump in the car and race to the hospital. Yes, Ann. And as a matter of fact, you didn't mention the fact that my arm was so absolutely contorted after the shooting. It was twisted and shoved back two inches, twisted at a 90 degree angle, which...

proves that there was a struggle and there's also blood on the driver's seat which is evidence of the fact that I jumped in the car and my arm fell against the seat helplessly as I stated. But there was no blood at all in the driver part and your arm when you got to the hospital was completely wrapped in a triangle bandage made out of a towel. Oh geez, oh geez, Ann, you're comical. You are so far-fetched. I'm serious.

There was a towel wrapped around my arm. Yes, there absolutely was. And I don't know how it got there any more than you know how it got there. I think Diane should definitely be up there with some of the most evil women of all time. I mean, she is cold to the core. Like, she has no ounce of empathy in her soul at all.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.