Diane Downs - Part 2

WEBVTT

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Hi, I'm Tina, and I'm
rich. And if there's one thing we've

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learned in over twenty years of marriage, it's that some days you'll feel like

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killing your wife, and some days
you'll feel like killing your husband. Welcome

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to Love Mary Kill. I've got
that opening down now. I don't need

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to look at a script or anything
the same. So you take it a

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year and a half and we're good. How are you I'm great. I'm

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looking forward to hearing the rest of
this case. How are you doing?

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I'm great. I'm excited to finish
it up. I think it's going to

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be one part, but it's possible
it's going to extend into three parts.

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I have the feeling we have a
lot left to talk about. We have

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a lot left to talk about,
for sure. So we're matching today.

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We're wearing the same shirt we'd like
to match on Saturday. Saturday morning,

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we wake up and say, hey, what should we wear today? Yeah,

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but today we're wearing your love Mary
Kill sweatshirts. Yeah. It's really

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nice a lot. If anyone is
interested in owning a Love Mary Kill T

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shirt or sweatshirt, it wouldn't be
the ones that we had made. I

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think they're I think they're really nice. If I have enough people message me,

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we will do another run. Our
printer reached out and asked if we

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wanted to do another run, and
my instinct is to say no, but

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if enough people want what we would
do it again. I did bring a

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snack for you. It's not as
amazing as the skillet cookie. You could

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have just brought that again. Really
well, course I could have. Well,

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it's not homemade, but it is
a slice of blueberry lemon loa from

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Costco. I'm always curious as a
consumer when I go to Costco, hm

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is that good or not? So
it is good. I can tell you

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because I had a piece already this
morning for breakfast. You had it.

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I did, Yeah, okay,
I like it. You probably don't want

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another piece. Then you never know. You can put it down. I

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might, I might eat it and
very for a while. And I also

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brought you a kara kara. I
don't know if it's kara kara Kara kara

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orange. They're delicious, They're really
good. It's definitely at the end of

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the season. We've had these for
a couple of years now, and they're

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the best oranges I've ever had.
They're really pretty inside. It's kind of

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like a really uh I don't know
what would you describe that color of pinkish

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orange. I mean they're almost red, like they're very dark deep orange inside.

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I would say, yeah, I
love them. Yeah, they're really

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good, and I think, like
I said, they're almost done for the

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season. But if you haven't had
one and they're available in your area,

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definitely try it. So you're not
gonna eat the you just do you want

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to just describe the blueberry lemon loaf. It is very it's got a little

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bit of a hint of lemon in
it, and it's very light, and

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it's delicious. Really, it's I
don't know how to describe it other than

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it's really good. I don't love
it. There's not enough blueberries in it.

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There could be more blueberries. It
definitely could be more blueberries. I

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would prefer Cosco's blueberry muffin to the
blueberry lemon loaf. I think it's fine,

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but it's not anything to be excited
about. In my opinion. I

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like it good. Let's take a
quick break. I am going to have

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a little bit of the orange and
we'll be right back. Well, we've

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established that it's hard to eat an
orange without looking like a savage. Well,

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it's the way I cut them,
though. I don't like to peel

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an orange. I like to cut
the orange. Yeah, it was good

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though, thanks to the sack.
You're welcome. Do you want to summarize

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us? Sure, we're talking.
We should say first, if you haven't

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listened apart one, go listen to
part one. Yeah, we're talking about

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the story of Diane Downs. I
just want to say, Debbie Downs,

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do you know why why? There
was a Saturday Night Live skit Debbie Downer.

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It was one of the funniest sketches
ever on Saturday Night Live, And

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so I have Debbie Downer in my
head. I vaguely remember that who played

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Debbie down Rachel Dratch. It was
one of those where the cast members would

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always crack up because it was just
so funny. Nobody could nobody could keep

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a straight face. So how are
you gonna anyway place that in the episode?

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I'm sure I could a little clip
in, Hey, who wants to

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go on Space Mountain with me?
I want to see the country bear Jambourine.

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I want to go to every country
in Epcot and greet them in their

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own native language. Oh lay too
high? Did you guys hear about that

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train explosion? In northern media is
so sensitive there, so secretive that they

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may they may never know how many
people perished. Right digress, So this

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story is not about Debbie Downer.
It's about Diane Downs. On May nineteenth,

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nineteen eighty three, Diane Downs and
her three children, Christy, Cheryl,

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and Danny, who are eight,
seven, and three, respectively,

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were shot on a rural road outside
of Springfield, Oregon. Cheryl died from

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her injuries. Christy and Danny were
gravely injured, and Diane suffered non life

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threatening wounds to her left arm.
She said that a bushy haired stranger had

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shot them. A manhunt came up
empty for the shooter, and the police

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quickly grew suspicious of Diane, partly
because of her lack of emotion. Diane

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was divorced from the children's father,
Steve Downs, and she had recently relocated

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from Chandler, Arizona, to Springfield, Oregon. She had a history of

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messy affairs and entanglements, most recently
with a married man named Nick Knickerbucker.

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Diane and Nick met at the post
office where they worked Nick had been in

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love with Diane, but was adamant
that he had no interest in being a

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father. While you did great summarizing
that off the top of her head,

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it's almost so amazing. I wrote
you a little summary because I appreciate that.

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Thank you. You're welcome. Fred, huge assistant DA and his wife

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Joanne, a professor at the University
of Oregon, had no children by choice.

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It's not that they didn't like children, they were both deeply immersed in

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their professional careers and had chosen to
remain childless. In the hours after the

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shooting, Fred went to the hospital
to check on the children. Christy and

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Danny shared a room. They were
both covered in tubes and wires, barely

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clinging to life. No family member
was present to watch over them. Their

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grandparents flitted in and out of the
room a few times, but they had

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social obligations to keep and they preferred
not to cancel them. Diane was a

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patient in the hospital as well,
but she hadn't yet visited them. Fred

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pulled up a chair and sat between
Christy and Danny. A feeling of love

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washed over him for the children.
He spent the night and several after watching

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after the children to protect them.
It became his mission to find whoever murdered

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their sister and nearly killed them.
He wanted to be sure they never suffered

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again. Fred knew that Danny was
too small to communicate what had transpired the

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night of the shooting, but eight
year old Christie might have seen something and

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have been able to identify the shooter. Fred didn't want to scare or traumatize

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the children further. He called his
friend Paula Krogdall, who worked for the

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Oregon State Children's Services Division. She
was good with children, and Fred thought

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she might be able to talk to
Christie. But suddenly she began having seizures,

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and then tragically, she suffered a
stroke which left her speechless. Doctors

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were perplexed as to what caused the
stroke and were uncertain if she would regain

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the ability to speak. Only time
would tell. Christie's right hand was paralyzed

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in the shooting and the left was
heavily bandaged. She was alert and observant.

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However, Fred huge was sure she
was aware of what was going on,

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even if she couldn't yet communicate.
That's really sad and the kids were

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really in bad shape. Within twenty
four hours the media caught hold of the

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story of the young mother and her
three children being attacked on the rural road.

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Diane's hospital room overflowed with cards and
flowers. The one person she most

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wanted to receive flowers from, Nick, didn't send any. The few friends

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Diane had made since her short time
in Oregon and her coworkers leapt to her

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defense, calling her devoted mother and
hard ambitious worker. Residents of Springfield and

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surrounding areas were panicked and wouldn't let
their children play outside for fear of a

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madman on the loose. The public
sympathy for Diane Downs, however, was

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short lived. After the first forty
eight hours, investigators began to question the

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veracity of Diane's story. Two detectives
traveled to Chandler, Arizona, to interview

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Nick Knickerbocker and his wife, Charlene. They started to refer to the gunmen

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as BHS or bushy haired stranger.
The story just didn't add up. Why

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didn't he just kill Diane if he
wanted the car the children were sleeping in

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the car. Would the BHS even
be able to see the small children in

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the near dark to shoot them?
But Diane did later tell Oprah that the

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dome light was on and that's how
he could see into the card shore to

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the children. The DA told the
media that quote, the search for the

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bearded stranger is not high on the
priority list, end quote, implying Diane

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was already the number one suspect.
There were small inconsistencies each time Diane told

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the story. First she had told
Judy, the er receptionist, that the

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stranger had leaned his body into the
car to shoot the children, but later

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she told detectives that his arm was
outside the car when he shot the children.

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Sometimes she said that the killer had
been standing in the road, and

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other times he jogged up to the
car. They were small inconsistencies, but

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enough that the police were suspicious.
Sometimes Diane remembered that her children were awake

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and laughing before the incident, and
sometimes they were asleep. Months later,

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Diane would claim that there were two
men in ski masks, and the man

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had said her name and knew her
identity. She was all over the place.

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Law enforcement thought about having the doctors
extend Diane's hospital state to keep tabs

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up on her, but they hoped
after her release, she might lead them

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to evidence, specifically the gun.
Remember, the gun was not found and

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they didn't have much evidence, so
the gun was super important. For sure.

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They were nervous for her to have
her freedom, but planned on watching

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her every move. Four days after
the shooting, on May twenty third,

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the police held a reenactment of the
shooting with Diane. She was talkative,

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giggly, flirty, and making jokes. She didn't appear at all like a

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woman who had just lost a child. Diane made an offhanded comment to one

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officer, quote, Cheryl's better off. You know, I feel almost guilty

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because I'm happy for Cheryl, because
she's probably in heaven and horrible. Police

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gave Diane a tape recorder to record
voice memos in case she remembered any details.

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She said the following into the recorder
after her release from the hospital quote.

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When I left the hospital, I
was scared. God, I'd go

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to that front door and wheelchair.
I wanted to just grab the wheels and

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stop the chair. I was terrified. I didn't know if he was waiting

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outside ready to get rid of me, Afraid that I said something. Oh,

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I went outside and I had this
sick feeling. It's just a cold

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sweat, sick, feeling fear,
and I got in the car and I

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went home. All those flowers.
You wouldn't believe all the flowers we brought

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home today. Goodness gracious. I
need to write thank you cards to everybody.

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Anyway, when we got home,
my mom brought all the flowers in.

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I brought in what I could.
But I don't know. I just

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I don't feel I feel dead.
I feel like I'm not here. I

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found a heart. Cheryl made a
heart, cut a little piece of paper

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out and wrote I love you mom
on it end quote. So here she's

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focusing on like these flowers, and
she just likes the attention and adulation that

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people are putting on her. Yeah. Diane moved in with her parents after

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she left the hospital, which she
really didn't want to do because she hated

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her father. Diane spent her days
visiting Danny and Christy in the hospital.

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An investigator with the DA's office,
Paul Alton, witnessed Diane visiting Christy for

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the first time. Christie's eyes widened
in fear. Diane held her hand and

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repeatedly told her that she loved her. Paul noted that Christie's heart rate monitor

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rose from eighty beats permitted to one
hundred and forty seven beats per minuted,

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and he thought he observed a menacing
look on Diane's face each time Diane visited

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Christie's heart rate sword. The children
were both improving each day, but had

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long roads ahead of them. The
shooting left them both with lifelong health complications.

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I hope someone was protecting Christie because
I would be worried that Diane would

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look to do something to her to
keep her from talking. There was an

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arm guard outside of the room for
a little bit, and Fred Huge went

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as much as he could, and
he watched over the children too. The

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location of the bullet in Danny's back
so close to his spinal column eight doctors

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nervous. He didn't have feeling in
his lower extremities. He was transferred to

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Sacred Heart Hospital and Eugene for surgery. The surgery wasn't successful. Danny was

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left with no feeling below his chest
and had little hope for improvement. Christy

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had cheated death and her covery was
impressive. She was intubated and unable to

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talk, but her eyes were very
expressive, so they knew that she was

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going to be okay, and they
hoped she was going to be okay.

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Wes Frederickson, Diane's father, called
Stephen Downs the day after the shooting.

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He happened to be on a date. The woman dropped him off at the

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airport so he could catch the next
flight to Oregon. When Steve Downs arrived

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in Oregon, he went right to
the hospital to see his children. He

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wasn't Father of the Year, but
he loved his kids. He was shocked

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and devastated by the loss of Cheryl
and the state of Danny and Christie.

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He couldn't imagine anyone wanting to harm
his children. He was interviewed by the

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police. He told them that he
was an electrician and owned his own business

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in Chandler. Since Diane and his
children moved to Oregon, Steve had talked

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to them about once a week.
He told investigators that he and Diane were

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on good terms and he considered her
a friend. When asked what weapons Diane

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owned, he said, quote,
Diane's got three guns, a twenty two

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rifle, a thirty eight revolver,
and a twenty two Ruger Mark four nine

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shot semi automatic pistol. Steve knew
about Nick. He told police that Diane

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had returned to Chandler recently to visit
Nick and had stayed at Steve's house.

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He wasn't a fan of Nick,
he knew he was married and thought that

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he was leading Diane on. Steve
slept in a chair between his children's hospital

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beds. Die Fred Hughgy was pressured
to have Diane arrested. He knew he

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didn't have enough evidence, though Diane
had the upper hand for the moment.

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Cheryl was laid to rest on May
twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three. The

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funeral was packed with sympathetic strangers,
friends, and family, all shocked and

206
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heartbroken that a ruthless man had killed
an innocent child. Diane placed a single

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red rose on Cheryl's coffin. A
grand jury was convened about three weeks after

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the shooting. Diane was subpoenaed to
testify and take a lie detector test.

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She refused to meet with the grand
jury and would continue to do so for

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months. The case was moving much
slower than the state wanted. Eventually,

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all of Diane's family members were called
to testify. Some of them thought she

212
00:15:30.600 --> 00:15:33.679
was guilty, including her sister and
father, who later changed his mind and

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00:15:33.759 --> 00:15:39.559
declared her innocent. By early June, Christie began to regain speech. Diane

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stuck close to her side. She
saw both children every day. Danny was

215
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doing well, but remained paralyzed from
the chest down. He was a sweet,

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smart boy. The entire hospital staff
had fallen in love with him.

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He was confused. He didn't understand
why he couldn't move. Police tried to

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question him, but he really hadn't
processed what had happened and who had hurt

219
00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:06.039
him. He said things like,
quote, I can't stand up because my

220
00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:10.720
mommy ran me over with the car
unquote. Diane was sure he would walk

221
00:16:10.759 --> 00:16:15.120
again with her love and support.
She refused to believe the doctors. Isn't

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that the saddest that to think of
a three year old in the hospital unable

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00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:22.759
to move? Yes, so sad, Yeah, no idea, what's going

224
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on? I'm sure. Diane had
an operation on her damaged arm. A

225
00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:32.039
bone graft was taken from her hip
and a plate was inserted over her shattered

226
00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:36.759
left radius bone. The surgery required
Diane to stay in the hospital for four

227
00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:41.720
days. During this time, the
state removed Christy and Danny from her custody

228
00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:45.799
and gave temporary custody to the doctors
who were overseeing the children's care, allowing

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them to make the best medical decision
on their behalf without fear of retribution from

230
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Diane. On June sixth, there
was a hearing for Diane to regain custody

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00:16:55.919 --> 00:17:00.799
of Christie and Danny. She lost, but loved all the attention media showered

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upon her. To the public,
this pretty young mother with her arms still

233
00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:08.079
in a cast looked like an injured
bird. She still had their support.

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00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:12.359
The public was torn. Some people
believed in her innocence, but there were

235
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some people that were like, oh, no, she was guilty. In

236
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nineteen eighty three, cases of moms
murdering or harming their children weren't as pervasive

237
00:17:22.519 --> 00:17:26.599
in the media. Do you remember
Susan Smith who killed her two boys in

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a car for a man, And
Andrea Yates who had a psychotic break she

239
00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:36.119
killed her five young children. Yeah. In nineteen eighty three, I think

240
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people were more apt to believe that
a bushy haired stranger attacked them than the

241
00:17:41.599 --> 00:17:45.039
mother. Well, because there was
also this stranger danger thing like in the

242
00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:52.319
seventies and eighties, where people were
freaked out about strangers abducting children and killing

243
00:17:52.359 --> 00:17:55.799
them and things like that. So
yeah, I could see that. To

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00:17:55.880 --> 00:18:00.680
make a strong case, prosecutors understood
the importance of the timeline. They needed

245
00:18:00.680 --> 00:18:03.839
to show that Diane had time to
shoot the children and dispose of the gun

246
00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:08.279
before she arrived at the hospital.
On the evening of May nineteenth, Diana

247
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and the three children drove out to
her friend Heather's house to see her horse.

248
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Heather was fairly certain they had left
her house at nine forty five pm.

249
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:22.799
Diane got to the ear at ten
thirty pm. That left a forty

250
00:18:22.799 --> 00:18:26.440
five minute window. From Heather's house
to the ear was twelve and a half

251
00:18:26.519 --> 00:18:33.000
miles. A man named Joseph Inman
was driving on Old Mohawk Road late on

252
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the evening of May nineteenth, around
ten fifteen. He recalled that he had

253
00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:40.880
to slow down to a crawl when
he got behind a small red car with

254
00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:45.880
Arizona license plates. The car,
he estimated was driving between five and seven

255
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:48.920
miles per hour. Remember, earlier, Diane said that she had driven like

256
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:53.440
a lunatic to get to the hospital. He drove behind the red car he

257
00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:57.640
thought was a Nissan or a Toyota
for two to three miles, he couldn't

258
00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:03.400
pass because Old Mohawk rode as curvy. When he finally reached it straightaway he

259
00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:07.200
passed. He didn't recall the car
driving erratically and he couldn't see who was

260
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driving. Interesting, if Joseph Inman
would have happened upon the scene a minute

261
00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:17.359
or two earlier, he would have
seen the shooting. Yeah, that's a

262
00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:21.480
good point, And I was thinking
back to in part one you talked about

263
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when they came into the er.
Somebody noted that the blood had coagulated like

264
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more than you would have thought it
would if you know they had been just

265
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shot a few minutes earlier. So
it seems like Diane was not in a

266
00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:40.400
rush to get to the hospital.
It's unbelievable that she took this time.

267
00:19:40.519 --> 00:19:44.240
And remember that her wound, she
took the time to wrap it, and

268
00:19:44.279 --> 00:19:48.000
the nurse, not the nurse,
but Judy, the er receptionist, noted

269
00:19:48.039 --> 00:19:52.680
that the towel was kind of folded
neatly and placed on her arm carefully,

270
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and the kid's wounds weren't attended to
at all. Diane did need to stop

271
00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:00.559
her wound from bleeding, but it
just seemed like she took a lot of

272
00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:03.720
care in protecting her own wound,
and not so much for her children.

273
00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:08.839
Here, Diane began holding press conferences
to air her grievances against the police and

274
00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:14.480
the district attorney. She gave dozens
of interviews to reporters and would call a

275
00:20:14.519 --> 00:20:18.880
press conference anytime she wanted and the
media would show up. She said quote,

276
00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:23.279
If I'm guilty, why don't they
arrest me? Diane remained the number

277
00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:26.960
one suspect. The public wasn't sure
of her guilt or innocence, but they

278
00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:32.599
were captivated by her. It was
clear that as confident and comfortable as Diane

279
00:20:32.599 --> 00:20:37.279
appeared in front of the cameras,
she was still nervous about the continuing investigation.

280
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Law enforcement loved these interviews where Diane
talked NonStop and revealed herself to them.

281
00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:47.839
It gave them more to work with. Detective Doug Welch said quote,

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I have used the term verbal vomit
when talking about Diane because she talked a

283
00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:56.720
lot too much for her own good. I think that's one of the things

284
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that ended up hurting her case.
She didn't know when to shut up.

285
00:21:00.839 --> 00:21:04.720
When this man shot my daughter,
my first reaction was to snap back to

286
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:10.839
my childhood to the pain that had
happened to me back then, my marriage,

287
00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:14.480
my entrapment by society. This man
was bigger than me, He was

288
00:21:14.519 --> 00:21:17.240
stronger than me, He had more
power because he had a gun. And

289
00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:22.880
I stood there and I looked at
Christy reaching and the blood that just kept

290
00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:27.960
gushing out of her mouth, And
what do you do? Everybody says you

291
00:21:29.039 --> 00:21:32.319
sure were lucky. Well, I
don't feel very lucky. I couldn't tie

292
00:21:32.359 --> 00:21:36.240
my damn shoes for about two months. It is very painful. It is

293
00:21:36.279 --> 00:21:38.720
still painful. The scar is going
to be there forever. I'm gonna remember

294
00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:41.880
that night for the rest of my
life, whether I want to or not.

295
00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:45.400
I don't think I was very lucky. I think my kids were lucky.

296
00:21:45.640 --> 00:21:47.960
If I had been shot the way
they were, we all would have

297
00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:55.000
died. Oh it's bad as horrible. Oh, she couldn't tie her shoes,

298
00:21:55.039 --> 00:21:59.519
poor Diane. But her kids were
lucky. We could go on for

299
00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:04.480
days about how horrible she is.
But she had the verbal vomit and she

300
00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:10.160
couldn't stop herself from talking. Yeah, I can imagine law enforcement would have

301
00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:15.559
loved that. On YouTube, there
are a lot of her interviews and they're

302
00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:21.480
compelling, It's hard to stop watching. Diane called the Maricopa County Sheriff's office

303
00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:25.160
to rat out Steve, her ex
husband, for the arson attempt on their

304
00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:29.680
old trailer and a car theft he
had been involved in. She was angry

305
00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:33.240
that he'd said so much to police. Wow, do you remember the arson

306
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:36.400
attempt on the trailer? Yes,
they had tried to burn up her previous

307
00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:40.240
trailer, right, and they got
an insurance payout for it. Da Fred

308
00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:44.759
Huge could feel the public turning on
him and his investigation. He needed to

309
00:22:44.799 --> 00:22:49.160
make an arrest soon. Washington State
had a strict speedy trial rule. The

310
00:22:49.240 --> 00:22:55.039
state had sixty days to build a
case after an arrest. Christy wasn't ready

311
00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.880
to be questioned, and Fred needed
to find solid proof to arrest Diane.

312
00:22:59.400 --> 00:23:03.920
By June's sixteenth, Christy was slowly
getting her words back. Paula Krogdall had

313
00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:08.599
become a regular visitor to Christy,
and she began to trust her. Paula

314
00:23:08.680 --> 00:23:14.480
gently questioned Christy. She learned that
Diane regularly spanked or slapped all of the

315
00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:18.559
children. She told them that they
were bad and it was their fault.

316
00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:22.960
Christy was also able to communicate that
on the night of May nineteenth. There

317
00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:26.839
were two guns in the trunk of
the car. She had seen no strangers

318
00:23:26.839 --> 00:23:30.200
that night. When asked who did
the shooting, she said hesitantly, I

319
00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:34.880
think I think, mom, that's
poor baby. Yeah, and also I

320
00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:40.400
wanted to talk about the They only
had sixty days to make a case after

321
00:23:40.440 --> 00:23:45.200
an arrest. That's so hard.
Yeah, well, I guess that means

322
00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:47.359
you really have to be careful when
you're going to make an arrest. Well,

323
00:23:47.400 --> 00:23:48.960
exactly, that's pretty much ready.
Yeah, that's why they were so

324
00:23:49.039 --> 00:23:53.640
hesitant. On June twenty second,
Christy was released from the hospital. A

325
00:23:53.720 --> 00:23:59.359
nice couple, Evelyn and Ray Slavin, who were seasoned foster parents, welcomed

326
00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:03.480
her and Danny into their home.
So Christy went from in a month from

327
00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:07.799
I mean she was essentially dead to
being released from the hospital month. So

328
00:24:07.880 --> 00:24:12.319
that was great. Yeah, but
her arm was still paralyzed. Evelyn said

329
00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:18.640
Christy was quote very, very fragile, both physically and emotionally. Christy observed

330
00:24:18.680 --> 00:24:21.880
us for a long time. She
needed to be sure that we were the

331
00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:25.599
same all the time, that we
wouldn't be nice to her one day and

332
00:24:25.640 --> 00:24:29.039
then angry the next. It took
her quite a while to trust us.

333
00:24:29.279 --> 00:24:33.359
End quote. Totally understandable, Oh
for sure. Diane was not allowed visitation,

334
00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:37.599
nor were her parents or other family
members. They actually had no idea

335
00:24:37.599 --> 00:24:42.359
where Christy was living. The Slavens
brought Christy to see Danny in the hospital

336
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:47.680
once a week. Slowly, she
began to trust them and her nightmares lessened.

337
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.519
In July, Nick called Diane.
He was working with the police and

338
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:55.920
recording the call, but Diane was
so happy to hear from him that she

339
00:24:56.079 --> 00:25:00.559
wasn't suspicious. He told her he
knew that she had a twenty two pistol,

340
00:25:00.680 --> 00:25:03.160
that he had seen it when he
was helping her pack. Diane denied

341
00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:07.440
it and claimed that she'd returned the
gun to Steve. Nick tried to get

342
00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:11.720
her to confess, but she was
too smart for that. She told him

343
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:15.480
she loved him, but not enough
to shoot her kids for him. The

344
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:18.880
same month, investigators tricked Diane into
coming to the police station by telling her

345
00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:22.839
they wanted her to look at some
mugshots, but in reality, they wanted

346
00:25:22.839 --> 00:25:27.119
another go at questioning her. A
memory came back to Diane while she was

347
00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:30.680
at the police station. She said
she was terrified when the last thing the

348
00:25:30.680 --> 00:25:34.720
gunman said was her name. She
had just been shot and she was still

349
00:25:34.759 --> 00:25:38.759
outside her car when he breathed her
name and threatened to kill her if she

350
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:44.000
told. She said she knew who
shot her children, and she wasn't going

351
00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:47.319
to tell the police who it was
because she couldn't trust them to do the

352
00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:51.039
job right. She ran from the
police station, but called a few minutes

353
00:25:51.119 --> 00:25:55.559
later. She said, Quote,
just because I tell you exactly what happened

354
00:25:55.599 --> 00:25:57.839
that night, that doesn't mean you
can prove he did it. It's a

355
00:25:57.839 --> 00:26:02.599
losing battle. I give up.
If you guys want to throw me in

356
00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:06.680
jail, have at it. I
Steve wins this time. This is the

357
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:10.599
ultimate. I quit. I'm not
going to fight him anymore. He won.

358
00:26:10.920 --> 00:26:15.920
Goodbye. Quote. So she implying
that Steve shot the children. I

359
00:26:15.960 --> 00:26:19.599
don't know what she means here.
If she like that, Steve would get

360
00:26:19.640 --> 00:26:22.880
custody of the children. Mm.
Yeah, maybe none of it makes any

361
00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:29.039
sense though. It's really not a
cohesive story. She's telling you, well,

362
00:26:29.039 --> 00:26:32.039
no, and it's changing all the
time. Yeah, like drastically.

363
00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:37.160
Yeah. On September sixth, nineteen
eighty three, Danny was finally released from

364
00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:41.759
the hospital. He moved in with
the Slavens. Christy and Danny were very

365
00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:45.480
happy to be together again. Danny
was confined to a wheelchair. He had

366
00:26:45.480 --> 00:26:51.319
no feeling of movement below his chest. His doctors doubted his condition would ever

367
00:26:51.359 --> 00:26:56.440
improve. That fall, Christie started
third grade. All things considered, the

368
00:26:56.519 --> 00:27:00.319
children were doing well. The love
and consistency that they're foster parents showed them

369
00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:06.000
helped them feel more secure than they
ever had in their short lives. Christy

370
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:10.880
and Danny were both seeing a therapist. The prosecution needed Christie to testify that

371
00:27:10.920 --> 00:27:14.559
Diane was the shooter on the night
of May nineteenth. It was the only

372
00:27:14.599 --> 00:27:18.200
way the state had a case against
Diane. The therapist was making progress with

373
00:27:18.279 --> 00:27:22.880
Christie, but he knew he had
several more months of work ahead with her

374
00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:26.000
before she could trust him completely.
She was still struggling with her speech.

375
00:27:27.079 --> 00:27:33.160
Steve came to see the children in
late September. He was allowed unsupervised visitation

376
00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:37.119
with them. Steve felt empathy for
Diane. He called her and asked her

377
00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:41.559
if she wanted to see the children. She jumped at the opportunity. He

378
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:45.440
told her she couldn't talk to the
children, just view them discreetly from a

379
00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:49.599
distance. While they were at the
park. Diane claimed that Christie saw her

380
00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:53.599
and ran to her and smothered her
with hugs and kisses. Diane went to

381
00:27:53.680 --> 00:27:57.559
Steve's hotel that afternoon, where he
was staying with the children. He needed

382
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:02.200
Diane to sign papers to get him
full custody, so he led her into

383
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:06.359
the hotel room, which violated the
court order that prohibited Diane from seeing the

384
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:11.519
children. Steve being a full blown
idiot editorial commentary on your part there,

385
00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:17.559
I mean he let Diane take Christy
for a ride in her car. Yeah,

386
00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:21.680
there's a full blown idiot move.
Diane was gone with Christy for several

387
00:28:21.720 --> 00:28:25.200
hours. She said they went to
the park and then she took her to

388
00:28:25.240 --> 00:28:30.079
her parents' house. Steve hadn't let
Diane take Danny, but Diane let it

389
00:28:30.119 --> 00:28:33.960
be known that she didn't believe Danny
was paralyzed. She knew she could make

390
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:37.160
him better. The children were told
to tell no one that they had seen

391
00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:41.440
Diane, and they kept that secret. After the visit with Diane, the

392
00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:45.119
therapist felt he had lost a lot
of ground with Christy. He had lost

393
00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:49.599
months of progress. A few weeks
later, in an angry, drunken haze,

394
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:55.000
Diane wrote a letter to Nick telling
him that she'd visited with her children.

395
00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:59.799
She wanted to prevent Steve from getting
custody of the children. By writing

396
00:28:59.799 --> 00:29:03.880
the letter to Nick, she knew
he'd inform law enforcement. If Diane had

397
00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:07.039
contacted them, they might not have
believed her. We'll be back. After

398
00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:19.559
a break, Diane became depressed and
started going to bar solo and drinking more.

399
00:29:19.799 --> 00:29:25.000
She couldn't see her children. She'd
found out that Nick had reunited happily

400
00:29:25.039 --> 00:29:27.680
with his wife and was helping the
police, and she couldn't find anyone who

401
00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:32.559
wanted to sleep with her now that
she was suspected of shooting her children.

402
00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:37.279
But then she met Matt Jensen.
I should say that Matt Jensen is a

403
00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:41.720
pseudonym that Anne Rule gave to this
man. We don't know what his real

404
00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:45.000
name was, Okay. Diane was
lonely and bored and became obsessed with him.

405
00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:49.240
They only dated for about three weeks
before he became uncomfortable with her.

406
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:55.880
He moved twenty miles away and didn't
tell Diane his new address or phone number.

407
00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:00.480
But Diane worked for the post office, so I would think she would

408
00:30:00.519 --> 00:30:03.960
be able to She was probably pretty
good at fighting people's addresses, right.

409
00:30:04.079 --> 00:30:07.880
Diane soon discovered, to her delight
that she was pregnant, and remember,

410
00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:14.480
being pregnant is Diane's happy place.
Here's a clip of Diane with reporter Anne

411
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:19.279
Bradley from an episode of twenty twenty. I got pregnant because I miss Christy

412
00:30:19.440 --> 00:30:22.920
and I miss Danny, and I
miss Cheryl so much. I'm never going

413
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:26.599
to see Cheryl on Earth again.
You can't replace children, but she can

414
00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:30.920
replace the effect that they give you. And they give me love, they

415
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:33.759
give me satisfaction, they give me
stability, They give me a reason to

416
00:30:33.799 --> 00:30:37.240
live and a reason to be happy. And that's gone. They took it

417
00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:42.920
from me. But children are so
easy to conceive. Oh boy, I'm

418
00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:48.599
not a fan of Diane. Diane's
due date was July seventh, nineteen eighty

419
00:30:48.599 --> 00:30:52.319
four. Diane and Steve were both
charged with contempt of court for a violation

420
00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:57.279
of the court order regarding visitation of
Christy and Danny. On December ninth,

421
00:30:57.519 --> 00:31:03.039
nineteen eighty three, they appeared for
Judge Greg Foot. He accused Diane of

422
00:31:03.160 --> 00:31:08.119
visiting Christie only to threaten her from
testifying against her. The courtroom was shocked

423
00:31:08.119 --> 00:31:12.240
when Diane's attorney let it slip that
Diane couldn't go to jail because she was

424
00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:18.640
pregnant. She was given a one
year suspended sentence. Christie again began to

425
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:22.079
make progress in her therapy sessions.
Her therapist asked her if she could write

426
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:25.960
the name of the shooter on a
slip of paper and place it in a

427
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:30.079
sealed envelope. He promised her that
he wouldn't read it unless she gave her

428
00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:33.880
permission. At the end of each
session, he told Christie she could put

429
00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:37.839
the envelope into the fire to burn
if she wanted to, and each week

430
00:31:37.920 --> 00:31:41.920
before she left, she'd watched the
envelope burn. I was pretty smart of

431
00:31:41.960 --> 00:31:45.680
the therapist. The DA had little
to know budget left in December, but

432
00:31:45.799 --> 00:31:52.680
Fred Hugy was able to scrape a
little money together to hire famed policeman Pierce

433
00:31:52.720 --> 00:31:56.359
Brooks. He was captain of the
LAPD's homicide unit for over ten years,

434
00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:02.000
known for his groundbreaking work on profile
serial killers. He actually coined the term.

435
00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:06.400
The book and movie The Onion Field
is based on his work. Oh

436
00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:09.920
I Love that movie. A former
colleague said he's the closest person to Sherlock

437
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:15.279
Holmes, that he'd ever met.
Diane was looking for a fresh start in

438
00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:17.720
nineteen eighty four. She said the
previous year had been a bummer year.

439
00:32:19.839 --> 00:32:23.160
She lost her child. Yeah,
that's a bumba's She began to attend church

440
00:32:23.200 --> 00:32:28.200
regularly for the first time since she'd
been a child. She went several times

441
00:32:28.240 --> 00:32:31.000
a week and joined some women's groups. I'm sure they were thrilled to have

442
00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:36.440
Diane in her company. On January
tenth, on what would have been Cheryl's

443
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:40.039
eighth birthday, Diane placed a note
in the personal section of the newspaper.

444
00:32:40.240 --> 00:32:45.839
It read, Happy Birther, Cheryl
Lynn Downs January tenth, nineteen seventy six

445
00:32:45.960 --> 00:32:49.960
to May nineteenth, nineteen eighty three. We loved you very much. Jesus

446
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.400
loved you too. He took you
to heaven when you were only seven.

447
00:32:52.839 --> 00:32:58.599
We miss you, Mom, Grandma
and Grandpa. It's beautiful that bizarre.

448
00:32:58.759 --> 00:33:04.039
Yeah. Investigators and child psychologists continue
to work closely with Christy. Three.

449
00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:07.920
Anatomically correct, life sized dolls were
created in the images of Christy, Cheryl,

450
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:12.799
and Danny, dressed in their old
clothes. They first gave the dolls

451
00:33:12.839 --> 00:33:15.759
to Christy and Danny to bring home
and play with to get them more comfortable

452
00:33:15.799 --> 00:33:19.880
with the dolls. Days later,
they made an imaginary car out of two

453
00:33:19.920 --> 00:33:22.759
couches. Christie put the dolls in
the same positions that children had been in

454
00:33:22.759 --> 00:33:27.359
the car on the night of the
shooting. They asked Christy to recreate what

455
00:33:27.480 --> 00:33:30.279
happened that night, and she then
pretended to shoot the three dolls in the

456
00:33:30.319 --> 00:33:36.680
car. Law enforcement knew Christie was
getting stronger and was probably soon going to

457
00:33:36.720 --> 00:33:42.680
be ready to testify. Carl Peterson
was Christie's main psychologist. He had her

458
00:33:42.759 --> 00:33:46.039
ride a list of people that she
felt safe and unsafe with in her life.

459
00:33:46.279 --> 00:33:52.359
Cheryl Danny, Evelyn Slaven, Ray
Slaven, her foster parents, Fred

460
00:33:52.440 --> 00:33:55.759
Hugy, and doctor Peterson were all
in this save column, and the unsafe

461
00:33:55.799 --> 00:34:01.519
column were two names, Mom and
Dad. Sad So sad. Diane wasn't

462
00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:05.759
doing well. She had been diagnosed
with an ulcer. Living at her parents'

463
00:34:05.839 --> 00:34:08.960
house was killing her. She missed
her kids, and another hearing regarding custody

464
00:34:09.159 --> 00:34:14.079
wasn't going to be held for another
sixty days. She continued to go to

465
00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:19.360
church, and investigators actually had placed
a locator on her car without her knowledge

466
00:34:19.559 --> 00:34:23.239
to know her whereabouts. But things
were about to get much worse for Diane.

467
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:29.440
The grand jury had been meeting secretly
for nine months. In February nineteen

468
00:34:29.480 --> 00:34:34.760
eighty four, they handed down a
secret indictment for Diane. She was charged

469
00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:37.320
with one count of murder, two
counts of attempted murder, and two counts

470
00:34:37.400 --> 00:34:43.199
of first degree assault. There was
no death penalty in Oregon at the time,

471
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:46.440
and there were no degrees of murder. There was just murder. On

472
00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:52.199
February twenty seventh, Diane and Wes
had a horrible argument. Wes her father.

473
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:54.559
He demanded she move out of the
house, and in her anger,

474
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:59.639
Diane blurted out that Wes molested her
when she was a child. Will A

475
00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:02.440
Dean. Her mom had never heard
this before, she didn't believe it.

476
00:35:02.960 --> 00:35:07.440
Diane had no friends and no place
to go. She went to a bar

477
00:35:07.599 --> 00:35:09.840
and sat at a table in the
back and wrote in her diary. Later

478
00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:14.519
that night, she snuck into her
parents' house to get some sleep. The

479
00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:17.400
next morning, Diane left her parents
house early to avoid an awkward running with

480
00:35:17.440 --> 00:35:21.920
her father. When she arrived at
the post office where her shift, at

481
00:35:21.960 --> 00:35:25.280
seven am, the police were there
to arrest her. They spared her handcuffs,

482
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:30.159
but read Diane her Miranda rights and
took her to jail. At least

483
00:35:30.199 --> 00:35:32.519
she had a place to sleep that
night. Her bail was set at seventy

484
00:35:32.559 --> 00:35:37.760
five thousand dollars, but no one
posted it. A search warrant was served

485
00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:42.639
on the Frederickson's home and Diane's car
at her arraignment. The following day,

486
00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:46.840
Diane pleaded not guilty, her bail
was revoked. The trial was set to

487
00:35:46.840 --> 00:35:52.280
begin on May eighth, nineteen eighty
four. In two months, the media

488
00:35:52.320 --> 00:35:54.960
took some photos of Diane, who
was now visibly pregnant, and the public,

489
00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:00.039
who still supported Diane, was outraged
on her behalf. To prepare the

490
00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:05.280
case in two months was a herculean
task for both sides. There was a

491
00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:09.800
mountain of evidence and over fifty witnesses
to organize and prepare. Fred Hugy and

492
00:36:09.840 --> 00:36:14.840
his team worked eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. In a

493
00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:17.880
pre trial motion, Fred tried to
limit the defense's use of the bushy haired

494
00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:22.239
stranger. There had been multiple sightings
of people who matched the description, but

495
00:36:22.320 --> 00:36:25.960
no viable suspect had emerged. There's
a lot of people out there with bushy

496
00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:30.639
hair. There really is. Judge
Foot allowed the defense to present only two

497
00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:37.800
potential bushy haired stranger suspects. Wait
do you see the sketch? Oh stranger?

498
00:36:37.079 --> 00:36:43.000
Wait. Media attended the trial in
droves, stacked shoulder to shoulder in

499
00:36:43.039 --> 00:36:46.360
the cramped courtroom, with their recording
devices in their laps. No cameras were

500
00:36:46.360 --> 00:36:52.599
allowed. The jury consisted of nine
women and three men, with three alternates.

501
00:36:52.239 --> 00:36:57.320
They were mostly parents and middle aged
or older. The county could not

502
00:36:57.400 --> 00:37:00.440
afford to sequester them, but they
were cautioned not to watch or read anything

503
00:37:00.440 --> 00:37:05.800
about the trial. The trial was
expected to last as long as two months,

504
00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:09.719
bringing it very close to Diane's due
date. Diane's team implored her to

505
00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:15.480
be less expressive. She wore every
emotion and mood on her face and often

506
00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:21.480
appeared smug or imperious. She dressed
in feminine maternity dresses with lace collars and

507
00:37:21.519 --> 00:37:24.639
bows in an attempt to soften her
image. A week into the trial,

508
00:37:24.679 --> 00:37:28.840
the jury took a trip to see
the sight of the shooting on Old Mohawk

509
00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:34.320
Road and then to see Diane's red
Nissan Pulsar. Among the first witnesses was

510
00:37:34.400 --> 00:37:37.559
Judy Patterson, the receptionist from the
er who had sat with Diane on May

511
00:37:37.639 --> 00:37:44.119
nineteenth, nearly a year to the
date, Judy recalled Diane saying, quote,

512
00:37:44.239 --> 00:37:47.280
are they dead yet? Unquote,
with no emotion, just are they

513
00:37:47.320 --> 00:37:52.519
dead yet? A doctor testified that
Diane told him quote, I know that

514
00:37:52.639 --> 00:37:58.159
Christy has sustained brain damage, and
I don't want you to sustain her life

515
00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:02.480
unquote. Doctor also said that Christie
was as close to death as anyone he

516
00:38:02.519 --> 00:38:07.840
had ever seen without dying. That
her health rebounded was a miracle. In

517
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:14.159
one incredibly uncomfortable moment, Hungry Like
a Wolf was played, the song that

518
00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:17.280
played in the Red Nissan on the
night of the shooting. Diane bopped her

519
00:38:17.320 --> 00:38:22.119
head, tapped her foot, and
mouthed the lyrics, seeming to enjoy the

520
00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:25.159
moment. The jurors and the rest
of the courtroom watched in shock at her

521
00:38:25.199 --> 00:38:30.679
outrageous behavior. On May fifteenth,
nine year old Christie entered the courtroom.

522
00:38:31.159 --> 00:38:36.639
She looked sweet in a blue dress
with white lace around the collar. Christi

523
00:38:36.679 --> 00:38:39.480
and Diane both cried when they saw
each other. I can't imagine there was

524
00:38:39.480 --> 00:38:44.159
a dry eye in the courtroom when
they saw the small wounded child enter the

525
00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:49.679
courtroom, her right arm still paralyzed. Christie was brave and determined, but

526
00:38:49.840 --> 00:38:54.480
emotional. She cried often during her
testimony, at times sobbing, her face

527
00:38:54.599 --> 00:38:59.599
red from emotion. There were no
cameras in the courtroom, but we have

528
00:38:59.679 --> 00:39:04.199
the train, so we are going
to read the transcript of Christie's testimony.

529
00:39:04.639 --> 00:39:07.159
Do you want to be the prosecutor? I will play the part of the

530
00:39:07.159 --> 00:39:12.880
prosecutor. I will be Christie.
And Christy couldn't say the word yes yet

531
00:39:13.039 --> 00:39:15.639
from her speech therapy, and she
had asked the judge if it was okay

532
00:39:15.639 --> 00:39:21.320
if she said yeah. So there's
a lot of yeahs and okay. On

533
00:39:21.400 --> 00:39:23.559
the day this happened, you went
to school and you came home from school.

534
00:39:23.679 --> 00:39:28.159
Do you recall that? Yeah?
Whose house did you go to?

535
00:39:28.440 --> 00:39:31.719
My grandparents? Did you eat there? Yeah? And after you ate?

536
00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:37.000
Where did you go? Then to
my mom's house, back to her apartment

537
00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:39.719
where you were living? Yeah?
Did you go out that night? Yeah?

538
00:39:39.920 --> 00:39:43.760
Did you go for a ride?
Yeah? Who went with you?

539
00:39:44.039 --> 00:39:46.559
My mom, Cheryl and Danny went. And do you remember the car?

540
00:39:47.039 --> 00:39:52.360
Yeah? What color was the car? Black and red? Can you tell

541
00:39:52.440 --> 00:39:54.320
us where you went? Do you
remember where you went to? Yeah?

542
00:39:54.519 --> 00:40:00.280
Where my mom's friend's house? And
was that in the city or was it

543
00:40:00.320 --> 00:40:02.880
in the country. Were there buildings
tall buildings or was there a lot of

544
00:40:02.920 --> 00:40:07.159
grass? A lot of grass?
Do you remember what you did when you

545
00:40:07.199 --> 00:40:09.559
got there? Yeah? What did
you do? We went out and petted

546
00:40:09.559 --> 00:40:14.280
the horse. Did you give the
horse food? Yeah? What was your

547
00:40:14.280 --> 00:40:16.639
mom doing when you were petting the
horse and giving it food? She was

548
00:40:16.679 --> 00:40:21.639
talking to her friend. Do you
remember her friend's name, Yeah, Heather.

549
00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:24.440
When you left Heather's do you remember
if it was light out or dark?

550
00:40:24.679 --> 00:40:29.000
It was dark? Who was in
the car when you left Heather's house?

551
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:31.760
My mom, Cheryl and Danny and
me too. Do you remember if

552
00:40:31.800 --> 00:40:36.360
there was any music playing in the
car? Yeah? Was that from the

553
00:40:36.440 --> 00:40:39.920
radio or was it from the tape? Tape? And do you remember there

554
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:45.360
was a time when the car stopped? Yeah? And here Christy begins to

555
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:49.719
cry. When the car stopped,
did you see any other people around?

556
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:53.480
No? Did you see any person
standing in the road? No? When

557
00:40:53.480 --> 00:40:57.360
the car stopped, what did your
mom do? She got out and she

558
00:40:57.440 --> 00:41:00.000
pulled the lever that went to the
trunk. I'm going to show you a

559
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:05.400
picture here. It's called State's number
three thirty five. Is that the lever

560
00:41:05.480 --> 00:41:08.480
you're talking about Yes, after your
mom pushed the lever that went out to

561
00:41:08.519 --> 00:41:12.840
the trunk, were you able to
see her do anything after that? I

562
00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:15.559
didn't look at the back. Okay, did you see her come back into

563
00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:20.880
the car? Yeah? What did
you see? Then? She kneeled down,

564
00:41:20.960 --> 00:41:24.039
and here Christy began to sob,
burying her face in her hands.

565
00:41:24.960 --> 00:41:30.519
Her sobs were echoed in the courtroom
as spectators broke into tears too. Diane

566
00:41:30.599 --> 00:41:34.039
turned her head away. What did
you see? You told us? She

567
00:41:34.119 --> 00:41:38.199
leaned across the seat. Yeah,
what happened? Then? Diane was crying.

568
00:41:38.480 --> 00:41:42.360
Christy put her hand to her face
as if to block out the memory.

569
00:41:43.199 --> 00:41:47.000
She shot Cheryl and you saw that
happen? Yeah? Was the music

570
00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:52.199
still playing? Yeah? Can you
tell us what that was? Christy didn't

571
00:41:52.239 --> 00:41:55.480
answer. Maybe I'll come back to
that. Do you remember what happened after

572
00:41:55.519 --> 00:42:00.559
you saw Cheryl get shot? Yeah? What happened? Then she leaned over

573
00:42:00.599 --> 00:42:04.800
to the backseat and she shot Danny. What happened then? What happened after

574
00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:07.840
Danny got shot? She stand it
up and went to the back of the

575
00:42:07.880 --> 00:42:14.039
seat on the Do you remember when
you got shot? Yeah? Who shot

576
00:42:14.079 --> 00:42:19.199
you? My mom? Do you
remember the music that was playing. Can

577
00:42:19.239 --> 00:42:22.079
you just not think of it right
now? I can't think of it.

578
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:25.559
Do you remember what happened after you
got shot? No, I'm going to

579
00:42:25.559 --> 00:42:30.599
put before you State's number three thirty
four. Have you seen that before?

580
00:42:30.039 --> 00:42:35.239
Yeah? What is that? It's
a unicorn? Where did that come from?

581
00:42:35.480 --> 00:42:37.559
My mom bought it for us.
That was before you got shot.

582
00:42:37.719 --> 00:42:42.119
Yeah. If I said the name
of that song that was playing, do

583
00:42:42.159 --> 00:42:45.920
you think you'd remember it? Yeah? Is it Hungry like the Wolf?

584
00:42:45.039 --> 00:42:50.239
Yeah, no doubt about that.
No, Christy, has anyone ever told

585
00:42:50.239 --> 00:42:52.559
you to lie about this? No? What you've said here is the truth.

586
00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:58.159
Yeah, Christy, do you still
love your mom? Yeah? Can

587
00:42:58.199 --> 00:43:01.360
you believe how brave that little girl
wash? That's really amazing. I got

588
00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:07.440
a little emotional there. You are
like a method actress and character really taken

589
00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:10.519
that to heart. I just can't
believe her strength and the pressure that was

590
00:43:10.519 --> 00:43:14.960
put upon her. Yeah, that's
a really hard position for a little girl

591
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.960
to hear her mom. I was
surprised that Diane stayed seated in the courtroom.

592
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:22.639
I would have thought that they either
would have done it by deposition and

593
00:43:23.199 --> 00:43:29.719
or had Diane leave the courtroom.
Yeah, strong little girl. During cross

594
00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:35.440
examination, Diane's attorney, Jim Jagger, a former prosecutor, wasn't unkind but

595
00:43:35.639 --> 00:43:40.239
fired questions quickly to portray Christie as
confused. She answered most questions, but

596
00:43:40.360 --> 00:43:45.719
at times remained silent and didn't answer. He kept her on the witness stand

597
00:43:45.719 --> 00:43:50.760
too long she was exhausted. On
May twenty first, a styrofoam mock up

598
00:43:50.800 --> 00:43:53.559
of Diane's car was brought into the
courtroom with the life sized dolls of the

599
00:43:53.639 --> 00:43:59.840
children. The prosecution knew a visual
aid was imperative to their case. The

600
00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:04.639
car was painted light blue. Red
paint was used to indicate the blood in

601
00:44:04.760 --> 00:44:08.920
and outside of the car. Fred
Hughgy demonstrated how Diane had shot the children

602
00:44:08.920 --> 00:44:14.000
from outside the car. All of
the gunshots were estimated to be at close

603
00:44:14.119 --> 00:44:19.320
range, none more than a foot
away. Nick Knickerbacker walked into the courtroom

604
00:44:19.360 --> 00:44:22.400
the next day and took the stand. Every person in the courtroom turned to

605
00:44:22.440 --> 00:44:27.280
see him enter. They were dying
to see what he looked like. He

606
00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:30.840
was bearded and handsome. He was
pretty handsome, was he? I mean,

607
00:44:30.920 --> 00:44:35.159
not like you know, but yeah, good looking guy. Diane tried

608
00:44:35.159 --> 00:44:37.440
to hide her emotions. She needed
to act like she didn't care that the

609
00:44:37.480 --> 00:44:40.280
love of her life was in the
same room as her for the first time

610
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:45.880
in months. Nick said he was
relieved when Diane moved out to Oregon.

611
00:44:45.679 --> 00:44:50.199
He testified to seeing the twenty two
pistol in the trunk of her car when

612
00:44:50.199 --> 00:44:53.159
he'd helped her pack for the move, in a devastating blow to Diane.

613
00:44:53.320 --> 00:44:58.400
When asked about the rose tattoo,
he said he'd gotten it after a drunken

614
00:44:58.519 --> 00:45:01.840
night. Diane had been begging him
for months to get a matching rose tattoo.

615
00:45:02.519 --> 00:45:07.159
He got the tattoo, but didn't
add Diane's name. He told the

616
00:45:07.199 --> 00:45:10.400
court that he had since added a
name to the tattoo. It now said

617
00:45:10.719 --> 00:45:15.159
sweet Charlene under the tattoo. Oh, okay, you don't remember, like

618
00:45:15.239 --> 00:45:17.760
Diane had a tattoo with Nick's name
underneath. Yeah, I can't imagine how

619
00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:22.440
that must have like just shattered her
when she heard that, When Diane had

620
00:45:22.440 --> 00:45:25.280
to pretend like, oh, it
doesn't bother me at all that he's here.

621
00:45:25.320 --> 00:45:30.719
In the courtroom, MM twenty five
audio tapes were played. Some were

622
00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:35.760
police interrogations, some were made by
Diane recording herself, and the rest were

623
00:45:35.800 --> 00:45:40.159
the recorded calls between her and Nick. Diane cringed visibly as her declarations of

624
00:45:40.199 --> 00:45:44.760
love were made to Nick. It
took days for all of the tapes to

625
00:45:44.800 --> 00:45:50.920
be played. The prosecution directly examined
thirty three witnesses and presented over five hundred

626
00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:55.400
pieces of evidence. They rested their
case. The first witness for the defense

627
00:45:55.519 --> 00:46:00.920
was Diane. She talked about her
childhood and how she hadn't allowed to express

628
00:46:00.920 --> 00:46:05.000
herself and how she'd been molested by
her father. Her parents were not present

629
00:46:05.119 --> 00:46:10.119
during Diane's testimony. They weren't allowed
into the courtroom until they had testified days

630
00:46:10.159 --> 00:46:14.719
later. Diane was on the witness
stand for four and a half days.

631
00:46:15.079 --> 00:46:19.039
She told her whole life story.
She laughed, cried, and at times

632
00:46:19.119 --> 00:46:24.480
became angry and indignant. The defense
claimed that the ballistic evidence had been planted

633
00:46:24.719 --> 00:46:30.760
and that Christie's testimony had been coerced
and rehearsed. I always think I wanted

634
00:46:30.760 --> 00:46:36.119
to be chosen for jury duty.
Yeah, but to think about what these

635
00:46:36.199 --> 00:46:38.800
poor people had to set through for
weeks and weeks, and all those tapes

636
00:46:38.840 --> 00:46:44.480
being played, and the it would
be really hard to pay attention and focus

637
00:46:44.559 --> 00:46:51.000
for that long. Absolutely, the
jury began deliberations on the afternoon of Thursday,

638
00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:54.000
June fourteenth, nineteen eighty four.
No one knew what to expect.

639
00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:59.639
They worked until ten pm the first
night, and all day Friday and all

640
00:46:59.719 --> 00:47:04.960
day Saturday. Baby Watch was also
in effect. Diane looked to be due

641
00:47:05.039 --> 00:47:09.039
any minute. Finally, at twelve
twenty am on Sunday, a verdict was

642
00:47:09.079 --> 00:47:14.239
reached. So these people were determined. Wow, everyone gathered in the courtroom

643
00:47:14.280 --> 00:47:17.039
to hear the verdict at one am. I didn't realize that they would do

644
00:47:17.079 --> 00:47:21.039
that. Oh, I wouldn't think
they would. I should mention here that

645
00:47:21.920 --> 00:47:29.440
Diane's attorney had heard whispers of the
jury had made their decision quickly on four

646
00:47:29.519 --> 00:47:34.039
of the counts, but there was
a couple accounts that they just couldn't agree

647
00:47:34.039 --> 00:47:38.039
on. Okay, what do you
think the verdict was? I think guilty.

648
00:47:38.159 --> 00:47:43.880
I think there's enough evidence to find
her guilty. Diane was found guilty

649
00:47:43.960 --> 00:47:47.559
on five counts. She showed little
emotion at her sentencing. Diane said,

650
00:47:47.639 --> 00:47:51.840
quote, I would like to say
that I came before this court, was

651
00:47:51.880 --> 00:47:55.079
tried and found guilty because I am
a law abiding citizen. I'll do my

652
00:47:55.199 --> 00:48:00.280
time. I care about the community. They can't let their guard down.

653
00:48:00.360 --> 00:48:04.320
The killers are still out there.
I love my kids, Christy's my best

654
00:48:04.400 --> 00:48:08.599
friend. Danny cried for mommy in
the hospital. Most important, Cheryl died.

655
00:48:08.840 --> 00:48:13.320
I will serve my time, and
then I'll find that killer and bring

656
00:48:13.400 --> 00:48:16.199
him in. End quote. It's
like ojay. She's gonna search every golf

657
00:48:16.239 --> 00:48:22.480
course until she finds the killer.
Judge Foot sentenced Diane to life plus fifty

658
00:48:22.559 --> 00:48:27.280
years in prison. He said,
quote, the court hopes the defendant will

659
00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:30.760
never again be free. I've come
as close to that as possible. End

660
00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:37.079
quote. She served her time at
the Oregon Women's Correctional Center in Salem,

661
00:48:37.239 --> 00:48:42.760
a medium security prison. Steve Downs
said that he thinks Diane deserved the death

662
00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:45.280
penalty. He said, quote,
there are not too many people who have

663
00:48:45.320 --> 00:48:49.559
done worse than she has. I'm
no angel, but she needs to be

664
00:48:49.639 --> 00:48:53.280
eliminated from off this earth. Wow. End quote. Diane worked in the

665
00:48:53.280 --> 00:48:58.760
prison kitchen. She was compliant for
the most part. Most inmates kept their

666
00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:02.239
distance. She was allowed to take
college courses, which she seemed to enjoy

667
00:49:02.280 --> 00:49:06.800
a great deal. Remember, she
really wanted to be a doctorate. She

668
00:49:06.920 --> 00:49:12.400
graduated in nineteen eighty seven with an
associate's degree in general studies. In November

669
00:49:12.480 --> 00:49:15.639
nineteen eighty four, a twenty two
semi automatic Ruger pistol was seized in a

670
00:49:15.719 --> 00:49:21.360
drug raid in Paris, California.
The gun had the serial number of the

671
00:49:21.400 --> 00:49:24.880
gun police believed that had been used
by Diane in the shooting. When the

672
00:49:24.960 --> 00:49:29.960
drug dealer was asked where he'd acquired
the gun, he said in Phoenix in

673
00:49:30.039 --> 00:49:35.280
nineteen eighty one, around Christmas.
Remember the shooting took place in nineteen eighty

674
00:49:35.280 --> 00:49:38.400
three. Bullets from the gun were
analyzed and it was found not to be

675
00:49:38.440 --> 00:49:43.079
a match for the weapon used in
the shooting of the Downs children. Steve

676
00:49:43.159 --> 00:49:46.079
Down said he had stolen a twenty
two pistol from a friend named Billy Proctor.

677
00:49:46.760 --> 00:49:51.840
Billy had forgotten that he had owned
two Ruger pistols and had given the

678
00:49:51.840 --> 00:49:55.400
police the wrong serial number, so
the police had been chasing the wrong gun

679
00:49:55.519 --> 00:49:59.719
for a year and a half.
Oh Man, However, it didn't make

680
00:49:59.719 --> 00:50:04.360
any difference. When given the correct
serial number, the gun was still found

681
00:50:04.400 --> 00:50:07.960
to be missing and it's never been
found. That's too bad. So the

682
00:50:08.039 --> 00:50:13.079
baby was born ten days after the
verdict was read. Diane named her Amy

683
00:50:13.079 --> 00:50:15.760
Elizabeth. In the delivery room.
She was able to hold her for four

684
00:50:15.800 --> 00:50:21.360
hours before she was taken away.
Diane didn't cry or show any emotion.

685
00:50:22.199 --> 00:50:25.920
Hours after delivering the baby, she
was returned to jail. I don't have

686
00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:30.320
any empathy for Diane, but I
know a lot of women end up giving

687
00:50:30.480 --> 00:50:34.840
birth in jail and it's just horrible. Yeah, be really hard, and

688
00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:37.159
your body just isn't meant to give
up a baby. Yeah, you're producing

689
00:50:37.159 --> 00:50:42.000
milk and you have these hormones,
and yeah, it's a difficult situation.

690
00:50:42.679 --> 00:50:46.719
A couple named Jackie and Chris Babcock
adopted the baby, who they named Rebecca

691
00:50:47.239 --> 00:50:52.800
or Becky. The babcops wanted to
give Becky a life free from the stigma

692
00:50:52.880 --> 00:50:57.480
of being the biological daughter of Diane
Downs. She was a happy, care

693
00:50:57.559 --> 00:51:00.880
for you child. Diane had no
idea where Becky and her parents lived.

694
00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:12.679
We'll be back after a break.
Christy and Danny continued to live with the

695
00:51:12.719 --> 00:51:16.039
Slavens after the trial. In nineteen
eighty six, Joanne and Fred Hugy,

696
00:51:16.079 --> 00:51:21.840
the DA and Diane's case, adopted
them both. Steve downs knew Christy and

697
00:51:21.880 --> 00:51:25.760
Danny were better off without him and
relinquished his parental rights. The court likely

698
00:51:25.800 --> 00:51:30.079
wouldn't have let him have custody after
his trouble with the law. Anyway,

699
00:51:30.800 --> 00:51:34.840
he has had no contact with them. Christy and Danny never saw anyone from

700
00:51:34.880 --> 00:51:38.440
their previous lives. Sadly, Danny
never regained the use of his legs.

701
00:51:39.360 --> 00:51:43.960
Once asked what she would do if
she was ever released, Diane said,

702
00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:46.760
quote, I'll probably show up on
the DA's doorstep and ask if I can

703
00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:52.320
come in and hug my kids.
Unquote. Diane was happy her children were

704
00:51:52.320 --> 00:51:55.119
there with the DA. She said
Christie would someday be able to tell him

705
00:51:55.119 --> 00:51:59.639
the truth about what happened on the
night of May nineteenth and clear her name.

706
00:52:00.519 --> 00:52:02.599
Oh you had to take over that
part because I started crying, because

707
00:52:02.639 --> 00:52:08.320
that's really emotional. Yeah, very
sweet. On Saturday, July eleventh,

708
00:52:08.400 --> 00:52:15.480
nineteen eighty seven, Diane Downs escaped
from the Oregon Women's Correctional Center. She

709
00:52:15.559 --> 00:52:19.639
went out to the yard early that
morning. Underneath her jeans and blouse,

710
00:52:19.679 --> 00:52:22.800
she donned two extra pairs of underwear, an extra bra, extra socks,

711
00:52:22.880 --> 00:52:28.440
and an extra shirt. She wore
leather gloves and a beanie. Remember it's

712
00:52:28.599 --> 00:52:32.599
July. She scaled the prisons a
sixteen foot chain link fence. While guards

713
00:52:32.599 --> 00:52:37.400
were preoccupied, she cushioned the top
of the barbed wire fence using her coat.

714
00:52:37.800 --> 00:52:42.960
She landed safely on the grass,
which is crazy sixteen feet high.

715
00:52:43.360 --> 00:52:45.760
She hid under a truck on the
prison grounds until she felt the coast was

716
00:52:45.800 --> 00:52:52.119
clear. The blouse she was mooring
was found torn near the fence. Diane

717
00:52:52.199 --> 00:52:55.000
hitched a ride with a couple who
recognized her, but still drove her to

718
00:52:55.000 --> 00:53:00.960
tow Serious Yeah. Oh. The
parents of Christie, Danny, and Becky

719
00:53:00.079 --> 00:53:05.519
were all concerned for their children's safety. There was no telling where Diane would

720
00:53:05.559 --> 00:53:09.079
head. The Knickerbockers were warned,
as was Anne Rule. So had Anne

721
00:53:09.119 --> 00:53:12.719
Rule already written the book by this
point. The book came out in nineteen

722
00:53:12.760 --> 00:53:16.559
eighty seven. There were alleged sightings
of Diane all over the country. Fred

723
00:53:16.639 --> 00:53:21.360
Hugey slept in a chair near his
front door with a loaded rifle on his

724
00:53:21.480 --> 00:53:25.239
lap. The Babcock's hand was forced
to keep Becky safe. They needed to

725
00:53:25.280 --> 00:53:30.559
tell friends, family, and Becky's
daycare that Diane Downs was her biological mother,

726
00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.840
a secret that they'd kept to themselves. They were terrified that Diane would

727
00:53:34.880 --> 00:53:39.239
find Becky and kidnap or harm her. Diane was found eleven days later at

728
00:53:39.239 --> 00:53:44.239
the home of Wayne Seaffer, just
a mile from the prison. So everyone's

729
00:53:44.239 --> 00:53:45.719
thinking, oh, she's you know, she's in New Jersey, she's you

730
00:53:45.719 --> 00:53:49.039
know, she's all these other places. But no, she was just a

731
00:53:49.039 --> 00:53:53.159
mile down the road. Her former
cellmate, Louise, Wayne's wife had made

732
00:53:53.159 --> 00:53:58.480
a map to her house. Wayne
said he was nervous during Diane's time with

733
00:53:58.559 --> 00:54:01.760
him, but chose not to turn
her in. He and Diane both said

734
00:54:01.760 --> 00:54:07.239
they fell in love with each other
over those eleven days. Diane was caught

735
00:54:07.280 --> 00:54:10.000
after a police officer discovered a piece
of paper in her cell. When he

736
00:54:10.039 --> 00:54:15.039
examined it closely, he saw writing
indentations from a pencil from the previous sheet.

737
00:54:15.320 --> 00:54:20.079
When he lightly stated the paper,
a map was revealed. The police

738
00:54:20.159 --> 00:54:23.280
arrived to find Diane naked in bed
with Wayne. They had to coerce her

739
00:54:23.320 --> 00:54:29.480
out of the house. She emerged
wearing a large man's shirt and boxer shorts

740
00:54:29.880 --> 00:54:32.880
and I have pictures that you will
want to see of okay. They assumed

741
00:54:32.920 --> 00:54:37.079
she was trying to get pregnant again. Diane claimed that she'd escaped to look

742
00:54:37.079 --> 00:54:43.480
for the bushy haired stranger herself because
the police weren't looking hard enough. An

743
00:54:43.480 --> 00:54:47.440
additional five years was added to Diane's
sentence, which really isn't that bad.

744
00:54:49.800 --> 00:54:53.760
It's worth a try. Wayne was
given probation. He called Diane the most

745
00:54:53.840 --> 00:54:58.599
honest woman he'd ever known. He
wanted to marry her, although he was

746
00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:04.079
still married to Louise. Diane soemmy
boy. Poor Louise was devastated, but

747
00:55:04.320 --> 00:55:07.800
at least after Diane's return to prison, she was put in solitary confinement and

748
00:55:08.239 --> 00:55:13.360
she no longer had to room with
her Oh boy, Wayne hired a private

749
00:55:13.440 --> 00:55:17.239
investigator to find the real killer.
Here's a clip of Diane talking to Oprah

750
00:55:17.239 --> 00:55:22.079
about her escape. In addition to
that, you were always sleeping with everybody

751
00:55:22.079 --> 00:55:25.719
else's husband, always preferred married man. And even while you were in prison,

752
00:55:27.039 --> 00:55:30.760
you befriend and inmate. She tells
you about her husband who lives six

753
00:55:30.800 --> 00:55:35.760
blocks down the road. You escape
from prison and you go move in with

754
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:39.800
the inmate's husband. Shit, that
does not sound like a night. That

755
00:55:39.880 --> 00:55:43.840
sounds good. That sounds good,
But the fact that she and her husband

756
00:55:43.840 --> 00:55:47.079
had not seen each other in five
years, They hadn't slept together in five

757
00:55:47.119 --> 00:55:52.920
and a half years, and I
just wanted you to explain that because it

758
00:55:52.760 --> 00:55:57.239
doesn't sound like you look like the
girl next door, but the girl next

759
00:55:57.280 --> 00:56:02.840
door looks like she's turned bad.
Get her Oprah. Diane was then sent

760
00:56:02.880 --> 00:56:07.440
to a maximum security prison for women
in Clifton, New Jersey, and I

761
00:56:07.440 --> 00:56:10.559
should say the prison that she escaped
from. They knew that they had to

762
00:56:10.599 --> 00:56:16.679
make modifications, and they did those
after Diane escaped. Like they put some

763
00:56:16.719 --> 00:56:22.119
more evil looking barbed wire on top
of the fence, and then they put

764
00:56:22.159 --> 00:56:24.960
like cement at the bottom of the
fence, so if you escaped, you

765
00:56:24.960 --> 00:56:30.880
would his cement. Becky Babcock,
the baby Diane had been pregnant with during

766
00:56:30.880 --> 00:56:35.519
the trial, grew up with her
parents and sister Jenny and Bend, Oregon.

767
00:56:36.320 --> 00:56:39.599
Jenny is two years older and was
also adopted. Here's Becky from a

768
00:56:39.679 --> 00:56:45.800
twenty twenty episode called My Mother's Sins
talking about her childhood. Growing up in

769
00:56:45.880 --> 00:56:52.320
ben was amazing. My parents were
always there. It was honestly picture perfect.

770
00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:57.000
We're constantly on the go. Mount
Bachelor was right by, so we

771
00:56:57.079 --> 00:57:00.880
skied all the time and hiked.
Oh my dad taught me to ride a

772
00:57:00.880 --> 00:57:07.440
bike. My mom taught me to
ride horses. I was just like any

773
00:57:07.480 --> 00:57:10.920
other kid, and we were just
like any other family. I knew my

774
00:57:12.119 --> 00:57:15.960
entire life that I was adopted,
but I know it. About eight years

775
00:57:15.960 --> 00:57:20.960
old, I started asking questions about
the adoption. There was just a little

776
00:57:20.960 --> 00:57:24.280
part of me that was searching for
that blood tie. In a sense,

777
00:57:27.760 --> 00:57:31.840
I never had questions about my biological
dad. It was mainly about my biological

778
00:57:31.880 --> 00:57:35.480
mom. You know, what did
she look like? What did she do?

779
00:57:37.159 --> 00:57:39.800
Becky's mom had told her that her
biological mother had blonde hair and green

780
00:57:39.840 --> 00:57:44.559
eyes and she was in jail,
but gave her few other details. Her

781
00:57:44.559 --> 00:57:50.480
parents were as evasive as possible while
respecting Becky's curiosity. When Becky was a

782
00:57:50.519 --> 00:57:54.239
young teenager, she discovered that Diane
was her biological mother after she'd tricked her

783
00:57:54.280 --> 00:57:59.119
babysitter into telling her. She went
to Barnes and Noble and found a copy

784
00:57:59.159 --> 00:58:02.000
of Anne Rule Small Sacrifices. She
opened the book and saw a picture of

785
00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:05.719
her birth mother for the first time. I just want to know, Well,

786
00:58:05.719 --> 00:58:08.440
how did her babysitter know who her
chickle mother was? Well? Remember

787
00:58:08.480 --> 00:58:13.719
after Diana escaped, like, oh
okay, several people had to worried about

788
00:58:13.719 --> 00:58:16.519
her finding them got It frightened Becky
to see pictures of this woman who had

789
00:58:16.599 --> 00:58:22.119
killed one of her siblings and attempted
to kill two others. She wondered if

790
00:58:22.360 --> 00:58:25.320
she could be like this monstrous woman. She was too young to process the

791
00:58:25.360 --> 00:58:30.840
information. When she was sixteen,
Becky's boyfriend printed a copy of the movie's

792
00:58:30.840 --> 00:58:36.039
Small Sacrifices. It shook Becky to
her core and altered the trajectory of her

793
00:58:36.079 --> 00:58:39.000
life. She was caught in a
downward spiral of sex, drugs, and

794
00:58:39.039 --> 00:58:43.800
alcohol. She moved out of her
parents loving home and dropped out of high

795
00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:49.360
school. After Becky discovered she shared
DNA with Diane, she thought her destiny

796
00:58:49.440 --> 00:58:52.960
was predetermined and felt closer to her. In two thousand and two, Becky,

797
00:58:53.079 --> 00:58:57.320
seventeen, became pregnant. It was
important to Becky to be a good

798
00:58:57.360 --> 00:59:00.039
mom. She wasn't ready. She
struggled find antley, and her son,

799
00:59:00.199 --> 00:59:05.119
Christian, was often left in the
care of others. In two thousand and

800
00:59:05.199 --> 00:59:08.840
six, Becky gave birth to another
son. Her situation hadn't changed, and

801
00:59:08.920 --> 00:59:14.400
she decided to put him up for
adoption. It was the hardest decision I've

802
00:59:14.440 --> 00:59:17.480
ever had, and I put him
up for adoption because I loved him,

803
00:59:17.519 --> 00:59:25.039
not because I didn't want him holding
him. It was heartbreaking because I knew

804
00:59:25.039 --> 00:59:30.280
that I couldn't keep holding him.
It just it takes a piece of you,

805
00:59:30.320 --> 00:59:36.199
and I wanted to connect with somebody. It made me think about Diane,

806
00:59:36.400 --> 00:59:39.800
and I actually wanted to reach out
to her. I wanted to know

807
00:59:39.840 --> 00:59:45.400
how she felt. I wanted to
know if she loved me, if she

808
00:59:45.639 --> 00:59:52.480
wanted me, if she connected with
me before she had to give me up

809
00:59:52.480 --> 00:59:59.719
for adoption. I had dated a
guy who took an interest in the story,

810
01:00:00.159 --> 01:00:04.159
and it actually tracked down Diane where
she was in prison. She had

811
01:00:04.159 --> 01:00:08.360
given me the address. I decided
to reach out to her. The first

812
01:00:08.440 --> 01:00:15.519
letter I wrote Diane, I must
have written a hundred times. I was

813
01:00:16.039 --> 01:00:22.119
nervous, it was exciting, it
was scary. I wanted to relate to

814
01:00:22.159 --> 01:00:25.880
her, not as a mother because
I had a mother, just as somebody

815
01:00:25.920 --> 01:00:30.880
that felt the pain and emptiness that
I felt in that time. I know

816
01:00:30.920 --> 01:00:35.519
you're screaming in your head, no, Becky, don't do it. No.

817
01:00:35.559 --> 01:00:39.880
I mean, I can totally understand
her situation. It's tough. Diane

818
01:00:39.880 --> 01:00:44.760
responded quickly to Becky's letter, but
she wasn't sure she wanted to open the

819
01:00:44.880 --> 01:00:49.039
letter, but she did. The
letter started, Dear Rebecca, I received

820
01:00:49.039 --> 01:00:52.559
your letter this evening and wanted to
write back immediately, but wasn't exactly certain

821
01:00:52.599 --> 01:00:57.599
how to begin. You look like
me, same chin. Don't you hate

822
01:00:57.599 --> 01:01:01.480
it? You're beautiful? That proves
it right there. End quote. Diane

823
01:01:01.480 --> 01:01:06.079
and Becky started a pleasant correspondence,
but it quickly escalated. As things often

824
01:01:06.119 --> 01:01:08.920
do with Diane. The letters became
dark, strange, and unhinged, filled

825
01:01:08.920 --> 01:01:15.519
with conspiracy theories. Quote just know
that someone very powerful has been watching over

826
01:01:15.559 --> 01:01:19.840
you for your whole life for me
end quote. In a twelve page letter

827
01:01:19.840 --> 01:01:23.320
to Becky, Diane claimed her innocence. Once again, Diane got mean too.

828
01:01:24.039 --> 01:01:27.840
Quote I don't know who you are, Rebecca, but you aren't our

829
01:01:27.960 --> 01:01:31.960
daughter. Diane accused Becky of being
part of a conspiracy that wanted to harm

830
01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:37.519
her. After a month of correspondence, only it just took a month for

831
01:01:37.599 --> 01:01:40.119
it to get ugly, Becky told
Diane not to write to her anymore.

832
01:01:40.480 --> 01:01:44.760
Diane sent her a last letter,
telling Becky that Christian would grow up to

833
01:01:44.760 --> 01:01:47.119
be a serial killer. She said, quote, you are a piece of

834
01:01:47.159 --> 01:01:50.880
work, Rebecca. If you love
your little boy, you will take him

835
01:01:50.920 --> 01:01:54.760
away from there. End quote.
Becky said quote A part of me had

836
01:01:54.760 --> 01:01:58.880
wanted to know what she thought of
me, but when she told me she

837
01:01:59.000 --> 01:02:01.679
did, it wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want a murderer to love

838
01:02:01.760 --> 01:02:07.280
me. End quote. Becky met
Anne Rule to learn about her father.

839
01:02:07.800 --> 01:02:10.639
Anne was the only person other than
Diane who could tell her about him,

840
01:02:10.920 --> 01:02:15.679
and swore to Diane that she would
never tell and she honored that agreement.

841
01:02:15.159 --> 01:02:20.119
But she did tell Becky that her
father was kind and warm, unlike her

842
01:02:20.159 --> 01:02:24.159
mother. And we still don't know
who this man is. No. Becky

843
01:02:24.159 --> 01:02:28.559
has struggled with her identity and gone
through some hard times, but today she

844
01:02:28.679 --> 01:02:31.119
uses meditation and yoga to ease her
mind. She has strong, smart,

845
01:02:31.119 --> 01:02:36.320
and determined to live her life without
stigma or shame. Becky works as a

846
01:02:36.400 --> 01:02:40.199
childhood behavioral health coordinator. And we
wished the best for Becky and her son.

847
01:02:40.400 --> 01:02:44.679
Yeah, for sure. In nineteen
eighty nine, Diane wrote a book

848
01:02:44.679 --> 01:02:49.440
with the help of a ghostwriter called
Diane Down's Best Kept Secret. It was

849
01:02:49.599 --> 01:02:53.840
eighty dollars on Amazon. It's not
in print. I couldn't access any of

850
01:02:53.880 --> 01:02:59.800
it, but I am very curious, but the dedication reads, I dedicate

851
01:02:59.800 --> 01:03:02.320
this book to all my children,
because they have lost more than anyone else.

852
01:03:02.840 --> 01:03:07.440
We hit our faces and protect our
hearts with the wrongs we have truly

853
01:03:07.480 --> 01:03:10.719
embraced, and there is no time
to fear the horrors which others have imagined

854
01:03:10.760 --> 01:03:15.480
for us. The book sounds like
an awkward airing of grievances told from the

855
01:03:15.519 --> 01:03:21.400
viewpoint of a malignant narcissist. Diane
claims to be looking for the bushy haired

856
01:03:21.440 --> 01:03:24.400
man who shot her children, and
goes as far as blaming a serial killer

857
01:03:24.480 --> 01:03:30.920
for the shooting. But then you
have to wonder why Diane was not shot

858
01:03:30.960 --> 01:03:35.280
too. Right. Here's another quote
from the book. Christy and Daniel may

859
01:03:35.320 --> 01:03:39.960
have been harboring self deprecating thoughts which
would later manifest into suicide attempts because they

860
01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:44.840
feel that if their own mother thought
that they were worth nothing, they must

861
01:03:44.880 --> 01:03:47.679
be indeed worthless. I fight every
day of my life to prove to Christy

862
01:03:47.760 --> 01:03:52.000
and Daniel that I didn't hurt them, so they will be able to hold

863
01:03:52.039 --> 01:03:54.480
their heads up. They have a
right to know I love them now and

864
01:03:54.519 --> 01:04:00.079
have loved them always. To find
the real killer, Diane just needs to

865
01:04:00.079 --> 01:04:02.320
look in an air and stop lying
to herself and her children. Yeah,

866
01:04:02.599 --> 01:04:06.719
the fact that she has kept this
straight up for forty years is crazy.

867
01:04:06.920 --> 01:04:11.199
Yea. At this point, we've
done a few cases like this. Jeffrey

868
01:04:11.280 --> 01:04:14.719
McDonald comes to mind, like these
people that have been in prison for thirty

869
01:04:14.719 --> 01:04:18.960
plus years and just continue with the
lie. I don't know how you do

870
01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:21.880
that. I guess you just I
feel like a lot of them have convinced

871
01:04:21.920 --> 01:04:27.199
themselves exactly. That's what I was
going to say. Diane, now sixty

872
01:04:27.239 --> 01:04:30.960
eight, has had three parole hearings, in the latest in twenty twenty,

873
01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:34.599
when she was once against denied freedom. I can't see a scenario where she

874
01:04:34.679 --> 01:04:40.320
will ever be released from prison.
She resides in Chowchilla, California, at

875
01:04:40.320 --> 01:04:45.159
the Central California Woman's Facility. I'm
an interesting side note, Diane would never

876
01:04:45.280 --> 01:04:49.800
deliver Penthouse or Playboy when she carried
mails. I can't imagine as a postal

877
01:04:49.840 --> 01:04:56.920
care. You can be like,
yeah, I'm not Wes. Diane's father

878
01:04:57.440 --> 01:05:01.519
maintain a website for years that claims
Diane's innocence and it's still up there.

879
01:05:01.719 --> 01:05:06.880
And all these things that we're mentioning, we will post links to. Years

880
01:05:06.960 --> 01:05:12.199
later, Christie was asked why a
classmate who shot her and her siblings and

881
01:05:12.320 --> 01:05:15.239
she had no idea. She said
she had no idea, which is one

882
01:05:15.239 --> 01:05:17.039
of the things that wes Is pointed
to in his website. Well, if

883
01:05:17.119 --> 01:05:23.719
Christie says she doesn't know, then
Diane was diagnosed with three personality disorders to

884
01:05:23.920 --> 01:05:30.199
no one surprised, histrionic personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and anti social

885
01:05:30.639 --> 01:05:36.519
personality disorder. These were diagnosed while
she was going through a pre trial testing

886
01:05:36.599 --> 01:05:42.800
to see if she was eligible to
stand trial. Markers of histrionic personality disorder

887
01:05:42.840 --> 01:05:48.519
include attention seeking behavior and discomfort when
not the center of attention and appropriately provocative

888
01:05:48.519 --> 01:05:55.000
behavior, tendency to think relationships are
closer than they are in reality, and

889
01:05:55.440 --> 01:06:00.880
manipulation. Histrionic personality disorder can be
the result of a difficult childhood and prevent

890
01:06:00.960 --> 01:06:08.719
the individual from forming healthy interpersonal relationships. Markers of antisocial personality disorder include the

891
01:06:08.760 --> 01:06:13.039
ability to be charming and manipulative,
a lack of empathy or remorse, and

892
01:06:13.119 --> 01:06:18.880
a disregard for authority. Individuals with
narcissistic personality disorder display an inflated sense of

893
01:06:18.920 --> 01:06:24.679
self importance, a strong desire to
be admired and complimented, and a fragile

894
01:06:24.719 --> 01:06:30.000
ego. The three personality disorders overlap
in a lot of ways, and they

895
01:06:30.039 --> 01:06:32.920
exist on a spectrum. All the
descriptions you read sound pretty bag. You

896
01:06:33.079 --> 01:06:38.559
sound spot on, don't they.
Christy and Danny have chosen to live private

897
01:06:38.599 --> 01:06:44.320
lives and have never spoken publicly.
Steve Downs. Several people in this case

898
01:06:44.400 --> 01:06:48.599
have chosen to remain as private as
possible, Steve Downs and Fred huge among

899
01:06:48.639 --> 01:06:53.440
them. Christy, we know,
is married with children and lives in Oregon.

900
01:06:53.800 --> 01:06:57.440
One of her children is named after
her sister, Cheryl. And I

901
01:06:57.480 --> 01:07:01.480
don't know much about Danny other than
he very intelligent. I think he's skipped

902
01:07:01.519 --> 01:07:04.760
some despite all the trauma. I
think he skipped some grades in school,

903
01:07:04.960 --> 01:07:10.840
and he is a computer whiz.
At the top of the first episode,

904
01:07:10.880 --> 01:07:14.679
we talked about Anne Rule in her
book Small Sacrifices, which I read and

905
01:07:14.800 --> 01:07:19.039
I recommend it was a great resource. Here's a clip of Diane addressing Anne

906
01:07:19.159 --> 01:07:23.800
Rule about her book, what do
you I take issue? I take issue

907
01:07:23.800 --> 01:07:26.639
with much of it? Okay,
okay, what do you take issue with?

908
01:07:27.079 --> 01:07:30.880
Well? She considers it a true
story. And she's quoted me all

909
01:07:30.920 --> 01:07:33.920
through the book and tells the reader
how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking at

910
01:07:33.960 --> 01:07:39.039
various times all through the book.
Yet she's never interviewed me. How does

911
01:07:39.079 --> 01:07:42.239
she do that? How does she
justify that being a true story? Okay,

912
01:07:42.239 --> 01:07:45.519
Anne, how do you justify that? Well? Diane, I'm sure

913
01:07:45.559 --> 01:07:49.440
you remember my coming to jail and
interviewing you twenty minutes. Twenty minutes,

914
01:07:49.480 --> 01:07:54.880
Anne, and I also sat in
the courtroom while you testified for four days

915
01:07:55.400 --> 01:08:02.039
and told your entire life, from
your childhood abuse, through your marriage,

916
01:08:02.199 --> 01:08:06.880
through your multiple affairs, how you
felt about it. And at one point

917
01:08:06.960 --> 01:08:12.199
you said to the prosecutor, mister
Hughy, would you like me to explain

918
01:08:12.280 --> 01:08:16.479
how I met all my lovers and
how our affairs were carried out? And

919
01:08:16.640 --> 01:08:19.720
he said, no, that wouldn't
be necessary. He did, and then

920
01:08:19.760 --> 01:08:23.600
you went ahead and told it anyway, Diane, which for a writer,

921
01:08:26.199 --> 01:08:30.239
you helped me a lot. In
your testimony. You say that, you

922
01:08:30.319 --> 01:08:35.399
say and that that Diane is a
writer's dream because she keeps diaries and written

923
01:08:35.439 --> 01:08:40.600
diaries and tape diaries, or she
has kept written diaries and letters and letters

924
01:08:40.640 --> 01:08:45.920
and I have several letters that Diane
wrote to me and several Anne, several

925
01:08:45.159 --> 01:08:51.119
four I consider four we're talking to
They're fourteen pages long, two of them

926
01:08:51.119 --> 01:08:55.880
are, and there they were stretching
the truth. So you're you're deciding that

927
01:08:55.920 --> 01:08:59.199
fourteen pages equals four letters. And
the fact is, and there are a

928
01:08:59.239 --> 01:09:02.039
few quotes in book that can be
attributed to my testimony, but only a

929
01:09:02.079 --> 01:09:06.800
few. Where did you get the
rest of them? Diane? Maybe,

930
01:09:06.840 --> 01:09:10.800
Okay, maybe that's a hard question. Maybe it's unfair to ask. No,

931
01:09:10.840 --> 01:09:12.920
it's not. No, my dear, it's not a hard question.

932
01:09:12.960 --> 01:09:16.039
You've got to let me answer it. I have all of the tapes of

933
01:09:16.079 --> 01:09:21.560
the interrogations that you when you talk
to the detectives and Diane talked to the

934
01:09:23.159 --> 01:09:27.119
I have got that transcript of every
one of those tapes, and they are

935
01:09:27.159 --> 01:09:30.800
not in there. They're not in
there. Well, perhaps you perceive it

936
01:09:30.840 --> 01:09:33.600
differently, So you're saying the court
will perceive it differently in the first of

937
01:09:33.680 --> 01:09:38.640
next year. How do you justify
changing a dozen names in your book and

938
01:09:38.720 --> 01:09:41.399
still you falsified names and you call
it a true book. How do you

939
01:09:41.439 --> 01:09:44.520
do that? How do you justify
it? I changed the names of your

940
01:09:44.560 --> 01:09:47.159
lovers because some of their wives didn't
even know they were having affairs with you,

941
01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:53.439
and it seemed no point in breaking
up all those marriages, the ones

942
01:09:53.479 --> 01:09:56.680
that had not been broken up.
I didn't have a dozen lovers. But

943
01:09:56.720 --> 01:10:00.840
the fact is you're saying that you
were protecting the innocent right. I never

944
01:10:00.920 --> 01:10:05.119
said that you said, and so
there's no point in embarrassing and hurting people

945
01:10:05.159 --> 01:10:09.760
anymore. Okay, then, because
you can understand Diane, Diane, you

946
01:10:09.760 --> 01:10:14.840
can understand why the names would be
changed because I got confused between lou the

947
01:10:14.880 --> 01:10:17.800
lover, Nick the lover, and
all because it confused me. Okay,

948
01:10:17.800 --> 01:10:20.560
I think we're jumping ahead of ourselves
because there are a lot of people.

949
01:10:20.880 --> 01:10:24.880
There are about twenty million people watching
this show today, and a lot of

950
01:10:24.920 --> 01:10:28.680
those people don't know your story.
A lot of those people, for this

951
01:10:28.960 --> 01:10:30.880
is their first thing, surely don't
know about it from reading Admiral's book.

952
01:10:31.000 --> 01:10:38.840
Trust me. Okay, interesting debate. Diane actually did have over a dozen

953
01:10:38.920 --> 01:10:43.119
lovers, and she would just golm
into one little piece of Ant's book that

954
01:10:43.199 --> 01:10:45.880
might be like a slight embellishment and
try to discredit the whole book. But

955
01:10:45.920 --> 01:10:51.720
the book was well researched based on
interviews with other people and the core transcript,

956
01:10:51.840 --> 01:10:55.840
So I do believe it was the
story was talking. Yeah, I

957
01:10:55.920 --> 01:10:58.720
believe that too, But in hearing
that clip, it also made me think

958
01:10:58.760 --> 01:11:01.640
I would not want to debate Diane
Downs because she had seemed mean, right,

959
01:11:01.760 --> 01:11:05.960
That's why I wanted to play that. It's she's She is very smart

960
01:11:06.319 --> 01:11:12.119
and an articulate for sure. On
November twelfth, nineteen eighty nine, the

961
01:11:12.159 --> 01:11:15.920
movie Small Sacrifices, based on Anne's
book, was shown on ABC as a

962
01:11:15.960 --> 01:11:19.479
movie of the Week. It was
a two parter. Do you remember ABC

963
01:11:19.680 --> 01:11:23.399
or movies of Oh yeah, they
don't do this anymore, but they were

964
01:11:23.439 --> 01:11:27.560
really great. Sarah Fawcett, Diane
must have loved that, played her,

965
01:11:27.720 --> 01:11:34.000
and Ryan O'Neill played Nick. Sarah
one and Emmy for her portrayal of Diane

966
01:11:34.039 --> 01:11:38.880
Downs. It's available on YouTube,
and I will link it in our show

967
01:11:38.920 --> 01:11:41.600
notes and our show notes. I'm
looking at it right now. What I've

968
01:11:41.680 --> 01:11:47.039
linked the Small Sacrifices, You can
watch the whole thing. I have Diane's

969
01:11:47.039 --> 01:11:51.119
father's website. You can watch that
episode of Oprah, which if you are

970
01:11:51.159 --> 01:11:55.840
into interested in this case, I
highly recommend that you watch that episode of

971
01:11:55.840 --> 01:12:00.560
Oprah, if only to see Oprah's
hair. It is. It's amazing,

972
01:12:00.640 --> 01:12:05.760
quite a structure, but it's just
really compelling to see Diane. She is

973
01:12:06.439 --> 01:12:12.520
sharp as attack in this episode.
I think since she has become more of

974
01:12:12.600 --> 01:12:19.199
a lunatic. But that episode of
Oprah is really great. Also the episode

975
01:12:19.239 --> 01:12:25.880
of twenty twenty with Becky Babcock that
I linked to, and you can watch

976
01:12:25.920 --> 01:12:29.600
that whole episode too. Okay,
this is getting a little long, but

977
01:12:29.640 --> 01:12:33.359
I do have some questions for you. There was no blood spatter on Diane.

978
01:12:33.920 --> 01:12:36.520
Why do you think that could have
been? Well, if she was

979
01:12:36.560 --> 01:12:42.000
outside the car and leaning into the
car when she shot the children, I

980
01:12:42.000 --> 01:12:45.479
could see the blood spatter might not
have made it back out the window.

981
01:12:45.920 --> 01:12:47.840
Yeah, we don't know how far
the windows were down or not. And

982
01:12:47.920 --> 01:12:51.399
I'm wondering if maybe the windows could
have been up further and she stuck her

983
01:12:51.399 --> 01:12:54.960
hand in and that's why she was
shielded from the blood spatter. Yeah,

984
01:12:55.720 --> 01:12:58.119
where did the gun? Where did
she put the gun? She didn't have

985
01:12:58.159 --> 01:12:59.880
a whole lot of time, She
had a little bit of time, But

986
01:13:00.039 --> 01:13:02.359
where could the gun have gone?
I mean, I don't know the geography

987
01:13:02.359 --> 01:13:06.079
around there, but you know it's
pretty I'm sure it's a lot of wide

988
01:13:06.079 --> 01:13:12.439
open country and trees and you know, it's just you have taken to every

989
01:13:12.439 --> 01:13:15.600
time we're in the car driving now, you like to point out where a

990
01:13:15.640 --> 01:13:19.680
body could be on me drive.
Yeah, well, you know it's good

991
01:13:19.680 --> 01:13:24.840
to know where to look if you're
looking for a body. Investigators thought that

992
01:13:24.880 --> 01:13:29.640
the gun could have been in like
a cushioned pouch and it could have floated

993
01:13:29.880 --> 01:13:33.279
down the river to a larger waterway. Maybe. What do you think the

994
01:13:33.319 --> 01:13:38.039
significance of the unicorn was? Remember
that there was a I think it was

995
01:13:38.079 --> 01:13:42.199
a nine inch bronze statue that was
engraved with the children's names. It's so

996
01:13:42.359 --> 01:13:46.159
bizarre to me that like she had
this made in advance. It doesn't make

997
01:13:46.159 --> 01:13:50.960
any sense, and it was dated
it was May thirteenth, the children the

998
01:13:51.399 --> 01:13:56.600
attack happened on May nineteenth, and
made a big deal of it in her

999
01:13:56.680 --> 01:14:01.159
book. And I just couldn't figure
out this significant significance of it. Yeah,

1000
01:14:01.279 --> 01:14:04.199
I mean, it's just very bizarre. It's very bizarre. Do you

1001
01:14:04.239 --> 01:14:09.520
think Diane was capable of love?
Did she love her children? No?

1002
01:14:09.640 --> 01:14:14.720
I don't think so. The one
thing that's really hard for me to understand

1003
01:14:14.800 --> 01:14:18.399
is she seemed like she really loved
being pregnant, and she seemed so happy

1004
01:14:18.680 --> 01:14:21.680
about, you know, giving birth
and things like that, but then she

1005
01:14:21.720 --> 01:14:26.640
seemed to have no love for the
children at all. So I don't understand

1006
01:14:26.640 --> 01:14:29.600
that. It's very strange, but
it seems like it's all about her and

1007
01:14:29.600 --> 01:14:32.920
how she felt being pregnant as a
narcissist. I think she loved the adulation

1008
01:14:33.239 --> 01:14:38.600
that the child could could bring upon
her right, but then she didn't want

1009
01:14:38.640 --> 01:14:42.000
to deal with it. She loved
being adored, but she didn't really know

1010
01:14:42.039 --> 01:14:45.680
how to return the love that someone
gave her. The gun residue test,

1011
01:14:45.720 --> 01:14:50.640
I guess we talked about this the
last episode. How easy is it to

1012
01:14:51.239 --> 01:14:56.399
wash away gun residue. I've heard
conflicting reports. I have a quote.

1013
01:14:56.880 --> 01:15:00.720
Gunpowder is one of the toughest stains
around when it comes to removing it from

1014
01:15:00.760 --> 01:15:03.199
clothes. The fact that if it
gets on your skin it is like being

1015
01:15:03.239 --> 01:15:09.000
given a tattoo should give you some
sort of idea how tough the stain is.

1016
01:15:09.479 --> 01:15:13.000
Washing soda is your best bet.
It includes, among its ingredients the

1017
01:15:13.319 --> 01:15:17.119
exceedingly corrosive carbolic acid. If you
use this mixed with water, you can

1018
01:15:17.199 --> 01:15:21.520
lift off a gunpowder stain, So
that makes it sound like it's harder to

1019
01:15:21.560 --> 01:15:25.920
get rid of. I guess I
wonder too, how good the testing was

1020
01:15:26.119 --> 01:15:30.000
back then. This is you didn't
mention that the last episode nineteen eighty three.

1021
01:15:30.119 --> 01:15:31.960
Yeah, so it may not have
been you know, the testing may

1022
01:15:31.960 --> 01:15:35.199
not have been as good as it
probably is today. Do you think that

1023
01:15:35.279 --> 01:15:40.640
Diane would would have been convicted without
Christie's testimony? I think it would have

1024
01:15:40.680 --> 01:15:43.520
been hard to convict her without it. There really wasn't a whole lot of

1025
01:15:43.560 --> 01:15:45.800
evidence, so it would be,
you know, just her word. I

1026
01:15:45.800 --> 01:15:50.520
believe it was absolutely necessary to have
Christie's testimony. And how would the jury

1027
01:15:50.560 --> 01:15:56.520
have gone against Christie's testimony after this
poor little girl gets up there and I

1028
01:15:56.640 --> 01:15:58.640
just can't believe it, Like,
oh I don't believe her? Right?

1029
01:15:59.479 --> 01:16:03.760
What is the bushy haired stranger theory
not investigated enough? I think it was

1030
01:16:03.880 --> 01:16:09.399
investigated adequately. I think so too. But that's something that Diane and her

1031
01:16:09.439 --> 01:16:14.720
father have pointed to continually that there
were a lot of people were like,

1032
01:16:14.760 --> 01:16:17.439
hey, I saw a bushy haired
guy at the gas station, or hey,

1033
01:16:17.560 --> 01:16:20.039
you know there was a lot of
that going on, but none of

1034
01:16:20.079 --> 01:16:24.640
them handed out. You would hate
to have been a bushy haired guy living

1035
01:16:24.640 --> 01:16:28.319
in that area around that time,
because everyone was probably it was nineteen eighty

1036
01:16:28.359 --> 01:16:30.640
three. There were probably a lot
of bushy haired guys, for sure.

1037
01:16:30.920 --> 01:16:34.319
I don't really know what the hairstyle
was in nineteen eighty three, But did

1038
01:16:34.439 --> 01:16:40.239
police judge Diane as a woman with
loose morals who was capable of murdering her

1039
01:16:40.319 --> 01:16:44.880
children? Do you mean were they
biased because she had affairs and loose morals?

1040
01:16:44.920 --> 01:16:46.600
Yeah? I mean, I don't
know, but it seems like to

1041
01:16:46.640 --> 01:16:51.479
me the evidence pointed in her direction
pretty clearly true, regardless of whether she

1042
01:16:51.520 --> 01:16:57.279
had affairs or not. I agree
that brings us to the end. Rest

1043
01:16:57.319 --> 01:17:00.720
in peace, Cheryl Anne Downs.
Cheryl was a sweet, bubbly, active

1044
01:17:00.800 --> 01:17:06.520
child who loved gymnastics and flowers.
She was kind and creative. She loved

1045
01:17:06.520 --> 01:17:11.399
to hike and explore nature. Her
sister was her best friend, and she

1046
01:17:11.600 --> 01:17:15.279
was a loving sister to her brother
Danny. I love that you know that

1047
01:17:15.319 --> 01:17:18.399
you have to jump in there.
I know because I always I get tearios.

1048
01:17:18.439 --> 01:17:30.439
I understand I'm not so strong like
you. I know well by the

1049
01:17:30.479 --> 01:17:32.119
time you're hearing this, this will
be kind of old news, but it

1050
01:17:32.159 --> 01:17:39.039
was tragic news this week that Jerry
and Teresa from The Golden Bachelor have split.

1051
01:17:39.920 --> 01:17:46.560
It's like love isn't real, Like
even a man well into his seventies

1052
01:17:47.000 --> 01:17:51.600
is still an f boy. It's
almost like you shouldn't go on a TV

1053
01:17:51.760 --> 01:17:56.359
show to try to find your true
love. That's my thing. Easy for

1054
01:17:56.399 --> 01:18:00.359
you to say, it's not that
easy for everybody to find the love that

1055
01:18:00.399 --> 01:18:06.560
I've found with you. But I
don't know. It's it's bizarre. Did

1056
01:18:06.600 --> 01:18:10.359
you you watched the whole thing?
I think I watched like two episodes of

1057
01:18:10.399 --> 01:18:13.399
it. I think I think I
made you watch two episodes and then I

1058
01:18:13.399 --> 01:18:16.520
guess I lost interest. But yeah, I mean he seemed like an authentic

1059
01:18:16.560 --> 01:18:20.680
guy, but clearly something I heard
that it was a location thing, which

1060
01:18:20.720 --> 01:18:24.960
I kind of get, Like if
you have kids that live around you and

1061
01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:28.920
they both you know, they both
have right to be around your kids.

1062
01:18:29.159 --> 01:18:30.600
Yeah, and I think that that
might have been I would like to see

1063
01:18:30.640 --> 01:18:34.199
statistics, like if you look over
all of the dating shows, all the

1064
01:18:34.239 --> 01:18:39.680
Bachelor shows that have been on over
the years, like how many relationships have

1065
01:18:39.800 --> 01:18:44.000
actually made it out of like,
you know what percentage of relationships actually make

1066
01:18:44.039 --> 01:18:45.119
it? Yeah, it's not it's
not a lot. I got to be

1067
01:18:45.199 --> 01:18:48.399
very low, very low. Well, thank you all so much for listening.

1068
01:18:48.439 --> 01:18:54.439
We appreciate. I'm sorry I have
breaking news. We've talked about this

1069
01:18:54.479 --> 01:19:00.319
before. But our sweet cat,
Cosmo sits in a chair and there like

1070
01:19:00.399 --> 01:19:02.600
these pigeons that sit out haunting him. Aren't they know? I'm like wondering,

1071
01:19:02.600 --> 01:19:05.239
are they looking at each other or
is the pigeon just hanging out there?

1072
01:19:05.279 --> 01:19:08.800
It seems like the pigeon, and
there were two of them, is

1073
01:19:09.000 --> 01:19:11.920
taunting him like on purpose. It
really does feel that way. We should

1074
01:19:12.039 --> 01:19:14.439
try to get a picture and post. Does the pigeon only show up when

1075
01:19:14.439 --> 01:19:16.880
we're podcasting? Where's the pigeon always
here? Maybe the pigeon is I have

1076
01:19:17.000 --> 01:19:21.560
a listener, no idea, but
I know that Cosmo is not happy about

1077
01:19:21.560 --> 01:19:27.000
this whole situation. He really wants
to play with a pigeon. I don't

1078
01:19:27.039 --> 01:19:31.800
think you know, if a cat
is a domestic indoor cat and has been

1079
01:19:31.880 --> 01:19:35.880
in their whole life, are they
capable of killing? Yes? Everyone,

1080
01:19:36.159 --> 01:19:40.680
in our eyes, everyone is a
potential murderer. That's true. That's true

1081
01:19:41.119 --> 01:19:44.319
well as I was saying, thank
you all so much for listening. We

1082
01:19:44.359 --> 01:19:47.119
appreciate each and every one of you. Please rate, review, follow and

1083
01:19:47.239 --> 01:19:51.720
subscribe, Find us on social media, or send us an email at Lovemarykill

1084
01:19:51.800 --> 01:19:57.479
at gmail dot com, and please
consider supporting us on Patreon dot com slash

1085
01:19:57.520 --> 01:20:02.000
Love Mary Kill one tier five dollars
a month for early ad free access and

1086
01:20:02.039 --> 01:20:06.800
a monthly bonus episode. What he
said until next time. Don't kill your

1087
01:20:06.840 --> 01:20:33.000
husband, don't kill your wife.
That is a Wiefer women. You want

1088
01:20:33.760 --> 01:20:53.239
give me your side, juturing the
crown, I'm on the Houn down die

1089
01:20:53.399 --> 01:21:05.239
you smack last the crown like the
wolves, starting lime distorted rhymes. I'm

1090
01:21:05.279 --> 01:21:12.520
on the hometown. That's guy you
mass is alive, just is like one

1091
01:21:13.359 --> 01:21:15.680
and now we're like the