Some people desperately want to become parents. Some people desperately deserve to be parents. And then, there are some people who are parents, and most definitely should not be parents.
Elizabeth Diane Frederickson was born on August 7th, 1955 in Phoenix, Arizona. She was boisterous and a handful. Elizabeth, who went by Diane, often went after what she wanted, with no regard for the consequences of her actions.
On November 17th, 1973, Diane married her high school sweetheart, Steve Downs. A year later, Diane gave birth to their first child, Christie. In 1976, the couple welcomed the arrival of their second child, Cheryl. Their third child, Stephen Daniel (known as Danny), was born in 1979. A year later, Steve and Diane divorced. Steve, who’d gotten a vasectomy after Cheryl’s birth, knew that Danny wasn’t his biological child. He also knew, that despite her promises, Diane had continued to have affair after affair. And Steve couldn’t take it anymore.
Steve also claimed that, despite Diane’s desperation to become a mother, she didn’t care for her children very well. He went on to say in an interview that she treated the children ‘like crap’, and often left them to fend for themselves for long periods of time. And yet, she wouldn’t give up custody of them.
After the divorce, Diane decided her family needed a new start. She moved from Chandler, Arizona to Springfield, Oregon, where she worked as a postal worker.
Three years later, Diane’s life completely changed.
On May 19th, 1983, Diane decided to go for a drive. At around 9:30 PM, she left with her children from a friend’s house, intended to head home. But she didn’t head straight there. She took a detour. She said the kids liked to go sight-seeing.
Diane was next seen driving her blood-spattered car to McKenzie-Williamette Hospital. She rushed in, and said she needed help. Diane and her three children had been shot.
Cheryl, who was 7 years old, was pronounced DOA – dead on arrival. Danny, aged 3, suffered from severe gunshot wounds, paralyzing him from the waist down. Christie, aged 8, suffered from life-threatening gun shot wounds, as well as a stroke. Diane Downs displayed one non-critical gun shot wound to her left forearm.
She claimed that they’d been carjacked by a shaggy-haired man. As they drove around, sight-seeing, a man approached her car, attempted to steal it, wielded a gun, and shot her children in the backseat, and then he shot her when she fought back. As she stated it, she then ‘drove like a lunatic’ to the hospital.
Hospital staff and police investigators alike were skeptical. Downs’ story wasn’t quite adding up. And she was very calm, cool, and collected. She claimed to have been traumatized, but she wasn’t exhibiting any signs or symptoms of anxiety, or PTSD.
She also made statements and remarks that police found odd, and highly inappropriate. She never asked after her children, nor did she seem to grieve for Cheryl. She was flat. And she complained about the blood stains ‘ruining’ her car.
However, the police had to do their due diligence. With Downs’ description, police came up with a composite sketch that they released to the public, along with a plea for tips and leads.
In order to understand how the incident took place, the police asked Downs to re-enact what occurred. As they prepared the cameras, they took note of Downs primping, seeming to preen under the attention. She pranced, told jokes, and laughed. Diane Downs did not exhibit the behaviour of a traumatized, grieving mother.
Others also grew suspicious. Many asked – to police, to the press, to Downs herself – how it was that he children were potentially fatally shot, one child murdered, while Downs only received a non-critical injury. For this, Downs had no good answer other than she was lucky.
Hospital staff noted, and mentioned to police, that Downs had taken the time to tend to her own wounds, wrapping up her arm, but hadn’t bothered to check on her children, or tend to them at all. It was also noted that Christie reacted adversely around her mother.
The stroke had made it so that she couldn’t speak, but she would react with severe anxiety, and her vital signs would spike whenever her mother walked into her hospital room. Christie did not want to be around her mother.
When Downs wasn’t preening, primping, and running her mouth, she was trying to get in touch with someone. While in hospital, she attempted to get in touch with Robert Knickerbocker. Downs and Robert had had a tumultuous affair in Arizona. They’d broken up when he told her flat out that he did not want to be a father at all, let alone a father figure to her children. Robert reconciled with his wife, much to Downs’ dismay, and Downs moved to Oregon.
Downs had really, really hoped that Robert would divorce his wife and follow her. He didn’t.
As she’d given police consent to search her apartment, they started piecing together what really happened on the night of May 19th, 1983.
They found diaries and letters, detailing her obsession with Robert Knickerbocker. In these diaries, she said she’d do anything to get him to love her. In the letters, letters that were returned to her unread and unopened, she begged and pleaded for him to leave his wife and come to her. Robert wanted nothing to do with her, but she just wouldn’t leave him alone.
Investigators began to suspect that Diane Downs had attempted to murder her children in order to get them out of the way. If they were gone, Robert would come to her. But, it didn’t quite work out like that.
Downs managed to shock everyone – police and public alike – when she announced that she was pregnant during an interview. Though she didn’t say so in so many words, she intended to replace Cheryl with this baby. If Robert wouldn’t love her, then this child would.
But the noose was slowly beginning to tighten around her neck.
As investigators looked over her vehicle, they found that the evidence didn’t match the yarn Downs spun for them. The driver’s side door didn’t show any signs of blood spatter, nor was there any gunpowder residue.
She’d also neglected to tell investigators that she owned a gun. Steve Downs and Robert Knickerbocker both stated that she did. The gun registered to Diane Downs matched the caliber of the gun used to shoot her children. Investigators found unfired casings around her apartment. The casings had markings on them, extractor markings. These markings indicated that these casings came from the same gun that had been used to shoot her children. The gun has never been found.
Another hole was poked in Downs’ story by witnesses. Downs claimed that she drove ‘like a lunatic’ in order to get to the hospital after the shooting. But this wasn’t the case. Witnesses stated that they saw her car being driven very, very slowly, barely 5 miles and hour (or roughly 8 kilometres an hour). It was as if she was driving slowly on purpose, hoping her children would die before she got there.
Downs also kept changing her story. What was once a shaggy haired stranger then became a man who knew her personally; a man who was threatening her. She claimed, in a fit of frustration with police, that she knew who shot her children, but she’d never tell them.
Things just weren’t adding up. But Downs kept insisting that her version of events – whatever it may be at the time – was true. She didn’t do it – she didn’t shoot her children.
But no one was believing her. The public, the police, the press, even her own family had given up on her. It was clear that Diane Downs had shot her children, then herself, and tried to concoct a story in order to get away with killing her children.
On February 28th, 1984, Diane Downs was arrested and charged with one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and two counts of criminal assault.
When Christie regained her ability to speak, she was terrified to do so. Over time, and with the help of a therapist, Christie began to tell her tale. At first, she wrote down the name of the person who had shot her. Then, she placed the piece of paper in an envelope, and then threw the envelope in a fire. When she’d finally allowed her therapist to look at what she wrote, no one was surprised that the piece of paper had two words on it – “My mom”.
The crux of the prosecution’s case was that Downs shot her children in order to get rid of them. Robert Knickerbocker didn’t want children. They were in the way. If they were gone, Robert would come to her. And when he didn’t, she got pregnant as a contingency. If he wouldn’t love her, the child certainly would.
Christie testified against her mother. She stated that Downs had pulled the car over, go out, got something out of the trunk, walked back, reached inside, aimed at the back seat, and shot her children. She then shot herself in order to make her tale of a carjacking believable.
On June 17th, 1984, Diane Downs was convicted on all charges. She was sentenced to life in prison, plus 50 years. She wouldn’t be eligible for parole for at least 25 years. It was clear that the judge did not want to run the risk that Diane Downs could be set free.
Christie and Danny were subsequently adopted by Fred and Joanne Hugi in 1986. Fred had been the lead prosecutor against their birth mother.
Ten days before Downs was sentenced, she gave birth to a baby girl. The baby was adopted by Chris and Jackie Babcock. They named the baby Rebecca.
While incarcerated in Oregon, Downs escaped on July 11th, 1987. She scaled a barbed wire fence, and bolted. She was apprehended ten days later, hiding out in a nearby house with a former cellmate’s husband. Five years as added on to her sentence for the escape.
The Hugi’s were anxious and furious. Downs had escaped mere miles from where they lived. They feared that she’d escaped in order to finish the job. The children could be in danger. At Fred Hugi’s request, Downs was transferred to a correctional facility in New Jersey.
In 2008, Downs applied for parole. She reaffirmed her innocence, and stated vehemently that a shaggy-haired man had done this to her, and she was wrongfully convicted. Her application for parole was denied.
In 2010, Downs had a second parole hearing. She was denied.
She will next be eligible to apply for parole in 2020. She will be 65 years old.
Some people were meant to become good, caring parents. And some people should never have been given the option at all.
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Sources:
Diane Downs Now: Her Failed Attempts To Get Parole – Jessica McBride – Heavy
The True Story of Diane Downs – Inside Edition
Diane Downs Wikipedia page