Diane Downs Mommy Murderer

Diane Downs had a dilemma; she was a mother of three obsessively in love with a married lover who wasn't about to leave his wife for a woman with three kids. So Diane came up with a plan.

On May 19, 1983, Diane and her three children, Christie, the oldest at 8, Cheryl, 7, and Danny, 3, were, according to testimony given by Diane to police, coming home from a friend's home when Diane was flagged down by a "bushy haired" man in the middle of the road. Thinking he needed help, Diane pulled over, and the man immediately leaned into the car and started shooting the kids. Diane herself was shot in the arm as she attempted to fight their attacker.

That was the story, anyway.

As soon as her arm was stitched up, Diane immediately asked for a phone so that she could call her ex boyfriend in Arizona and let him know what had happened. Needless to say, this struck the hospital staff as very odd as the children were still fighting for their lives. She seemed oddly unemotional for a woman who had just gone through such trauma. Nor had Diane bothered at this point to notify her parents or the father of Christie and Cheryl, Steve Downs. The Doctor who treated the children also found her lack of emotion at the condition of her children very unusual, to say the least.

Diane's odd behavior, as well as her inability to keep her story straight, destroyed her credibility with the police, and they began to view her as a suspect instead of a helpless single mother attacked by a maniac. More and more, the evidence just didn't support her story. Four days after the attack, the police filmed Diane as she reenacted the crime for them, and not only did she not seem shaken by the ordeal, at one point she even giggled. After this, the police were sure they had found their maniac, and it wasn't an unknown stranger, but Diane herself who had shot her children, killing one and seriously wounding the other two. What the police couldn't figure out was why? Why would a mother attack her children so brutally?

The answers weren't long in coming. During a search of Diane's home, investigators unearthed her diary. In it was page after page devoted to someone named "Lew", detailing their intense love affair, and his rejection of her. It was obvious she was still obsessively in love with him, and investigators set out to find the mysterious Lew. They decided to begin their search in Chandler, Arizona, from which Diane had recently moved.

They began at the Post Office, where Diane had formerly worked, and found a man named Lew Lewiston employed there. Under questioning, Lew stated that he had had an affair with Diane, but that he broke it off when she began pressuring him to leave his wife, which he had no intention of doing. He at first attempted to keep things amicable, but was forced to tell Diane that he was not interested in playing Daddy to another man's kids. This enraged Diane, and she showed up at his doorstep, confronting his wife and cursing at him. That did it for Lew, and he told Diane in no uncertain terms that it was over, and that she was never to contact him again. It was after this that Diane moved back to Oregon. In less than two months her children would become the victims of one of the most heinous crimes in recent history.

Physical evidence aside, the biggest nail in Diane's coffin was the behavior of her daughter, Christie, whenever Diane visited her in the hospital. Christie's heart rate would increase dangerously and it was obvious to the staff that Christie was terrified of her mother. Fred Hugi, the District Attorney, stopped visitation between Diane and Christie immediately. Diane was furious, giving numerous television interviews about her mistreatment and wailing mournfully for the cameras about how much she loved her children. None of this would save her, however. With evidence collected, and the testimony of Christie, the District Attorney forged ahead with the case and Diane was summarily arrested and charged with the murder of the Cheryl and the attempted murder of Christie and Danny, who was left a paraplegic due to his wounds. Through it all, Diane was defiant, insisting she'd done nothing wrong, and that Christie had been brainwashed. The jury didn't buy it and Diane was convicted of all charges and given a sentence of life in prison plus fifty years. In the interim between her conviction and her sentencing, Diane had given birth to another child, father unknown. It was a girl that she named Amy, who was given up for adoption.

In December 2008, Diane Downs went in front of the Parole Board to seek her release from Valley Prison in Chowchilla, California. According to the December 8, 2008 edition of the Seattle Times, Diane was as defiant as ever; she once again ranted and raved about her bad treatment, and even told the parole board that she would make an excellent candidate for release because it was obvious from her numerous escape attempts that she had no desire to be in prison. Needless to say, the parole board was unimpressed, and she was denied parole. She will be up for parole again in 2011.

Christie and Danny were adopted by the District Attorney who handled the case, Fred Hugi. They are now leading happy, productive lives.

Sources:

Ann Rule, "Small Sacrifices"

Anna Song, KATU News in Portalnd, Oregon

The Seattle Times