0:00

I mean it was a huge story. It made, you

0:02

know, national news when Diane

0:05

Downs drives to the

0:07

Springfield hospital with those

0:09

kids, and I think

0:11

it shocked everybody just because somewhere

0:14

deep in their gut, it's like a mom

0:16

and kids that just that doesn't

0:18

make sense. And the story of the shaggy haired stranger

0:21

didn't make a lot of sense either at

0:24

first. But everybody was willing to go

0:26

along with that for quite a while. And

0:28

I think what really sort

0:30

of snapped things was

0:32

the re enactment and

0:35

having Diane with the car

0:38

and having the police ask her various

0:40

questions and to reenact that moment, I

0:43

think began the real questions

0:45

in that story.

0:58

The reenactment Eric Mason is referring

1:00

to is a video shot by Springfield,

1:02

Oregon Police. In it, they asked

1:04

Diane to walk them through the events of that night

1:06

to try and get a better understanding what happened.

1:09

We'll get to that in a bit, but first

1:11

we have to ask who exactly is

1:14

Diane Downs. How does

1:16

a seven year old mal carrier and mother

1:18

of three wind up at a Springfield,

1:20

Oregan hospital on a random weeknight,

1:23

having apparently shot her children and herself.

1:26

The story starts in Arizona. Her

1:28

brother James, describes her family life.

1:31

Describe your dad for me, help me understand your

1:33

household. Sure, I was

1:35

thinking about this last night. The

1:37

year is nineteen sixty. Right,

1:40

they got married in the fifties, and

1:42

in the fifties and the sixties. It was before

1:44

the bra burnings. You know, there

1:46

was a patriarch, and there was a matriarch,

1:48

and there was a mom, and there was a dad. The

1:50

dads did this, and the moms

1:53

did this. The dad's provided the moms

1:55

around the house. Right. The one of

1:57

the questions I had, well, what happens when there was conflict

2:00

in your house? Well, there wasn't conflict

2:02

in my house because that was my dad's

2:04

job to take care of the conflict that there

2:07

ever was conflict, and his job

2:09

was resolved the conflict. And

2:12

by doing that, there was no

2:14

conflict in the house because he took it all. He

2:17

took it all. It's truly a patriarch

2:20

kind of house. Diane's

2:23

childhood was, by most accounts, pretty

2:26

normal, according to her brother, although

2:28

Diane herself claims that she was sexually

2:30

abused by her father. She spent

2:32

part of her childhood and a Phoenix suburb

2:34

before she and her family moved to a farm.

2:37

So your mother always conferred to your

2:39

father on decisions. Always

2:42

that was her job. How big was your

2:44

household? But there's five. Yeah,

2:47

I had a really fantastic childhood. My

2:49

sister had a fantastic childhood. Remember

2:52

growing up on Charter Roak Road, And

2:54

I remember we had a block fence

2:56

in our backyard and over in the right hand corner,

2:58

Diane had pigeons, you

3:00

know, and I thought, those are the coolest thing. Pigeons,

3:03

you know what I mean, their pets. There

3:05

were homing pigeons. Yeah, you put

3:07

little bands on their their little

3:10

foot and they fly off and

3:12

then they come back. You know. I was

3:14

fat in third Gray, right, So, and

3:16

I don't remember a whole lot of a lot, a whole lot about arming

3:18

pigeons at the time. Yeah,

3:20

Diane was one of the real

3:23

I don't want to say main driving factor, but I'll

3:25

use the words to basically leave

3:28

Phoenix and moved to the farm, where she

3:30

inevitably changed her life

3:32

forever by meeting Steve. You

3:35

know, we moved from Phoenix to the farm, and out

3:37

on the farm, it was a great time. Man. Diane

3:40

had a horse, and Cathy

3:42

had a horse, and John had a steer,

3:44

and I raised pigs. I

3:47

raised pigs with my grandpa. As a matter of fact,

3:51

Diane started dating Steve when she was in

3:53

high school. Early on, she tried

3:55

to establish a sense of standards with who

3:57

she dated, but with Steve it didn't

4:00

last. I remember that

4:02

I was in the sixth grade and she was a

4:04

junior in high school and Steve had dropped out. But

4:06

it's part of dating Diana,

4:09

part of being with Diane. One of the things that was

4:11

requested was that you got to check back

4:13

into school, and so he did

4:15

start going to high school and who

4:18

subsequently got kicked out because

4:21

she was talking to somebody and he ended

4:23

up beating the guy up. I

4:25

actually admired Steve growing up.

4:27

I looked up to him, as you

4:30

know, he was a male figure, you

4:32

know, and I put him to the word mail. You

4:35

know, he was a manly man, you

4:37

know, he took no gelf. And this something

4:40

Diane says, you know, basically, you know, whatever, if

4:42

if there was another guy that was bugging her, he would

4:45

beat him up, and she felt safe and

4:47

she felt protected until

4:49

there was nobody else to beat up Unfortunately,

4:53

Steve's propensity for expressing his

4:55

anger stopped with people who were bothering

4:57

Diane, and he began to physically

4:59

abuse Diane as well. Apparently

5:01

those two fought. They

5:04

would physically fight fairly

5:06

often, I mean punching to the face kind of

5:08

fighting. Diane briefly joined

5:10

the military, possibly to escape

5:12

her home life. Diane joined

5:14

the Air Force, probably

5:16

to get away. Um.

5:19

But Diane joined the Air Force and flags

5:21

now and um, she was away

5:23

for a little while and Steve was there taking

5:25

care of Christie. What year

5:27

was this about. I

5:30

was a freshman nine.

5:33

Then Diane said, you know, I

5:35

can't stay away from the kids. And so

5:37

she got an honorable discharge

5:39

or whatever happens with the Air Force, and

5:42

she came back. When Diane went

5:44

to the Air Force, Steve and I were playing pool and

5:46

there was a lady there, and he says, I

5:49

bet you I can get her to go to bed with me,

5:52

you know, as a conquest. And

5:55

it's like, I'm I'm a freshman in high

5:58

school. You know. It's like, and his

6:00

wife's brother right

6:03

right, and she's in the Air Force

6:05

and she's not there. And Um,

6:08

whether he did or whether he didn't. I don't know, but

6:10

I just know what he said to me. They

6:12

fought. They fought a lot.

6:15

And one time when I was there, they

6:17

were fighting and he was on her

6:19

back, beating on her back. I

6:22

remember he didn't hit her in the face.

6:25

He was he was sitting on her. I

6:27

think he was even sitting on her head, holding her

6:29

down like that and beating her on the back. It

6:33

was just it was pretty intense.

6:40

After her son, Danny's birth, Diane

6:43

and Steve divorced. Steve believed he

6:45

couldn't be Danny's father since he claimed

6:47

to have had a vasectomy. Despite

6:49

their divorce, Diane continued to be on the

6:51

receiving end of his physical abuse. According

6:54

to James, later on and

6:56

she got tired of and she started fighting

6:58

back, so she

7:00

she would engage him. He and

7:02

but obviously, you know, she lost

7:05

um. So he shoved her onto the bed and

7:08

at that point Cheryl came in.

7:12

So these took place in front of the kids

7:14

at times, and it

7:16

was never in Diana starting

7:18

the first engaging. It was always heard offending

7:20

herself from him, and so she said,

7:23

you know, gets Cheryl out of the room. And

7:26

by that time Steve was sitting on Diana,

7:28

punching her in the face, and blood was everywhere.

7:32

Diane shouted to take the

7:34

kids and run, so we

7:37

dragged Cheryl away and got Christie

7:39

and Danny. When they fled, it

7:41

seemed inescapable called

7:43

the police, and by the time the Americoba County's

7:46

sheriff, Deputy Sean Carnahan, Steve

7:49

was gone. And when he walked into

7:51

Diana's living room he saw my bloody

7:53

sister sitting in the chair, his

7:55

shoulders dropped, the bruises,

7:58

her broken nose, eyes, dark neck,

8:01

ringing red the drink. Deputy said,

8:04

Diane, my god, what happened to you? What

8:07

do you think? She said, It's

8:10

like, he says, you've

8:12

two been doing this for six years now. It says

8:14

when will it stop? And

8:18

she just said, I don't know. You

8:20

know, sas I divorced, I mean

8:22

a year ago I thought it would stop. Then I

8:24

guess it was wrong. Eventually

8:27

Diane was pushed to her breaking point. Diane

8:30

shot a bullet through the floor

8:32

of her trailer when he was there one night. The

8:35

next Tuesday, judge signed a restraining order

8:37

to keep Steve away from Diane's home to

8:40

be sure that was the first or the last meeting

8:42

he inflicted on my sister. Ten

8:44

days later, we chased her down into the bathroom.

8:47

The restraining order to forget forbidding him

8:49

access to her home was only a week old.

8:52

She still wore the bruises from the last attack.

8:55

He didn't know she grabbed a gun to defend

8:57

herself. The gun that Diane

8:59

used to shoot through the floor would later be the

9:01

subject of a search by police as a

9:03

potential murder weapon. We'll come

9:05

back to that in another episode.

9:11

Not long after the incident where Diane fired

9:13

a shot into the floor, her mobile home

9:16

caught on fire when she flew

9:18

to I think it was Kentucky.

9:21

She wanted to be a circuit mom. She had done

9:23

that once. She was trying to do it again. And

9:25

one of these trips the day or the

9:28

maybe the evening of the day that she left, her

9:30

trailer caught on fire, and

9:32

you know, she filed an insurance claim. They paid

9:35

out, and she later

9:37

when things frayed between her and Steve,

9:39

turned him in for that and he

9:42

was arrested and charged with the insurance

9:44

fraud and had to pay some money back. Everything

9:47

she owned was gone. She and her children

9:49

were homeless, and this was a brand new mobile

9:51

It was a brand new mobile home. Yeah, it was four

9:53

months old. They used to Steve and Diane

9:55

worked at mobile home manufacturing plans.

9:58

Oh, I didn't know this growing

10:00

up I called growing up twenties.

10:02

Right. They worked

10:04

together in manufacturing plans, you

10:06

know, and always you can keep better tracks.

10:08

Ever if he's working with her. I

10:11

remember that, um my sister came over to

10:13

visit, and when she was over to visit, um

10:15

I had a guitar and

10:17

she borrowed my guitar and she took it back

10:19

with her. And what I remember about the mobile

10:21

home burning is the fact that my guitar was

10:24

in the mobile hole when it burned, and

10:26

I never got my guitar back. They

10:45

actually, I'm labeled an electrical fire and

10:49

labeled an electrical fire, but it

10:51

came out that that's not what I was. That's

10:54

came out in court, but that's not what it was. How

10:58

much an insurance pay out for

11:00

for the mobile homes seven thousand dollars

11:02

right there and

11:05

back in that was a

11:07

chunk of money, seven thousand

11:09

dollars to repair the mobile home, which

11:11

wasn't used to repair the mobile's correct,

11:14

where did the seven thousand Steve? Yeah,

11:18

Steve, and again he crossed

11:20

the line. So

11:24

but go moving forward. Do you wonder why Steve

11:26

might have testified that I guess my sister.

11:28

Well, here's here's the reasons. You know, Steve

11:31

confessed to the crime of arson, rendering

11:33

a homeless and putting hard as mercy. But

11:35

he Steve actually said that they

11:38

conspired together to burn her home for

11:40

the insurance money. Diane's

11:42

living situation put Steve back into

11:44

a position of power over her. She

11:46

willingly gave Steve custody of their children

11:49

to prevent them from being homeless. According

11:51

to James, Steve leveraged this into a

11:54

means of control, but everything she owned

11:56

was gone. She and her kids

11:58

were homeless. This is after their restraining

12:01

order and Steve says, hey, come live

12:03

with me. Diane refused,

12:06

but had to let her children move in with him because

12:08

she didn't want him to live in the car. Right, So

12:11

she kept paying on the mortgage for the mobile home,

12:13

and she went to a person's

12:16

named Karen's house and offered her a spare

12:18

room until the November of nine

12:21

two. But the kids weren't welcome because

12:23

you know, it's just a bedroom in the house from Karen

12:25

was her coworker at the

12:27

post office. I believe so yes.

12:30

Diane rented a two bedroom apartment in December.

12:33

Steve refused to let her take her children until

12:35

after Christmas. H Diane

12:37

had to go to his house your children. Steve

12:40

wasn't letting go of that control that

12:42

he had of her. Every time she went

12:44

to their house, they fought he wanted

12:46

to remarry. She didn't. This

12:49

was in December of two

12:51

and the shooting happened in May of n

12:55

Diane eventually moved back into the mobile

12:57

home along with her children and

12:59

January of nine, strapped

13:01

for cash, my sister moved back into

13:03

her burned out mobile home and

13:05

stopped seeing your children at Steve's, so

13:08

she brought the kids to back to the

13:10

home. Steve was calling my

13:13

sister a worthless mother who didn't

13:15

take care of her kids to go see them.

13:17

He said he was sick of her

13:19

having fun while he was burdened with raising the

13:21

kids. So basically, the kids are still at his house

13:24

and she's living there, and he's

13:26

really unhappy about that because basically

13:29

she's probably out having a good time

13:31

and he's having to take care of the kids. Diane

13:36

had been living for years under the constraints

13:38

of an abusive relationship. Although

13:41

she had been unfaithful along with Steve, she

13:43

was now able to see whoever she pleased

13:45

without immediate fear of reprisal. And

13:48

Diane seemed to love male attention.

13:50

Over the course of time. You watch this

13:53

plate out all the time, and you

13:55

when you see someone like

13:57

Diane, when you see

14:00

one trying desperately

14:02

to get attention and to

14:05

move a certain way and to shake her body

14:07

a certain way, you

14:09

think to yourself, Wow, there's

14:12

a person looking for attention, and

14:14

do I want to get inside the kill

14:17

radius of that person? And

14:19

I could get blown up? It could blow

14:22

me up, And so a little

14:25

bell goes off. I think in your head

14:27

when you're the person who's the target

14:30

of a Diane Downs, thinking

14:32

to yourself, do I want

14:34

to be in the kill radius? Do I do

14:36

I want to risk being blown up? And

14:39

the answer for most men is no. But

14:42

for these guys who all of a sudden

14:44

attached to Diane Downs, I

14:47

think they understood it was a quick, easy,

14:50

gratifying way to spend the night.

14:53

I think that's kind of what got

14:55

them going. The problem is, I think

14:57

once they saw what kind

14:59

of a mentally

15:02

damaged person that she was, they

15:04

would run. I think I think that

15:06

happened over and over and over again. Diane

15:14

took a job with a postal service where she

15:16

met Nick Knickerbocker. This

15:18

was the relationship that many would speculate

15:21

to be the motivation behind the attempted murder

15:23

of her children. My sister was

15:25

she was she worked in the post office.

15:28

UM, she was a rural route carrier.

15:30

I remember that was one of their fights in Arizona.

15:33

I remember seeing this because Diane was a

15:35

rural rock carrier and UM as

15:37

a rural rock carrier, she would continually

15:40

break the mirror off of the vehicle because

15:43

you drive the right hand side, and

15:45

she would continually hit the mailboxes with

15:47

the mirror and knocked it off. And Steve would get

15:50

so mad about that. Why

15:52

would he get mad? Well, because she broke the mirror

15:54

off the car continually. I was

15:56

thinking, she was driving, it's

15:59

a rural old routes. On a rural route, you

16:02

you basically sub let your own vehicle,

16:05

yeah and so yeah, driving

16:07

out in the country delivering mail basically, and

16:09

she would hit the mailboxes with the mirror. It

16:12

wasn't a physical fight, but

16:14

it was it was like he crazy, and you

16:16

know, he wasn't very happy, and

16:19

he made it known that she wasn't that

16:21

he wasn't happy. But um, that's

16:23

what she did an Oregon. She transferred

16:26

from Chandler where

16:29

she met Nick, and

16:31

you know, and she moved up to Oregon. And

16:34

my dad lived in Oregon, and my dad was a

16:36

postmaster in Springfield, Oregon. And

16:39

so she came up here to start her new

16:41

family with, you know, to start a new life.

16:44

And she was working the post office, so

16:46

she was she was truly on her way, man, she

16:48

was on her way to getting her life. But

16:52

this happened to her. And

16:54

and it's really, you know, sort of sad because

16:56

I mean the reason, you

17:00

know, talking about the post office,

17:02

and you know, it makes me think of Nick

17:04

Nickerbocker, the guy she met at the post office,

17:07

the guy that you know, they say that everything

17:09

got done for she did

17:12

the motive, yes, thank you very much. He

17:14

was a letter carry also, so they worked

17:17

eight hour shifts beside each other,

17:19

but spent at least two hours after that, um

17:22

oftentimes having um sex

17:24

at one location or another

17:27

um, so they did paint a picture

17:29

that when they were in Arizona. Because he was a married guy

17:31

and for the longest time

17:33

didn't tell his wife about

17:36

Diane. She eventually found out, and

17:39

he still sort of carried on and it

17:41

was not not very forthcoming. Diane

17:44

was apparently obsessed with Nick to the

17:46

point where she would have done anything for him.

17:48

There were unsent letters and journals found

17:50

in her apartment where she declared her feelings.

17:53

Seems to me that he was fairly

17:55

nice looking, strong jaw,

17:58

kind of wiry hair, and

18:00

this person that seemingly

18:03

Diane downs head over heels

18:05

about, and that she

18:09

when any of the male partner

18:12

sex partners said to her, listen, you're

18:15

a really wonderful sexual partner,

18:18

but I don't really I don't think I want

18:20

to raise kids that would absolutely

18:23

crash her world. And

18:25

so I think with

18:27

respect to Robert, the

18:30

question of whether or not he could deal with

18:32

kids, you know, it was certainly

18:34

a part of the narrative. After

18:37

nixt rejection and years of abuse

18:39

from Steve, Diane decided to leave

18:41

Arizona. Her father was a postmaster

18:44

in Oregan, so she moved and was able

18:46

to get a letter carrier job in Springfield.

18:48

When you're an abusive relationship is the same question

18:51

that everybody asks everybody that's in that

18:53

kind of relationship. How are you going to let this happen

18:55

before you change something? But

18:58

when you And then she did change something,

19:01

and that's when she moved to Oregon. She

19:03

was changing her life. She'd been an order for six

19:06

weeks since she was attacked. She left

19:08

Steven Arizona. She left

19:10

her boyfriend's and I don't

19:12

say Nick I said she left her boyfriend's

19:14

in Arizona. I mean, I can't

19:16

say that she didn't have a thing for Nick. And

19:19

I can't say that Nick didn't have a thing for her,

19:21

because obviously they did. But

19:24

she left him there because really

19:27

he was a married man, you

19:30

know, And you're not going to get together with a married man

19:32

because the married man is not going to leave his wife.

19:35

That's just what Mary Penn do.

19:54

And then in the shooting

19:57

occurs. From the beginning, the

19:59

press made every the effort to find all

20:01

the information they could about the incident and

20:03

about Diane herself. The whole goal

20:05

was to figure out who she was, how

20:08

long she had been in Eugene or the Eugene

20:10

Springfield area, So you had

20:12

kind of the small army of media

20:14

types, mainly local print

20:17

and television stations, doing

20:19

their own things. So we were all sort of learning from

20:21

each other too. If if k v

20:24

A L and Eugene had a news broadcast

20:26

at night, was something a little bit new, well figured.

20:29

I wish I had gotten that in first, but nonetheless

20:31

put that into the notebook and just kept on trying

20:34

to compile our

20:36

best ability to figure out who

20:39

was involved. And you

20:41

also had at the same time the

20:44

search for the assailant. That

20:46

was still the official line that there's

20:49

somebody out there, although even early

20:52

on my feeling was, and I think other media

20:54

people, we're having

20:56

questions. Although the police

20:58

department wasn't very forthcoming with the details

21:01

of the case and the investigation, Diane

21:03

herself proved to be very willing to talk

21:05

to the press. I was trying to find out

21:08

who among law enforcement was primarily

21:10

assigned to the case, and would there be a chance

21:12

of getting an interview with these folks,

21:15

And I was able to do that

21:18

after a while, but not early on, and

21:20

and the police were never open

21:22

and forthcoming with reporters as far as I could

21:24

find out. Almost all the information

21:27

as the case developed ended

21:29

up coming really out of

21:31

Diane's mouth. She was a prolific

21:33

talker. When we finally got a chance

21:36

to sit down and get her story,

21:38

and when she started, she

21:41

just didn't stop. Mom and Dad

21:43

said, quit talking, man, do

21:46

not talk to the press. They are not your

21:48

friends. Diane was the most publicized

21:51

and talked about individual in the state

21:53

of Oregon in nine and

21:56

a lot of that was due to her. I

21:59

mean, she would talk to everybody. Diane

22:02

gave several interviews with the press and

22:04

insisted that she and her kids were attacked

22:06

by a shaggy haired stranger, a

22:08

description which over time has become

22:11

a trope when describing non existent suspects

22:13

of crimes. Do you think that helped

22:15

her? No,

22:18

no, no, absolutely

22:20

not. It did the opposite.

22:22

You know. It's like and she was really the worst

22:24

witness for herself, you know, I mean, it's

22:27

like she

22:29

she would get up and she would talk, and

22:32

she would talk, and you

22:35

know, and they think it's because she liked

22:37

to hear herself talk. All the reality

22:39

is that she wanted to

22:42

have them listen. They

22:44

wanted she wanted him to listen. But

22:47

they would never listen, They would never look for

22:49

anybody. They she would go

22:51

down there. You know, it's like, why aren't you looking,

22:53

Well, we're looking for the guy. We're looking for the guy,

22:56

you know. But if then you take a look into

22:58

the newspapers and the time, you know. Two

23:01

weeks after the shooting, Pat Horton, the

23:03

district attorney says, the search

23:05

for the shaggy head stranger is not a priority

23:07

on our list. Two weeks after

23:10

the shooting, the district attorney says,

23:12

the search for the shaggy herd stranger

23:15

his words, not hers. The search for the shaggy

23:17

heard stranger is not a priority

23:19

on our list. But only time she goes

23:21

and talks to him. We're looking for him. We're looking

23:23

for him.

23:35

Months after the shooting, the police had produced

23:37

no additional suspects beyond Diane

23:40

herself. They had no leads, and

23:42

only the Fredericksons themselves seemed

23:44

to be providing contacts of potential

23:46

witnesses and suspects to the police.

23:49

There didn't seem to be any elites, and this

23:51

was coming from Diane's camp to say we

23:53

have somebody had phoned

23:56

us and indicated there was there

23:58

was some guy who had shown up at the Springfield country

24:01

Club, or she was

24:03

advising police be on the lookout for some ding

24:05

up yellow car that was in the area.

24:08

There weren't solidly so I know that

24:10

the police got a lot of contacts and as

24:12

far as I know, they this was this was one of the stories

24:15

we were trying to keep up on. They

24:17

were tracking these leaves

24:19

down, going and talk to the people who phoned them in,

24:22

But as far as we could tell, that never

24:24

really got a solid

24:26

start. There. There was nothing that felt like

24:29

a breakthrough in terms of finding somebody

24:31

else who might be involved in this. Diane

24:34

would talk and tell her story to anyone

24:36

who would listen. She seemed to love

24:38

talking to the press. I do remember

24:41

very clearly, and Diane, but even

24:43

in news conferences talk about dreams that she had had,

24:46

and she would call me, and I'm sure she called other

24:48

reporters on a fairly regular

24:51

basis, just too because she needed

24:53

to talk. And she was one

24:55

day talking about having driven

24:57

down to her letter carrying route

24:59

in Cottage go Over that morning. She said it was kind of foggy

25:02

and I five and she

25:04

could see Cheryl coming

25:07

out of the mist, kind of holding her hand toward

25:09

her, and Diane said, and there

25:11

we were. We were the four Musketeers. Again. I

25:13

think that's how she referred to them, at least for the

25:16

police sake, because it did come out that I

25:18

think it would be a terrible place

25:21

to be raised in her house, because they

25:25

got hit, they got slapped, they were treated

25:27

very, very poorly. The

25:29

police struggled to make sense of the events that

25:31

night based on the story Diane had provided.

25:34

They asked her to recreate everything

25:36

that happened that night step by step

25:38

in a reenactment, and I think for

25:41

the detectives and the officers

25:43

who were working on it, that was the

25:45

moment that things shifted a little bit. And

25:49

to go back to like Detective Welch

25:51

and some of the first folks on the scene

25:54

there radar was going off I think before

25:56

that. But at first, certainly the

25:58

stories were all about who

26:00

is this shaggy hair stranger,

26:02

What was the motive of this person

26:05

to shoot kids? And was

26:07

even that you know the highway

26:09

back there in your moh was

26:12

that folks danger back there

26:14

living out in the rural part of Lane

26:16

County, And Um, the more

26:19

I think Diane

26:21

spoke, the more

26:23

there were questions about what it

26:25

is that the motive was all about, and about

26:27

who the shooter might be. The reenactment

26:30

was strange, to say the least.

26:33

Diane didn't seemed to be a mother who was struggling

26:35

to explain the murder, an attempted murder

26:37

of her children by a stranger. She came

26:39

across like an actress, playing a part

26:42

and catering to the audience. I

26:44

think that when the videotaped

26:47

her and they wanted her

26:49

to say, Hey, this is where I was standing,

26:52

this is where the shaggy haired stranger is standing,

26:55

this was the song playing on the radio,

26:58

This is how I reacted. This

27:00

is what I did when I threw the car keys

27:02

into the bushes. The

27:04

police saw something

27:07

there that didn't quite add up, and

27:09

that was what

27:12

the children ended up seeing from

27:14

inside the car and

27:17

what it is she was saying, and that

27:19

was a contradiction. There

27:21

was an immediate contradiction when they

27:24

viewed what she did with the video

27:26

re enactment in the car, and they got a

27:29

lot of things right down

27:31

to the detail about the car and

27:33

other other things so that they could understand

27:36

what happened. And so

27:40

I think the detectives right off the bat thought

27:43

Wow, this is not right.

27:45

There's something here that's not right,

27:48

and you could see it, I think in

27:51

the way Diane even acted in the video.

27:54

This wasn't a mom who was shell

27:57

shocked. She was a

28:00

actress playing out a scene

28:02

in a movie that we

28:05

hadn't seen yet in

28:07

the video re enactment. M Well,

28:11

it was almost as if, I mean, it's from what

28:13

I can remember of the details, and then showing

28:15

it, it was almost as

28:17

if she had to

28:20

think about what it was that was the right

28:22

answer that they wanted as

28:24

opposed to this is exactly what happened,

28:27

and instead of it being

28:29

something that was ingrained in

28:31

a part of her sailor understanding

28:34

of that shooting from this stranger,

28:37

she was thinking out

28:39

loud, almost about what it is

28:41

that they would buy as a story. And

28:44

you could see that. You could. I'm

28:47

okay, I'm throwing the keys, Yes,

28:49

but I didn't let go of He thinks

28:52

I drew them, but I did not throw them

28:54

at the swings around at the same

28:56

time, watching the keys and swings

28:58

around the shoot who got shot

29:00

me? In sum I'd like to I

29:06

just hit my kids, started

29:09

the car and left the car door

29:12

shut itself. This

29:15

is person Okay.

29:20

The police weren't the only ones who found Diane's

29:23

behavior and explanation strange.

29:25

The press also saw the video and for many

29:28

it confirmed their suspicions that Diane

29:30

was the most likely suspect in the shooting.

29:33

She did a re enactment

29:35

with the police was shown later that

29:39

kind of verified this, this

29:41

feeling that that a lot of us had gotten from the

29:43

start, the story just didn't really add up. She

29:45

claimed, for instance, that when she got out of her

29:47

card this guy said I want your

29:49

car and she said, and she's she's

29:52

consistent as far as I know to this day

29:54

and saying you gotta be kidding me. That's

29:56

about the only part of her story that has

29:58

remained consistent. Her affect is

30:01

not one of somebody who's trying to protect

30:03

their kids. It was almost as if

30:06

she'd never done these things before, and

30:09

she was saying, well, what are you what are you asking

30:11

me to do? And they say, no, just do it

30:13

just like it happened, And that

30:16

was their question. It didn't seem she was

30:18

operating from memory. It was almost

30:21

like, how would you want me to be?

30:23

And so that sort of raised alarm

30:26

bells as they went through her

30:28

reenacting what it was like to have a stranger

30:30

outside her car. After

30:33

the re enactment video, Diane's increasingly

30:36

casual attitude and interviews, and the

30:38

lack of any real evidence pointing to a shoot

30:40

her on the loose, everyone began to

30:42

accept that Diane was most likely guilty.

30:45

So at the beginning, I think all of us wanted to

30:47

believe that it made sense that

30:50

this stranger was out

30:52

there and that all

30:56

the police had to do is just find this person

30:58

and track them down and the things will be over but

31:01

over time, and you really didn't

31:03

want to believe it at first that Diane

31:07

had some of these strange characteristics

31:10

about her. They didn't make

31:13

sense. Eventually police

31:15

felt like they had gathered enough evidence. On

31:17

February, Diane

31:20

Downs was arrested. It

31:24

was a huge deal. Diane has been arrested

31:27

again. You know, she'd been out in the community

31:29

for months saying what if she wanted to disparaging the

31:32

police, which that's okay. People are unfairly

31:34

charged, and it's certainly fair to to push

31:36

back on that. But I think

31:38

among most people that there was just no goodwill

31:41

left for Diane, with no other

31:44

suspect ever having come

31:46

close to being

31:49

charged or arrested or identified. She

31:51

was in the spotlight. She was the one, and it was it

31:53

was a big deal, and she was arrested.

31:57

She was looking tired, be draggled.

32:00

The emotional strain I think had

32:02

taken a toll on her. She was

32:04

still kind of prone to smirk and smile

32:06

a lot, whether she should be or not. But

32:10

she was I think kind of beaten down by a circumstance

32:13

when they finally took her into custody.

32:16

But at that point we all knew that, well, uh,

32:19

we're going to be going to trial in about three months.

32:21

I think Lane County had a stipulation

32:24

of that point that once you were charged with that kind of

32:26

serious crime, just to speedy

32:28

process, we'll have you start your trial

32:30

within three months. It wasn't

32:32

just the reenactment, her strange behavior

32:35

and the inconsistent story that led police

32:37

to arrest Diane. During the nine months

32:39

between the shooting and the arrest, a key

32:42

witness was at last able to provide

32:44

the final piece of the puzzle needed to charge

32:46

Diane. Diane was ultimately

32:48

charged because Christie could

32:51

talk. Christie felt safe enough

32:54

emotionally to share

32:56

her thoughts. She'd been going through through lots

32:58

of therapy. As part

33:00

of these sessions, her

33:03

therapist, a guy named Carl Peterson,

33:05

would ask her eventually,

33:08

just in talking about this, do

33:10

you know who shot you?

33:13

And Christie would nod and he would

33:15

say, do you want to write that down? And I'll put this

33:17

in an envelope and we'll just burn it when

33:19

it's done, so no harm, no foul.

33:22

So she did that for quite a while, and

33:25

I think there was probably one day in particular where

33:27

she felt okay about sharing that with

33:30

him, what she had written on the paper and

33:32

what did she say, said my mom.

33:40

On the next episode of Happy Face

33:43

Presents To Face, we received

33:45

a bizarre letter from Diane Downs in

33:47

prison that included her surprising

33:49

claims of her relation to Becky. This

33:51

leads us to enlist the help from DNA detective

33:54

Michelle Leonard to help us solve the answer

33:56

of who are the biological parents of Becky.

34:01

Ben Boland is our executive producer,

34:04

Melissa Moore is our co executive producer.

34:06

Maya Cole is our primary producer.

34:09

Paul Decant is our supervising producer.

34:11

Sam Ti Garning is our researcher and

34:14

Matt Riddle is our story editor. Featured

34:16

music by dream Tent Happy Phase

34:18

Presents to Phase is a production of I Heart

34:21

Radio m