Mom Looks At Her Bullet Riddled Children And Asks If Her Car is Okay

Mom Looks At Her Bullet Riddled Children And Asks If Her Car is Okay

On Thursday, May 19th, 1983, 27-year-old Diane Downs drove on Old Mohawk Road in Springfield, Oregon. Her three children were in the back seats: Christy, 8 years old; Cheryl, 7 years old; and Danny, 3 years old. The song “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran played on the radio. It was late and completely dark, save for the headlights on Diane’s new red Nissan Pulsar with Arizona license plates. But she was not worried; she was used to driving on back roads in the dead of the night. For her, this was a common occurrence, and she would soon be home.

All went as normal until the family crossed path with a stranger. Diane stepped out of the car and approached the stranger, a bushy-haired man. Suddenly, he pulled a gun on her and demanded she hand over the keys. She did not. The stranger closed the distance between himself and Diane’s red Nissan Pulsar. He then reached inside the car and fired three times. Diane’s mama bear instincts took over. She panicked, throwing her keys into the darkness. The two of them got into a physical altercation. The stranger pulled the trigger two more times as Diane got back into the driver’s seat. One bullet landed in Diane’s arm. She sped off to the nearest hospital, McKenzie-Willamette, shouting, “Somebody shot my kids!”

Upon the family’s arrival, medical professionals jumped into action. They hauled two children from the back seats. They didn’t notice the third, Cheryl, who lay face down on the front passenger seat floor. Diane alerted one of the nurses: “Cheryl is completely still.” But the nurse soldiered on. Off-duty hospital staff members were called in, including a surgeon who turned his 20-minute commute to work into less than 10 minutes by flooring it at 80 mph. They reached out to a hospital in the neighboring town of Eugene for additional aid. Diane stayed in the waiting room with a beach towel wrapped around her injured arm. The hospital receptionist tended to her. Diane phoned her ex-partner, then her parents, before she learned that her middle child, Cheryl, died from her injuries, but Christy and Danny were alive. The police listened to Diane’s story and jumped straight into the investigation. The small community of Cottage Grove was shaken by the story of the strange gunman who attacked a single mother and her three children. There was someone violent wandering around free, and every man, woman, and child was in danger. Unfortunately for Diane, she was a bad liar, and even worse, the police knew it.

Elizabeth Diane Frederickson was born in 1955. She was the oldest of five children born to Wesley and Willine Frederickson. In their earlier years, the Frederickson family moved around often as Wesley jumped from job to job. They settled in Phoenix, Arizona, when Wesley found stable employment at the Post Office. Wesley and Willine Frederickson were conservative; they were deeply religious and emotionally distant. Young Elizabeth wanted attention, and if she did not get attention from her parents, she would get it from her peers. Elizabeth had a hard time fitting in with kids her age because of her upbringing. Her parents placed her under very strict rules dictating how she could dress, where she could go, and what she could do. Elizabeth was often bullied for her appearance and clothes. She tried to rely on her smarts and accomplishments to get the attention she craved, but eventually, she would leave that strategy behind.

In her teenage years, Elizabeth started to rebel. She started wearing makeup and dyeing her hair blonde. She also began to go by her middle name, Diane. Changing her appearance led to positive results; her male peers gave her the attention she so desperately wanted. She decided that this kind of attention was better than any she could get from her parents, and so she put all of her effort into chasing that euphoria. While attending Moon Valley High School, Diane met her fellow classmate Steve Downs, and the two would begin dating. They were practically attached to the hip throughout high school, and they did not shy away from showing physical affection in public. Diane’s parents did not approve of her relationship, much less the new persona that she had adopted. Diane did not care about what her parents thought, however, and she continued her relationship with Steve after her high school graduation.

After high school graduation, Diane attended Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College in California. Steve enlisted in the US Navy, and the two would try to maintain a long-distance relationship. Diane could not keep her end of the bargain, however, and it did not take long for her eyes to wander. She had multiple affairs, including with university staff, while maintaining her relationship with Steve. Her promiscuous behavior eventually earned her an expulsion, and she had to move back to Arizona with her parents. When the news reached Steve, they broke off their relationship. But not too long after Diane moved back with her family, Steve returned from the Navy. Diane felt smothered by her parents’ rules, so she sought out Steve. They rekindled their relationship, and on November 13th, 1973, they ran away to get married. Diane and Steve were only 18 years old.

Christy Ann, the couple’s oldest child, was born on October 7th, 1974. When Christy was 6 months old, Diane left the family to join the Navy. She only made it through 3 weeks of basic training before she returned back home. Diane first said she was injured with severe blisters, and this is why she couldn’t complete boot camp. She later said Steve neglected Christy and she had to leave to take care of her daughter.

Diane and Steve’s marriage was far from a happy one. Coming off Diane’s past infidelity, Steve was always on edge. He overanalyzed every interaction Diane had, fearful that he would lose Diane to cheating again. Steve himself was also said to be juvenile in nature and a player; their high school honeymoon days were done, replaced with constant arguments in public and in private. At some point during the Downs’ marriage, Steve obtained a .22 caliber pistol. Diane also bought a .22 caliber rifle as well as a .38 special as Christmas presents for Steve, and he taught her how to shoot all three of these guns.

After the birth of their second child, named Cheryl Lynn, on January 10th, 1976, Steve elected to get a vasectomy. He knew he did not make enough to support a family bigger than the three of them. When Diane got pregnant once again, she got an abortion, which she would go on to say she regretted. However, she had another affair and gave birth to her son, Steven Daniel Downs, on December 29th, 1979. Steve knew that Diane’s third child was not his, but he and Diane would not divorce until 1980.

Diane said she loved her children, but her actions showed that she was somebody that didn’t necessarily enjoy being a mother. Christy, Cheryl, and Danny’s clothes were old, and their hair was often unkempt. Diane was often seen berating her children. Steve said she denied them attention the same way Diane’s parents denied it to her. One day, Cheryl was put in timeout by a sitter for jumping on the bed, and Cheryl in response told the sitter that she wanted to remove herself from the earth with one of her father’s guns because her mother said that she was bad. She couldn’t get anyone to watch her kids; Diane often left them in Christy’s care, who was herself still a kid—she was only six when her parents divorced and only six when Diane turned her into free childcare for the first time.

Diane already worked for the United States Postal Service, but as a newly single mother, she needed to find a source of extra income. She underwent psychiatric testing on two separate occasions to become a surrogate mother, but she failed both times. The results showed that she was psychotic, meaning she was detached from reality. Her judgment skills and understanding of social cause and effect were also shown to be lacking. Now, despite this, she was allowed to become a surrogate and gave birth to a baby girl in 1982 and was paid $10,000. She was interested in becoming a surrogate again and even in opening a surrogacy clinic of her own. For this, she would need to attend medical school. Her father encouraged her to attend summer classes at Mesa Community College. Diane wrote an essay that she titled “Child” during her summer semester. It read:

“The gruesome crime of child abuse not only destroys the lives of our children, but it usually brings terror into the lives of our grandchildren. Abused children develop different personalities depending on the type of abuse they receive, the amount of abuse they must endure. Personalities developed in abused children stay with them all their lives. They may receive counseling or some form of help which turns the child around, but no one can take away the scars and pain inflicted on an innocent child. Forces to submit to mistreatment will ultimately affect that child’s life as an adult. Then, when the scarred child turned adult has children of his or her own, these children are usually abused in some way or another by their parents. I wish we could stop this vicious cycle. If we could only take a whole generation and stop child abuse, we could wipe out the plague. Generation after generation, the abuse continues. If you abuse your child, he or she will no doubt abuse your grandchildren.”

In 1981, Diane met Robert Nickerbocker, a married coworker. Robert was in a rough patch in his marriage, and his wife begged him to move from Texas to Arizona to be closer to her family. Their new home was smaller and twice as expensive as their old home. Robert wanted to buy a plot of land, which meant they both had to work full-time. They were tired, stressed, and holding unspoken resentment for each other. Robert would take any distraction he could. Diane was pregnant with the surrogate child when they met. After the baby was born, the hot Arizona summer came in full force. Diane dressed in a provocative, less-than-professional way that got Robert’s attention. Their workplace acquaintanceship soon turned into an affair.

Robert was not interested in anything outside of a physical relationship with Diane. She pretended to accept this while secretly obsessing over him and the life they could share together. She marked the day of their first illicit encounter on her calendar with a big red X. Robert tried multiple times to break off their relationship; one way or another, Diane convinced him to stay with her. When she encouraged him to serve his wife with divorce papers, Robert realized he was way out of his depth. He did not want to be a father, much less to someone else’s children. He was upfront with Diane about this: he never wanted to see Diane while she was with her kids.

Steve contacted Diane looking to reconcile their marriage. Robert encouraged her to at least try. During this period, Robert said Diane and Steve got into a physical altercation, and that she showed up at work the next day with a black eye, a swollen nose, and black-and-blue bruises on her face and neck. Robert had a few interactions with Steve in August of 1982; the two men had a face-to-face meeting. Steve told Robert, “Diane is kind of crazy when it comes to sex. She has some problems, emotional problems about it.”

The following month, Steve took in Christy, Cheryl, and Danny. While in their father’s care, Christy and Cheryl were able to attend Pomeroy Elementary School. At the same time, Diane started her fall semester at Mesa Community College. The weight of her classes and her job proved to be too much for her; she dropped out of school after only a few weeks. Soon, Diane called Robert accusing him of giving her an STI. He finally ended his relationship with Diane and confessed to his wife, who had already suspected as much for some time. They were both infected with the same STI, which they suspected to have gotten from Diane. Their surrogate contract stated she couldn’t have an STI at the time of insemination, but she still flew to Kentucky for the procedure, where she was subsequently turned away.

Diane didn’t actually believe Robert when he broke up with her; she thought he would be there to bring her home from the airport. Instead, it was Steve. He brought her first to his house, then to Diane’s mobile home. Throughout their time together that night, Steve said Diane clawed her own face, kicked him, and muttered comments about removing herself from the earth. Diane locked herself in the bathroom. Steve banged his fist on the door, and when he heard a bang, he broke the door down. Diane was fine; she pointed a gun at him—it was the .22 caliber pistol which she had snuck into her purse from Steve’s home. Steve took the gun away from her and observed a bullet hole in the bathroom tile.

Diane and Robert still had to see each other at work. Now, against his better judgment, he slept with her again, and the affair resumed. Diane got Robert’s name tattooed on her shoulder with a rose. Robert’s wife put the pieces together quickly, but still she remained silent.

Diane flew back to Kentucky for another insemination procedure. During this time, her mobile home caught on fire while she was away. Diane got $7,000 from insurance, and Steve fixed some of the damage for free. However, Robert claimed Diane told him that she asked Steve to burn the trailer down so she could collect the insurance payment. For a brief period, Robert agreed to start a life with Diane; they agreed to sign a lease on an apartment together. Diane called Robert’s wife numerous times, half-gloating, half-daydreaming about the future they would have.

Diane used the money from her first surrogacy payment and the insurance from the fire to open a surrogacy clinic, despite not having any experience, licenses, or qualifications. The clinic failed, unsurprisingly. In February of 1983, Robert drunkenly proposed to Diane. She wrote in her diary:

“I could hardly believe my ears today. Robert said he would live in the same house with my kids and me. Of course, then he said he would have to marry my ass, but I think I can talk him into all of me. I’m so happy! Just when I thought he would call off our relationship, he said that he would marry me and live with my kids. But before I get too excited, I’ll wait a while; he could take another look at the situation and change his mind. I hope he does not, do I? Sure love him.”

That same month, in the apartment Robert was staying in at the time, Diane asked Robert to choose between her and his wife. Robert chose his wife, and Diane became angry. Robert left the apartment and called his wife from a phone booth. She picked him up in her car and drove back to their marital home. Diane followed them; she pounded on the door and rang their home phone all night. After this encounter, the Nickerbockers decided to vacation to Texas, but still they could not get away from Diane. They were visiting their old friends when their phone rang—it was her. Diane memorized this friend’s phone number, and Robert realized she must have gone through his wallet at some point.

Diane said she got a successful work transfer; she would be moving to Oregon in April, and she’d be taking her kids with her. Christy and Cheryl were made to pick which parent they wanted to live with; they picked Diane as they were afraid of hurting their mother’s feelings. Danny was not Steve’s son and was 3 years old, so he did not have a choice. The Nickerbockers returned from their vacation, and again Robert and Diane saw each other at work. Again, they slept together. Diane had less than a month left before she had to move to Oregon. Robert asked Diane to move in with him until she had to leave. He got a rose tattoo like Diane’s without any script—he did not want her name forever inked on his body.

Diane left Arizona for good, and Robert returned to his wife for good. They met up only one more time, when Diane decided she wanted to return Robert’s gold-chained necklace. She left a rose in his work mailbox. She harassed the Nickerbocker household with letters and packages; Robert put “return to sender” on every piece of mail he received from Diane. Steve noticed his three firearms were missing; he assumed Diane took them and thought nothing of it—she was a single mother in a new state and needed protection.

In May of 1983, one of Diane’s new coworkers, Heather Pluth, mentioned that she was thinking about buying a horse. Some nights later, Diane saw a horse rental ad in the newspaper. Diane decided she would pack her children in the car after their dinner to visit Heather and show her the ad. She said she also thought it was a good opportunity to get the kids out of the house. Now, on their way home from the Pluth residence, Diane said she stopped when she saw a stranger signaling for her help. She got out of the car, and he demanded that she hand over her keys. She refused, then gunshots rang out.

When Diane arrived at McKenzie-Willamette Hospital, medical staff took the three children while Diane waited in the lobby. Cheryl originally went unnoticed until Diane called out, “Cheryl’s on the floor; she hasn’t moved at all.” She was still and unbreathing when they brought her into the trauma room. A heart monitor showed a flatline. A nurse tried to remove the blood from her throat—maybe that would get her to breathe again. It was thick and congealed. Cheryl was not actively bleeding, which was not a good sign. The doctor found two bullet holes in her back, realized Cheryl was dead upon arrival, and noted she was only 7 years old.

Christy had a stroke, and she was unconscious and barely clinging to life. A bullet was still in her body, and another had torn straight through her chest. Her right lung would collapse, and a massive hemorrhage in her left lung blocked the flow of oxygen. Her heartbeat went from weak to completely non-existent. Surgeons could not get her heart beating with an injection alone; they inserted a catheter tube into an artery and pumped Christy with blood. Her heart did start beating again. Her right lung was no longer collapsed; the left’s hemorrhage remained. While Christy was asleep, a surgeon stitched the exit wound in her left lung shut. She could have died at any moment, but she came out of the surgery alive. She woke up aware of her surroundings, but would not be stable enough for further surgeries until later.

Danny was awake and frightened, unable to breathe properly; tubes were forced into his chest. There was gunpowder on his back, and the bullet hole was likely a contact wound. The bullet hit dangerously close to his spine. Doctors knew there was a chance that Danny would never walk again.

Hospital receptionist Judy Patterson was on the phone with the police dispatcher. She saw Diane go into the bathroom; she heard running water. Diane came out of the bathroom and asked to use the phone to call her parents. Judy got more information from Diane about where the shooting took place. Diane tried to go into the trauma room, but Judy stopped her. This is when she saw Diane’s arm injuries were minor and superficial. On any other night, one of the licensed nurses or doctors would be available, but every capable body was accounted for, so Judy herself tended to Diane’s wounds. As such, she got more information from the mother about what happened.

Diane said, “We went out toward Marcola to see a friend. We were headed back driving along Old Mohawk Road. My kids were laughing and talking. I was laughing at something Danny said and talking to Christy. There was this man standing there in the middle of the road. He looked like he needed help. I stopped the car, got out. He wanted my keys, just reached in through the window, and shot my kids. It’s a terrible thing to be laughing one minute and have something like this happen to you.”

Judy let Diane use the phone. She called Robert Nickerbocker, then her parents, Wesley and Willine Frederickson. They lived only 2 miles from the hospital, and they rushed to be at Diane’s side less than 10 minutes after Judy Patterson’s call. Officers from both Springfield and Lane County arrived. Diane recounted the shooting to them and stated the first of many conflicting details: her children were asleep, not, as she told Judy, laughing and talking.

Hospital staff and law enforcement took note of Diane’s demeanor. She was calm; she had her mental faculties. She wasn’t visibly upset or hysterical. Sergeant Robin Rutherford asked if she could show them the crime scene; the earlier they could start investigating, the quicker they could find the culprit. Diane agreed. Her father, Wes, joined them. On her way to the police car, Diane commented on her Nissan, “I hope my car’s okay. Does it have any bullet holes in it?”

Sergeant Rutherford took the wheel. Along the way, they passed the newly placed patrol cars parked on Old Mohawk Road; no late-night driver could enter or leave without first speaking to the patrol officer. Police and a search dog scoped out the road and the fields for any sign of disturbance. The road itself was quiet, but it was not completely uninhabited. There were a few private residences, and some of these properties had horses. Rutherford explained to Diane that horses were sensitive to their surroundings; if a stranger disturbed their home, the horses would know. “They’re almost as good as dogs when something alien gets into their fields,” this is what Rutherford said.

Now, Diane brought them out to the scene of the crime. She remembered, as she put it, the “icky yellow car” that belonged to the stranger; however, they did not find one. Diane complained of pain in her arm, so Rutherford radioed for another officer to transport her and Wes back to McKenzie-Willamette. The sergeant stayed behind.

When Diane returned to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital, she received the news about Cheryl’s passing and the critical state of Christy and Danny. Her reaction to Danny in particular gave everyone pause. There was a glimmer of good news—there was a chance he would live. But to this, she said, “Do you mean the bullet missed his heart? Gee whiz.”

Detective Dick Tracy—yes, that is his name—and Doug Welch brought Diane aside for further questioning. They both found Diane to be unnervingly composed. Detective Tracy described her as very rational, considering what she had undergone. Tracy recognized the kind of wound in Diane’s arm as similar in location to wounds in his past cases where a perpetrator shot themselves to turn suspicion away from them. Diane described the man who shot at her kids as white, in his late 20s, about 5’9″, 150 to 170 lbs, with dark hair, a shag wavy cut, and the stubble of a beard, wearing a Levi jacket and an off-color t-shirt. She agreed to allow investigators to search her home. She said she owned two firearms: a .38 special and a .22 caliber rifle.

When Diane was finally allowed to see Christy, investigator Paul Anton said he saw the little girl was terrified. Her heart rate spiked from 104 beats per minute to 147 beats per minute when Diane took her hand, saying, “I love you, I love you.”

The day after the shooting, Heather Pluth and her husband confirmed that Diane visited them late at night with the horse rental ad. After searching Diane’s home, they took her rifle, some .22 caliber ammunition, calendars, and a diary from the property. The bullets recovered from the children were .22 caliber, and investigators figured they had to have come from a rifle or a handgun. Given Diane’s story and the close-contact injuries on the children, they decided the firearm was more likely to be a handgun. Based on the blood splatter in the car, the shooter had to shoot from the left side.

Diane was asked to retell her story multiple times, and minor details changed: her children being awake versus asleep, the position of the shooter, and how she reacted to him, just to name a few.

Investigators asked Diane to reenact what happened on camera in a parking lot, 4 days after the shooting. Diane was excitable; she was giggling, fixing her hair, and seemed to be enjoying herself. Her arm was in a cast, and she hid it against the car door frame used in the demonstration. “I just hit my cast,” she cried out, then she said, “That was worse than okay.” Investigators could only speculate on what she wanted to say.

When Steve Downs learned his daughters were shot and that one was dead, he flew to Oregon from Arizona. Danny may not have been his child, but he worried for his well-being as he worried for Christy’s. Investigator Doug Welch asked Steve if he knew who Diane called aside from her parents the night of the crime. Steve told Welch about Robert Nickerbocker. Diane, in Steve’s eyes, still seemed crazy about Robert.

Doug Welch and Paul Anton traveled to Chandler, Arizona. There, they interviewed Diane’s former coworkers, including Robert Nickerbocker, with his wife present. Robert answered every question about his affair with Diane, even when it was uncomfortable. Both men had airtight alibis that excluded them as suspects.

Forensic scientist James Peek spent the weekend studying Diane’s Nissan Pulsar. The car itself did not have external damage, which indicated that all five bullets from all five shots struck their targets. He found two bullet casings that were .22 caliber. There were blood and gunpowder particles in the back seat and the front passenger seat, but none in the driver’s seat.

Cheryl Lynn Downs had her funeral on May 25th; she was cremated, and her ashes were scattered in Arizona. Christy and Danny were both in stable condition, but they were both paralyzed—Danny from the waist down and Christy in one arm. Her stroke took away much of her speaking ability, but the right treatment and therapy could make her coherent again.

Diane’s confiscated diary was full of love letters to Robert Nickerbocker. It seemed to investigators that they were never meant to be sent and that Diane used this diary to vent her frustrations following the end of their relationship. Still, Diane’s writing style in these letters was unhinged at best and absolutely insane at worst. Some entries were erotic in nature; she wrote about how she thought Robert was her one true love. One entry read:

“What happened? I’m so confused. What could your wife have said or done to make you act this way? I spoke to you this morning for the last time. It broke my heart to hear you say ‘Don’t call here.’ Right? I still think of you as my best friend and my only lover. You keep telling me to go away and find somebody else. You’ve got to be kidding.”

A poem was written in another entry:
“I love you more than could your wife,
Yet it’s brought sorrow to my life.
I just keep hoping and hanging on,
How much longer can I be strong?”

The weapon used to kill Cheryl and wound Christy and Danny was never found. There is a possibility it was thrown into the Mohawk River. Divers were sent to look for the gun, but the current during the springtime was just too strong; it would have been long gone by the time the divers were geared up and prepared.

Steve Downs and Robert Nickerbocker both separately told authorities about Diane’s third firearm: her .22 caliber Ruger semi-automatic pistol. Diane was asked about this pistol and claimed that she did not have it. Steve told investigators that the night Diane fired the .22 caliber pistol in her bathroom, if they found a .22 caliber casing in the Arizona property, they could examine the extractor marks. Now, in a firearm, the extractor is the mechanism that removes empty casings from the chamber and makes room for the new one; it will leave distinct marks on the empty casing, similar to a fingerprint. By examining these marks, experts can determine the make, model, and type of firearm used in a crime, even if the weapon itself is never recovered.

Steve and the investigators, along with some of Chandler’s officers, found Diane’s old address. Her trailer was abandoned and damaged by the fire. The repairs meant if the bullet was still there, it was underneath the trailer. They spent 2 days in the Arizona heat digging and sifting through debris; they eventually found the bullet. Unfortunately, it had been trapped underground for so long that it was too damaged to be certain it was fired from the same gun that shot the Downs children. It was similar, but similar wasn’t good enough.

Heather Pluth said Diane ended her visit at around 9:45 PM. Diane arrived at the hospital at 10:48 PM. The shooting was estimated to have occurred at 10:15 PM. Joseph Ennis, who was a witness, claimed he was also driving on Old Mohawk Road. He came behind a red car with Arizona license plates driving no faster than 7 mph. He was stuck behind this vehicle for a full 2 minutes before deciding to drive around it. It was 10:20 PM at this point.

Diane felt the tides turning against her. She offered herself for another police interview, where she claimed to know who the shooter was and that he knew her as well. They probed her for more information, and it became a repetitive choir of “I don’t know, I don’t know.” They asked her point-blank if she did it; she got angry and left.

The most damaging piece to Diane’s innocence was Christy, her own daughter. Child psychologist Paula Kogndoll visited Christy every day. Paula was patient, gentle, and understanding, supporting Christy’s recovery one day at a time, putting the little girl’s comfort and well-being above all else. Christy told Paula that Diane hit her and her siblings on more than one occasion. Christy also remembered the traumatic night, but would not identify the shooter. Paula still didn’t press it with her. Instead, during their sessions, she asked Christy to write down who shot her on a piece of paper and then burn it. It took some time, but one day Christy let Paula read the name on the paper. It read: “My mom.”

Christy stated that on their way back from the Pluth residence, Diane stopped the car on a dark road, opened the trunk, pulled out a handgun, and shot the children, and then herself.

Diane was arrested on February 28th, 1984, at the Post Office. She was charged with criminal assault, one count of first-degree murder, and two counts of attempted murder. She was also pregnant.

Now, originally Diane reached out to a lawyer and author named Melvin Belli, who was a celebrity within the legal profession, to defend her. He wanted to, but he was too busy. The courts would not push her trial back for his sake. Attorney Jim Jagger would be the one in the courtroom instead. Attorney Jagger had the lawyer charisma seen on film and television. Before the first day of trial officially started, he was speaking familiarly to the jury members. Prosecutor Fred Hugi thought that the Downs case would be easy; he could not have been more wrong.

Diane initially drew a lot of sympathy. Hugi was a professional first and foremost, often described as cold and rigid if the angry letters sent to his office were anything to go by. The odds were stacked against the prosecutor in terms of public perception, but he did what he did best: his job. As prosecutor, Hugi gave his opening statement. Diane wrote “LIE” in big letters on a notepad and held it on display; attorney Jagger snatched it from her hands.

Prosecutor Hugi said Diane planned to murder her children so that she could be with Robert Nickerbocker. Her children blocked the way to her happily ever after with the married man who only wanted her as a distraction. One of the prosecution’s witnesses was a psychiatrist who described Diane as an antisocial, histrionic narcissist and possibly a psychopath.

Diane’s demeanor during her trial was the same as her demeanor in the hospital: calm, unbothered, and inappropriate given the circumstances. She was often seen laughing with attorney Jagger. Part of Diane’s defense was an aspect of her past she kept secret: her father assaulted her when she was 12. He drove her out to isolated places and came into her room at night to put his hands on her until one day it stopped altogether. She would talk about this at length on the stand. Wes Frederickson denied this ever happened. Willine Frederickson testified Diane was emotional that night at the hospital, though various doctors and nurses stated otherwise on the stand.

At one point, the prosecution played Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” in the courtroom—the same song said to have been playing during the shooting. Diane hummed along, seemingly unaware in the moment that she was being watched by a live audience and jury cameras.

Prosecutor Hugi made the difficult choice to bring Christy to the witness stand. She cried, trembled, and briefly lost her composure Whenever Diane made eye contact with her, but she showed great strength for someone her age. Her time with Paula Kogndoll gave Christy the courage to tell the court what her mother did to her and her siblings: her mother shot them at close range and then herself in the arm. Attorney Jim Jagger tried to coax his idea of the truth from Christy—that she was coached to say these terrible things—but Christy held firm. During the court proceedings, Diane was visibly pregnant; she would give birth to a baby girl in between her trial and her sentencing hearing. She said in a television interview, “You can’t replace children, you can replace the effect that they give you, and they give me love, they give me satisfaction, they give me stability, they give me a reason to live and a reason to be happy.” On June 17th, 1984, Diane was found guilty and was sentenced to life plus 50 years. She had to wait 25 years before she could even be considered for parole.

Steve Downs was deemed unfit to be Christy and Danny’s legal guardian. Prosecutor Fred Hugi and his wife, Joanne, officially adopted Christy and Danny in 1986. By all accounts, Fred and Joanne had a relationship built on respect, admiration, and love. They understood firsthand the trials Christy and Danny overcame and could provide the loving environment to heal and grow that Diane withheld from them. Among the public viewers in the courtroom gallery was Ann Rule, a true crime author. Ann Rule previously published The Stranger Beside Me in 1980, where she chronicled the life of serial killer Ted Bundy and the time in her life when they were close acquaintances. Ann Rule followed the case against Diane Downs very closely, taking notes during the trial, interviewing relevant figures, and researching every scrap of information she could. She was very respected in her field thanks to her dedication to her craft. Her book on Diane Downs, Small Sacrifices, was published in 1987. She gave pseudonyms for Diane’s affair partners, including Robert Nickerbocker, whom she referred to as Lew Lewiston. This is why Nickerbocker is often referred to as Lew in many sources post-1987. A two-part made-for-TV film adaptation of Ann’s book aired in 1989 and starred Farrah Fawcett as Diane; it won a Peabody Award that same year. Diane released her own book about her life and the shooting with the aid of a ghostwriter, titled Best Kept Secrets. It was published the same year on July 11th, 1987.

While serving her time in the Oregon Women’s Correctional Center, Diane escaped prison. She was missing in action for 10 days, and 14 states issued manhunts for her. She was finally found in the home of a fellow inmate. The courts added 5 years to her sentence. Prosecutor Hugi insisted on relocating Diane; he lived less than 70 miles from the Oregon Women’s Correctional Center, and no doubt those 10 days where Diane was missing were incredibly stressful and terrifying for the children. Prosecutor Hugi was successful in his efforts, and Diane was transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey. After her recapture, Diane was interviewed from prison on The Oprah Winfrey Show alongside Ann Rule. The interview consists of Diane answering direct questions with essay answers or with a redirection to a particular source. She made inappropriately timed jokes and sarcastic comments, and bickered with Ann Rule throughout the interview.

Diane was considered a dangerous offender by the state of Oregon, which meant she was entitled to a parole hearing every 2 years until her release or death. After the first 25 years of her sentence, Diane had her first parole hearing in 2008. She doubled down on her first story, saying she was innocent and that she was always telling the truth. Douglas Harrod, a district attorney in Lane County, countered every point Diane made and emphasized her lack of consistency and accountability. She had two more parole hearings in 2010 and 2020, which were both denied.

Now, Diane is not without her defenders. They are a minority, but they are vocal. Until he died in 2017, Wesley Frederickson defended his daughter, even though Diane accused him of assaulting her (she would later recant these accusations against him). Wes offered $100,000 to anyone who could provide information that would see Diane released from prison. The Facebook group “Free Diane Downs” is dedicated to proving Diane’s innocence, and James Frederickson, Diane’s brother, is one of the page’s admins. When asked directly about his arguments, James points to dianecdowns.com for access to all of the necessary information. Now, dianecdowns.com is objectively, from a technical standpoint, a bad website. The visuals look like they were transported from the Y2K era, and the URL uses HTTP instead of HTTPS, which modern browsers automatically flag as not secure. Half of their documented evidence needs to be downloaded to view, which is bad to put it lightly; should any of these files get corrupted, a curious internet user could ruin their device without even knowing it.

Diane’s defenders point to James Clare Haynes as the one responsible for the crime. James Haynes, also known as Jim Haynes, was a Eugene local said to have been bragging about shooting Diane and her children. Multiple acquaintances of his made affidavits swearing as much. He was also said to be a violent husband and a dangerous criminal. One witness’s affidavit said he and Haynes saw a blonde woman in an Oregon drug house who got into a verbal altercation with a dealer, who later claimed to recognize this woman when he saw her face in the news—it was Diane Downs. There is an obituary for a man of the same name within the area who lived from 1948 to 2013. There are also arrest records associated with the name James Clare Haynes in Oregon ranging from aggravated theft to possession of controlled substances, but it is otherwise nearly impossible to find any information about James Haynes separate from the Facebook page or the website. Now, maybe there is a grand scheme to keep Diane in prison for the crimes of James Haynes, or perhaps there is a simpler explanation to this alleged confession. You see this in the murders of Elizabeth Short in 1947 or JonBenét Ramsey in 1996, or with serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to many more crimes than he actually committed: some people will confess to crimes that they did not commit, whether it is for the recognition or because they are just delusional. In addition, the contents within affidavits can also be considered hearsay within a court of law. To be very clear, there is no known physical evidence that links James Haynes with these shootings.

Christy and Danny occasionally spoke about their mother on public platforms, but have lived more private, quiet lives. Christy has a daughter whom she named after her late sister. The baby Diane had before her sentencing would be adopted by Jackie and Chris Babcock, a couple in Oregon who named her Rebecca. Her loved ones also called her Becky. As an adult, Becky was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, where she discussed how she learned about her birth mother and the effect it had on her. It wasn’t a secret to Becky that she was adopted; she was happy with her home life, but still curious about her biological parents. Her mother Jackie fed her small bits of vague information whenever Becky asked, but never anything distinctive. Jackie mentioned there was a book about Becky’s birth mother, and Becky tricked a babysitter into uttering the title, Small Sacrifices. At 11 years old, Becky opened Ann Rule’s book and learned about the horrifying crime her mother was convicted of. She didn’t get very far in; she tried to put it out of her mind, but she learned more information throughout the years. When she was 16, she watched the Small Sacrifices film adaptation starring Farrah Fawcett. Becky was disturbed. Not only was her biological mother a monster, but one she identified with. Becky recognized in Diane a familiar need for attention and external validation—it was a need she had herself.

Becky was already a rebellious teenager, but all of this tipped her over the edge. She fell into substance use and irresponsible behavior, dropped out of high school, and lashed out at her family. She gave birth twice and had to put her second child up for adoption at just 21 years old. Feeling isolated and alone, she reached out to Diane for the first time. Diane was initially excited to hear from Becky; they wrote each other letters, and overall they had good interactions. But Diane could not hide her true nature—obsessive, manic, and unhinged. Diane wrote that there was a conspiracy against her, that Becky was being observed, and that the real shooter had not been brought to justice. Diane eventually accused Becky of being part of this conspiracy, and this is why Becky stopped all contact with her. Becky Babcock told the public her story in 2010 and said she ultimately regretted ever reaching out to Diane Downs. In more recent years, she has gotten married, fought an ongoing battle with lupus, and runs a nonprofit dog breeding business for Golden Doodles and Cockapoos. Overall, she is living a happy life.

As of 2024, Diane Downs is serving her sentence in the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, California. She is 69 years old as of the date of this recording, and she will likely, thankfully, never be released.court what her mother did to her and her siblings: her mother shot them at close range and then herself.