2 Women Who Thought They Outsmarted Everyone.. Until 

2 Women Who Thought They Outsmarted Everyone.. Until 

If I had shot my own children, would I not have done a good job of it? Why would I have then immediately rushed them to the hospital with two children still living?  Diane Downs, Susan Smith, they committed the same unthinkable act, but the justice system handed them three very different fates.  I can see Christie reaching her hand out to me while I’m driving.

And the blood just keep coming out of her mouth. And that maybe it’ll fade, too, with time, but I I don’t think so. That haunts me the most.  On the night of May 19th, 1983, 27-year-old Diane Downs drove into the emergency entrance of McKenzie-Willamette Hospital in Springfield, Oregon. Inside her car were her three children, 8-year-old Christie, 7-year-old Cheryl, and 3-year-old Danny.

All three had been shot at close range with a .22 caliber handgun. Cheryl was already dead. Danny was paralyzed from the chest down. Christie, critically injured, had suffered a stroke. Diane herself had a superficial gunshot wound to her left forearm. Her story was immediate and dramatic. A bushy-haired stranger had flagged her down on Old Mohawk Road and shot her children when she refused to give him her car.

 This man shot my daughter. My first reaction was to snap back to my childhood, to the pain that had happened to me back then, my marriage, my entrapment by society. This man was bigger than me. He was stronger than me. He had more power because he had a gun. He was in control, and I was not. And I had There was nothing I could do.

 And I stood there, and I looked at Christie reaching.  But investigators quickly began to question that version of events. The stretch of Old Mohawk Road Diane described was dark, rural, and sparsely traveled. Deputies searched the area and found no physical evidence of a roadside struggle. No witnesses reported seeing an armed man.

 Instead, several drivers described something unusual. Diane’s car moving slowly between 5 and 10 mph on what should have been a desperate race to save her children.  What I see most is blood coming out of Christie’s mouth. Because that’s what I see. Um I I can’t see Danny and I can’t see Cheryl. Cheryl was laying on the floor and driving to the hospital, I don’t know the sounds that were made at the initial shooting because I was on the outside and all I could hear I cry I can’t hear anything but gunshots.

And I can I can see things, you know, I that’s it. Driving to the hospital, I can smell blood. I can not hear Cheryl. Cheryl’s not making a sound. Danny is just crying real real soft. So So that sound stays in my mind and the fact that Christie’s choking and just and then I’m yelling at her. I’m screaming at her, too, to roll over on her face because I was trying to keep her from choking on her blood and it just didn’t dawn on me that she was shot in the chest and that the blood was coming from her chest, not

going down into her chest.  At the hospital, medical personnel were struck not only by the severity of the children’s injuries, but by Diane’s demeanor. Doctors later testified that she appeared calm, composed, and emotionally detached. While her children underwent emergency treatment, Diane reportedly focused on her own injury, despite it being minor compared to the life-threatening wounds of her children.

Forensic evidence added to the growing doubts. A .22 caliber shell casing was recovered from inside Diane’s car, not outside on the road. Ballistics indicated the shots were fired from within the vehicle. Investigators also found no evidence that Diane had attempted to seek immediate help.

 No stops, no attempts to flag down other drivers.  We’re going to do a video tape reenactment.  like that. I got in the car, come to and put the keys in. I just hit my gas. This is worse than Okay.  Detectives then uncovered Diane’s personal diaries documenting an intense and obsessive relationship with a married man named Robert Nick Knickerbocker.

He had made it clear that he did not want children in his life. Prosecutors argued that Diane viewed her children not as family, but as obstacles to the life she wanted with Nick. During the trial, Diane arrived at the courthouse heavily pregnant. She had conceived a fourth child after the shootings but before her arrest.

Prosecutors suggested the pregnancy was a calculated attempt to gain sympathy from the jury and reinforce the image of herself as a devoted mother. Even as suspicion mounted, Diane went public. She gave multiple televised interviews reenacting the attack, at times laughing while demonstrating how the gunman allegedly held the weapon.

Prosecutors later used these interviews to challenge her credibility. Meanwhile, the most important witness was still recovering. Christie Downs had suffered a severe stroke as a result of the shooting. Over time, she regained limited speech and eventually described what happened that night. In 1984, Diane Downs stood trial.

 Downs showed no emotion. I got it.  The most powerful moment came from the witness stand. Christie Downs, just 9 years old, was asked a simple question.  Who shot you?  My mom.  Christie testified that Diane had retrieved a shiny gun from the trunk and shot each of her children one by one. The jury deliberated for less than 10 hours.

Diane Downs was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life in prison. Shortly after the trial, she gave birth to her fourth child, Becky, who was immediately taken into state custody and later adopted. Decades later, that child, now known as Becky Babcock, has spoken publicly about learning the truth about her biological mother.

 I wish I was born with my real parents, my adopted parents, but I was born of a child killer. People judge me for that.  Today, Diane Downs remains incarcerated. She continues to maintain the story of the bushy-haired stranger.  The state says I that I was the one that shot them and that I wanted them dead.

If that was the case, I would not have taken to the hospital still crying. If I was going to do it, I’m certainly bright enough to figure out another way besides some way that looks so absolutely insane and hokey that nobody would believe it. I’m not dumb. I’m innocent of shooting, but that I am guilty of putting my children in danger.

 But the physical evidence and the testimony of her own children tell a very different story. On the night of October 25th, 1994, the quiet town of Union, South Carolina, became the center of a national nightmare. Susan Smith, a 23-year-old mother, claimed she was carjacked at a red light on Highway 49. She told police a black man in his 20s had forced her out of her car and sped off into the darkness with her two young sons still strapped into their seats.

For 9 days, Susan was the face of a grieving nation. Her tear-streaked face appearing on every news network begging a phantom abductor to bring my babies home.  I want to say to my babies that your mama loves you so much. I pray every day that you’re taking care of them. And know that we will do anything, anything, we will to help you to get them home back to us.

 But while the public wept with her, investigators were looking at the reconstruction of that night. There were zero witnesses to a carjacking on a highway that should have had at least some traffic. More importantly, Susan’s story had a fatal flaw. The intersection where she claimed to be stopped was controlled by a pressure-sensitive sensor.

Unless another car was coming from the side road, that light stayed green. On that night, data showed no other cars were there. Susan wasn’t a victim of a carjacker. She was a woman sitting at a green light waiting for a stranger who didn’t exist. The motive wasn’t found on the road, but in a mailbox. Detectives discovered a letter Susan had received just 2 days before the boys disappeared.

It was from Tom Findlay, the son of a wealthy local businessman. He had broken off their affair, stating clearly that while he cared for her, he didn’t want the responsibility of her children. To a woman desperate for status and love, Michael and Alex had shifted from being her sons to being baggage, the only thing standing between her and the life she wanted.

By day seven, the FBI moved from a search to an interrogation. Susan agreed to two polygraph tests and failed both miserably. When asked, “Do you know where your children are?” the needles went off the charts. Yet, she continued the charade, appearing on the Today show the very next morning, still playing the role of the victim.

It was a performance that psychologists would later describe as a chilling display of histrionic personality traits.  I would like this to say to whoever has my children, that they please I mean, please bring them home to us where they belong.  The breaking point came on November 3rd. Sheriff Howard Wells sat Susan down in a small room and told her, “The light never turned red, Susan.

” The lie shattered. In a nine-page confession, she admitted the truth. She hadn’t been carjacked. She had driven her Mazda Protege to the boat ramp at John D. Long Lake. She got out, reached through the window, and released the handbrake. She watched for 6 minutes as the car drifted into the center of the lake, the headlights glowing underwater until they finally vanished.

When divers finally reached the car, they found the two boys still strapped into their seats, their hands reportedly pressed against the glass.  Susan Smith has been arrested and will be charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of her children Michael 3 and Alexander 14 months.  Susan Smith was sentenced to life in prison.

She becomes eligible for parole for the first time in November 2024. A date that many in Union, South Carolina never thought would come. Two mothers, two but one chilling commonality. The mask they wore for the world. What do you think was the turning point in Casey’s trial? Let me know in the comments.

 Thanks for watching.