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Small Sacrifices:
Diane Downs (1987)

Ann Rule

Small Sacrifices is a shocking account of a young mother who shot her three children in cold blood. In May of 1983, Diane Downs drove to a Williamette Valley hospital emergency room with her children, all gravely wounded; one did not survive the first hour, and the other two were disabled for life.

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Elizabeth Diane Frederickson Downs was born August 7, 1955, in Phoenix, Arizona. Her parents Willadene and Wes Frederickson were teenagers when Diane came along. While they loved their baby, they lack the ability to show any warmth and fondness toward the child. As a school student, Diane was bright but not one of the in-crowd. Her parents were old-time-Baptist disciplinarians who forbade trendy clothing and fads. As a result, wherever she went, she was the "square," the ugly duckling.

When Diane was 11 years old, her father allegedly molested her. She told authorities that she was not raped just fondled and caressed. Diane claimed that on weekends, he took her on rides to the desert and he would make her remove her blouse and bra as he watched but that these immoral acts ended as quietly as they had begun. Her father became more of a typical father. When she was fourteen, he allowed her to enroll in a charm school. And that was the beginning of a new Diane, whom the local boys began to notice. 

Steven Downs, one of the boys at Moon Valley High, fell instantly in love with the pretty shapely blonde, Diane. The pair became an item and everywhere they went, they were arm linked in arm. After graduation, Steven went into the Navy and Diane enrolled at Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College. They corresponded regularly, but if Diane had promised to save herself for Steve, she had given in. She was expelled from the religious school after a year for promiscuity.

Steve returned home and the couple were married on November 13, 1973. From the beginning, the marriage was shaky. Steve worked half the time and Diane found him to be more like her domineering father. She had wanted love and realized too late that Steve was not that love. However when she became pregnant, carrying a baby made her feel for the first time that she was actually in charge of a love that was all-dependent on her. It was a feeling of power she had never before realized. But, after Christie was born in October, 1974, it was back to serving Steve his meals. The fact that she had a baby to care for and worked part-time didn't seem to matter. To keep from falling apart emotionally, she needed to feel that emotion of love stirring inside her. She again became pregnant. Cheryl Lynn was born into this world on January, 1976.

Throughout 1976 and 1977, Diane took the kids and ran away from Steve several times, but she always came back. He was unhappy, she was unhappy, but the marriage dragged on. To regain that in charge feeling of love, Diane decided to become pregnant again but not with Steve's baby. By that time, 1978, the family had moved to Mesa where both Diane and Steve worked for the same mobile home manufacturer. On the assembly line Diane found her "stud," whom she passionately seduced. Her tummy swelled and she once again became drugged on love. Danny was born four days after Christmas, 1979.

Even though the child was not his, Steve accepted the boy as his own, but within a year, the Diane and Steve decided to divorce. Diane moved in with the father of Danny, and it was during this time she began to change. Now, she seemed to ignore her duties as a mother. She preferred to work, to stay away from home, and to handover the children to any babysitter she could find.

Diane finally found a full-time position in Chandler with the U.S. Post Office in 1981. This was there she met Lew Lewiston and fell in love. But, for once, it was the other party, not Diane, to make the decision when and where the love affair would end. As she had done mentally to her own kids, Lew physically walked out of her life. Not quite understanding or acceptant of the fact, that this time she didn't have it her way, she ran home to Oregon.

At approximately 10:48 p.m. on May 19, 1983 in Springfield, Oregon, a red late-model Nissan bearing Arizona license plates pulled into the emergency drop-off with the horn blaring. The skeleton night shift all heard it. In the driveway, just beyond the double automatic doors of the Emergency Room, a blonde woman in her twenties waved them on and frantically pointed to the interior of her car. "Somebody just shot my kids!" was all she seemed to know how to say. The receptionist, hearing the mother's words, called the police. When two of the nurses looked through the windows of the Nissan, they saw that the side panels were soaked in blood and amidst the blood lay three small children, Cheryl Ann Downs, age 7, in the front passenger seat and Christie Downs, age 8, and Danny Downs, age 3, in the back seat. Personnel from intensive care were summoned to assist ER, as well as a top surgeon. Danny and Christie were barely breathing but despite the children's fragile condition, the medical experts kept them alive. One of Christie's arms was paralyzed and her speech was garbled but the doctors believed  this condition could be revitalized; Danny would probably be crippled for the rest of his life, but his brain had not been affected and he would live. Unfortunately, Cheryl was pronounced dead moments after being wheeled into the ER.

Ann Rule asked, "Who in the name of God could have aimed a pistol at three small children and pulled the trigger?" Their mother, Diane, told the hospital receptionist that she and her family had been driving home from visiting a friend in nearby Marcola when a "bushy-haired stranger" had waved down her car on a lonely part of the highway. Thinking he needed help, she stopped to inquire. And that was when the man pointed his gun through her car window and shot her three helpless children. Both Springfield and Lane County police responded. Reacting to her story, the departments issued an emergency watch on the city and county roads, fearing that there might be a madman roaming the outskirts of Springfield. 

Sergeant Rutherford was the first investigator to approach Diane at the hospital. When he arrived, the nurses were tending to her arm, which had a series of small, superficial wounds between the elbow and the wrist from where, according to her, she had tried to ward off the gunman's blows. Seeing that Mrs. Downs' injuries were minor and that she seemed to be in an unusual state of calmness, he asked that she come with him to point out the exact spot of the crime. The site she took him to was near where two rural roads converged, a spot were a young woman with three children should not have stopped her car to speak to a stranger.

When Diane returned to the hospital, she was given the terrible news about Cheryl, as well as the status of Danny and Christie. She took the news with grace, but her attitude stunned the hospital personnel who had expected her to turn hysterical; she seemed too accepting. One investigator found her unlike other women whom he had encountered after similar crises. She was "very rational, considering what she had undergone." Another investigator questioned how the bullet struck her arm. He couldn't help thinking that the place where she was wounded was the exact same place other killers have shot themselves to make it appear that they were attacked by a phony assailant.

Several nurses and an investigator were in the room when Diane Downs was finally allowed into the intensive care unit to see Christie. The investigator noticed that the child's eyes took on the glaze of fear when spotting her mother approaching. Her heart rate monitor showed Christie's heart was beating 104 times a minute but when Diane took hold of her, her heart rate jumped to 147. A round-the-clock guard on the children was ordered and a child psychologist was commissioned to remain at Christie's side during the day in an effort to build up a trust that the child might confide in her the events of the crime on Mohawk Road.

Diane agreed to sign a search warrant on her home. She admitted she owned a .38 caliber pistol, which she kept for protection on her delivery route, and a .22 caliber rifle for home safety, but both were unused. They found a diary and a box of standard .22 caliber shells, same as those taken from the children's bodies. One particular item of interest: a photo of a young man in a beard shared space atop the television with other pictures of Diane. Diane had made a phone call to a man in Arizona not long after arriving at the hospital. Before she knew the state of her children, before alerting her ex-husband and the father of the children, she acted as if compelled to call this Arizona man.  Was he the object of Diane's urgent phone call? Whatever happened Thursday night, the facts were beginning to come together in a most suspicious manner and unlike those explained by the mother, Diane Downs.

Over the coming days, Diane's version of what happened that night changed slightly. Her placement of the killer when he fired the gun changed several times as did her own actions in the face of the supposed gunman. When Steve Downs, Diane's ex-husband in Arizona, was interviewed, it was learned that Diane owned three, not two, weapons, a .22 rifle, a .38 revolver and a .22 Ruger Mark IV nine-shot semi-automatic pistol, which Diane did not mention. (Diane denied she still owned the .22 caliber.) When Steve was asked if he knew who the Arizona man might be, he replied that he must mean the married guy with whom Diane had been having a hot affair for some time before leaving Arizona. He was a postal worker in Chandler and, whatever happened in their love life, it was finally ended. The man returned to his understanding wife, but Diane still seemed to carry a hot and heavy torch for him but he didn't seem to be the type to leave a loving wife for a woman with three growing, hungry kids. 

Forensics examined the interior of the Downs automobile. A couple of .22 caliber U-shell copper casings were found. There was blood smeared on the side door of the front seat where Cheryl had tumbled after being shot, and pools of blood stained the rear seat where Danny and Christie had been hit. But, "No blood at all on the driver's side, no smears on the steering wheel." Also, there were no powder particles on the driver's panel. What did all this mean? It could very well mean that whoever did the shooting had been seated in the driver's seat. And that Diane Downs shot herself just before she reached the hospital.

A through search of the entire crime area had failed to produce the murder weapon, but ejected casings from a spent .22 caliber (matching those in the car) were discovered in the vicinity. At this point there wasn't much of a case against Diane Downs without the murder weapon. And to make matters worst Christie Downs had suffered a stroke. Her speech was distorted and, the physicians said she may never speak again.  But, there was hope because she was so young, they might be able to reverse the deterioration with therapy and restore her slurring tongue.

There was no gun to condemn Diane. And perhaps the only live witness to the murder, the murderer's own daughter, would be unable to accuse her mother. But investigators believed Diane was guilty. Perhaps the diary and the letters confiscated from her home might shed some light. They both reeked of a longing for the Arizona man, her lost love, a man who had deserted her. The cause of his desertion may have been that his wife had simply stepped in to put the clamps down. Who was this man and was he involved in any way in the murder scheme? Had Diane's obsession with this ex-boyfriend driven her to attempt to murder her own children? Were they were obstacles in the path of having him all to herself? Would this man's wife be Diane's next victim? Two investigators were sent to Chandler, Arizona, to find out who this Lew Lewiston really was.

The investigators spoke with several of Diane's former co-workers from the Chandler branch post office. What emerged after the postal interviews was that she appeared to be a headstrong woman, but headstrong in a tilted way; her priorities were overblown and, most of all, out of sync. She jumped in the sack with men right and left, but refused to deliver copies of Playboy to customers on her route.

Lew Lewiston worked at the Chandler station, too, but the investigators interviewed him at his home.  He insisted that his wife, Nora, be there at his side while he candidly discussed even his sexual experiences with his old flame. Nora knew the history and had forgiven him. The couple had reconciled and Lew Lewiston wanted nothing more to do with Diane Downs. He had tried to break off their relationship, but each time Diane protested violently. Lew couldn't take the guilty any longer so one night in February, 1983, Lew severed their affair. Diane had asked him who he loved the most, her or Nora. He said he loved Nora. Diane blew up. She ranted and raved and screamed at him. He had never seen anyone act that way before. When Lew raced home, Diane followed him. She pounded on their door all night long. Then she called on the phone and she reappeared the following day, confronting Nora. Diane began to tell her what she should do about her marriage and her relationship with Lew. Nora slammed the door in her face. Lew never saw her again. Not long after that chaotic night, Diane put in a transfer to Oregon. She relocated to Springfield to be near her parents.

Lew did say something that might imply that the Downs children may have gotten in the way of their mother's love life. Despite her pleas, he refused to see her when she was with Danny, Christie and Cheryl.  He wouldn't be with her if the children were around, because it was an affair and didn't seem right. He also knew that Diane owned a .22 caliber handgun. But, Diane continued to deny she owned it.

In the meantime, Danny and Christie were placed in the protective custody of the state's child services bureau. This meant that Diane was not allowed to see her kids. Danny, still confined to his bed, was given full protection by the police department until he would be medically released, at which time he would be placed in a suitable foster family. The home where Christie was taken was kept a secret, her whereabouts being known by only a few authorities.

Whether or not it was a ploy for sympathy or whether she merely needed to feel that "love" once again within her , Diane went out and got pregnant. She made sure to explain the symbolic meaning of her action to a TV reporter: "I got pregnant because I miss Christie, and I miss Danny and I miss Cheryl so much..."

The counselor put in charge of mentally raising Christie from her nightmares was making excellent progress. The child began to talk, to remember, and to face reality. She got Christie to speak about her family life, and her mother. Christie admitted that Diane had hit her and her brother and sister "lots". And when the day had come, the therapist asked her to recall what happened the night of what Christie called "that terrible thing":

"Was there anyone there that night that you didn't know?" (referring to the stranger on the dark road.) "No," the girl answered. "Were Danny and Cheryl crying?" "No." "Why wasn't Cheryl crying?" "...dead."  "Do you know who was shooting, Christie?" "I think——" But Christie could not muster the words. the counselor didn't push and let it go, for now.

The Grand Jury handed down an indictment: one charge of murder, two charges of attempted murder, and two charges of criminal assault. On February 28, 1984, the police arrested Diane as she was getting out of her car in the parking lot of the post office.

Diane Downs' trial began May 10, 1984 and lasted six weeks. The jury panel consisted of nine women. Judge Foote, the man who had taken Christie and Danny Downs from their suspect mother, presided. Throughout the trial, witnesses came and went, each making an impact, some more than others. But, the highpoint, the turning point, came when Christie Downs was brought to the stand. Quivering, tear-streaked she was ushered to the stand by Fred Hugi. Hugi began by explaining to the girl the importance of telling the truth on the stand; she understood. Giving her time to relax, and her voice to become sufficiently audible to the courtroom, he then asked her several routine questions about her family, her schooling, herself. Feeling that she was ready for the heavy stuff, he maneuvered into the day of the crime.

Christie was visibly shaken. Hugi patted her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. He gave her a moment to recover before proceeding. Reassuring that she was OK, he resumed his line of questioning about what Diane did with her children.

"She leaned over to the back seat and shot Danny," Christie said.

"What happened then? Hugi asked her. "What happened after Danny got shot?" Christie caved in under her tears, and Hugi hugged her. He gave her time to find her voice once again. Then quietly, sympathetically he went on. He rephrased his question, for by this time the court had already gathered what Diane Downs did after she shot Danny.

Do you remember when you got shot?" Hugi asked her.

"Yeah," she answered.

Who shot you?"

"My mom," she said simply.

On June 14, 1984, Judge Foote read aloud the jury's unanimous verdict. Guilty of attempted murder in the first degree. Guilty of a second account of attempted murder in the first degree. Guilty of first-degree assault. Guilty of another count of first-degree assault. Guilty of murder. Oregon at the time did not impose the death sentence, but in the subsequent sentencing, the judge sought to deprive Diane Downs from the daylight of liberty forevermore. After decreeing a life term, plus an additional fifty years for using a firearm, he expressed, "The Court hopes the defendant will never again be free. I've come as close to that as possible."

Between the verdict and the sentencing, the court recessed while Diane gave birth to a beautiful child, whom she named Amy. The father of the baby denied her and, in time, a caring family adopted Amy.

Ann Rule's Full Length Bestsellers
with Case Background
 

• Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal(2007) - Tells the story of a Georgia dentist named Bart Corbin, and how two women, a beautiful dentistry student named Dolly Hearn, and Bart's wife, Jennifer Barber Corbin, found themselves fatally involved with Corbin over the course of two decades.

• Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer-America's Deadliest Serial Murderer (2004) - This is the extraordinary true story of the most prolific serial killer the nation had ever seen -- a case involving more than forty-nine female victims, two decades of intense investigative work...and one unrelenting killer who not only attended Ann Rule's book signings but lived less than a mile away from her home.

• Heart Full of Lies: A True Story of Desire and Death (2003) - An idyllic Hawaiian wedding held the promise of a wonderful future for handsome, athletic Chris Northon, an airline pilot, a confirmed bachelor-turned-devoted family man; and Liysa, an acclaimed surf photographer, loving mother, and aspiring Hollywood screenwriter. But few, including Chris, had seen Liysa's other side -- her controlling behavior and dark moods, her insatiable hunger for money and property. And no one anticipated the fatal outcome of a family camping trip in an Oregon forest. Liysa soon revealed herself as a victim of domestic abuse that culminated at the campsite, where she shot Chris in self-defense. But crime scene evidence led detectives to wonder if Liysa was a killer, not a victim.

• Every Breath You Take: A True Story of Obsession, Revenge, and Murder (2001) - Although happily settled securely in a loving second marriage, and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila never truly escaped the vicious enslavement of her ex-husband, multi-millionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer -- and a violent, controlling sociopath who subjected Sheila to unthinkable abuse in their marriage, and terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge. Shelia had said, "If anything ever happens to me... find Ann Rule and ask her to write my story."

• And Never Let Her Go: Thomas Capano: The Deadly Seducer (1999) - On a June evening in 1996, 30-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, secretary to the governor of Delaware, vanished without a trace following a restaurant rendezvous with her secret lover of more than two years: Thomas Capano. One of Wilmington's most prominent and respected figures, a millionaire attorney and former state prosecutor, "Tommy" was a charming, soft spoken family man. But in the weeks and months that followed Fahey's disappearance, investigators would gradually uncover the shocking truth: Capano was a steely manipulator driven by power and greed -- and capable of brutal murder.

• Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, A Mother's Sacrifice (1998) - Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life: her own medical practice, a handsome physician husband, three perfect children, and an opulent home in an exclusive Kansas City suburb. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion.

• Dead By Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (1995) - When attorney Cheryl Keeton's brutally bludgeoned body was found in her van in the fast lane of an Oregon freeway, her husband, Brad Cunningham, was the likely suspect. But there was no solid evidence linking him to the crime. He married again, for the fifth time, and his stunning new wife, a physician named Sara, adopted his three sons. They all settled down to family life on a luxurious estate. But gradually, their marriage became a nightmare....

• Everything She Ever Wanted: A True Story of Obsessive Love, Murder, and Betrayal (1992) - For their wedding portrait, petite Pat Taylor and handsome Tom Allanson posed as Rhett and Scarlett.  Less than two months later, their dream exploded in terror and murder: their beautiful home mysteriously burned to the ground and Tom was convicted of the brutal slaying of his mother and father. Pat's only brother had died in a puzzling suicide, her grandparents-in-law were poisoned with arsenic, and no one -- from her wealthy employers to her own children -- was safe when Pat Allanson didn't get her way. It took Georgia lawmen more than two decades to stop her for good -- if indeed they have.

• If You Really Loved Me: A True Story of Desire and Murder (1991) - David Brown was a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty-two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty-four years to life. But thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown unfolded revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games. Did David Brown convince his own daughter to prove her love by killing for him?

• Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder (1987) - A shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood.

• The Want-Ad Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1983) - After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death--using want ads to lure his young female victims.

• The I-5 Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1984) - As a young man, Randall Woodfield had it all--a star athlete, good looks, and an award-winning student. Working in the swinging West Coast bar scene, he had more than his share of women. But he wanted more than just sex. An appetite for unspeakable violent acts led him to cruise the I-5 highway through California to Washington, leaving a trail of victims along the way. As the list of the dead grew, the police mobilized to stop a twisted killer who had 44 known deaths to his name.

• Possession - A Novel (1983) - Joanne Lindstrom's camping trip to Washington's Cascade mountains goes terribly awry, leaving her husband dead and Joanne's only hope for survival in the hands of a twisted stranger. (This is Ann Rule's only novel. Based on a real Northwest Case.)  

• Lust Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1983) - To his neighbors, Jerry Brudos was a gentle man whose mild manner contrasted with his awesome physical strength. To his employers, Jerry was a fine worker. To his wife, he was a good husband. And to the Oregon police, Jerry Brudos was the most hideously twisted killer they had ever unmasked.

• The Stranger Beside Me - Ted Bundy: The Classic Story of Seduction & Murder (1980) - Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass-murderer. Little did she know that Ted Bundy, her close friend, was the savage slayer she was hunting.

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