Case of Elizabeth Diana Downs Case

Many murder cases in history are still debated today. In these suspicious cases, it is the most difficult task to prove whether the killer was innocent or guilty. A few days ago, while searching on Facebook, I found a group about Elizabeth Diana. People were trying to prove her innocence but the law has punished her. There are many ways to think in this case too. Let's read the details of this case first.

 

Elizabeth Diane Frederickson Downs born August 7, 1955, is an American sentenced killer. She shot her three kids, killing one, and then told police an outsider had attempted to carjack her and had shot the children. She was accused in 1984 and convicted to life in jail.

 

Downs briefly fled in 1987 and was recaptured. She is the topic of a book by Ann Rule and a made-for-TV movie established upon it, both called "Small Sacrifices". She was withheld parole in December 2008 and again in December 2010.

 

Early Life:

Elizabeth Diane Frederickson was born in Phoenix, Arizona to Wes and Willadene Frederickson on August 7, 1955. She declared that her father abused her when she was a child. She graduated from Moon Valley High School in Phoenix where she met her future spouse, Steve Downs. After high school, she enrolled at Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College in Orange, California, but after a year was evicted for promiscuity and returned to her parents’ home. On November 13, 1973, she wedded Steve Downs. They were separated in 1980, about a year after the birth of Stephen "Danny" Downs.

 

Downs was employed by the United States Postal Service assigned to the main paths in the city of Cottage Grove, Oregon before her 1983 charge and prosecution.

 

By reports of friends, compatriots, neighbors, and finally, by the living daughter Christie, Diane Downs was an incapable parent who put everything before her children and was particularly violent to Cheryl, who told a neighbor of her grandparents shortly before her death that she was scared of her mother.

 

Murder:

 

On May 19, 1983, Downs shot her three children, Stephen Daniel (born 1979); Cheryl Lynn (born 1976); and Christie Ann (born 1974). Downs drove the children in a blood-spattered car to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. There was blood spatter all over the inside of the car but none on Diane. On entrance to the hospital, Cheryl was already lifeless. Downs herself had been shot in the left forearm. Downs alleged she was carjacked on a pastoral road near Springfield, Oregon by an odd man who shot her and her three children. Investigators became cautious because they agreed her way was too calm for a person who had suffered such a traumatic event.

 

Their anxieties worsened when Downs went for the first time to see Christie, who was incapable to speak after enduring a stroke. Christie's eyes glazed over with obvious fear and her heart rate jumped dramatically. They also found out that shortly upon coming at the hospital, Downs had called Robert Knickerbocker, a married man and former friend in Arizona with whom she had been having a relationship.

 

The forensic information did not match Downs' story; there was no blood on the driver's side of the car, nor was there any gunpowder debris on the driver's panel. Knickerbocker also noted to police that Downs had tailed him and looked like ready to kill his wife if it meant that she could have him to herself; Knickerbocker noted that he was alleviated that Downs had left for Oregon and he was able to mediate with his wife. Downs did not tell police she inhabited a .22 caliber handgun, but both Steve Downs (her ex-husband) and Knickerbocker (her ex-lover) said she did own one.

 

Investigators later found out she bought the handgun in Arizona, and although they were incapable to find the substantial weapon, they found unfired casings in her home with extractor markings from the same gun that shot the children. Most damaging, observers saw Downs's car being run very gradually toward the hospital at an approximate speed of five to seven mph, negating Downs' statement that she drove to the hospital at a high speed after the shooting. Established on this and extra information, Downs was arrested nine months after the incident, on February 28, 1984, and accused with murder and two scores each of attempted murder and criminal onslaught.

 

Persecution:

Prosecutors contended that Downs shot her children to be free of them so she could begin again her relationship with Knickerbocker, who let it be known that he did not like children in his life. Much of the case against Downs rested on the statement of existing daughter Christie, who, once she regained her power to speak, interpreted how her mother shot all three children while placed at the side of the road and then shot herself in the arm. Christie was eight years old at the moment of the murder and nine years old at the time of the prosecution.

 

Downs was found culpable on all charges on June 17, 1984, and convicted to life in jail plus fifty years. Psychiatrists deduced Downs with egocentric, histrionic, and hostile personality disorders. Most of her penalty is to be served sequentially. The judge made it obvious that he did not wish Downs to ever get back her freedom.

Aftermath:

The enduring children finally went to live with one of the prosecutors of the case, Fred Hugi. He and his wife Joanne adopted them in 1984.

 

Before her arrest and trial, Downs became pregnant with a fourth child and gave birth a month after her 1984 prosecution to a girl named Amy. Ten days before her sentencing, the baby was confiscated by the State of Oregon and adopted soon after. She was renamed Rebecca "Becky" Babcock.

 

Downs fled from the Oregon Women's Correctional Center of the Oregon Department of Corrections on July 11, 1987, and was recaptured in Salem, Oregon on July 21. She earned a five-year penalty for the escape.

 

After her retreat, she was sheltered in the New Jersey Department of Corrections Clinton Correctional Institution. In 1994, after fulfilling ten years, Downs was substituted for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. While in jail, Downs has received an associate's college degree in general studies. As of 2010, she is found in the Valley State Prison for Women.

 

Author Ann Rule wrote the book Small Sacrifices in 1987, documenting the life of Downs. A made-for-TV movie called Small Sacrifices, starring Farrah Fawcett as Downs, was released in 1989.

Diane Downs's last child, born soon after her trial inferred, appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on October 22, 2010, and '20/20 July 1, 2011.

Parole Hearing:

 

Downs's verdict makes her able for parole deliberation after serving 25 years. Under Oregon law, as a hazardous criminal, she will be able for a parole consideration hearing every two years until she is discharged or dies in prison.

 

In her first petition for parole in 2008, Downs reaffirmed her honesty. "Over the years," she told, "I have informed you and the remainder of the nation that a man shot me and my kids. I have never altered my story." Downs's first hearing for parole was on December 9, 2008. Lane County District Attorney Douglas Harcleroad sent a letter to the parole board, "Downs continues to fail to indicate any honest understanding into her unlawful behaviour...even after her convictions, she continues to falsify new versions of events under which the violations occurred." She alternately refers to her attackers as a "bushy-haired stranger", two men wearing ski masks or drug sellers and corrupt law enforcement officials.

Downs contributed to the hearing from the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California. She has not authorized an announcement but replied to questions from the parole board. After three hours of interviews and thirty minutes of consideration, Diane Downs was refused parole. Downs was able to reapply for parole in 2010.

 

Downs faced her second parole hearing on December 10, 2010. Her parole request was rejected, and under the new law, she will not be able for parole for another ten years. She will have to wait for another parole request until 2020 when she will be 65-years-old.