Mom shot her three children for a man.

Diane Downs

May 19 1983, the night Springfield Oregon was turned upside down. It's 10:48 p.m. at Mackenzie William Hospital. A family car has become an ambulance. Children have been shot. It is every mother's nightmare. Three children gunned down by a complete stranger. Single mother Diane Downs is also shot in the arm. There were three children, Cheryl, Christie and Danny. Cheryl had already expired. Dr. Stephen and his medical team tried to save the two surviving children. Christie had a couple of bullet holes and she had no blood pressure, no pulse, she was pasty white and appeared to be dead. These children would gradually lose consciousness, they would be experiencing pain and their blood pressure would gradually drop. Doctors and nurses work frantically in a race against the clock. Medical attention would have to be received before critical levels of oxygen had stopped reaching the brain, at which point they would become brain-dead.

Meanwhile police try to find the killer. Detective Doug Welch joins the manhunt. The first 48 or 72 hours are extremely critical because that's when your evidence is going to be most available. Taken straight back to the crime scene, Diane tells police what happened. Diane was driving down the road in this direction and she said a stranger appeared and flagged her down. She stopped her car, stepped out with the door open and said what's the problem. He replied I want your car, she said you've got to be kidding. At which time she claims that he pushed her aside, cleaning the vehicle and shot the children. She claims to have fake throwing her car keys off and failed. He fired the weapon and struck her in the left forearm. She pushed him away and jumped in her car. According to her version roared off down the road to the hospital.

Back at the hospital eight-year-old Christie Downs could easily become the second fatality. She was shot in the neck. I don't know how you could get closer to death and and not actually die. The doctors have stabilized the youngest three-year-old Danny downs but fear he may be paralyzed. Dr. Stephen fights through the night to stabilize Christie. A shocking crime took place last night and Springfield wakes to the shocking news. It was broadcasted on the radio that a woman and her children had been shot on old Mohawk Road. The police thought the eldest of the two surviving children Christie could help but a stroke leaves her temporarily speechless. Then something strange happens, when Diane visits Christie. Christie seems terrified of her mother then Diane suggests something extraordinary, said you know doctor I think you need to pull the plug on her, because I know she's brain damaged.

The doctor said, we don't know that she's brain damaged. We've not even tested it and that was striking to the doctor, absolutely striking. When Detective Doug Welch hears this, he's not entirely surprised. By now he's seriously doubting Diane's story. Mothers don't stop for strangers in a dark country road with three little ones in their car. Over the coming weeks, the real Diane Downs slowly emerges. The police discover that her husband left because she was a flirt. Diane had quite a reputation at the Postal Service in Arizona where she worked. Months earlier Diane would become attracted to a man she met very quickly and become sexually involved very quickly. It appeared she use sex as a predominant way to hang on to a man. I think she was fairly neglected as a child, so over the years I think she probably started looking for attention in inappropriate ways.

When she found that men were interested in her, It was intoxicating. Her past and her behavior since the shooting has detective Welch thinking Diane may not be a victim. She enjoyed having relationships with married men. I think the control factor was important to her. On a number of occasions she would start telling her friends about her boyfriend in Arizona and what a great guy he was and how much she missed him and and how she wanted him to join her in Oregon. I know but Diane's boyfriend had no intention of moving to Oregon. He told her it was over, he was going back to his wife but Diane wouldn't accept it. She keeps writing seductive letters. Her obsession was becoming a fatal attraction. For those who got in her way running afoul of a woman with a fatal attraction, doesn't just happen in modern times. History bears out that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

In the summer of 1983 the people of Springfield Oregon were told a horrifying story of a single mom and her three children, held up by an armed stranger, who wanted their car. When the mother 28 year old Diane Downs refused, it ended tragically. One girl was dead, a boy feared paralyzed and another girl critically injured. Within weeks holes begin to appear in Diane's story, starting with the gunshot wound on her arm. From the wound characteristics it was clear that this was not a defensive type of wound. If for example, she was putting up her arm to try to ward off the bullet, the entrance wound would have been on the opposite side, the exit wound would have been on the side towards her. TV reporter and Jagger like others starts asking tough questions. I asked her, I said, I just have one more question for you.

Why would you put the towel around your arm when your children are bleeding. She said I thought that if I didn't save myself and I bled to death that I wouldn't be able to save my children. Detective Doug Welch has been suspicious all along, now more and more evidence is mounting against Dianne Downs. Her story about speeding to the hospital turns out to be just that. There was a gentleman and his family that came up behind. She is traveling so slow on this road that his speedometer would move off the peg. She claims that she was driving like there was no tomorrow, she had to get her children there. She was taking her own sweet time. She was waiting for the kids to stop choking and making noise and died. Dr. Stephen, the surgeon who helped save two of Diane's children also develop serious doubts.

Just imagine your own mother, your wife, they lost a child, they would be absolutely hysterical, out-of-shape, unconsolable, she was not that way. Diane even wants to pull the plug on her daughter. All the evidence begins to paint the same terrible picture that Diane may have shot her children, to save her failing love affair. Common personality traits that we see in women who kill for passion is their inability to deal with problems over a long term, to resolve something in a healthy mature way. Its just simply easier to do what they want to do and get the problem off the plate. The police were moving in to arrest Diane on charges of murder, attempted murder and first degree assault. Ultimately the motive was to get that boyfriend, he didn't want to be a father. She saw those kids as a burden and she had to get them out of the way.

Can you imagine what it would take to shoot your kids, then have the willpower to shoot yourself and then drive yourself to the hospital. That takes some guts. Prosecutors allege Diane's emergency arrival and Mackenzie will a met hospital was intact. Diane's very intelligent I think she did a very good job maintaining her story and being consistent for quite some time. But Diane's plan ultimately fails. There is a witness who can put her away for murder. We needed Christie to get well enough to be able to take the stand and testify as to what happened. Christie does get better and finally in court tells the world, her mom was the killer. It's just so hard to listen to that child tell the truth with her mother sitting there, looking at her. She did an amazing job. Diane Downs is found guilty of all charges and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 50 years.

In numerous unsuccessful Appeals Diane has always denied her guilt. She's calculating. She's narcissistic and I think she has some sociopathic tendencies as well. She's a sociopath, she possessed the idea that because of my children, I can do with him as I please, I could kill him if I want. She's in the right place now. Some good finally comes out of the horror of that night. Young Christie and her brother Danny get a new chance in life with an adopted family, who knows their story well.