Diane Downs: Part 2: Mother or Murderer

This week on The Secret Sits we finish our look into the Diane Downs case.

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Transcript

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Previously on The Secret Sits, a bushy-haired man supposedly accosted Diane Downs and her children in the middle of the night on a dark road in the middle of nowhere, but investigators are not sure her story is adding up, and that is where we find ourselves while we pick up our story today.

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Welcome to The Secret Sits, I’m your host John Dodson.  Join us every Thursday as we uncover the Secrets behind the world’s most fascinating true crime cases.  You can find all episodes of The Secret Sits for free on Apple Podcast, Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts.  And if you like what you are hearing, reach out to us on Instagram and Facebook @The Secret Sits Podcast or on Twitter @SecretSitsPod. Now, on with our story.

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Diane Downs’ version of what had happened began to crumble over the coming days.  The story began to change slightly as well.  When Diane retold her story, she placed the gunman in a different position, she also altered her own actions during the events of that night.

Doug Welch interviewed Steve Down, Diane’s ex-husband down in Arizona, and during this interview he learned that Diane owned 3 weapons, not just the two she had told police about.  The third weapon was a .22 caliber handgun, the same type of weapon used in the shooting, and the only weapon conveniently left out of Diane’s own admissions.  Steve Downs was open and honest with the investigators, he was glad to be rid of his bed-hoping ex, but they had remained friends.  He was genuinely upset when he was told about the children being shot and he made immediate plans to fly to Oregon to see the children himself.

Doug Welch asked Steve if he knew who the mysterious man from Arizona might be, and Steve said that it was probably the married man Diane had been carrying on with before she left Arizona.  The man was a postal worker in Chandler and after the affair with Diane, he had returned to his wife, who took him back, but Diane still carried a torch for the man, she almost seemed infatuated with him, but he was not the type of man to leave his wife for another woman towing three kids in her wake.  And then, right at the end of the interview detective Welch asked Steve one final question, “Steve, would your ex-wife harm your kids in order to get this man back?”  Steve replied, “No way! She loves those kids.”

No one in the DA’s office believed that there had been a strange man out on Mohawk Road that night.  This scenario has been played out over and over, a mythical wrongdoer is blamed in an attempt to hide one’s own transgressions, or to help cover for someone else they are close to. Author Ann Rule says that these make-believe violators are all put in the “the guy who isn’t there” category, a mysterious perpetrator who is truly responsible, but can never be produced in the court.

Paul Alton said, “I don’t buy it.  She goes out to Sunderman to see Heather Plourd, she decides to go sightseeing and heads toward Marcola.  Suddenly, she decides she'll veer off on the Old Mohawk Road. Say we buy the story that she's sightseeing. Even if it's almost pitch dark, she's sightseeing...How do we explain that the shooter knew she was going to be there? If he's following her in his own car...he could trail her onto Old Mohawk. But she tells us that the stranger is in front of her, standing in the road waving her down. How does he get there?"

This story as a whole just does not add up.  If the killer was after the car, why had he not shot Diane first?  The three small children in the car were no threat to him at all, what would the bushy-haired stranger have to gain at all from shooting these three children?  Over the weekend, forensic scientist James Pex from the Oregon State Police Department, examined the interior of the Downs car and he produced some interesting findings.  There were a couple of .22 caliber U-shell copper casings, which were ejected after being fired.  No bullets had penetrated the body of the car, meaning all five bullets fired hit their intended targets, the children.  Blood was smeared on the side of the door next to the front seat where Cheryl had been shot and there were pools of blood on the rear seat where Danny and Christie had been hit.  There was no blood on the driver side of the car, not even smears on the steering wheel.

If a bullet had hit Diane as she was getting into the car, as she stated, there would have been blood present, she would have transferred blood onto the steering wheel.  Also: When a bullet is fired, Pex explained, the barrel discharges a small amount of smokeless gunpowder foreword towards the target. Such powder particles were detected in three areas of the car, on the right panel and in a sweep along the back seat. There were no particles, however, 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.

Police scoured the entire crime scene looking for the murder weapon, but they only found spent shell casings, casings that matched those from inside of the car.  Divers searched the Mohawk River, but they could not locate the gun either.  Hugi was afraid that without the gun, there was no case to be built against Diane Downs, or a bushy-haired stranger.  He went and looked for the gun several times on his own, but always came up with nothing.  Just as the case seemed to be plummeting downhill, Christie Downs suffered a stroke in the hospital, this was brought on as a direct symptom from her gunshot wound.  Because of this stroke, her speech was altered and doctors were concerned that she may never speak again.  But doctors hoped that because Christie was so young, she could recover her speech with intense therapy.  

With no gun to condemn Diane, police needed to have an eye witness, but their only witness had just suffered a stroke and she could not identify anyone.  Fred Hugi believed, now more than ever, that Diane was guilty of this crime.  He read a diary which had been taken from Diane’s home and entered into evidence, and this diary was wrought with passionate writings about the man from Arizona, the man who got away, the pages tell of him leaving her and her desperation to have him back.  One particular entry caught Hugi’s attention, it was dated April 21st, less than one month before the shooting.  Like other entries in the diary, it was constructed as a letter, penned to someone else, it was addressed to her former lover and it read: "What happened? I'm so confused. What could she 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 or write'. ...I still think of you as my best friend and my only lover, and you keep telling me to go away and find somebody else. You have got to be kidding..."

Fred Hugi decided that he needed to get to the bottom of this storyline, he needed to identify this man and figure out if he could have, in any way, been privy to this murder scheme.  Fred doubted that the man knew anything, but could have Diane’s own obsession with this man been the thing to make her raise her gun against her own children?  Had she simply seen her children as obstacles in her path to a life with this man?  And if this were true, could this man’s wife be the next obstacle in Diane’s way?  Before the weekend ended, he dispatched two of his investigators to Chandler, Arizona, to find out who this man of Diane’s dreams really was.

Cheryl Downs’ funeral was held on May 25th, there were many family members along with close friends from the community in attendance. This same week some good news was brought forth from the McKenzie-Willamette Hospital: both Christie and Danny were out of danger and moved out of the ICU.  One of Christie’s arms was paralyzed and her speech had not improved yet, but doctors were still optimistic. Danny was expected to be crippled for the rest of his life, but his brain had survived and he would live, both of these kids had survived against all odds.  Diane must have been thrilled.

Doug Welch and Paul Alton traveled back to Arizona to dig more into Diane’s past.  The men learned that neither Steve Downs nor Lew Lewiston could have been the bushy-haired stranger, witnesses could support their alibis for the time the crime had taken place.  They spoke with several of Diane’s former co-workers from the Chandler post office.  Their opinions of Diane ran the gambit, some did not like the woman at all but others had some faint words of praise for the woman.  But what they got from the postal interviews was a picture of the woman Diane was, she was headstrong in a tilted way, her priorities were out of whack and she jumped in bed with men left and right, all the while refusing to deliver Playboys to the homes on her postal route.  She had her own set of beliefs in this way.

The investigators interviewed Lew Lewiston separately from the rest of the postal workers, they spoke with Lew at his home.  Lew was a very likeable man, the investigators thought, he was honest and direct.  Lew insisted that his wife, Nora, sit next to him during the interview, even when they spoke of his sexual experiences with his old flame.  He explained that his wife new of this extramarital affair and that she had forgiven him.  After the couple had made it through the affair and come back together, he wanted nothing more to do with Diane Downs.

Lew answered all of the questions put forth by the detectives and they gained a full history of his relationship with Diane.  They had met at work in late 1981, after Diane had been divorced from Steve.  Lew was attracted to Diane because she wore sexy cloths and moved provocatively in front of him, even though he was married and he loved his wife, he was taken with this new woman.  Their friendship evolved and it evolved into easy causal sex in sleazy hotel rooms.  The affair ended swiftly, just as all of her past flings had, the ones Lew knew about anyway.  But as time marched on, Lew found that Diane was not letting go, in fact she began trying to persuade Lew to get a divorce from Nora.  This was when he realized that this fling, only meant to take place between the sheets, was being viewed as much more by Diane.

Each time Lew attempted to stop seeing Diane she would protest, violently and so the affair continued, Lew was with Diane all day at work and then he would be with her all night long, this went on almost every day for months.  Detectives Welch and Alton then noted something that Lew added that hit a high-note because it complemented what their boss Fred Hugi had been contemplating all along, 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. "I wouldn't be with her if the children were around," he explained. "It was an affair it didn't seem right." He stated.

After a few months, Lew decided to break it off with Diane, and one night in February, 1983, Lew recounted "Diane asked me who I loved the most — her or Nora. I said I loved Nora. She blew up. She ranted and raved and screamed at me. I'd never seen anyone act that way before."  When Lew left and raced home, Diane followed him, right up the steps of his own home with Nora present.

"She pounded on our door all night long," Lew's wife recalled. "Then she called on the phone." But she reappeared the following day, confronting Nora on the stoop. "She began to tell me what I should do about my marriage, my relationship with Lew — everything...I slammed the door in her face."

It had been what Lew called "the final straw" and he 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.  But, the letters and the phone calls to Lew continued.  The detectives asked Lew if he had any knowledge about guns that Diane might have owned. He did. One of them, he said, was a .22 caliber handgun.  But Diane continued to deny she owned it.

That following June, Assistant DA Fred Hugi met with his investigative crew to go over everyone’s findings.  He needed to figure out if they had enough evidence to arrest Diane Downs.  The team was convinced that she was guilty, but they feared that without the murder weapon or any witnesses, much of their case would be considered circumstantial and there was a chance the case would be thrown out pre-trial, they could not risk that, so they decided they did not have enough to gain a conviction.

The team went through what they had so far; among the evidence, a small number of .22 caliber bullet casings found on Old Mohawk Road, a very graphic display of carnage in Diane's red Nissan Pulsar, the estimation of the bullets' paths from an accepted authority, a diary that screamed Diane's obsession for her ex-lover, her letters colored with pornographic daydreams, and testimony from two men Steve Downs and Lew Lewiston who swore she indeed owned something she continued to disclaim: a .22 caliber handgun.

The most remarkable piece of evidence came from forensic expert Jim Pex who wrote that it was his estimation that some of the unfired 22 caliber shells found in Diane's home had once been worked through the mechanism of the same gun that shot the children, but until the gun was retrieved, Fred Hugi knew, the court could refute this.

Investigators had also been able to shed doubt on Diane's story that she immediately raced for the hospital after the attack on her kids. By testimony of hospital personnel, she arrived outside of the ER that night at roughly 10:48 p.m., screaming. "Somebody just shot my kids!" The estimated time she had left the Plourds' home was, according to Heather Plourd herself, 9:45 p.m. The detectives knew that the shooting, then, must have occurred at approximately 10:15 in order to give Diane enough time to re-gather her senses, survey the condition of her kids, then drive, as she had claimed immediately to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital to reach it by 10:48 p.m. But, in the meantime, a witness had come forward, explaining that he had seen, what he was positive was Diane's red Nissan, near 10:20 p.m., driving very slowly, how slowly you ask?  Well, this witness says Diane was driving her car about five to seven miles an hour along Old Mohawk Road.

In Lane County, a grand jury was assembled behind closed doors. The panelists wanted to hear directly from those main players, the list of witnesses that Fred Hugi had given the DA.  Among these were Diane’s former lover, Mr. Inman, Heather Plourd, Jim Pex and others, and eventually Diane Downs herself.

County Judge Gregory Foote placed the two surviving Downs children in the protective custody of the state's child services bureau. This meant that, for the time being, 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 follow Christie into a suitable foster family. The home where Christie was transported was kept a secret, her whereabouts known by only a few authorities.

During this grand jury summons process and the search for more crucial evidence, principally the gun, then the sheriff’s office began announced layoffs.  Paul Alton was laid off and Doug Welch and Kurt West were both given a month’s notice, this was a mighty blow to Fred Hugi’s investigation team as everyone from his team was laid off or redeployed.  The winter of 1983 melted into the spring of 1984 and Diane was becoming a new media star.  As the news channels began picking up the story, Diane Downs became the dinnertime topic of conversations in most homes, and a water cooler conversation at most jobs.  The public was still looking for the bushy-haired man and they placed Diane on a pedestal, people thought she looked like Princess Diana, who was all the rage at the time and Diane Downs became every day news fodder.

Diane used this new opportunity to tell her side of the story, she was simply a misunderstood victim who was being harassed by the police, they had even taken her kids away.  And for their last month before they were laid off Welch and West dogged the woman every chance they got.

Finally, Diane Downs called for what she hoped would turn into a peace treaty, a meeting with the two detectives to explain her side of the story and pass on further information she had not divulged since the night of the attack on Old Mohawk Road. At first, the detectives bought it, hoping this new revelation might produce something new. But, sensing they were being conned, the session led to what would become known, according to Ann Rule, as "the hardball interview."

At this meeting, Diane explained that she believed the killer was someone she might have known; he had called her by name. This was a new point to the story, and if true, this information would have made a great impact on the entire case. But the investigators felt this was all a charade and an attempt to stem the legal proceedings Diane could feel were mounting against her.  The men turned the tides during this meeting and instead of simply listening to Diane’s new information, they began interrogating her. Why was she telling them this now? She didn't know. How did the shooter know what road she was going to take home from Heather's? She didn't know. Was he a friend from Oregon or Arizona? She didn't know. What purpose would he have to kill her kids? She didn't know. Did she really rush to the hospital immediately after the kids were shot or did she pause a while? She didn't know. Why didn't she try to stop the gunman when he began blasting away at the kids in the Nissan? She didn't know the answer to that either.

And when they asked her point blank if she tried to kill her kids because they ruined her chances with her lover...well, she did have an answer to that. Diane called the detectives names and threatened them and told them they were all "fucked up". And then, she stormed out of the office.

After this meeting something happened that made every one give Diane Downs a giant side eye.  Because Diane went out and purposely get herself pregnant.  She gave this as a response to a reporter who asked her about the pregnancy: "I got pregnant because I miss Christie, and I miss Danny and I miss Cheryl so much...You can't replace children — but 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..."

Fred Hugi watched this interview live on TV and he responded with, “She wanted a reason to escape death row.”

The Counselor placed in charge of Christie was making excellent progress.  Christie began to regain her speech and her memories.  The counselor did not breach the subject of the shooting, but she talked to her about her family life and her mother.  Christie admitted that Diane had hit her and her siblings lots of times.  Eventually they spoke about what Christie referred to as “that terrible thing”, which was the night of the shooting.

"Was there anyone there that night that you didn't know?" asked the counselor, referring to the stranger on the dark road, the bushy-haired man from her mother’s stories.

"No," Christie answered.

"Were Danny and Cheryl crying?"

"No." Christie answered.

"Why wasn't Cheryl crying?"

Christie simply stated. "...dead." 

There was a pause, and then, softly:

"Do you know who was shooting, Christie?"

To this question, Christie could not muster up the courage to say anything out loud.

The grand jury was wrapping up after nine months of interviews; they had spoken to, quizzed, and deliberated on the words of many witnesses, including Diane Downs and at the end of those nine months they handed down an indictment: one charge of murder, two charges of attempted murder, and two charges of criminal assault.

The state of Oregon was going for the child killer's throat.

On February 28, 1984, police cuffed Diane as she stepped from her car into the parking lot of the post office.  District Attorney Pat Horton, along with Lane County Sheriff David Burks, hosted a press conference following Diane's arrest. Horton told the press, "The one thing that underscored this investigation is patience. The real battle...is in the courtroom."

Reporters arrived by the dozens, their newspapers and magazines had already announced the arrest of Diane Downs and that the Princess Diana look-alike might actually be a murderer after all.  Time magazine was there and the Washington Post, journalists from papers from as far away as New York were there as well. Most were professional in their reporting, while some, tabloid-like publications, tumbled across both Springfield, Oregon, and Chandler, Arizona, finding anyone who knew Diane Downs, or anyone who had even spoken to her once.

When the Eugene Register-Guard found Diane's father, Wes Frederickson, the paper noted he was courageous to the end: "If my daughter did it, then I believe, in fact, she should pay. But nothing can take away the love a father has for his kids."

In the wake of the impending trial, Diane sought as her counselor the brilliant and highly esteemed attorney Melvin Belli; because of how high profile the Downs case was, Belli wanted to take it on. But he had personal plans, which were unbreakable, and he would defend Diane only if the trial could be postponed a couple of months after the already-slated May 1984 calendar. The courts refused to budge. Fred Hugi had waited long enough and delaying the trial might mean delaying it again for the pregnant Diane to give birth. Too much work had been done to delay the inevitable. 

Diane was forced to find another lawyer quickly. She chose criminal attorney Jim Jagger, a man noted for his down-home but effective manner.  What was to be a six-week trial opened on May 10, 1984 in Eugene at the Lane County Courthouse, courtroom Number 3, the largest of the rooms of justice in the old building. The jury panel consisted of nine women. Judge Foote, the judge who had taken Christie and Danny Downs from their suspect mother, presided over the case. Judge Foote was young and intense, but he was noted for his fairness.

Everyone in the county turned up at the court house, and people across the USA were still divided over Diane’s guilt or innocence.  

In his opening remarks, Fred Hugi presented a motive, Diane’s fixation for a married man who felt that her kids should not be part of their fantasy life, he also provided a method of murder the .22 caliber Ruger pistol that she bought in Arizona and denied having owned in Oregon. He read passages from her diary talking about her love for a man who didn't want her as much she wanted him; and, to some titillation of the court, he read aloud Diane's masturbation poem. He promised to paint, over the following weeks, a real picture of the cruelty that made Diane Downs tick.

Counsel for the defense Jim Jagger conceded, in turn, that there had been an obsession, but not so dark as to have led his client to destroy the three people she loved most in the world, her own children. He pointed to her childhood, to her alleged molestation as a child, even to her promiscuity that he saw as a relevance to that dysfunctional experience. But, a murderess? No, for he intended to show that Diane's story of a man on the Mohawk Road with a gun was in fact, not a lie at all.

The courtroom proceedings paused on May 14 so that the jurors could experience for themselves the physical scene of the crime. Fred Hugi transported them via a chartered bus to Old Mohawk Road, parallel to the river. Though daylight, the prosecutor accentuated the state of the road at the time of the shootings, he explained the darkness of that night, the loneliness, and then the sparks of gunfire that shattered the gloom. Before the day ended, jurors were then led to the county auto pound to see the red Nissan death car; he wanted them to gaze into its interior and to feel the terror the kids must have faced.

Back in court during the week, the first of the state's witnesses were brought forth, they were comprised mostly of personnel from McKenzie-Willamette Hospital where Cheryl Downs died and where doctors struggled to save the other two Downs children, Christie and Danny.

Nurse Rose Martin recalled Diane's peculiar attitude toward what had just happened. "She asked how the children were, and I told her the doctors were in there working on them," Martin remembered. "And then she laughed, and she said, 'Only the best for my kids!' and she laughed again and said, 'Well, I have good insurance.'

Dr. John Mackey, who was in charge of the ER the evening of the murder, described the children's chest wounds and the medical team's first, spontaneous efforts of life saving. He then recollected his observation of Diane: "She was extremely composed. She was unbelievably composed. I couldn't believe she was a family member. There were no tears...no disbelief...no, 'Why did this happen to me?'"

X-ray Technician Carleen Elbridge could not get over the fact that Diane, a mother of three severely wounded youngsters, complained about having to be seen in public without makeup.

Throughout the trial, witnesses came and went, each making an impact, some more than others. But, the highpoint, the turning point, the riveting point came when Christie Downs was brought to the stand. Quivering, her face stained with tear-streaks as she was ushered to the stand by Fred Hugi. It was clear that Fred detested this moment, to bring a child face to face against her mother, but the moment was needed if justice was to be played out.

Fred Hugi stood there, pale, his jaw tight, but he spoke with a fatherly voice, and he led the examination of little Christie Downs. From time to time, he handed her a Kleenex while she paused to wipe her cheeks; he waited until she regained herself whenever she broke down; usually after her eyes and her mother's eyes momentarily met; he didn't rush her, and he remained gentle. Fred clarified the question so that the jurors would completely understand the tiny voice coming from the witness stand.

Everyone in the courtroom took a deep breath in, and no one seem to exhale until Christie finished testifying. 

Fred Hugi began by explaining to the girl the importance of telling the truth on the stand; she said that 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, and herself. Feeling that she was ready for the heavy stuff, Fred maneuvered into the day of the crime, her visit with her family to Heather Plourd's home on Sunderman Road in order to give Mrs. Plourd the clipping from the newspaper about horse rentals.

Christie was visibly shaken. Fred gave the girl a pat on 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 on that night on that dark desolate road.

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

"What happened then? Fred prompted her. "What happened after Danny got shot?"

Christie Downs’ body caved in under the weight of her tears, and Fred Hugi leaned over and hugged her. Knowing this would happen and wanting to get it over with, he gave her time to find her voice once again. Then quietly, sympathetically he went on. He gingerly 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?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she answered.

"Who shot you?"

Christie looked at Fred and simply said, "My mom."

After this testimony, the tone for the rest of the trial was set, nothing else would be or could be as impactful.  Diane Downs was guilty.  Outside the walls of the courtroom, everyone around the county now had their answer, and Diane went from being the Princess Diana look-a-like to being justifiably vilified. 

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. And guilty of murder.

Oregon, at the time did not hand out death penalties, but at her sentencing, the judge made it clear that Diane Downs would be in jail for the rest of her life. Diane was given a life term, plus an additional fifty years for using a firearm, the judge said, "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 new beautiful child, whom she named Amy. The father of the baby did not want the child so she was adopted by Chris and Jackie Babcock, the couple then changed her name to Rebecca.  As an adult, Rebecca appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and 20/20, she discussed how she felt about her biological mother.  She also revealed that she had written letters to Diane in prison, something she now regrets, she now only sees her biological mother as a monster.

Diane Downs’ children, Christie and Danny, survived their injuries from this ordeal. Danny is confined to a wheelchair, but he is a happy boy. And in 1986, they moved into the home of their new loving adopted parents, Fred and Joanne Hugi.  That’s right, the prosecutor from this case.

On July 11, 1987, Diane escaped from her cell by scaling an eighteen-foot razor wire fence. For ten days, she managed to evade law enforcement, despite a fourteen-state manhunt, before she was recaptured. She received an additional five-year sentence for this escape. After her recapture, Diane Downs was transferred to the New Jersey Department of Corrections Clinton Correctional Facility for Women after heavy lobbying from Fred Hugi. The Salem prison was located just 66 miles from Hugi's home in Springfield; during her ten days of freedom, Hugi had feared that Downs would attempt to travel there in hopes of contacting her children, Christie and Danny. Despite significant security upgrades at the women's facility after the escape, state officials accepted Fred Hugi's argument that the risk of harm to Christie and Danny, in the event of another escape, was too great for Downs to remain incarcerated in Oregon.

Diane Downs' sentence meant she could not be considered for parole until 2009. Under Oregon law at the time, as a dangerous offender, Downs would have been eligible for a parole hearing every two years until she is released or dies in prison.

In her first application for parole in 2008, Downs reaffirmed her innocence. Downs insisted that, “Over the years, I have told you and the rest of the world that a man shot me and my children. I have never changed my story.” Her first parole hearing was on December 9, 2008.  Lane County District Attorney Douglas Harcleroad wrote to the parole board: “Downs continues to fail to demonstrate any honest insight into her criminal behavior... even after her convictions, she continues to fabricate new versions of events under which the crimes occurred.”  He also wrote that “she alternately refers to her assailants as a bushy-haired stranger, two men wearing ski masks, or drug dealers and corrupt law enforcement officials.”  Downs participated in the hearing from the Valley State Prison for Women.  She was not permitted a statement, but answered questions from the parole board.  After three hours of interviews and thirty minutes of deliberation, she was denied parole.

Diane Downs faced her second parole hearing on December 10, 2010, and was denied.  Her next parole hearing was scheduled in 2010 and set for 2020, however it was also denied.

Christie Downs, Diane Downs' first child, who testified at her trial, continues to suffer from a speech handicap. She has a son who was born in 2005 and a daughter, whom she named Cheryl in memory of her late sister.