Elizabeth Diane Frederickson Downs is an American criminal who murdered her daughter and attempted to murder her other two children in May 1983. Downs was convicted in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison plus fifty years. She is the subject of a book by Ann Rule and a made-for-TV movie based upon it, both called Small Sacrifices.
About Diane Downs in brief
Elizabeth Diane Frederickson Downs is an American criminal who murdered her daughter and attempted to murder her other two children in May 1983. Following the crimes, she told police a man had attempted to carjack her and had shot the children. Downs was convicted in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison plus fifty years. Downs briefly escaped in 1987 and was recaptured. She is the subject of a book by Ann Rule and a made-for-TV movie based upon it, both called Small Sacrifices. She was denied parole in December 2008 and again in December 2010; she is eligible to try again in 2020, at the age of 65. Psychiatrists diagnosed her with histrionic and antisocial personality disorders. Most of her sentence is to be served consecutively, with her arm and leg serving to be consecutively served at the time of the murder and attempted murder trials. She has testified that her father sexually abused her when she was 12 years old. Diane married Steve Downs after running away from home in 1973.
Their first child, Christie Ann, was born in 1974. Cheryl Lynn followed in 1976, with Stephen Daniel being born in 1979. The couple divorced in 1980 because Steve thought Stephen Daniel, known as Danny, was the result of an affair Diane had. On May 8, 1982, Downs gave birth to a daughter through surrogacy. She named the child Jennifer before turning her over to her intended parents. She claimed she was carjacked on a rural road near Springfield, Oregon, by a strange man who shot her and the children in a blood-spattered car to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. Upon arrival, Cheryl was already dead, Danny was paralyzed from the waist down, and Christie had suffered a disabling stroke. Downs herself had been shot in the left forearm. Downs did not disclose to police that she owned a. 22 caliber handgun, but both Steve Downs and Knickerbocker informed them that she did.
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This page is based on the article Diane Downs published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 09, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
