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Speaker 1: I mean it was a huge story. It made, you know,

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Speaker 1: national news when Diane Downs drives to the Springfield hospital

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Speaker 1: with those kids, and I think it shocked everybody just

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Speaker 1: because somewhere deep in their gut, it's like a mom

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Speaker 1: and kids that just that doesn't make sense. And the

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Speaker 1: story of the shaggy haired stranger didn't make sense either

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Speaker 1: at first. But everybody was willing to go along with

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Speaker 1: that for quite a while. And I think what really

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Speaker 1: sort of snapped things was the reenactment and having Diane

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Speaker 1: with the car and having the police ask her various questions,

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Speaker 1: and to reenact that moment, I think began the real

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Speaker 1: questions in that story.

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Speaker 2: The reenactment Eric Mason is referring to is a video

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Speaker 2: shop by Springfield Orgon Police. In it, they asked Diane

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Speaker 2: to walk them through the events of that night to

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Speaker 2: try and get a better understanding of what happened.

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Speaker 3: We'll get to that in a bit.

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Speaker 2: But first we have to ask who exactly is Diane Downs.

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Speaker 2: How does a twenty seven year old mail carrier and

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Speaker 2: mother of three wind up at a Springfield organ hospital

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Speaker 2: on a random weeknight having apparently shot her children and herself.

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Speaker 2: The story starts in Arizona. Her brother James, describes her

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Speaker 2: family life.

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Speaker 3: Describe your dad for me, help me understand your household.

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Speaker 4: Sure, I was thinking about this last night. The year

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Speaker 4: is nineteen sixty, right. They got married in the fifties,

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Speaker 4: and in the fifties and the sixties. It was before

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Speaker 4: the bra burnings. You know, there was a patriarch, and

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Speaker 4: there was a matriarch, and there was a mom, and

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Speaker 4: there was a dad. The dads did this, and the

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Speaker 4: moms did this. The dads provided the moms around the house. Right.

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Speaker 4: One of the questions I had, well, what happens when

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Speaker 4: there was conflict in your house? Well, there wasn't conflict

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Speaker 4: in my house because that was my dad's job to

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Speaker 4: take care of the conflict that there ever was conflict,

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Speaker 4: and his job was to resolve the conflict. And by

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Speaker 4: doing that, there was no conflict in the house because

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Speaker 4: he took it all. He took it all. It's truly

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Speaker 4: a patriarch kind of house.

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Speaker 2: Diane's childhood was, by most accounts, pretty normal, according to

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Speaker 2: her brother, although Diane herself claims that she was sexually

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Speaker 2: abused by her father. She spent part of her childhood

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Speaker 2: in a Phoenix suppurb before she and her family moved

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Speaker 2: to a farm. So your mother always conferred to your

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Speaker 2: father on decisions.

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Speaker 4: Always that was her job.

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Speaker 3: How big was your house?

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Speaker 4: But there was five? Yeah, I had a really fantastic

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Speaker 4: child that my sister had a fantastic child. And I

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Speaker 4: remember growing up on Charter Oak Road, and I remember

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Speaker 4: we had a block fence in our backyard and over

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Speaker 4: in the right hand corner, Diane had a pigeons. You know,

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Speaker 4: I thought those were the coolest thing. Pigeons, you know

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Speaker 4: what I mean, there were homing pigeons. Yeah, you put

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Speaker 4: little bands on their their little foot and they fly

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Speaker 4: off and then they come back. You know, I was

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Speaker 4: whatting in third grade, right, So I don't remember a

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Speaker 4: whole lot and a lot, a whole lot about homing

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Speaker 4: pigeons at the time. Yeah, Diane was one of the

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Speaker 4: I don't want to say main driving factor, but I'll

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Speaker 4: use the words to basically leave Phoenix and move to

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Speaker 4: the farm where she inevitably changed her life forever by

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Speaker 4: meeting Steve. You know, we moved from Phoenix to the farm,

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Speaker 4: and out on the farm, it was a great time. Man.

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Speaker 4: Diane had a horse and Kathy had a horse, and

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Speaker 4: John had a steer, and I raised pigs. I raised

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Speaker 4: pigs with my grandpa. As a matter of.

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Speaker 2: Fact, Diane started dating Steve when she was in high school.

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Speaker 2: Early on, she tried to establish a sense of standards

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Speaker 2: with who she dated, but with Steve it didn't last.

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Speaker 4: I remember that I was in the sixth grade and

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Speaker 4: she was a junior in high school and Steve had

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Speaker 4: dropped out. But it's part of dating Diane or a

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Speaker 4: part of being with Diane. One of the things that

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Speaker 4: was requested was that you got to check back into school,

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Speaker 4: and so he did start going to high school and

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Speaker 4: subsequently got kicked out because she was talking to somebody

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Speaker 4: and he ended up beating the guy up. I actually

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Speaker 4: admired Steve growing in. I looked up to him, as

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Speaker 4: you know, he was a male figure, you know, and

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Speaker 4: I put him to the Lord Mayo. You know, he

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Speaker 4: was a manly man. You know, he took no guph

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Speaker 4: And this something Diane says, you know, basically, you know, whatever,

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Speaker 4: if there was another guy that was bugging her, he

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Speaker 4: would beat him up, and she felt safe and she

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Speaker 4: felt protected until there was nobody else to beat up.

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Steve's propensity for expressing his anger stopped with people

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Speaker 2: who were bothering Diane, and he began to physically abuse

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Speaker 2: Diane as well.

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Speaker 5: Apparently those two fought. They would physically fight really often,

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Speaker 5: I mean punching to the face kind of fighting.

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Speaker 2: Diane briefly joined the military, possibly to escape her home life.

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Speaker 4: Diane joined the Air Force, probably to get away. But

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Speaker 4: Diane joined the Air Force and flag style, and she

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Speaker 4: was away for a little while, and Steve was there

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Speaker 4: taking care of Christy.

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Speaker 3: What year was this about.

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Speaker 4: I was a freshman, so nineteen seventy four. Then Diane said,

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Speaker 4: you know, I can't stay away from the kids, and

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Speaker 4: so she got an honorable discharger whatever happens with the

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Speaker 4: Air Force, and she came back. When Diane went to

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Speaker 4: the Air Force, Steve and I were playing pool and

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Speaker 4: there was a lady there, and he says, I bet

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Speaker 4: you I can get her to go to bed with

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Speaker 4: me as a conquest. And it's like, I'm a freshman

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Speaker 4: in high school, you know. It's like.

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Speaker 3: His wife's brother, right.

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Speaker 4: Right, and she's in the Air Force and she's not there.

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Speaker 4: And whether he did or whether he didn't, I don't know.

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Speaker 4: But I just know what he said to me. They fought.

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Speaker 4: They fought a lot, and one time when I was there,

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Speaker 4: they were fighting and he was on her back, beating

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Speaker 4: on her back. I remember it. He didn't hit her

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Speaker 4: in the face. He was sitting on her. I think

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Speaker 4: he was even sitting on her head, holding her down

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Speaker 4: like that and beating her on the back. It was

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Speaker 4: just it was pretty intense.

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Speaker 2: After her son, Danny's birth, Diane and Steve divorced. Steve

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Speaker 2: believed he couldn't be Danny's father since he claimed to

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Speaker 2: have had a vasectomy. Despite their divorce, Diane continued to

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Speaker 2: be on the receiving end of his physical abuse.

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Speaker 4: According to James, later on she got tired of it

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Speaker 4: and she started fighting back, and so she would engage him,

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Speaker 4: but obviously, you know, she lost, so he shoved her

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Speaker 4: onto the bed, and at that point Cheryl came in.

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Speaker 4: So these took place in front of the kids at times,

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Speaker 4: and it was never Diane starting the first engaging. It

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Speaker 4: was always her defending herself from him. And so she said,

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Speaker 4: you know, get Cheryl out of the room. And by

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Speaker 4: that time, Steve was sitting on Diana, punching her in

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Speaker 4: the face and blood was everywhere. Diane shouted to take

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Speaker 4: the kids and run, So we dragged Cheryl away and

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Speaker 4: got Christy and Danny and they fled.

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Speaker 2: It seemed inescapable.

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Speaker 4: Called the police, and by the time the Maricopa County

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Speaker 4: Sheriff Deputy Sean Carnahan, Steve was gone. And when he

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Speaker 4: walked into Diane's living room he saw my bloody sister

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Speaker 4: sitting in the chair, his shoulders dropped, the bruises, her

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Speaker 4: broken nose, eyes, dark neck, ringing red. The deputy said, Diane,

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Speaker 4: my god, what happened to you? What do you think?

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Speaker 4: She said, It's like, he says, you've two been doing

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Speaker 4: this for six years now. He says, when will it stop?

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Speaker 4: And she just said, I don't know. You know, she said,

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Speaker 4: I divorced him a year ago. I thought it would stop.

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Speaker 4: Then I guess was wrong.

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Speaker 2: Eventually Diane was pushed to her breaking point.

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Speaker 5: Diane shot a bullet through the floor of her trailer

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Speaker 5: when he was there one night.

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Speaker 4: The next Tuesday, judge signed a restraining order to keep

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Speaker 4: Steve away from Diane's home. To be sure that was

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Speaker 4: the first or the last beating he inflicted on my sister.

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Speaker 4: Ten days later, he chased her down into the bathroom.

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Speaker 4: The restraining order forbidding him access to her home was

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Speaker 4: only a week old. She still wore the bruises from

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Speaker 4: the last attack. He didn't know she'd grabbed a gun

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Speaker 4: to defend herself.

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Speaker 2: The gun that Diane used to shoot through the floor

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Speaker 2: would later be the subject of a search by police

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Speaker 2: as a potential murder weapon. We'll come back to that

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Speaker 2: in another episode. Not long after the incident where Diane

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Speaker 2: fired or shot into the floor, her mobile home caught

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Speaker 2: on fire.

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Speaker 5: When she flew to I think it was Kentucky. She

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Speaker 5: wanted to be a circuit mom. She had done that once.

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Speaker 5: She was trying to do it again on one of

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Speaker 5: these trips. The day or the maybe the evening of

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Speaker 5: the day that she left, her trailer caught on fire,

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Speaker 5: and you know, she filed an insurance claim. They paid out,

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Speaker 5: and she later when things frayed between her and Steve,

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Speaker 5: turned him in for that and he was arrested and

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Speaker 5: charged with the insurance fraud and had to pay some

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Speaker 5: money back.

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Speaker 4: Everything she owned was gone. She and her children were homeless.

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Speaker 3: And this was a brand new mobile It.

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Speaker 4: Was a brand new mobile home. Yeah, it was four

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Speaker 4: months old. They used to Stephen Diane worked at mobile

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Speaker 4: home manufacturing plans.

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Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know this, Okay.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, growing up I called growing up twenties. Right, They

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Speaker 4: worked together in manufacturing plans. You know that way is Steve,

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Speaker 4: you could keep better tracks of her if he's working

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Speaker 4: with her. I remember that my sister came over to visit,

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Speaker 4: and when she was over to visit, I had a

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Speaker 4: guitar and she borrowed my guitar and she took it

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Speaker 4: back with her. And what I remember about the mobile

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Speaker 4: home burning is the fact that my guitar was in

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Speaker 4: the mobile home when it burned, and I never got

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Speaker 4: my guitar back. They actually labeled an electrical fire.

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Speaker 3: That's what the court said.

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Speaker 4: The labeled an electrical fire, but it came out that

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Speaker 4: that's not what it was. That came out in court,

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Speaker 4: but that's not what it was.

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Speaker 3: How much an insurance pay out for for the mobile home.

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Speaker 4: Says seven thousand dollars right there.

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Speaker 3: And back in nineteen eighty three. That was a chunk

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Speaker 3: of money.

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Speaker 4: It was seven thousand dollars to repair the mobile.

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Speaker 3: Home, which wasn't used to repair the mobile that's correct.

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Speaker 3: Where did the seven thousand Steve.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Steve, and again he crossed the line. So but

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Speaker 4: go moving forward. Do you wonder why Steve might have

202
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Speaker 4: testified that against my sister, Well, here's the reasons. You know,

203
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Speaker 4: Steve confessed to the crime of arson, rendering her homeless.

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Speaker 4: I'm putting her at his mercy. But Steve actually said

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Speaker 4: that they conspired together to burn her home for the

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Speaker 4: insurance money.

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Speaker 2: Diane's living situation put Steve back into a position of

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Speaker 2: power over her. She willingly gave Steve custody of their

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Speaker 2: children to prevent them from being homeless. According to James,

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Speaker 2: Steve leveraged this into a means of control, but.

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Speaker 4: Everything she owned was gone. She and her kids were homeless.

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Speaker 4: This is after the restraining order and Steve says, hey,

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Speaker 4: come live with me. Diane refused, but had to let

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Speaker 4: her children move in with him because she didn't want

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Speaker 4: him to live in the car. Right, So she kept

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Speaker 4: paying on the mortgage for the mobile home, and she

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Speaker 4: went to a person's named Karen's house and offered her

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Speaker 4: a spare room until the inner November of nineteen eighty two.

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Speaker 4: But the kids weren't welcome because you know, it's just

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Speaker 4: a bedroom and a.

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Speaker 2: House, and Karen was her coworker at the post office.

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Speaker 4: I believe so yes. Diane rented a two bedroom apartment

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Speaker 4: in December. Steve refused to let her take her children

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Speaker 4: until after Christmas. Diane had to go to his house

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Speaker 4: to your children, and Steve wasn't letting go of that

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Speaker 4: control that he had of her. Every time she went

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Speaker 4: to their house, they fought. He wanted to remarry, she didn't,

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Speaker 4: and this was in December of nineteen eighty two. The

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Speaker 4: shooting happened in May of nineteen eighty three.

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Speaker 2: Diane eventually moved back into the mobile home along with

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Speaker 2: her children.

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Speaker 4: And Janeyorry of nineteen eighty five, Strapped for cash, my

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Speaker 4: sister moved back into her burned out mobile home and

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Speaker 4: stopped seeing her children at Steve's, so she brought the

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Speaker 4: kids back to the home. Steve was calling my sister

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Speaker 4: a worthless mother who didn't take care of her kids

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Speaker 4: to go see them. He said he was sick of

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Speaker 4: her having fun while he was burdened with raising the kids.

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Speaker 4: So basically, the kids are still at his house, okay,

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Speaker 4: and she's living there, and he's really unhappy about that

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Speaker 4: because Basically, she's probably out having a good time and

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Speaker 4: he's having to take care of the kids.

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Speaker 2: Diane had been living for years under the constraints of

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Speaker 2: an abusive relationship. Although she had been unfaithful along with Steve,

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Speaker 2: she was now able to see whoever she pleased without

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Speaker 2: immediate fear of reprisal. And Diane seemed to love male attention.

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Speaker 6: Over the course of time. You watch this plate out

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Speaker 6: all the time, and you when you see someone like Diane,

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Speaker 6: when you see so one trying desperately to get attention

250
00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:07,120
Speaker 6: and to move a certain way and to shake her

251
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Speaker 6: body a certain way, you think to yourself, Wow, there's

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Speaker 6: a person looking for attention, and do I want to

253
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Speaker 6: get inside the kill radius of that person? And I

254
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Speaker 6: could get blown up? It could blow me up, And

255
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Speaker 6: so a little bell goes off. I think in your

256
00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:30,240
Speaker 6: head when you're the person who's the target of a

257
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Speaker 6: Diane Downs, thinking to yourself, do I want to be

258
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Speaker 6: in the kill radius? Do I want a risk being

259
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Speaker 6: blown up? And the answer for most men is no.

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Speaker 6: But for these guys who all of a sudden attached

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Speaker 6: to Diane Downs, I think they understood it was a quick,

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Speaker 6: easy gratifying way to spend the night. I think that's

263
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Speaker 6: kind of what got them going. The problem is, I

264
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Speaker 6: think once they saw what kind of a mentally damaged

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Speaker 6: person that she was, they would run. I think I

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Speaker 6: think that happened over and over and over again.

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Speaker 2: Diane took a job with the Postal Service, where she

268
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Speaker 2: met Nick Knickerbocker. This was the relationship that many would

269
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Speaker 2: speculate to be the motivation behind the attempted murder of

270
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Speaker 2: her children.

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Speaker 4: My says, sir, was she was a she worked in

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Speaker 4: the post office. She was a rural route carrier. I

273
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Speaker 4: remember that was one of their fights in Arizona. I

274
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Speaker 4: remember seeing this because Diane was a rural rock carrier,

275
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Speaker 4: and as a rural rock carrier, she would continually break

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Speaker 4: the mirror off of the vehicle because you drive from

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Speaker 4: the right hand side, and she would continually hit the

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Speaker 4: mailboxes with the mirror and knocked it off. And Steve

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Speaker 4: would get so mad about that.

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Speaker 3: Why would he get mad, Well, because she broke.

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Speaker 4: The mirror off the car continually.

282
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Speaker 3: Oh, I was thinking she was driving a rule routes.

283
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Speaker 4: On a road route, you you basically sub let your

284
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Speaker 4: own vehicle, Okay, yeah, and so yeah, driving out in

285
00:16:07,640 --> 00:16:10,560
Speaker 4: the country delivering mail basically, and she would hit the

286
00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:14,400
Speaker 4: mailboxes with the mirror. It wasn't a physical fight, but

287
00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:18,000
Speaker 4: it was it was like crazy. You know. He wasn't

288
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Speaker 4: very happy, and he made it known that she wasn't

289
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:24,520
Speaker 4: that he wasn't happy. But that's what she did. In Oregon,

290
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Speaker 4: she transferred from Chandler where she met Nick, and you know,

291
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Speaker 4: and she moved up to Oregon, and my dad lived

292
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Speaker 4: in Oregon, and my dad was a postmaster in Springfield, Oregon.

293
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Speaker 4: And so she came up here to start her new

294
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Speaker 4: family with, you know, a start of new life. And

295
00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:46,720
Speaker 4: she was working in the post office, so she was

296
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Speaker 4: she was truly on her way, man, she was on

297
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:53,200
Speaker 4: her way to getting her life. But this happened to her.

298
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Speaker 4: And and it's really, you know, sort of sad because

299
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Speaker 4: I mean the reason, you know, talking about the post office,

300
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Speaker 4: and you know, it makes me think of Nick Knickerbocker,

301
00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:07,880
Speaker 4: the guy she met at the post office, the guy

302
00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:10,480
Speaker 4: that you know, they say that everything got done for

303
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:13,520
Speaker 4: if she did this fine the motive, yes, thank you

304
00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:14,119
Speaker 4: very much.

305
00:17:14,600 --> 00:17:17,480
Speaker 5: He was a letter carrier also, so they worked eight

306
00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:20,800
Speaker 5: hour shifts beside each other, would spent at least two

307
00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:26,439
Speaker 5: hours after that, oftentimes having sex at one location or another.

308
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:29,920
Speaker 5: So they did paint a picture that when they were

309
00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:32,879
Speaker 5: in Arizona. Because he was a married guy and for

310
00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:36,800
Speaker 5: the longest time didn't tell his wife about Diane, she

311
00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:40,560
Speaker 5: eventually found out, and he still sort of carried on

312
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:42,960
Speaker 5: and was not very forthcoming.

313
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Speaker 2: Diane was apparently obsessed with Nick to the point where

314
00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:49,520
Speaker 2: she would have done anything for him. There were unsent

315
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Speaker 2: letters and journals found in her apartment where she declared

316
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Speaker 2: her feelings.

317
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Speaker 1: Seems to me that he was fairly nice looking, strong jaw,

318
00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:04,200
Speaker 1: kind of wiry hair, and this person that seemingly Diane

319
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Speaker 1: down his head over heels about, and that she when

320
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Speaker 1: any of the male partners sex partners said to her, listen,

321
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Speaker 1: you're a really wonderful sexual partner, but I don't really.

322
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Speaker 1: I don't think I want to raise kids that would

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Speaker 1: absolutely crash her world.

324
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Speaker 7: And so I think with respect to Robert, the question

325
00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:33,840
Speaker 7: of whether or not he could deal with kids, you know,

326
00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:35,920
Speaker 7: was certainly a part of the narrative.

327
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Speaker 2: After Nick's rejection, in years of abuse from Steve, Diane

328
00:18:40,640 --> 00:18:44,640
Speaker 2: decided to leave Arizona. Her father was a postmaster in Oregon,

329
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Speaker 2: so she moved and was able to get a letter

330
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Speaker 2: carrier job in Springfield.

331
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Speaker 4: When you're an abusive relationship, it's the same question that

332
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Speaker 4: everybody asks everybody that's in that kind of relationship, how

333
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Speaker 4: long are you going to let this happen before you

334
00:18:56,040 --> 00:19:00,960
Speaker 4: change something? But when you then she did changed something,

335
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Speaker 4: and that's when she moved to Oregon. She was changing

336
00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:06,760
Speaker 4: her life. She'd been in order for six weeks when

337
00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:10,520
Speaker 4: she was attacked. She left Steve in Arizona. She left

338
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,840
Speaker 4: her boyfriends. And I don't say Nick I said she

339
00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:17,160
Speaker 4: left her boyfriends in Arizona. I mean, I can't say

340
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Speaker 4: that she didn't have a thing for Nick. And I

341
00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:21,560
Speaker 4: can't say that Nick didn't have a thing for her,

342
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:25,879
Speaker 4: because obviously they did. But she left him there because

343
00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:30,520
Speaker 4: really he was a married man, you know, and you're

344
00:19:30,560 --> 00:19:32,480
Speaker 4: not going to get together with a married man because

345
00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:34,320
Speaker 4: the married man is not going to leave his wife.

346
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Speaker 4: That's just what married men do.

347
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Speaker 2: And then in nineteen eighty three, the shooting occurs. From

348
00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:01,320
Speaker 2: the beginning, the press made every effort to find all

349
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,879
Speaker 2: the information they could about the incident and about Diane herself.

350
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Speaker 5: The whole goal was to figure out who she was,

351
00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:10,320
Speaker 5: how long she had been in Eugene or the Eugene

352
00:20:10,359 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 5: Springfield area. So you had kind of this small army

353
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:19,880
Speaker 5: of media types, mainly local print and television stations, doing

354
00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:21,720
Speaker 5: their own things. So we were all sort of learning

355
00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:25,280
Speaker 5: from each other too. If Kval and Eugene had a

356
00:20:25,560 --> 00:20:27,640
Speaker 5: news broadcast that night with something a little bit new,

357
00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:30,320
Speaker 5: well figured I wish I had gotten that in first,

358
00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:33,600
Speaker 5: but nonetheless put that into the notebook and just kept

359
00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:38,440
Speaker 5: on trying to compile our best ability to figure out

360
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:42,920
Speaker 5: who was involved. And you also had at the same

361
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:47,000
Speaker 5: time the search for the assailant. That was still the

362
00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:52,359
Speaker 5: official line that there's somebody out there, although even early

363
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 5: on my feeling was and I think other media people

364
00:20:56,240 --> 00:20:57,240
Speaker 5: were having questions.

365
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:01,320
Speaker 2: Although the police department wasn't very forthcoming with the details

366
00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:04,600
Speaker 2: of the case and the investigation, Diane herself proved to

367
00:21:04,600 --> 00:21:06,439
Speaker 2: be very willing to talk to the press.

368
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:09,720
Speaker 5: I was trying to find out who among law enforcement

369
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:12,280
Speaker 5: was primarily assigned to the case, and would there be

370
00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:15,920
Speaker 5: a chance of getting an interview with these folks, And

371
00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:19,080
Speaker 5: I was able to do that after a while, but

372
00:21:19,119 --> 00:21:22,879
Speaker 5: not early on, and the police were never open and

373
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:25,240
Speaker 5: forthcoming with reporters as far as I could find out,

374
00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:29,520
Speaker 5: Almost all the information as the case developed ended up

375
00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 5: coming really out of Diane's mouth. She was a prolific talker.

376
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Speaker 5: When we finally got a chance to sit down and

377
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:41,479
Speaker 5: get her a story, and once she started, she just

378
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:42,119
Speaker 5: didn't stop.

379
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:47,040
Speaker 4: Mom and Dad said, quit talking. Then, do not talk

380
00:21:47,080 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 4: to the press. They are not your friends. Diane was

381
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:53,280
Speaker 4: the most publicized and talked about individual in the state

382
00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:56,760
Speaker 4: of Oregon in nineteen eighty three, and a lot of

383
00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:00,000
Speaker 4: that was due to her. I mean, as she would

384
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:00,920
Speaker 4: talk to everybody.

385
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 2: Diane gave several interviews with the press and insisted that

386
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:08,560
Speaker 2: she and her kids were attacked by a shaggy haired stranger,

387
00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 2: a description which over time has become a trope when

388
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:14,440
Speaker 2: describing non existent suspects of crimes.

389
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:15,960
Speaker 3: Do you think that helped her?

390
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:22,919
Speaker 4: No, no, no, absolutely not. It did the opposite. You know.

391
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 4: It's like and she was really the worst witness for herself,

392
00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:30,640
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, it's like she she would get

393
00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:34,119
Speaker 4: up and she would talk, and she would talk, and

394
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:37,240
Speaker 4: you know, and they think it's because she liked to

395
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:41,120
Speaker 4: hear herself talk. Well, the reality is that she wanted

396
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:46,120
Speaker 4: to have them listen. They wanted She wanted him to listen,

397
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 4: but they would never listen. They would never look for anybody.

398
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:52,919
Speaker 4: She would go down there. You know, it's like, why

399
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:54,960
Speaker 4: aren't you looking, Well, we're looking for the guy. We're

400
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,159
Speaker 4: looking for the guy, you know. But if then you

401
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,959
Speaker 4: take a look into the newspapers and the time, you know.

402
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:03,680
Speaker 4: Two weeks after the shooting, Pat hort and the district

403
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 4: attorney says, the search for the shaggy haired stranger is

404
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 4: not a priority on our list. Two weeks after the shooting,

405
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:14,359
Speaker 4: the district attorney says, the search for the shaggy haired

406
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:17,400
Speaker 4: stranger his words, not hers. The search for the shaggy

407
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 4: head stranger is not a priority on our list. But

408
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 4: anytime she goes and talks to him, we're looking for him.

409
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:35,240
Speaker 4: We're looking for him.

410
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:38,679
Speaker 2: Months after the shooting, the police had produced no additional

411
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,560
Speaker 2: suspects beyond Diane herself. They had no leads, and only

412
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:46,400
Speaker 2: the Frederickson's themselves seemed to be providing contacts of potential

413
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:48,680
Speaker 2: witnesses and suspects to the police.

414
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 5: There didn't seem to be any elits. And this was

415
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 5: coming from Diane's camp to say we have somebody had

416
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:59,239
Speaker 5: phoned us and indicated there was there was some guy

417
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 5: who had shown up at the Springfield country Club, or

418
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,120
Speaker 5: she was advising police be on the lookout for some

419
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 5: dinged up yellow car that was in the area. There

420
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,680
Speaker 5: weren't solidly so I know that the police got a

421
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 5: lot of contacts, and as far as I know, they

422
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 5: and this was one of the stories we were trying

423
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 5: to keep up on. They were tracking these leaves down,

424
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 5: going and talk to the people who phone them in,

425
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 5: but as far as we could tell, that never really

426
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 5: got a solid start. There was nothing that felt like

427
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 5: a breakthrough in terms of finding somebody else who might

428
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 5: be involved in this.

429
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:36,639
Speaker 2: Diane would talk and tell her story to anyone who

430
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,199
Speaker 2: would listen. She seemed to love talking to the press.

431
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 5: I do remember very clearly, and Diane would even in

432
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 5: news conferences talk about dreams that she had had, and

433
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 5: she would call me, and I'm sure she called other

434
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 5: reporters on a fairly regular basis, just too because she

435
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 5: needed to talk. And she was one day talking about

436
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 5: having driven down to her letter carrying route in Cottage

437
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 5: Grover that morning. She said it was kind of foggy,

438
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:07,320
Speaker 5: and I five and she could see Cheryl coming out

439
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 5: of the mist, kind of holding her hand toward her,

440
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 5: and Diane said, and there we were the four Musketeers again.

441
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 5: I think that's how she referred to them, at least

442
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 5: for the police sake, because it did come out that

443
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 5: I think it had have been a terrible place to

444
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 5: be raised in her house, because they got hit, they

445
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 5: got slapped, they were treated very, very poorly.

446
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 2: The police struggled to make sense of the events that

447
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 2: night based on the story Diane had provided. They asked

448
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 2: her to recreate everything that happened that night, step by

449
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 2: step and a reenactment.

450
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 8: And I think for the detectives and the officers who

451
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 8: were working on it, that was the moment that things

452
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 8: shifted a little bit. And to go back to Detective

453
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 8: Welch and some of the first folks on the scene,

454
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 8: their radar was going off I think before that. But

455
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 8: at first, certainly the stories were all about who is

456
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 8: this shaggy haired stranger, what was the motive of this

457
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,639
Speaker 8: person to shoot kids? And was even that you know

458
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 8: the highway back there near Mohawk, Was that folks danger

459
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 8: back there living out in the rural part of Lane

460
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 8: County And the more I think Diane spoke the more

461
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 8: there were questions about what it is that the motive

462
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 8: was all about, and about who the.

463
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 1: Shooter might be.

464
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 2: The reenactment was strange, to say the least. Diana seemed

465
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:36,359
Speaker 2: to be a mother who was struggling to explain the

466
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 2: murder and an attempted murder of her children by a stranger.

467
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,239
Speaker 2: She came across like an actress playing a part and

468
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 2: catering to the audience.

469
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 6: I think that when they videotaped her and they wanted

470
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 6: her to say, Hey, this is where I was standing,

471
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 6: this is where the shaggy haired stranger is standing, this

472
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 6: was the song playing on the radio, this is how

473
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 6: I reacted. This is what I did when I threw

474
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:07,200
Speaker 6: the car keys into the bushes. The police saw something

475
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 6: there that didn't quite add up, and that was what

476
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 6: the children ended up seeing from inside the car and

477
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 6: what it is she was saying, and that was a contradiction.

478
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 6: There was an immediate contradiction when they viewed what she

479
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:27,919
Speaker 6: did with the video re enactment in the car, and

480
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 6: they got a lot of things right down to the

481
00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,239
Speaker 6: detail about the car and other things so that they

482
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,640
Speaker 6: could understand what happened.

483
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 4: And so.

484
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 6: I think the detectives right off the bat thought, wow,

485
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 6: this is not right. There's something here that's not right,

486
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 6: and you could see it, I think in the way

487
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 6: Diane even acted in the video. This wasn't a mom

488
00:27:55,760 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 6: who was shell shocked. She was a actress playing out

489
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 6: a scene in a movie that we hadn't seen yet.

490
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 3: Tell me about her behavior in the video.

491
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:12,200
Speaker 6: Re enactment, mm hmm. Well, it was almost as if,

492
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 6: I mean, as from what I can remember of the

493
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 6: details and then showing it. It was almost as if

494
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 6: she had to think about what it was that was

495
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 6: the right answer that they wanted as opposed to this

496
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 6: is exactly what happened, and instead of it being something

497
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 6: that was ingrained in a part of her sailor understanding

498
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 6: of that shooting from the stranger, she was thinking out loud,

499
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 6: almost about what it is that they would buy as

500
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 6: a story. And you could see that, you could.

501
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 3: I'm throwing the keys.

502
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm throwing the keys.

503
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 3: Yes, but I didn't let go.

504
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 4: He thinks I threw them, but I did not throw them.

505
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 1: Again.

506
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 4: He swings around at the same time, watching the keys

507
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 4: and swings around his shoot, which he shot me in

508
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 4: the stumm, I like that, Kesan, I just hit my kids,

509
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 4: started the car and.

510
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 3: Left the car door shut itself.

511
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 4: Okay, this is the person.

512
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 1: Okay.

513
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 2: The police weren't the only ones who found Diane's behavior

514
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 2: and explanation strange. The press also saw the video, and

515
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 2: for many it confirmed their suspicions that Diane was the

516
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 2: most likely suspect in the shooting.

517
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 5: She did a reenactant with the police that was shown

518
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 5: later that kind of verified this feeling that that a

519
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 5: lot of us had gotten from the start the story

520
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 5: just didn't really add up. She claimed, for instance, that

521
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 5: when she got out of her car, this guy said

522
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 5: I want your car, and she said, and she's she's

523
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 5: consistent as far as I know to this day in

524
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 5: saying you gotta be kidding me. That's about the only

525
00:29:57,680 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 5: part of her story that has remained consistent.

526
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 6: Her affect is not one of somebody who's trying to

527
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 6: protect their kids. It was almost as if she'd never

528
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 6: done these things before, and she was saying, well, what

529
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 6: are you asking me to do? And they say, no,

530
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 6: just do it just like it happened, and that was

531
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 6: their question. It didn't seem she was operating from memory

532
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 6: it was almost like, how would you want me to be?

533
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 6: And so that sort of raised alarm bells as they

534
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 6: went through her reenacting.

535
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: What it was like to have a stranger outside her car.

536
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,719
Speaker 2: After the re enactment video, Diane's increasingly casual attitude and interviews,

537
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 2: and the lack of any real evidence pointing to a

538
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 2: shooter on the loose, everyone began to accept that Diane

539
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 2: was most likely guilty.

540
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 6: So at the beginning, I think all of us wanted

541
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 6: to believe that it made sense that this stranger was

542
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,959
Speaker 6: out there and that all the police had to do

543
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 6: was just find this person and track them down and

544
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 6: the things would be over. But over time, and you

545
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 6: really didn't want to believe it at first that Diane

546
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 6: had some of these strange characteristics about her. They didn't

547
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 6: make sense.

548
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 2: Eventually police felt like they had gathered enough evidence. On

549
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 2: February twenty eighth, nineteen eighty four, Diane Downs was arrested.

550
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 5: It was a huge deal. Diane's been arrested again. She'd

551
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 5: been out in the community for months saying what if

552
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 5: she wanted to disparaging the police, which that's okay. People

553
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 5: are unfairly charged and it's certainly fair to push back

554
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 5: on that, but I think among most people that there

555
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 5: was just no goodwill left for Diane. With no other

556
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 5: suspect ever having come close to being charged or arrested

557
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 5: or identified. She was in the spotlight, she was the one,

558
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 5: and it was a big deal, and she was arrested.

559
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 5: She was looking tired, be draggled. The emotional strain I

560
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 5: think had taken a toll on her. She was still

561
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 5: kind of prone to smirk and smile a lot, whether

562
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 5: she should be or not, but she was I think

563
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 5: kind of beaten down by a circumstance when they finally

564
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 5: took her into custody. At that point, we all knew that, well,

565
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 5: we're going to be going to trial in about three months.

566
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 5: I think Lane County had a stipulation of that point

567
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 5: that once you were charged with that kind of serious crime,

568
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 5: just to a speedy process, we'll have you start your

569
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 5: trial within three months.

570
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 2: It wasn't just the reenactment, her strange behavior and the

571
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: inconsistent story that led police to arrest Diane. During the

572
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 2: nine months between the shooting and the arrest, a key

573
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 2: witness was at last able to provide the final piece

574
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 2: of the puzzle needed to charge Diane.

575
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 5: Diane was ultimately charged because Christy could talk, Christie felt

576
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 5: safe enough emotionally to share her thoughts. She'd been going

577
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 5: through lots of therapy. As part of these sessions, her therapist,

578
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 5: a guy named Carl Peterson, would ask her eventually, just

579
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 5: in talking about this, do you know who shot you?

580
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 5: And Christy would nod and he would say, do you

581
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 5: want to write that down? And I'll put this in

582
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 5: an envelope and we'll just burn it when it's done,

583
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 5: so no harm, no foul. So she did that for

584
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,479
Speaker 5: quite a while, and I think there was probably one

585
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 5: day in particular where she felt okay about sharing that

586
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 5: with him, what she had written on the paper and

587
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 5: what did she say, said my mom.

588
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 2: On the next episode of Happy Face Presents Two Face,

589
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 2: we received a bizarre letter from Diane Down's in prison

590
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 2: that included her surprising claims of her relation to Becky.

591
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 2: This leads us to enlist the help from DNA detective

592
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 2: Michel Leonard to help us solve the answer of who

593
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 2: are the biological parents of Becky. Ben Bolan is our

594
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 2: executive producer. Melissa Moore is our co executive producer. Maya

595
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 2: Cole is our primary producer, Paul Dekant is our supervising producer,

596
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 2: Sam T. Garnan is our researcher, and Matt Riddle is

597
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 2: our story editor. Featured music by dream Tent Happy Face

598
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 2: Presents to Phase is a production of iHeartRadio