Speaker 1: At first it was what does she look like? And
Speaker 1: then it was more of where is she that that
Speaker 1: person not love me, you know, and so that was
Speaker 1: kind of where that was coming from, was the why.
Speaker 1: So when I started pestering my mom about, you know,
Speaker 1: how she looked, and then where she was and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of why she didn't want me, And that's how
Speaker 1: that opened up to she's done some bad things. She's
Speaker 1: in jail. I can't tell you more that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: She's like, when you're older, i'll tell you more. A
Speaker 1: few years later, when I was about eleven, I asked
Speaker 1: one last time, and my mom told me that I'll
Speaker 1: never be old enough to know and that it's something
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't have to deal with, so she was
Speaker 1: never going to tell me. So I was eleven and
Speaker 1: still needed a babysitter. It was the same babysitter that
Speaker 1: I'd had since I was very very young. I can
Speaker 1: remember the moment like it was yesterday, which is so weird.
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what was said, but I remember
Speaker 1: standing at the top of the stairs. I was in
Speaker 1: the doorway of my bed room, she was in the hallway,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, I'm going to ask, I'm going
Speaker 1: to find the answers that I want. I'm just not
Speaker 1: going to stop until I know who my biological mother was.
Speaker 1: And so I talked to the babysitter and made it
Speaker 1: sound like I already knew. She had said, oh, so
Speaker 1: you know Diane Downs. And that was at that point
Speaker 1: how I had a name.
Speaker 2: Do you want the trees? I'm willing to tell you.
Speaker 1: Silly, this will.
Speaker 2: Work, not wanting to harm me.
Speaker 3: Well, we lost control.
Speaker 2: Hello, listeners. My name is Melissa Moore. When I was
Speaker 2: a teenager, my father was a rush. His name is
Speaker 2: Keith Hunter Jesperson, a serial murderer also known as a
Speaker 2: Happy Face killer. The revelation came during an already challenging
Speaker 2: time in my life, and for years I buried the
Speaker 2: truth and didn't speak about it publicly. And then one
Speaker 2: day I gained the courage to confront the past. I
Speaker 2: had a profound healing experience when I met my father's
Speaker 2: last victim, Julie Winningham's son Don Finley, which you followed
Speaker 2: along with me on the Happy Face Podcast. In that meeting,
Speaker 2: Don gave me his support, which gave me the confidence
Speaker 2: to continue on my mission to help other relatives and
Speaker 2: murderers find meaning and step out of the shadow of
Speaker 2: their parents' crimes. I met Becky Babcock ten years ago
Speaker 2: while filming a documentary. Becky's mother is Diane Downs, a
Speaker 2: woman who sits in jail for the murder of one
Speaker 2: of her daughters and the attempted murderer of another son
Speaker 2: and daughter during a shooting of the night of May nineteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. For years, Becky has wrestled with the
Speaker 2: idea of her own identity, and Becky has struggled not
Speaker 2: only with the idea of who her mother is, but
Speaker 2: also who her father could be. In this series, i'llccompany
Speaker 2: Becky as she confronts the effect her biological mother has
Speaker 2: had on her life and choices, as well as seek
Speaker 2: out the identity of her biological father, who may or
Speaker 2: may not even know she exists.
Speaker 4: My name is Dana Tims. I was a longtime writer
Speaker 4: for the Oregonian newspaper and I still continue to write
Speaker 4: for Oregon Publications.
Speaker 2: Dana was a new reporter, just starting his career in
Speaker 2: journalism and Cottage Grove not much had ever made national news.
Speaker 4: The Timber Wars are going on back then, so battles
Speaker 4: over old growth. There were protesters up in the Wilamta
Speaker 4: National Forest doing sit ins and trees, a lot of
Speaker 4: police coverage, a lot of discovernment coverage, also city council
Speaker 4: meetings and whatever would come along.
Speaker 2: And then one day came the Diane Downs case.
Speaker 4: I remember that that very well. It was on my birthday,
Speaker 4: as a matter of fact, and I had spent the
Speaker 4: previous twenty four hours following a small circus. I went
Speaker 4: to The Oregonian's main headquarters and I was just kind
Speaker 4: of debriefing my editors on the circus story, and somebody
Speaker 4: then said, hey, there was a shooting in Springfield last night.
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, apparently Moham was shot and her kids
Speaker 4: were shot. One of them might be dead. So I
Speaker 4: traveled back to Jene that day and got involved in
Speaker 4: the story. Later in that.
Speaker 2: Afternoon, Dana was covered new ground. At the time, this
Speaker 2: was a very unusual type of story. These sorts of
Speaker 2: things didn't happen in Springfield.
Speaker 4: Clearly, this was such an out of the ordinary circumstance,
Speaker 4: it truly just did not happen. The report was that
Speaker 4: one child was dead and police were still looking for
Speaker 4: an assailant. Clearly, you couldn't have any more of a
Speaker 4: hot button situation than that going on. The entire area
Speaker 4: was very freaked out.
Speaker 2: During the first twenty four hours after the shooting, Dana
Speaker 2: and other reporters had few sources for information. This was
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three, before the widespread existence of global Internet
Speaker 2: and quick access to information.
Speaker 4: We were really relying on police agencies to be giving
Speaker 4: us information and updates. The kids were at Springfield or
Speaker 4: mackendi Willlammett Hospital in Springfield. Clearly pressed did not have
Speaker 4: access to those places. As important as the story was,
Speaker 4: it was a little tough sledding to really get a
Speaker 4: toe hold to figure out how to go ahead and
Speaker 4: report this except for what we were getting from the police,
Speaker 4: which is really not much. For instance, we had learned
Speaker 4: that the mom had been shot also, so we were
Speaker 4: trying to figure out what are her injuries. It would
Speaker 4: still take a few more days before anyone got to
Speaker 4: really even have a chance at interviewing the mom, who
Speaker 4: we found out was Diane Downes.
Speaker 2: Dana and his colleagues slowly began to piece together information
Speaker 2: about the case. At the time, it was believed that
Speaker 2: whomever shot Diane and her kids was still out there.
Speaker 4: It was Elizabeth Diane Downes. That was the order that
Speaker 4: we were referring to her, And it wasn't just Diane yet,
Speaker 4: But we didn't know much. We knew that she was
Speaker 4: a letter carrier, had been working in Cottage Grove. The
Speaker 4: collective media effort had uncovered that much. People were then
Speaker 4: going down to the Cottage Grove Post Office and trying
Speaker 4: to do interviews. They weren't very cooperative. I think they
Speaker 4: were all stunned what was going on. Meantime, this notion
Speaker 4: that there was an assailant on the loose had people
Speaker 4: very rattled in nerved in Springfield.
Speaker 2: In particular, especially somebody who can shoot children, because that's
Speaker 2: a different type of predator.
Speaker 4: That just didn't happen kids getting shot.
Speaker 2: The primary source of information turned out to be Diane herself,
Speaker 2: who seemed more than eager to talk to the press.
Speaker 4: I first saw Diane when I walked into a house
Speaker 4: where she was living with her parents Springfield. She had
Speaker 4: called a news conference, so there were TV people there.
Speaker 4: Liked she talked at length and would address any question,
Speaker 4: didn't seem to shy away from anything, smiled and laughed
Speaker 4: a lot and even the first time I saw her,
Speaker 4: it struck me that there are inappropriate responses. Diane, from
Speaker 4: the very first time that I sat in that news
Speaker 4: conference struck me as somebody who just didn't respond the
Speaker 4: way that you might think somebody would. It raised questions
Speaker 4: right off the bat, like what's going on with her?
Speaker 2: Diane presented herself like someone very ready to be interviewed publicly.
Speaker 4: She was probably five five five six, longish hair, nicely styled.
Speaker 4: She cared about her appearance. I recall her wearing a
Speaker 4: dress and looking nice and confident and ready to take
Speaker 4: all the questions.
Speaker 2: Most of the reporters wanted to know what happened, so
Speaker 2: Diane walked them through her account of the events.
Speaker 4: That night, she was driving late at night with her kids.
Speaker 4: There was a school night, so that seemed a little
Speaker 4: bit odd. She said, they liked to sight see and again,
Speaker 4: that area is very pretty, but it was about ten
Speaker 4: o'clock at night, so you wouldn't be seeing anything except
Speaker 4: your car lights. She claimed that a guy was in
Speaker 4: the road flagged her down, and she stopped immediately and said,
Speaker 4: what's wrong. And again, my first reaction, I think my
Speaker 4: colleagues in the press have the same feeling of there's
Speaker 4: no way on earth that I would stop in that
Speaker 4: situation if I had young kids in the car, dark,
Speaker 4: late at night, rural outpost area.
Speaker 2: Diane painted herself as someone who was just being a
Speaker 2: good person by stopping to help someone.
Speaker 4: She pulled off the road, turn off the car, how
Speaker 4: the keys in her hand, and gets out of the
Speaker 4: car to go talk to this guy. It just seemed
Speaker 4: like an unnatural thing to do. She claimed that when
Speaker 4: she got out of her car, this guy said, I
Speaker 4: want your car, and she said, and she's consistent as
Speaker 4: far as I know to this day in saying, you
Speaker 4: got to be kidding me. In her telling, this guy
Speaker 4: wants the car, So what does he do. It's dark out,
Speaker 4: headlights are shining forward. He walks up to the car,
Speaker 4: leans in and fires five to seven bullets at sleeping kids.
Speaker 4: We were just kind of running through our mind saying, well,
Speaker 4: how would he even be able to see that there
Speaker 4: was anyone in the car.
Speaker 2: The stories began to release in the media about Diane
Speaker 2: and the shooting, with Diane herself insisting that the perpetrator
Speaker 2: she described was still at large.
Speaker 4: There had been a sketch released by the police that
Speaker 4: Diane had helped prepare of a guy with long hair
Speaker 4: and sort of angry looking eyes. Right off the bat.
Speaker 4: People were kind of smirking, thinking, Oh, it's the old,
Speaker 4: bushy haired stranger, which is kind of the oldest trope
Speaker 4: and law enforcement.
Speaker 2: Despite this sketch and description, there were very few real
Speaker 2: leads in the case.
Speaker 4: There weren't solid leads. I know that the police got
Speaker 4: a lot of contacts. They were tracking these leaves down
Speaker 4: going and talked to the people who phoned them in,
Speaker 4: but as far as we could tell, that never really
Speaker 4: got a solid start. There was nothing that felt like
Speaker 4: a breakthrough in terms of finding somebody else who might
Speaker 4: be involved in this.
Speaker 2: The press began to realize that the police saw Diane
Speaker 2: as a potential aspect from the beginning parts of what
Speaker 2: she said. Didn't it make sense.
Speaker 4: I think that the press got the impression after about
Speaker 4: four or five days that the police were the ones
Speaker 4: who were perhaps looking at Diane. There hadn't been any
Speaker 4: other suspects.
Speaker 2: All eyes were on Diane at the funeral.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all eyes were on Diane. For anyone who supported her,
Speaker 4: They were thinking, this, poor griving mom, how is she
Speaker 4: dealing with this, and for those who were skeptical, and
Speaker 4: maybe by the time the funeral happened, which was not
Speaker 4: that long after the shooting, there may not still have
Speaker 4: been widespread skepticism. So I think people were still feeling
Speaker 4: sorry for this mom and wondering how they would feel
Speaker 4: in that situation if they had to go through it.
Speaker 2: More details about the children were released, and the details
Speaker 2: of their injuries were horrifying.
Speaker 4: We learned in subsequent press conferences with medical personnel and
Speaker 4: the police that the kids had been basically shot in
Speaker 4: the chest, not in the head, but in the chest.
Speaker 4: Close groupings of shots, it appeared to be that the
Speaker 4: gun was just in which is from their bodies when
Speaker 4: the figure was pulled. They were just catastrophic injuries. And
Speaker 4: it's really amazing that all three didn't die that night.
Speaker 4: One sure, as far as we know, was dead. On
Speaker 4: arrival at Mackenzie Alama Hospital. The doctors are dispatched out
Speaker 4: there in the nurses and horrified to find one, two,
Speaker 4: and then a third kid and they had been shot
Speaker 4: in the chest. I remember dying at one of her
Speaker 4: news conferences saying, if I had shot my kids, would
Speaker 4: I had not have done a good job of it.
Speaker 4: I remember thinking not too long after that you did
Speaker 4: a tremendous job. If that was what you wanted to do,
Speaker 4: you did a great job.
Speaker 2: Finally, Diane was arrested for the murder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a big deal. It was a huge
Speaker 4: deal Diane's been arrested. I think among most people that
Speaker 4: there was just no good will left for Diane. With
Speaker 4: no other suspect ever having come close to being charged
Speaker 4: or arrested or identified, she was in the spotlight. She
Speaker 4: was the one.
Speaker 2: After the arrest, Diane was no longer the well composed
Speaker 2: woman she had been at the time of the murderer.
Speaker 4: She was looking tired, bedraggled. The emotional strain I think
Speaker 4: had taken a toll on her. She was still kind
Speaker 4: of prone to smirk and smile a lot, whether she
Speaker 4: should be or not, but she was I think, kind
Speaker 4: of beaten down by a circumstance when they finally took
Speaker 4: her into custody.
Speaker 2: It turns out there was a reason she looked that way.
Speaker 4: Diane had gotten pregnant again during her first appearance in court,
Speaker 4: and I was there for that. I don't think anyone
Speaker 4: in the press knew that yet. If it was anyway,
Speaker 4: somebody was going to try to take control of the situation,
Speaker 4: That's what they would do. I was a real Diane
Speaker 4: skeptic from early on, not that I would know whether
Speaker 4: she was having an ongoing serious relationship with anyone. I
Speaker 4: wasn't aware that she did. But when they said she's pregnant,
Speaker 4: I just thought, of course she is.
Speaker 2: Eric Mason was a local reporter who followed the Diane
Speaker 2: Downs case alongside the Grand Dam true crime writer and rule.
Speaker 2: During the trial, they attended daily sitting in the press section,
Speaker 2: watching every milestone moment happen in real time. After the
Speaker 2: end of the trial, they had stayed in communication and
Speaker 2: often shared how they wondered, whatever happened to that baby
Speaker 2: that Diane given birth to. Did that baby grow up
Speaker 2: to know her mom was infamous? Was the child doing well?
Speaker 2: What became of her life.
Speaker 3: I'm just starting work as a private I doing criminal
Speaker 3: defense cases. I go to the Ben Film Festival, and
Speaker 3: after the Ben Film Festival, there's a weekly discussion about
Speaker 3: scriptwriting over there, and I meet up with somebody and
Speaker 3: we were talking about my life life as a reporter,
Speaker 3: and she goes, oh, I remember you at the CBS
Speaker 3: station in Portland, and so what are you doing now?
Speaker 3: And I said, well, I'm working on this script. And
Speaker 3: so each week we would come with our scripts. And
Speaker 3: after one of the meetings over there in ben she said,
Speaker 3: you know, I think I've met the long lost child
Speaker 3: of Diane Downs. And I said, really, how do you know? Well,
Speaker 3: she's connected to this church I go to, and we've
Speaker 3: been out to pizza and she's had several conversations with me,
Speaker 3: and I thought, oh, man, I'd love to meet her.
Speaker 3: I mean, and at that point I didn't even know
Speaker 3: what I would do with it. I had no idea
Speaker 3: where to go with that kind of a story since
Speaker 3: I no longer worked in television. When I met her,
Speaker 3: It's almost like I'm across the table from Diane Downs.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a different age, it's a different demeanor,
Speaker 3: but there are some similarities that are clearly there. And
Speaker 3: there is a way that Diane Downs would toss her
Speaker 3: head back with her hair and Becky would do the
Speaker 3: same thing. And I'm not sure that Becky really even
Speaker 3: watched a lot of video of Diane, and the only
Speaker 3: portrayal of Diane was Farah Fawcett, but Farah Fawcet got
Speaker 3: some of the mannerisms right.
Speaker 2: Eric is referring to the nineteen eighty nine made for
Speaker 2: TV movie Small Sacrifices, in which Farah Fawcett played the
Speaker 2: part of Diane Downs.
Speaker 3: And so I wondered if this was sort of a
Speaker 3: genetic tick. So I just wanted to make sure that
Speaker 3: it was done with as much well as little glare
Speaker 3: and fascination, but more understanding of what it's like to
Speaker 3: wake up one day and to watch a movie on
Speaker 3: television and say that's my life being played out, and
Speaker 3: I would like to say something about it. I would like,
Speaker 3: for the first time to be able to say something
Speaker 3: about my life. And I think that's the sense I
Speaker 3: got from her. And so when I called and Rule
Speaker 3: in Seattle.
Speaker 5: I just said, you know, I think I've met Diane
Speaker 5: Down's child that once you gave birth through during the trial,
Speaker 5: because oh, I would definitely get a DNA test, because
Speaker 5: I've been approached by all kinds of people who say
Speaker 5: they were the.
Speaker 3: Baby of Diane Downs. And I said, oh man, this
Speaker 3: is the right person. I don't need a DNA test.
Speaker 3: I can see it. I've talked to her.
Speaker 2: Up until this point, Becky had really kept her existence
Speaker 2: pretty quiet as far as the media goes. Becky's family
Speaker 2: kept her bile mother's identity a secret, as I feared
Speaker 2: it would be harmful information to a child who was
Speaker 2: developing her own identity. They vowed to give her the
Speaker 2: best life, and part of that promise was to protect
Speaker 2: her from the media circus they had previously witnessed around
Speaker 2: her birth.
Speaker 3: I think people, the people who were from the state
Speaker 3: of Oregon that set everything up, realized someone was going
Speaker 3: to have to have some means to be able to
Speaker 3: find a place that was off the beaten track and
Speaker 3: that she could hide kind of in plain sight, and
Speaker 3: that it was up to her then to decide what
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: Becky's adoptive parents arrived during Diane's trial. They had done
Speaker 2: the research themselves and set it up in a very
Speaker 2: short amount of time.
Speaker 3: I think there was this idea that they went on
Speaker 3: a waiting list of parents to get high risk kids.
Speaker 3: They were also expressing interest knowing that that story was
Speaker 3: going on. Probably not that many want a high profile
Speaker 3: adoption of somebody who is going to come from a
Speaker 3: very difficult situation and then have a lifetime of real
Speaker 3: big challenges probably on their hands. Not many people would
Speaker 3: probably take that on. And here are these really well
Speaker 3: to do, highly intelligent, successful folks in the pharmaceutical world
Speaker 3: who are willing to do it. And so I think
Speaker 3: sort of like both sides understood what the deal was.
Speaker 2: The Babcocks provided well for Becky and her sister, who
Speaker 2: was also adopted. They lived on a large piece of
Speaker 2: land in Bend, organ in idyllic surroundings. It was better
Speaker 2: than anything her biological mother could have possibly provided. For
Speaker 2: the first decade of her life, everything was perfect. Her
Speaker 2: parents did their best to keep her from the truth.
Speaker 2: And then one day, after trying multiple times to get
Speaker 2: the information from her mom and being denied, being told
Speaker 2: she would never be old enough to know, and interaction
Speaker 2: and with the family babysitter changed everything. Next time on
Speaker 2: Happy Face presents two face.
Speaker 1: The fact that now there was this third person, Now
Speaker 1: there was reality of who my biological mother was. I
Speaker 1: think it had been three years of asking that. It
Speaker 1: just I didn't think I'd ever know, and at that
Speaker 1: point I wish I hadn't known. It was really scary.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer is Ben Bolan. Melissa More is our
Speaker 2: co executive producer. Maya Cole is our primary producer and
Speaker 2: Paul Dekant is our supervising producer. Our story editor is
Speaker 2: Matt Riddle. Research assistance from Sam Teagarden. Featured music by
Speaker 2: dream Tent Happy Face Presents to Face is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 4: A schools pages in Games
Speaker 3: Schools