Speaker 1: One thing I learned in representing people at the state
Speaker 1: hospital and sort of representing people at the state penitentiaries.
Speaker 1: As Americans, we have taught ourselves that freedom is the
Speaker 1: most important thing in the world. We want our freedom.
Speaker 1: We don't want to be in prison or a state hospital,
Speaker 1: so it's not surprising that someone would want to escape.
Speaker 1: It didn't do much other than add to her mystique.
Speaker 1: He had the ability to jump over a fence that
Speaker 1: had lots of barbed wire on the top and physically
Speaker 1: be able to do that. My name is Stephen Gorum Gorham.
Speaker 1: I'm an attorney in Salem. I've been an attorney since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five. I went to Cornell University as an undergrad,
Speaker 1: and then as a graduate I as a lost school.
Speaker 1: I went to Wilamta University in Salem, Oregon, where I
Speaker 1: have been practicing since nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: Steve represented Diane Downs as her post conviction attorney. Post
Speaker 2: conviction attorneys represent a client after the verdict and will
Speaker 2: typically assist a guilty party in making the case that
Speaker 2: they were not adequately represented by their council in the courtroom.
Speaker 2: They try to help them appeal the verdict or provide
Speaker 2: other post conviction relief.
Speaker 1: My first step in representing somebody at the time and
Speaker 1: a post conviction was to go visit them. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure that Dianam was in the Oregon's Correctional Center here
Speaker 1: in Salem. It happens to be about a mile from
Speaker 1: my office on State Street. The women's prison was built
Speaker 1: right next to the Oregon State Penitentiary, right outside their wall.
Speaker 1: The organ State Penitentiary was built in the eighteen hundred sometime,
Speaker 1: and it's on walled prison, and they built the women's
Speaker 1: prison right outside the wall. And the women's prison was
Speaker 1: a one story building with a fence around it. They
Speaker 1: had a small yard that was outside the building. You
Speaker 1: could see the yard from State Street because it's right
Speaker 1: off of State Street, and it was surrounded by a tall,
Speaker 1: chain length fence with barbed wire on the top.
Speaker 2: But that's not where our story in this episode really begins.
Speaker 2: Shortly after Steve took on Diane as a client, she
Speaker 2: escaped from prison.
Speaker 1: So also in nineteen eighty seven, that's when Diane escaped.
Speaker 1: She jumped over the fence. She knew some people, she
Speaker 1: had other inmates at the Oregon State Women's Correctional Center.
Speaker 1: Knew people in Salem, some of whom lived a couple
Speaker 1: of blocks from the women's prison. So there were houses
Speaker 1: that were rental houses on State Street. And when Diane escaped,
Speaker 1: she got picked up by a couple because she was
Speaker 1: either hitch hiking. I'm not sure why they let her out,
Speaker 1: but they didn't take very far they let her out.
Speaker 2: Eric Mason was working as a reporter in Oregon at
Speaker 2: the time of Diane's escape. He traveled with a photographer
Speaker 2: around the area to find potential places Diane could have
Speaker 2: escaped too, hoping to be among the first to figure
Speaker 2: out her whereabouts.
Speaker 3: She's at Oregon Women's Correctional Facility and doing the rest
Speaker 3: of her life there. And you know, it's not the
Speaker 3: most high security max facility in the world. There there's
Speaker 3: a couple of chain link fences and today it's closed,
Speaker 3: but at the time, you know, it was where all
Speaker 3: kinds of women involved in strange crimes were being held.
Speaker 3: And so she's been there a while and I think
Speaker 3: life is just grinding on for Diane. And just down
Speaker 3: the street, I mean literally blocks from the Women's Correctional
Speaker 3: for Center are two guys that are semi homeless, working
Speaker 3: poor who are there and crazy as it is. Once
Speaker 3: again my path crosses these two people. As I'm devoting
Speaker 3: and donating some time down at the Union Gospel Mission
Speaker 3: to make dinner and do some other things there for them,
Speaker 3: and I need to see guys Wayne, Wayne and Bob,
Speaker 3: and you know, I strike a conversation at the dinner
Speaker 3: hour with them, and they're two very interesting guys, and
Speaker 3: so they begin to tell me about their life. And
Speaker 3: the reason I went to go visit their house was
Speaker 3: because there were sources of information about how the world
Speaker 3: of drugs worked in this town.
Speaker 4: So you saw them as a stringer potentially, well, I
Speaker 4: saw them as people who needed help, and obviously they
Speaker 4: needed help from the Union Gospel Mission, but they also wanted.
Speaker 3: To tell me stories, and they knew I was a reporter,
Speaker 3: and so I got to know them in the months
Speaker 3: leading up to her escape. So when when the escape
Speaker 3: happens and she goes over the wire, it's like, Wow,
Speaker 3: she's got some guts to go straight over the fence.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, you know, fourteen eighteen feet or so. She
Speaker 3: goes up and over the top of it and is
Speaker 3: out and gone, and day goes by, and two days
Speaker 3: goes by, and I'm thinking, Wow, she might have actually
Speaker 3: escaped and got away with it. And so every day
Speaker 3: the assignment was be the first to find Diane and
Speaker 3: get it on TV. And if you can't, make sure
Speaker 3: you get her arrested being walked in. And so we
Speaker 3: were driving everywhere, myself and the photographer. I remember this.
Speaker 3: We were thinking, Okay, she could be out in from country,
Speaker 3: she could be living down by the Welhama River, she
Speaker 3: could be trying to find the next guy already. And
Speaker 3: so we were. We were trying to check off all
Speaker 3: the boxes of things we'd done. And I said to
Speaker 3: the photographer, you wrote around each day with a photog.
Speaker 3: I said, wouldn't it be weird if she ended up
Speaker 3: at Wayne's house along the river, just a few blocks
Speaker 3: from the Women's Correctional Center, the prison, and darn it,
Speaker 3: that's where she was.
Speaker 2: Eric offered to show me the area firsthand. So we
Speaker 2: got in this car and toward the area and near
Speaker 2: the prison where Diane flood and then.
Speaker 3: There's Mill Creek. You can see Mill Creek, and then
Speaker 3: on the other side of Mill Creek is the women's
Speaker 3: facility and you can see that fence there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see the barbarar fence. That's pretty intense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so at the time though, it was not
Speaker 3: as well fortified as it is now, and Diane just
Speaker 3: basically climbed it, hopped over and kept going.
Speaker 2: Surprised at how the prison was like a modern day
Speaker 2: castle with a river moat.
Speaker 3: There's big open brush on three sides of the place,
Speaker 3: and you'd expect, you would have thought that if someone
Speaker 3: wanted to get out of town fast, they'd head towards
Speaker 3: the railroad tracks and into a box car or anything
Speaker 3: getting out of town and taken off. But that's not
Speaker 3: what was going to happen here. And then the state
Speaker 3: police office where they brought her in was right over here,
Speaker 3: and that's where I first saw Bob and Wayne being
Speaker 3: led away almost as if, you know, they were on
Speaker 3: the same purp walk as Diane downs, but they were
Speaker 3: all together right here.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know what Bob and Wayne were like,
Speaker 2: these two men who harbor Diane after her escape.
Speaker 3: Bob was you know, studious looking and you know, had
Speaker 3: glasses and kind of looked like a computer geek. And
Speaker 3: Wayne was a fairly decent looking individual and looked like
Speaker 3: he could be a landscaper, you know, in southern California,
Speaker 3: And they really did have little odd jobs every day
Speaker 3: that they would do, but they never really made enough
Speaker 3: money to have a nice place, and so they had
Speaker 3: this tiny little hovel along Mill Creek and then would
Speaker 3: go down and have dinner at the Union Gospel Mission
Speaker 3: and that was their life. So they have a notorious
Speaker 3: convicted killer show up in the middle of the night
Speaker 3: at their house. You know, it was quite a surprise,
Speaker 3: but you know, they certainly weren't going to throw her
Speaker 3: out either. I think what was later determined was that
Speaker 3: she used the creek Mill Creek to be able to
Speaker 3: confound the dogs, and she knew enough about tracking that
Speaker 3: she went down that creek, and so I think one
Speaker 3: of the first things she did is she got rid
Speaker 3: of her clothes and I think left them in the water.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how what level of nakedness that she was,
Speaker 3: but when she showed up at Bob and Wayne's place,
Speaker 3: she was cold, didn't have her clothes or most of them,
Speaker 3: and just needed to get warm in a place to stay.
Speaker 3: And I believe I'm going to have to go back
Speaker 3: to check to see this is true. That she had
Speaker 3: some correspondence with people outside the prison. It was a
Speaker 3: pen pal, and I'm not sure how that worked into it,
Speaker 3: but they finally looked at her tablet and began to
Speaker 3: figure out who she'd been talking with, and so that's
Speaker 3: what helped them figure out part of you know, what
Speaker 3: her plans were and how to she was getting out
Speaker 3: and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Though that Wayne said he fell in love.
Speaker 3: With her, yes, and so I remember Wayne almost thinking
Speaker 3: and saying things to the effect of, I couldn't believe
Speaker 3: my good fortune. You know, here I am a marginally
Speaker 3: employed but mostly homeless man in Salem, Oregon.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 3: The woman of my dreams comes walking through the door
Speaker 3: almost half naked.
Speaker 2: From what I read with Wayne, it's not like Wayne
Speaker 2: and Diane had a relationship. Diane was sleeping with Wayne,
Speaker 2: so I don't think he would easily give her up
Speaker 2: if that was the case.
Speaker 3: That's true. I think Wayne was the type of guy
Speaker 3: who was street smart and really didn't like snitches or
Speaker 3: people that turned other people in, and so yeah, I
Speaker 3: would imagine he kept things pretty quiet. What I really
Speaker 3: can't believe is that, given the search that was done,
Speaker 3: that for those days following the escape, she stayed right
Speaker 3: where she was a non founder. That's the part that's
Speaker 3: amazing that she was able to basically hide right here
Speaker 3: in plain sight. See, I think it's okay. So here's
Speaker 3: where we go over the creek. You can see it's
Speaker 3: very vegetative down there, and someone just walking up that
Speaker 3: creek would have tried to find someone's back porch, which
Speaker 3: she did.
Speaker 2: So this neighborhood is cute. It looks like it's the
Speaker 2: older neighborhood with little bungalows. That actually looks very different
Speaker 2: than what I thought it would look like in my head,
Speaker 2: because these houses are just adorable, like painted little ladies, right.
Speaker 3: And then the ones that are right on the creek,
Speaker 3: some of them are just like an outbuilding to another house.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I see here at the creek, just some.
Speaker 3: Of these See this little building.
Speaker 2: Here, Oh yeah, it looks like an outhouse attached to
Speaker 2: this house.
Speaker 3: It's just a little outbuilding like a shed. And that's
Speaker 3: what those two. It was very much like a shed.
Speaker 3: And you can see the water. You know, someone could
Speaker 3: just sort of swim along this creek and their scent
Speaker 3: you couldn't follow that trail. And I think that's I
Speaker 3: think that's what she was able to.
Speaker 2: Do after she was captured. Diane's brother James, was one
Speaker 2: of the only people close to her who was able
Speaker 2: to speak to her about the escape.
Speaker 6: I wish she'd call me, That's what I said at
Speaker 6: the time. Actually, I remember that. I remember it. I
Speaker 6: was working, and I was working at a place in
Speaker 6: San Joaquin Valley, California. You know, I wanted to take
Speaker 6: her to Canada, take her to Mexico, or just take
Speaker 6: her away from here and to where she'd be safe.
Speaker 6: And but yeah, she didn't.
Speaker 2: Obviously, What did you think when she was found?
Speaker 6: I've had conversations there about this. I thought, it's not
Speaker 6: surprising she was caught. I guess, you know, she's looking
Speaker 6: for affection, and she's looking for love. You know, she's
Speaker 6: just looking to be hell and tell everything's gonna be okay,
Speaker 6: you know. And I guess maybe that's why I want
Speaker 6: her to call me, so I could tell her that.
Speaker 2: What were your conversations about about that time that she escaped.
Speaker 6: That she scaled over the walls and took off and
Speaker 6: she was gonna go there, And she said, oh my god,
Speaker 6: what do I do? Now? You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Best like plans. It's like she get over and it's like,
Speaker 6: oh shit, where am I gonna go? And I mean,
Speaker 6: even if you go to the house you have in
Speaker 6: mind to go to, it's like, what's your next Her
Speaker 6: next plan was to find the person that did this,
Speaker 6: and every time she said that to herself, it is like,
Speaker 6: how do you do that? You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: And so she got to this person's house and was
Speaker 6: shocking up with this guy and never got to the
Speaker 6: part of finding the person that did this.
Speaker 2: Well, she also had tons of authorities looking for her,
Speaker 2: so I don't.
Speaker 6: See what I mean. It's like, you get over the
Speaker 6: fence and it's like, oh my goodness, gracious, what do you.
Speaker 2: Don't even father than like the men's.
Speaker 6: Sixteen foot tall with circular razor wire on the top
Speaker 6: of there's two of them. How did she do it?
Speaker 6: She through through something over the top and just climbed over. Literally,
Speaker 6: she just climbed over to sixteen foot fences with circular,
Speaker 6: not barbed wire, but razor wire on top of them.
Speaker 2: Once caught, Diana was transferred to another prison under the
Speaker 2: Interstate Compact, likely to prevent the organ Women's Penitentiary from
Speaker 2: receiving any additional public attention that arose from her presence there.
Speaker 1: You know, they sent her to New Jersey after her escape,
Speaker 1: which is semi surprising in the sense it's not so
Speaker 1: surprising that they sent her out of town because at
Speaker 1: the time our women's prison was you know, not the
Speaker 1: most sure. And the interstate compact is basically like baseball
Speaker 1: trading or football trading. You know, you trade an inmate
Speaker 1: for another inmate, and that's pretty what it is.
Speaker 7: I read records that that knew that there was a
Speaker 7: lot of rejections for who would house Diane Downs after
Speaker 7: the escape, and that New Jersey said, we will take
Speaker 7: Diane if we could send you to inmates when we
Speaker 7: have the need, when the need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and I'm relatively sure they moved Diane
Speaker 1: to get her out of town so that the publicity
Speaker 1: wasn't always there. And again originally because she had escapes,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times they they do the prisoner
Speaker 1: swaps or the interstate compact to try to get a
Speaker 1: new environment for the inmate. They will, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: under different circumstances in a different prison state, they will
Speaker 1: you know, get better whatever that means. I'm sure no
Speaker 1: one wanted to take Diane because of the publicity. And
Speaker 1: then you know, she tried to escape that prison.
Speaker 7: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you didn't know she tried to escape New Jersey. No,
Speaker 1: but while she was in New Jersey, she had a
Speaker 1: personal relationship with a man who was a helicopter pilot
Speaker 1: who was going to steal a helicopter and land in
Speaker 1: New Jersey and escape with Diane again. And he gave
Speaker 1: that conspiracy up. I'm not going to get this right,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple months before it was supposed to
Speaker 1: go into practice because of something that happened. He didn't caught.
Speaker 1: He confessed and turned himself in, and he may have
Speaker 1: been from Seattle. A lot of these details aren't there,
Speaker 1: but I know I went to see her in the
Speaker 1: New Jersey prison after she was there, before this escape attempt,
Speaker 1: because I was back visiting my family and it was
Speaker 1: just easy for me to do to visit her. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to visit her just because, you know, mainly
Speaker 1: to see what a New Jersey prison looked like. And
Speaker 1: then when this escape attempt happened, it was just weird,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's when she got sent to the
Speaker 1: California Prison, which is, as I understand it, and I
Speaker 1: don't know that this is true, the worst women's prison
Speaker 1: in the world early in the United States.
Speaker 7: I'll to do some research on that. I know that
Speaker 7: I was talking to the infamous Betty Boderic and she's
Speaker 7: housed with Diane. Well not they're not like cellmates or anything,
Speaker 7: but they actually know each other in that prison, which
Speaker 7: is interesting to me. But how you know different inmates
Speaker 7: are connected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as I said, I went through some of
Speaker 1: these records on ogin and some of the things that
Speaker 1: she was claiming. Again I didn't go and see any
Speaker 1: of the details, but she's claiming, you know that she was,
Speaker 1: you know, a cellmate of hers and this quote direc lady.
Speaker 1: You know, I think dreaming up all sorts of conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories concerning who she's been selled with.
Speaker 2: Initially, Steve reserved his opinions on Diane's guilt, going solely
Speaker 2: off the court's verdict. His principles as an attorney prevented
Speaker 2: him from taking certain actions as a client directly admitted
Speaker 2: guilt to him.
Speaker 1: Well, her daughter said that she was the perpetrator. Diane
Speaker 1: always said at least at that time, or it was
Speaker 1: the bushy haired stranger. I believe I'm an ethical attorney,
Speaker 1: and an ethical attorney can't have his client get on
Speaker 1: the stand and lie. So if your client tells you
Speaker 1: that they're guilty, you can't put them on the stand
Speaker 1: and have them say I'm not guilty. And when I
Speaker 1: say guilty and not guilty, I'm talking about the individual
Speaker 1: facts of the case. A defendant has the absolute right
Speaker 1: to take the stand and defend themselves in a criminal case.
Speaker 1: So if you get somebody who tells you, I'll just
Speaker 1: use an example of a killing. If somebody tells you, yeah,
Speaker 1: I shot this person, they can't get on the stand
Speaker 1: and say I didn't shoot the person. If they do
Speaker 1: get on the stand in and say I didn't shoot
Speaker 1: the person, and they've already told you and you believe
Speaker 1: that they did shoot the person. While they have the
Speaker 1: abswerutle right to get on the stand, you can ask
Speaker 1: them only one question.
Speaker 7: What's that question?
Speaker 1: That question is what happens. You can't ask them any
Speaker 1: other questions, and you have to be careful how you
Speaker 1: present the case other than that. So knowing that from
Speaker 1: the beginning of my career and knowing that I was
Speaker 1: an ethical person. One of the things I try not
Speaker 1: to do when I first start to represent somebody is
Speaker 1: say are you guilty? A criminal defense attorney's obligations are
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent to the clients. That one percent is
Speaker 1: to the court. That you can't let your client lie
Speaker 1: to the court. So I basically tell them that upfront,
Speaker 1: so they know the ground rules of what they should
Speaker 1: be telling me and what they shouldn't be telling me.
Speaker 7: You represented both Diane, Becky's mom and then my dad.
Speaker 7: What stands out to you about their personalities? Are they similar?
Speaker 7: Are they would you say that both narcissists or what
Speaker 7: would be your assessment of the two?
Speaker 1: Well, I would say Diane was a narcissist, and I
Speaker 1: think your dad was too. You know, it's hard to
Speaker 1: your dad owned up to the crimes he did, which
Speaker 1: took a lot of guts. I'll say it this way.
Speaker 1: If Diane is guilty, which in all likelihood she is,
Speaker 1: she never owned up to the crime.
Speaker 2: The main focus of Steve's post conviction relief was the
Speaker 2: forensic evidence presented at trial Christie's testament. It was difficult
Speaker 2: to disprove, but Steve knew that blood spatter evidence was controversial.
Speaker 1: Well, again, you look at the case and it was
Speaker 1: a big case, so there's a lot of paperwork. First
Speaker 1: of all, you have to, you know, read the transcript
Speaker 1: of the trial to understand how she got convicted and
Speaker 1: the facts that led to her conviction.
Speaker 7: What were those Do you remember what those were that
Speaker 7: led to her conviction?
Speaker 1: Well, I think her daughter testifying that she did it
Speaker 1: was the biggest fact, if I remember correctly. And then
Speaker 1: there was forensic evidence that tried to disprove her theory
Speaker 1: of the case, and one of the biggest parts of
Speaker 1: that was where she said everybody was situated at the
Speaker 1: time of the crime, in or out of the car,
Speaker 1: and blood spatter evidence concerning that which came in the trial.
Speaker 1: But again, as I said earlier, one of the main
Speaker 1: things you look at is in effective assistance of counsul,
Speaker 1: meaning what did the original attorney do right and what
Speaker 1: did he do wrong?
Speaker 7: And what would you say he did? This would be
Speaker 7: Jim Jagger. Would you say he did right? And what
Speaker 7: would you say he did wrong?
Speaker 1: Well, I do remember looking into the blood spatter, and
Speaker 1: I remember at least somewhat concentrating on the blood spatter
Speaker 1: that he didn't do that right. I mean, over the years,
Speaker 1: there's been some controversy over blood spatter. Forensic people prosecuting
Speaker 1: quote unquote scientists believe you can tell a lot about
Speaker 1: what goes on from blood spatter. Some people don't believe
Speaker 1: it's very scientific at all. But clearly the state tried
Speaker 1: to prove that Diane was not telling the truth based
Speaker 1: on where the blood spatter was and how it existed
Speaker 1: in and around the car. Our case was to try
Speaker 1: to show that Jagger didn't do a very good job
Speaker 1: in putting holes in the blood spatter testimony of the
Speaker 1: experts in the case.
Speaker 7: What was ultimately her sentence from the dial.
Speaker 1: She got life with a minimum I think of fifty years.
Speaker 7: So she's contested a lot of different things, and one
Speaker 7: of the big issues that was contested. I believe is
Speaker 7: that the gun was never found.
Speaker 1: I believe I have this feeling that either Diane said
Speaker 1: that the gun was thrown in the river or somehow
Speaker 1: that the gun got in the river. Okay, but I
Speaker 1: believe the police search the river. But I personally believe
Speaker 1: the guns in the river. I'm not sure I could
Speaker 1: tell you why I believe that, but I think that's
Speaker 1: where it is.
Speaker 2: Then came the letter. After her conviction, Diane wrote a
Speaker 2: letter to her defense attorney, Jim Jagger, and Diane changes
Speaker 2: her story about the night of the shooting.
Speaker 5: Well, he's representing her. He had it in his file
Speaker 5: and at some point the state asked him for this
Speaker 5: letter and he had to turn it over to the state.
Speaker 5: And this is the importance of this letter to me.
Speaker 5: It may be not important to anybody else, but to me.
Speaker 5: If you remember, after the children were shot and they
Speaker 5: were on the road next to the Mackenzie Highway, she's
Speaker 5: driving to the hospital in Springfield slowly. And at the trial,
Speaker 5: someone who followed her, I think a man maybe in
Speaker 5: a pickup truck who was following her, said she's driven
Speaker 5: this person. She didn't know her from Adam. This person's
Speaker 5: driving very slowly. Something's going on, you know. So they
Speaker 5: used the state argued, I think that she was driving
Speaker 5: very slowly to the hospital so that children would die. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I can't remember how she explained it. Probably she just
Speaker 5: didn't know where she was or whatever, you know, the
Speaker 5: trauma of it. This letter basically says that somebody in
Speaker 5: the pickup truck was following her on the road. This
Speaker 5: is before the killing. He passed her, then he slowed down,
Speaker 5: she passed him. I may not be right about that part.
Speaker 5: And then she stopped because she was interested in this guy.
Speaker 7: So you put your children in danger in the middle
Speaker 7: of the night to stop for.
Speaker 1: Then I did it.
Speaker 5: I think I knew about this letter. But if I
Speaker 5: didn't know about the letter, then I think her change
Speaker 5: in her story. And this letter is important in my
Speaker 5: mind because it really describes the slow driving before the crime,
Speaker 5: and that she was interested in just picking up this
Speaker 5: guy who was in this pickup truck, and she basically,
Speaker 5: you know, since then after she stopped and met this guy,
Speaker 5: then he became the pushy head stranger and he's the
Speaker 5: one who shot the kids.
Speaker 2: The letter starts out with an almost confessional tone. It
Speaker 2: begins November seventh, nineteen eighty four, Salem, Organ. Dear Jim,
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure how to start this letter, but
Speaker 2: I guess the best way to make an apology is
Speaker 2: to say I'm sorry. Now you're probably wondering what this
Speaker 2: is all about, and when you're through reading, you'll probably
Speaker 2: drop this letter and say damn you, Diane, like you
Speaker 2: have so many times before your blood pressure will go up.
Speaker 2: And I'm sorry about that too. I'm sorry about a
Speaker 2: lot of things. Really, I only hope that you will
Speaker 2: forgive me for not being totally honest with you. It's
Speaker 2: just that it's so hard for me to put myself
Speaker 2: in someone else's hands. I find it hard to fully
Speaker 2: trust anyone not to hurt me. I needed to control
Speaker 2: myself and the situation, and I've been that way for
Speaker 2: a few years. It has been a hard lesson to learn,
Speaker 2: and I can't guarantee I'll be cured forever. But I
Speaker 2: know now that I should have placed this whole problem
Speaker 2: in your hands and let you deal with it. But
Speaker 2: I was afraid. Silly, maybe, but I was afraid you
Speaker 2: would lose respect for me, and well, let me explain.
Speaker 2: The letter goes on to retail Diane's version of what
Speaker 2: took place the night of the shooting. She states that
Speaker 2: the shaggy hair stranger was actually a man who was
Speaker 2: driving behind her on the road. According to her, he
Speaker 2: passed her and slowed down. It was kind of a
Speaker 2: flirtatious dance between the two cars, and she eventually pulled over.
Speaker 2: She claims the man wanted weed and when she opened
Speaker 2: the trunk, he took out the case containing Steve's gun.
Speaker 2: After making advances on Diane, he proceeded to shoot her
Speaker 2: and her children one by one before fleeing. That's really
Speaker 2: interesting reading the letter. What's really interesting to me?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, well, I mean to a criminal defense attorney,
Speaker 5: it's a damning letter. And who knows what else she
Speaker 5: had told Jim Jagger, and he obviously did his best
Speaker 5: in representing her. I think some places in the letter
Speaker 5: she said she's told them several stories or something like that.
Speaker 5: It would have been hard for him, so.
Speaker 2: Steve tried to remain an ethical attorney and go on
Speaker 2: the basis of Diane's proclamation of innocence. The letter finally
Speaker 2: convinced him of her guilt. The change in her story
Speaker 2: from what she claimed multiple times in trial and to
Speaker 2: the press showed Steve that Dian most likely wasn't telling
Speaker 2: the truth and potentially never had. He doesn't believe she'll
Speaker 2: do well at her future parole hearings.
Speaker 1: No, and I don't believe she will have a chance.
Speaker 1: First of all, again, the pro board over the years
Speaker 1: has been very conservative. I wouldn't say the parole board
Speaker 1: has ever been liberal in the state of Oregon, So
Speaker 1: they do look at I mean, a parole board should
Speaker 1: be looking at the person, the individual. What you should
Speaker 1: be looking at is, of course the crime, the effect
Speaker 1: of the crime, especially these days, on the victims. And
Speaker 1: you know, it used to be the victims really didn't
Speaker 1: much matter. And then we went through a phase that
Speaker 1: still exists of victims' rights. And part of that is
Speaker 1: the parle board wants you to come clean if they
Speaker 1: believe that you're guilty of the crime. They want you
Speaker 1: to say you're guilty of the crime and show remorse
Speaker 1: for your guilt. So the fact that Diane has yet
Speaker 1: to show much remorse or so show that she is guilty,
Speaker 1: it's going to be hard for her to get out
Speaker 1: on parole by any parole board. And frankly, especially crimes
Speaker 1: that have such publicity concerning them, I don't believe that
Speaker 1: she'll ever get out on parole.
Speaker 2: Diane Downs was denied paroled in two thousand and eight
Speaker 2: and again in twenty ten. Dan's parole board hearing took
Speaker 2: place just recently September twenty third, she was denied parole.
Speaker 2: On the next episode, Michelle presents Becky with the conclusion
Speaker 2: of her efforts to trace Becky's paternity and identify her
Speaker 2: biological father. Also coming in a few days a bonus episode,
Speaker 2: the bizarre letter Diane Downs wrote to Jim Jagger read
Speaker 2: in its entirety. Although we were unable to present the
Speaker 2: entire letter in this episode due to time constraints, we
Speaker 2: feel that you, the listener, should hear this bizarre retelling
Speaker 2: of the night of the crime in Diane's own words,