Diane Downs, the sociopath mom who shot her three children, was denied parole yesterday by the state of Oregon.

The Oregon state parole board deliberated two hours yesterday after 53-yr-old Downs answered questions via closed-circuit television from Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California.

Diane Downs was convicted in July of 1984 of murdering her 7-yr-old daughter Cheryl, and the attempted murder of 8-yr-old Christie, and 3-yr-old Danny. Downs received a life sentence, plus 55 years for the use of a firearm used in conjunction of a crime. Downs was up for parole for the first time yesterday. Oregon law mandates that Downs will be eligible for parole every 2 years.

The hearing took almost three hours. Part of the consideration of whether the three member board would grant Downs parole hinged upon whether Downs had accepted responsiblity for her crimes. Downs denied she had shot her children:

“I’m an intelligent woman,” she told the board. “You’ve seen my IQ. It’s three points shy of genius. I’m not a stupid woman. . . . If I wanted to shoot my children . . . there was a whole lot of milk carton kids going around back then. That was the big thing. If someone had wanted to make their children disappear, she’d just have to make them disappear and cry wolf. I took them to the hospital to get help because I wanted them alive.”

Downs also claimed that she had been “married since September of 1981, and that she wouldn’t let her “husband” visit her in prison:

“My foolishness, my narrow-mindedness and Pollyanna (ways) have allowed too many disasters to come into my life for me to allow a hug, a kiss and a soda pop in the visiting room to risk my family.”

Downs then claimed that her husband had been “killed” in 2002, and that she was already engaged to another man with whom she had corresponded by mail.

When Downs was asked if there “anything” she was sorry for, she responded that she was “sad” that her daughter Cheryl had died and would never have children. “I will never have grandchildren”, Downs said.

Yesterday I wrote about Downs, Diane Downs, Small Sacrifices Murder Mom, up For Parole, and Downs’ crimes against her children along with Downs’ past.

Diane Downs claimed she loved being pregnant, which was true: between the time she was 19, and until she was 28, and entering prison in 1984 for shooting three of her children, Downs was pregnant 6 times.

Downs had five babies: Christie was born in October of 1974, Cheryl, Downs’ second child, was born January of 1976. During this period Diane had an abortion. Danny, whose father was a 19-yr-old coworker of Diane’s, was born in December of 1979. Diane’s husband, Steve, accepted Danny as his own, while Downs allowed the coworker to visit the baby whenever she needed a babysitter.

In May of 1982, Downs gave birth as a surrogate mother in Kentucky. During this period, Downs was featured in an article in the Washington Post about surrogate mothers. While Downs was painted in a flattering light, her own children were severely neglected at home. Christie, at age 6, was left to babysit 5-yr-old Cheryl, and 15-month-old Danny. At age three, Cheryl told a neighbor that Downs had threatened to kill her because she, Cheryl, was “bad”.

Downs’ last child, a girl, was born in 1984. Downs was already in jail, and the baby was adopted. In the end, Downs had either aborted, shot, sold, or gave up for adoption, all her children.

Downs had divorced Steve in the spring of 1981. Downs’ claim, that she has been married since September of 1981, must have been a shock to the parole board: there is no record of another marriage for Downs after her divorce from Steve.

Downs’ penchant for telling lies is well documented. When applying to be a surrogate mother, Downs lied on the application. Even though she was diagnosed as “neurotic”, and suffering from Histrionic Personality Disorder, or HPD, by a psychiatrist assigned to evaluate Downs as a surrogate mother, Downs was accepted as a surrogate. Downs was paid $10,000 when she successfully delivered the baby in Kentucky in May of 1982.

Downs formed her own surrogate company where she resided in Chandler, Arizona, in 1983. She also was accepted a second time as a surrogate mother in Kentucky. In September, when Downs was about to travel to Kentucky for artificial semination, she discovered she had a sexually transmitted disease. She blamed the disease on her lover, a married coworker named Nick. Nick had slept with only his wife, Nora, and with Downs, while Downs continued to hop into bed with men.

Histrionic Personality Disorder

HPD is a personality disorder related to narcissism.

HPD is the only personality disorder linked to physical appearance. Researchers found that sufferers of HPD generally have “above average” looks. HPD individuals have a strong need to be the center of attention. An HPD individual will “exaggerate, throw temper tantrums, and cry” if they perceive they aren’t the center of attention and are “naive, gullible, have low frustration levels, and strong dependency needs”. In personal relationships, they use “dramatization” in order to impress others. Not surprisingly, they are also “insincere”. They also lack cognitive skills such as “reasoning, learning, thinking, understanding, making decisions, and using memory”.

Some symptoms of HPD include “inappropriate sexually or provocative behaviors towards others”, and an “overestimation of the level of intimacy in a relationship”.

When Nick broke off the relationship with Downs, she responded by “throwing a fit” unlike Nick had ever seen. Nick had told Downs that he never wanted to have children. Downs harassed Nick and Nora with phone calls and behavior that would now be classified as stalking. Nora, fed up with Down’s behavior, called the surrogate agency in Kentucky and told them “all about Downs”, including the sexually transmitted disease. The end result, Downs’ contract with the agency was terminated while Downs’ own surrogate agency folded.

Downs continued to obsess over Nick. In February of 1983, she relocated to Springfield, Oregon, where her parents resided, but continued to call and write Nick letters. In May, she showed up at a hospital, her three children, critically injured with gunshot wounds, inside her car.

Downs claimed a “bushy haired” stranger had stopped her car on a desolate road and demanded her automobile. Downs claimed that when she refused, the man pulled a pistol from under his jacket, reached into her car, and shot all three of her children. She then claimed that she fought the man for her car keys and was then shot in the forearm. Downs claimed she jumped in her car and frantically raced to the hospital, where Cheryl succumbed to her wounds.

Prosecutors presented evidence, provided by a witness, that Downs drove her car, “5 to 7 mph” to the hospital after she shot her kids. Downs’ behavior at the hospital immediately raised red flags. She was more concerned that she didn’t have any makeup on and spoke to a detective more about Nick, how he was a great lover, than her children, whose lives hung by a thread. The first person she called when she arrived at the hospital, was Nick, and not her parents.

During her trial, prosecutor Fred Hugi contended that Downs’ motive was to get rid of her children, whom she perceived as an “impediment’ to her getting Nick back in her life. Hugi claimed Downs used a .22 pistol to shoot her kids. Downs denied owning one but witnesses claimed otherwise. Forensic evidence showed the absence of blood on the driver’s side of the car, nor on the steering wheel, even though Downs had a gunshot wound to her forearm. But it was her behavior, immediately after the shootings, and during the months the authorities investigated the crime, that damned Diane Downs. The same behavior that Diane Downs’ exhibited yesterday at the parole hearing.

Follow this link to watch Downs talk about future “relationships”.

Downs wants a man who is “honest”, “has backbone”, who is an American who is willing to “die” for his country.

Here’s a link to Downs speaking to the parole book about a book, All Night, All Day, Angels Walking Over Me, that she was given four days prior to her hearing.

Here’s a link to the decision of the board.

The board told Downs that she was still a “danger to society”, that she “minimized her crimes”, and was “less than honest”.

By LBG

Source – Oregon Live – Diane Downs Denied Parole
Source – Oregon Live – In prison, Elizabeth Diane Downs’ imagination runs free
Image – Diane Downs Parole Hearing