Overview

Elizabeth Diane Downs is an American criminal who murdered her daughter and attempted to murder her other two children in May 1983. Following the crimes, she told police a man had attempted to carjack her and had shot the children. She was convicted in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison plus fifty years. At 10.48 pm on May 19th, 1983, a young, single mother pulled up outside McKenzie-Willamette Hospital in Springfield, Oregon, in a blood-spattered Nissan Pulsar, repeatedly shouting that someone had shot her children. Hospital staff rushed to the car and found three children slumped inside. The mother, Diane Downs, had herself been shot in the left arm, which was wrapped in a blood-soaked towel. As medics frantically tried to save the lives of the little ones, Diane told police that a man had flagged her down on the Old Mohawk Road, and demanded her car. When she had refused, he had leaned into the car and shot her three children. According to Diane, she had struggled with the man who had then shot her in the arm. Pretending to throw the car keys into a field, she managed to distract the man long enough to get in her car and drive away, in a desperate bid to get the children to the hospital in time to save them. Tragically, 7-year-old Cheryl was already dead, and, although still alive, 3-year-old Danny and 8-year-old Christie were in critical condition. The bone-in Diane's arm was shattered.

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