At the Lane County Courthouse, the jury heard Diane’s version of events, a version which the prosecution swiftly demolished. The defence said that Diane had been molested by her father and that this had changed her ability to connect with people, that they mustn’t be misled by her endless talking and fixed smile.
Prosecutors noted that it had taken her over 20 minutes to drive the four mile journey to the hospital, yet she’d said that she’d sped all the way.
Christie, her arm still paralysed, took the stand and, weeping, admitted that her mother ‘shot Cheryl.’ Asked what had happened next, she said that Diane had ‘shot Danny’ then went to the back of the seat and… She broke down at this point and the prosecutor gently asked her ‘Who shot you?’ Christie replied ‘My mom.’ She admitted that she still loved her mother. The entire courtroom – including the usually dry-eyed Diane – was in tears.
Taking the stand, Diane Downs said that her father had never let her cry, that she’d learned not to show emotion. She spoke about him sexually molesting her when she was 12, and said that she hadn’t told anyone until she turned 16.
She denied that the children had been a barrier to her relationship with Dave – but the prosecution produced a letter in which she’d told him: ‘The Nanny will take responsibility for most of the kids’ spare time.’
Diane now told the court that a deity might have wanted the children dead in order to punish her, because Baptists put ‘God first’ yet she’d put her children first. (In reality, she’d always put herself and her boyfriends first.) She said that ‘God will make Danny walk again.’
She had told detectives that the shooter stood outside the car and that he was only five foot eight – but he’d have to have had arms like an orang-utan in order to shoot the children at almost point blank range. Christie’s version, that their mother had shot them from inside the vehicle, was the version which made sense. Diane had the motive, a weapon identical to the murder weapon, and the opportunity. She’d arranged for the shooting to take place next to the river so that she could immediately dispose of the gun. Then, realising that the children were still breathing and with no means to finish them off, she’d driven at a snail’s pace to the hospital and told the doctors not to artificially resuscitate them.
The prosecution said that Diane had failed at everything – marriage, motherhood, her attempts to become a doctor, her efforts to start her own surrogacy clinic. She saw her life with Dave – childfree – as a new start. When that had failed, she’d deliberately become pregnant, trying to recreate herself as the ideal mother. Diane shook her head at the accusations whilst, again and again, she caressed her swollen stomach, still using impending motherhood as collateral.
The jury were out for 22 hours then returned with two guilty verdicts for attempted murder and one of murder. She smiled and said that the verdicts were a surprise. Ten days later she gave birth to a daughter, who was immediately given up for adoption. Strangely, Diane asked that her own parents be allowed to adopt the infant – but why would she give a girl baby to the father whom she claimed had molested her as a child?
At her sentencing, she told the judge that she would serve her time then track down the ‘bushy-haired stranger’ who had maimed and killed her children. The judge sentenced her to life plus 50 years and added ‘The Court hopes that the defendant will never again be free.’
After the trial, one of the prosecutors who had become close to Christie and Danny, and who admired their courage, adopted them.
PRISON
During her first few months in Oregon State Women’s Correctional Centre, Diane received dozens of letters from male prisoners. Still a fantasist, she said that she planned to become a teacher or a counsellor for teenagers, that she’d be paroled in five to seven years. Instead, she had to settle for working in the prison kitchen, a coveted job but still far from glamorous. But she did successfully study for an arts diploma, graduating at the age of 31.
The following month – on 11 July 1987 – she clambered onto a picnic table in the penitentiary grounds and threw herself onto and over the perimeter fence. Amazingly, the armed guards didn’t see her. The alarm went off, but as it was often activated by birds or strong winds, no one investigated immediately. Half an hour elapsed before they realised that she had gone.
Meanwhile, the attractive, slender killer had hitched a lift for a mere half mile and moved into a rundown apartment owned by another prisoner’s husband. She spent the next few days frantically having sex with him, desperate to become pregnant again. On 21 July, police arrested her without incident and she said that she’d escaped in order to track down her children’s killer whom she now claimed was an Indian called Samasum Timchuck.
On her return, she pleaded ‘not guilty’ to escaping and was sentenced to an additional five years. An ongoing security risk, she was transferred to Clinton, a New Jersey high security prison.
Diane Downs will become eligible for parole in 2014 – but meanwhile she has her health and has enjoyed sexual relationships with various prison guards. She is currently housed in The Valley Prison for Women, Chowchilla, California. Her surviving children, aided by their wonderful adoptive parents, have worked hard to overcome their disabilities and have both graduated from college. Christie married and had a son in 2005, whilst Danny, who remains partially paralysed due to the bullet which entered his back, has become a computer specialist. Cheryl was cremated and her ashes were scattered in Arizona.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE IGNORED
The mothers in the previous chapter wanted to return to the single life, and deliberately killed their children in order to do so. Those in the following cases also desired their independence and partied as if their babies didn’t exist, leaving them to die of gross neglect.
SABRINA ROSS
A former teenage prostitute, Sabrina Ross had a drug problem for most of her adult life. In her late twenties she gave birth to a son, Rio, who was born with a methadone dependency. She lived with him in a flat in Bristol, England, and promised social services that she’d beat her addiction if it would allow her to retain custody.
But Ross regularly smoked crack cocaine in front of the baby, and would pass out for two hours at a stretch, leaving him uncared for. When he learned to crawl, he would explore the flat and she once found him clutching an empty methadone bottle. She would later admit to police that she sometimes forgot to put the cap back on such bottles after taking some of the liquid heroin substitute.
One evening in July 2007, she went out three times to buy drugs, leaving 14-month-old Rio alone for a total of nine hours. During that fatal evening, she shared 16 rocks of crack cocaine and two heroin wraps with a friend.
The following day, she found Rio in his cot, clutching a Winnie the Pooh toy. He was cold and stiff and had been dead for several hours. When autopsied, his body was found to contain methadone, morphine and cocaine.
On 27 June 2008, Sabrina Ross – her face pitted with the acne of a typical drug addict – pleaded guilty to manslaughter at Bristol Crown Court. Mr Justice Roderick Evans told her: ‘Rio was inhaling class A drugs and there is reason to believe he ingested methadone. It was gross neglect that ended his life. Your child looked to you for protection and you breached that trust. No term of imprisonment can give Rio his life back.’ Ross wept as she was sentenced to five years. She has another baby in care, though its age and gender have been withheld from the public to protect its identity.
In July 2008, a report on behalf of Bristol Safeguarding Children Board said that Rio’s death was ‘clearly avoidable.’ It noted that individual agencies should have shared information about Sabrina Ross.
JENNIE BAIN DUCKER
A learning disabled student with a poor attention span, Jennie dropped out of high school in Tennessee, USA, without any qualifications. By 16 she had married and was pregnant but she miscarried and the marriage broke up. At 18, she married for the second time and occasionally worked in a factory and in a restaurant bu
t she was sacked from the latter for often failing to show up for her shift.
By now she was exhibiting signs of manic depression, staying awake for several days then collapsing with exhaustion. She made several suicide attempts during this time.
By 20, she’d given birth to two sons – Devin and Dustin – and split up from their father. She hated to be alone and would drive around looking for friends or acquaintances to keep her company. At one stage she hired a babysitter for her children then didn’t return home for 25 hours.
ALL NIGHT PARTY
On 6 June 1995, Jennie spent part of the day with one of her boyfriends, his child and her children. She returned home with her sons but went out again in the early hours of the morning, having decided to spend some time with another boyfriend in his room at the Holiday Inn.
She drove to the motel with her two sons and left them strapped in the locked car, clutching bottles of milk for sustenance. Dustin was a year old whilst Devin was 23 months.
For the next couple of hours, Jennie, her boyfriend and two of his friends partied and she drank double the legal driving limit before she fell asleep at around 5am. As the young mother continued to sleep, the morning sun rose and the car got hotter and hotter. By midday, when she awoke, the temperature in the car was 128 degrees and the boys had cooked to death.
In court, she claimed that she had planned to speak to her boyfriend about their relationship and then leave, that she hadn’t wanted to party. But her boyfriend’s mates disputed this, saying that she hadn’t told them that her children were locked in the car outside. She also stated that she had periodically checked on her sons by looking down at the car from the motel room’s second floor balcony – but, as the car had tinted windows, it would have been impossible for her to see any signs of distress.
She was originally charged with first degree murder, but this was later reduced to the charge of aggravated child abuse. The judge described her behaviour at the trial as ‘hostile’ and she was sentenced to 18 years, with the proviso that she’d become eligible for parole after six.
CHAPTER SIX
MURDER-SUICIDE
Suicide is the most frequent cause of death amongst young mothers, a percentage of whom also murder their children. (28 per cent commit suicide, the rest die of various pregnancy and post-natal complications such as pre-eclampsia and haemorrhaging.) Often the motivation is pure, with the woman believing that she is taking the child or children to ‘a better place.’ These mothers are often suffering from puerperal psychosis, an extreme form of post-natal depression. Two women in a thousand suffer from this, and women with a previous psychiatric history are more susceptible.
SUSAN TALBY
A nurse by profession, Susan and her salesman husband Richard married at St Oswald’s Catholic Church in Peterborough, UK in 1999. Joseph was born in April 2002, followed by Paul in September 2004. After Paul’s birth Susan suffered from post-natal depression but appeared to have made a good recovery and worked at a branch of the fashion store Next. The family lived in a semi-detached house in Peterborough’s desirable Werrington village and Susan regularly visited her mother and brother who lived nearby. The children also saw Richard’s parents most weekends and sometimes stayed with them for several days. The little boys played football with their dad and with neighbourhood children – in short, Susan had a good support system in the community.
In late February 2007, Richard prepared to leave on a business trip. His last memories of his family would be ones of happy domesticity, as his wife was playing Scrabble with four-year-old Joe whilst Paul, two, tucked into a sausage roll.
FAMILICIDE
Some time later, Susan, aged 41, wrote a suicide note. She suffocated the children whilst they slept then went to the landing and hanged herself.
When Richard returned, he found the bodies. Distraught, he made herculean efforts to revive them but it was too late. The 38-year-old was comforted by neighbours and by relatives. Police said that they were not treating the deaths as suspicious, that it was clearly a murder-suicide.
The following month Richard Talby released photographs of a smiling Susan with the children, explaining that he wanted people to remember them in happier times. He paid tribute to his wife, recalled the many good times that they had shared and said ‘I loved Sue, Joe and Paul with all my heart.’
DAKSHA EMSON
Daksha was born in Tanzania in 1966, the eldest daughter of a traditional Indian couple. When she was four, they moved to India, emigrating to England when she was nine.
Daksha was a beautiful child who did very well at school, but felt different to the rest of her classmates in London. At 18, whilst attending medical school, she attempted suicide for the first time. She was diagnosed with depression but later displayed signs of mania, whereupon her diagnosis was changed to bi-polar affective disorder and she was treated with Lithium and Prozac. She stabilised on the drugs, graduated with honours and began studying to become a consultant psychiatrist, gaining an MRCPsych and working in Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospital. In 1991, she married David, a fellow psychiatrist.
When she wanted to have a baby, Daksha discontinued her medication for fear that it would harm the foetus. In July 2000, the 34-year-old gave birth to a daughter, Freya. But, though she initially bonded with the infant and referred to her as precious, she became increasingly depressed. She was also upset and felt isolated when her father fell out with her husband and the former said that he wouldn’t visit her home again.
CLINICAL DEPRESSION
Aware of the stigma of mental health, Daksha told no one about the full extent of her illness. She kept a diary in which she wrote ‘Feel flat all the time… Feel useless as a wife, as a mother, as a woman. See no hope for the future… I’m a useless mother. I’m no good.’
She was due to resume her anti-depressants on 10 October, but on the 9th, when Freya was three-months-old, she stabbed the baby and herself at her Newham home, though the wounds did not prove fatal. She then doused them both with an inflammable liquid and set them alight. The three-month-old died at the scene but Dr Emson was rushed to the burns unit where she eventually expired, without regaining consciousness, on the 27th. The murder-suicide was later described as a psychotic episode and an enquiry showed that Newham did not have a perinatal psychiatric service and suggested that this service must become available for all mothers. Daksha’s husband later said that she had ‘taken the baby back to God.’
CULTURE CLASH
But it’s not only post-natal depression which makes a woman kill her children and herself. Sometimes the stresses come from external factors, everything from financial problems to marital difficulties. Young Asian women who have been raised in Britain also face the culture clash between their western ambitions and the traditional demands of their extended families. Torn between two very different cultures, and believing in an afterlife, they may see familicide as the only answer – the suicide rate among young Asian women is almost three times the national average.
NAVJEET SIDHU
Navjeet was raised in Southall, London and grew into a competent and happy young woman. In 1998 she landed a job as a receptionist at the Asian station Sunrise Radio, where her colleagues found her to be assertive and cheerful. That same year, she had an arranged marriage to Manjit Sidhu, who had been born in India. Some of her friends thought that the marriage was unhappy, but the couple had a daughter and a son together and both parents doted on them. They set up home in Greenford, west London, where, for a time, Navjeet’s mother lived with them. Manjit worked for the post office whilst Navjeet continued her reception work with Sunrise Radio.
But Navjeet never fully recovered from the birth of her second child, Aman Raj, in 2003. (Aman is the Punjabi word for ‘peace’.) The following year she became a full-time housewife and seemed driven to be the perfect mother, always taking her offspring to the park and to play centres. She seemed to find it difficult to relax.
In January 2005, Navjeet went to India to
spend time with her relatives and, when she returned to London, she was very quiet. Friends noticed that her unhappiness had deepened but she would not say what was on her mind. She spoke to a former colleague and he got the impression that she was somewhat isolated and lonely. Another noticed that she looked depressed and worn down. Her GP had given her tranquillisers for depression, but apparently there was a breakdown in communication between doctors and social workers regarding her case.
In early summer 2005, Navjeet confided in a friend that she was pregnant for the third time and unsure if she could cope with three young children. She was also worried about the family’s finances.
MURDER-SUICIDE
In July 2005, Navjeet’s medication was changed without explanation to a different type of anti-depressant. On 31 August, she phoned her husband and told him that she was leaving him, taking the children and ‘going far, far away.’ Distraught, Manjit left his work and drove around the neighbourhood, searching for her. Meanwhile, the 27-year-old, who was by now four months pregnant, took a bus to Southall train station. She pushed 23-month Aman in his pram whilst five-year-old Simran held her hand.
Navjeet was seen at the station mid-morning, hanging about on a section of the platform which was out of bounds to the public. A concerned employee asked what she was doing and she replied calmly that she was showing her children the fast trains.
The young mother left the area at his insistence but returned at 1pm when he’d gone. Holding both children, she jumped in front of the Heathrow Express train, which was going at 100mph. The horrified driver saw her but could not brake in time. Navjeet and her daughter died instantly, but Aman, though badly injured, was still alive.
Parents Who Kill--Shocking True Stories of the World's Most Evil Parents Page 6