Small Sacrifices (47 page)

A secret indictment, Number 10-84-01377, had been handed down. The State of Oregon vs. Elizabeth Diane Downs.

The charges listed were:

ATTEMPTED MURDER

ATTEMPTED MURDER

ASSAULT IN THE FIRST DEGREE

The counts were listed individually, worded in the oddly archaic language of the law: "The defendant on or about the 19th day of May, 1983, in the county aforesaid, did unlawfully and intentionally cause the death of Cheryl Lynn Downs, a human being, by shooting her with a firearm; contrary to statute and against the peace and dignity of the State of Oregon." Murder in Oregon is an unclassified felony; there are no det grees of murder in that state, and the death penalty was not extant on May 19, 1983. (Within the year, it would be.)

The attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon

charges are Class A felonies in Oregon.

Fred Hugi had called before the grand jury:

Christie Ann Downs

Elizabeth Diane Downs

Steve Downs

Paul Frederickson

Wesley Frederickson

Willadene Frederickson

Joseph Inman

Paula J. Krogdahl

Lewis Lewiston

James 0. Pex

Heather Kathleen Plourd

Mark Christopher Plourd

Cord Samuelson

Richard B. Tracy

The secret indictment was signed by Frederick A. Hugi, and by Claudia M. Langan, the grand jury foreman.

Diane's sixth sense had been right on. Everyone had been keeping secrets from her. She hadn't known Welch was following her, and she hadn't known that Lew had come to town, but she'd seen the emotional chaos of her parents' home, seen even her mother reduced to suspicion and hostility.

Fred Hugi and Pierce Brooks had discussed the best way to carry out the actual arrest of Diane Downs.

"I went in and we went through the tactics of the arrest," Brooks remembers. "Was the gun still hidden somewhere--in her room maybe, someplace in the parents' home, maybe a locker at the post office? I felt it essential that when she was arrested, there be at least one officer that she knew, and one policewoman-and that there be no handcuffs used."

| The time had come.

After Christie's grand jury testimony, DA Pat Hoi-ton had turned to Fred Hugi and asked, "Any reason not to arrest her now?"

Hugi shook his head. There were no more reasons. The final decision to move on an arrest was his, and he had held back so long . Now, it was time. Ray Broderick prepared the affidavits for search warrants for 320 ANN RULE

the Fredericksons' home and garage, for Diane Downs's Ford Fiesta, for her post office locker, and for the Rent-A-Garage on Franklin Boulevard where many of her possessions and household items had been stored.

Affidavits must show probable cause--demonstrate the pressing reasons why a judge would grant officers permission to invade the privacy of citizens. And they must list the items sought in some detail. The documents were seven pages long, a summary of one of the longest investigations in Lane County history. Succinct and convincing.

Diane knew nothing of the indictment, the search warrants. She was, quite literally, on the street. She had no money and no home. She had her Ford Fiesta, and she had her journals--the two blue ledgers that said "Record" on their covers. She carried them with her wherever she went.

It grew late in Foo's. It was still February 27--the longest day of her life. She had to be at work at seven the next day, but she had no place to sleep. She sat in the corner, and she wrote steadily. A lovely blonde woman, her voluptuous breasts swollen with pregnancy. She was into her fifth month but it wasn't apparent when she was sitting down and men approached her often,

asking her to dance. She smiled and shook her head, noting each invitation in her journal.

With no one left to talk to, she was talking to herself.

"If a nice guy comes to talk to me, I crawl away inside myself. I'm afraid they'll figure out who I am, and then they'll run away from me. I know it sounds kind of kooky but I have seen the DA take my very best friends and close their hearts. They were lovers and friends and now they are adversaries. I guess I'm g just afraid that the DA will find out if I have any new friends and s do the same thing to them. That's why I stay away from 'Papa.'

I've never even told him that I love him, because I'm afraid that someone will find out, and they'll drive him away. But, it's kind of ironic because I deny caring about him, and that has driven him away too. I guess I can't win. Perhaps when this ordeal is over and my children come home and our new baby is born, then i things will settle down. Maybe then, I will be able to be open and affectionate with people again. Maybe I'll even find the courage to tell 'Papa' I love him. And if it isn't too late, then he will be able to share his child with me.

"Time will tell."

Diane would write seventeen pages in three hours that evening. Pure unadulterated fantasy. "Papa"--Matt Jensen--bolted at the very sight of her.

The music was loud--a lot of Michael Jackson: "Beat It," and "Billie Jean" which was a sad song for Diane because it was about a man denying paternity. "The child is not my son ..." She sensed her baby was a girl, but the lyrics stung anyway. The club's air blued with smoke, and the music blared louder. The bass tones vibrated in time to the colored lights flashing on-off-on-off, and the child within her stirred and kicked too-light little taps to let her know she wasn't alone. And still Diane wrote, aimless anecdotes, filling page after page. "I guess alot of things have happened in my life that are out of the ordinary for some people. But I take it all in stride."

Foo's would close at 2:00 a.m. Outside the rain was coming down steadily, making the rivers rise.

"Ya know, there are so many things I want to teach my children," she wrote. "I have taught them so much already, but there is so much left. They know how to love now, and trust. But they need to know that a life without love can be so bleak. I need to take them to see kids that don't have the love they have.'

Perhaps if they don't see the pain that can be caused by lack of love, they'll take it for granted and not love their kids. Na. That could never happen. If you love someone long enough and strong enough, they can't help but give it away."

More fantasy.

"I was just sitting here in my corner watching the people on the dance floor. I often wonder what possesses people to dance the way they do ... I remember when Lew and I used to dance. I was dancing for him. I was seductive and erotic. I liked to make him smile and raise an eyebrow ... I have to feel what I do, or it is all fake. And I'm not a fake person.

"Well, I just had the third guy ask me to dance, so obviously writing isn't working. I think I'll try to sneak into my parents'

house and get about six hours sleep . . . That won't be enough but it's all I'll get.

"I can't keep this up every night. I'll be exhausted." And so the second joumal-diary ended, although Diane couldn't have known that this was her final entry. <

322 ANN RULE

God, she was tired. She crept into the house and nobody

tried to kick her out. Willadene heard her, but Willadene would never have thrown her daughter out. Diane slept until it was time to get up at 5:30 and go to work.

PT

li

February 28, 1984.

They gathered in Pat Horton's office at 5:30 a.m.--long before the courthouse was officially opened--almost all of the investigators who had worked on the Downs shooting for these nine

months: Paul Alton and Ray Broderick, Doug Welch, Pat Horton and Fred Hugi. Chris Rosage, a female deputy, joined them. They would need a woman along when they arrested Diane.

Ironically, it had taken nine months and one week for the investigation to come to the point of arrest. A gestation of sorts. The State's "baby" had yet to be delivered. It could still turn out to be an uncontrollable monster.

The search warrants had to be served concurrently; the arrest had to go like clockwork. If they stood any chance at all of finding the gun, they would lose their advantage if there was a warning. They knew that Diane was getting antsy. But they were pretty sure she didn't now exactly when the arrest was coming down.

They would work in teams: Louis Hince and Paul Alton to

the Frederickson home in Springfield, and Welch, Broderick and Rosage to the post office in Cottage Grove, with Bill Kennedy and Carl Lindquist following just behind to search Diane's car after the arrest was made.

Diane was due into work at 7:00 a.m.; she had proved in the past to be unfailingly punctual. None of the arrest team knew that Diane had been kicked out of her father's house the night before. Ray Broderick would always wish they had known, wondering if Diane might have opened up more if she'd been alone and virtually homeless for a few more days.

But they could never know now.

* * *

324 ANN RULE

The Cottage Grove team parked their vehicles at the side of the post office at 140 South Fifth. They peered through the thin gray wash of dawn light for the sight of Diane's Ford.

Headlights pierced the gloom from time to time. Some passed on by. Some turned in and parked, and other letter carriers walked toward the Cottage Grove post office.

They waited.

At exactly two minutes to seven, a white car came into view and pulled into the employee's parking lot behind the building. It was a Ford Fiesta, license number DQX 055.

Immediately, the police units turned the corner and came nose-to-nose with Diane Downs's car. Everyone got out. For just a beat, they stared at each other: Ray Broderick, Doug Welch, Chris Rosage, and the wan woman in the maternity postal uniform. Diane was smiling at them, a tentative try at nonchalance—

but her smile was a little crooked and her eyes were frightened. Her throat flushed scarlet.

Doug Welch spoke first. "Today's the day, Diane."

"Oh . . . OK." It was her little girl's voice, compliant, vulnerable.

Chris Rosage moved toward Diane. These two women who

would spend so much time together were introduced for the first time. They were about the same height, but Chris was a few years older. Her hair was dark and luxuriant, twisted and coiled atop her head, her dark eyes fringed with thick lashes. Even in her man-tailored sheriffs uniform, she was clearly a well-built woman. Whether Rosage liked it or not, she too was about to become a media celebrity; Diane would be photographed thousands of times, and Chris would be, of necessity, there beside her, caught in the strobe lights. |

"Diane," Rosage said quietly as she patted her prisoner down for weapons, "I'm probably going to spend more time with you from now on than anybody."

Diane Downs still smiled faintly, as her rights under Miranda were read to her, along with the five charges that the grand jury had returned. As they walked to the Sheriff's car, Broderick asked her if they'd left anything important in her car.

Yes! Her diaries.

H "She mentioned her diaries to me three or four times. She wanted to be absolutely sure that we knew about those diaries,'

he recalls. "It was reminiscent of Brer Rabbit insisting 'Whatever

you do, please don't throw me in the Briar Patch.' Diane wanted us to have those diaries. I assured her that they would not be overlooked."

Diane, not handcuffed, sat in the back seat with Ray Broderick. Chris drove, and Doug Welch sat beside her. They took the old highway, 99, through Creswell and then into Eugene, driving through the melancholy rain. Once--it seemed so long ago--Diane had described the natural beauties of this very road to Lew in her first diary, as she pleaded with him to join her in Oregon. Only the firs and pines were green now, and that was a dulled green of a gray day.

Exactly a year ago Diane had written on her calender: "I'm so happy. Just when I thought Lew would call off our relationship, he said he would marry me and live with my kids. But

before I get too excited, I'll wait awhile. He could take another look at the situation and change his mind. I hope he doesn't. I sure love him."

No more.

Diane chattered on the way to jail--not about the case, but about the trouble at home. She told them her dad had thrown her out of the house because he was afraid she'd tell about how he'd molested her when she was twelve. She told them she'd finally told her mother about the abuse but that Willadene hadn't believed her.

"It's strange," Broderick remembers. "I almost think she was relieved when we arrested her. She knew it was coming, and she had no place to go."

Behind them, Bill Kennedy and Carl Lindquist searched Di-|§j ane's car in the Cottage Grove post office lot. There was not a great deal to be gleaned from the Ford. Certainly, there was no gun in plain sight--or hidden.

What were to become Exhibit #81 were the two blue note.books labeled "Record": "Reported to be the diary of Elizabeth I Diane Downs. Also included are two ballpoint pens. One is labeled

'Skilcraft-U.S. Government,' and the other is labeled

Papermate.' " As she had planned, Diane's joumal-diaries were 11! the hands of the police. All of her blistering attacks on the was , her longing for her children, her memories of perfect motherhood,

her feelings of loss, her protestations of innocence--now part of the police record.

What would become Exhibit #82 were: "Two sealed brown 326 ANN RULE

paper bags one inside the other, enclosing one 750 Ml bottle labeled 'Jim Beam Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.' This bottle is approximately '/2 full of a light brown liquid. The odor is consistent with an alcoholic beverage. Examination of the area under the cap reveals a semi-solid material containing several epithelial cells."

Cells and crusted mucoid material from a woman's vagina, caught in the neck ridges of a bottle of bourbon . . . Lew's favorite bourbon.

Louis Hince and Paul Alton served the search warrant upon the Frederickson residence at 7:15--even as Diane was being transported to Eugene for booking.