Diane Downs
Downs has been repeatedly denied parole and psychiatrists have diagnosed her with narcissistic, histrionic and antisocial personality disorders, with one labelling her as a "deviant sociopath.Diane has testified that her father sexually abused her when she was a child, although she later recanted the allegations, and both of her parents denied that any such acts took place.[4] Diane came from a family with strict conservative values and her parents forbade her to wear fashionable clothes or makeup, which made her the subject of frequent bullying.However, after the age of 14, she became more rebellious and she graduated from Moon Valley High School in Phoenix, where she met her future husband Steve Downs.After high school, she enrolled at Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College in Orange, California, but was expelled after one year for promiscuous behavior and returned to her parents' home in Arizona.She ended her next pregnancy with an abortion, but after witnessing pictures of fetuses at an anti-abortion booth in a local fair, she regretted her decision.Diane later testified that Steve had had a vasectomy, so she seduced a male friend, Mark Sager, who became the father of her third child, Stephen Daniel, who was born in 1979.[5] On May 8, 1982, Diane gave birth to a girl named Jennifer while acting as a surrogate mother, despite failing her psychiatric tests twice due to their indicating signs of psychosis.[6][7] Prior to her arrest, Diane was employed by the United States Postal Service, assigned to the mail routes in the city of Cottage Grove, Oregon.If Danny demanded a little attention, she rejected him... but the worst was when one day I caught Cheryl jumping on her bed, I told her that it was not allowed.[citation needed] Suspicions heightened when Downs, upon arrival at the hospital to visit her children, phoned Robert Knickerbocker, a married man and former coworker in Arizona with whom she had been having an affair.Under Oregon law at the time, as a dangerous offender, Downs would have been eligible for a parole hearing every two years until she is released or dies in prison.He also wrote that "she alternately refers to her assailants as a bushy-haired stranger, two men wearing ski masks, or drug dealers and corrupt law enforcement officials."[25] In 2010, Downs was relocated to the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California,[24] but was transferred out when the facility was converted to an all-male institution in 2013.[27] Prior to her arrest, Downs became pregnant with a fifth child, and gave birth to a girl, whom she named Amy Elizabeth, a month after her 1984 trial.