The Escape

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Cologuard, proud supporter of My Cultura Podcast Network. One thing I learned in representing people at the state hospital and sort of representing people at the state penitentiaries, As Americans, we have taught ourselves that freedom is the most important thing in the world.
We want our freedom. We don't want to be in prison or a state hospital, so it's not surprising that someone would want to escape.
It didn't do much other than add to her mystique.

She had the ability to jump over a fence

that had lots of barbed wire on the top and physically be able to do that. My name is Stephen Gorham, G-O-R-H-A-M.
I'm an attorney in Salem. I've been an attorney since 1975.
I went to Cornell University as an undergrad. and then as a graduate, as a law school, I went to Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where I have been practicing since 1975.
Steve represented Diane Downs as her post-conviction attorney. Post-conviction attorneys represent a client after the verdict and will typically assist a guilty party in making the case that they were not adequately represented by their counsel in the courtroom.
They try to help them appeal the verdict or provide other post-conviction relief. My first step in representing somebody at the time in a post-conviction was to go visit them.
So I'm sure that Diane was in Oregon's Correctional Center here in Salem. It happens to be about a mile from my office on State Street.
The women's prison was built right next to the Oregon State Penitentiary, right outside their wall. The Oregon State Penitentiary was built in the 1800s sometime and it's a walled prison and they built the women's prison right outside the wall and the women's prison was a one-story building with a fence around it.
It had a small yard that was outside the building. You could see the yard from State Street because it's right off of State Street.
And it was surrounded by a tall chain-length fence with barbed wire on the top. But that's not where our story in this episode really begins.
Shortly after Steve took on Diane as a client, she escaped from prison. So also in 1987, that's when Diane escaped.
She jumped over the fence. She knew some people.
She had other inmates at the Oregon State Women's Correctional Center, new people in Salem, some of whom lived a couple blocks from the women's prison. So there were houses that were rental houses on State Street.

And when Diane escaped, she got picked up by a couple because she was either hitchhiking. I'm not sure why they let her out,

but they didn't take her very far. They let her out.

Eric Mason was working as a reporter in Oregon at the time of Diane's escape.

He traveled with a photographer around the area to find potential places Diane could have escaped

to, hoping to be among the first to figure out her whereabouts.

Thank you. of Diane's escape.
He traveled with a photographer around the area to find potential places Diane could have escaped to, hoping to be among the first to figure out her whereabouts. She's at Oregon Women's Correctional Facility and doing the rest of her life there.
And, you know, it's not the most high security max facility in the world there. There's a couple of chain link fences and today it's closed.
But at the time, you know, it was where all kinds of women involved in strange crimes were being held. And so she's been there a while.
And I think life is just grinding on for Diane. And just down the street, I mean, literally blocks from the Women's Correctional Center are two guys that are semi homeless, working poor, who are there.
and crazy as it is, once again, my path crosses these two people as I'm devoting and donating some time down at the Union Gospel Mission to make dinner and do some other things there for them. And I meet these two guys, Wayne and Bob, and, you know, I strike a conversation at the dinner hour with them.
And they're two very interesting guys. And so they begin to tell me about their life.
And the reason I went to go visit their house was because there were sources of information about how the world of drugs worked in this town so you saw them as a stringer potentially well i saw them as people who needed help and obviously they needed help from the union gospel mission but they also wanted to tell me stories and they knew i was a reporter and so i got to know them in the months leading up to her escape. So when the escape happens and she goes over the wire, it's like, wow, she's got some guts to go straight over the fence.
How tall is this fence? I'm thinking, you know, 14, 18 feet or so. She goes up and over the top of it and is out and gone and day goes by and two days goes by and I'm thinking wow she might have actually escaped and got away with it and so every day the assignment was be the first to find Diane and get it on tv and if if you can't, make sure you get her arrested being walked in.
And so we were driving everywhere. Myself and the photographer, I remember this.
We were thinking, okay, she could be out in farm country. She could be living down by the Willamette River.
She could be trying to find the next guy already. And so we were trying to check off all the boxes of things we'd done.
And I said to the photographer, you rode around each day with a photog, I said, wouldn't it be weird if she ended up at Wayne's house along the river, just a few blocks from the women's correctional center, the prison, and darn it, that's where she was. Eric offered to show me the area firsthand.
So he got in his car and toured the area near the prison where Diane fled. So, and then there's Mill Creek.
You can see Mill Creek. And then on the other side of Mill Creek is the women's facility, and you can see that fence there.
Yeah, I see that barbed wire fence. That's pretty intense.
Yeah, and so at the time, though, it was not as well fortified as it is now, and Diane just basically climbed it, hopped over, and kept going. I was surprised at how the prison was like a modern-day castle with a river moat.
There's big open brush on three sides of the place. And you'd expect, you would have thought, that if someone wanted to get out of town fast, they'd head towards the railroad tracks and into a boxcar or anything getting out of town and taken off, but that's not what was gonna happen here.
And then the state police office where they brought her in was right over here. And that's where I first saw Bob and Wayne being led away, almost as if, you know, they were on the same perp walk as Diane Downs, but they were all together right here.
I wanted to know what Bob and Wayne were like, these two men who harbored Diane after her escape. Bob was, you know, studious looking and, you know, had glasses and kind of looked like a computer geek.
And Wayne was a fairly decent looking individual and looked like he could be a landscaper, you know, in Southern California. And they really did have little odd jobs every day that they would do, but they never really made enough money to have a nice place.
And so they had this tiny little hovel along Mill Creek and then would go down and have dinner at the Union Gospel Mission. And that was their life.
So to have a notorious

convicted killer show up in the middle of the night at their house, you know, it was quite a

surprise, but, you know, they certainly weren't going to throw her out either. I think what was later determined was that she used the creek, Mill Creek, to be able to confound the dogs and she knew enough about tracking that she went down that creek and so i think one of the first things she did is she got rid of her clothes and i think left them in the water i'm sure how, what level of nakedness that she was, but when she showed up at Bob and Wayne's place, she was cold, didn't have her clothes or most of them, and just needed to get warm in a place to stay.
And I believe, and I'm going to have to go

back to check to see this is true, that she had some correspondence with people outside the prison. It was a pen pal.
And I'm not sure how that worked into it, but they finally looked at her tablet and began to figure out who she'd been talking with.

And so that's what helped them. looked at her tablet and began to figure out who she'd been talking with and so

that's what helped them figure out part of you know what her plans were and how she was getting out and whatnot. It was reported though that Wayne said he fell in love with her.
Yes. And so I remember Wayne almost thinking and saying things to the effect of, I couldn't believe my good fortune.

You know, here I am, a marginally employed but mostly homeless man in Salem, Oregon.

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I feel so alone. I'm embarrassed to talk about it.
How can I help my kid if I can't help myself? I can't remember when I wasn't stressed. I don't want you to put inside.
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From what I read with Wayne, it sounds like Wayne and Diane had a relationship.

Diane was sleeping with Wayne, so I don't think you would easily give her up if that was the case.

That's true. I think Wayne was the type of guy who was street smart and really didn't like snitches or people that turned other people in.
So, yeah, I would imagine he kept things pretty quiet. What I really can't believe is that given the search that was done, that for those days following the escape she stayed right where

she was a non-founder that's that's the part that's amazing uh that she was able to basically

hide right here in plain sight let's see i think it's okay so here's where we go over the creek

you can see it's very vegetated down there and someone just walking up that creek would have

Thank you. I think it's okay.
So here's where we go over the creek. You can see it's very vegetative down there.
And someone just walking up that creek would have tried to find someone's back porch, which she did. So this neighborhood is cute.
It looks like it's an older neighborhood with little bungalows. That actually looks very different than what I thought it would look like in my head because these houses are just adorable, like painted little ladies.
Right. And then the ones that are right on the creek, some of them are just like an outbuilding to another house.
Oh, okay. I see here at the creek.
Some of these see this little building here. Oh, yeah.
It looks like an outhouse. Yeah.
attached to this house. Oh, okay.
I see here at the creek. Some of these, see this little building here? Oh, yeah.
It looks like an outhouse attached to this house. It's just a little outbuilding.
Like a shed. And that's what those two, it was very much like a shed.
And you could see the water, you know, someone could just sort of swim along this creek and they're sent. You couldn't follow that trail.
And I think that's what she was able to do. After she was captured, Diane's brother James was one of the only people close to her who was able to speak to her about the escape.
I wish she'd have called me. That's what I said at the time, actually.
I remember it. I remember it.
I was working. And I was working at a place in San Joaquin Valley, California.
You know, I wanted to take her to Canada, take her to Mexico, or just take her away from here to where she'd be safe. But yeah, she didn't, obviously.
What did you think when she was found? I've had conversations with her about this. I thought, it's not surprising she was caught, I guess.
You know, she's looking for affection. She's looking for love.
You know, she's just looking to be held and told everything her everything's going to be okay. And I guess maybe that's why I wanted her to call me so I could tell her that.
What were your conversations about that time that she escaped? She scaled over the walls and took off, and she was going to go there, and she said, oh, my God, what do I do now? You know what I mean? Best laid plans. It's like she'd get over and it's like, oh, shit, where am I going to go? And I mean, even if you go to the house you have in mind to go to, it's like, well, what's your next? Her next plan was to find the person that did this.
And every time she said that to herself, it's like, how do you do that? You know what I mean? And so she got to this person's house and was shacking up with this guy and never got to the part of finding the person that did this. Well, she also had tons of authorities looking for her.
So I don't think she's going to have to. That's what I mean.
It's like you get over the fence and it's like, oh, my goodness gracious. What do you do? You can't even fathom like the mental.
The fence is 16 foot tall with circular razor wire on the top of it. There's two of them.
How did she do it? She threw something over the top and just climbed over. Literally, she just climbed over two 16-foot fences with circular, not barbed wire, but razor wire on top of them.
Once caught, Diane was transferred to another prison under the Interstate Compact, likely to prevent the Oregon Women's Penitentiary from receiving any additional public attention that arose from her presence there. You know, they sent her to New Jersey after her escape, which is semi-surprising.
It's not so surprising that they sent her out of town because at the time our women's prison was, you know, not the most secure. And the interstate compact is basically like baseball trading or football trading.
You know, you trade an inmate for another inmate, and that's pretty much what it is. I read records that there was a lot of rejections for who would house Diane Downs after the escape, and that New Jersey said, we will take Diane if we could send you two inmates when we have the need, when the need arises.
Yeah. You know, and I'm relatively sure they moved Diane to get her out of town so that the publicity wasn't always there.
And, again, originally because she had escaped. And a lot of times they do the prisoner swaps or the interstate compact to try to get a new environment for the inmate, where they will, you know, maybe under different circumstances in a different prison state, they will, you know, get better, whatever that means.
I'm sure no one wanted to take Diane because of the publicity. And then, you know, she tried to escape that prison.
Oh, I didn't know that. Again? Oh, yeah.
You didn't know she tried to escape New Jersey? No. But while she was in New Jersey, she had a personal relationship with a man who was a helicopter pilot who was going to steal a helicopter and land in New Jersey and escape with Diane again.

And he gave that conspiracy up.

I'm not going to get this right. You know, a couple months before it was supposed to go into practice because of something that

happened.

He didn't get caught.

He confessed and turned himself in.

And he may have been from Seattle.

A lot of these details aren't there.

But I know I went to see her in the New Jersey prison after she was there before this escape attempt.

Because I was back visiting my family. And it was just easy for me to do, to visit her.
And I wanted to visit her just because, you know, mainly to see what a New Jersey prison looked like. And then when this escape attempt happened, it was just weird, you know.
And that's when she got sent to the california prison which is as i understand it and i don't know that this is true the worst women's prison in the world or at least in the united states i'll do some research on that i know that i was talking to the infamous betty uh bo derrick and she's housed with d. Well, they're not like cellmates or anything, but they actually know each other in that prison, which is interesting to me, but how different inmates are connected.
Yeah, and as I said, I went through some of these records on Ogin, and some of the things that she was claiming,

again, I didn't go into any of the details, but she's claiming, you know, that she was,

you know, a cellmate of hers, and this O'Darick lady, and, you know, I think dreaming up all

sorts of conspiracy theories concerning who she's been sold with.

Initially, Steve reserved his opinions on Diane's guilt, going solely off the court's verdict.

His principles as an attorney prevented him from taking certain actions if a client directly admitted guilt to him.

Well, her daughter said that she was the perpetrator. Diane always said, at least at that time, that it was the bushy-haired stranger.
I believe I'm an ethical attorney. And an ethical attorney can't have his client get on the stand and lie.

So if your client tells you that they're guilty, you can't put them on the stand and have them say, I'm not guilty.

And when I say guilty and not guilty, I'm talking about the individual facts of the case.

Right.

A defendant has the absolute right to take the stand and defend themselves in a criminal case. So if you get somebody who tells you, I'll just use an example of a killing.
If somebody tells you, yeah, I shot this person, they can't get on the stand and say, I didn't shoot the person. If they do get on the stand and say, I didn't shoot the person, and they've already told you and you believe that they did shoot the person, while they have the absolute right to get on the stand, you can ask them only one question.
What's that question? That question is, what happened? You can't ask them any other questions. and you have to be careful how you present the case other than that so knowing that from the beginning of my career and knowing that I was an ethical person one of the things I try not to do when I first start to represent somebody is say, are you guilty? A criminal defense attorney's obligations are 99% to the clients, that 1% is to the court, that you can't let your client lie to the court.
So I basically tell them that up front, so they know the ground rules of what they should be telling me and what they shouldn't be telling me.

You represented both Diane, Becky's mom, and then my dad.

What stands out to you about their personalities?

Are they similar?

Would you say they're both narcissists?

Or what would be your assessment of the two?

Well, I would say Diane was a narcissist, and I think your dad was too. You know, it's hard to – your dad owned up to the crimes he did, which took a lot of guts.
I'll say it this way. If Diane is guilty, which in all likelihood she is, she never owned up to the crime.
I feel so alone. I'm embarrassed to talk about it.
How can I help my kid if I can't help myself? I can't remember when I wasn't stressed. I don't want to just put inside.
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Healthcare just got less painful. The main focus of Steve's post-conviction relief was the forensic evidence presented at trial.
Christy's testimony was difficult to disprove, but Steve knew that blood spatter evidence was controversial. Well, again, you look at the case, and was a big case.
So there's a lot of paperwork. First of all, you have to, you know, read the transcript of the trial to understand how she got convicted and the facts that led to her conviction.
And what were those? Do you remember what those were that led to her conviction? Well, I think her daughter testifying that she did it was the biggest fact, if I remember correctly.

And then there was forensic evidence that tried to disprove her theory of the case. And one of the biggest parts of that was where she said everybody was situated at the time of the crime, in or out of the car, and blood spatter evidence concerning that, which came in at the trial.
But again, as I said earlier, one of the main things you look at is ineffective assistance of counsel, meaning what did the original attorney do right and what did he do wrong? And what would you say he did, this would be Jim Jagger, what would you say he did right and what would you say he did wrong? Well, I do remember looking into the blood spatter and now I remember at least somewhat concentrating on the blood spatter that he didn't do that right. I mean, over the years, there's been some controversy over blood spatter.
Forensic people prosecuting quote-unquote scientists believe you can tell a lot about what goes on from blood spatter. Some people don't believe it's very scientific at all.
But clearly the state tried to prove that Diane was not telling the truth based on where the blood spatter was and how it existed in and around the car. Our case was to try to show that Jagger didn't do a very good job in putting holes in the blood spatter testimony of the experts in the case.
What was ultimately her sentence from the dial? She got life with a minimum I think of 50 years. So she's contested a lot of different things and one of the big issues that was contested I believe is that the gun was never found.
I believe I have this feeling that either Diane said that the gun was thrown in the river or somehow that the gun got in the river. Okay, but I believe the police searched the river, but I personally believe the guns in the river.
I'm not sure I could tell you why I believe

that, but I think that's where it is. Then came the letter.
After her conviction,

Diane wrote a letter to her defense attorney, Jim Jagger. In it, Diane changes her story about the

night of the shooting. Well, he's representing her and he had it in his file.
And at some point, the state asked him for this letter. And he had to turn it over to the state.
And this was the importance of this letter to me. It may be not important to anybody else.
But to me, if you remember after the children were shot and they were on the road next to the McKenzie Highway, she's driving to the hospital in Springfield very slowly and at the trial, someone who followed her, I think a man maybe in a pickup truck, who was following her said, gee, she's driving this person, he didn't know her from Adam. This person's driving very slowly, something's going on, you know, so they used, the state argued, I think, that she was driving very slowly to the hospital so the children would die.
How long could you be sitting next to your children as if dying? Yeah. I can't remember how she explained it.
Probably she just didn't know where she was or whatever. The trauma of it.
This letter basically says that somebody in the pickup truck was following her on the road. This is before the killing.
He passed her. Then he slowed down.
She passed him. I may not be right about that part.
And then she stopped because she was interested in this guy. So you put your children in danger in the middle of the night to stop for a guy you're interested in.
I don't get it. I think I knew about this letter.
But if I didn't know about the letter, then I think her change in her story—and this sweater is important in my mind because it really describes the slow driving before the crime and that she was interested in just picking up this guy who was in this pickup truck. And she basically, you know, since then after she stopped and met this guy, then he became a bushy-haired stranger and he's the one who shot the kids.
The letter starts out with an almost confessional tone. It begins, November 7th, 1984, Salem, Oregon.
Dear Jim, I'm not really sure how to start this letter, but I guess the best way to make an apology is to say, I'm sorry. Now you're probably wondering what this is all about.
And when you're through reading, you'll probably drop this letter and say, damn you, Diane, like you have so many times before. Your blood pressure will go up and I'm sorry about that too.
I'm sorry about a lot of things, really. I only hope that you will forgive me for not being totally honest with you.
It's just that it's so hard for me to put myself in someone else's hands. I find it hard to fully trust anyone not to hurt me.
I needed to control myself and the situation, and I've been that way for a few years. It has been a hard lesson to learn, and I can't guarantee I'll be cured forever.
But I know now that I should have placed this whole problem in your hands and let you deal with it. But I was afraid.
Silly maybe, but I was afraid you would lose respect for me. And well, let me explain.
The letter goes on to retell Diane's version of what took place the night of the shooting. She states that the shaggy-haired stranger was actually a man who was driving behind

her on the road. According to her, he passed her and slowed down.
It was kind of a flirtatious

dance between the two cars and she eventually pulled over. She claims the man wanted weed,

and when she opened the trunk, he took out the case containing Steve's gun.

After making advances on Diane, he proceeded to shoot her and her children one by one before

fleeing. That was really interesting reading the letter.
That's really interesting to me.

Thank you. After making advances on Diane, he proceeded to shoot her and her children one by one before fleeing.
That was really interesting reading the letter. That's really interesting to me.
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, to a criminal defense attorney, it's a damning letter.
And who knows what else she had told Jim Jagger. And he obviously did his best in representing her.
I think someplace in the letter she said she's told him several stories or something like that. It would have been hard for him.
Though Steve tried to remain an ethical attorney and go on the basis of Diane's proclamation of innocence, the letter finally convinced him of her guilt. The change in her story from what she claimed multiple times in trial and to the press showed Steve that Diane most likely wasn't telling the truth and potentially never had.
He doesn't believe she'll do well at her future parole hearings. No, and I don't believe she will have a chance.
First of all, again, the parole board over the years has been very conservative. I wouldn't say the parole board has ever been liberal in the state of Oregon.
So they do look at, I mean, a parole board should be looking at the person, the individual. What you should be looking at is, of course, the crime, the effect of the crime, especially especially these days on the victims and you know it used to be the victims really didn't much matter and then we went through a a phase that still exists of victims rights and part of that is the parole board wants you to come clean if they believe that you're guilty the crime, they want you to say you're guilty of the crime and show remorse for your guilt.
So the fact that Diane has yet to, you know, show much remorse or show that she is guilty, it's going to be hard for her to get out on parole by any parole board. And frankly, especially crimes that have such publicity concerning them.
I don't believe that she'll ever get out on parole. Diane Downs was denied paroled in 2008 and again in 2010.
Diane's parole board hearing took place just recently, September 23rd, and she was denied parole. On the next episode, Michelle presents Becky with the conclusion of her efforts to trace

Becky's paternity and identify her biological father. Also coming in a few days, a bonus episode.

The bizarre letter Diane Downs wrote to Jim Jagger read in its entirety. Although we were

unable to present the entire letter in this episode due to time constraints,

we feel that you, the listener, should hear this bizarre retelling of the night of the crime in Diane's own words. I feel so alone.

I'm embarrassed to talk about it.

How can I help my kid if I can't help myself?

I can't remember when I wasn't stressed.

I don't want you to put inside.

When you feel overwhelmed by your thoughts and emotions, it's okay to get help. You are not alone.
CalHOPE is here for you with free, safe, and confidential mental health resources for youth, young adults, families, and you. Find support now at calhope.org.
Finals, the most fear-inducing word in a college student's vocabulary. But a little extra help can make a huge difference.

So from now through May, ChatTBT Plus is free,

meaning no limits on all the ways you can ask ChatTBT to help you.

Help quiz you on an entire semester worth of your notes.

Help describe Keynesian economics with charts and graphs for a visual learner.

Help design a meal plan to keep you energized through the week.

And help land a summer internship when finals are finally done. ChatTT Plus, free for college students through May.
Restrictions apply. Mom packed your lunches, carpooled like a champ, and never once left you at soccer practice.
Pay her back with her favorite cocktails on demand. The Bartesian Cocktail Maker crafts premium cocktails with the touch of a button.
No mixing, no measuring, just bar quality bliss in under 30 seconds. From a passion fruit margarita to an espresso martini and everything in between, she can have whatever she's in the mood for.
Forget the guesswork. Bartesian uses real ingredients, no mystery syrups or artificial flavoring, just fresh juices, extracts, and premium bitters.
She can even customize the strength level from a mocktail to a strong cocktail. And the best part? Zero cleanup.
This year, skip the flowers. Skip the robe.
Give her something she actually wants. A cocktail her way.
Whenever she wants it. That's the one.
Get $50 off now through Mother's Day at bartesian.com slash mom. That's B-A-R-T-E-S-I-A-N dot com slash mom.
At the beginning of a busy morning with school drop-offs and commuting looming large, it could feel like you'll drive halfway across California. For Fuel Rewards members at Shell, that running around translates into savings at the pump.
Earn rewards on fuel, snacks, dining out, and more.

Plus, new members save $0.10 per gallon on your first fill, $0.20 per gallon on your second, and $0.30 per gallon on your third.

Visit FuelRewards.com slash Join25 and sign up today.

Offer valid through August 3rd, 2025 at participating shell locations.

Limit 20 gallons.

Restrictions apply.