Coming up.

That kind of made them think, what is going on here?

Because that's not the typical human reaction that you would expect when something this awful has just happened to your three children and to yourself.

For Vault Studios, I'm Reid Redmond.

You're listening to The Daily Crime. May 19, 1983.

A woman named Diane Downs shows up at a hospital in Oregon,

and it's clear something awful has happened.

I'm joined by KGW reporter Pat Doris. Pat, I know you've covered a lot of crime in your career, but even still, I have to imagine

this is one of those cases that stands out, right? Absolutely. And when you look into it,

the more you learn about it, the stranger, more bizarre, and more awful it is.

So let's go back to that day in May of 1983. How did that day develop as far as anyone would have

known at the time? Well, it started when Diane Downes showed up at the hospital with three kids at McKenzie Willamette Medical Center.

So that's just east of Eugene, about two hours south of Portland.

But she came into the hospital in a crazy situation.

Three of her children had been shot, and she'd been shot in the arm herself.

And it just sort of out of the blue seemed to be this incredible tragedy. And what is it exactly

that she is saying happened to them? She said that she and her kids were out on kind of a deserted

road out in the country and that she came around the corner driving and that there was a man there.

And so she stopped to see if she could help.

And she described him as a shaggy-haired stranger.

And she said that he eventually shot her and then shot the kids.

So he jumped into the car, leaned into the car, and started firing the weapon.

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