Small Sacrifices (48 page)

Willadene was alone when she answered the door; Paul was still asleep and Wes had left for work. She was very upset. Wes Frederickson always spoke for the family and made the decisions. She looked at the search warrant and the affidavit attached and asked if she could call her husband. Alton assured her that she could.

She handed the phone to Alton, who was not surprised to find the Postmaster of Springfield incensed at the thought of police pawing through his home. However, Frederickson understood the power of a search warrant. He said he would be right home. Wes had paid the rent on the "store-and-lock" facility in the Glenwood district of Eugene where Diane's things were. He gave deputies his permission to search it.

They searched the rented garage, they searched Diane's room in the Frederickson residence, and they searched her car. The elder Fredericksons were cooperative in allowing the investigators to look wherever they asked for the missing .22 caliber Ruger. They didn't find it. The gun, any ammunition, its pouch-type carrying case, all gone. I

For the first time, Diane Downs was led through the "sallyport" into the Lane County Jail booking area. She was given a

pair of green one-size-fits-all jail pajamas, fingerprinted and posed before the mug-camera. She stood against a light wall of concrete blocks, a chained sign around her neck:

EUGENE,OREGON

609569

02 28 84

There are circles under Diane's eyes in this picture, and yet she smiles. She truly does--a faint, bitter little smile. In her profile mug shot she appears quite pregnant, but she had a long way to go. There would be someone there for her, inside, for at least four months.

Diane was housed all alone in an intake cell. Bail was set at

$15,000 on each of the five charges. If she were to be freed pending trial, someone would have to come up with $75,000. No one would.

Did Diane sleep there in her jail cell? Only she knows that; she had been so tired, and she had been spinning down and down and down for so long.

As she always said, "Just when you think things get as bad as they can get, something worse happens."

And it had.

The headlines on February 28 and 29, 1984, were banners six columns wide and titillating enough to make the most devoted soap opera fan switch to real life for the duration. The AP wires picked up an URGENT flash--tipped by Lars Larson--that the arrest had been made at 6:55 a.m., February 28, 1984. He was off only by eight minutes.

POLICE ALLEGE ATTACK MOTIVATED BY LOVE FOR A

When DA Pat Horton and Sheriff Dave Burks held their news conference that first morning, they stressed how difficult it had been for the agencies to wait so long to make a move. "The one thing that has underscored this investigation is patience," Horton remarked. "The real battle ... is in the courtroom."

| Patience was a euphemism. Tempers had frayed and unraveled "completely. The rifts healed tentatively as the sheriffs men realized

that an arrest was actually going to take place. Ray Broderick had stepped into the role as buffer. With Hugi's full knowledge snd consent--Ray would agree often that "Yeah, Fred's an

asshole--but let's do it anyway. Let's go along with preparing for This trial." Hugi nods, remembering, a rare smile breaking across his lace. "If it was a choice between being Mr. Nice-Guy Fred and 328 ANN RULE

we lose the case, I'd rather be Fred-the——ing-asshole—and win the case. I know I can be abrasive, but I also know what it takes to put a case together properly. I was not going into this trial half-assed prepared and try to wing it. Exhibits needed to be made; witnesses needed to be talked to and prepared to testify. There are a couple of days of behind-the-scenes preparation for every smooth day in court."

Hugi felt no elation when he heard that Diane's arrest had been accomplished. "That only meant that there was no going back for me. We lose control—as soon as an arrest takes place. The courts decide when and where. An indictment doesn't mean anything. Conviction is what counts."

It all hinged on Christie—on one frightened nine-year-old. No one beyond the authorities knew that Diane had been

evicted from her parents' home only hours before her arrest. Wes Frederickson gave no hint of the family schism when he spoke to the Register-Guard. "It's good to get it out . . . We've had nine months of hell already, and I'm not looking forward to nine more months of hell, or three months, or one month—or however long it takes ... I don't know if my daughter did it, and I don't know that she didn't do it, because I wasn't there." And then he added a bit less charitably, "If my daughter did it, then I believe, in fact, she should pay. But nothing can take away the love a father has for his kids."

A picture of Diane and Chris Rosage walking through the

jail's sally-port appeared on the front page of most Northwest papers. Diane's hands were cuffed, her arms gently folded around her pregnant belly. It was the sort of picture that Pierce Brooks had feared: the expectant mother in bondage. Diane's supporters in the public—and she still had many—were horrified. |

The next day, she pleaded Not Guilty to all charges before Circuit Court Judge Edwin Alien.

Alien revoked her bail.

Her trial date was set for May 8; Diane expected to be free within three months—well before her due date of July 7.

She confided to Lars Larson, "He [DA Hoi-ton] finally screwed up ... he can't back up those charges in court and everyone is t-going to see that." She didn't plan to give birth in jail but even if that should happen, no one was going to take her baby away from her. She was sure it would be a girl; she would name her Charity Lynn. Diane wasn't worried about obtaining a fair trial, she told SMALL ^wices ^9

Larson; Lane County would give her as fair a trial as anywhere else.

Almost immediately, the Downs case began to make national headlines again. Elizabeth Beaumiller was going to fly in for the trial--at least for a time--to cover it for the Washington Post. The Seattle Times devoted two full pages to Diane Downs. Wes

Frederickson announced that San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli had tentatively agreed to defend Diane.

Belli--seventy-six years old and going strong, flamboyant and brilliant--had defended Jack Ruby after Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Belli had also offered his services--gratis--to Sirhan Sirhan after Robert Kennedy was killed. Belli was the grand old man of the celebrity lawyers: F. Lee Bailey, "Racehorse" Haynes, Marvin Mitchelson, and Gerry Spence.

The combination of Melvin Belli and Diane Downs was a

parlay that any reporter might devoutly wish for. Guaranteed fireworks. The attorneys presently of record were not as entranced with the possibility. Jim Jagger had represented Diane for months, often for extended periods without payment. When he'd done all the scut work, why would he relish handing over the case to one of the big boys from out of town?

Fred Hugi wasn't enthusiastic about facing Belli in court either. Hugi would not suffer histrionics and antics kindly. He would not see Christie sacrificed for headlines.

On March 22, Diane filed an affidavit seeking to suppress evidence taken from her home and vehicle (the red Nissan) on the

night of May 19, 1983. She claimed that she had been "extremely upset" and "sometimes disoriented" at McKenzieWillamette Hospital and that she had not understood the forms she signed giving permission to search. Judge Foote denied the motion to suppress.

[ On April 7, Melvin Belli sent word that he would personally be working on the case. Since Wes Frederickson would have to liquidate some prime property set away for his retirement to pay Belli, he would settle for no underling.

Jim Jagger was anxious to go to trial on May 8. There is a softness, a vulnerability, in a woman heavy with child. How could any jury send his hugely pregnant client to prison? May 8 conflicted with Melvin Belli's plans to depart for Rome for the annual meeting of the Belli Society, an international group he had founded AA'A'Ai-rr. so

three hundred lawyers could meet once a year to discuss legal and social issues. Immediately after what media wags termed

"International Melvin Belli Week," the San Francisco attorney had another trial commitment. He could not come to Eugene until the fourth or fifth of June--only a month before Diane's baby was due.

That was cutting it mighty close. The Downs trial was expected to take two months. There had been so much pretrial

publicity (before Judge Foote issued a gag order that quieted things down considerably) that simply picking a jury might take two or three weeks. And the list of potential witnesses was a mile long. Unless Diane could manage to stay pregnant for over ten months, there would have to be a recess in midtrial for the defendant to give birth, recuperate, and return to court. A well-planned trial gathers momentum as it goes along;

interruptions can dilute both the prosecution and defense's case. Fred Hugi argued that the trial should not be delayed by Belli's social calendar, and he wondered how soon Diane would be ready to stand trial after she gave birth. Jagger pointed out that Diane had a history of returning to work the day after delivery. She sounded as hardy as a peasant woman who squats to give birth in the fields and then slings the infant on her back, continuing to chop sugar cane or pick rice.

Foote's decision was swift. There would be no delay.

Belli was appalled. He took a verbal swipe at the young judge who was sitting on his first murder trial. "I very much wanted to represent this young girl. She's obviously in a lot of trouble and needs a lot of help. But the judge wouldn't give us the time of day

... In my fifty years as an attorney, I have never heard of a judge doing this in such an important case . . . It's utterly outrageous, but I guess his majesty reigns up there. Thank God he's not in San Francisco!"

Foote was scarcely chastened. He remarked that Belli shouldn't have taken the case in the first place if he knew he was obligated to be in Rome. Christie and Danny needed to have the case resolved as soon as possible.

Belli left for Rome, and Jim Jagger continued to prepare the ( defense for Diane. Fred Hugi had twenty-four volumes of evidence, statements, followups, transcriptions of tapes--a mountain of possibilities to be

winnowed down, and shaped, and molded for his case. He would work eighteen-to twenty-hour days. And so would the rest of his team.

"It's unusual," Broderick says, "for a prosecution team--to end up willing to share decisions. Of course--in the end--only one person goes into court with it."

Ray Broderick held a "witness school." The cops viewed it with a somewhat jaundiced eye--hell, they'd testified just fine for years. But most went along with it. Hugi told Broderick exactly which areas he planned to cover with which witnesses. Ray then played Fred's part or Jim Jagger's, playing from a script full of the worst possible eventualities. Broderick worked particularly hard with the staff from the ER at McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. They were used to privileged communication between doctor and patient, and it was difficult for them to discuss what had happened. Moreover, many of them were nervous about getting up

"on stage" in a courtroom. Shelby Day and Judy Patterson grew dry-mouthed at the thought of it.

Everything was choreographed. "We had to plan the order of our witnesses, when the breaks would come--and we couldn't over-emphasize small pieces of evidence," Broderick explains.

"Each witness had to get on the stand, throw a punch, and get off."

As Pierce Brooks had stressed, the State was ready to recreate the scene. A prototype of Diane's red Nissan had been constructed in two days by Ben Bartlett, a Eugene cabinetmaker. It

was built to scale of heavy Styrofoam reinforced with plywood.

"In the end, it was 1/16th of an inch off in length--and that's pretty damned close."

There were the Christie, Cheryl and Danny dolls. Aerial

photos had been taken in sequence so that the jury would be able to see Diane's alleged route from the shooting site to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. And huge blow-ups of the shell casings were i developed.

I They had never found the gun. And they still could not figure out what the bloodstain pattern on the beach towel meant. Right up to trial, Paul Alton fiddled with it, folding, refolding, Bnd . . . finally he hit the combination.

Bingo. Bingo. Bingo!

The prosecution team was elated, but they kept what they had found to themselves. The time would come.

* * *

332 ANN RULE

Jim Jagger had his own problems preparing for trial. Diane did not understand that the face she presented to the world would not do. She smiled when she should be looking sad. She laughed when it would have been appropriate to sob. And there was a certain expression Diane so often wore—her imperious look—as if she were Princess Di, and the rest of the world only rabble. When Jagger asked Diane if she thought she might modify her facial expressions a bit for the jury ahead, she looked at him, bemused. She hadn't the vaguest idea what he was talking about.

I live in a locked room by myself. I am allowed out of

this room two hours a day. During this time, I shower,

make phone calls, read the paper and watch TV. I

am also allowed out of my room to visit people from

the outside . . . My pastor comes to see me once a week, and my attorney comes when the need arises. I do

receive some mail, and always send replies...

--Diane Downs, letter to MattJensen, April, 1984

Diane's brother Paul never missed a visit, and she called her parents every other day. She had no visits from friends, although reporters still sought her out. Her Cottage Grove coworkers, once so supportive, had dropped away.

Diane's written correspondence became more important than ever to her. Even in jail and six-months pregnant, she needed some special connection with a male more than she ever had. She found someone--of necessity via the mails--or rather, he found her. Randall Brent Woodfield, thirty-four, was the handsome scion of a respected family on the Oregon coast--a sports prodigy, a former president of the Christian Athletes at Portland State University, a one-time draft choice of the Green Bay Packers . . . and a convicted voyeur, exposer, rapist, and killer of women. Randy