Small Sacrifices (67 page)

The sociopath breaks hearts and minds and lives, and is

disastrous as a parent. It was never programmed to be a caretaker. A sociopath's children are like puppies or kittens brought home on the spur of the moment: dispensable, expendable, and all too often, "fungible."

"Mrs. Downs claims innocence," Dr. Suckow wrote, after examining her. "And shows no remorse. She regards the children with no empathy and as objects or possessions. Feelings she has for them are superficial and only extend to how they are part of her and her life."

Recent research into the problem shows that three percent of all American males are considered antisocial, while only one percent of women are. Interestingly, little boys tend to show sociopathic traits early in childhood, while girls with antisocial personality disorders rarely exhibit symptoms before the onset of puberty. Studies show that a familial pattern has emerged; it is particularly common to find that both male and female sociopaths have fathers with the same personality disorder.

All three of the personality disorders attributed to Diane Downs carry with them frequent bouts of depression. And that is hardly surprising. Since the narcissist, the histrionic, and the sociopath demand so much from others, and give so little back, relationships cannot survive.

They cannot love. They do not even understand love--and Yet they seek "love" unceasingly.

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Diane Downs is brilliant, but there is linkage missing in her ability to reason. She can go from A to C, but the circuitry of her mind appears to be missing B. She doesn't understand that if she says one thing and does exactly the opposite, the disparity between the two becomes apparent. She continues to believe that

she can do whatever she wants because she has only to "explain" it. Her thinking is like an ostrich's. The giant bird believes if it puts its head in the sand, it becomes invisible.

It is a far easier task to place Diane within the parameters of certain personality disorders than it is to pinpoint why she is the way she is. Diane claims sexual abuse at the hands of her father. In open court, she has accused him of subjecting her to a year or more of night terrors. He has not denied it.

It is impossible to be sure one way or the other; Diane

Downs has out-and-out lied about so many aspects of her life. Other events are misperceived.

And sometimes she tells the truth.

Diane recalls emotional abuse, lecturing, and lack of emotional support. She felt trapped, denigrated, unimportant. She learned to hide inside herself, to shut the world out behind a black wall of nothingness. Her screams were inside. She remembers her first

"blacking out" at the age of sixteen; it is likely that the phenomenon began much earlier.

It is impossible to know ifDiane's psychopathology is inborn or the result of abuse. Studies show that sexually abused children learn to disassociate themselves from their bodies. They deal with the abuse by going away someplace--in their heads. It is the only way they can escape. Betrayed by an adult whose role should have been that of a protector, they learn to feel nothing at all. If one does not feel, one cannot be hurt. Nor can one feelj anything for anyone else. a

As the abused child reaches puberty and adulthood, he often uses his/her body to get what he wants. The majority of prostitutes--both male and female--were sexually abused as children.

They have long since learned to allow others to use their bodies while they have "checked out" with their emotions. It is a kind of little death.

(, Diane Downs is sexually promiscuous. She may have seduced men for reasons that were not in the least sexual. She may have learned to offer her body. to protect her mind.

* * *

Did Diane Downs ever feel love or compassion? Or is it possible that the baby girl born in August of 1955 was, like the title of the best-selling novel that month ... a "bad seed"?

Diane's memory of being different, of being unhappy, stretches back to her first awareness. She may have been born needing too much, demanding too much. Insatiable.

More than one rational forensic psychiatrist has said flatly,

"Some children are simply born evil. They start out evil, and they remain evil."

Evil. Always Diane's favorite epithet. She is quite conversant with the parameters of evil.

In the end, students of the so-called criminal personality, researchers into the deepest, ebony-shaded deeds of human endeavor, admit that there is so much they do not know. The most

unlikely killers commit the most heinous crimes.

If it is abuse that has made a monster, do we blame the

monster or the abuser? Or both? Although we cannot risk letting the monster out to destroy other lives, we can, perhaps, learn from case histories.

Diane's suggestion to "stop the cycle" was to eliminate an entire generation. As Fred Hugi pointed out, she almost did ... Attempted murder and assault in the first degree are Class A felonies in Oregon, and carry a twenty-year maximum with a possible ten-year minimum mandatory. A Dangerous Offender status demands a thirty-year maximum and a fifteen-year minimum. Diane--svelte and lovely in a lavender sundress topped by a bolero--rose to speak to Judge Foote before he administered sentence. Her voice was tremulous, dramatic, and choked with tears.

"I would like to say that I came before this Court, was tried, was found guilty--because I am a law-abiding citizen. I'll do my time ... for this man. I care about the community. They can't let their guard down. The killers are still out there.

"I love my kids. Christie's my best friend. Danny cried for Mommy in the hospital. I carried a little girl for nine months-and only held her for four hours. Most important, Cheryl died , . . I will serve my time, and then I'll find that killer and bring him in . . ."

Foote gazed down on her silently. And then he pronounced sentence on Diane. He spoke with surprising venom.

He stressed first that if Diane should ever make money from 468 ANN RULE

writing a book about herself, much of it would go to pay fines to be levied by the court for the cost of the investigation and trial. Foote praised the heroism of the medical team at McKenzieWillamette.

"Those people did the best that could be done. They should be commended. The death of a child is one of life's greatest tragedies . . . what might have been . . .

"When it comes intentionally ... at the hands of a parent-it's just--an outrage. I don't apologize for the times I've reacted with emotion. The court grieves for Cheryl and feels sorrow for Christie and Danny . . . anger . . . frustration. I don't apologize for that. That's ironic, perhaps, since the defendant lacks those emotions."

Foote said that it was his intellect--his reason--that told him Diane had objectified the children to enable her to rid herself of them "like useless baggage."

He had fought his own battles with reason and emotion. His reason told him "she should never be in a position of freedom. She doesn't deserve to be free--that's emotion."

Foote said he knew all too well that a judge can never be sure of what the corrections department, or the parole board, might do. "I lose all control of the case then. I have to try to pre-suppose what they'll do."

With his present power Foote handed down his sentence,

each word flung at the woman who stood before him--a woman who was so beautiful, who looked so soft and frail, but whom he clearly saw only as a monster.

To guard against some future parole board forgetting the enormity of her crimes, Foote decreed that the sentences would run consecutively:

/^ '

( For Murder: Life plus five years minimum because she : had used a firearm; for Attempted Murder, counts two and four--thirty years, with a fifteen-year minimum (the mandatory five-year firearm charge would run concurrently); for

Assault in the First Degree, counts three and five--twenty years, with a ten-year minimum (with the mandatory fiveyears firearm concurrent sentence).

1 ^Gregory Foote had just sentenced Diane to life plus fifty years in prison, with a twenty-five-year mandatory minimum. ]He leaned toward Diane and said, "The Court hopes the defendant will never again be free. I've come as close to that as possible."

Diane had expected to go up to Salem to the Oregon Wornen's Correctional Institute; she hadn't expected that her sentence would be so overwhelming.

She simply refused to believe it. She would find some way to change it.

Diane was anxious to leave the jail in Eugene and get on with this next milestone of her life, but she was leery of arriving at prison alone. She had made one woman friend in the Lane County Jail--a woman named Billie Jo--and Diane planned for Billie Jo to accompany her to Salem.

Diane had given Willadene a long list of things to bring: clothes, her bathing suit, her tennis racket, her make-up--all her

"must haves for prison."

Her plans started to go awry when Billie Jo's commitment papers hadn't come through on August 31. Diane was scheduled to be transported to "the joint" that day. She would be alone-except for Chris Rosage who drove the van, and Doug Welch. Diane was livid. In a fit of temper, she tore up a handful of letters she'd intended to mail. When Rosage and Welch arrived at the jail at 2:00 p.m., they were met in the sally port by a corrections officer who cautioned, "Stand by. Look out. Diane is in a foul mood today--I've never seen it before; nobody here has ever seen her act this way before."

Diane had written Randy Woodfield to watch for her entrance into prison. "I'll be the one with the wiggle and the jiggle." It is doubtful that Randy could even see the walk into the wornen's facility from his cell, but Diane 'had prepared meticulously anyway.

Doug Welch's mouth almost dropped open when Diane walked out of the holding room in the jail. The pregnant defendant and the slender woman who had appeared at sentencing three days before had gone through yet another metamorphosis. This was a woman who had dressed for sexual trolling.

"She came out of the holding room strutting her stuff, exaggerated hip movement, long confident strides. She was angry, and nobody in the area escaped her wrath."

Even Welch--who had always been Diane's least favorite

cop--had only seen her so furious once before--during the hardball interview the previous summer.

Diane's hair had been cut very, very short on the sides, with a lock of hair falling over her forehead, the characteristic punk 470 ANN RULE

rocker wisp of hair at the back of the neck. Her naturally brown hair had grown out. There were only a few streaks of blonde left. She wore skintight Levi's, so tight that every mound, cleft and tuck was accentuated. Her jeans were tucked into the wildest pair of boots Welch had ever seen: shiny black leather with six-inch, spiked heels. The boots came up over the knee and were cut in the back into a V--probably to allow the leg to bend. Above this, Diane wore a short-sleeved sheer white blouse cut low in front. Her bra did nothing to support the breasts that jiggled with every furious stride.

Yes, the prisoners in the state penitentiary would remember Diane Downs's arrival. She looked mean, she looked bad, and she looked sexy. She did not look like a devout Baptist or a grieving mother.

Chris Rosage moved to put the "belly-chains" on her prisoner, and as she patted Diane down, she commented quietly that she'd "never seen boots like that before."

Diane, who usually liked Chris, snapped, "Well, it's just because you don't run with my kind of people."

Diane caught Welch studying her outfit, particularly the boots.

"What's wrong, Doug? Haven't you ever seen boots like these before?"

"Only on Bat Girl," he answered mildly.

As Chris adjusted the belly-chains, Diane turned to Welch.

"What are you going to do when the truth comes out, Doug?"

"Oh--probably just read about it," he answered. At seven minutes after two, the trio walked to the Ford prisoner's van and Diane was placed in the rear compartment. The

belly-chains allowed her cuffed hands only slight movement. Her rage seemed to have diminished. She sat quietly on a bench which ran along the side of the van and stared out the rear window as they pulled out of Eugene, passed Springfield, and then gathered speed along 1-5 going north.

Friday, August 31, was a gray day with spates of hard rain. Diane, who loved sunshine, would see only clouds and rain during the hour's drive to prison--her first prolonged time outside since her arrest six months before.

And, most probably, her last.

Welch studied her, and she turned to catch his eyes. She forced a resigned smile.

"Are you scared, Diane?" he asked.

"What do you think?"

When he glanced back later, he saw that Diane had wriggled until she was on her back, her legs spread obscenely wide, her bare midriff exposed. She stared into his eyes, and it dawned on him that she was attempting to seduce him. For God's sake, why?

Maybe because he was the last male she would see before prison?

He looked away, toward the road ahead.

They pulled through the main prison gates at one minute to three. Diane sat up and looked around. "Well, Diane, this is it," Welch said. "Here's your new home."

She gave him a sarcastic smile. "Thank you."

The guard in the tower requested credentials. Chris Rosage responded,

"We're from Lane County. We have one female

prisoner."

They drove through, past the men's sector.

Diane said suddenly, "Ya know, you're OK, Doug."

"How can you say that after calling me names for fifteen months?"

"I can't believe anyone can be as bad as you've acted. What's your sign?"

"Cancer--but I don't think we're compatible."

Weapons secured, they drove on slowly to the Women's

Center, located next to the Oregon State Penitentiary.

They headed down the long narrow sidewalk that leads to the intake area. Welch, following Diane and Chris up the walk, heard a voice yelling at him, someone banging on a widow. He turned to see a plump black woman in her thirties.