#I 5 KILLER VICTIMS TRIAL#

The bravery of this young girl, who wished to seek justice for her dead sister, was moving, and terribly sad.

In court, she found the words to explain to the judge and jury exactly what her mother had done. Christie was also left with serious injuries, such as paralysis on one side of her body, and speech difficultiesвЂ¦ but she was so very courageous. However, her little son was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot at near point-blank range.

Her oldest daughter, Christie, who was eight, survived the attack, and so did 3-year old Danny Downs. Stopping the car along a deserted stretch of road, she killed Cheryl, her second child, aged 7, in cold blood. On a macabre night drive, she tried to end the lives of her own children. Her children from a prior marriage, Christie, Cheryl, and Danny, were the вЂњsmall sacrificesвЂќ in this terrible crime. Her plot to kill her children was a desperate, last-ditch attempt to hold on to a man who wanted out. When her lover, Lew, made it clear that a life with children was not in his master plan, she began to create a twisted scheme in which she would destroy her offspring, who had become only obstacles to her own happiness. The subject of true crime author Anne RuleвЂ™s best selling book, Small Sacrifices, Diane Downs, chose a romantic relationship over her own children.

#I 5 KILLER VICTIMS TRIAL#

Elizabeth Diane Downs is led in handcuffs into the Lane County Courthouse in 1984 on the first day of her trial on accusations that she shot her three children, one fatally.

I 5 killer victims