hgvbjka,,snmlkams

55. 
    Diane’s defense was centered on her story that a carjacker had attacked her and
    the children. Most people did not believe this. More than anything it was Diane’s
    often flippant attitude towards her story that made her suspicious. In an
    interview, she questioned her own actions in regards to her supposed guilt,
    asking, “Why would I have taken my kids to the hospital…wouldn't I have made
    sure they were dead and then cried crocodile tears?” (Dooley, 2010) When
    investigators had her act out the carjacking, she did it with a light attitude and
    even a few laughs, despite the fact she was reliving her daughter’s murder.
    One of the biggest holes in her story was as to why, if she was so intent on
    saving her children’s lives, had she only driven at about 5 miles per hour to the
    hospital after the attack (according to witnesses who saw her driving). She was
    also very calm once she arrived at the hospital.
    Her surviving daughter, who’d suffered a stroke, added less credibility to the
    story. When Diane visited Christie in the hospital, staff noticed the young girl’s
    increased heart rate and visible fear at the sight of her mother.
    Forensic evidence didn’t match Diane’s story, either. The driver’s side of the car
    lacked any presence of blood, despite the fact the rest of the car did, and no
    gunpowder residue was found on the driver’s panel. Robert Knickerbocker, a
    married man she’d had an affair with, told investigators that Diane had been
    stalking him and alluded to the fact that she’d kill his wife for them to be
    together. Investigators weren’t able to find the gun used to kill the children, but
    they discovered unfired casings in her house from the same gun that shot them.
    The prosecution claimed that Diane had tried to kill her children so that she
    could continue her romance with Knickerbocker. Once Christie was able to
    speak again, she testified against her mother. She stated that Diane had parked
    on the side of the road and shot all three children before shooting herself.
    During the trial, the prosecution played Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf,”
    the song that was playing on the car radio when the shootings took place. Author
    Anne Rule, who was at the trial, was surprised to see Diane, "Tapping her feet to
    the music” and “snapping her fingers and tapping her foot as if she had no
    connection to the proceedings”. (Harrington, 2008)
    The Aftermath
    Diane Downs was found guilty on June 17, 1984. Diane was sentenced to life
    imprisonment, plus fifty years. She escaped in 1987 but was caught. Diane was
    denied parole in both 2008 and 2010. A well-known book by Anne Rule and a
    made-for-TV movie called Small Sacrifices were made about her story.
    Christie and her brother, Stephen, ended up living with Fred Hugi, one of the
    case’s prosecutors. A month after her trial, Diane gave birth to a child she named
    Amy. Before her sentencing, the child was seized by the State of Oregon and
    adopted not long afterwards. This child, later renamed Rebecca, appeared on The
    Oprah Winfrey Show in 2010 and on 20/20 in 2011. She stated that after she had
    contacted her mother for the first time that Diane had sent her a twelve page
    letter claiming that a secret man had been watching over Rebecca all her life and
    that she (Diane) was currently in prison so she’d, “Be safe from the real killer”.
    (Baker, 2010) Rebecca was to cut off all contact with her mother after that.
    Robin Lee Row
    Robin Lee Row is well-known for being the only female on Idaho’s Death Row.
    In 1992, she started a fire in the apartment where her estranged husband, 10-
    year-old son, and 8-year-old daughter were living, effectively killing them all. In
    1980, she’d lost a son and in 1976 a daughter.
    The Murders
    On the morning of February 10, 1992, Robin disabled the smoke detectors in her
    estranged husband’s apartment and squirted an accelerant inside. She then set it
    on fire. Forensics also discovered that the furnace fan was set to run
    continuously which fed the flames and circulated the smoke throughout the
    house. (Boone, 2011) The carbon monoxide killed her husband, Randy, and
    children, Joshua and Tabitha. She was sentenced to death for her crime.
    Sheriff Gary Raney, who was the lead investigator for the case back in 1992,
    made the arrest. When talking about the murders today, he calls them, “The most
    premeditated for gain murders that [I’ve] ever seen” (Grey, 2012).
    Robin, who had benefited financially from the insurance money paid out from
    her first child’s death twelve years earlier, had recently taken out insurance
    policies --a quarter million dollars’ worth-- against her family. Raney referred to
    her as a “sociopath”. (Grey, 2012)
    At the time of her family’s murders, Robin had been staying with friends since
    she and her husband were separated. She claimed that he had sexually assaulted
    her. (Funk & Holbrook, 2012) Court records, however, said the relationship was
    “mutually abusive”. (Boone, 2011) Yet it didn’t take long for her to become the
    main suspect in the investigation because investigators almost immediately
    discovered the insurance policies, all six of them. They then went on to find that
    she’d also been embezzling money from her job at the YMCA.
    The friend she’d been staying with, Joan, worked with investigators and
    recorded their phone conversations. When she told Robin that she’d been
    surprised to find her gone on the morning of the deaths, Robin informed her
    she’d been outside, in her car, talking to her psychiatrist until 4:30 a.m. Even
    though this would have been a solid alibi, she kept this information from the
    police.
    The Aftermath
    After conviction Robin was to appeal and continue appealing for her case to be
    reviewed and although her appeal was dismissed in 2011, the judge did clear her
    to ask a higher court to consider some other issues in her case. These issues
    included as to whether she had had to wait too long for arraignment and if her
    attorneys were ineffectual. (Grey, 2012)
    Some people are not happy with the length of time it is taking for justice to be
    served. Chris Danielson, Randy’s sister, said, “She did get the death penalty, and
    it's just being dragged on and on and on at the expense of everybody.” (Grey,
    2012)
    Sheriff Raney now believes she killed her other two children as well. She wasn’t
    charged with those deaths, but that just made Raney want to work even harder
    on this one. He went on record as saying, “I am determined that, if in fact this
    was murder, that I am going to do everything I can to collect the evidence and
    make sure she doesn't get away with it again”. (Grey, 2012)
    Ultimately, the death of her fifteen-month-old daughter was put down to an
    incidence of SIDS. Raney is not convinced and believes that she smothered the
    child. In 1980, she and her 6-year-old son Keith were staying in a borrowed
    cabin when a fire started. He perished when his blanket caught fire. However,
    forensics found that his bedroom door had been locked. Raney believes he tried
    to get out through the door and then died when he went for the window. She
    earned $28,000 in life insurance from Keith's death.
    Robin was found guilty of premeditated murder on December 16, 1993. She was
    sentenced to death. The judge, Honorable Alan Schwartzman, called her a
    pathological liar at her sentencing and stated that her actions, “Represent the
    final betrayal of motherhood and embody the ultimate affront to civilized
    notions of maternal instinct”. (Boone, 2011)
    Susan Smith
    Another notorious murder case in the 1990s involved Susan Smith and the
    murder of her two young sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex.
    Although initially she told investigators that a black man had approached the car
    and then driven off with them while they’d been at a stop light, in fact she’d
    drowned them by pushing the car into a lake.
    Who was Susan Smith?
    Susan was married to David Smith. She held a complicated life that included
    periods of depression, suicide attempts, and extramarital affairs. An affair had
    just ended when the murders happened and it was this incident that might have
    made her “snap.” As a child, her stepfather, Beverly Russell, sexually molested
    Susan. This came out during the trial and the once respected church going man
    and political leader faced his own shame.
    During the trial, the defense painted David Smith as a controlling, jealous man
    who knew of her extramarital affairs and threatened to expose her to the town.
    He also purportedly threatened to turn her over to the IRS.
    Susan and David experienced tension in their marriage from the beginning. They
    married young, as many couples from their area did, and worried about money.
    Susan habitually asked her mother for loans, something that bothered David.
    Linda, Susan’s mother, and David had a strained relationship themselves and he
    found her to be controlling. David was Susan’s boss at Winn-Dixie and this
    caused issues at home as well.
    Due to their problems, and Susan’s affairs, they had separated several times.
    Still, most people agreed that they appeared to be loving and devoted parents to
    their children.
    The Murders
    On the night of October 25th, Susan strapped her children in their car seats and
    drove to John D. Long Lake, a recreation area outside Union. There, she rolled
    the car into the water where they drowned. In the beginning, the case was looked
    upon as an abduction. Susan claimed the carjacker had held her at gunpoint and
    when she pleaded with him to get the kids out first, he told her there “wasn’t
    time” and that he wouldn’t hurt the kids. Susan drew sympathy from onlookers
    as she seemed to exhibit sadness and grief over the loss of her sons.
    In many interviews and television appearances, Smith looked into television
    cameras and pleaded with the “carjacker” who’d supposedly held her at gunpoint
    and then taken off with her children in the back of the car. She begged for the
    “young black man” to bring them back. Thousands of volunteers got involved in
    the search. They looked in lakes, handed out flyers, and looked all over the
    countryside for clues. However, eventually Smith came to find herself praying
    with the county sheriff whereupon she admitted to doing the crime most people
    didn’t want to believe a mother could commit.
    Tommy Pope, the state’s lead prosecutor, argued that while she might have
    shown remorse during their search and trial, she didn’t feel it. He claimed that as
    the car slid into the water she ran from the edge with her hands over her ears.
    It was later determined that Smith killed her sons in an attempt to gain back the
    love and affections of her boyfriend, a man who did not want children. Tom
    Findlay, a coworker, who was good looking and had money. She began seeing
    him when she and David separated for the last time. Although Susan was happy
    with him, he reportedly found her to be “possessive” and that, coupled with the
    fact that he didn’t want children, caused him to call off the relationship.
    Smith provided a handwritten confession which was released on November 22,
56. In it, she wrote that she was “emotionally distraught” when she left home
    the day of the murders and that she didn’t want to live anymore. She claimed she
    was originally going to just “drive around” for a while and later go to her
    mother’s, yet as her anxiety mounted she came to the conclusion that she felt she
    “couldn’t be a good mom anymore” but that she didn’t want her children to
    “grow up without a mom.” She ultimately felt that she had to end all their lives
    to “protect [us] from any grief or harm.”
    The Aftermath
    The fact that Susan chose to accuse a young black man for the crime drew as
    much national attention to the case as the murders themselves. Susan’s attorney
    argued that the murders were also a failed suicide attempt and that Susan had
    planned on taking her life as well but jumped out of the car at the last minute. It
    took the jury 2 ½ hours to consider the death penalty. They ultimately decided
    that Susan Smith should receive life in prison rather than the death sentence, so
    that she could continue thinking about and living with her actions. They agreed
    unanimously that she be, “Left alone in a tiny cell with the ghosts of her dead
    children”. (Bragg, 1995) As her verdict was read out, she gasped and hugged her
    attorney, David Bruck, who stated that Smith was “in a lake of fire”. (Bragg,
    1995) David Smith had already said he wanted his estranged wife to die for her
    actions. (Bragg, 1995)
    "I'll never forget what Susan has done to me, my family and her family,” David
    Smith said after the verdict was read. “I can never forget Michael and Alex.”
    (Bragg, 1995) In an interview with Nancy Grace in 2013, David reported that he
    was remarried with two children. He stated that while there were still bad days,
    there were, “Definitely more good days now than bad ones”. (Cavazini, 2013)
    Conclusion
    A study at Brown University in 2014 analyzed more than thirty years’ worth of.