Small Sacrifices (49 page)

Woodfield's exploits up and down the freeway between Seattle and northern California had earned him notoriety as "The 15

Killer."

His convictions for the execution-style rape-murder of a nineteen-year-old Salem girl, for the attempted murder and rape 334 ANN RULE

of her best friend (who had survived three bullets to the skull), and--in subsequent trials--for sexually attacking other females ranging in age from eight to forty, had put him into the Oregon State Penitentiary for life, plus one hundred fifty-five years. He remained the prime suspect in several sexually motivated murders up and down the West Coast.

Randy Woodfield wrote to Diane, using the pseudonym

"Squirrely." He soon became Diane's "dear friend," even though she had not the slightest idea who he was. All she knew was that he was writing from prison. Woodfield had seen Diane in the papers and on television. He wrote to his "Blondie," going into explicit sexual detail about how exciting her pregnant state was to him. Since he too had been arrested in Lane County three years earlier, he felt a kinship with Diane.

Diane received a number of letters from "the guys" in the penitentiary; it helped her immeasurably to remain cheerful. Diane, the chameleon, slipped into the world of the con easily. She picked up prison slang as if she had always used it.

She found Squirrely's letters particularly charming, supportive, and stimulating. If they began on a friend-tofriendin-thesame-boat tone, they invariably steamed up. Squirrely was not

averse to describing his physical attributes, particularly the massive dimensions of his erections. These letters came to Diane in jail from a stranger. And to a perfect stranger, she wrote back--in the same vein.

Woodfield enthused, "I bet our kid would be a beautiful baby!"

Perhaps it would. They were both endowed with exceptional physical beauty, both of them strong and athletic. Diane Downs and Randy Woodfield were two sides of a coin: Narcissa on one and Narcissus on the other. If one should stare into a mirror, the J other might gaze back through the glass. She was fair and he was

dark. She could spot him twenty-five points on the IQ scale, even though he was the one who had almost four years of college. They were two dark stars whirling in the same orbit. Each had always felt the world was unfair, that fate and luck and karma had failed them. Each seemed to exist for sexual pleasure, and excitement, and naughty games against the establishment--and, t, always, for a place where the sunlight of publicity shone upon them.

Squirrely wrote to Diane often as she waited for her trial. His letters sounded like the tomes sent to the Forum section of "PentA

house" by college boys. They exchanged photos. He politely asked if he might masturbate on hers, but promised to cover it with plastic first. When Diane wrote to him, she invariably enclosed religious tracts, and occasionally she sent him pictures of her children.

Censors at the Lane County Jail recognized Randy's picture. He'd been arrested in Eugene and spent time in that facility. Diane was not in the least disturbed to learn that she was corresponding with a convicted rapist and murderer. He seemed like a

nice guy to her, and he was handsome with the full dark beard she had always preferred in men. Their letters flew back and forth, growing more erotic and intimate with each mailing.

It helped to fill her days.

Diane missed sunshine. Her skin was as green-white in the jail lights as the other prisoners'. The jail smelled like every jail: sawdust. Pine-sol, cigarette smoke, sweat, boredom, and tears. She never knew what the weather was like outside.

The ride to the courthouse would be only a few blocks long with little chance for her to feel the air or smell good smells. Anyway, it would probably be raining.

She was eager to get the trial over with. And then, Diane didn't care if she never saw the state of Oregon again.

E

To attempt to accommodate the crowds, the trial has been moved from Courtroom #8 to #3--the largest in the Lane County Courthouse. It isn't even close to being big enough to hold everyone trying to get in.

Number Three has yellow-brick walls and, toward the back of the room, walnut-stained two-by-twos lined up vertically over acoustical tile. There are no windows, only recessed lighting above the dropped ceiling panels. Judge Gregory Foote, looking austere in his black robe, sits between the American flag on his right and the state flag of Oregon on his left. His court reporter, Kay Cates, and his clerk Sharon Roe are in front of him. We of the press are only slightly more blase than the anxious spectators; we have been assured of a seat--(fwe can fit all of us into the first row. As the trial progresses and the front row grows more crowded, we will learn to stagger our note-taking by sitting right-handed/left-handed/courtroom artist/right-handed.

No cameras are allowed in the courtroom. A number of courtroom artists--some superb, some pedestrian--sketch furiously to catch a face, a mood, a certain shading of pain or fury before the witness steps down.

j Ray Broderick occupies the end seat of the second row on the left side of the courtroom. The opening performance of his "play" is about to begin. (After he testifies Doug Welch will sit in the end seat, second row, on the right side of the courtroom.)

This is a "young" trial. The judge is thirty-six, the prosecutor thirty-nine, the defense attorney thirty-eight, and the defendant twenty-eight. The press corps, for the most part, matches. The jury's median age is older.

* * *

340 ANN RULE

Women's voices--faceless--murmur behind the press row.

"I'm supposed to pick the kids up from school today--I hate to leave, but I'm in a pool."

"I plan to be here every Thursday," another voice whispers.

"That's my day off when I try to do something nice for myself. Usually, I go bowling ..."

And a deeper woman's voice, graveled with whiskey and

cigarettes, "I'm with her. CSD took my daughter away, and they never even told me she hadn't been going to school. They're just out to break up decent families."

"Do you think she did it?" someone else asks sotto voce. "I can't imagine a mother doing that."

"Well, she slept around--with anybody. What do you think?"

"That doesn't mean she'd kill her child."

The gallery draws a collective breath when she walks in, for the first time, accompanied by her personal deputy Chris Rosage. Chris wears her deputy's uniform; Diane had chosen a blue maternity dress with a little white collar. She is very pregnant, but she carries herself gracefully. Her shoes--high wedgie sandals with thin straps around her slender ankles--are so new that the soles have no marks.

In person, Diane is a surprisingly small woman, her bones delicate, her skin translucent. She doesn't look like a killer. She smiles faintly as she walks through the judge's chambers door and bows her head in a slight beneficent nod to the masses who await her appearance.

Diane requested beauty aids--bleach for her hair, makeup-but prisoners are not allowed to bleach their hair or to have curling irons or scissors. Refused, she has chosen to forego makeup entirely, and her complexion is sallow. Diane's blonde hair is growing dark at the roots, and it is a bit long in the back. One lock falls often over her eyes, and she tosses her head to lift it--a gesture that will become familiar.

Diane's pregnancy was only one of the hundred variables the prosecution team has considered. In the end, Hugi has decided simply to ignore it. Her condition has nothing to do with this trial or with the events of May 19, 1983. But what will the jury make of it? It is hard to overlook her great belly.

Hugi has filed a pretrial "motion in limine"--a request to limit the defense's reference to the sightings of people who resembled the

"bushy-haired stranger." Hugi submits that the fact there was a man in the general vicinity of the crime who resembled one of several descriptions Diane had given has only marginal relevance to the case. Ironically, among the cases Hugi cites to show that the inclusion of the BHS would serve to unduly distract the jury was the "State v. Woodfield." Randy Woodfield too had blamed a stranger for his crimes. To bolster his argument, Hugi cites the many versions of the crime and the suspect Diane has given.

"The defendant has produced two different composites (5-20-83 and 7-12-883) of the suspect. The defendant has stated,

'I don't know who shot me and the kids. I haven't the vaguest idea in the world' (8-5-83). The defendant has stated, 'I know the person used my name and made a reference about my tattoo. That means the asshole knew me' (7-18-83). The defendant stated,

'I know who did it.' When asked, 'You know this person, you know him by name?' the defendant responded, 'Yes, yes I do ... I know who did it! Bye' (7-22-83). The defendant stated, 'No, it's nobody I know. I only saw him because of one reason. They had ski masks on. When I hit the gun and kicked the guy, I grabbed his mask and pulled it off; the one behind me didn't say anything. I have no idea what he looks like' (7-24-83)." Jim Jagger wants to use information on possible bushy-hairedstranger suspects. Jagger himself takes the stand. Then he calls

Fred Hugi as a witness. When will the real trial start? The law'

yers are playing musical chairs.

"Of course, there were sightings," Hugi agrees with Jagger placidly. "We received calls from all over the U.S. and Canada and even the eastern seaboard about sightings of people who looked like the composite." But are they relevant to the case? Is the State withholding anything from the defense? The likely leads were followed up and dismissed; those that were patently ridiculous were culled out. Foote ultimately rules that the defense can receive only two of the reports on bushy-haired strangers. By Thursday, May 10, the jury files in: Daniel Bendt,

foreman--a tall, bearded young man, an electrical engineer; nine women--a few young but mostly middle-aged and elderly; two more men--middle-aged-a truckdriver and a pipefitter. Three alternate jurors. Oregon law stipulates only one or two, but one of the empaneled jurors has already suffered a migraine headache. Most of the jurors are married and parents. Several of them live in the country, and at least eight keep pistols, rifles, or shotguns in their homes for protection.

342 ANN RULE

They will not be sequestered; Lane County cannot afford to put a jury up in a hotel and furnish all meals for two months. They are instructed to avoid newspapers, television, and radio. Now it begins--this ceremony of testimony and judgment.

Fred Hugi and Jim Jagger are as close to being opposites as men might be. Hugi does not smile and appears tense. He seems unaware of the gallery. He moves around the courtroom like a

pool player sighting along his cue for the perfect shot; one gets the feeling that he will miss nothing.

Jim Jagger seems relaxed. His hair is as tousled as always and he wears an ill-fitting suit--the sleeves too short over his shirt cuffs, pants "high-water" above his unshined shoes, the coat's shoulders hunching up in an inverted V as he leans forward at the defense table. His clothes say, "Hey, you guys in the jury--I'm just like you. It's you and me against the rich guys." Jim Jagger's image is "folksy."

This seems to be a folksy jury. The women wear polyester leisure suits or summer cotton dresses, the men mostly western shirts--the kind with a center placket buttoned with mother-ofpearl studs. Jim Jagger isn't trying to convince a New York jury that his client is the victim of a monstrous mistake; he is talking to good, solid wives, mothers, grandmothers, most of whom look as if they would be more comfortable canning or serving Sunday dinner, to men who drive semis and work for Weyerhaeuser. The State has begun. Fred Hugi has spent more time organizing his opening statement than anything else. He wants to put the entire case in perspective so that the jury will know what to expect and if the proof substantiates his opening statement, they

will have no option but to come back with "Guilty." Hugi is a model of organization, a teacher patiently outlining an entirely foreign curriculum. He never says, "Ahhh"; his sentences do not run on. Each point follows the next, from some

outline perhaps in his own mind. He begins with the crime itself, and he tells the jury what happened next . . . and next . . . and next. He repeats Diane's remarks to police and medical Person1, nel. He points out the discrepancies, as her recall changed. He tells the jury that Diane acted, initially, as a cooperative victim of a crime; later, she did not cooperate.

In an hour or so, he must encapsulate her astounding back

ground and explain why and how she committed the crimes she sits accused of.

He unfolds his case. The motive: lust for a married man who did not want children. The method: the .22 Ruger that the killer had brought with her from Arizona. The opportunity: so easy-children safe and drowsy in their own mother's car, believing they were heading home to bed.

Diane Downs, Fred Hugi explains, wanted to marry Lew

Lewiston, and the only obstacle she saw to his getting a divorce was her children. "The plan that emerges is probably one that seemed reasonable at the time. An outside force would remove the children."

In his soft, matter-of-fact voice, Hugi reads Diane's letters to Lew aloud. They are sexually graphic; they are masterpieces of manipulation. And they also show the fine crafty intelligence of the woman who wrote them.

And her consuming obsession: "... I want so badly to wrap myself around you and hold you so close and tight that you'll never go away again."

Hugi reads aloud what will be referred to as "The Masturbation Poem."

.

I lay here quietly,

in the dark.

Deep inside me

there glows a spark.

The air breathes cool

across my skin

But desire burns fiercely

from within.

Thoughts of you, sye

play on my mind ffi3 Lying here alone

seems so unkind.