Diane Downs up for parole

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Diane Downs still insists that she is innocent of shooting her children, one fatally, in a crime that riveted Oregonians and was recounted in a TV movie starring Farrah Fawcett.

Next Tuesday, she comes up for a parole hearing.

Downs was convicted in 1984. Suspicion turned to her shortly after she arrived at a Springfield hospital, her three children wounded.

The prosecution said Downs shot them because she hoped to free herself to rekindle a romance with a married Arizona man.

Key testimony came from her oldest daughter, Christie Ann, who was 8 when shot. Sobbing at times, Christie Ann testified that her mother took a gun from the trunk of a parked car and opened fire.

Downs had 10 days of freedom when she escaped from prison in 1987.

Following her capture, Oregon officials sent her out of state.

At the hearing, she will testify from the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, Calif.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)