"Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder"

Paper Summary:

This paper first briefly recounts the actual story, written about in Rule's book, of the woman accused of shooting her three children, killing one of them and permanently injuring the other two, because of a delusional belief that the man she loved would leave his wife and marry her if she had no children. The paper then goes on to describe how Rule's background as a former police officer lends authenticity to her writing and reporting of the story.

From the Paper:

"The events of this crime began when Diane Downs drove up to the emergency room of the hospital in Springfield, Oregon, shouting that a bushy-haired stranger had shot her and her three children on a deserted road. Her middle child, Cheryl, was dead by the time she got there although the hospital tried to resuscitate her. The other two were saved by luck as well as solid effort; specialized medical help happened to be in the hospital or nearby at the time of the incident. Diane herself was shot in the arm, breaking it badly, and at first it did not occur to law enforcement that Diane might have actually been the shooter. The son, Danny, was too young to tell what had happened, and the oldest child, Christie, lost so much blood that it triggered a stroke that impaired her ability to speak for some time. The police could not find the gun and had little solid evidence connecting anyone to the crime."

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