Shadows In The Pines

Diane Downs and Old Mohawk Road Part 1

🚨 This week on Shadows in the Pines, we head to Springfield, Oregon for one of the most disturbing and psychologically unsettling cases in true crime history: the case of Diane Downs.   On a dark stretch of Old Mohawk Road in May of 1983, three children were shot inside a family car. Seven-year-old Cheryl Lynn Downs was killed. Eight-year-old Christie and three-year-old Danny barely survived. Their mother claimed a bushy-haired stranger stepped out of the darkness and opened fire.   But almost immediately, detectives began noticing things that didn’t feel right.   The timeline. The crime scene. The interviews. The smiling.   As the investigation tightened, the horrifying possibility at the center of the case became impossible to ignore: what if there never was a stranger at all?   In this episode, Dan and Bekah follow the full chronology of the Diane Downs case — from Diane’s chaotic early life and obsession with Robert “Nick” Knickerbocker, to the shooting on Old Mohawk Road, the media circus that followed, Christie’s devastating testimony, the nationally televised trial, Diane’s bizarre courtroom behavior, and the prison escape that somehow made the story even stranger.   This is not just the story of a murder investigation.   It’s the story of three children trapped inside a car on a dark Oregon road… and the mother a jury believed pulled the trigger.   🎙️ New episodes premiere every Sunday night at 8PM Pacific.   🕯️ Follow, rate, and share Shadows in the Pines wherever you listen to podcasts.   #ShadowsInThePines #DianeDowns #TrueCrime #PacificNorthwest #OregonTrueCrime #OldMohawkRoad #TrueCrimePodcast #AnnRule #SmallSacrifices #SpringfieldOregon

Robert Lee Yates Jr - Final

Just a soft recap of what we’ve learned and final thoughts along with show announcements

Mini Pines - Blue Bucket Mine

🏔️🪣 This week on Mini Pines, we head deep into the high desert of eastern Oregon for one of the strangest lost-treasure legends in American history — The Blue Bucket Mine. 🌵✨   In 1845, a wagon train following the infamous Meek Cutoff became hopelessly lost in the Oregon wilderness. Families starved. People died. And somewhere during the nightmare journey, children playing in a dry creek bed may have unknowingly filled a blue bucket with raw gold nuggets years before the California Gold Rush ever began. ⛏️💰   But there’s a problem.   Nobody could ever find the creek again. 👀   For nearly 180 years, treasure hunters, prospectors, historians, and explorers have searched the deserts and canyons of eastern Oregon trying to uncover the legendary mine that may not even exist at all. 🗺️☠️   Tonight, we’re talking about the Meek Cutoff disaster, Stephen Meek’s deadly “shortcut,” pioneer survival, lost gold, and the eerie possibility that one of America’s greatest hidden treasures is still buried somewhere beneath the sagebrush. 🌙🔥   Welcome to Mini Pines. 🌲🎙️

Robert Lee Yates Jr. - Part 3 - The Net Closes

September 24th, 1997. A Spokane patrol officer pulls over a white Corvette near East Sprague. The driver is Robert Lee Yates Jr. He’s ticketed and allowed to go. The officer fills out the field interview report and writes one word in the vehicle make field. Camaro. In Part Three of the Robert Lee Yates Jr. arc, Dan and Becka follow the investigation from the inside — the task force, the databases, the September 1999 interview where he sweats through his shirt and walks out a free man, the Corvette that finally closes the net, and the morning of April 18th, 2000 when it all ends on Market Street. Then the sentencing hearing, 408 years, and Pierce County Prosecutor John Ladenburg’s decision that he is not bound by anything Spokane negotiated. Content warning: This episode contains detailed discussion of homicide, sexual violence, and the failures of institutional response.

Robert Lee Yates Jr. - Part 2 - The killing years

Shadows in the Pines — The Killing Years (Robert Lee Yates Jr., Part Two) East Sprague Avenue, Spokane. The late 1990s. A social worker named Lynn Everson parks a Winnebago on the strip once a week and keeps a bad-trick list of over a hundred and forty entries. The man in the white Corvette is never on it. In Part Two of the Robert Lee Yates Jr. arc, Dan and Becka spend time with the thirteen women he killed between 1996 and 1998 — who they were, where they came from, and what investigators found. From Shannon Zielinski, who was scheduled to testify in a murder trial, to Melody Murfin, who was buried in his yard while his family walked past. From the task force that formed too late to the one woman who survived him and didn’t know she’d been shot for seven months. This episode is about the victims. All of them. Content warning: This episode contains detailed discussion of homicide, sexual violence, and substance use.