After nearly 25 years in prison, Diane Downs has once again changed her story about the night she and her children were shot on a lonely rural road near Springfield.

Downs was convicted of killing her 7-year-old daughter, Cheryl Lynn, and wounding 3-year-old Danny and 8-year-old Christie Ann.

It was a crime that shocked the nation long before the well-publicized cases of Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, also mothers who killed their own children. A best-selling book and a made-for-television movie starring Farrah Fawcett were based on the case.

Downs, now 53, will face the Oregon Board of Parole for the first time on Tuesday.

While she has always maintained her innocence, Downs has through the years given wildly varying accounts of what happened the night of May 19, 1983.

First, it was a bushy-haired stranger who tried to carjack Downs and ended up shooting the family.

In more recent versions, she claimed to know the identity of the shooter, as well as proof that he has confessed to friends and family.

In a document provided to the parole board this year, Downs now says that at the time she was dating a man who claimed to be an FBI agent. On the night of the shooting, she got a phone call from another man who claimed to have photographs of someone the agent was investigating. She agreed to meet him.

“When I arrived at the meeting place, my children were attack,” she wrote, making a grammatical error with the word “attack.”

“I struggled with the male shooter and drove my children to the hospital,” Downs wrote.

When asked in a parole board questionnaire whether she experiences remorse for the actions or behaviors that led to her incarceration, Downs said she prefers the word “regret.”

“I realize this questionnaire is a tactful way of asking if I accept responsibility for the death of my daughter. And I’m not trying to make this any harder on you than you are being on me,” she wrote. “It’s just that I did not shoot my children and I can’t say I did.”

It is one of several documents Downs submitted to the board. She also addresses a litany of accusations leveled against her while she has been in prison, as well as her psychological evaluation and the legal reasons that she should be freed. The psychological evaluation has not been made public.

Lane County District Attorney F. Douglass Harcleroad dismissed her claims in a letter to the board opposing her release.

“Downs continues to fail to demonstrate any honest insight into her criminal behavior,” Harcleroad wrote. “She continues to blame others for the commission of her crimes, and blames her attorney, the police officers, the prosecutor and others for her convictions. Even after her convictions, she continues to fabricate new versions of events under which the crimes occurred.”

When she was brought to trial nine months after the shooting, a jury believed the prosecution’s assertion that Downs drove to the isolated road, got a .22-caliber handgun out of the trunk and shot her children while Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like A Wolf” played on the radio.

Downs shot herself in the arm before driving slowly, prosecutors said, to a nearby hospital.

Those who treated Downs noted her calm behavior in the hospital. Later, as a video would document, she giggled at times as she re-enacted for police the attack by the bushy-haired stranger.

The prosecution alleged Downs shot her children because she believed they were in the way of her relationship with a married man.

Christie Downs testified as a key witness. Prosecutor Frederick Hugi, who later adopted Christie and Danny, asked her: “Who shot you?”

“Mom,” she replied.

Downs was convicted of murder, attempted murder and assault. She was sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years.

She became the subject of a best-selling book by Ann Rule, the basis for the television movie.

Downs grabbed headlines again in 1987 when she escaped from the recreation yard at Oregon Women’s Correctional Center. She was captured 10 days later at a home less than a mile from the prison.

She has been accused of other escape plots. She has at times been held in Oregon, Washington state, New Jersey and California.

In one document submitted to the parole board, she argued that her escape is a rationale for paroling her.

“If you truly want to know what sort of prisoner won’t come back to prison, your first clue is the prisoner who thinks more about being on the outside of this place than being ‘well programmed’ or ‘adjusted’ HERE,” she writes. “I am NOT ashamed of my escape. At least I don’t want to be here and will do everything I need to do so I don’t come back.”

Because of interest in Oregon and coverage of the case, the parole board has moved the Downs hearing to a community college auditorium near Salem. Downs will answer questions via video conference from Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, Calif.

If Downs is denied parole, her next chance for reconsideration will be in two years. If she ever is granted parole, her release will be delayed 14 months as she serves time for the 1987 escape.