CHERYL LYNN DOWNS - 7 yo (1983) - Salem OR

On Friday, for the second time in two years, Oregon's parole board denied release to Elizabeth Diane Downs -- and this time the state's notorious child killer will not get another chance at parole for a decade.

By then, she will be 65. If that bothered her, Downs did not let it show. Appearing on a flat-screen TV via video link from California where she is in prison, she responded almost cheerfully to the board's decision. "Yes," she said, she understood.

Downs, who murdered her daughter and shot her two other young children in 1983, appeared calm and collected during most of the session. She didn't fidget. She rarely raised her voice. She spoke in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. But her testimony, as in the past, often slipped down side roads of explanations about the mystery man she claims carried out her crimes.

In her latest version, she linked the shooting to a boyfriend named Rick. She said he claimed to be an FBI agent and that someone called her that night to take photos to him. Although she and her children were watching the "Helen Keller Story," she packed them up and took a drive, encountering a stranger near Springfield who tried to carjack them and then shot her children.

She also said the prosecutor in the case, Fred Hugi, knew she was innocent.

"I believe Fred Hugi believes there's a man out there who is hunting my children," she said. "There are people who know and to them it's a game. It's a sicko game."

After Downs' conviction, Hugi and his wife adopted her two surviving children, Stephen Daniel "Danny," then 3, and Christie Ann, who was 8. Downs shot her third child, 7-year-old Cheryl Lynn, to death.

But she still denies that. "I didn't commit (those crimes) and I still maintain my innocence," she insisted.

Downs might just believe that, said Doug Welch, the lead investigator in the case who is now retired. He was one of the few members of the public at the hearing, held at Chemeketa Community College.

He said Downs appeared much the same as when he first interviewed her the night of the shooting: emotionless and rambling.

"That entire night there wasn't a tear," he said.

Downs didn't show any grief when speaking of her children at the hearing either. In fact, her flat tone when discussing how the prosecutor re-enacted shooting "the Christie doll and the Cheryl doll and the Danny doll" at her 1984 trial stunned board member Candace Wheeler.

"You talk about your kids in a cold, emotionless manner," Wheeler said. Downs later responded, saying she was affected by the loss of her children. "I live with it every day," she said. "I can't talk about my children. I have to internalize it. It's become my private grief."

But Downs did shed a few tears during the hearing -- when speaking of her elderly parents. She said her father was 80 and had suffered a stroke. She said she feared they would be hounded by the public and media if she were released and they all lived together at their home in Texas.

"Allow us to transfer to another state," she pleaded. "I love my parents. My dad needs me to take care of him."

She said her parents still give her an allowance of $95 a month. "I'm the oldest kid on the block," she said.

Downs, an inmate at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, Calif., spoke about the difficulty of being in prison, saying she needed to be paranoid to protect herself. She also maintained that now she's "peaceful, quiet, calm, laid-back."

And she said, for the first time, that her fourth child, who was born after her conviction, was conceived by artificial insemination.

She again denied that Rebecca Babcock, who has told her story to ABC's "20/20" television show, Glamour magazine and the "Oprah Show," is her child.

Her testimony -- and the board's questions -- took just under two hours. Then the three officials deliberated about 20 minutes. Their decision to decline parole was unanimous, said board chair Aaron Felton.

Downs has a "mental or emotional" disorder, he said, that makes her "a danger to the health of safety" of others.

The three-member board split on extending Downs' next hearing for a decade, with one member calling for eight years. The majority won out.

In the past, an inmate had a right to a new parole hearing in two years, but an Oregon law that took effect this year allows for a decade delay. Among 49 prisoners denied parole since April, the board has given only four inmates, including Downs, a 10-year wait.

Welch welcomed the decision. "I'm pleased with the outcome," he said. "She got life plus 50. Let her do life."