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Theresa Knorr _ Murder Mother Extraordinaire · This is monsters

0:01
Speaker 1: On October 20th, 1993, a woman working on the tip
0:05
Speaker 1: line for America's Most Wanted took a call from an
0:08
Speaker 1: upset woman. The caller claimed to have information regarding the
0:12
Speaker 1: story that had just aired about the unknown identity of
0:15
Speaker 1: two female bodies found murdered in California in the mid-80s.
0:20
Speaker 1: She identified herself as Terry Knorr, and she claimed that
0:23
Speaker 1: the victims were not only connected by their shared killer,
0:27
Speaker 1: but they were also sisters. Her sisters. This is Monsters.
1:06
Speaker 1: Teresa Jimmy Francine Cross was born on March 14, 1946,
1:11
Speaker 1: in Sacramento, California. She was the first child of her parents,
1:15
Speaker 1: Jim and Sweeney, although her mother had two children from
1:18
Speaker 1: a previous marriage. Jim worked as a cheesemaker while Sweeney
1:23
Speaker 1: raised the children. However, in the late 1950s, the roles
1:27
Speaker 1: were reversed when Jim was forced to quit his job
1:30
Speaker 1: after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a brain disorder that
1:35
Speaker 1: causes unintended or uncontrollable movements such as shaking, stiffness, and
1:40
Speaker 1: difficulty with balance and coordination. Sweeney became the primary breadwinner
1:45
Speaker 1: for the family while the children took turns taking care
1:48
Speaker 1: of Jim. As Jim's condition worsened, he became more immobile
1:52
Speaker 1: and he started to take his frustrations out on his
1:55
Speaker 1: wife and children. This was the beginning of Teresa's long
1:59
Speaker 1: and fatal relationship with violence. Teresa was extremely close to
2:04
Speaker 1: her mother, who did her best to protect the children
2:06
Speaker 1: from Jim's outbursts, but everything changed in 1961 when Teresa
2:11
Speaker 1: watched her mother take her last breath. While Jim had
2:15
Speaker 1: been battling Parkinson's, Sweeney had unknowingly been suffering from congestive
2:20
Speaker 1: heart failure. With the main income earner dead and Jim
2:23
Speaker 1: unable to work, the family were forced to sell their
2:26
Speaker 1: home and move into rented accommodations. A year later, when
2:31
Speaker 1: Teresa was 16 years old, she dropped out of high
2:34
Speaker 1: school to marry her boyfriend Clifford Sanders. Clifford was five
2:39
Speaker 1: years older than his bride, and to Teresa, he represented
2:42
Speaker 1: stability and a life outside of her father's abuse. But
2:45
Speaker 1: this was no fairytale high school romance. Teresa herself was
2:50
Speaker 1: extremely controlling and jealous of Clifford, and she constantly accused
2:54
Speaker 1: him of cheating on her. Their fights almost always ended
2:57
Speaker 1: in violence, with each of them as physical as the other.
3:01
Speaker 1: Despite the on-again, off-again nature of their marriage, in 1963,
3:06
Speaker 1: Teresa gave birth to their first child, Howard. Unsurprisingly, the
3:11
Speaker 1: arrival of a baby did little to change the dynamics
3:14
Speaker 1: of their relationship. If anything, it made it worse. Clifford
3:19
Speaker 1: had a job. He could go out drinking when he wanted,
3:21
Speaker 1: and he was free to spend time with his friends.
3:24
Speaker 1: While Teresa was stuck at home with Howard, Her jealousy
3:27
Speaker 1: was all-consuming, and eventually, Clifford decided he had had enough,
3:31
Speaker 1: and on June 6th, 1964, he told his wife he
3:35
Speaker 1: was leaving. He had threatened to walk out before, but
3:39
Speaker 1: this time, Teresa could tell he meant it. As Clifford
3:42
Speaker 1: walked out the door of their home, Teresa took her
3:45
Speaker 1: husband's rifle and shot him in the back. Sitting on
3:48
Speaker 1: the floor between Teresa and her husband was baby Howard.
3:52
Speaker 1: Violence entered his life just ten days before his first birthday.
3:57
Speaker 1: Just like his mother, it was merely the beginning of
4:00
Speaker 1: a long and fatal relationship. After shooting Clifford, Teresa calmly
4:05
Speaker 1: picked up her son and walked a few houses up
4:07
Speaker 1: the road to knock on the door of the deputy
4:09
Speaker 1: sheriff's home. She told him, quote, The deputy raced back
4:17
Speaker 1: to the Sanders' home, but it was too late. Clifford
4:20
Speaker 1: was already dead. Unlike what Teresa had told the deputy,
4:24
Speaker 1: it was no single shot to the arm. He had
4:26
Speaker 1: been shot once directly in his heart. Clifford would have
4:30
Speaker 1: been dead almost as soon as he hit the floor.
4:33
Speaker 1: Teresa explained the shooting as self-defense. She claimed that Clifford
4:37
Speaker 1: was violently beating her with the butt of his rifle
4:40
Speaker 1: and she had managed to wrestle the gun from his
4:42
Speaker 1: hands and shot him to protect herself and her baby.
4:46
Speaker 1: To prove her point, she reminded the sheriff about an
4:49
Speaker 1: incident just two weeks prior where she had called the
4:52
Speaker 1: cops because Clifford had hit her. She had refused to
4:55
Speaker 1: press charges against her husband because he had moved out
4:58
Speaker 1: the same night. Tragically, he had only returned to the
5:01
Speaker 1: home the day before Teresa shot him. Right away, the
5:05
Speaker 1: deputy sensed something wasn't adding up. Teresa was a petite 18-year-old,
5:10
Speaker 1: and Clifford was more than 6 foot tall and 200 pounds.
5:14
Speaker 1: So how could she have wrestled the weapon out of
5:16
Speaker 1: his hands? She had no signs of bruising or injuries
5:20
Speaker 1: from the violent beating she claimed to have suffered, and
5:22
Speaker 1: then there was the fact that Clifford was facing out
5:25
Speaker 1: of the door when he was shot. Surely if they
5:28
Speaker 1: had been wrestling over the weapon, he would have been
5:30
Speaker 1: facing her when she pulled the trigger. Teresa was taken
5:34
Speaker 1: into custody and charged with murder, and Howard was sent
5:37
Speaker 1: to stay with relatives. The following day, she was interviewed again,
5:41
Speaker 1: and even though the shooting had taken place less than
5:43
Speaker 1: 24 hours earlier, Teresa had already changed her story. This time,
5:49
Speaker 1: she told a more likely tale. She stated that Clifford
5:52
Speaker 1: hadn't actually hit her that morning, he had just threatened to.
5:56
Speaker 1: When she saw him packing his bags to leave, she
5:58
Speaker 1: went into the bedroom where the gun was stored, loaded it,
6:02
Speaker 1: and brought it back into the living room. As he
6:04
Speaker 1: reached for the door, Teresa claimed that she blacked out, saying, quote,
6:08
Speaker 1: A month after the shooting, Teresa pleaded not guilty to murder.
6:18
Speaker 1: By the time her trial got underway, she had another
6:21
Speaker 1: secret to share. Teresa revealed that she was pregnant with
6:25
Speaker 1: her dead husband's baby, and she made sure to use
6:27
Speaker 1: the pregnancy to her advantage throughout the trial. In the court,
6:32
Speaker 1: she looked like a caring and devoted mother. She dressed
6:35
Speaker 1: conservatively and cried at exactly the right moments. When it
6:39
Speaker 1: was her turn to testify, she claimed that she loved
6:42
Speaker 1: her husband and that she had simply wanted to scare Clifford.
6:46
Speaker 1: She never meant to kill him. At the same time,
6:49
Speaker 1: she was very clear that her husband was a violent
6:51
Speaker 1: alcoholic and womanizer. Clifford's family strongly defended his character. His
6:57
Speaker 1: sister said he was a gentle and loving man that
6:59
Speaker 1: never once laid a hand on his pretty young wife.
7:03
Speaker 1: She claimed that Teresa was the violent and controlling one
7:06
Speaker 1: who went so far as to drive Clifford to and
7:09
Speaker 1: from work each day so that he never met any
7:11
Speaker 1: other women. She told the court that she believed Teresa
7:15
Speaker 1: had intentionally killed him because he was going to leave her.
7:18
Speaker 1: Clifford's sister also made another shocking claim. She told the
7:23
Speaker 1: court that Teresa had shot at Clifford once before. She
7:26
Speaker 1: had missed the first time, but she didn't miss the second.
7:30
Speaker 1: When the jury retired for deliberations, there was no question
7:34
Speaker 1: that Teresa had been the one to put the bullet
7:36
Speaker 1: through Clifford. It was just a matter of whether she
7:39
Speaker 1: should be held responsible for her actions. After an hour
7:43
Speaker 1: of deliberations, the jury returned their verdict. Not guilty. Teresa
7:49
Speaker 1: had gotten away with murder for the first time. Eight
7:52
Speaker 1: months later, she gave birth to her first daughter, Sheila.
7:56
Speaker 1: The birth was a turning point for Teresa, but not
7:59
Speaker 1: in a good way. She started drinking heavily and going
8:02
Speaker 1: out more often. After starting a relationship with an army veteran,
8:07
Speaker 1: she would leave the two young children with him while
8:09
Speaker 1: she was out drinking, sometimes for days at a time.
8:13
Speaker 1: When the man discovered Teresa was sleeping around, he left.
8:17
Speaker 1: Singledom didn't last long for Teresa, and by the end
8:20
Speaker 1: of the year, she was in a new relationship with
8:23
Speaker 1: another military vet. Robert Wallace Knorr was two years younger
8:27
Speaker 1: than Teresa and an active Marine. Just a couple of
8:31
Speaker 1: months after meeting, she was pregnant again. The couple got
8:35
Speaker 1: married after Susan was born, and a year later, she
8:38
Speaker 1: delivered William, who was also known as Billy Bob. A
8:41
Speaker 1: year after that, there was another boy, Robert Jr. Teresa
8:45
Speaker 1: was now 22 years old and the mother of five
8:48
Speaker 1: children under five. All seven of them were crammed into
8:52
Speaker 1: a tiny two-bedroom house with little room for anyone to
8:55
Speaker 1: get privacy from each other. Despite the evident intimacy between
9:00
Speaker 1: Robert and Teresa, the relationship had many of the same
9:03
Speaker 1: problems as her marriage to Clifford. Teresa still had a
9:07
Speaker 1: drinking problem and was intensely jealous, while Robert had a
9:11
Speaker 1: violent temper and a drinking problem of his own. Just
9:14
Speaker 1: like what had happened to Teresa and her siblings, the
9:17
Speaker 1: children were often caught in the middle of their parents' fights.
9:21
Speaker 1: For the most part, Teresa tried to protect her children
9:24
Speaker 1: from Robert's abuse, but more often than not, it was
9:27
Speaker 1: up to the oldest child, Howard, to patch up the
9:29
Speaker 1: wounds on his siblings. By the time Teresa became pregnant
9:34
Speaker 1: with her sixth child, the violence inside the home had
9:37
Speaker 1: become all-consuming and barely a day passed without an incident
9:40
Speaker 1: of some kind. When Terry was born in August of 1970,
9:45
Speaker 1: the family was at a breaking point and a month later,
9:48
Speaker 1: Robert packed up his bags and filed for divorce. The
9:52
Speaker 1: separation should have marked a new start for Teresa and
9:55
Speaker 1: her six children. Instead, they moved from house to house
9:59
Speaker 1: while she went from man to man. There were two
10:02
Speaker 1: more marriages and two more divorces before the family settled
10:05
Speaker 1: into a home in Sacramento which was finally big enough
10:08
Speaker 1: to house all of them comfortably. For a while, things
10:12
Speaker 1: were really looking up and the children were settled. Teresa
10:16
Speaker 1: seemed much happier on her own and she doted on
10:18
Speaker 1: the children. She took the younger ones to Dairy Queen
10:22
Speaker 1: while the older kids were at school, and when she
10:24
Speaker 1: didn't have money for schoolbooks, she would pawn off some
10:27
Speaker 1: of her belongings to make ends meet. Even after having
10:30
Speaker 1: six kids and being a busy stay-at-home mom, Teresa always
10:34
Speaker 1: presented herself well and took care of her appearance. She
10:37
Speaker 1: was slim and attractive, and she knew how to highlight
10:40
Speaker 1: her best features to get the attention of any man
10:43
Speaker 1: she set her eyes on. But after her fourth marriage,
10:46
Speaker 1: a change started to occur. She began to put on
10:49
Speaker 1: weight rapidly, and she stopped brushing her hair like she
10:52
Speaker 1: used to. But it wasn't just her appearance that had changed.
10:56
Speaker 1: Teresa had never been religious, but all of a sudden
10:59
Speaker 1: began reading the Bible at every opportunity. She forced the
11:03
Speaker 1: kids to recite verses, and she restricted who they could
11:06
Speaker 1: spend time with, especially if they weren't religious. What Teresa
11:10
Speaker 1: didn't know then was that the most ungodly of acts
11:14
Speaker 1: was happening inside the walls of her very own house.
11:17
Speaker 1: Terry was just six years old when her older brother
11:20
Speaker 1: Howard began molesting her. It took a few months before
11:24
Speaker 1: Teresa found out what was going on, and when it
11:26
Speaker 1: finally came out into the open, all hell broke loose.
11:30
Speaker 1: She brutally beat Howard for what he had done with
11:32
Speaker 1: the hopes that her violence would stop him from ever
11:35
Speaker 1: doing it again. Spoiler alert, violence rarely puts an end
11:39
Speaker 1: to violence, especially when it comes to children. After that,
11:43
Speaker 1: everything changed. Not long after the beating, the mother of
11:47
Speaker 1: one of Terry's friends came by the family home to
11:50
Speaker 1: drop off some clothes she thought Terry might like. When
11:53
Speaker 1: the woman left, Teresa forced her daughter to strip naked
11:57
Speaker 1: and she dragged her around the house by her hair.
12:00
Speaker 1: Then she took a piece of rope, tied it around
12:02
Speaker 1: Terry's neck, and strung it up over the top of
12:05
Speaker 1: a door. She had Billy Bob and Rob Jr. hold
12:08
Speaker 1: the rope in place while she whipped Terry with a
12:11
Speaker 1: stick until the child nearly passed out. She told Terry
12:15
Speaker 1: that they weren't a charity case and that if she
12:17
Speaker 1: found out that Terry had been telling lies about the
12:19
Speaker 1: family's finances, she would beat her all over again and worse.
12:24
Speaker 1: Then her attention turned to her second oldest daughter, Susan.
12:28
Speaker 1: Teresa began to tell the other children that Susan was
12:32
Speaker 1: a devil worshiper and a witch. She told them that
12:35
Speaker 1: Susan was plotting to kill her mother and that she
12:37
Speaker 1: had to do it before she turned 18 to fulfill
12:40
Speaker 1: her contract with the devil. Whenever something in the house
12:44
Speaker 1: went wrong, it was always Susan's fault. A plumbing leak? Susan.
12:49
Speaker 1: A broken hinge? Susan. Susan took more of a beating
12:53
Speaker 1: than any of the children at the time, and no
12:55
Speaker 1: one could do anything about it or Teresa turned on
12:58
Speaker 1: them instead. By this time, Howard was around 14 years
13:04
Speaker 1: old and Teresa started to disappear for days at a time.
13:08
Speaker 1: She would leave Howard in charge of feeding and disciplining
13:11
Speaker 1: his siblings. Don't forget, this is a boy who less
13:14
Speaker 1: than a year earlier was caught molesting his little sister.
13:18
Speaker 1: When she returned home, she would get into bed and
13:20
Speaker 1: stay there for days at a time, only coming out
13:23
Speaker 1: to use the bathroom. She even stopped showering, and yet
13:27
Speaker 1: she still maintained full control over the children. Her favorite
13:31
Speaker 1: weapon to carry out her punishments was a piece of
13:33
Speaker 1: 2x4 lumber. On the piece of wood, she wrote the
13:37
Speaker 1: words Board of Education, and she used it to dish
13:40
Speaker 1: out punishments for any minor misdeed. Howard also took his
13:44
Speaker 1: fair share of beatings, but that came to a halt
13:47
Speaker 1: when he was 15 and had grown to over 6
13:50
Speaker 1: feet tall and weighed over 190 pounds. When Teresa realized
13:55
Speaker 1: he could give as good as he got and that
13:57
Speaker 1: one day he might fight back, she stopped targeting him. Instead,
14:01
Speaker 1: she had him take on the role of father figure
14:04
Speaker 1: and join in on punishing the children. As soon as
14:07
Speaker 1: Teresa stopped beating Howard, her violent focus moved almost exclusively
14:12
Speaker 1: to the three daughters. She became convinced that they were
14:16
Speaker 1: all having sex with random boys. At the time, her
14:19
Speaker 1: oldest girl Sheila was only 13. Teresa became obsessed with
14:24
Speaker 1: how the girls looked While she got progressively heavier and
14:28
Speaker 1: more unattractive, the girls were growing into slim, attractive young women.
14:33
Speaker 1: Teresa hated them for it, and she strictly controlled their lives.
14:37
Speaker 1: They weren't allowed out of the house even to socialize,
14:40
Speaker 1: and she forced them to drop out of school before
14:42
Speaker 1: the 8th grade. At any sign of misbehavior, the girls
14:46
Speaker 1: would be violently beaten by the board of education wielded
14:50
Speaker 1: by either Teresa or Howard, or at times, both of them.
14:53
Speaker 1: There was a short reprieve from the violence when Howard
14:56
Speaker 1: decided he didn't want to hurt his siblings anymore. He
15:00
Speaker 1: got a job as a chef and began to spend
15:02
Speaker 1: more time outside of the house, which gave him a
15:04
Speaker 1: new perspective on his mother's violence. After that, he began
15:09
Speaker 1: standing up to Teresa whenever she raised a hand to
15:12
Speaker 1: one of the others. But the peace didn't last long
15:15
Speaker 1: when she realized that she simply had to make sure
15:17
Speaker 1: he was out of the house when she wanted to
15:19
Speaker 1: dish out some punishment. there was no predicting Teresa's preferred
15:23
Speaker 1: choice of punishment. In one instance, she pulled out one
15:27
Speaker 1: of Susan's teeth with her bare hands because it was crooked.
15:31
Speaker 1: In another, she forced the girls to eat until they
15:33
Speaker 1: vomited because she wanted them to get fat so they
15:36
Speaker 1: wouldn't be as attractive anymore. At other times, she forced
15:40
Speaker 1: the children to dig up their entire backyard for days
15:43
Speaker 1: using only spoons. Susan was still the primary target of
15:47
Speaker 1: her mother's anger, and after a particularly violent beating, she
15:51
Speaker 1: decided to run away. But just a few miles down
15:54
Speaker 1: the road, she was picked up by the police who
15:57
Speaker 1: noticed the bruises all over her body. They took Susan
16:00
Speaker 1: to the hospital, where she told the nurses that her
16:03
Speaker 1: mother had been beating her. She was taken to Child
16:06
Speaker 1: Protective Services, where she begged to be made a ward
16:09
Speaker 1: of the court. But when Teresa was asked about her
16:12
Speaker 1: daughter's claims, she denied any abuse and said her daughter
16:15
Speaker 1: had been suffering from mental health issues for years. Yeah,
16:19
Speaker 1: mental health issues that you gave her. As soon as
16:23
Speaker 1: Susan was returned home, Teresa began targeting her with a
16:26
Speaker 1: new passion. She withheld food and water, locked her inside
16:30
Speaker 1: a cupboard, and even encouraged her sons to beat their
16:33
Speaker 1: sister as well. She told the other children that Susan
16:36
Speaker 1: had an STD and that she was a witch who
16:38
Speaker 1: would end up killing them all. For weeks, the treatment continued,
16:43
Speaker 1: and then, somehow, it got even worse. One day, Teresa
16:47
Speaker 1: forced her sons to hold Susan's hands behind her back
16:50
Speaker 1: while she punched her repeatedly in the stomach. Then she
16:54
Speaker 1: pulled out a pistol and fired it directly into Susan's chest.
16:58
Speaker 1: The bullet entered under her breast and traveled through her
17:01
Speaker 1: ribs and lodged itself somewhere in her back. Teresa then
17:05
Speaker 1: dragged her daughter's body into the bathtub and told the
17:08
Speaker 1: other children to clean up the mess. For hours, they
17:11
Speaker 1: scrubbed every sign of what had just happened from the floor,
17:14
Speaker 1: the walls, and the bathroom. But what to do about
17:18
Speaker 1: the body? To their shock, Susan began making sounds from
17:22
Speaker 1: the bathtub. She had lost a lot of blood, but
17:25
Speaker 1: she had survived the shooting. Terry and Sheila begged their
17:29
Speaker 1: mother to get some medical help for Susan, but she refused.
17:32
Speaker 1: She told the children that Susan deserved to get shot
17:35
Speaker 1: for her sins, and that whether she survived or not
17:38
Speaker 1: would confirm that she was a witch. Teresa never did
17:41
Speaker 1: explain whether surviving or dying meant she was right, though.
17:46
Speaker 1: By then, the children had experienced and witnessed years of abuse,
17:50
Speaker 1: and each one of them knew they could be next
17:52
Speaker 1: if they said or did the wrong thing. Teresa made
17:55
Speaker 1: sure all of them had the same story about what
17:58
Speaker 1: had happened to Susan, in case anyone ever asked. Their
18:01
Speaker 1: cover story was that Sheila had accidentally stabbed her sister
18:05
Speaker 1: and none of the children dared to disagree. For weeks,
18:09
Speaker 1: Susan was left in the bathtub with only her sisters
18:13
Speaker 1: taking any time to really care for her. They gave
18:16
Speaker 1: her a pillow and a blanket and fed her when
18:18
Speaker 1: she felt like she could eat. When she was finally
18:21
Speaker 1: well enough to make her way out of the bathtub,
18:24
Speaker 1: Susan decided she would stay out of the house and
18:26
Speaker 1: away from her mother as much as possible. Not long
18:30
Speaker 1: after the shooting incident, Teresa told the children they were
18:33
Speaker 1: going to be moving again. She had recently reconnected with
18:37
Speaker 1: her estranged sister, Rosemary, who helped them pack up their
18:40
Speaker 1: belongings and move to a single-level apartment in North Sacramento.
18:46
Speaker 1: Once again, it felt like the children were all living
18:48
Speaker 1: on top of each other. There wasn't enough room for
18:51
Speaker 1: them all, even with Howard moving out and Susan being
18:54
Speaker 1: away as much as she could be. But the small
18:57
Speaker 1: size was by design. Teresa wanted to keep a closer
19:01
Speaker 1: eye on her children, and the small home meant there
19:03
Speaker 1: was no way for them to be out of her sight.
19:06
Speaker 1: It was this small apartment that was about to become
19:09
Speaker 1: a house of horrors. Susan might have cheated death when
19:13
Speaker 1: she survived the bullet wound, but she wouldn't be so
19:16
Speaker 1: lucky a second time. Days after moving into the apartment,
19:20
Speaker 1: Teresa began handcuffing Susan to the dining room table. She
19:24
Speaker 1: was only allowed to eat when Teresa said so, and
19:27
Speaker 1: she put other children on shifts to watch over and
19:30
Speaker 1: make sure their sister didn't escape. Susan would often go
19:33
Speaker 1: for days without eating or drinking, and in the evenings,
19:36
Speaker 1: she would be moved to the bedroom, where she was
19:39
Speaker 1: handcuffed to the bed and fed tranquilizers so she couldn't
19:42
Speaker 1: escape at night. For weeks, all Susan's siblings heard from
19:46
Speaker 1: her lips were moans of pain or screams during her
19:49
Speaker 1: drug nightmares. Over and over again, Teresa told the other
19:54
Speaker 1: children that their sister was a witch or possessed by
19:57
Speaker 1: the devil and that she was being locked up to
20:00
Speaker 1: keep them all safe. She blamed Susan for her own
20:03
Speaker 1: weight gain and her health issues and she told them
20:06
Speaker 1: not to touch their sister or they would catch a disease.
20:10
Speaker 1: Sometime in the middle of this period of torture, the
20:13
Speaker 1: body of Teresa's sister Rosemary was found on the side
20:16
Speaker 1: of a highway in Placer County, just northeast of Sacramento.
20:21
Speaker 1: She had been strangled to death. Detectives were keen to
20:25
Speaker 1: talk to Teresa about her sister's death. They had seen
20:28
Speaker 1: Rosemary's husband come and go from the small apartment and
20:31
Speaker 1: they suspected the pair might be having an affair. When
20:34
Speaker 1: they showed up to speak to Teresa, she turned on
20:37
Speaker 1: the same charm she had used to get out of
20:39
Speaker 1: her first husband's murder. She was happy to talk to
20:42
Speaker 1: them and she emphasized that she didn't know anything about
20:45
Speaker 1: her sister's death. To this day, Rosemary's murder has never
20:50
Speaker 1: been solved. After the visit from the police, Teresa became
20:54
Speaker 1: even more paranoid about Susan being possessed by the devil.
20:59
Speaker 1: By then, Susan was so weak from her imprisonment that
21:02
Speaker 1: she could barely hold her own weight and she was
21:05
Speaker 1: often sick with a fever. One night, Teresa forced her
21:09
Speaker 1: daughter to stand with her face to the wall and
21:11
Speaker 1: she took up a position down the hallway. Treating her
21:15
Speaker 1: daughter like a dartboard, she threw a pair of scissors
21:18
Speaker 1: directly into her back. They embedded one inch into Susan's flesh,
21:22
Speaker 1: but the girl was so emaciated and sick that she
21:25
Speaker 1: didn't even flinch. Days later, Susan was forced to smoke
21:30
Speaker 1: a joint, and in the haze of her inebriation, she
21:33
Speaker 1: begged her mother to buy her a one-way ticket to
21:36
Speaker 1: Alaska and set her free. To everyone's shock, Teresa agreed,
21:40
Speaker 1: but only on one condition. She told Susan she would
21:44
Speaker 1: let her go, but only if she removed the bullet
21:46
Speaker 1: that was still lodged in her daughter's back. It was
21:49
Speaker 1: the first time Susan had come close to freedom, and
21:52
Speaker 1: she hastily agreed to her mother's demands. Teresa's concession was
21:57
Speaker 1: no act of love. She knew that if Susan ever
22:00
Speaker 1: told anyone what she had done, the bullet would prove
22:03
Speaker 1: that everything she said was true. The bullet was evidence,
22:07
Speaker 1: and she needed to get rid of it. What happened
22:10
Speaker 1: next is the stuff of nightmares. Teresa told her boys
22:14
Speaker 1: to hold Susan face down on the floor. All Teresa
22:18
Speaker 1: had to carry out the procedure was some old medical
22:21
Speaker 1: instruments she had gathered over the years. There were no
22:24
Speaker 1: sterile gloves or antiseptics, and the only pain relief available
22:28
Speaker 1: was the sedatives Susan was forced to take each night.
22:32
Speaker 1: They were downed along with a half a bottle of whiskey,
22:35
Speaker 1: and the procedure began. Two hours later, after much digging around,
22:40
Speaker 1: Teresa found the bullet. By then, Susan was in a
22:44
Speaker 1: bad way. She had lost a lot of blood, and
22:47
Speaker 1: it's not like she was in peak health when she
22:49
Speaker 1: went into the procedure. Unbelievably, just like with the gunshot,
22:53
Speaker 1: Susan somehow survived the so-called operation. Maybe it would have
22:58
Speaker 1: been better if she hadn't. 24 hours later, Susan woke
23:03
Speaker 1: up and found herself laying face down on the floor
23:06
Speaker 1: where she had been left. A child-sized diaper had been
23:09
Speaker 1: wrapped around her hips to collect any bodily fluids. Her
23:13
Speaker 1: siblings had all been told not to help her, even
23:16
Speaker 1: though they all had to step over her unconscious body
23:19
Speaker 1: to access the kitchen. Just like with the gunshot, Teresa
23:23
Speaker 1: had told them that Susan's death or survival would indicate
23:27
Speaker 1: whether or not she was a witch. Within days, Susan
23:31
Speaker 1: was showing signs of a severe infection. Her wound was
23:35
Speaker 1: bright pink and oozing a smelly fluid, and she was
23:38
Speaker 1: sweating and hallucinating. Her jaw was locked into place, so
23:42
Speaker 1: she couldn't take any fluids or pain relief, even if
23:45
Speaker 1: there had been any to give. Once again, Terry begged
23:48
Speaker 1: her mother to help, and once again, Teresa refused. Instead,
23:53
Speaker 1: she came up with another plan. On July 16th, 1984,
23:57
Speaker 1: Teresa and her sons bundled Susan and every item that
24:02
Speaker 1: belonged to her in the back of their vehicle. Terry
24:05
Speaker 1: was left at home to clean up while the boys
24:07
Speaker 1: and Teresa drove to a secluded spot 60 miles out
24:11
Speaker 1: of Sacramento by a small creek. They pulled over and
24:14
Speaker 1: piled everything from inside the car, including Susan, onto the dirt. Next,
24:20
Speaker 1: Teresa doused everything with gasoline. Susan was still alive when
24:25
Speaker 1: her brother flicked a match onto the pile. Later that morning,
24:29
Speaker 1: a passing trucker was flagged down by a woman who
24:32
Speaker 1: had noticed smoke coming from the area beside the creek.
24:36
Speaker 1: He had a fire extinguisher on board, and he rushed
24:39
Speaker 1: over to put out the flames. As the smoke cleared,
24:42
Speaker 1: they could see what looked like the toes of a
24:44
Speaker 1: mannequin poking out from a pile of rubbish. As we
24:48
Speaker 1: all know by now, though, it's never a mannequin. As
24:52
Speaker 1: the man moved around the pile, he could see that
24:54
Speaker 1: this was in fact the body of a young woman.
24:57
Speaker 1: Her face had been completely burned off, but there was
25:00
Speaker 1: duct tape over what had once been her mouth, and
25:03
Speaker 1: ties were still visible around her wrists. The man drove
25:07
Speaker 1: straight over to the sheriff's office to tell him about
25:10
Speaker 1: the disturbing discovery. An hour later, the area was cordoned
25:14
Speaker 1: off and a crime scene investigation began. Authorities could immediately
25:19
Speaker 1: tell that the fire had been deliberately set and that
25:22
Speaker 1: the victim had been murdered. Adding to the concern was
25:25
Speaker 1: the discovery of diapers around the scene, which led them
25:28
Speaker 1: to believe that the young woman might have had a
25:31
Speaker 1: child with her at the time of her murder. Alongside
25:34
Speaker 1: the diapers, they found perfume, a toothbrush, bell-shaped earrings, a
25:40
Speaker 1: silver ring, and writing paper. Amongst it all, there was
25:44
Speaker 1: nothing to indicate who the young woman was. When Susan's
25:48
Speaker 1: body was removed for autopsy, she simply became known as
25:52
Speaker 1: Jane Doe, number 487384. The autopsy showed that Susan had
25:58
Speaker 1: died after being bound, gagged, beaten, and set alight, and
26:03
Speaker 1: that she had suffered burns to 90% of her body.
26:06
Speaker 1: On top of the damage caused by the fire, Susan
26:09
Speaker 1: also had a large ovarian tumor, which was an indication
26:13
Speaker 1: that she had suffered a severe beating to her stomach.
26:17
Speaker 1: While investigators attempted to find out Jane Doe's real name,
26:21
Speaker 1: Teresa returned home completely unaffected by her daughter's murder. Despite
26:26
Speaker 1: telling the children that Susan was a devil worshiper and
26:29
Speaker 1: a witch, her death didn't bring an end to their
26:32
Speaker 1: mother's tyrannical abuse. If anything, it seemed to encourage her.
26:37
Speaker 1: With Susan out of the picture, Teresa's attention turned to
26:41
Speaker 1: her oldest daughter, Sheila. A few months after the murder,
26:45
Speaker 1: she sent Sheila to work as a prostitute. Every dollar
26:49
Speaker 1: that she earned on the street had to be given
26:51
Speaker 1: to Teresa. After just a few weeks, Teresa became convinced
26:56
Speaker 1: that her daughter had gotten pregnant with one of her
26:58
Speaker 1: customers and she focused her beatings on Sheila's stomach. A
27:02
Speaker 1: few weeks later, Sheila was injured in a hit-and-run and
27:05
Speaker 1: her mother told everyone it was a sign that her
27:08
Speaker 1: daughter had become possessed by the devil, just like Susan.
27:12
Speaker 1: Once again, she forced the two boys to hold Sheila
27:15
Speaker 1: down while she brutally beat and strangled her. Then she
27:18
Speaker 1: chained Sheila to the table and began force-feeding her macaroni
27:22
Speaker 1: and cheese. When Sheila began throwing up and refusing to
27:26
Speaker 1: eat anymore, Teresa forced the food into her mouth so
27:29
Speaker 1: aggressively that one of her teeth broke. After another particularly
27:34
Speaker 1: violent beating, Teresa filled their bathtub with ice cubes and
27:38
Speaker 1: freezing water and made Sheila sit in it for hours
27:41
Speaker 1: to help bring out the bruises from the beating. Within
27:44
Speaker 1: months of Susan's murder, Sheila had taken up the same
27:47
Speaker 1: spot under the table. She was chained there during the
27:51
Speaker 1: day and transferred to the bed at night when her
27:53
Speaker 1: mother didn't have her out working the streets. Teresa was
27:56
Speaker 1: still obsessed with the idea that Sheila was pregnant and
27:59
Speaker 1: she made her brothers take her to the doctor for
28:02
Speaker 1: an examination. The doctor confirmed what Sheila had been trying
28:06
Speaker 1: to tell her mother all along. She wasn't pregnant and
28:09
Speaker 1: never had been. But Teresa wouldn't let up. Instead of
28:12
Speaker 1: focusing on pregnancy, she became fixated on the idea that
28:16
Speaker 1: Sheila had a venereal disease. She sent Sheila off to
28:20
Speaker 1: another doctor, who confirmed that she didn't have any such disease,
28:24
Speaker 1: but once again, Teresa wouldn't hear it. She was convinced
28:28
Speaker 1: that her daughter had been given a secret cure by
28:31
Speaker 1: the doctor, and she threatened that if she didn't tell
28:33
Speaker 1: her what it was, there would be hell to pay.
28:36
Speaker 1: You'll be able to guess by now that she meant
28:39
Speaker 1: that literally. Since there was no secret cure, Sheila had
28:43
Speaker 1: nothing to tell, so Teresa hogtied her and forced her
28:46
Speaker 1: into the fetal position in a tiny closet in the apartment.
28:50
Speaker 1: The closet measured two feet by two and a half
28:53
Speaker 1: feet and was filled with shelves, with only the bottom
28:56
Speaker 1: one removed so that Sheila could fit. The door handle
28:59
Speaker 1: was removed so that no one else could open it
29:02
Speaker 1: and Sheila was shoved inside with her feet bound and
29:04
Speaker 1: her hands tied behind her. Teresa told the children that
29:08
Speaker 1: they weren't allowed to feed Sheila anything until she admitted
29:11
Speaker 1: what the secret cure to the venereal disease was. After
29:15
Speaker 1: days in the tiny dark closet, Sheila decided to tell
29:19
Speaker 1: her mother what she wanted to hear. She confessed that
29:22
Speaker 1: she had secretly been given a cure, but when her
29:24
Speaker 1: mother asked what the cure was, Sheila didn't know what
29:27
Speaker 1: to say. After that, Teresa dragged her back into the
29:31
Speaker 1: tiny closet. The siblings listened in silence as their sister
29:36
Speaker 1: cried and begged to be let go. By then, it
29:39
Speaker 1: was the middle of summer and the temperature inside the
29:42
Speaker 1: apartment often reached 85 degrees Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius.
29:47
Speaker 1: Sheila was confined to a tiny closet with no airflow
29:50
Speaker 1: and she hadn't had anything to eat or drink for days.
29:53
Speaker 1: It comes as no surprise then that by June 21st, 1985,
29:58
Speaker 1: all of the noises coming out of the closet had stopped.
30:02
Speaker 1: There was no noise the next day either, or the next.
30:05
Speaker 1: On the third day, Teresa opened the door and announced, quote,
30:09
Speaker 1: She's dead. Yeah, no shit. This time, Teresa decided it
30:13
Speaker 1: would be best if there wasn't much left of Sheila
30:16
Speaker 1: to be found. their sister but after a couple of
30:22
Speaker 1: hours she realized it would be too messy and leave
30:25
Speaker 1: too much evidence behind in the apartment instead she had
30:29
Speaker 1: the children wrap Sheila's body inside cardboard boxes and put
30:33
Speaker 1: her into the back of the car they drove the
30:36
Speaker 1: same direction as the night they had killed Susan but
30:39
Speaker 1: instead of the spot by a stream they chose a
30:42
Speaker 1: new location next to Truckee Airport Just like Susan, they
30:47
Speaker 1: left Sheila like a piece of trash on the side
30:49
Speaker 1: of the road, except for this time, they didn't burn her.
30:53
Speaker 1: Teresa was paranoid that the girls' bodies would be connected
30:56
Speaker 1: if the scenes were too similar. Sheila's body was discovered
31:00
Speaker 1: the next morning by a local fisherman who thought the
31:03
Speaker 1: cardboard box marked with popcorn cups looked out of place.
31:08
Speaker 1: He lifted a flap to the box and saw a
31:10
Speaker 1: left arm, shoulder, and hips of a person in the
31:14
Speaker 1: fetal position. When investigators arrived, they combed the area for
31:18
Speaker 1: any evidence of who the body belonged to, but there
31:21
Speaker 1: was nothing that indicated the corpse's identity. Sheila's cause of
31:25
Speaker 1: death was listed as undetermined, and just like her little
31:29
Speaker 1: sister Susan, she was identified simply by a name and number.
31:33
Speaker 1: Jane Doe, number 6607-85 As Teresa had hoped, the two
31:40
Speaker 1: bodies weren't considered to be connected, even though they were
31:43
Speaker 1: found just 15 miles or 24 kilometers apart. Terry and
31:48
Speaker 1: her brothers were forced to clean up any sign of
31:50
Speaker 1: the horrors that had taken place inside the apartment. But
31:54
Speaker 1: Teresa's paranoia was insatiable, and a few months later, she
31:58
Speaker 1: told the children there was only one way to wipe
32:01
Speaker 1: the memory of Sheila from their minds completely. Fire. She
32:05
Speaker 1: had used it once before and it had worked wonders.
32:09
Speaker 1: She had Terry spray the inside of the house with
32:12
Speaker 1: lighter fluid and throw a match in through the window.
32:15
Speaker 1: As she had planned, the unit went up in minutes
32:18
Speaker 1: and any sign that Susan and Sheila had ever existed
32:21
Speaker 1: went up with it. While fires are universally devastating, for
32:26
Speaker 1: Terry it sparked a new idea. Billy Bob had moved
32:30
Speaker 1: out not long after Sheila's murder and now it was
32:32
Speaker 1: just Teresa, Robert, and Terry. She was the only girl left,
32:37
Speaker 1: and she knew she was next in line to become
32:39
Speaker 1: the object of her mother's violence. It was now or
32:43
Speaker 1: never to break free. Terry was just 15 years old
32:47
Speaker 1: when she finally had the courage to leave home. She
32:50
Speaker 1: didn't know where she was going to go or how
32:52
Speaker 1: she was going to survive, but surely anything was better
32:55
Speaker 1: than the hell she lived in with her mother and brother.
32:58
Speaker 1: She started out by working on the streets, just like
33:01
Speaker 1: Sheila had. At times, she even assumed the identity of
33:05
Speaker 1: Susan so she could get into the bars and pick
33:07
Speaker 1: up wealthier clients. At one point, Terry was taken in
33:11
Speaker 1: by a street mother who initially seemed to help her out.
33:14
Speaker 1: But Terry had bad luck with mothers, and this one
33:17
Speaker 1: eventually introduced her to drugs, leading to a lifelong battle
33:21
Speaker 1: with addiction. Despite her trauma, from the day Terry escaped,
33:25
Speaker 1: she wasn't shy in sharing what had happened to her
33:28
Speaker 1: or to Susan and Sheila. Yet despite detailing the abuse
33:32
Speaker 1: and murders to countless professionals, law enforcement officers, and lawyers,
33:37
Speaker 1: it would be years before anyone truly listened. Even her
33:41
Speaker 1: own therapist wrote off much of her story as implausible.
33:45
Speaker 1: Terry's first attempt to have her sister's death investigated came
33:49
Speaker 1: in 1987 when she sat down with a lawyer and
33:52
Speaker 1: told him the whole story. The lawyer never said a
33:55
Speaker 1: word to anyone else about what Terry had told him
33:57
Speaker 1: that day. Meanwhile, Teresa and the only son that was
34:01
Speaker 1: still living under her roof, Robert, decided it was time
34:04
Speaker 1: for a change of scenery and they moved to a
34:07
Speaker 1: small apartment in Nevada. The stay was short-lived when Robert
34:11
Speaker 1: began running with the wrong crowd and getting into trouble
34:14
Speaker 1: with the law. When the police came knocking one too
34:17
Speaker 1: many times, Teresa decided she needed to start afresh. She
34:21
Speaker 1: wasn't looking for a new house, she was looking for
34:24
Speaker 1: a whole new identity. Teresa took out a map and
34:27
Speaker 1: decided on Utah. Why Utah? Well, Teresa had somewhat of
34:32
Speaker 1: an affinity for the Mormon religion, and she knew that
34:35
Speaker 1: if she converted, she would be accepted into the community.
34:38
Speaker 1: Being part of a church would help conceal her identity
34:41
Speaker 1: and keep her under the radar. From the day she
34:44
Speaker 1: arrived in Utah, she referred to herself by her maiden name,
34:48
Speaker 1: Teresa Cross. She put on the fake charm that had
34:51
Speaker 1: worked so well on policemen and juries and landed herself
34:55
Speaker 1: a job as a live-in carer for a 72-year-old woman, Alice.
34:59
Speaker 1: If you're hearing alarm bells, it's understandable, except from that
35:03
Speaker 1: day forward, there was no sign of the murderous, abusive
35:06
Speaker 1: monster that the Knorr children had grown up with. Everyone
35:10
Speaker 1: who met Teresa seemed to love her. She was warm
35:13
Speaker 1: and caring, and she was always well-presented with her hair
35:16
Speaker 1: done up neatly and wearing tidy clothes. She used her
35:19
Speaker 1: salary to buy a nice car, expensive makeup, and a
35:23
Speaker 1: wardrobe full of high-end clothing. She was completely unrecognizable. Her
35:28
Speaker 1: children had been raised on box meals and processed food,
35:32
Speaker 1: but Teresa cooked Alice gourmet meals from scratch. The children
35:36
Speaker 1: weren't allowed out of the house, but Teresa took Alice
35:39
Speaker 1: to the local cinema and went out socializing with friends.
35:42
Speaker 1: In the evening, visitors would drop over for a drink,
35:45
Speaker 1: and Teresa would woo them with stories she made up
35:48
Speaker 1: about her childhood growing up on a farm in the Midwest.
35:52
Speaker 1: She told them how her grandparents had died in the Holocaust,
35:55
Speaker 1: and how she was very close with her loving, hardworking father.
35:59
Speaker 1: And she told them all about her two sons that
36:01
Speaker 1: she kept in touch with regularly. In the three years
36:05
Speaker 1: that she took care of Alice, Teresa never once mentioned
36:08
Speaker 1: having any daughters. In 1990, Teresa began night classes to
36:13
Speaker 1: train to become a certified nursing assistant. Just what the
36:16
Speaker 1: world needed, more murdering healthcare workers. Teresa hadn't told Robert
36:21
Speaker 1: or any of her surviving children that she had settled
36:24
Speaker 1: in Utah and none of them knew where she had
36:26
Speaker 1: disappeared to. So no one knew that, when Terry got
36:29
Speaker 1: married a second time, her new home was just ten
36:32
Speaker 1: miles away from the woman who would have killed her
36:35
Speaker 1: if she hadn't escaped. Terry's life leading up to that
36:38
Speaker 1: point had been anything but easy. The abuse she had
36:41
Speaker 1: experienced and being a witness to the murders of her
36:44
Speaker 1: sisters had irreversibly damaged her young mind. She was plagued
36:49
Speaker 1: by a raft of mental illnesses and the drug addiction
36:52
Speaker 1: she had picked up while working on the streets. There
36:55
Speaker 1: were also permanent physical reminders of Teresa's torture. Terry was
36:59
Speaker 1: both desperate to have children of her own and also
37:01
Speaker 1: petrified that she would turn out just like her mother.
37:04
Speaker 1: But in the end, the choice over whether or not
37:06
Speaker 1: to have children wasn't a choice at all. The beatings
37:10
Speaker 1: that Teresa unleashed on Terry as a child had caused
37:13
Speaker 1: so much damage to her reproductive organs that she was
37:16
Speaker 1: told that she would never be able to carry a
37:18
Speaker 1: child of her own. All Terry really wanted was to
37:21
Speaker 1: feel safe and loved, but she couldn't shake what her
37:24
Speaker 1: childhood had done to her. How could she have a
37:27
Speaker 1: normal romantic relationship when she had never experienced unconditional love
37:31
Speaker 1: and affection from the one person who was meant to
37:34
Speaker 1: give her both? It will come as no surprise that
37:37
Speaker 1: her marriage was anything but stable. The police were regularly
37:41
Speaker 1: called out for domestic disturbances at their home, and more
37:44
Speaker 1: often than not, Terry was the one who instigated the violence.
37:48
Speaker 1: She became a familiar face at the county lockup, where
37:51
Speaker 1: she spent countless nights during her marriage. When she returned home,
37:55
Speaker 1: things would calm down for a while, but Terry would
37:58
Speaker 1: always be back before long. It was during this time
38:01
Speaker 1: that Terry told the local sheriff about her mother and
38:04
Speaker 1: her murdered sisters. The sheriff had been put in touch
38:07
Speaker 1: with Terry by a mutual friend and he listened intently
38:10
Speaker 1: as she told him about the horrors she had experienced.
38:14
Speaker 1: The sheriff recorded the whole conversation, but he didn't realize
38:17
Speaker 1: until later that the batteries on his recorder had died
38:20
Speaker 1: halfway through the conversation. The following day, he sent a
38:24
Speaker 1: letter to the Sacramento Police Department detailing what he had
38:28
Speaker 1: been told and enclosing what he had recorded of the conversation.
38:32
Speaker 1: In that letter, he wrote some of the details about
38:34
Speaker 1: where Susan and Sheila's bodies had been left, which Terry
38:38
Speaker 1: had been told by her brothers. A Sacramento detective was
38:42
Speaker 1: assigned to look into the claims made in the letter
38:45
Speaker 1: and on the tape. He contacted one police department in
38:48
Speaker 1: the area where Terry had mentioned that one of her
38:51
Speaker 1: sister's bodies had been dumped. The local officers were unable
38:55
Speaker 1: to locate a report of any bodies that matched the
38:57
Speaker 1: details Terry had given, and because of that, they wrote
39:01
Speaker 1: off every other claim she had made without even following
39:04
Speaker 1: up to ask her for more information. Years later, it
39:07
Speaker 1: would be revealed that the detective had contacted the wrong
39:10
Speaker 1: police department for the jurisdiction where Susan's body had been
39:14
Speaker 1: found burned. To make matters worse, Sheila's murder had been
39:18
Speaker 1: incorrectly attributed to a series of murders carried out by
39:22
Speaker 1: a long-haul trucker. When Sheila's body was found, the man
39:25
Speaker 1: had just been arrested for the murders of 10 women.
39:29
Speaker 1: Threads of carpet fiber had been found in the popcorn
39:32
Speaker 1: box along with Sheila's body, and they were sent away
39:35
Speaker 1: to the state crime lab for analysis. Due to an
39:39
Speaker 1: administrative error, one of the two samples taken from the
39:42
Speaker 1: cab of the serial killer's truck was labeled as being
39:45
Speaker 1: from the box Sheila was found in. Naturally, because the
39:49
Speaker 1: two samples were taken from exactly the same place, the
39:52
Speaker 1: lab confirmed that they were a direct match. Teresa had
39:57
Speaker 1: finished her nursing aid training and she used her new
40:00
Speaker 1: qualification to secure a better paid live-in position with another
40:04
Speaker 1: woman named Alice. Once again, Alice's friends and family couldn't
40:08
Speaker 1: believe they had been so lucky to secure the services
40:11
Speaker 1: of such a kind, compassionate, and professional carer. It wasn't
40:15
Speaker 1: long before they began to consider Teresa Cross as a
40:18
Speaker 1: member of the family and they invited her to join
40:21
Speaker 1: them in celebrations including Thanksgiving and Christmas. What Teresa didn't
40:26
Speaker 1: know then was that every passing domestic incident that Terry
40:29
Speaker 1: was involved in, she was becoming more and more determined
40:33
Speaker 1: to put her past behind her. The only way to
40:36
Speaker 1: do that was to make sure her mother was arrested
40:38
Speaker 1: and charged with the murders of Susan and Sheila. When
40:42
Speaker 1: she saw that episode of America's Most Wanted, she took
40:45
Speaker 1: it as a sign that the time had come to
40:47
Speaker 1: reveal all, and to not stop until someone took her seriously.
40:52
Speaker 1: In October of 1993, Police Sergeant John Fitzgerald listened as
40:57
Speaker 1: Terry Knorr tearfully recalled her traumatic childhood in explicit detail.
41:02
Speaker 1: She told him about being locked in a freezer as punishment,
41:06
Speaker 1: being force-fed, being molested by her brother, and of course,
41:10
Speaker 1: she recalled in gruesome detail the excruciating murders of her sisters,
41:15
Speaker 1: and she pointed the finger for all of it directly
41:18
Speaker 1: at her mother. It was almost too much to believe. Almost.
41:23
Speaker 1: Sergeant Fitzgerald had joined the police department less than a
41:26
Speaker 1: year after Susan's body was found. He had become familiar
41:30
Speaker 1: with the details as it was one of the only
41:32
Speaker 1: unsolved cases in the department at the time. It also
41:36
Speaker 1: turned out that he had been the one to request
41:38
Speaker 1: that America's Most Wanted run the segment about the unidentified
41:41
Speaker 1: body in his jurisdiction. That call from Terry was the
41:45
Speaker 1: first time the two Jane Does had ever been linked
41:48
Speaker 1: to each other. Terry's story was so far-fetched and so
41:52
Speaker 1: despicable that Sergeant Fitzgerald knew he needed to be 100%
41:55
Speaker 1: sure that what was said was true. so he asked
41:59
Speaker 1: Terry about the ring which had been found on Susan's body.
42:03
Speaker 1: Without hesitation, Terry described the silver ring with three rows
42:07
Speaker 1: of diamonds, and she followed up with a description of
42:09
Speaker 1: the earrings with bells on them. These were the kind
42:13
Speaker 1: of details that only someone familiar with the victim would
42:16
Speaker 1: have known, and they confirmed for John that Terry's story
42:19
Speaker 1: was most likely true. The next day, John did a
42:22
Speaker 1: little unofficial investigation before he formally notified the police departments
42:27
Speaker 1: responsible for the two Jane Does. He visited the large
42:30
Speaker 1: home where Terry alleged the family had lived when the
42:33
Speaker 1: violence began, and he spoke to the building manager of
42:36
Speaker 1: the apartment which Teresa had ordered to be burned down
42:39
Speaker 1: to hide evidence of the murders. Once again, everything Terry
42:43
Speaker 1: had told him added up. The next day, he flew
42:46
Speaker 1: to Salt Lake City to speak with Terry face-to-face. For hours,
42:51
Speaker 1: Terry recounted yet again what she had experienced. Finally, after
42:56
Speaker 1: all these years, she felt like she was finally being
42:59
Speaker 1: taken seriously. When the interview concluded, they still couldn't quite
43:04
Speaker 1: believe that a mother could put her own children through
43:06
Speaker 1: so much. As soon as they got back to Sacramento,
43:10
Speaker 1: they spoke with the district attorney and an investigation was
43:13
Speaker 1: formally opened, nearly ten years after Teresa had committed her
43:18
Speaker 1: first murder. the investigation began with trying to track down Teresa.
43:23
Speaker 1: At the time, officials also wanted to speak to Terry's brothers,
43:27
Speaker 1: Billy and Robert. It wasn't only that they could potentially
43:30
Speaker 1: corroborate Terry's story, they were also implicated as accomplices to
43:35
Speaker 1: both murders. They had been the ones to hold Susan
43:38
Speaker 1: and Sheila down while Teresa beat them and they were
43:41
Speaker 1: involved in disposing of their bodies. Billy had also been
43:45
Speaker 1: the one to set fire to Susan while she was
43:48
Speaker 1: still alive. It wasn't hard to find Robert. He had
43:52
Speaker 1: been arrested for murder back in Nevada not long after
43:55
Speaker 1: Teresa had run off to start her new life in Utah.
43:59
Speaker 1: In that incident, he had walked into a bar, attempted
44:02
Speaker 1: to rob the place, and then shot the bartender. Robert
44:05
Speaker 1: was serving a sentence of 15 years when officials charged
44:09
Speaker 1: him with being an accomplice in both of his sister's murders.
44:13
Speaker 1: While officers tried to track down Billy, They spoke to
44:16
Speaker 1: Teresa's first child, Howard, who added even more details to
44:20
Speaker 1: the horrors Terry had shared. He was the oldest of
44:23
Speaker 1: the children and he could remember a time before his
44:26
Speaker 1: mother was so evil. He told them in brutal detail
44:30
Speaker 1: how his mother would whip him and his siblings as
44:32
Speaker 1: well as beat them with the Board of Education and
44:35
Speaker 1: burn them for any supposed misdeed. He was forthcoming about
44:40
Speaker 1: his sexual assaults on Terry and he made one further
44:43
Speaker 1: startling confession. he had also molested his little brother Robert.
44:48
Speaker 1: Out of all of the surviving children, Billy seemed to
44:51
Speaker 1: be the only one who appeared to have turned his
44:53
Speaker 1: life around. He had a nice girlfriend, lived in a
44:57
Speaker 1: comfortable apartment, and had a steady job. When he was
45:00
Speaker 1: taken into custody for questioning, he admitted that his mother
45:04
Speaker 1: had beaten and abused all of the children, but he
45:06
Speaker 1: denied any knowledge of what had happened to his sisters.
45:10
Speaker 1: When he was told that the officers already knew he
45:13
Speaker 1: was involved in their torture, he started blaming Susan and
45:16
Speaker 1: Sheila for being prostitutes and being out of control. Like
45:20
Speaker 1: that somehow justified what was done to them, even if
45:22
Speaker 1: it was true. Then he told the officers that Terry
45:26
Speaker 1: had been in the car when they dumped Susan and
45:28
Speaker 1: set her on fire. He tried to assert that she
45:31
Speaker 1: could have stopped them at any moment and therefore she
45:34
Speaker 1: should be in trouble too. When the officers told him
45:37
Speaker 1: that they didn't believe him, he admitted that he had
45:40
Speaker 1: been the one to set his sister on fire, but
45:42
Speaker 1: that he had only done it because his mother threatened
45:45
Speaker 1: him with death. The investigators now knew that everything Terry
45:49
Speaker 1: had told them was true. A violent killer was on
45:52
Speaker 1: the loose and they had made no progress in tracking
45:55
Speaker 1: her down. Over the years, Teresa had been known to
45:58
Speaker 1: go under a number of different aliases. All of these
46:02
Speaker 1: alternative names were released in the warrants for her arrest,
46:05
Speaker 1: but no one seemed to consider including her maiden name
46:08
Speaker 1: on the notifications. Teresa was blissfully unaware anyone was looking
46:13
Speaker 1: for her until a press release from the sheriff's office
46:16
Speaker 1: in Sacramento was published. The investigators named Teresa Knorr as
46:21
Speaker 1: a person of interest in a quote-unquote alarming and bizarre homicide.
46:26
Speaker 1: That has to be the understatement of the century. A
46:29
Speaker 1: few days after Teresa's name was released to the public,
46:32
Speaker 1: Terry appeared on news bulletins detailing some of the less
46:36
Speaker 1: graphic aspects of her mother's abuse. It was then that
46:40
Speaker 1: Teresa could feel the net closing in, so she made
46:43
Speaker 1: plans to do what she did best. Well, second best
46:46
Speaker 1: after beating and murdering her children. She decided to disappear.
46:51
Speaker 1: On November 5th, she took out a $ 5, 000 loan against
46:54
Speaker 1: her wages from her boss. Then she packed all of
46:57
Speaker 1: her belongings into boxes, stacked them into the back of
47:00
Speaker 1: her car, dropped Alice off at her regular bridge game,
47:04
Speaker 1: and made a run for it. But Teresa only got
47:06
Speaker 1: 30 miles down the road when she was pulled over
47:09
Speaker 1: for drunk driving after officers saw her weaving in and
47:12
Speaker 1: out of traffic. When she was taken to the local
47:15
Speaker 1: police station, she showed officers the driver's license she had
47:19
Speaker 1: that was in her maiden name, which is what they
47:21
Speaker 1: used to process her. All of the alerts for the
47:24
Speaker 1: murders had been in the name Teresa Knorr, not Teresa Cross.
47:28
Speaker 1: Later that evening, she was put in a taxi from
47:30
Speaker 1: the station and sent right back to Alice's house. On
47:34
Speaker 1: November 9th, the officers who had processed the drunk driving
47:38
Speaker 1: paperwork had stumbled across a post office box in the
47:41
Speaker 1: name of Teresa Knorr, which was used to receive the
47:44
Speaker 1: driver's license in the name of Teresa Cross. Because she
47:48
Speaker 1: had been pulled over, the officers also had the details
47:51
Speaker 1: of her vehicle and the address to where the car
47:54
Speaker 1: had been registered. It was a roundabout way of saying
47:57
Speaker 1: they finally had an address for Teresa Knorr, murder mother extraordinaire.
48:02
Speaker 1: The next day, the officers from Sacramento flew to Salt
48:06
Speaker 1: Lake City and staked out the address. They flagged down
48:10
Speaker 1: a passing local police officer to ensure there was no
48:12
Speaker 1: trouble with jurisdiction, and at 5.15 p.m., they knocked on
48:17
Speaker 1: the front door, armed with an arrest warrant for multiple murders.
48:21
Speaker 1: It took a minute for the door to be answered,
48:23
Speaker 1: and then, all of a sudden, right there in front
48:26
Speaker 1: of them was Teresa Knorr. She looked nothing like an evil, pathological,
48:30
Speaker 1: torturing murderess. The woman standing in front of them was
48:34
Speaker 1: tidily dressed with her hair done perfectly and her face
48:37
Speaker 1: fully made up, like you might imagine a kind and
48:40
Speaker 1: caring grandmother might look. After confirming her identity, the officers
48:44
Speaker 1: introduced themselves and informed her they were there to arrest
48:48
Speaker 1: her for murder. Teresa was momentarily shocked. She had moved states,
48:53
Speaker 1: changed names, and even attempted to change her personality in
48:56
Speaker 1: an effort to avoid her past catching up with her.
48:59
Speaker 1: But the monster behind her facade was ever-present. As Teresa
49:03
Speaker 1: was led away to the police cruiser, she stated, Once
49:06
Speaker 1: in an interview room, Teresa refused to say a word
49:08
Speaker 1: except to demand a lawyer. After a short battle to
49:18
Speaker 1: avoid extradition, she was transported to California to face justice
49:22
Speaker 1: for the murders of her two daughters. In her first
49:26
Speaker 1: court appearance, Teresa embodied the character of a wronged woman.
49:30
Speaker 1: Despite wearing a prison jumpsuit, she had her hair perfectly
49:34
Speaker 1: coiffed and her makeup was expertly applied. Billy and Robert
49:38
Speaker 1: were jointly charged with the murders of their sisters, but
49:41
Speaker 1: due to the fact that Robert was already in prison,
49:44
Speaker 1: only Billy appeared alongside his mother that day. On November 15, 1993,
49:50
Speaker 1: Teresa Knorr was formally charged with two counts of murder,
49:54
Speaker 1: two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and two special
49:57
Speaker 1: circumstances charges which were multiple murders and murder by torture.
50:02
Speaker 1: She pleaded not guilty to them all. From prison, Robert
50:06
Speaker 1: Knorr cut a deal to reduce his sentence. In exchange
50:10
Speaker 1: for testifying against his mother, he would be sentenced to
50:13
Speaker 1: three years' imprisonment, which could be served concurrently with his
50:16
Speaker 1: current sentence. That meant no additional prison time. Billy also
50:21
Speaker 1: cut a deal and in exchange for his testimony, he
50:24
Speaker 1: was sentenced to probation and ordered to undergo therapy. When
50:28
Speaker 1: Teresa heard that Robert and Billy were going to testify
50:31
Speaker 1: against her, she decided not to take her chances with
50:34
Speaker 1: a jury. She was facing the death penalty and with
50:37
Speaker 1: all of her living children set to testify against her
50:40
Speaker 1: and her dead children being used as evidence, she changed
50:43
Speaker 1: her plea to guilty in exchange for a life sentence.
50:47
Speaker 1: Both Robert and Billy claimed that their mother brainwashed them
50:50
Speaker 1: to believe what she said was true and that her
50:52
Speaker 1: sisters were possessed by the devil. Violence was completely normalized
50:57
Speaker 1: in their household, and only Howard could remember a time
51:00
Speaker 1: before motherly love meant pain and abuse. The boys also
51:04
Speaker 1: stated that even if they had understood what they were
51:06
Speaker 1: doing was wrong, their mother was a deadly woman, and
51:10
Speaker 1: they knew what she was capable of. From their point
51:13
Speaker 1: of view, their involvement wasn't a choice. If they refused,
51:17
Speaker 1: she would hurt them as much as she did their sisters.
51:20
Speaker 1: Robert was released from prison in 2013, but he was
51:24
Speaker 1: back in front of the court in 2016 when he
51:27
Speaker 1: was convicted of child sex offenses. He was found guilty
51:31
Speaker 1: of distributing child pornography over the internet, receiving child pornography
51:35
Speaker 1: over the internet, and possessing child pornography. He was subsequently
51:40
Speaker 1: sentenced to eight years imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
51:44
Speaker 1: Teresa has never given an interview or attempted to provide
51:47
Speaker 1: any explanation for her actions. If anything, her letters from
51:51
Speaker 1: prison expressly confirm that she believes she has never done
51:55
Speaker 1: anything wrong. Since her incarceration, Teresa continues to write letters
52:00
Speaker 1: to her friends in Salt Lake City. She tells them
52:03
Speaker 1: how she reads scriptures every day to get her through
52:06
Speaker 1: this difficult period in her life. She signs every letter
52:10
Speaker 1: with some variation of quote-unquote, in Christ's love. In 2019,
52:16
Speaker 1: Teresa was denied parole, but she can reapply in 2024.
52:21
Speaker 1: Terry Knorr lived to see Teresa imprisoned, but she died
52:24
Speaker 1: of heart failure in 2011 at the age of 41.
52:28
Speaker 1: She was never able to have children of her own.
52:32
Speaker 1: It takes a special kind of monster to murder not one,
52:35
Speaker 1: but two of your own children, and your first husband,
52:39
Speaker 1: and maybe even your sister. Teresa Knorr is absolutely where
52:43
Speaker 1: she belongs. This website is set up so that, at
53:06
Speaker 1: any time, hitting the escape key twice will take you
53:09
Speaker 1: to a Google search page. That way, if your abuser
53:12
Speaker 1: is nearby, you won't get caught seeking help. If you're
53:15
Speaker 1: having feelings of harming yourself or someone else, or even
53:17
Speaker 1: just need someone to talk to, please contact your local
53:20
Speaker 1: mental health facility. Call 911 or call the National Suicide
53:24
Speaker 1: Prevention Hotline by simply dialing 988 in the United States.
53:28
Speaker 1: They're available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
53:30
Speaker 1: and will talk to you about any mental health issue
53:33
Speaker 1: you may be facing. If you are a member of
53:35
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ plus community and suffering from discrimination, depression, or
53:40
Speaker 1: are in need of any support, please contact the LGBT
53:43
Speaker 1: National Hotline at 1-888-843-4564 or go to lgbthotline.org. Thanks again,
53:51
Speaker 1: and be safe.