Whatever Mother Says... (27 page)

One senior homicide detective summed it up by saying: “The breaks usually only come by chance.” Another crucial aspect of the initial police investigation is whether the killer or killers were confident enough to spend time at the crime scene, or whether they felt the need to leave it immediately after killing and/or dumping the body. Again, the evidence to police in the Sierras was minimal. They really were up against it. There were no significant clues forthcoming.

*   *   *

Dr. Peter Wood, whose experiences with killers put him at the forefront of such expert knowledge, has dealt with a number of cases that contained relevant aspects to the case of defendants Theresa Knorr and her two sons.

The most similar was one of his patients who killed her ten- and twelve-year-old daughters together in cold blood in the north of England some years ago. The woman was diagnosed as depressed, and she’d been treated for depression before her feelings of resentment toward her daughters manifested themselves into the tragic killings.

Initially, she tried to feed her daughters a lethal cocktail of drugs and alcohol to snuff out their young lives. But when that failed, she bludgeoned and stabbed them to death in the front room of their family’s tiny terraced home after she had sent her unsuspecting husband out to get a birthday cake for one of the little girl’s birthdays.

The woman was proclaimed a paranoid schizophrenic. Afterward she admitted to Dr. Wood that she would have killed her husband if she could have found him—a significant statement when one considers the obvious hatred that existed between Theresa Knorr and Robert Knorr Sr.

There are also indications that Theresa Knorr was suffering from delusions at the time she and her children were living together in Sacramento. Some of the incidents recalled—in police statements—by her relatives and friends reveal apparent paranoia.

But the woman killer treated by Dr. Wood differed from Knorr in one crucial way. She was deeply depressed by the awful deaths she inflicted on her daughters, and attempted suicide shortly after their deaths. There is no evidence at the time of writing that Theresa Knorr was similarly affected by the deaths of her own flesh and blood.

But, just like Theresa Knorr, this woman was also completely wrapped up in her own feelings and thoughts. Knorr’s self-imposed seclusion inside the family’s house for weeks on end appears to be clear evidence of her inverted state at the time.

Dr. Wood spent many months gently coaxing his patient to confess her true motives for ending the lives of her own children. It may well be that the forensic experts lining up to interview Theresa Knorr will find similar problems in extracting information about her true feelings. Knorr’s life in Salt Lake City following the deaths of her daughters clearly indicates that she had neatly compartmentalized the killings so that they would not rest constantly on her conscience. Everyone who encountered her in Utah got the impression that she was in complete denial about the horrendous crimes she allegedly committed.

Another interesting parallel between Dr. Wood’s case and the Knorr charges was that the psychiatrist’s patient became—just as Theresa Knorr apparently did—completely paranoid about her neighbors. She felt that people in the street were constantly spying on her, running her down and criticizing her for the way she looked after her children. Those similarities between the two cases make chilling reading.

Following the departure of Robert Knorr Sr., Theresa Knorr’s loving care and attention for her children completely broke down. It was as if she had developed an overwhelming sense of responsibility for all the family, and her way of getting out of that was to abuse those people she was responsible for.

Most violence in the family is perpetrated by parents against their children. Researchers have established there are three basic categories of violence against children.

1. Ordinary violence: hitting and slapping is by far the largest category—approximately ninety-seven percent of all children are struck at least once a year.

2. Severe violence: almost nine million youngsters in the United States between the ages of three and seventeen are victims of assaultive acts which go beyond pushing, slapping, and throwing things and which therefore carry a high risk of causing injury serious enough to require medical attention, that is, kicking, punching, beating up, stabbing, and shooting.

3. Then there is very serious violence, when lasting injury and sometimes even death is inflicted.

Yet, despite all the facts and figures and horror stories, society persists in its idealization of the family as an island of peace in a savage, chaotic world. Incidents of family violence are drastically underreported, while accounts of violence perpetrated by strangers continue to find their way into banner headlines.

Though society’s refusal to acknowledge and begin to deal with the gruesome reality of family violence seems perplexing on the surface, it is not difficult given the family’s sacrosanct importance to society. No one doubts that the exercise of strong parental authority, especially in a child’s formative years, is essential to healthy, normal development. Consequently, however, parents wield an unparalleled degree of influence and power over their children, who are completely dependent upon them.

Only recently has society openly admitted that some parents abuse that sacred power entrusted to them. It wasn’t until 1984 that the federal government formally recognized family violence as a critical social problem by creating the Attorney General’s Task Force on Family Violence. Notwithstanding these strides in recognition and changes in policy, the parental prerogative remains protected in many ways, a distinct double standard for judging victims and perpetrators of child abuse that still exists throughout society today. Paul Mones, a respected U.S. lawyer who specializes in defending children who kill, explained: “This double standard is evident in our social attitudes and in the legal system.”

Dr. Wood’s case in the north of England bears another uncanny similarity to the tragedy of the Knorrs. The city where this once loving mother came from is gray and industrial, just like Sacramento’s sprawling satellite towns where Theresa Knorr and her clan lived.

In both cases there appears to have been a very slow and gradual buildup to the killings. There is also a definite suggestion that it was a very calculating process.

The mother in the north of England even tried to get hold of a gun, because that would have enabled her to kill her own husband later. But purchasing firearms in Britain is much more difficult than in the United States and she failed to find a weapon. No one but Theresa Knorr knows if she harbored thoughts of ending the life of her one-time husband, Robert Knorr Sr. After all, twenty years earlier, she had escaped a jail sentence, despite killing her first husband.

But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Dr. Wood’s case is that the killer mother has now been released from a mental hospital following a conviction for manslaughter—due to diminished responsibility. She has even moved back into the same house with her husband. He has been warned that one day her paranoia may reach another crescendo, and if it does then he could become her next victim. Yet, for the time being the couple appear happily married once more. The husband insists he is so in love with his wife, he will take whatever risks necessary to remain married to the woman who killed their children.

“It was a question of sitting down with the husband and saying these are the warning signs because you are next in line,” explained Dr. Wood. (At the time of writing, husband and wife are still living relatively happily together.)

Dr. Wood says that it is very significant that in the case of the Knorrs, a number of family members allegedly colluded in their crimes. “They did not blow the whistle on each other,” he explained, “and they found a remote spot to dump the bodies.” His interpretation? That they were trying to make sure their crimes remained hidden forever.

Dr. Wood believes that it is possible that Theresa Knorr’s first husband—who died at her hands—was unfaithful to her and that sparked her seething hatred.

Another of Theresa Knorr’s problems may have been motherhood at such an early age. Many experts believe that teenage mothers are much more likely to batter their children because they are emotionally immature and unable to cope with many of the everyday stresses and strains of motherhood.

Baby battering itself reached almost epidemic proportions in the early to mid-seventies, when Theresa Knorr was bringing up her children, often singlehandedly. Constantly under pressure from lack of money—and frequently without an adult male in the household—the family unit was disintegrating in front of her very eyes. Then there were the regular moves from one community to the next, leaving mother and children little opportunity to establish themselves or their lives with new friends.

Talking to a psychiatrist can often be far less traumatic than talking to the police, and it is entirely possible that Theresa Knorr will reveal more about her alleged crimes and background through such meetings. The mind experts tend to cover the same ground as the official investigators, but in a different way.

Whatever happens to Theresa Knorr and her two sons, tragically, there seems little doubt that the system will not follow through with extensive medical help after the trial in 1995. Often it is left to the discretion (and kindness) of a psychiatrist or psychologist to provide free help because defendants such as the Knorrs cannot afford the high cost of medical treatment. Most mind experts believe that subjects like Theresa Knorr should continue seeing them for at least
ten years
after a conviction or acquittal. It remains to be seen what, if anything, can be done to help answer the dozens of so far unanswered questions surrounding virtually every aspect of this astonishing case.

Note

Chapter Two

Postscript

It would be reassuring to believe that murder was a gross abnormality, a dramatic departure from respected ethical standards that restrain civilized man from surrendering to his basic instincts. Once, murder was considered to be beyond the pale, irreconcilable with the rest of mankind. But now, advances made in our knowledge of ethology, evolution, and human psychology present challenges to such banal assumptions which cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, as man has become more civilized, intelligent, creative, and dominant, he has also become more murderous.

Statistically, murder is still rare in proportion to the population. So the type of crimes allegedly committed by Theresa Jimmie Knorr and her two sons are even more baffling, as they fall into three categories: domestic, episodic, but seemingly random (although this later turned out not to be the case).

Murder is a purposeful deed which, by horrid paradox, enables a murderer to reach previously nonexistent levels of violence. Yet that very act often makes him or her despicable to the rest of us, but renders him healthy and admirable in his or her own eyes.

Author Brian Masters studied in great depth the motivation of notorious British serial killer Dennis Nilson, and he concluded: “It is hardly surprising that the murderer is reluctant to show remorse for his (or her) acts. It would be a retrograde step, a kind of psychological suicide…”

St. Martin’s Paperbacks True Crime Library Titles by Wensley Clarkson

Doctors of Death

Whatever Mother Says

Deadly Seduction

Death at Every Stop

In the Name of Satan

Caged Head

The Railroad Killer

The Mother’s Day Murder

Slave Girls

The Good Doctor

About the Author

WENSLEY CLARKSON
was one of Britain’s most successful young journalists before moving to Los Angeles with his wife and their four children in 1991—an experience that inspired his book,
A Year in La La Land.
His other books—which have sold in more than a dozen countries—include the tabloid newspaper exposé
Dog Eat Dog,
a biography of the actor Mel Gibson, plus four best-selling true-crime books
Hell Hath No Fury, Like A Woman Scorned, Love You to Death Darling,
and
Doctors of Death.

WHATEVER MOTHER SAYS
 …

Copyright © 1995 by Wensley Clarkson.

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ISBN: 0-312-95542-1

EAN: 80312-95542-7

St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / March 1995

eISBN 9781466873469

First eBook edition: May 2014