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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Gregg Olsen
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February 7 - February 7, 2024
knew Shelly belonged right where she was, picturing her there all alone made Sami sad, as did the idea that everyone else in there had comfy underwear and nice bathrobes, while her mother was just getting what the state gave her.
killing Shane Watson to second-degree murder, and pleaded guilty to unlawful disposal of human remains and rendering criminal assistance.
Dave insisted that he wouldn’t assist in Shelly’s prosecution. For her
marital privilege laws could keep him off the stand.
was back up what they had seen and said.
Which he did.
No body for Kathy. No bones and ash under the bed.
Shelly entered a so-called Alford plea of guilty to the charges.
“In this jail and in this courtroom and in this community,” she told the court, “and everywhere else I’m known as some kind of horrible monster. I’m not. I’ve made such horrible mistakes though. Kathy was my friend, she had value and she had purpose. She would have been there for me. I wasn’t there for her a lot. I was not there when Kathy died. Not there for her.”
The Alford plea, unlike many plea bargains, didn’t require her to tell the court what she’d done.
he added more years to the tally.
Shelly’s mouth hung open, the judge sentenced her to more than twenty-two years—five more than the seventeen she’d agreed to—for the second-degree murder of Kathy and
it was fitting justice.
relationship with his daughters Tori and Sami. Nikki refuses to see him, which he understands. He says that the remorse he feels for his role in what happened at the Louderback and Monohon Landing houses hasn’t left him. He knows it never will.
Shelly Knotek will be released from prison in 2022,
“I’m not sure she would have killed anyone if she had been born into a different family, a different town, married a stronger man,” she theorizes. “Mom
and said you need to shoot your brother, there’s no way I would have. Nikki too. No way. But our dad did.”
Tori wants nothing to do with Shelly.
life.” The Knotek sisters gather together several times
reaction to the bathroom at Louderback and the place where Nikki had been made to wallow. Tears came. Smiles too. She pointed out a fish pond
Sisters forever. Victims no more.
of serial killers—mostly daughters—are speaking out about being related to the most monstrous of all offenders.
Melissa Moore, the daughter of “Happy Face Killer” Keith Jesperson, even developed a TV series in which she introduced relatives of serial killers to members of families whose loved ones were victims, hoping for healing for all.
A woman whose beauty and sex deflected suspicion, she ruled her home and subjected her children and her tenants to horrifying torment. Using cover stories and a caretaker’s persona to hide her sadistic
they look for compliant people with few resources: their own children or elderly parents, friends in need, homeless people, the mentally ill, or those without family ties. Then they pursue a program of steady erosion of their victims’ ability to resist. Even in the face of outrageous behavior, such people will be too frightened, docile, confused, or incapacitated to retaliate or seek help.
Knotek used a contrived persona of charm and success to falsely engender trust in potential new victims.
sadists, described as the great white sharks of deviant crime.
crushed the lives around them,
Controlling others with pain empowers them.
the sense of authority
Dr. Michael Stone, a forensic psychiatrist and the inventor of the 22-point scale of evil, includes cases of “parents from hell” when he describes what goes wrong in an institution we regard as the ultimate arena of safety and protection.
“most evil” category—level 22—for psychopathic torture-murderers, with torture as their primary motivator.
Victims who want to get help recognize how difficult it would be to convince authorities of the sadist’s behavior.
continue. Skilled predators know how to stay in control.
children. Some shun the media, change their names, get therapy, and hope to live their lives as normally as they can. Others seek out a public forum. No matter which route they take, the offender has stained their souls. They might end up with sleep or eating
along a genetic infection, so they watch their own kids with increased vigilance.
predatory “caretaker”
feelings of guilt. They might even
Victims of abuse can still love the monster. This ambivalent loyalty might just be the predator’s ultimate form of damage.
Psychology of Death Investigations; Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer; and The Mind of a Murderer. She presents workshops to law enforcement, coroners, and attorneys and has consulted for several television series, including The Alienist, CSI, and Bones. She also writes a regular
