If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

by Gregg Olsen

Dave fell hard for Shelly and her little girls.

I can barely afford to care for my children. I think I’ll have to let Dave

My natural mother before her death. And I was raised there for the first twelve years of my life. It has been common knowledge between

house was lost to foreclosure.

“I have cancer,” she said. “I probably won’t live to thirty.”

the cancer card. I should have known better, but I didn’t.”

named Kathy Loreno, Shelly’s hairdresser and best friend. No one knew at the time that Kathy would eventually

Les Watson was only too glad to have his daughter get married for a third time.

forgiven her for the rape story, though he’d learned to play nice.

She claimed she had cancer and she thought he’d want to know directly from her, not Lara, with whom she’d started a war over

Dave, thin with longish hair and tattoos that portrayed his love of the

metaphor for the beginning of the Knotek marriage. When they passed by the spot, Nikki would frequently recall

Tears came instantly as Nikki complied. There was something about her mother’s voice,

Nikki would squat naked in the mud as her father sprayed her with the hose. Dave was mostly mute as he went about what he’d been told to do. Nikki cried and begged for a second chance.

“I remember thinking that it was unfair that I didn’t get the same kind of treatment,” Sami said years later. “I knew that whatever she’d done didn’t deserve the wallowing but that’s what happened to her. That’s what my parents did to her.”

“Sami always got her way by being her own advocate. It saved her.

Sami did not get abused as badly as mani

and her puppies were the source of a happy time.

Lara Watson never heard her granddaughters say a bad word about their mother. Never once did they let on what was happening. “Mom is weird,” was the extent

from his family

Kathy Loreno first showed up on the scene as a friend,

Shane moving in,

“You need to stay with us, Kathy,” she said. “It will be so fun. Plus, I really need you.”

Kathy worshipped Shelly.

was an overbearing busybody whose sole purpose was to make their

Nikki was defiant and Shane was incorrigible.

Shane had cigarettes occasionally and got caught with marijuana one time.

Kelly, remembers her mother as an unhappy woman who seldom

When Kathy was born in the summer of 1958, she came into the world with the most beautiful blue eyes, like big blue marbles. Blonde hair too. She looked like her mother, who had once posed as the Langendorf Bread model in the 1930s.

After Kathy’s stepfather died, her mother bought a camper and took the kids camping around California.

Kathy liked the boy across the street, but it was only a friendship. She lived for the monthly release of Harlequin and Silhouette books.

“We’re moving up to Washington!”

Kathy, nineteen, was in the middle of cosmetology training and transferred her credits from Simi Valley to a beauty school in Aberdeen.

Kelly, who didn’t drive until twenty-one, needed a ride, it was Kathy who drove her.

gifts. It embarrassed Kaye, though, in truth, they were in need.

She was a complete giver.

“I thought to myself that my sister could never make it here,” Kelly

in with her mother. It was a stunning and sad reversal of fortune. Not long after she moved in

She’d even been a member of her wedding party. Her name was Shelly Knotek.

a new baby would mean yet another mouth to feed. Dave

part, Kathy was there to help with the pregnancy and prenatal appointments, as well as keep up with Shelly’s cancer treatments.

Tori Knotek was born the first week of June 1989, it was Dave, though,

One time Nikki came downstairs to find their mother holding a pillow over Tori’s face.

face. The

that, Nikki and Sami kept an eye out for their baby sister. No one talked about what they suspected had been going on.

Sami’s father, Danny, came to see her, and he told her something that gave her a different perception of how her mother cared for babies than what she’d heard from Dave Knotek.

cake. Shelly liked to make a show of holidays and special occasions. Birthdays were an especially big deal. It didn’t matter if money was tight or even nonexistent;

Shelly gave her daughter a Popple,

Later, after everyone had gone, Shelly got out a belt and beat the birthday

In tears, and sore where her mom had beat her, Sami learned a valuable lesson—her favorite present must always be the one her mother had given.