06x02 - The Face of My Torturer

[bunniefuu]

I know telling this story
does not make me look good

because I did do
really messed up things,

but in telling it,
at least I can show

this isn't something
that I sought after.

The only way I'm actually able
to talk about about it

is not because I'm better.

It's because I'm still broken.

I'm relatively cut off
from any emotional engagement.

I don't feel overly happy.

I never feel overly sad,

but it does make it easier
to tell the story

and get my side
of this out there.

If we're to believe you,

why didn't you call the cops
when you could?

Well, honestly I thought
my mother would find out

before the cops found her,

and she had let me know
in no uncertain terms

that if I had told,
she would k*ll me.

This to me is
the face of my torturer.

The abuse didn't give her
the sense of control anymore,

so m*rder was the next step.

- -Captions by vitac...
- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by
discovery communications

I had a total of five siblings,
two of which were half-siblings.

That would be my older brother
and sister, Howard and Sheila,

and then direct siblings,
sister suesan,

younger brother Robert,
and sister Terry.

She ruined six of us.

There's not one kid
that she birthed into this world

that isn't broken or dead.

Hey, guys, go outside.

Go outside and play.
Come on.

She would tell us
on a regular basis

that she didn't want
any one of us,

so now that she's stuck with us,

she's going to make us do
what she wants.

Be back before it's dark.

The extreme abuses didn't happen
until my biological father

had started another family.

He was never actually present
in our lives.

Since we had
no other place to go,

we had no contact with our dad,

we really tried to be the kids
that she was expecting us to be.

This is a picture of me
in grade school.

I don't have any actual color
photographs of my sisters,

either one.

There's no family picnic photos.

There's nothing like that.

Looking back,

I wish that somebody
would have kidnapped me.

I was so unprepared
for what was coming.

My life was about
to change dramatically.

The beatings were
part of growing up.

One one occasion we had been
sent to our room

in the middle of the day.

She didn't want to
hear us or see us.

We weren't allowed to talk.

We had to stay on our own beds.

Alls I was doing was silently
laying on my bed,

and Robert was on his.

She burst into mine
and my brother's room.

She was berating us.

Are you laughing at me?
Don't play dumb with me.

We didn't say anything.

I remember looking at Robert
and Robert is,

like, you know, shrugging.

He doesn't know what's going on,
and she goes,

"stop laughing at me."

Everything I do for you, and you
were up here talking about me.

Robert and I looked
at each other.

We were not laughing.

I know that you're up here
laughing at me.

Mom, I swear
we were being quiet.

And she looked at me and said,
"your eyes were laughing at me."

What did I tell you
about lying?

Kids, come hold
your brother down.

She made Robert, Sheila, suesan,
all grab me.

No.
Stop.

At one point or another
all of the siblings

were forced
to hold down somebody,

and if you lost your grip
or if you let go

or whatnot,
you were immediately beat.

She used what she called
the board of education.

It was a piece of wood
from a construction site

that she had a wrapped
a handle up with electrical tape

so she wouldn't lose
her grip on it.

You know
this is what you get.

Whenever my mother
would beat any of us,

she would always say it was
because she loved us.

If she didn't love us,
she wouldn't even bother.

At a certain point,
you internalize this.

This is what love is.

Love is control and beating.

Once she was satisfied
that I wasn't laughing anymore,

and once I started to cry,
she goes,

"there,
now you're not laughing at me.

You stay on that bed.

That's where your staying
for the rest of the night,"

and she closed the door.

Everybody,
back to your rooms.

And we didn't have
any outside exposure.

We could never go to
a kid's house after school,

so we didn't actually see
their family dynamics.

There wasn't
any questioning of it.

This is what moms do.

We just thought everybody
was the same as us.

She started
getting more paranoid.

In her mind we were possessed,
demon possession.

I recall one evening
where we were in bed.

We were all asleep.

She got us all up out of bed

because in her mind
we had been faking asleep.

Keep moving, in the living room.
You know the drill. Go.

She lined us up and had us
sit down facing away from her.

She didn't want to see us.

She didn't want us
to look at her.

Everybody on the floor.

We weren't allowed
to fall asleep.

We weren't allowed to speak,
and we had to sit there

all night
facing away from her.

Robert, stay awake.

If somebody started
to fall asleep,

if their head started to Bob,
they got it with the board.

If somebody tried to move
their leg, they got hit.

We had to sit there
like statues,

sitting absolutely still for

I can't even tell you
how many hours.

When the sun came up,
she says,

"okay, you guys
can get up now."

The demons had left us.

All right.
Go upstairs.

We just chalked it up to,
mom is weird.

You know, this was just
what she was becoming.

My mom used to bar hop,
and that's where

she would meet guys and what not
and try to have relationships.

She would always
come home drunk.

So one night after
my mom had been out,

she was very excited
about showing us something.

I want to show you guys
something.

You're going to love this.

And she tells us a story about
somebody that was at this bar

that she was at,
and rather than throwing darts

he breaks out
a set of throwing knives,

and, she's like,
"look. I can throw knives."

She started having us
individually

stand in front of her

and she would show
how good she was at it

by throwing the knives
at us and missing us.

We got scared at that point.

William.

She told me
to stand against the wall.

And I closed my eyes.

I didn't want to se it.

And it missed me,
and I got out of there,

but when it was Sheila's turn,

she threw a knife...

And stabbed Sheila.

Sheila, you're next.

When it was Sheila's turn,

she threw a knife...

And stabbed Sheila.

The knife didn't actually
stay in her.

It fell out, and so she started
bleeding immediately,

and my mom immediately
got angry at Sheila,

saying, "she moved.
She did that on purpose.

You did that on purpose
to make me look bad."

She moved.
It's her own fault.

There was never an,
"I'm sorry," from my mother.

I don't think
my mom had remorse.

I don't think
she was empathetic at all.

Come here.

She did close the wound,
butterfly bandage,

disinfectant and all of that,
and that was as close as you

got to a motherly moment,
but that was it.

It was always our fault,
not hers,

and when she was done with us,

we just ended up going to bed
and not talking about it again.

One morning, suesan ran away

while I was doing
my paper route.

I returned from my paper route,
and my mom asked me,

"where's suesan?"

And I was like, "I don't know.
She was here when I left."

Is your sister with you?
No.

None of us knew where she was,

and my mom had
a panicked moment.

My sister suesan
was very bright.

Suesan knew something
that the rest of us didn't.

This can't be normal.

There's a real problem here,
and that scared my mom

because she didn't know
what suesan was going to do.

Hello.
May we come in?

Child protective services
showed up on our doorstep

one day after suesan
had run away.

She told them about the a*usive
situation we were in.

They just said all of us
were going to have to do

individual interviews,

but my mom was in the room
the entire time,

and we knew
what that meant.

Hi.
Hello.

William?
Yes.

Nice to meet you,
William.

If you didn't say anything
that she told you to say,

you were going
to get beat again.

So, William, has your mother
ever hurt you?

They asked us questions
that we could not answer.

"Does your mom beat you?"

And you look immediately
at your mom,

and she's standing there
shaking her head no,

you're going
to answer no.

No.

No?

Have you ever seen your mother
hurt your brothers or sisters?

No, ma'am.

And at the end
of this investigation

they made the conclusion
that suesan was just a runaway

because she doesn't like
being at home anymore,

so they sent her home.

It's a harsh realization,
but we failed her,

all of us as kids.

We were scared, and we
didn't know any better.

She tried to do something,

and we couldn't stand shoulder
to shoulder and help her.

I think that it would have
been very different

if suesan had just
ran away and stayed gone,

but it didn't go
that direction.

- Alright. Bye-bye.
- Bye.

You, come with me.

Suesan was immediately
handcuffed to a table.

Don't tell people things,
and don't leave this house.

You do not go and talk to...
Give me your hand.

Put it up here.

She had socks over
her hands,

and it reduced marks,
and that's where she stayed

for probably the next...

Couple of years.

She was gagged.

It was horrible, and it was
under very heavy restrictions

that the gag ever came out.

She force-fed suesan.

If suesan was full,
she made her eat more.

If she threw up,
she made her eat that.

To see her handcuffed
under the table

was a constant reminder
of the consequences.

This is what happened
when you go against our mom.

Let this be a lesson
to all of you.

Running away
didn't cross my mind

because I had no place to go.

The system had already failed,
so I couldn't go to the system.

Watching this escalation 100%
reinforced the strategy

for me to not make waves.

She went to the school and
told them that we were moving.

Never went to school again,

but she wanted more money
coming into the household,

so at one point
I got a job at a movie theater.

I would have to walk or ride
a bike to and from work,

and she would drive past me to
make sure I was going to work.

I would see her car
drive by me several times.

She would never stop.

She would never pick me up
and drive me to work,

but she would make sure
that I went straight there.

My mother under
no uncertain terms

was absolutely stalking me
and making sure

I did what I was supposed
to be doing at any given time.

She escalated her control
over me by doing these things.

I'm thinking,
"this is just my life.

This is the way
it's going to be."

If she would have
found me deviating,

I have no idea
what would have happened.

She hands Terry,
who is the youngest,

a .22 p*stol.

Terry is freaked.

She's a kid.

The g*n goes off.

This house was the whole world.

This is where t*rture started.

This is where everything
disintegrated in our lives.

This is where suesan
was handcuffed to a table.

Suesan had already been under
the table for quite a while.

By that time we were
so brainwashed, controlled,

we didn't know that anybody else
was living any different.

Suesan was starting
to gain pressure sores,

so she would be allowed to be
uncuffed for a period of time.

Knock it off.

But every night,
she was back under the table,

and she was only let go when
my mother allowed her to be.

You know the rules.

She was completely and utterly
without a moment's peace.

This had to end.

One morning, my mom just woke up
in a horrible mood

and literally
was yelling and screaming

about so many things
simultaneously.

Stop saying, "mom."

We were being hit
indiscriminately.

Suesan had been uncuffed

and is taking this
huge brunt of abuse.

I'm sorry.

At one point she hands Terry,
who is the youngest,

a .22 p*stol.

That's it.

- No, mom.
- Mom, please.

Terry, hold this
on your sister.

And she tells her if she
even moves, you sh**t her.

Terry is freaked.

She's a kid holding a g*n.

William, come with me.

And my mother takes me
down the hall,

and we start making oatmeal.

I'm taking food
down the hall to people.

I have got bowls in my hand.

The spoons fall over and clank,

and when they clank...

...Terry jumped,

and when she jumped
the g*n went off.

She shot suesan.

Suesan fell.

She dropped the g*n.

What did you do?

No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.

She doesn't want the blood
to get on the carpet.

She's not as concerned
with suesan.

She's not concerned
about Terry at all.

She doesn't want blood
on the carpet.

Boys, carry your sister
up to the bathtub.

She makes Robert
and me pick her up,

take her into the bathroom
and get her into the bathtub.

She was not screaming
or hollering.

She was not,
you know, writhing.

She was out.

The g*nsh*t was low
in the abdomen.

We didn't know what
exact condition she was in,

but we knew she wasn't dead.

My mother said, "everything
is going to be fine.

I know how to take
care of this."

She starts to deliver
some form of first aid.

She's not trying
to remove the b*llet.

She didn't actually stitch
anything up.

She used a series of gauze,
tape, butterfly bandages,

that sort of stuff,
to close the wound.

I don't know if she gave her
any pain relievers.

I think that she was just
disappointed that suesan

was wounded and not k*lled.

She's going to be fine.

There was no thought
about calling the police

or calling an ambulance
or calling anything else.

We were just kids,
and mom is going to handle it.

She was in there
for maybe a month.

It was more or less like
watching a horrible movie.

It took a while for suesan to
even recover to a certain extent

and get out of the bathtub,

but, my mother put her
right back under the table.

Okay?
Handcuffed.

Let me go.

You did this
to your self.

Suesan could not
take it anymore.

She started to beg and plead
on a regular basis.

"I can't do this anymore.
Let me just go.

I won't go to the authorities.
I will disappear forever."

I promise.
I'll disappear.

You'll never see me again.

And she tried doing this
for an extended period,

like, over a year where
she was begging to get out.

At some point she had said
it enough to where my mother

actually started
to entertain this idea.

My mother actually said,
"okay, but I got to take

that b*llet out of you.

I'm not letting you leave
with that b*llet still in you."

Mom, no!

Please, mom, no.

No!
No!

"That's evidence. I'm not
letting that walk out of here."

No!
Mom, no!

No, mom!

Let me out!

I can home from work
to find suesan on the floor.

She was out.

She's got bandages on her.

Terry was obviously shaken.

Robert, he wasn't doing great,

and, Terry tells me that mom had
taken the b*llet out of her.

He had
to cut suesie open.

They used some sort
of combination

of alcohol and medication
or whatnot to start the surgery,

and she had possibly
gone into some form of shock

and passed out
during this process.

My mom comes out of the
bathroom, and I looked at her,

and she just simply says,
"what?" As if to challenge me.

"What do you have to say
about this?"

And I didn't say anything.

I didn't say anything.

She wanted to leave.

This is what
it's going to cost.

There was no in-depth
explanation, and she's like,

"I've decided to let suesan go,

but this is what we had
to do to let her go.

She'll be fine. She just needs
a little time to heal up,

and she'll be on her way."

Clean this mess up.

Weeks later, I came home
from work again,

and this time suesan
wasn't on the floor.

My mother immediately said,

"we're going to
drop suesan off,"

you know, "gather her stuff up."

Take this stuff,
and put it in the car.

It was certain minimal
personals, some clothing,

things of this nature,
and Robert and I went out,

and we went to
put them in the car.

That's the first time
I saw where suesan was.

She was in the trunk of the car.

So we gathered up the
meager belongings that she had,

and Robert and I
take them outside,

and that's the first time
that I had seen

that suesan had been moved
into the trunk of the car.

What happened?

I was told that she was dead,
that she had died on the floor.

To be honest, I did not check.

The only explanation from
my mother was very dismissive.

"This is what suesan wanted.

We had to take that b*llet out,
so here we are."

Robert and I, we were scared.

Come on, everybody.
Get in the car.

She said, "everybody, get in.
We're going for a drive."

Come on, now.

There was no questions
we just...

We got in the car.

We started driving
to a wooded area,

so we're in the car
for a while,

and nobody has said even
a single word the entire time.

It's dark.

It's nighttime,
and she finds a place

that is slightly removed
from the highway.

She says, "okay, get everything
out of the trunk."

We moved the stuff out,
and then we came back

and put suesan down,
and, Robert and I both thought

we were just getting in
and driving away.

That's when my mom
pulls out the g*n.

Pour gas on everything.

Robert and I put gas
on just the stuff.

We didn't put any on suesan.

She c*ck the g*n and says,
"I said, 'on everything.'"

I said, "everything."

And it wasn't like
we had a choice.

I don't think she would
have hesitated

to sh**t Robert or myself,

and then she throws me
that matches and says,

"you light that."

And she has got the g*n on me.

I feel that the reason
why she made me do it

is because
she wanted me to blame.

"You're the one who did it."

I know she will sh**t,

and so I've got to strike
a match and drop it.

In my mind,
she was already dead.

I didn't light my living sister
on fire

she was dead.

But that's the only solace
that I can take from this,

that this was not
her burning to death.

And, then with the g*n,
"get in the car, now."

Leaving that situation was...

I can't even put it all into
words because I was so...

All of us were so desensitized,

but it was still
hugely traumatic.

You can't unsee that, but there
was a sense of relief.

You know, she wasn't going to be
tortured on the floor anymore.

Her fight was done.

We never talked
about suesan again.

We weren't allowed
to mention her name.

This is the last picture
of my sister suesan.

I can see a smile on her face.

Maybe this was the last
happy time she ever had.

The only thing that she wanted
to do was try

and help people, help us,
get out of this situation.

I failed her.
The system failed her.

My other brothers
and sisters failed her.

She tried to do something
for everybody

and paid
the ultimate price for it.

My mother was psychotic.

She needed somebody to t*rture.

She needed somebody to beat on,

and it quickly moved over
to Sheila.

One day I walk in, in the middle
of her beating Sheila.

Stop!

I started yelling, "are you
trying to k*ll her, too?"

If you are,
just get it over with.

Stop torturing her.

What did you say?

And then my mom came at me

and she was going to start
beating on me,

and I put my hands up,
and I said, "no. No.

You are not doing this
to me any more."

That was a shift moment for me.

It was scary.

You will never
touch me again.

At this point I was 15,
and it was oddly exciting

that I had actually
stood up to my mom.

I simply turned around and left.

I did not go to the police.

I didn't go to child
protective services.

I did not want to be
forced back into the home

and end up
where suesan was.

By this point, this deep,
it was every man for themselves,

but I knew that I hadn't seen
the last of my mother.

It obviously followed me,
continued stalking me,

and Robert said,

"mom needs you, and you don't
want her to come get you."

When I walk in,
my mom was there.

You asked to see me?

And she's all,
"you created this situation,

and now you're going
to have to deal with it."

You're responsible
for this.

And I was like,
"I haven't been here.

What are you talking about
I created a situation?"

Responsible for what?

She said, "well, after you left
we had to put Sheila

in the closet to shut her up."

And I said,
"what's going on here?"

When my mother
opened the door...

Sheila was dead.

What I had heard from Robert
many years later

is that she had cried
and then begged,

and then pleaded to get out,

and then she started
to say things

that didn't make any sense,

and then she stopped
saying anything,

and she had left her
in there for another day.

You're responsible
for this.

Looking at her in that closet

was just every worst thing
that you could imagine.

I thought that I had made
the right choice

at ending Sheila's beating
with a very dramatic statement.

Turns out I was wrong.

You're going to help me
make this go away.

This would be the last picture
of my sister Sheila.

Sheila, just...
She didn't hurt a fly ever.

At that point, I knew
that I had failed again.

It was just an amazingly
harsh realization...

That nothing I did was going
to make a difference,

and that's...
Looking at these pictures

every one of them brings back
another level of regret.

You'll hear so many people say,

"well, if I had been there
I would have..."

Well, I was there,
and I didn't, and I regret that,

and there's no way for me
to go back and remedy it.

I was too weak.

She told Robert and I to get
out of the car and dig a hole.

Robert and I had gotten out

and walked a little ways
away from the car,

and almost immediately
a sheriff's car

pulled in behind us.

Robert and I hit the ground,

and there's no way
that he would have seen us,

and he walked up
to my moms window.

She rolled down her window,

and he asked her
what she was doing out here.

She says, "I've just been
driving awhile,

pulled over
to get some rest,"

but she seemed very, very
comfortable with this situation.

She didn't panic or get edgy,
and he said,

"well, you might
want to move the car

because it smells like
there's a dead deer out here."

He did not sense the smell
was coming from the car,

and then he walked back,

got in his car
and turned around and drove off,

and then she started the car
and turned on lights

and then we just got right back
in the car and drove away

because she didn't want to have
a record of her car

being at that spot
and then have them find Sheila.

We actually went into
a different county,

to a different spot.

She just told us,
"just take her out,

set her off to the side, and get
back to the car quickly,"

and so that's what we did.

When the car was in park,
I said, "I can't do this, okay?

If you're going to come
after me, then come after me.

I'm done with all this."

That's it.
I'm not doing this anymore.

And I got out of the car.

You think you can
just walk away?

She definitely took
the opportunity to, you know...

"you're as guilty
as I am in this."

You know, "you were here.
You did this."

Her blood is
on your hands, too.

Letting me know that if I try
to go to the police,

she's going to make sure
that I'm going to go down, too,

but, I'm not coming back
for anything.

Either k*ll me
or leave me alone.

After I was out,
the first several years

I looked over my shoulder
every day, all day.

I would go to windows
at the front of my job

and, you know,
see if I recognized any cars,

see if I recognized any faces.

Is Robert out there?
Is my mother out there?

I didn't hear from anybody
for years.

I had no contact.

I didn't found out for many,
many years that at a certain age

they were grown
and out of the house...

Right over there.

...and that's when
two detectives

had showed up at my work.

We're going to have
to have you come with us.

They put me in handcuffs

and said I was being arrested
for m*rder.

This is a booking photo.

This is me.

Nobody expects
to have one of these.

I'm 25 years old here.

The two detectives
took me into custody,

and they said that I was
being arrested for m*rder.

They take me into this room,

and they start showing me
pictures of these places.

This could have been the entry

where the turnoff
where suesan was,

or this could have been where
my mom turned off for Sheila.

The police became aware
of the whole story

through my sister Terry.

She had gotten herself
in trouble

with the law several times
over the years,

and each time she was arrested,
she would tell this story,

and they started
asking me questions,

mostly about
where my mother was,

when I last
had contact with her,

and that's when
I start to get an idea

of what I'm actually being
charged in connection with.

After launching
a nationwide search,

investigators
found Theresa jimmie knorr

in salt lake city.

She had worked as a care taker

for an 86-year-old woman
for over a year

and had just borrowed $4,600
from the woman's son.

Detectives think
she was planning to flee.

I was glad that they had found
her and that she was caught,

but that didn't mean
that I was free.

I brought into the same
courtroom as she was.

Accused k*ller and son number
one is Robert knorr, Jr.

He's in a Nevada prison
on unrelated charges,

and we're told
he won't talk with the cops.

This is alleged co-conspirator
and son number two,



They believed I was complicit.

"If you weren't guilty of this,
why didn't you come forward?

You know, you've had


Why didn't you come forward?"

And the obvious clear
answer was,

"look what happened
to the people who did."

Suesan tried to come forward.

She had gotten herself
with child protective services,

and she's dead.

So I just went about
trying to live my life.

Knorr remained
passive throughout the hearing,

but, her son, charged as an
accomplice, was uncomfortable.

His attorney says seeing
his mother makes him nervous.

Nervous is not the right word.

I was caught so off guard by her
being walked into that courtroom

that I just broke
all the way down.

I couldn't breathe.

I was sweating.

This, to me, is the face
of my torturer,

and the guy next to me told them
to get me out of there.

After that day in the courtroom,
I have not seen her again.

It's obviously a recent
picture of my mother.

The fact that she would spend
the rest of her natural life

incarcerated was a relief.

I never saw any sign of remorse
from my mother, ever.

I don't believe she's even
capable of remorse,

and there will never be
a time in my future

that I will ever want to have
contact or see my mother again.

He was already in jail
in ely, Nevada,

for an unrelated crime,
but when they interviewed him,

he gave almost an identical
statement to what I did.

Robert and I spoke
to each other one time

while on a transport bus,
and I don't know where he's at.

We have not been in touch.

I have had no further contact
with him, either.

I have done a lot of work
on myself in a lot of ways,

and it's gotten better
over the years,

but I don't have the full
connections to emotions

like so many folks do.

The biggest emotion that
I have is absolute regret

that I wasn't
a better person.

I still find difficulties
in external relationships.

I don't necessarily
have a lot of friends,

but my life today
is very, very different.

I have a wife
and a beautiful daughter.

I would like to think
I'm a decent dad to my kiddo.

I think my daughter
actually likes me.

The day to days of my life
are like anybody else's.

I go to work, do the best job

I can, go home,
spend time with my family.

We have what seems to be
a pretty normal life.

I can't explain my mother.

I don't really want to
try to understand her.

I just want to be a better
parent than she was,

and I know that's setting
the bar really low,

but I want to be
the type of person

that when my daughter
is older,

I want her to be able to trust
that she can still come home

to dad's house and feel safe.

I want her to be the defining
moment of my life,

to show that I didn't
continue the cycle of abuse.

We were taught
to be horrible people,

but you can move past it
and create a different future

for somebody else.