I have read a considerable number of true crime books over the years, and few of them have failed to fascinate me in one way or the other. Even fewer of them managed to simultaneously fascinate and repulse me the way that Gregg Olsen’s If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood did. The fascination comes from what Michelle “Shelly” Knotek was able to get away with for so long. The repulsion, maybe revulsion is an even better word, comes from having to be in her company for the three days it took me to read this account of how evil the woman was – and from all accounts, still is.
That Knotek’s three daughters (Nikki, Sami, and Tori) have managed to live relatively normal lives after the horrible physical and mental abuse they suffered at their mother’s hand and direction, is astounding. Although it is not addressed much in Olsen’s book, it is hard to believe that the three of them are not still suffering the consequences of the years their mother tortured them. Nikki, the oldest, is married and raising a family in Seattle; Sami, the middle daughter, is an elementary school teacher in a rural Washington town where much of the abuse happened; and Tori, the youngest is now in her early thirties and living somewhere in central Oregon.
Others of her mother’s victims were not so lucky.
Shelly Knotek was never happier than she was in the middle of physically torturing her victims. She lived for nothing more. And with the help of her third husband, Dave Knotek, a pathetically weak man who still defends his wife’s actions, she was able to hide what was happening from authorities for years. Ultimately, Shelly would be convicted of her crimes (via what is called an Alford plea agreement) and sentenced, after having talked herself into an extra 5 years for arrogantly denying everything at her formal sentencing, to 22 years in prison. It appears that she will be released sometime in 2022 after having served about 18 years of the sentence. Dave Knotek was sentenced to just under 15 years in 2004 and was released from prison in 2016.
If You Tell includes an Afterword by Katherine Ramsland that goes a long way in explaining how Shelly Knotek so easily found victims outside her immediate family. In one heartbreaking passage, Ramsland sums it up this way:
“First, 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.”
But it is Nikki, Sami, and Tori who are given the last word, a warning to the public, especially to those who are vulnerable to people like their mother, that she will be released soon – and that she will do it again.
Michelle and David Knotek |
I wonder why we don't lock these dangerous people up for good, not to mention the 'good' of society because does anyone seriously believe people will now be safe from her? It also makes me wonder about the nature of evil. Most of us have a dark side but some seem to be all dark with little to no good in them at all. Are they born that way, can you inherit it? Or do events in the their lives trigger such behaviour? I don't think I want to read this but I can't help pondering these questions as I get older.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, Cath, I think the woman inherited her tendencies from her mother, who seems to have been a cross between evil and insane herself.
DeleteWhat appalls me most about this story is how easily some of her victims were brainwashed into thinking they could not live without this woman. Some of them refused to step out of her life and away from her home even though they were her age and older. I can better understand why her children remained quiet for all those years...she was, after all, the only mother they had and she provided the only home they had. They lived in fear of the family being destroyed and them being separated by going to foster homes.
Her daughters are convinced that she will be as evil when she comes out as she was when she went in, if not worse. She will be 68 years old in 2022, so she has plenty of time to destroy more lives.
Reading true stories like this one always reminds me of driving past a really bad car wreck where you don't want to look, but you can't turn away from the carnage. I do want to read this one, though I know it will be a hard one to get through.
ReplyDeleteThat's definitely what it was like for parts of this one, Lark. It's just so hard for most of us to comprehend that people like this horrible woman are way more common than common sense tells us they should be.
DeleteI know people suffer hard ships growing up
ReplyDeletebut even I can’t believe this story. Family , yes … but when other people enter the family and are abused like this……
As far as I know, so far no one has disputed the accuracy of the book.
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