Whatever Mother Says...: A True Story of a Mother, Madness and Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library)
by Wensley Clarkson
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Description
To neighbors, she was the brave single Raising her five kids alone in a rundown section of Sacramento, Theresa Cross Knorr seemed like the ultimate survivor. But her youngest daughter, 16-year-old Terry, told police another story: one almost too terrible to believe. But accused of imprisoning her children in a house of According to Terry, Theresa--no longer the petite brunette she once was--had turned insanely jealous of her pretty eldest daughters and enlisted the help of her two teenaged show more sons in a vicious campaign against their sisters. Of beating, torturing and killing her own flesh and Terry's gruesome tale told how Theresa had drugged, handcuffed and shot 16-year-old Suesan, allowing her wounds to fester, until the day she ordered her sons to burn their sister alive. Next, Terry said Theresa severely beat 20-year-old Sheila and then locked her in a stifling broom closet, so that when the girl finally starved to death, her brothers dumped her body in the same desolate mountain range where they had cremated Suesan. She could be one of the most evil murderesses of our It took Terry five agonizing years to convince authorities to investigate her grisly accounts of burning flesh, starvation and a mother from hell, so sadistic and so deranged, she had become her children's own executioner. Wensley Clarkson's Whatever Mother Says ... is the true story of a mother, madness and murder. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I read this many years ago in my true crime phase. Even so, how I had the stomach for it I'll never understand. I was into stories more along the detective line such as Ann Rule writes. This is a horrific story of torture and child abuse. Not for the faint of heart.
my wife lived in the area that they lived at! Eerie!
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Author Information
97 Works 1,045 Members
Wensley Clarkson, a British tabloid writer, is the author of more than two dozen true-crime novels and quickie celebrity biographies. In his tell-all book, Death at Every Stop: The True Story of Alleged Gay Serial Killer Andrew Cunanan, Clarkson takes the reader into the mind of the playboy who murdered Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace. show more Some of Clarkson's other true-crime novels include Whatever Mother Says, the shocking true story of a woman who was arrested in 1993 for the torture murders of her two daughters. Doctors of Death is the chilling true tales of psychopathic physicians; and An Eye for An Eye is the story of a woman out for revenge after the murder of her daughter, which was turned into a feature film starring Sally Fields. Clarkson's unauthorized biographies include exposes on Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Quentin Tarantino. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1995-03-01
- People/Characters
- Theresa Cross Knorr; Terry Knorr; Suesan Knorr; Sheila Knorr; William Knorr; Robert Knorr
- Important places
- Sacremento, California, USA
- Dedication
- To Clare, for putting up with me, as usual
- First words
- Prologue: In October 1993 one of the most disturbing allegations of multiple child abuse ever seen was uncovered thanks to the dogged efforts of one detective and the young woman who claims she narrowly escaped with her life... (show all) after witnessing a catalogue of terror inside her own family home.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It remains to be ween what, if anything , can be done to help answer the dozens of so far unanswered questions surrounding virtually every aspect of this astonishing case.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 364.1 — Society, government, & culture Social problems and social services Crime Criminal offenses
- LCC
- HV6542 .C53 — Social sciences Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology Crimes and offenses
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 106
- Popularity
- 306,376
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.62)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 2
