Michelle Knotek who went by Shelly was a manipulative woman, she had been this way her entire life. But there came a point when Shelly's manipulations of the people around her began leading to murder. Join us for our 3-part series covering this fascinating case.
We are looking for hometown True Crime stories for future episodes. Please send your stories to us at: TheSecretSitsPodcast@gmail.com
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#ShellyKnotek #MichelleKnotek #LesWatson #NikkiKnotek #SamiKnotek #ToriKnotek #ShaneWatson #DaveKnotek #KathyLoreno #WashawayBeach #911 #manipulation #Abuse #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Crime #Washington #Disneyland #Secrets
Michelle Knotek who went by Shelly was a manipulative woman, she had been this way her entire life. But there came a point when Shelly's manipulations of the people around her began leading to murder. Join us for our 3-part series covering this fascinating case.
We are looking for hometown True Crime stories for future episodes. Please send your stories to us at: TheSecretSitsPodcast@gmail.com
Support the show
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheSecretSits
Follow us on our social media at:
https://drum.io/thesecretsits
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwnfvpNBYTo9BP1sVuFsfGQ
TheSecretSitsPodcast (@secretsitspod) / Twitter
https://www.instagram.com/thesecretsitspodcast/
https://www.facebook.com/TheSecretSitsPodcast
https://www.tiktok.com/@thesecretsitspodcast?lang=en
#ShellyKnotek #MichelleKnotek #LesWatson #NikkiKnotek #SamiKnotek #ToriKnotek #ShaneWatson #DaveKnotek #KathyLoreno #WashawayBeach #911 #manipulation #Abuse #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Crime #Washington #Disneyland #Secrets
[Underscore Music]
There are always two sides to every story, and sometimes there are many different pieces to a story, like a jigsaw puzzle, and like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to fit all the jagged puzzle pieces together, and they don’t always fit with exact precision.
[Theme Music Start]
Welcome to The Secret Sits, I’m your host John Dodson. Join us every Thursday as we uncover the Secrets behind the world’s most fascinating true crime cases. You can find all episodes of The Secret Sits for free on Apple Podcast, Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you are hearing, reach out to us on Instagram and Facebook @The Secret Sits Podcast or Twitter @SecretSitsPod.
[Theme Music Play Out]
[Under Score Music]
This is a story of three sisters, who are bound together through tragedy, chaos and perseverance. But to get to their story we need to go back, back to the 1950’s and to a quintessential small town called Battle Ground, Washington situated 12 miles northeast of Vancouver.
It was here that recent high school graduate Lara Stalling first meets Les Watson. Now, Les Watson was ten years older than Lara and he had quite the reputation around town as a smooth talker who could pour on the charm when he had to. He was also quite handsome and was popular with the ladies. Les and his mother Anne owned a pair of nursing homes in the town and Les also owned the local bowling alley which had a 12-seat snack bar.
Lara Stalling was working the counter at this snack bar in 1958. Lara had long curly blond hair which she wore back in a ponytail which would swing from side to side as she worked the counter taking orders. She had striking blue eyes and she was obviously beautiful and very smart. In fact, she was working at the snack counter to save money to enroll in college.
After a quick courtship, the couple married in 1960 in Vancouver. But only Lara’s family attended the wedding all be it against their better judgment. And the reason that only Lara’s family attended was simply because Les did not even invite his side of the family.
One morning after their nuptials the phone rang and Lara answered, to her surprise it was Les’ first wife calling from California.
“when are you coming to get these damn kids?” she spat into the phone
Lara was shocked and new nothing about this, I mean she knew about the ex-wife and the kids, but Les had told her nothing about picking up these children nor that they were to come and live with Les and her. After confronting Les about this, he revealed that his ex-wife was a depressive alcoholic and she was incapable of raising the children. With no other options Lara agrees and they go and pick up Shelly, 6 and Chuck, 3…the third child Paul was still an infant and would stay with his birth mother until they could be separated.
Instantly there was a strange dynamic between Shelly and her little brother. Chuck didn’t speak a word, Shelly spoke for him and held total control over her little brother.
And as far as Shelly’s relationship with Lara, Lara said, “She told me every single day that she hated me, I’m not joking. It was honestly every day.”
Les’ ex-wife Sharon never communicated with Shelly or Chuck ever again, not a phone call, not a birthday card, nothing. In 1967 the Los Angels County Sheriff’s office called the Watsons in Battle Ground and informed Les that Sharon had been murdered in a seedy motel room, they believe she was performing sex work. They asked Les to come down and identify the body and collect his son Paul who was now motherless and homeless.
Les did not actually want to go and collect his son, as he knew that Paul had a myriad of behavior problems, but Lara knew it was the right thing to do, so she sent Les to go collect Paul and bring him home.
When Shelly was told about what happened to her mother, the now 13 year old didn’t seem the least bit interested, she barley reacted and she never asked about her mother ever again.
Paul it turns out acts almost like a feral child. He had almost zero impulse control and no social skills. Lara said, “he was like an animal. He even carried a switchblade.”
The Watson’s spent all of their time and energy on the weekends trying to make happy and memorable experiences for the children, they would go boating in the summer months and they would go skiing on the slopes of Mount Hood during the winter months. But nothing pleased Shelly, unless it was her idea. She would pitch fits and just refuse to go with the family. Every little thing was drama to Shelly and soon her behavior would change from disruptive and ungrateful to dark and vengeful. She especially resented her siblings, as every bit of attention paid to them was attention not paid to her. At one point she use to chop up bits of glass and put them into the bottom of her siblings shoes.
Now, you may be wondering, where does a child get the ideas and the gumption to do something like this, well look no further than her paternal grandmother Anna Watson.
Anna Watson was born in Fargo, North Dakota, she was tall and muscled with sinewy traces of tendons that ran from her neck down the collar of her blouse. She tipped the scales at more than 250 pounds and her left foot dragged behind her as she walked. And like her granddaughter Shelly, Anna was right about everything.
One day when Lara went to the nursing home Anna owned to pick up Shelly, who would sometimes go to the nursing home to see Anna, rather than heading home like she was suppose to, Lara ran into Mary and Perlie, two nurses that worked at the nursing home. Lara noticed that Perlie’s hair was all wet and she asked about it. Mary told Lara that Anna had been upset about something she had done, so she held her head inside one of the toilets and kept flushing it. Lara was shocked at this behavior, even for Anna.
In March 1969 Shelly is not 15 years old when her first real strike hits. After not returning home from school and also not being found at the nursing home, Lara called Shelly’s school. The principal of the school told Lara that Shelly had been taken to the juvenal hall and they could not see her. After going to the juvenile detention center and trying to gain access to Shelly, the Lara and Les were informed that Shelly had accused Les of Raping her. The Watson family called their family doctor down to the center to perform an examination on Shelly, which proved that she had never had any type of sexual molestations performed on her. And Lara found a true confessions magazine in her room with the cover story, “I was raped at 15 by my dad” and used this as more proof of her stepdaughter’s manipulations.
After this incident the Watsons placed Shelly into a boarding school, from which she was quickly ejected. The couple then had difficulties finding another school to place Shelly in as her reputation was quickly preceding her. The last boarding school she was placed into was St Mary of the Valley, Lara and Les thought that the strict Catholic Nuns would certainly straighten Shelly out. At the end of the school year, however; the Nuns told the Watsons that they would not accept Shelly the following year. The Watsons tried to pay extra, but the Nuns said that there was no price high enough for them to take back Shelly.
The next unwitting victim of the Shelly monster machine was Les Watson’s sister, Katie, who lived on the east coast. After a few weeks, Katie phoned and said that Shelly had told her everything. She and her husband, Frank, had decided to have Shelly stay with them for the coming school year. Frank was a mining engineer and the president of a coal company.
And when Shelly was not even 18 years old, she had already met her future husband.
So, let us not forget that Shelly is a knock out and she caught the attention of a lot of local boys in Murrysville, Pennsylvania while staying with her aunt and uncle. She began dating Randy Rivardo her senior year, but after graduation Randy had to stay in Pennsylvania to earn money for college while Shelly moved back to Washington to work at her father’s nursing home. Toward the end of the summer Shelly called Randy and offered him a job as the handyman at his father’s nursing home. Les also offered him a rent-free apartment so he could save money faster, however; this was also a ploy from the Watsons to have Shelly live with Randy so they didn’t have to put up with her destructive behavior.
Shelly and Randy, both 19, married in February 1973. None of Randy’s relatives showed up for the wedding because unbeknownst to him, Shelly never sent any of their invitations.
After the wedding they moved into a 40 foot trailer on a plot of land owned by her father. Which Shelly hated. She also constantly complained of menstrual cramps which would cause her to miss work. This would go on the entire month until Les finally had to let her go. Shelly would just go to work at another relative’s nursing home until they also fired her for pulling the same thing. Then she would go back to her father’s nursing home until her fired her again and this cycle just went on and on until finally no one would hire her.
Shelly also brought no benefits to her house hold, she wouldn’t cook or clean. All she would do is lie around and yell at everyone around her about what they should be doing.
Now board at home Shelly’s manipulations quickly escalated. Randy bought her a car and when it wasn’t the car she had wanted she feigned an attempt at suicide by taking pills, she was rushed to the hospital where they pumped her stomach and only discovered a couple of aspirin.
One day after Randy returned from his classes at Clark College, he entered the house to Shelly sobbing with her face covered in scratches. She said a man had broken in and attacked her and raped her and that he had stolen one of their guns. Well after the police came and questioned her, it turned out that she had made it all up and she had inflicted the wounds on herself.
Shelly became pregnant around this time and she acted like she owned the entire town of Battle Ground, she would go to shops and take whatever she wanted and would tell them to put her things on credit, which she never paid.
Randy’s family came from Pennsylvania to see them but Shelly went into her room and refused to come out for their entire visit. After they had returned home back East, Shelly found some cloths Randy’s sister had forgotten, so she packaged them up and sent them back to her, when she received the completely intact box in the mail, she opened it and found all the cloths she had left where now cut up into strips. Shelly simply said, “someone at the post office must have done it.”
In February 1975 Nikki came into the world. She looked like a clone of Shelly’s perfect attributes. And Shelly was telling anyone who would listen how excited she was to be a mother. And for some reason Shelly decided not to bring her new baby back to her home in Battle Ground, electing to instead bring Nikki to her parent’s home in Vancouver. And she stayed there for 3 months until Randy finally put his foot down and made her move back home to Battle Ground with their infant daughter.
Shelly immediately started going back to her old ways and the relationship with Randy deteriorated quickly. Shelly made him sleep in his car and he was forced to give her any money he made, which she spent on tawdry things the family didn’t need, all the while barley being able to afford basic necessities. Randy had, had enough and his parents sent him money to fly back home and leave Shelly for good.
Two weeks later Shelly contacted Randy at his parent’s house and professed her love for him. He flew her out to the east coast but after only two weeks, she had already once again spent all of his money and alienated his family to the point where even Randy’s grandparents couldn’t stand her and told him to get a divorce. After stealing Randy’s tax return check and getting another man to forge his signature so she could cash it, Shelly just disappeared. And Lara was called and told to come pick up Nikki.
Shelly stayed gone, with no contact, no explanations…until one day, a year after her disappearance, she just showed up at Lara’s house to collect Nikki whom Lara had been raising and falling head over hills for. Shelly cut Nikki off from her father’s entire side of her family, telling her that they never attempted to contact her, which we will find out is completely untrue.
Lara and Les where concerned that Shelly was leaving Nikki at home alone while she went out, so they went over to her new apartment in Vancouver. Neither Shelly nor Nikki was home, but a neighbor across the hall named Danny said he had a key to the apartment and let them in. There they found things that Shelly had taken from their own home.
Not long after this Shelly and Danny were married and at 24 years old Shelly was already on her second marriage and in August 1978, Samantha was born, once again carrying all of her mother’s beautiful attributes.
The marriage to Danny lasted nearly 5 years, which were full of fighting and crying and holes being punched into walls. But Danny was always great with the girls and Nikki recalled that she always thought of Danny as her Dad.
In 1983 at 29 years old Shelly already had a new guy in her web. Dave Knotek who by all accounts was mild mannered and probably easily controlled by Shelly. And as the couple grew closer Shelly made a tearful admission to Dave after a doctor’s appointment
“I have cancer and I probably won’t make it to thirty years old.” She told Dave. So after some more time together and Shelly constantly playing the cancer card, Dave began to fear for Nikki and Sami’s future if Shelly were to pass away. So on December 28th 1987, he became Shelly’s 3rd husband. One of the witnesses for their wedding was Kathy Loreno, Shelly’s hairdresser and best friend. No one knew at the time, but Kathy would end up playing a far bigger role in the Knotek marriage than anyone could have imagined.
This marriage, just like all of her others was a mess. Dave treated Shelly well and never laid a hand on her, but Shelly didn’t return the favor, constantly berating Dave, trying to make him feel worthless. He would spend nights at his parent’s home, friends’ couches or even just camping out in the woods, anything that would spare him a night away from Shelly’s torturous attitude.
They eventually moved into a new house in Old Willapa, a big beautiful craftsman. Nikki and Sami had separate rooms upstairs separated by a open play area and the house was charming and comfortable. It was also the place where everything bad started.
Nikki and Sami found out quickly that anything in this house could be a weapon for Shelly to discipline her children and when something seemed to work, Shelly looked for ways to make it even more brutal. The act of beating her children seemed to fuel her and excite her.
And Shelly would beat the children day and night, one night she dragged Nikki into a walk-in closet and beat her, Nikki apologizing profusely for anything she may have done to set off her mother. Shelly shoved Nikki and an exposed nail in the wall impaled Nikki’s face, only then Shelly finally backed off. The girls would wear extra layers of cloths to bed incase they were drug from their beds in the middle of the night and forced to sleep out in the yard. But through all of this the girls had each other.
Nikki’s punishments were always worse than Sami’s. Shelly had now developed a new form of punishment which she called “wallowing” Shelly would wake Nikki in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter and she would make Nikki get out of bed and strip down naked, she would drag her down stairs, berating her the entire time and take her outside to a mud puddle. Nikki would have to roll around in the mud puddle, “wallowing” while Dave had to stand there and spray her with the hose. The water freezing into shards of glass all around her and Sami watched from her bedroom window, wishing she was being punished with her sister, so at least, she wouldn’t be alone in her suffering. After these “wallowing” sessions Shelly would run a bath of only hot water and force the freezing Nikki into the steaming bathtub with no humanity.
Shelly eventually banished Nikki to her room and because there were no locks on the doors, Shelly would use a butcher knife wedged into the door frame to keep her child inside. Nikki can’t really remember how long this punishment lasted, but she believes it was for an entire summer. One day Shelly came to Nikki’s room and gave her a 5 gallon bucket and simply said, “Use this”. Nikki didn’t have to ask her mother what she was suppose to use it for.
During Nikki’s time imprisoned in her room, Sami was also not allowed to see her. Nikki could come out to empty her bucket, or sometimes Sami would be let into her room to empty the bucket, but Shelly would be standing right there at the door, so the two close knit sisters being kept from one another was just another of Shelly’s forms of torture. While Shelly slept during the day Sami would throw pinecones up at her sister window and they would talk in whispers, Sami from the ground outside and Nikki from her upstairs room’s window.
During this time their dog had puppies, so one day while Shelly slept, Nikki tied two bathrobe belts together and lowered her bucket to Sami, Sami took the bucket and gave it a good scrubbing and then placed two of the new puppies into the bucket. Nikki raised the bucket up to her room and cuddled with the puppies for as long as she dared before sending them back down to her sister.
Eventually Nikki would be let out of her room, but before long Shelly was back to her same old ways of chasing Nikki through the house screaming, “I’m going to beat the shit out of you”. And on this occasion when Shelly caught op to Nikki, she shoved her through the glass paneled door. Nikki was immediately in shock and blood started to pour from dozens of cuts all over her body. It was in this moment that Shelly said something that no one in this family had ever heard, Shelly said, “I’m Sorry”.
Shelly and Sami took Nikki to the bathroom and cleaned her up and ran a proper bath for her to get into. As soon as she got into the bath, the water turned red.
Shane Watson was Shelly’s nephew by her brother Paul, Paul had been in and out of jail and prison and Shelly told Dave that they should take in the boy, but Dave was resistant to the idea based on the family’s household income. But Shelly got her way, just like she did for everything and they took in the 10 year old boy. He almost immediately started calling Shelly and Dave, Mom and Dad.
However, Shane’s presents in the house did not change Shelly’s behavior. Shane was essentially Shelly’s new slave. She gave him constant chores and worked him to the bone. He had a room in the basement, but Shelly would take his things one at a time, first his pillow, then his blanket and then his bed. Next Shelly took away his shower privileges which was only one shower every other week to begin with. So now in school Shane went from being the cool new kid to the smelly, greasy and weird boy.
Lara came down to visit the family unexpectedly, as this was the only way to make sure they would be home for her visit. And she spent time with the girls upstairs in their rooms and noted that their rooms were very clean and organized. Lara then wanted to see her grandson’s room and so she went down the basement stairs with Shelly following right behind. When Lara saw that he was simply sleeping on a mattress on the floor, she gave Shelly money to buy him furniture for his room.
Nikki and Shane became like prisoners of war, binding themselves together against Shelly. Sami, at this point was still the favorite child and not treated quite as harshly as the two older children. One of Shelly’s favorite punishments for Nikki and Shane was to make them both strip down naked in the Livingroom in front of everyone and then she would make them slow dance together while nude. She would even do this in front of Sami and Dave who were both powerless to stop her sadistic antics.
Kathy Loreno first showed up on the scene as a friend, then a babysitter, then she moved into the house with the family. The reason for this addition to the household was that in 1988, the now 34 year old Shelly was pregnant with her third child, which added to the holiday spirit around the house as Christmas was fast approaching.
Kathy’s meager things were set up in the open play area between the two girls’ rooms upstairs. Kathy was 30 years old and out of work and she was simply grateful to be with such good friends. Nikki watched this new interloper with skeptical and anxious eyes, constantly scrutinizing her mother’s bossy best friend.
Tori Knotek was born in the first week of June 1989. She was a preemie with underdeveloped lungs. Shelly would constantly claim that Tori had quit breathing, but she had revived her, making her the savior. And in the middle of the night Tori’s medical instruments would sound the alarm that something was wrong and Nikki and Sami would rush down stairs at the sound of the commotion just to see their mother holding the baby telling them that she had once again saved her and everything was alright. One night Nikki was walking down the stairs and saw her mother holding a pillow over Tori’s little helpless face and when Shelly noticed Nikki walking down the stairs, she scooped up the baby, “everything is fine, I’ve got her” she proclaimed, but Nikki had seen what her mother was doing, and it made her think back to when she was little and would wake up with a pillow over her face and her mother instantly being there to save her.
One year on Sami’s birthday, everyone was gathered around the birthday girl out at the picnic table of the porch of the house. Shelly had gotten Sami a Pollple, a stuffed toy that was very popular that year and Kathy gave Sami a real gold necklace with a gold heart on it. Sami asked her to put it on her right away, it was real jewelry and it was special because Sami thought Kathy was special. Everyone was having a great time until Shelly asked which was Sami’s favorite gift.
Sami grinned from ear to ear and proclaimed, “Kathy’s present, I love it so much! Isn’t it pretty?” Later that evening Shelly beat Sami with a belt and called her an ungrateful brat. This is when Sami realized that her favorite present must always be the one she received from Shelly.
Lara and Les Watson had been divorced for a couple of years now and Lara was thriving in her career in the medical field and living in Vancouver when she received a frantic call from Shelly telling her that she had Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This is when she learned about Kathy living at the house and that Kathy would be helping Shelly with her treatment and with taking care of the house and children. But during subsequent phone calls to the house, Lara could her yelling in the background and when she asked Nikki what was going on, Nikki responded with, “Mom’s just mad at Kathy again.”
Finally after months of quote un quote treatment for her cancer, Lara called to speak to Shelly again. And this is where Lara laid it all out on the line. She confronted Shelly and told her that she thought Shelly was just making up the cancer stuff again. Shelly immediately slammed down the phone and Kathy picked up asking what Lara had said to upset her. Lara told Kathy exactly what she had said to which Kathy also laid down the phone. Next to pick up was Dave, and he couldn’t believe Lara’s line of thoughts either, he accused her of being the worst mother every. Lara asked Dave, do you go to the hospital with her, he responded yes. Do you go into her appointments and treatments with her, Dave answered, no Shelly is too proud, I wait in the waiting room in the lobby all day for her. Shelly begins getting even more suspicious, All day? She asked. The treatment should take more than an hour. Dave replied, no we go and I wait all day, 8 hours while she gets her treatment. Lara knew better and knew that Shelly was probably out to a movie and lunch while her trusting husband just sat in the hospital lobby waiting on nothing.
The situation between Shelly and Kathy quickly escalated. Shelly would hide food under Kathy’s bed and in the morning confront her about it, accusing Kathy of sleep walking and sleep eating. After this went on for a while, Shelly confronted Kathy in front of Nikki and Shane, telling her that she had been sleepwalking the night before and that she had walked into Shane’s room completely nude and tried to have sex with him. Kathy a woman in her thirties and Shane, still an underage boy. Kathy proclaimed her innocence, but Shelly looked at Shane and said, “tell her”. Shane responded with, “Yes you were in my room, I saw everything.” Later Shane told Nikki that he had made everything up to go along with Shelly.
Shelly then started to punish Kathy for things Kathy didn’t even remember doing, Shelly telling her that they were all done during her sleep walking. Shelly started taking away Kathy’s privileges and her things until Shelly was left with just one bra, one pair of panties and a muumuu. After that the muumuu vanished and eventually so did the underwear. After that, Kathy was forced to do her chores around the house in the nude. She had to ask Shelly for permission to use the toilet. She could no longer bath unless Shelly approved it in advance and eventually all her bathing had to be done outside with the garden hose.
Shelly now using Kathy for all of her mind games and abuse meant that the children were not being punished nearly as often. But that came at a steep price. Their world was one of looking the other way and it kept them safe from Shelly, but it also led them to accept things that would come to haunt them forever.
Shelly began to use the children to torture Kathy, shooting rubber bands at her as she did her house chores because Shelly thought she was going too slow. Shane, did most of Shelly’s bidding when it came to Kathy. If she told him to kick or punch Kathy he would do it with fervor and gusto, because if he didn’t he would end up having to wallow or he would be duck taped naked to a wall and because for all of her faults and as much as Shane hated her, she was the closest thing he had ever had to a mother.
Shelly’s rein of terror over Kathy only escalated. Kathy was made to hide in Shelly’s closet anytime there was company over. And when the family went on a camping trip, they took Kathy with them, but she was made to ride in the trunk of the car. While camping, Kathy had to sleep on the ground under the car.
One day Shelly and the girls needed to go to the laundry mat and she said to them, “Take Kathy, we can’t leave her alone today.” So the girls went and placed the bags of laundry in the trunk and Kathy climbed into the trunk with the dirty laundry. When they arrived at the laundry mat Kathy stayed in the trunk of the car while the laundry was being done. Sami, being concerned for Kathy went out to the car to check on her, Shelly had warned them not to let her out so she spoke to Kathy through the trunk,
How are you doing in there? Sami asked
I’m fine, hows the laundry going? Kathy asked
We’re doing great Kathy, Sami replied
What’s the weather like out there? Kathy asked
Nice, Real nice. Sami replied
And the conversation was just like that nonconfrontational.
Shelly’s secondary victim to Kathy was almost always Shane. When he would do something, she didn’t like she would make him strip down naked in front of the girls, she would then duct tape his ankles and wrists together and spread icy hot on his genitals which would make him howl in anguish. He tried to run away several times, but Shelly always found him and coaxed him back with her fake loving mother routine.
Shelly had decided that Tori needed more room for her crib now, so she forced Kathy to move down into the small utility room in the basement. It had a concrete floor and bear studs for walls. Sami felt sorry for her and brought down several posters to hang up, Kathy argued with Sami to not hang them up, but she insisted. Well, of course as soon as Shelly saw them she threw a fit.
That evening which was freezing out, Shelly and Dave took the naked Kathy outside and walked her up to the top of the hill behind the house, the children watching from their second story windows. Not sure what the punishment would be until they saw Kathy being forced to sit down on the frozen ground, nude and slide down the hill. Once at the bottom, she had to stand up and climb back up the hill and do it over and over and over, for what seemed like hours. The next morning Sami cried as she went outside and saw a solid red stripe running down the hillside, which was made from blood pouring from Kathy’s nude backside.
On April 15th 1991, the Knoteks all piles into the car for a drive to Washaway Beach. Tori sat upfront with her parents, the three older children rode in the back seat and Kathy rode in the trunk. Kathy was growing weaker and weaker by the day. Images captured on the family’s camcorder showed a woman in failing health, her two front teeth had started to decay into two black nubs and her skin sagged where it had once been full.
The Family bought a shingle-sided white farmhouse on Monohon Landing Road in Raymond in the summer of 1992, it was a mess and needed a ton of work. Dave was handy, but he was not at home much because of his job. The kids hated the house, but because it was situated close to the road, they hoped for a reprieve from their outdoor punishments. But, their dreams were quickly dashed as they realized that the way the house was positioned, neighbors nor passing motorists would be able to see them or help them.
The house was small, around 1600 square feet for all 7 of it’s inhabitants. Two bedrooms upstairs with the main bedroom downstairs, and only one bathroom which sat directly next to Shelly and Dave’s room downstairs. Tori slept in the main room with Shelly and Dave, Shane slept in Nikki’s closet on a blanket and Kathy slept on the living room floor, all of her personal belongings had been reduced down to what would fit into a small paper bag.
One day Shelly noticed that she couldn’t find Kathy, who Shelly had made move outside into a pump house by this time. Shelly sent the kids out to look for her in the woods fearing she had run away. Shelly went and got into her car to look for Kathy and a few hours later she returned to the house with Kathy in tow. She had found her at the mall with a friend. Shelly explained that after a private conversation with Kathy in the mall restroom, Kathy had agreed to come back home. Shelly let Kathy begin sleeping in the house again, but a few days later she was moved back out to the pump house as punishment for running away. Kathy tried to escape again and again, one time even running away while she was still naked. One day Shelly made Dave drag Kathy across the yard to be punished for something or another she had done, “kick her Dave!” Shelly yelled and Dave, as always, complied and kicked Kathy square in the head with his steel toed boots.
Kathy was confined to the Pump House, the smallest of all the out buildings on the property and she would be sequestered there for days and even weeks at a time, padlocked in from the outside. One day when Shelly needed to go out to run some errands, she told Shane that he was in charge of Kathy. Shane and Nikki went out to the pump house and unlocked the door, Kathy winced at the sunlight beaming in. She looked haggard and hardly had any teeth or hair left. Shane and Nikki tried to free her and let her go, but she said that Shelly would just find her again and bring her back. When Shane unlocked the door to let her run free, it was probably her last chance. Kathy just didn’t have any fight left in her. She had simply given up.
But Shelly hadn’t given up. Everything Kathy did was wrong. One evening Kathy needed to use the bathroom, but Shelly was asleep, so she could not ask permission. Kathy used a Tupperware container to do her business in and Shelly woke up and found Kathy in the Kitchen with the container and lost it. Shelly grabbed a electric cord and started lashing Kathy with it. Kathy, who was a large woman at 6 feet tall and outweighed Shelly originally, was being drug around the kitchen by her hair, what little she had left. The adrenaline Shelly gained during her beatings of Kathy almost gave her superhuman strength. Shelly instructed Dave to build a seesaw type device with a bucket of water at one end. After it was constructed Shelly made Dave tie Kathy to the long board face down while nude and then they used the device to waterboard her over and over and over and over.
After more and more abuse from Shelly, Kathy was nearly gone physically and mentally. Shelly decided to become the doting and devoted best friend again and had the kids go get Kathy from the pump house and bring her inside for a shower. It took a herculean effort just to get Kathy to the house, she could barley walk and she was covered in bruises and scrapes, almost no hair or teeth left. Nikki and Shane got her to the bathroom, but when they tried to get her into the shower, she was too unstable and the glass shower door fell and shattered on the bathroom floor with Kathy falling down along with it. She did not have the strength the stand and was rolling around in the glass. She was bleeding from all over and some of the cuts desperately needed medical attention. Shelly fancying herself a nurse because of the time she worked at the nursing homes just wrapped Shelly in bandages and left it at that.
Dave had been building an extension off of the side of the house for a new laundry room, Shelly decided that Kathy would move in there.
One day after school Sami waited until her mother was not looking and she snuck into the laundry room to check on Kathy.
“Kathy, I came to see if you are doing ok.” Sami said
Kathy gurgled, but didn’t respond.
“Kathy can you hear me?” Sami asked
Kathy nodded and her eyes rolled backward.
Sami Started to cry, realizing.
Kathy needs help.
Dave had been driving for a long time and was not at home for long stretches of time. When he arrived home after a job in July 1994, he heard strange sounds coming from the laundry room. Dave asked what the sound was, but Shelly said, it’s just Kathy, she is fine. Shelly then took Sami and Tori to go pick Nikki up from her dishwasher job at the Sea Star Restaurant. She’s getting better, Shelly insisted as she walked out the door.
Shane was in the kitchen washing dishes and Dave kept hearing the noises coming from the laundry. He went to check on her and called out to Shane, “What’s wrong with her?” Shane walked to the laundry room and stood there like a petrified tree, “I don’t know” he responded.
Dave then noticed that Kathy stopped breathing, and he didn’t know what to do. He later said, “I know I should have called 911, but with everything that had been going on I didn’t want the cops there. I didn’t’ want Shell in trouble. I just freaked out. I really did. I didn’t know what to do.”
But no matter what Dave and Shane did, it was too late.
Kathy Loreno was dead.
Shelly Knotek rules her house with an iron fist, but how far is she willing to go to assert her dominance and control over everyone around her? Join us next week when we continue our story.