Mothers Who Murder

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 Theresa Jimmie Cross Knorr got away with murder for years. Terry tried to tell police her story but no one would listen. They all thought she was crazy. Until Terry Knorr Graves, finally found a cop who believed the story of her murdered sisters. Theresa Cross Knorr pled guilty to 2 counts of murder in exchange for her sons, victims of child abuse, not being prosecuted. She received 2 life sentences. She is at the State Prison for Women in Chow Chilla, California.

Theresa Cross Knorr had several husbands, one of whom she killed, until she ended up as a single mother with 2 boys and 3 girls. The abuse her daughters received was evil, it could only come from a sick mind. None of Theresa Cross's children were immune to the physical and psychological abuse she doled out. According to with her surviving daughter, Terry Knorr-Graves.

Theresa had a special hatred for her daughters Suesan and Sheila, fueled by jealousy that the girls were growing up and blossoming into young women while she faced the prospect of growing old and losing her looks.

For years Theresa beat and tortured her daughters in various ways, including burning them with cigarettes and forcing them to eat large helpings of macaroni and cheese mixed with lard (if they vomited, she forced them to eat their vomit).

Theresa Knorr prostituted her girls so she didn’t have to work. She sent them all on the streets every night. This is one of her sick ways she tortured her children at such a young age. In a heated argument in 1982, Theresa grabbed a 22-caliber pistol and shot Suesan in the chest.

The bullet became lodged in her back, her mother refused to seek medical help and left Suesan to die in the family bathtub. Suesan survived, so Theresa then handcuffed her to a soap dish and began to nurse her back to health. Suesan eventually recovered from her wounds without professional treatment. In 1984, Suesan decided to tell her mother she would like to move out.

Theresa agreed under one condition, that Suesan let her remove the bullet from her back. The removal took place on the kitchen floor, using Mellaril capsules (used in treatment of schizophrenia and psychosis, Novartis has announced a worldwide discontinuation of the drug Mellaril in the US and Canada, and also known under the generic name thioridazine, due to concerns that the drug causes increased risk of cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death.) liquor as the anesthetic.

Theresa ordered Robert, Suesan's 15-year-old brother, to remove the bullet with a scalpel. Infection soon set in, her skin turned yellow from jaundice, and she became delirious. Suesan lay dying on the floor and Cross demanded the other children to merely walk over her. Theresa told her other children that Suesan's illness was a result of possession by Satan. That the only way to purge the demon was with fire. She asked Suesan's brothers, Robert and Bill, to help her to dispose of their sister.

They drove Suesan to Sierra Nevada Interstate 80 outside Truckee, laid her down, poured petrol on her and burned her alive. The following year, she told them, Suesan's older sister, 20-year-old Sheila, also died at the hands of her mother. Theresa accused Sheila of transmitting an STD to her via a toilet seat.

Theresa's abuse of Sheila escalated. Sheila was locked in a closet and died of dehydration several days later. Her body was packed into a cardboard popcorn box and dumped along the side of a road. She remained unidentified for years afterward. They killed her other sister and dumped her body in the mountains.

Sergeant Perea met with Terry and interviewed her for several hours. He took his notes to the district attorney's office and a task force was assembled to check out the story.  Investigators soon discovered the Jane Doe reports and everything started to fall in place. Theresa forced Terry to burn down the Sacramento apartment the family had called home, hoping to destroy any evidence that might implicate her in Sheila's death.

Terry later said she survived because she stood up to her mother and demanded to be allowed to leave the house. So at fifteen years old Terry left home. Terry saw her mother walking down the street one day. She got out of the car she was riding in and stopped her mother, they started talking. Terry and her mother got a motel room and got drunk together.

Terry noticed Theresa had a 22-caliber pistol in her purse, Terry took the gun out of the purse. She asked Theresa was that the same gun and Theresa said yes, but you can never tell anyone. Terry agreed and they both went their separate ways.

Terry was inspired to do the right thing after watching AMW one night and she contacted Nevada authorities.  Police Sergeant Ron Perea of the Nevada County, California, Sheriff's Office received the call.  Terry told him that years earlier, her mother and two brothers killed her sister by dousing her with gasoline and setting her afire. 

 Then she began to torture and kill the girls as they became old enough that their beauty made her angry. June l985, while her sons held their half-sister down, Theresa beat daughter Sheila, 20, and then threw her into a closet.

After 3 days, the knocking, kicking, and cries stopped. The mother, Theresa was found in Utah taking care of a elderly women. When the son of the women she was taking care of was told why she was being arrested he couldn't believe Theresa could ever do anything like that he said.

Sons Robert and William,Robert was already in prison on a murder charge. November 15, 1993. Theresa was told this crime would mean she could receive the death penalty if convicted, and she decided to plead guilty.  At her trial she was senten

Robert, who was still in prison Nevada, was eventually sentenced to three years . William was given probation, and ordered by the judge to have therapy.

Terry Knorr died in 2003 of a heart attack at the age of 32, just three and a half months after her appearance on Cold Case Files. Her poor body had been through so much suffering and pain in her short life. 

Now Terry and sisters can be together as a family the way sisters should loving and caring sisters.  

Sources:  http://www.karisable.com/parentmur.htmle http://www. at crimelibrary.com