Whatever Mother Says by Wensley Clarkson

To neighbors, she was the brave single mother... 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 horrors... 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 sons in a vicious campaign against their sisters. Of beating, torturing and killing her own flesh and blood... 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 time... It took Terry five agonizing years to convince authorities to investigate her grisly accounts of burning flesh, starvation and torture...of a mother from hell, so sadistic and so deranged, she had become her children's own executioner.

First off,I wholeheartedly recommend reading this book.Despite the extremely disturbing content which includes the torture of these girls,it is well written with no bias or trend towards sensationalism.In the foreward by the author Wensley Clarkson he himself expresses disbelief and horror at this crime.He wrote this book with very visible compassion towards the victims and I believe he did the story full justice.

I watched the tv program on this true crime story on the C&I network after I read the book and the program did not include all the information that I got from this book.I was definitely more able to formulate my own opinions based on the book rather than if I had only watched the tv program.

I really appreciated the chapters dedicated to explaining the mind of the mother Theresa Cross Knorr.With input from various psychologists on crimes of this kind and the mind set of the criminal,the information provided is extremely insightful.

I was shocked at how long the one daughter Terry had to try to get authorities to believe the crimes that had happened and to eventually investigate.With this investigation other crimes were revealed which even the daughter Terry had not known about.This was a one woman crime spree which spanned many many years,involving many victims,and yet she very nearly got away with it all.I wonder how many people out there are still fancy free who should actually be in jail.

If you would like to know more about this book then South African readers can access via Kalahari Books and for more reviews then the Amazon link below should sort that out
Whatever Mother Says...: A True Story of a Mother, Madness and Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library)

I read this book in April 2007 and it has 8 pages of photographs some of which are of this mad mother and her two sons who helped her kill their own sisters.

Here are some more book details:

Country: United States of America
Format: Mass market paperback
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 9780312955427
Publication date: March 1995
Pages: 288

My Question:
Do you think that the two sons who helped her carry out the murders should have been convicted as well?Considering that many women have used the defence of spousal abuse to explain why they helped their partners kill people,should these two boys not also have been granted this choice of using child abuse as an effective defence strategy?