Worlds Worst Mom
In June 1984, Maybel Harrison drove along California State Route 89, northwest of Lake Tahoe, as the first hints of sunrise began to glow against the Sierra Nevada mountains. As she passed the Squaw Valley ski resort, she saw bright yellow flashes through the trees on the side of the road. Something was burning. Curious, she stopped the car and climbed down the sloped roadside to get a closer look. What she saw horrified her. A body was burning on top of what seemed to be a makeshift funeral pyre.
Maybel ran back to the highway and flagged down a trucker, who used his CB radio to alert the Placer County Sheriff. When authorities arrived and extinguished the fire, they found the body of a young woman burning on top of a heap of clothing and miscellaneous personal items. The woman appeared to be about twenty years old. Her legs and arms were bound and duct tape covered her mouth. Her body was almost entirely charred. Her cheeks and the backs of her calves were the only parts of her body that hadn’t been burned.
In the heap beneath her body, investigators found pieces of clothing, jewelry, and a toothbrush but no identification at all. The body and the clothing had all been soaked with gasoline. Investigators were puzzled, however, when disposable diapers were found at the scene. There was no sign of a baby and an autopsy later revealed that the woman had never given birth.
Further examinations of the body showed that the girl had been severely abused over a long period of time and there was a large puncture wound on her back. However, neither the wound nor the abuse had killed her. The woman’s lungs were filled with soot, indicating that she had been alive when she was set on fire, but it wasn’t the fire that had killed her. She had died of smoke inhalation. Investigators searched dental records and examined what was left of her fingerprints, but there was simply no record of the girl.
A composite drawing was created based on what was left of her face and released to the media, but months went by without any clues as to her identity. From that point forward, the girl was only known as Jane Doe #4858-84.
* * *
Eleven months later, just six miles from where the first Jane Doe was found, a man walking in the Martis Creek Campground noticed a large box in some bushes not far from the road. When curiosity compelled him to open the box, he found the body of another young girl.
Again, investigators found no identification at the scene and no missing person reports matched her description. The second girl had died of dehydration and starvation. She, too, showed signs of severe abuse. The second girl became known as Jane Doe #6607-85.
Although the bodies were found near each other, the second body was found across county lines in a different jurisdiction and the two cases were not connected. It would be almost a decade before anyone would come forward with any information about the two murders.
* * *
More than eight years had passed since the two bodies were found and twenty-three-year-old Terry Knorr’s horrific secrets had eaten at her for as long as she could remember. She needed to tell someone. Anyone that would listen. But when Terry told Utah police what she knew, they brushed her off. So did her therapist. It was an insane story. It couldn’t possibly be true.
In late October 1993, Terry Knorr called 1-800-CRIME-TV, the phone number for the television show America’s Most Wanted. She knew they would listen. The TV show operators put her in contact with detectives in Placer County, California, where the first body had been found. Finally, she had found someone that took her seriously.
Terry shared with detectives her lifetime of horrific abuse at the hands of her sadistic mother, which led to the death of her two sisters, Suesan and Sheila Knorr. In less than a month after her phone call, the two Jane Does had been positively identified as her sisters and authorities had arrested her two brothers and her mother, Theresa Knorr.
* * *
Theresa Knorr was born Theresa Cross in 1946 to Jim and Swannie Cross. By her early teenage years, Theresa’s father had developed Parkinson’s disease and was no longer able to work, leaving her mother to raise the family. Theresa was very close to her mother. When she was just fifteen, however, while Theresa was buying groceries with her mother, Swannie Cross collapsed and died in her arms.
Her mother’s death hit Theresa hard. With her father unable to work, the family had no income and were forced to sell the home they had lived in. Theresa fell into a deep depression and grasped for anyone to love her. At just sixteen years old, she dropped out of high school and married her first boyfriend, twenty-one-year-old Clifford Sanders.
Ten months after their wedding, Theresa gave birth to her first son, Howard Sanders. Their young marriage, however, was already having trouble. Theresa suffered relentless mood swings. One minute she would be a kind and loving wife, the next moment she was angry and accusatory. She complained that Clifford drank far too much and was insistent that he was having sex with women he had met in bars. In June 1964, after Clifford spent a night out drinking with friends, Theresa berated him when he finally returned home. The argument that ensued resulted in Clifford punching her in the face. Theresa reported the assault to the police but refused to press charges against her husband. Perhaps she had second thoughts – or another plan.
Less than a month later, Clifford spent his birthday out with friends rather than home with Theresa, who was now pregnant with their second child. Early the next morning, July 6, 1964, she confronted him and again accused him of infidelity. Clifford responded to the accusation by saying what had been on his mind for quite some time. He wanted a divorce. The news was more than she could take. Theresa flew into a jealous rage, grabbed a rifle, and shot him as he walked out of the back door.
Clifford had raised his hand to deflect the shot, but the bullet pierced his wrist, entered through his chest, and continued directly into his heart. It killed him instantly. At just eighteen, Theresa was charged with the murder of her husband.
During her murder trial, Theresa testified that Clifford Sanders was an abusive alcoholic and she had killed him in self-defense. She cried as she told the court that she had grabbed the gun only intending to threaten him. She only wanted him to stop hitting her. She claimed the gun had accidentally fired.
Although there was no evidence of bruising or other signs of physical abuse on her body as she had claimed, as well as an autopsy of Clifford’s body that revealed there was no alcohol in his system at the time of his death, the jury couldn’t say no to the poor, young, pregnant girl. She was acquitted. After the trial, several of the jurors came up to her and hugged her, expressing their satisfaction that she was finally rid of “that horrible man.”
The day after her acquittal, Theresa brazenly showed up at the District Attorney’s office, demanding they return the rifle that had been used as evidence against her.
The following March, Theresa gave birth to her second child, Sheila, and began dating Robert Knorr, a Marine Corps private. Knorr had done a tour in Vietnam where he was shot on two different occasions and had also a bridge blown up beneath him. The three incidents left him with severe injuries that had required several months of recovery in a military hospital.
Within months of meeting Robert Knorr, Theresa was pregnant again. On July 9, 1966, she and Robert Knorr were married. That September she gave birth to her third child, Suesan Knorr, and the couple had two more boys in quick succession, William and Robert Jr. Knorr.
Due to his injuries in Vietnam, Robert Knorr’s subsequent job opportunities with the military were limited. Restricted to light duty, he was assigned as a funeral escort which required travel all over the country. When young men returned from Vietnam in body bags, Robert Knorr was there to carry a casket or shoot a rifle into the air as part of a twenty-one gun salute.
With her husband gone for several days at a time, it left Theresa home to take care of five children. Again, her imagination went wild. Like she did with her first husband, Theresa accused Robert of infidelity.
As her anger festered, Theresa aimed her aggression at her children, abusing them physically, verbally, and psychologically. By late 1969, Theresa was pregnant a sixth time but her marriage with Robert was collapsing quickly. She was prone to frequent outbursts of anger and accusations and Robert couldn’t take another day of what was to become the onset of her borderline personality disorder. With Theresa seven months pregnant, the two divorced in June 1970.
Two months after the divorce was finalized, Theresa gave birth to a girl, Terry. However, when Robert came to visit the children, she refused to allow him access. From that point on, Robert was no longer allowed to see his children.
The following year, Theresa Knorr married once again. This time, however, the accusations of infidelity flew from both her and her new husband from the very beginning. They were divorced within a year.
Theresa spent the next four years drinking at the American Legion Hall in Rio Linda, California, and often left her children home alone for days at a time. In August 1976, she met and married Chet Harris after having known each other for only three days. Chet was almost thirty years older than Theresa. Although she quickly grew to hate him, he and her daughter, Suesan, grew close, which angered her even more. After less than four months of marriage, she had divorced once again.
The final divorce changed Theresa dramatically. She drank more and more, gained a tremendous amount of weight, and became increasingly anti-social – so much so that she got rid of the telephone as she didn’t want to speak to anyone and wouldn’t even allow the children to have friends over. Unfortunately, the change that the children noticed most was at the level of abuse. To Theresa, the children were the spawn of the devil, Robert Knorr, so they deserved to be punished.
As her level of drinking escalated, so too did her mania. She often threw kitchen knives or scissors at the children and once put a gun to the head of her youngest daughter, Terry, as she threatened to kill her. Beatings occurred almost daily. The children were burned with cigarettes and force-fed until the point of vomiting. When they vomited, she made them eat that too. Theresa ordered her children to hold the others down when it was time for a beating, with the boys often ordered to participate in the beating of their siblings or face a beating themselves.
The girls received the bulk of the abuse, especially Suesan. Theresa’s delusions grew more and more insane. She truly believed her girls were demons. As Theresa got older, fatter, and uglier, the young girls, reaching their teenage years, became more beautiful. Theresa, who had once been young and attractive, was convinced the girls had cast a spell on her: they were stealing her beauty and causing her to gain weight.
Howard, the oldest son, was the lucky one. He managed to get away from the madness. He left home when the family moved to a run-down trailer park on Auburn Boulevard in Sacramento in 1983, just before the real insanity began.
The new neighborhood was known for seedy motels, street prostitution, heroin addicts, and drug dealers. But even in a neighborhood like that, the Knorr family stood out. Neighbors noticed that their two-bedroom apartment smelled of urine and the children were rarely let outside of the house.
In 1980, fifteen-year-old Suesan Knorr was picked up on the streets of Sacramento. She had run away from home and was trying to survive as a prostitute. Suesan was caught by a truancy officer and placed in a psychiatric hospital. In the hospital, she told of the extreme abuse that she had received from her mother. However, when authorities confronted her mother, Theresa denied any accusations of abuse. The other children backed up their mother’s lie, knowing they would be beaten if they didn’t. Theresa assured authorities that Suesan had mental problems and often made up crazy stories. Without further investigation, Suesan was returned to the custody of her mother.
Scared to death, Suesan returned home and prepared for the worst. Theresa donned heavy leather gloves to protect her fists as she punished her daughter with a brutal beating. Suesan’s siblings were all ordered to take part in the beating as well, passing around the leather gloves until they were covered with Suesan’s blood.
For her defiance, Suesan was handcuffed beneath the kitchen table and the other children were ordered to watch over her to make sure she didn’t escape. From that point on, none of the children ever went to school again. Theresa had told their previous school that they had moved out of the school district but never bothered to enroll the children in a new school. Most of them never made it past the eighth grade.
Suesan was kept secured under the table for the next two years. The gag in her mouth was only occasionally removed when her mother hand-fed her. When Suesan rebelled, she was force-fed to the point of vomiting. Theresa, of course, made her eat that too. By 1982, Suesan’s will had broken and her mother removed her handcuffs. She was finally allowed to sleep with the other children.
Despite her abuse, Suesan was still the only child that had been brave enough to stand up to their mother – but her defiance continually made her a target. During an argument in June 1983, Theresa flew into a manic rage and ordered her sons to hold Suesan still while she pulled out a gun and shot her daughter in the chest.
Suesan slumped and bled out on the floor, but she was still alive. Barely. The bullet had missed any vital organs but had lodged in her spine. Theresa ordered the children to handcuff Suesan and lay her in the bathtub, where she stayed for almost two months as her mother nursed her back to health. The children were ordered to tell no one.
Miraculously, Suesan recovered. When she was well enough, Suesan begged her mother to let her leave the home to make a life on her own and, surprisingly, Theresa agreed. But her freedom would come with one stipulation – she needed to have the bullet in her spine removed. Theresa didn’t want there to be any evidence that she had shot her daughter.
In July 1984, Theresa Knorr prepared for an amateur surgery in the home. She gave Suesan a heavy dose of Thioridazine (a drug to treat schizophrenia) and a bottle of whiskey, then had her lay on the kitchen table. The drug and alcohol cocktail knocked Suesan unconscious and the surgery began.
Theresa handed her son, Robert Jr., an X-Acto knife and ordered him to dig into her back to look for the bullet. Robert dug deep into his sister’s back with the knife and probed with his fingers to find and remove the bullet. The surgery was a success. But, when Suesan finally woke, her pain was excruciating. Theresa fed her antibiotics and ibuprofen to ease the pain but they only seemed to make her condition worse. Within days, Suesan’s eyes had turned yellow and she was no longer able to control her bowels. Internal bleeding caused massive black bruises on her back. Suesan then slipped into a coma.
On July 16, 1984, Theresa filled plastic garbage bags with all of Suesan’s belongings. Every piece of clothing she owned, every photo of her, anything that proved she ever existed went into the garbage bags. She then ordered William and Robert Jr. to put a diaper on their sister, duct tape her mouth shut, and carry her to the trunk of the car.
The family left Sacramento with Suesan in the trunk and drove east until they reached Highway 89. They drove south through the night along Highway 89 and pulled over near the banks of Square Creek. Theresa carried the garbage bags with Suesan’s belongings to an area near the creek bed while the boys carried their sister and laid her on top of the trash bags. Theresa then doused her daughter and her belongings with gasoline, lit a match, and walked away.
* * *
It didn’t take long before all the anger and insanity that had been directed at Suesan was directed at Sheila. Theresa had been drawing unemployment but found a new way to supplement her income: she forced twenty-year-old Sheila onto the streets into a life of prostitution.
Life as a prostitute horrified Sheila, but it seemed to please Theresa. The money Sheila brought home was much more than her unemployment payments. As a result, Sheila was allowed to leave the house as she pleased for short periods of time and received fewer beatings.
But by May 1985, everything changed. Theresa contracted a sexually transmitted disease – worse, she believed she caught it from using the toilet after Sheila. She also accused Sheila of allowing herself to get pregnant during her sex work.
Sheila was gagged, her feet were bound, and her hands were tied behind her back. Theresa, William, and Robert Jr. beat Sheila within inches of her life. They then placed her into a small linen closet measuring only sixteen inches by twenty-four inches. The shelving of the closet made it even smaller. There was only room for her to stand. She couldn’t kneel, sit, or even turn around. Though the children could hear grunting and moans coming from the closet, they were strictly forbidden to open the door under any circumstances. No food, no water, no bathroom. Nothing. When the noises coming from the closet got too loud, Theresa would just turn up the television.
After three days in the closet, the family heard a loud thud. Still, Theresa insisted that none of the children open the closet door. After another three days, however, the smell was too much to stand. When they opened the door, Sheila’s decomposing body was curled up on the floor. She had died of starvation and dehydration.
* * *
Theresa filled a large cardboard box with blankets and the boys placed Sheila’s body into the box. They then put the box in the trunk and again drove through the night toward Lake Tahoe. Theresa instructed the boys to dump the box next to some bushes near the banks of a small lake in Martis Creek Campground. Just a few hours after they dumped her body, a man found the box and alerted the police.
* * *
For the next three months, the family could still smell the unmistakable odor of decomposition lingering in the house. Theresa was convinced that the smell alone could implicate her in the death of her daughter. On September 29, 1986, the family packed their belongings and moved out. However, sixteen-year-old Terry was ordered to go back to the apartment, douse it in lighter fluid, and set it on fire. She did as she was told, but the three containers of lighter fluid weren’t enough to do much damage. Neighbors quickly called the fire department and most of the apartment was left intact, including the closet where Sheila had died.
Terry knew that she would be the next target of her mother’s rage – both of her sisters had warned her. Rather than go into hiding with her mother and brothers, Terry ran away. She had kept Sheila’s identification card and spent the next several years posing as her sister.
After leaving the Sacramento home, twenty-four-year-old William also cut ties with his mother and moved in with his girlfriend. Robert Jr. stuck by his mother’s side and the two of them moved to Las Vegas.
Robert Jr. and Theresa Knorr kept a low profile in Las Vegas for years until November 7, 1991, when Robert attempted to rob a bar and ended up killing the bartender. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to sixteen years in prison. Immediately after her son’s arrest, Theresa moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where she started using her maiden name and got a job as a caregiver for an elderly woman.
* * *
Almost nine years had passed since Sheila’s death when Terry Knorr and her new husband decided to call the America’s Most Wanted hotline.
When Terry told police the horrific story, they revisited the evidence recovered from both of the Jane Doe scenes. Fingerprints were lifted from the box in which Sheila’s body had been discovered. The prints matched both William and Robert Jr. The box was traced back to a movie theater where William had once worked.
William Knorr was still living in the Sacramento area and worked in a warehouse when he was arrested. When questioned, he initially denied everything. However, when detectives laid out the evidence against him, his brother, and his mother, he admitted his guilt. Robert Jr. was brought from his prison cell in Nevada back to California to face charges. He, too, initially denied involvement but later admitted his guilt.
Theresa Knorr had been tracked down via a driver’s license application she had filed in Utah. Just five days before her arrest, she had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. When officers showed up at the address on her driver’s license, she was already packing her bags. She knew the police were looking for her. When questioned by detectives, she refused to cooperate and immediately requested legal counsel.
Theresa Knorr was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and two special circumstances charges: multiple murder and murder by torture. She initially pleaded not guilty but later changed her plea when she was told that her son, William, was planning to testify against her. Her guilty plea eliminated the chance that she would be sentenced to death.
On October 17, 1995, Theresa Knorr was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. She will be eligible for parole in 2027 at the age of eighty.
Although the boys had pleaded guilty, the circumstances of their involvement in the murders of their siblings were not cut and dry. Their lifetime of abuse and constant threat of further abuse clearly influenced their involvement.
For his role in the murders, William Knorr was sentenced to probation and ordered to undergo psychological therapy. Robert Knorr Jr. received an additional three years concurrent to his existing prison sentence for the bartender’s murder. After his release from prison, Robert Jr. was arrested again in 2014 on multiple child pornography charges. He is due to be released in 2024.
Terry Knorr died of a fatal heart attack in 2011. She was forty-one years old.
