Mother's Day

Dennis McDougal

July 2015 · Open Road Media

About this eBook

The true story of Theresa Knorr, the twisted child abuser who murdered her daughters—with the help of her sons—told by a former New York Times reporter.
 
In June 1985, Theresa Cross Knorr dumped her daughter Sheila’s body in California’s desolate High Sierra. She had beaten Sheila unconscious in their Sacramento apartment days earlier, then locked her in a closet to die. But this wasn’t the first horrific crime she’d committed against her own children.
 
The previous summer, Knorr had shot Sheila’s sister Suesan, then ordered her son to dig the bullet out of the girl’s back with a knife to hide the evidence. The infection that resulted led to delirium—at which point Knorr and her two sons drove Suesan into the mountains, doused her with gasoline, and set her on fire.
 
It would be almost a decade before her youngest daughter, Terry Knorr Graves, revealed her mother’s history of unfathomable violence. At first, she was met with disbelief by law enforcement and even her own therapist. But eventually, the truth about her monstrous abuse emerged—and here, an award-winning journalist details the jealousy, rage, and domineering behavior that escalated into homicide and shattered a family. 
 
A former reporter for the New York Times and Los AngelesTimes and the author of true-crime classics including Angel of Darkness, about serial killer Randy Kroft, and Blood Cold, about Robert Blake and Bonny Lee Bakley, Dennis McDougal reveals the shocking depths of depravity behind a case that made headlines across the nation.
 

Ratings and reviews

This book revealed information for me concerning one of the men that murdered my father. William Hart Tapp was the half-brother of the crazy woman that killed her daughters. Theresa Jimmie Cross and Hart shared the same mother and they both wound up as murderers. I found this book accidentally when I google searched my father's murder. I was relieved to read that Hart died in prison a few years after I graduated from high school. This book was sometimes confusing with the names and roles, but it helped me with some closure.

Very hard to follow with the all the names of kids, husbands, wives, etc. Took awhile to read, didn't capture my interest like I thought it would. Very sad story in the end...

Couldn't put the book down. Would suggest it for those who do not like all the gory details that can be found in books such as these.

About the author

Dennis McDougal is the author of eleven books, including Dylan: The Biography, The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood, and the true crime books Angel of Darkness and Mother’s Day. He is also a coauthor of Blood Cold: Fame, Sex, and Murder in Hollywood. Formerly an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, McDougal began covering movies and media for the same newspaper in 1983 and, more recently, for the New York Times. His journalism has won over fifty honors, including the National Headliners Award and the Peabody Award.