Whatever Mother Says... (20 page)

Later that same day, November 5, Theresa Knorr disappeared from her duties as nurse to Alice Sullivan for the entire afternoon, leaving the old lady stranded at a bridge session some distance from her home. Eventually a barman at the bridge club gave her a ride home and a neighbor took pity on Alice—who suffers from Parkinson’s disease—when they found her shivering on her cold porch waiting for Theresa to appear with the front-door key.

On Interstate 15, Theresa Knorr had actually been stopped by Utah State Troopers after being spotted weaving in and out of traffic on the busy freeway.

The troopers studied the Utah driver’s license: Theresa Jimmy Cross, 1296 North 400 East, Bountiful, Utah 84010. Weight: 170. Eyes: Blu. Birth Date: 03/14/ 1946. Height: 5ft. 05in.…

Minutes later she was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

At about 6:00
P.M.
that evening Theresa finally turned up back at the house in a taxi, claiming her car had broken down on the freeway.

Incredibly, the woman who was by now the most wanted mother in the entire country was released by Utah law enforcement officials because her maiden name was not on the list of aliases put in the national police-wanted computer.

Pat Thatcher and her brother Bud Sullivan had been very concerned by Theresa’s absence, but they believed her excuse about the car breaking down and let things ride because she had been such a loyal nurse and friend to the entire family since starting work there the previous year.

When a group of close family members in from Connecticut turned up at Alice’s house for a reunion party the next day, nothing more was mentioned about Theresa’s car problems.

At the gathering, Theresa seemed relaxed, sipping sedately from a glass of red wine and laughing and joking with the other guests.

Alice’s nephew Thom McMahon was most impressed by his aunt’s helper. “When I met her the first time, it was like I’d known her my whole life. She was a very concerned person … very friendly, very warm.”

But when one of the relatives tried to snap a photo of Theresa Knorr, she slipped conveniently into the background. However, the Thatchers did later manage to get a handful of shots that included Theresa, and she looks the very epitome of a healthy, stable, middle-aged lady.

At the party that Saturday, Theresa made a point of leaving any room each time Pat Thatcher’s attractive daughter Shannon walked in.

Shannon—who was in her thirties and married, with three beautiful children—seemed to pose a threat to Theresa Cross.

“Shannon felt that Theresa did not like her from the moment they met. Whenever she visited Alice, Theresa would open the door to her and the kids and then go straight to her bedroom and never reappear until after they had gone. It was almost as if she did not want to share the spotlight with someone prettier and younger than her,” recalled Pat.

Old habits die hard …

Eighteen

“What kind of mother could do that? What kind of person am I going to be throughout my life? That’s what I want to know? How am I going to deal with it? What’s going to happen to me?”

Terry Knorr

On November 6, 1993, Detective Dick Williamson of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department proved to John Fitzgerald that just once in a while cops actually help other cops without needing an ulterior motive. As he promised he would, Williamson had tracked down an address in Reno that he believed to be Theresa Jimmie Knorr’s current home.

Fitzgerald and his task force partner Chal DeCecco immediately made a two-hour dash along Interstate 80 to the address. It was a bum lead. No one there knew or had even heard of Theresa Knorr. She may have lived there a few years back, but she had long since gone.

The main problem facing detectives was that Theresa had used a long list of aliases over the years, including all of her married names and a handful of nicknames. From the 1970s they found that she had beaten a bad check rap, and then there were the visits by the Child Protective Services for the alleged child abuse charges she managed to talk her way out of with the same, sweet, guileless charm she displayed on the witness stand in her 1964 murder trial.

In Sacramento, the whole city was suddenly abuzz with news of Theresa Jimmie Knorr’s alleged crimes. The
Bee
splashed a headline across its front page that proclaimed:
MOTHER SOUGHT IN GRISLY SLAYINGS, TWO DAUGHTERS BURNED, STARVED
.

Then, on November 9, Robert Knorr Sr., the father of four of Theresa Knorr’s children, decided to go public by agreeing to an interview in the
Bee.
He made it absolutely clear whose side he was on.

“We believe William and we love him and we’re behind him a hundred percent,” said Knorr Sr. in reference to the charges faced by his twenty-six-year-old son.

He spoke to newsmen outside the Placer County Jail on November 8 after attending a preliminary court hearing for William. Alongside him were his daughter-in-law DeLois and a handful of relatives.

Knorr Sr. blamed his ex-wife for all the problems now faced by his sons, and even assured journalists: “When I left there, I never thought she was really that crazy. But I guess she was. It’s a sad story for my children to be treated like this.”

Significantly, Robert Knorr Sr. ignored the claims of abuse made against him by Terry. He even claimed that Terry—who has made accusations of molestation against him in her statements to Placer County detectives—was not necessarily his daughter.

“I just went ahead and gave her my name, but there is some doubt in my mind.”

Back outside the court, DeLois, who had only ever known the new law-abiding, clean-living version of William, was close to tears as she said: “We love each other and I’m going to get him home, whatever it takes.”

A few minutes earlier, in the neat, ultramodern courtroom, Superior Court Judge J. Richard Couzens announced that William Knorr might not even have been properly charged in an adult court. He ordered that the charges had to be first addressed in Juvenile Court, where a determination would be made as to whether he should be tried as an adult.

William Knorr stood, head bowed, barely able to acknowledge the presence of anyone in that courtroom. His only comment to the judge was that his family were attempting to hire a private attorney, former Justice Court Judge Robert A. Young, to handle his defense. Further proceedings were scheduled for November 23.

*   *   *

On the same day that William was making his first court appearance, Investigator John Fitzgerald got a call from Salt Lake City cops telling them of an address and post office box details for Theresa Cross traced through a driver’s license application she had made in Utah three years earlier. They had even managed to locate the make and registration number of a car she had purchased—all thanks to that drunk-driving arrest five days earlier. This time Fitzgerald and Smith were convinced they were close, and they knew they could not leave it to the Salt Lake City police to check out the address.

“It’s always better to do these sort of jobs yourself,” explained Fitzgerald.

On November 9 they flew on the early evening flight from Sacramento to Salt Lake City.

At 7:30
A.M.
the next morning, after a good night’s sleep in their motel rooms, Fitzgerald and Smith headed out to the address on South 600 East where they believed Theresa Knorr was living. They had no idea of the circumstances under which she was existing.

When they got to the house, all appeared quiet. The two cars parked outside did not check out as having any connection to Theresa Knorr and since her car was not around, the two investigators decided to return at a later time. They did not want to alert anyone in the neighborhood to their presence, and drove off to the Salt Lake City main post office to see if Theresa Knorr was picking up her mail from the P.O. box she had set up sometime previously.

At the post office, nobody knew what she looked like, and the two detectives considered whether they should just wait and see if she turned up to collect her mail. But that seemed a ludicrous long shot.

“We might have waited a week till she showed up. We did not have that sort of time on our hands,” says Fitzgerald.

The two detectives left their cards and a phone number at the SLCPD just in case Theresa Knorr appeared, and then set off to run down some more leads. A forty-five-mile trip south to the city of Provo proved fruitless, and all their other inquiries were equally unhelpful.

At 4:45
P.M.
, as darkness fell, Smith and Fitzgerald decided to make another run past the house on South 600 East. As they turned right onto Kensington, which ran alongside the corner property, Fitzgerald spotted Theresa Knorr’s red Plymouth, with license plate 083-DBW, parked on the driveway up to the garage.

“Bingo. She’s here. She’s gotta be,” he told his colleague.

The two detectives then headed off for the nearest public phone to call the Salt Lake City Police Department to request an officer to accompany them on the arrest. They were about to detain someone for a crime committed in another state, and there were certain procedures they needed to go through.

Just then a clearly marked SLCPD cruiser drove past them. Fitzgerald swung his small rental car around and within minutes they had managed to wave down Officer J. D. Whitaker, who actually was not even on duty at the time. Under a new SLCPD scheme, he had been allowed to take the patrol car home on the understanding that if any crime occurred while he was in the vehicle, he would automatically go back on duty. SLCPD reckon that the mere presence of police cruisers on the streets can prevent crime. It is an admirable scheme.

Whitaker was at first very cautious. He ran a local check on Theresa Knorr and confirmed that everything Smith and Fitzgerald were telling him was true. The two investigators—while appreciating the young patrolman’s reservations—were anxiously watching the time ticking away, fearful that Knorr might leave the house if they did not get back there very rapidly. After some more discussion, Whitaker agreed to accompany the two detectives to the house on South 600 East Street.

Just before 5:15
P.M.
the three police officers parked their cars more than a block and a half away from the Sullivan house just to be on the safe side. They did not want to blow it at this late hour.

Fitzgerald and Whitaker approached the front door of the house while Smith checked out the back. The drapes in the front window were open, and Fitzgerald noticed eighty-six-year-old Alice Sullivan sitting in the front living room, but he could not see any sign of Theresa Knorr. Both investigators were confused by the presence of Alice since they did not even realize that Theresa Knorr was working as a care giver to an elderly lady. Fitzgerald knocked gently, careful not to make it sound like an urgent matter because that might cause the suspect to try and flee. For more than a minute he waited, but there was no reply. He tried again.

Within seconds Theresa Knorr finally answered the door. Fitzgerald hesitated for a moment, before recognizing her from her Utah driver’s license photograph. “She looks a lot better than in her California one, ’cause she’s fixed herself,” he recalled thinking. She had lost weight—about sixty pounds—but she was still short and heavy, she still had short brown hair, and her eyes were still alternately as cold as ice and as warm as the sad, sweet smile she used when she wanted something. Then, out of typical old-fashioned courtesy, Fitzgerald asked her:

“Are you Theresa Cross?”

She did not reply.

“I am a police officer from the state of California and I need to talk with you.”

“Not in front of the lady. Come this way.”

Theresa Knorr beckoned the two policemen into the house. She was sensitive about the old lady hearing what was happening. Just then, Inspector Smith also appeared and joined them.

Fitzgerald, Smith, and Whitaker followed Knorr to the bedroom at the rear of the house. At this stage none of the policemen had even suggested why they needed to talk to Theresa Knorr. She did tell them she preferred the name Cross to Knorr. “I don’t like that name.”

Once they got to the back bedroom, Fitzgerald came clean.

“I have a warrant for your arrest on two counts of murder, and we are placing you under arrest.”

Theresa looked stunned but said nothing. Then she explained to the officers that she needed to contact the son of Alice Sullivan—the old lady she was looking after—so that arrangements could be made to take care of her.

Fitzgerald allowed her to make the call to Bud Sullivan.

“Bud, it’s Theresa here, can you come down to your mother’s house,” Theresa told him.

Bud knew immediately something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?”

“The police are here. They want to arrest me on a warrant.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know.”

Theresa Knorr had too much pride to admit to Bud why she was being arrested.

Then the three police officers and the woman accused of committing two of the most horrendous killings in California history sat down in the kitchen of the house and made polite conversation while they waited twenty minutes for Bud Sullivan to come over and look after his mom.

Fitzgerald believes that Knorr had seen some of the media coverage about the case on the local TV news and was preparing to disappear and reemerge in some other city on the other side of the country.

She was getting ready to flee, but thought she still had a little time. She was going to get a U-Haul, hook it up to her car, go to the storage shed where she kept her other belongings, and then get to the next big city, probably Denver.

Bud Sullivan was still wondering what the problem was as he headed across town with his girlfriend Marji.

“I thought she probably had a bunch of parking tickets. I said to Marji, ‘We better post her some bail money so we can get her out to carry on looking after mom,’” he later recalled.

When Bud did finally get to the house, John Fitzgerald took him into a back room and said: “I don’t want you to talk to her about this, but she is being arrested on suspicion of murder.”