Read Online Whatever Mother Says... by Wensley Clarkson - Free Book Online
Authors: Wensley Clarkson
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bruised by her mother and brothers that her appearance was physically altered. In the eyes of her family, that was yet more evidence of the devil within her.
After handcuffing her to her bed each night, Theresa Knorr allegedly fed her daughter Mellaril tranquilizers to keep her sedated to prevent her from getting hysterical.
At night the other children lay terrified in their beds as weird voices emanated from Suesan. There were dozens of different tones and accents; deep, throaty roars; high-pitched screams; constant mumbling in Spanish. It was more like a scene out of The Exorcist than family life in a suburban California town.
Theresa Knorr told the others that Suesan had to be locked up, as she was trying to kill her sister Sheila because she was a virgin and she wanted to use Sheila for a human sacrifice.
And, Theresa insisted, Suesan was still sometimes feeding her huge doses of sleeping pills in her drinks at night, and she believed she was going to try and kill her. Theresa was also convinced that her daughter’s illness had caused her own excessive weight gain, intestinal problems, stomachaches, headaches, and high blood pressure. She insisted Suesan was deliberately making her sick because she had signed her name in blood and sold her soul to the devil.
To the outside world, Theresa Knorr’s ailments sound more like the classic symptoms of hypochondria. But in that household no one ever questioned her words of wisdom.
* * *
Murders in the sprawling blue-collar suburbs of Sacramento are not all that rare, so the violent, tragic death of Theresa Knorr’s sister Rosemary on November 30, 1983, caused no more than a ripple of interest in the city.
Inside the Knorr household off Auburn Boulevard it was very much the same story. It was as if the brutality that ruled the lives of Theresa Knorr and her flock of children had neutralized any real emotions when it came to anything that happened outside those four walls.
The Sacramento Bee daily newspaper followed police inquiries into Rosemary Norris’s murder in the suburb of Roseville with only a sprinkling of interest. Reading between the lines of the newspaper’s published reports, it seemed as if her demise was considered a low-life trailer-trash-type crime. Who cared?
A piece on page 6 headlined INVESTIGATORS FINALLY IDENTIFY WOMAN STRANGLED IN PLACER on December 2, 1983, seemed to say it all:
AUBURN —The Placer County Sheriff’s Department identified Thursday the strangled woman whose body was left on a dead-end road in southern Placer County as Rosemary Norris, 39, of Citrus Heights.
An autopsy Thursday found that Norris died of “manual strangulation,” Sheriff Don Nunes said.
A Rocklin man found the body while walking his dog in the Sunset-Whitney industrial area between Roseville and Rocklin, Nunes said.
Investigators found no tracks or any sign there had been a struggle at the scene. “Her body temperature (when found) would suggest that she was only recently deposited there,” Nunes said.
Officials are looking for a missing 1967 white-and-blue GMC truck which belonged to Norris.
However, despite the Bee ’s low-key projection of the murder, homicide detectives were naturally determined to find the killer.
Rosemary Norris had last been seen by friends at her Castillo Court home at 4:30 P.M. on the day she disappeared. Unlike her lazier, younger sister, she had worked for many years at the state’s Department of Finance headquarters in Sacramento. She was the success story in the family.
Her husband, Floyd Norris Jr., had reported Rosemary missing to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department when he returned home the following day from a business trip.
Privately, detectives suspected who might be responsible for the killing, but they needed more evidence before they could even consider issuing an arrest warrant.
* * *
“Do you mind if I come in to ask you a few questions about the death of your
After handcuffing her to her bed each night, Theresa Knorr allegedly fed her daughter Mellaril tranquilizers to keep her sedated to prevent her from getting hysterical.
At night the other children lay terrified in their beds as weird voices emanated from Suesan. There were dozens of different tones and accents; deep, throaty roars; high-pitched screams; constant mumbling in Spanish. It was more like a scene out of The Exorcist than family life in a suburban California town.
Theresa Knorr told the others that Suesan had to be locked up, as she was trying to kill her sister Sheila because she was a virgin and she wanted to use Sheila for a human sacrifice.
And, Theresa insisted, Suesan was still sometimes feeding her huge doses of sleeping pills in her drinks at night, and she believed she was going to try and kill her. Theresa was also convinced that her daughter’s illness had caused her own excessive weight gain, intestinal problems, stomachaches, headaches, and high blood pressure. She insisted Suesan was deliberately making her sick because she had signed her name in blood and sold her soul to the devil.
To the outside world, Theresa Knorr’s ailments sound more like the classic symptoms of hypochondria. But in that household no one ever questioned her words of wisdom.
* * *
Murders in the sprawling blue-collar suburbs of Sacramento are not all that rare, so the violent, tragic death of Theresa Knorr’s sister Rosemary on November 30, 1983, caused no more than a ripple of interest in the city.
Inside the Knorr household off Auburn Boulevard it was very much the same story. It was as if the brutality that ruled the lives of Theresa Knorr and her flock of children had neutralized any real emotions when it came to anything that happened outside those four walls.
The Sacramento Bee daily newspaper followed police inquiries into Rosemary Norris’s murder in the suburb of Roseville with only a sprinkling of interest. Reading between the lines of the newspaper’s published reports, it seemed as if her demise was considered a low-life trailer-trash-type crime. Who cared?
A piece on page 6 headlined INVESTIGATORS FINALLY IDENTIFY WOMAN STRANGLED IN PLACER on December 2, 1983, seemed to say it all:
AUBURN —The Placer County Sheriff’s Department identified Thursday the strangled woman whose body was left on a dead-end road in southern Placer County as Rosemary Norris, 39, of Citrus Heights.
An autopsy Thursday found that Norris died of “manual strangulation,” Sheriff Don Nunes said.
A Rocklin man found the body while walking his dog in the Sunset-Whitney industrial area between Roseville and Rocklin, Nunes said.
Investigators found no tracks or any sign there had been a struggle at the scene. “Her body temperature (when found) would suggest that she was only recently deposited there,” Nunes said.
Officials are looking for a missing 1967 white-and-blue GMC truck which belonged to Norris.
However, despite the Bee ’s low-key projection of the murder, homicide detectives were naturally determined to find the killer.
Rosemary Norris had last been seen by friends at her Castillo Court home at 4:30 P.M. on the day she disappeared. Unlike her lazier, younger sister, she had worked for many years at the state’s Department of Finance headquarters in Sacramento. She was the success story in the family.
Her husband, Floyd Norris Jr., had reported Rosemary missing to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department when he returned home the following day from a business trip.
Privately, detectives suspected who might be responsible for the killing, but they needed more evidence before they could even consider issuing an arrest warrant.
* * *
“Do you mind if I come in to ask you a few questions about the death of your
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