Whatever Mother Says... (25 page)

California’s Department of Justice continues to examine the items found near both bodies in the hope that yet more evidence will be linked to the defendants. They will be looking for traces of blood, hair, finger-prints, even carpet fibers that might help confirm the awful events surrounding the killings of Sheila and Suesan.

Whoever uncovers the complete truth about this remarkable case, there seems little doubt that, if proven guilty, Theresa Jimmie Cross and her two sons will go down in history as one of the most gruesome families of killers in modern times.

There have been few instances where family members have actually started systematically murdering their own loved ones in cold blood. One of the few cases that comes to mind is that of so-called stepmother from hell Sueanne Hobson. In May 1982 she was found guilty of engineering the killing of her husband’s only son.

Hobson had seemed like the ideal wife: vivacious and attractive, flawlessly organized, the devoted mother of a pretty young daughter from a previous marriage. And she had willingly accepted the troubled past of her new husband, Ed Hobson—a past of horrifying, inexplicable tragedy. Then the nightmare erupted that shattered the unity and destroyed the hopes of the Hobson family forever. On a quiet spring evening in the sleepy mid-western town where they lived, Chris Hobson, Sueanne’s stepson, was driven to a remote rural area and shot dead while lying inside the grave he had just dug.

Charged with murder were Sueanne’s formerly estranged seventeen-year-old son, James Crumm Jr., and his high school buddy, Paul Sorrentino. Crumm fingered another, especially unlikely accomplice: his mother, Sueanne. Her crime: hiring Crumm and Sorrentino to carry out the shotgun slaying because, she allegedly said, young Chris was causing too much trouble at home. Unsure of her innocence, Sueanne’s husband Ed divorced her. Then, in a change of heart, he remarried her, and now he remains devoted to his imprisoned wife, the woman convicted of killing his only son.

But there was one big difference between the Sueanne Hobson case and the allegations facing Theresa Jimmie Cross and her two sons: the Knorrs killed their own flesh and blood, according to the one surviving sister, Terry Groves.

Twenty-three

“Everyone has the capacity to kill.”

Forensic psychiatrist Peter Wood

A crucial part of Theresa Knorr’s defense strategy will be an extensive evaluation of her medical condition at the time she was alleged to have killed both her daughters. Forensic psychiatrists and psychologists have already begun to interview her at the Placer County Jail.

These “mind experts” are called into every major homicide case soon after the arrest of a suspect. Their modus operandi is to initially interview the subject, having deliberately done the minimum of research on the case. Often nothing more than a newspaper clipping is read in advance of that first meeting because the mind experts prefer to hear a full account of a suspect’s alleged crime in his or her words with their own interpretation of exactly what happened. That alone helps the psychiatrist or psychologist during initial evaluation of a crime.

After that first interview is concluded, the mind experts begin a painstaking research process that includes collecting information from a vast range of sources including relatives, medical notes, school reports, comments from employers, and witness statements for both defense and prosecution. Notes that police have collected about a subject’s background can also often prove useful.

If the defendant has got a psychiatric history, then notes and even a general practitioner’s comments are obtained. Then there follows a series of much more intense interviews with the subject.

It is vital here to outline the major differences between forensic psychologists and psychiatrists because there tends to be a good deal of overlap between the two professions. The psychologist is not usually medically qualified, having studied pure psychology and the development of the mind. The clinical psychologist judges a subject, based on his or her abnormalities, and is trained to carry out a certain range of checks that require a practicing certificate. Part of that investigative process is in forensic work. However, a forensic psychiatrist is not qualified to give those same tests. They require a specific form of training and usually come from a general medical background and then go on to specialize in psychiatry. They alone are empowered to prescribe drugs for people.

The most important single factor when it comes to the role of psychiatrist or psychologist is to evaluate whether someone is different from the average man in the street. What changed them? And are they capable of doing it again?

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Peter Wood is one of the world’s foremost experts in what drives people to kill, having worked on more than 400 death-related cases over the past fifteen years. He says: “There isn’t a correlation between severity of offenses and mental problems. You can be very normal and kill someone. Naturally, I have a familiarity with the territory, but one must never get away from the shock horror of somebody who has killed someone else. To detach from the emotion that people feel about homicide is quite natural in my profession. But, by the same token it is very important not to get out of step with the way people in general feel about murder. Otherwise you become too blasé about it.”

Even after that first interview with a defendant, the mind expert will rough out a report on a suspect. They will have gone to great lengths to ensure that the subject interviewed did not get distressed. After all, that first meeting is a starting point for what will eventually be formally written up for the actual trial. The mind expert sets up a series of questions for the defendant. A lot of the time it is remarkably easy to tell if someone is of normal intelligence or not.

Often there are clear indications. The difficult cases are the ones where somebody has done something inexplicable and they themselves seem totally ordinary. Certainly there are elements of this in the Knorr family despite the problems that exist in the background of many family members.

The key questions that will be asked at the eventual Knorr trial will be: What was in their minds when the alleged crimes were committed? What motivated the offenses? The experts will want to recreate every step taken by the defendants in an effort to repeat the events exactly as they occurred, so that a full picture of the initial killings can be properly revealed. Experts now believe such careful analysis not only assists an ongoing trial, but can help avoid future tragedies.

Criminal psychiatrists are convinced some groups of people will almost definitely reoffend. These are the ones where great care and attention must be paid when considering an application for an early release from a custodial sentence.

The system for careful mental analysis of defendants has become an integral part of the justice system over the past twenty years. As a result, the cases of repeat homicides is getting lower. The one exception to the rule is that there are still a lot of people who kill children, are then imprisoned, only to get released and commit similar offenses again.

Undoubtedly, where the victim is a child, there is a greater risk of repetition. The average sentence served for child homicide or manslaughter in many so-called civilized countries like the U.S. is less than ten years. Usually it is men in their early twenties who commit many of these offenses. By the time they are in their early thirties, many of them have killed a child, served a sentence, gotten out again, and are at an age when, by definition, they are going to be in a position where they could be around young children once more.

There has also been a disturbing increase in the number of teenage women who become involved in murder in similar circumstances as young males. The instances of random, nonpremeditated killings committed by young women has been growing faster than it has in young men.

One of the most extraordinary statistics about female killers is that more than half of those serving sentences for murder haven’t struck a blow.

Dr. Wood has his own theories as to why: “I put it down to the manipulative skills of women, who—although it may seem sexist of me—seem capable of getting men to commit their crimes for them.” An interesting comment when considering the prosecution case against Theresa Knorr and her two sons.

On the whole, women still mainly kill for revenge. If the prosecution’s case is proven, Dr. Wood believes that part of Theresa Knorr’s motivation may have been that she was aware of the alleged molestation between her husband Robert Knorr Sr. and his daughter, and that turned her into a vengeful woman.

At first, her evil intentions might, more understandably, have been directed toward her husband because of the abuse he inflicted on her children. But when he left home, her resentment—and probably jealousy—was turned inward to her own daughters, who in her eyes had “stolen” the physical love of her husband and “deprived” her of her marital rights. In a twisted way, in the mind of his wife those daughters became the equivalent of Robert Knorr Sr.’s mistresses—and she began to harbor increasing resentment toward them.

If this scenario is true, it seems that Robert Knorr Sr. was fortunate not to have been physically harmed. There have been many cases in recent years where sex offenders have been cut down by vengeful women.

Recently, in England, a woman was acquitted on the basis of lack of intent despite the fact she killed her own stepfather because she suspected he had sexually interfered with her own daughter. She told the jury she intended to stab him in the penis and testicles. She wanted him to suffer untold agonies.

It was his word against hers. He had earlier been charged with molestation, but the case had been thrown out for lack of evidence. Explained Dr. Wood: “She obviously felt very stressed by that.”

One of Dr. Wood’s most recent cases featured a female babysitter, just eleven, who killed a child in her care. The case left Wood with a clear impression of what drives children—especially teenagers—to kill.

“There are usually serious things wrong in their own childhood,” he explained. “They failed to learn how to limit their behavior because of their own experiences. A child often has to become totally amoral in order to survive. If you have to fight your way through childhood because you are being mistreated, you don’t grow up with the right limitations on your own behavior.”

Sometimes, the defendants will even try to put a romantic glow on their childhood when in fact they had a very miserable time.

“A lot of people will say, ‘Well, my father used to belt me but I deserved it,’” explained Dr. Wood. “Then I would say, ‘What did you have to do to get belted?’ And they would say, ‘If I was late home from school and had dirty knees.’ I would say, ‘Isn’t that a little excessive?’ And they would say, ‘Maybe.’”

One of the biggest problems facing the Knorr defendants—besides the obvious seriousness of the charges they are facing—is the public outcry that followed their arrest in late 1993. That response of shock and horror that a mother and her sons could allegedly cut down their own flesh and blood is a very human reaction, but it has sparked fears for the safety of those defendants.

As one senior investigator involved in the Knorr case explained: “When people are accused of such awful crimes, there is a real danger that someone might try to get even with them.”

In jail, the Knorrs are kept in solitary confinement because of concerns over their safety from inside and outside those prison walls.

However, many mind experts like Dr. Peter Wood look on the accused in some domestic homicides as the “victim.” A classic example is the wife who kills an abusive husband after being driven to it by his violence. It will be interesting to see how Theresa Knorr’s defenders handle such aspects.

In such cases, psychologists say that undoubtedly the guilt—even if it is not apparent in many defendants—will continue to haunt the accused for the rest of their lives.

Dr. Wood added: “In a way, the abusive husband who died has the last laugh, because these women do not tend to walk off into the sunset with a new man on their arm. Most of them are haunted, broken victims.”

Frequently, abused wives who have faced years of physical and sexual torment at the hands of brutal husbands or lovers, kill in the heat of the moment while trying to protect their children from a beating. Many such wives are devastated by their actions afterward and frequently glorify the memory of their bullying husband—something that often leads to a gross miscarriage of justice.

The biggest single common denominator among some of the most notorious killers in recent years has been their extraordinary ability to create a so-called “mask of sanity.”

In other words, the accused’s dark and sinister behavior is often masked by a veneer of very good and socially rewarding activities. This mask has, according to experts like Dr. Joel Norris—Ph.D. in psychology and a founder member of the International Committee of Neuroscientists to Study Episodic Aggression—manifested itself through grandiosity or a belief in their own superhuman importance, hypervigilance or an extraordinary concern about acting morally and properly, and social adeptness to the point of extreme manipulative ability.

Many defendants in episodic killings demonstrate the basic attributes of an effective manager (or parent). “The ability to get other people to do what you want them to do,” explained Dr. Norris. Many are strangely capable of sensing the inferiority in others, the need to be dominated and told what to do, and the desperate need for approval. Those under the spell of such people tend to appear on the outside to be normal, upstanding males and/or females, albeit with free spirits. But actually they are more often than not deeply scarred people who actively seek domination as a missing component in their own personalities.

By possessing that keen sense of what is required to conform to the outward trappings of society, people who kill others are often able to exhibit acceptable, indeed exemplary, behavior in their own communities. “Their need for approval and their ability to second-guess confrontation is so great that they go undetected by the public at large,” Dr. Norris added.