PDF Summary:If You Tell, by Gregg Olsen

Media are rife with haunting stories of true crime, but some accounts are more chilling than others—particularly those that involve torture and murder. In If You Tell, Gregg Olsen recounts the story of notorious abuser and murderer Shelly Knotek, who, along with her husband Dave, abused and tortured their daughters, nephew, and two boarders—resulting in three deaths. Olsen is a best-selling true crime author and novelist who was asked to write this story by the Knotek daughters themselves.

In our guide, we'll discuss the ways in which Shelly abused her victims along with Dave’s help. We’ll also look specifically at how she lured two friends to become boarders at her home and then killed them, and we’ll look at the events leading up to Shelly and Dave’s arrests and convictions. Additionally, we’ll add information about the psychology of abuse and psychopathy, compare it to similar stories of child abuse, and add context about the legal system and its responsibilities in cases like these.

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Shane came to hate Shelly, and he and Nikki confided in each other about their suffering. They fantasized about killing her by throwing a radio into her bath, but Nikki always held onto the hope that her mother might one day miraculously turn back into the loving parent she’d been in her early childhood, before the abuse began. Despite his hatred of her, Shane also felt some attachment to her since he’d never had a mother figure before her.

(Shortform note: While Nikki and Shane’s fantasies about killing Shelly might be understandable given the circumstances, a look at legal protections at the time suggests that they would have been at high risk of being convicted of murder had they acted on these desires. In 1992, an estimated 90% of all parricides (murder of a parent by a child) in the US were cases of severe child abuse. However, a vast majority of child defendants in such cases were convicted of murder or manslaughter, with average prison sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years. Because these killings are usually committed in non-confrontational situations where the child isn’t in imminent danger, some argue that self-defense is not a valid justification.)

The Abuse, Torture, and Murder of Kathy Loreno

Shortly after Shane came to live with them, explains Olsen, Shelly’s best friend Kathy moved in with them. She’d had a string of bad luck, had a strained relationship with her family, and was broke and needed a place to stay. She was described as a pleaser and a giver, kind and empathetic to everyone. Shelly offered to let Kathy stay with them in exchange for helping out with the kids—whom Kathy adored—and around the house. She also helped care for Shelly during her cancer “treatments,” unaware that she was faking them. Kathy needed help, but the most enticing thing Shelly offered her was the chance to be needed herself.

(Shortform note: Kathy’s personality is reflective of people-pleasing tendencies and fits the “pleaser” personality archetype. Pleasers are particularly vulnerable to being taken advantage of by people with controlling or toxic personalities because of their willingness to appease others through any means necessary. This includes ignoring their own needs, allowing others to violate their boundaries, and losing their sense of self in relationships. Pleasers are not at fault for others’ decisions to mistreat them, but people with pleasing personalities can take steps to protect themselves. These include seeking care from trauma-informed therapists, staying on the lookout for red flags in relationships, and setting and maintaining healthy boundaries.)

It was a slow transition, but eventually Shelly began abusing and degrading Kathy. She forced her to work around the house all day and beat her when she wasn’t satisfied with her work. Shelly always said Kathy was forcing her to do it by arguing and not doing what she was told. After instances of abuse, Shelly would behave lovingly and give Kathy pills to take. Olsen doesn’t note which drugs Shelly was giving Kathy, but based on what Nikki and Shane found in Shelly’s medicine cabinet—and their own experiences being drugged by Shelly—they may have included anything from beta-blockers to SSRIs to muscle relaxers to tranquilizers. She also gaslit Kathy to make her believe she was sleepwalking and misbehaving unknowingly.

(Shortform note: Abusers will often drug their victims for various reasons. Drugging a victim can make it easier to control them, as they’ll be less aware of what’s happening to them. It can also make it harder for the victim to escape, as they may become ill or physically dependent on the drugs. Shelly’s drugging may have been part of the reason Kathy never left.)

As she’d done with Shane, Shelly began confiscating Kathy’s belongings as punishment, saying she wasn’t grateful enough for what Shelly did for her—ultimately taking away all her possessions including clothing. Kathy was forced to work naked around the house and had to get permission to use the bathroom or shower. Eventually, she wasn’t allowed to bathe in the house at all and instead was hosed down in the yard. Later, Shelly began pouring bleach on her as well, duct-taping her mouth so she wouldn’t scream and get the neighbors’ attention.

Shane, Nikki, and Sami pitied Kathy and felt she was foolish for staying, but they were also relieved to have someone else be the focus of Shelly’s rage. Kathy had a car and was an adult, so they didn’t understand why she didn’t just leave. The kids learned to turn a blind eye to Kathy’s abuse in order to keep themselves safe, but what they witnessed as a result permanently traumatized them.

(Shortform note: There are many reasons why abuse victims stay in abusive situations. Abusers go to great lengths to make the victim feel like escape is not an option, and leaving can be extremely dangerous if the abuser is able to track them down—as Shelly had a knack for doing. It can also be difficult to leave if the victim has little or no financial or familial support system, which was Kathy’s case. Additionally, victims often hold out hope that the relationship will return to the way it was before the abuse began, and they may also feel guilty about leaving if the abuser is—or pretends to be—ill.)

Throughout the abuse, Shelly presented herself to Kathy as a loving protector who would keep others from hurting her, which was a similar tactic that she’d used with the children. Eventually Shelly began forcing the children to participate in Kathy’s abuse, especially Shane. He was forced to hit and kick her, and by making Kathy afraid of Shane, Shelly was able to reinforce the illusion that she was only trying to protect Kathy.

(Shortform note: Shelly’s tactic of pitting her victims against each other is an abuse tactic known as triangulation. This allows the abuser to take a two-against-one approach to inflicting harm on their victim, giving the abuser a greater sense of control and superiority, and making the victim feel isolated.)

Kathy’s Decline and Death

Over the five years she lived with the Knoteks, Kathy’s body deteriorated, Olsen explains. She lost 100 pounds, her teeth and hair fell out, and her body was bruised all over. Even throughout this, she wouldn’t let the children help her because she didn’t want them to be abused as well—and she also knew it wouldn’t do any good. There was no stopping Shelly. Nikki was struck by what a good person Kathy was to be able to empathize with them while undergoing such mistreatment.

Eventually, Kathy deteriorated so much that she could barely walk or stand. Her personality was gone, and she had experienced clear cognitive decline, unable to keep her balance or speak clearly. She had difficulty breathing all the time. Toward the end, she seemed only vaguely aware of her surroundings and was almost unresponsive. Shelly’s punishments by this point had expanded to include waterboarding—which was carried out by Dave—forcing her to drink smoothies made from rotten food and forcing her to eat a cup full of salt. The children watched in helpless horror as Kathy got worse, while Shelly insisted it was all for her own good.

Physical Decline Caused by Trauma

Kathy’s physical deterioration may have resulted from a combination of malnourishment, stress, and physical injury from the abuse. Both stress and malnourishment affect the balance of bacteria and acid in your mouth, which can cause tooth decay. Chronic stress can also cause your hair follicles to go into a resting state, which can cause it to fall out, and a deficiency of nutrients like protein can cause hair loss because it deprives your body of the necessary materials to produce hair. The stress from trauma can also cause cognitive decline, and research suggests that such decline is more severe in individuals who experienced trauma as adults than as children.

Additionally, Kathy’s continued empathy may have been the result of her personality, but it could also have been a response to childhood trauma.

One day, in July 1994, as Kathy was lying on her bed in the laundry room, Dave heard her making a strange gurgling sound. He went in to check on her and found her asphyxiating on her own vomit. He was unable to revive her, and she died. Despite the condition she’d been reduced to, Shelly seemed genuinely surprised that Kathy died and confused as to why. As Dave and Shelly were arguing in the yard, Shane and Nikki snuck down to Kathy’s room to find out what was going on and discovered that she was dead.

(Shortform note: It’s typically not possible for someone to asphyxiate on their own vomit unless they’re inebriated or impaired in some way. Kathy’s physical weakness likely kept her from waking or being able to roll over when she vomited. If you’re ever in a situation with someone who is choking on their own vomit, you can use the Bacchus maneuver to place them into a position that should keep them from asphyxiating. You should then call 911.)

Shelly took the girls to stay at a motel. With Shane’s unwilling help, Dave burned Kathy’s body in the yard, and Shelly told the children that they had to keep what had happened a secret or they would all go to jail. She told them Kathy had run off with her boyfriend Rocky and drilled them on the story, making sure they knew what to say if anyone ever asked about Kathy.

(Shortform note: Lying is another common tactic that abusers use to control their victims’ perception of reality and avoid responsibility for their own harmful actions. It can manifest as small white lies, broken promises, feigned forgetfulness, or—as in this case—a complete falsehood. Lying is particularly common in psychopathic abuse.)

The Murder of Shane Watson

According to Olsen, soon after Kathy’s death, Shelly decided that if any of the family told anyone what had happened, they would pin all the blame on Shane. Shelly felt convinced that Shane was going to tell someone, and she began relentlessly pestering Dave to kill him. Dave insisted Shane wouldn’t tell on them because he was family.

Shane desperately wanted to escape, and he planned to take Nikki with him. One day, he showed her some photos he had of Kathy shortly before she died and told Nikki they needed to show them to the police. Nikki agreed, but she was terrified of what would happen if they did. In a moment of weakness, she told her mother about the pictures Shane had. The guilt from this admission haunts her to this day.

(Shortform note: Nikki’s actions may seem unconscionable, but in fact children of abusive parents usually have strong emotional attachments to the abuser on a neurobiological level, which makes the idea of change—like escape from the abusive situation—terrifying. Even when the parent causes the child immense harm, the child usually loves the parent and doesn’t want them to suffer. Despite all Shelly had done, on some level, Nikki didn’t want her mom to be arrested.)

Shelly flew into a panic and searched the house relentlessly for the pictures but never found them. She and Dave beat Shane badly to get him to confess that he was going to tell on them, but he insisted he wasn’t.

Then in February 1995, Dave killed Shane. Shane had been confined to one of the outbuildings when Dave entered and shot him in the head with a rifle. While all three girls went to stay overnight with friends—something they were rarely allowed to do—Dave burned Shane’s body in the yard as he’d done with Kathy. They told the kids that Shane went to Alaska to work on a fishing boat. Though they suspected this was a lie, the girls didn’t learn that Shane was dead until years later when their parents were caught and Dave confessed. And with Shane and Kathy gone, the brunt of Shelly’s abuse was again directed at Nikki.

(Shortform note: Some readers may take issue with Olsen’s treatment of Dave Knotek. Despite Dave’s participation in Shelly’s crime and his murder of Shane Watson, Olsen writes about Dave in a way that seems to somewhat excuse him from culpability. This may be because (as we’ll discuss later) Dave confessed to his crimes, because he, too, was a victim of Shelly’s abuse, because he willingly contributed to the writing of Olsen’s book, or because he was eventually forgiven by Tori and Sami. But in any case, Dave Knotek murdered his nephew and assisted in the abuse of his children and the murder and disposal of two other people.)

Escape: How Nikki and Sami Got Away

Nikki graduated from high school in 1993, and she desperately wanted to go to college and move away, Olsen explains. She enrolled in community college, but her mother began sabotaging her, taking away her school clothes and refusing to give her money for the bus so she had no transportation. One day when Shelly was abusing her, Nikki resisted and knocked her mother to the ground, to Shelly’s astonishment. Having someone fight back for the first time ever made Shelly change tactics: She’d remove Nikki from her presence.

(Shortform note: Shelly’s surprise at Nikki’s reaction—and her surprise at Kathy’s death—may be related to a reduced ability to understand the consequences of her actions. Psychopaths process reward and punishment differently than other people, which can lead them to persist in behaviors that result in punishment—like continuing to commit crimes after being released from prison. But in Shelly’s case, finding that her victim was no longer compliant seemed to prompt her to send the victim away, perhaps so she could focus on the less defiant ones.)

Shelly told Nikki, who was 20 at that point, that Sami didn’t want her living there anymore and that she needed to leave. She said she was sending Nikki to stay with her aunt and uncle for two weeks, but Nikki managed to keep from going back home except for visits. She lived in extreme poverty for a while but eventually got a job and put herself through college. Tori, who was only six and idolized Nikki, was hurt by her absence, and Shelly convinced her that Nikki didn’t love her and had abandoned them. Tori’s sadness at Nikki’s departure also led Shelly to beat Tori for the first time ever. Sami understood why Nikki had left and secretly stayed in contact with her.

Sami became the focus of Shelly’s abuse. As far as she could tell, Tori was largely immune from the mistreatment, so she felt like if she escaped Tori would still be OK. She planned an escape her senior year of high school, in 1997: She snuck away from the house and hid from her mother, first at her friend’s house, then at her boyfriend’s. Her boyfriend’s mother then drove her to stay with her grandmother Lara. Shelly and Dave made many attempts to get her to come back home. Eventually, she agreed to come back on the condition that they pay for her college. She made it clear to Shelly that she knew what had happened to Kathy and used that as leverage.

(Shortform note: Because they’re usually dependent on their parents for financial and other types of support, it can feel impossible for a child to escape an abusive parent. Leaving an abusive home at any age requires resources, which is a major reason why many abuse victims can’t leave. Nikki had to go through a long period of poverty, and Sami was coerced into returning home by the promise of her college being paid for, but both eventually had the mental and emotional fortitude to escape.)

That fall, Sami went to college, living on campus but coming home for visits on weekends and holidays. While Sami was away at college, Shelly began abusing Tori as she’d done with the other two girls. Tori quickly learned to do whatever Shelly told her immediately and without protest to avoid worsening the situation. Whenever Sami asked Tori how she was, Tori said she was fine, so Sami believed she wasn’t being abused.

Ron Woodworth: Repeating History

According to Olsen, around 2001, another friend named Ron Woodworth moved in with the Knoteks. Like Kathy, he had run into financial problems and was broke, emotionally vulnerable, and estranged from his family. Shelly invited him to stay with them so he could get back on his feet.

Nikki no longer had contact with anyone in her family except Sami, and Tori was too young to remember what had happened with Kathy, but Ron’s arrival set off alarm bells in Sami’s head. Still, she forced herself to believe that what had happened with Kathy wouldn’t happen again and that Ron would be strong enough to withstand Shelly. She was wrong.

Again, the relationship between Ron and Shelly started out as a loving friendship, but soon Shelly began degrading him and chipping away at his self-worth. The slide into abuse happened much more rapidly than it had with Kathy, but the pattern was the same: physical abuse, restricting bathroom usage, drugging, and isolating him from family.

As punishments got worse, Shelly forced Ron to drink his own urine, to punch himself in the face as hard as he could over and over, and to repeatedly jump barefoot off their two-story house. His feet became covered in open wounds that wouldn’t heal.

Like Kathy’s, his body began to deteriorate. He lost weight, and his teeth fell out. When his condition started to mirror Kathy’s in her final months, Shelly seemed to grow worried and started trying to get him to move out. She said she was going to take him to a homeless shelter, but Ron refused to go and threatened to kill himself if they made him leave.

In July of 2003, Ron died from his injuries. Due to a heat wave, there was a burning ban in place, so Dave buried Ron with the intention to dig him back up and burn him when the ban was lifted. Shelly insisted to Tori that he was fine and was at a friend’s house, resting. She told Tori not to tell anyone about what had been going on, and that if she did, she’d disown her. Then Shelly’s focus returned to Tori, and the abuse worsened.

Trauma Bonding: How Victims Become Attached to Their Abusers

The pattern of abuse that Shelly followed with her victims is a common abuse pattern that can result in trauma bonding in a victim. Trauma bonding is when an abuser manipulates their victim into forming a deep connection with them, making the victim dependent and making it harder for the victim to leave the abusive situation. Trauma bonding is cyclical and tends to occur in seven stages, all of which are visible in Shelly’s treatment of her victims.

Stage 1: Love bombing. In the first stage, the abuser showers the victim with love and affection. They establish a strong connection to their victim and use it to imply that they’re offering the victim something no one else can offer. Shelly presented herself as a benevolent caretaker who could provide her victims with support at a time when they felt they had been abandoned by the other people in their lives.

Stage 2: Creating trust and dependency. The second stage is when the abuser cultivates a feeling of trust with the victim that leads to an unhealthy dependency. They often do this by emphasizing what they’ve done for the victim and suggesting the victim isn’t appreciative enough. Shelly frequently claimed she was helping her victims even when it was clear she was harming them, and she justified her violence by claiming her victims weren’t grateful for everything she’d done for them.

Stage 3: Criticizing. In the third stage, the abuser begins harshly criticizing their victim, making them believe they deserve their mistreatment and convincing them that they’re deeply flawed. Shelly always claimed her victims deserved the abuse she directed at them because they were “bad” or because they misbehaved.

Stage 4: Manipulating. In the fourth stage, the abuser psychologically manipulates the victim into believing the abuse isn’t that bad or that they’re imagining it. This often involves gaslighting, which is a tactic that causes a victim to question their own perception of reality. Shelly used gaslighting to make her victims believe they were doing bad things and were imagining—or dreaming—the abuse she inflicted.

Stage 5: The victim resigns themselves to the abuse. At this stage, the victim no longer believes the abuse is avoidable and gives up on trying to stop it or escape it. They often engage in fawning or people-pleasing to avoid conflict, and they may become even more dependent on the abuser during this stage by trying to appease them—for example, by marrying them or becoming more financially dependent on them. In the later stages of their mistreatment, Ron and Kathy stopped resisting the abuse and began engaging in self-harming behaviors under Shelly’s orders, and they refused help from the children because they knew it wouldn’t do any good.

Stage 6: The victim loses their sense of self. In the sixth stage, the victim loses touch with their sense of identity and boundaries. By this point, their self-esteem is often gone, and they lose memories of who they used to be because of the way their abuser has isolated them. Particularly in Kathy’s case, Sami and Nikki described a complete loss of personality as her mistreatment progressed.

Stage 7: The victim becomes addicted to the cycle of abuse. By the seventh stage, the victim becomes addicted to the cycle of love bombing, creating dependency, and mistreatment. The instances where the abuser is loving may be the victim’s only relief from their mistreatment. The fact that the abuser blames their actions on the victim also makes the victim feel like they have some control over the situation, so the victim will devote all their efforts to regaining the abuser’s affection to try to avoid more abuse. The victim becomes psychologically dependent on the abuser’s love bombing and on their own illusion of control.

This addiction may explain why Kathy and Ron never left, despite being adults who had the means and resources to do so. It’s also demonstrated in the way that Ron wouldn’t leave even when Shelly ordered him to, and how he threatened suicide if she forced him out.

Arrest and Conviction: The Lead-Up

According to Olsen, the first time anyone in the family went to the police about the Knoteks’ activities was in 2001, while Ron was still alive. Nikki, then 26, had gone to stay with her grandmother Lara, and the second day there, Nikki told her what happened to Kathy. Lara was shocked, but she knew Nikki was honest and believed her.

They reported the information to the police and faxed a detailed account of what happened to Deputy Jim Bergstrom of the Pacific County Sheriff’s Department. Nikki thought things would change, but after the police were unable to reach Sami—then 22 and still away at college—to verify Nikki’s story, they didn’t follow up on the case. When Lara followed up months later to ask about Kathy’s case, Deputy Bergstrom told her it had gone cold, that he was in the middle of a big trial and would get back to work on it when he could.

(Shortform note: In an investigation, police often interview anyone who may have information that could prove helpful in the case. While it can hamper an investigation if an officer can’t get in touch with a witness to verify a story, Sami was not the only person they could have interviewed. Despite the severity of the reported crime, the police failed to interview or contact any other witnesses in Kathy Loreno’s case, allowing the case to go cold after they couldn’t contact Sami. Additionally, while there’s no firm definition of “cold case” that is used in all states, the authorities didn’t explore all the possible investigative leads, suggesting that it shouldn’t have been considered a cold case.)

The weekend after Ron died, Shelly allowed Tori to go spend the weekend with Sami in Seattle. Together they met Nikki for lunch. It was the first time Nikki and Tori had seen each other in seven years. Tori was scared to see her sister again after everything Shelly had said about her, but it turned out to be a wonderful reunion, and Tori realized how badly she’d missed Nikki. She also realized how much her mother had manipulated her into hating her oldest sister.

Later during that weekend, Sami and Tori were folding laundry when Sami casually shared that their mother used to dump all her clothes out on the floor in the middle of the night and make her match everything up. After a pause, and to Sami’s dismay, Tori said their mother did that to her, too. They kept talking, and Sami realized Tori was being subjected to the same abuse she and Nikki experienced. Sami asked about Ron and realized Shelly had done the same thing to him that she’d done to Kathy. Tori then revealed that she suspected Ron was dead.

Sami told Nikki, and they decided they had to get Tori out of that home. In August of 2003, the two of them went to speak with Deputy Bergstrom again. Unlike last time, their concerns were taken seriously now—though it was too late to save Ron.

(Shortform note: It’s possible that if Bergstrom had pursued the investigation when it was first reported to him in 2001, Ron Woodworth’s life could have been saved. Unfortunately, while the prevailing belief is that the police exist to protect people, the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that police in fact don’t have a duty to protect anyone from harm. This ruling has been the precedent for many other cases in which police were found to not be liable for harm that occurred as a result of police negligence or inaction.)

A few days later, Tori was removed from the home by Child Protective Services (CPS). Shelly was furious and panicked, and she sent Dave to go see Tori at CPS, but he couldn’t find her. He went to the police station instead. They asked him to consent to an interview, and Dave, still believing that neither he nor his wife had ever abused the girls, agreed. He didn’t expect them to ask about Ron and Kathy, but they did, and eventually he fell apart and confessed to the disposal of Ron and Kathy’s remains. As a result, though he’d refused to incriminate her, Shelly was finally arrested on August 8, 2003—Kathy Loreno’s birthday.

(Shortform note: Dave’s participation in Shelly’s abusive and deadly activities was characteristic of a compliant accomplice—his emotional bond with Shelly led him to commit acts of violence that he would otherwise never have considered. However, his continued belief that neither he nor Shelly were abusive in the face of clear evidence to the contrary demonstrates extremely delusional thinking, possibly indicative of a delusional disorder that Dave may have developed to help him rationalize what he was doing.)

Dave Knotek pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Shane Watson, the unlawful disposal of human remains, and rendering criminal assistance. Shelly Knotek took an Alford plea, pleading guilty to second-degree murder and manslaughter while maintaining her innocence.

(Shortform note: The Alford plea was first used in the 1970 case North Carolina v. Alford. The defendant Henry Alford acknowledged that the state had enough evidence to find him guilty, but he continued to assert that he didn’t commit the crime. In order to avoid a first-degree murder charge and a death sentence, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder to receive a lesser sentence. The Alford plea allows a defendant to avoid a criminal trial and a potentially higher sentence, and it can be appealing to the state when a criminal trial would bring unwanted publicity—such as when there is police negligence involved.)

Dave was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was released in 2016. Sami and Tori have come to forgive him and have accepted him back into their lives, though Nikki can’t bring herself to do so. Shelly was sentenced to 22 years in prison, and at the time of the book’s publication, was set to be released in 2022 at age 68.

(Shortform note: In June 2022, Dave Knotek filed a protective order against Shelly. Shelly Knotek was released from prison on November 8, 2022. She was ordered to remain under supervision for at least one year. It was difficult for Tori and Sami to forgive Dave, but for some trauma survivors, granting forgiveness helps them move past the trauma. However, forgiving is a personal process that isn’t helpful for everyone, and pressuring abuse victims to forgive their abusers can be very damaging. Victims should never feel obligated to forgive their abusers and should only do so when it facilitates their own healing.)