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Speaker 7: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 7: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 7: written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker DTK.
Speaker 7: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 7: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 7: your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 8: Good evening in June of nineteen eighty five, while her
Speaker 8: teenage sons held their half sister down, Teresa cross beat
Speaker 8: her nineteen year old daughter, Sheila, unconscious, and then stuffed
Speaker 8: her into a two by two storage locker. After three days,
Speaker 8: the knocking, kicking, and cries stopped, Treesa and her sons
Speaker 8: dumped the girl's body in the desolate High Sierras. The
Speaker 8: summer before, Teresa had dug a bullet out of her
Speaker 8: daughter Susan's chest with a paring knife. When Susan failed
Speaker 8: to recover, without benefit of doctors or hospital, Esa and
Speaker 8: her two sons drove the delirious girl to the mountains,
Speaker 8: doused her with gasoline and sent her on fire. For
Speaker 8: nearly nine years, Teresa crossed nor got away with murder
Speaker 8: until her youngest daughter, Terry Nora Graves, finally found a
Speaker 8: cop who believed the incredible story of her two murdered sisters.
Speaker 8: That story is all here, the shocking life of a
Speaker 8: woman whose violence, jealousy, rage and domination led to a
Speaker 8: brutally heinous crime of ruthless ferocity. The book that were
Speaker 8: featuring this evening is Mother's Day with my special guest
Speaker 8: Dennis McDougall. Welcome to the program, and thank you for
Speaker 8: greeing to this interview. Dennis McDougall, my pleasure, Dan, thank
Speaker 8: you very much. This is again forever for those people
Speaker 8: that think they know this is one incredible tale. So
Speaker 8: let's get right to that. Tell us. You open this
Speaker 8: book with the description of an area that for those
Speaker 8: listening in America and internationally, describe for us the area
Speaker 8: that we're talking about that you called some of the
Speaker 8: most beautiful and rugged real estate in the country, the
Speaker 8: California Nevada border place there county. So tell us a
Speaker 8: little bit about this area that you described as a beautiful,
Speaker 8: rugged real estate some of the most beautiful and rugged
Speaker 8: real estate in the country.
Speaker 9: Well, the area we're talking about is near the town
Speaker 9: of Truckee in northern California, which is a few miles,
Speaker 9: maybe ten miles from Lake Tahoe, which is the largest
Speaker 9: lake in California and the deepest. Uh It's it's the
Speaker 9: stuff of picture postcards. Undoubtedly a good many of of
Speaker 9: your listeners have seen pictures of it at one time
Speaker 9: or another. Lake Tahoe is cerulean blue and placid beautiful,
Speaker 9: and it's surrounded by fir trees forests for as far
Speaker 9: as anyone can see. It's very near the famous Redwoods
Speaker 9: and in fact, the internationally famous you know, Semi the
Speaker 9: National Park is no more than fifty miles from where
Speaker 9: Susan and Sheila's bodies were found. Both of these girls
Speaker 9: were dumped unceremoniously in remote parts of this primeval landscape
Speaker 9: and the irony the contrast is palpable because people drive
Speaker 9: through this area every day marveling at how beautiful it is.
Speaker 9: It's green, it's in the winter time it looks like
Speaker 9: a courier and eys etching, and even in the hottest
Speaker 9: part of the summer. Uh trout fishermen flocked to uh
Speaker 9: this part of California, UH because uh this is uh
Speaker 9: nirvana for outdoorsman.
Speaker 8: L Now tell us just a little sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 9: I'm suh. That's okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Now, tell us a little bit about uh the
Speaker 8: little town of Real Linda before we introduce the cross family.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Well, UH, Real Linda offers a jeff uh a graphical
Speaker 9: contrast to the trucky Lake Tahoe area where the bodies
Speaker 9: were found. Real Linda is located north of UH Sacramento,
Speaker 9: in the flatlands of UH California's Central Valley. It's no
Speaker 9: sort of renowned I suppose that ha as having been
Speaker 9: uh settled by the by Oakey's as they were known
Speaker 9: UH during their flight from UH Oklahoma UH and the
Speaker 9: dust Bowl in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 5: It's a.
Speaker 9: Combination migrant workers and down on their luck UH welfare
Speaker 9: recipient UH residents and lots of trailer parks, lots of
Speaker 9: lots of UH thrift stores. And the wind always seems
Speaker 9: to be blowing at any time of the year. And
Speaker 9: it's reminiscent of a desert kind of crossroads, the sort
Speaker 9: of thing that you might see in a David Lynch
Speaker 9: motion picture. You, I guess the irony is that it's
Speaker 9: not all that far away from maybe an hour an
Speaker 9: hour and a half away from the area I was
Speaker 9: describing earlier. You go up the Donner Pass from Rio
Speaker 9: Linda to the east, and in an hour to an
Speaker 9: hour and a half you're in the high Sierras, where
Speaker 9: it's beautiful and green and seems to go on like
Speaker 9: Eden forever. So sort of, you know, heaven and hell
Speaker 9: in the same spot.
Speaker 8: Now, speaking of heaven and Hell, let's talk about early
Speaker 8: life for Teresa. Jimmy Francine Cross and her mother had
Speaker 8: been married before, and she had an older sister named Rosemary.
Speaker 8: Her father's name was jim So tell us a little
Speaker 8: bit about a little bit about the type of life
Speaker 8: that they had in real Linda and Teresa Crosses early upbringing.
Speaker 9: Well, her father worked for a number of years at
Speaker 9: a dairy and during that time they were, you know,
Speaker 9: they were probably lower middle class. They owned their own home,
Speaker 9: and things were I don't know, uh, relatively normal. I
Speaker 9: suppose under the sad circumstances of real into itself and
Speaker 9: tell such time that her father uh developed Parkinson's disease
Speaker 9: and uh was discharged from his job at the dairy, and.
Speaker 11: Um the.
Speaker 9: Livelihood the welfare of the family fell to uh the
Speaker 9: mother who had no job, no skills, and two small girls.
Speaker 9: And essentially from that point forward, Uh Teresa and her
Speaker 9: sister grew up in pretty much an abject poverty.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 9: Rosemary seemed to roll with the punches better than her
Speaker 9: younger sister.
Speaker 8: M.
Speaker 9: She you know, sh She went on to marry and
Speaker 9: lived what I I guess somewhat regard as a relatively
Speaker 9: normal life, uh, whereas her sister, Uh Teresa was an
Speaker 9: I I don't know how else to term it. Then
Speaker 9: say that you than to say that she was a
Speaker 9: bad girl, uh growing up and had no one really
Speaker 9: to turn to and uh uh no uh help or
Speaker 9: much in the way of restraints from her parents because
Speaker 9: one was other we disabled, and the other was trying
Speaker 9: to hold it all together. Anyway, Teresa got out of
Speaker 9: school or dropped out of school and married and the
Speaker 9: first of several husbands and began having children, and her
Speaker 9: life from that point forward went from bad to words.
Speaker 8: When I read your book, you talked about some of
Speaker 8: the things that shaped Teresa's life and one of them
Speaker 8: was that her parents had much more of a premium
Speaker 8: for the boys in the family rather than the girls.
Speaker 8: And we're talking about to a great difference between the
Speaker 8: treatment of the boys rather than the girls. In fact,
Speaker 8: the father was disappointed that he didn't have uh sons
Speaker 8: of his own, Wasn't that true?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 9: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 6: The the.
Speaker 9: I mean this was translated, uh into every aspect of
Speaker 9: Teresa's life. She she she regarded her her own sons
Speaker 9: uh with as young princes uh and all of them
Speaker 9: could a do no wrong and b would somehow aspire
Speaker 9: to great things and great fortune and UH lead them
Speaker 9: all to the promised Land. The girls, on the other hand,
Speaker 9: were were worse than second class citizens. I mean, the
Speaker 9: girls were were regarded as almost you know, almost in
Speaker 9: a uh a medieval sense. And the girls were seen
Speaker 9: as a burden, as a a as of no value whatsoever,
Speaker 9: and treated that way. And they were, uh, you know,
Speaker 9: if you can imagine Cinderella in the twenty first century,
Speaker 9: or in this case, in the late twentieth century, that's
Speaker 9: what that's what it was like to uh to grow
Speaker 9: up uh in that family.
Speaker 8: The other commonalities that we'll we'll talk about alt as
Speaker 8: we go on in this story. But Teresa was raised
Speaker 8: in that her mother would not let her and Teresa
Speaker 8: out of the yard, so very very protective. And also
Speaker 8: another aspect that comes up later, as the audience will
Speaker 8: find out, is that they had jobs and from that
Speaker 8: early time of their jobs, that money was taken and
Speaker 8: put into the family good, whereas the Sun could be
Speaker 8: a lay about and had this preferential treatment. So some
Speaker 8: of the things that we will see that Teresa carried
Speaker 8: on into her own family. Now you talked about Teresa
Speaker 8: in your book also that she received preferential treatment over
Speaker 8: that of Rosemary as well, her sister, which again we
Speaker 8: can see can lead to not very good results. So
Speaker 8: talk You mentioned about Teresa being sort of an unruly person,
Speaker 8: and both the sisters were seemed to be sexualized in
Speaker 8: terms of their interest in boys and sex. What did
Speaker 8: that lead You talked about Teresa marrying early and having children,
Speaker 8: and tell us about the earliest marriage and what that constituted.
Speaker 9: What it constituted, Well, Teresa was had a fascination early on,
Speaker 9: and you know, I can only make these assumptions based
Speaker 9: on what I was say able to gather from the
Speaker 9: next generation.
Speaker 11: But Teresa was.
Speaker 9: W was sexually active at a very precocious uh age,
Speaker 9: perhaps as early as thirteen or fourteen, maybe even earlier
Speaker 9: than that.
Speaker 8: Uh and.
Speaker 9: Uh and she was the baby of the family, and
Speaker 9: her mother uh doated on her more than she did
Speaker 9: obviously a lot more than she did Rosemary. Rosemary was
Speaker 9: more of a workhorse.
Speaker 10: And and.
Speaker 11: Um, gosh, Teresa, Teresa, how do.
Speaker 9: I fell for no, not fell for set her hat
Speaker 9: for a uh a young man who was going to
Speaker 9: s uh sweep her away, take her away from uh
Speaker 9: the real Linda uh to a new life and uh
Speaker 9: another part of uh the the uh Sacramento Valley. They
Speaker 9: they bought a house and uh what's euphemistically known as
Speaker 9: a shotgun house because you can stand at one uh
Speaker 9: end of the house and look all the way through
Speaker 9: to the other. Called a shotgun house because if you
Speaker 9: had a shotgun, you should you could shoot it right
Speaker 9: through the center of the house and uh not hit anything.
Speaker 9: It was to be uh nothing but doors leading uh
Speaker 9: through the to several rooms to the other side. So
Speaker 9: they bought this a relatively cheap house.
Speaker 10: In a.
Speaker 9: Another downtrodden part of the central valley and town called
Speaker 9: uh Gaunt, which is south of Sacramento.
Speaker 8: And.
Speaker 9: And her husband, and I I guess this would turn
Speaker 9: out to be something of a theme throughout her life.
Speaker 9: Her her husband turned out to be a a career
Speaker 9: short career, a career drunk and m hm, and you
Speaker 9: used to beat her and even when she was pregnant
Speaker 9: with their their first child, my son, her husband slapped
Speaker 9: her around. And there was an incident not long after
Speaker 9: the boy was born the baby was born, when Teresa
Speaker 9: picked up a gun and shot him dead, and the
Speaker 9: police were called in and investigated, and she was charged
Speaker 9: and jailed. She hired a or was assigned a pretty
Speaker 9: sharp attorney whom I interviewed at length about the entire incident.
Speaker 9: And it was something of a celebrated case back when
Speaker 9: it happened, because she got on the stand and whether
Speaker 9: she was coached or just came to her naturally when
Speaker 9: she was being cross examined by the cross prosecution, she
Speaker 9: broke into tears, and she was.
Speaker 10: A to.
Speaker 9: Persuade the jury that she acted purely in self defense
Speaker 9: and that uh, she was a classic battered wife. And
Speaker 9: she got off scot free after the fact. Uh, even
Speaker 9: her attorney marveled at the fact that she was able
Speaker 9: to pull this off because the UH forensic evidence and
Speaker 9: all of them and what there was in the way
Speaker 9: of witnesses UH indicated that she was probably laying in
Speaker 9: wait for him and when he came home drunk from
Speaker 9: the bar, rather than wait for him to pound her
Speaker 9: into submission, she shot him, just shot him in cold blood,
Speaker 9: and didn't think twice about it.
Speaker 8: She was.
Speaker 9: She was a real piece of work, Theresa was.
Speaker 8: So it's interesting that you write in the book because
Speaker 8: this is the beginning of obviously establishing that she can
Speaker 8: get away with and murder. Basically, because what's interesting about
Speaker 8: this case is the players in this case and for
Speaker 8: the prosecutions, a man named Dorfmann, which will come up
Speaker 8: a little bit later. And also even more incredibly is
Speaker 8: the judge Johnson, who appears in almost every single thing
Speaker 8: from this point on in the legal court where Teresa's involved.
Speaker 8: So it's incredible this judge deemed a lot of evidence
Speaker 8: inadmissible To say that he was favoring her as is
Speaker 8: an understatement in that her self defense hinged on that
Speaker 8: she accidentally shot the gun, but as they testified at
Speaker 8: court but unsuccessfully, that it would take three steps to
Speaker 8: be able to shoot somebody, and certainly neither one of
Speaker 8: those three steps could be deemed accidental. If it were
Speaker 8: to happen, there was witnesses that were to say that
Speaker 8: would have testified to say that she had made statements
Speaker 8: that she wanted to get rid of him, or if
Speaker 8: he ever left and she would shoot him rather than
Speaker 8: have him leave. Judge Johnson will say, for example, said
Speaker 8: that because that woman was married to a deputy, then
Speaker 8: she was acting just like a deputy. And then Teresa
Speaker 8: wasn't given her miranda rights, so that that testimony was
Speaker 8: deemed it amissible. So right away in your book, you're
Speaker 8: presenting this incredibly the incredible chicanery at the trial and
Speaker 8: really must have been emboldened Teresa for the rest of
Speaker 8: her life with this ability to get away with murder
Speaker 8: with this incredible trial.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, you have to remember that this was when
Speaker 9: this happened, there was a real, I don't know, backlash
Speaker 9: I suppose in the court system. And when it came
Speaker 9: to these kinds of marital discord crimes, when when a
Speaker 9: wife shot a husband, you know, in the past, up
Speaker 9: until this time, the wife was guilty and the wife
Speaker 9: was Centerway, and and you know there there was no
Speaker 9: question about it. It was the whole concept of of
Speaker 9: abuse was.
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Speaker 9: Short shrift at best, so you know. In the post
Speaker 9: feminist era of the sixties, the late sixties, seventies and eighties,
Speaker 9: there was a reversal of that. That's tried and true.
Speaker 9: Look at domestic violence in the court system in particular,
Speaker 9: and I think that this case, Teresa's case, is an
Speaker 9: extreme example of what happens when the courts see their
Speaker 9: previous wrong in being biased toward one one sex or
Speaker 9: one gender over another, and then they go to the
Speaker 9: other extreme. And and you know, Teresa was the benefactor
Speaker 9: of this because she didn't necessarily do it, but everybody
Speaker 9: involved in the course system, from the judge on down
Speaker 9: did it for her.
Speaker 8: Now part of her ability to part of her ability
Speaker 8: to be able to do some of these things, including
Speaker 8: being I guess persuasive in this trial when she was
Speaker 8: on the stand. So I like to describe her physical
Speaker 8: attributes and her sort of demeanor in terms of her
Speaker 8: ability to influence men. Will say she had had acquired
Speaker 8: some abilities in that area. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 8: about how she presented herself and what she looked like.
Speaker 9: Well, I think slut comes to mind, but that would
Speaker 9: probably be overstated. The case, she she played a part.
Speaker 9: She she learned early on how to game the system
Speaker 9: based on her her extreme sexuality, from her most tender
Speaker 9: years and h and she was both alluring and at
Speaker 9: the same time she tried to present this this I
Speaker 9: don't know put upon or um um hard scrabbled m
Speaker 9: young widow who had overcome a a you adversity and.
Speaker 5: Was uh.
Speaker 9: Was trying her her best to to take care of
Speaker 9: herself and her and her baby boy. And you know,
Speaker 9: she played the pity card to the to the uh
Speaker 9: in degree and successfully so from you look at the results,
Speaker 9: she was real piece of work.
Speaker 8: Now she marries a U a gentleman named Thornsbury, and
Speaker 8: he's crippled and he wounds up being a couple to her.
Speaker 8: So anyway she's is Obviously when she's married, it doesn't
Speaker 8: stop her from looking for other prospects. And again with
Speaker 8: her ability to uh be a seductress. Uh. Then she
Speaker 8: finally meets Bob Nor. Bob Nor, and and what does
Speaker 8: Bob Nor about the killing of Clifford? And does he
Speaker 8: find that out in the beginning or when does he
Speaker 8: find that out? And how does he come to terms
Speaker 8: with that?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 8: How does he deal with that information?
Speaker 9: Well, he was w when he met uh Teresa, he
Speaker 9: was a virgin. I mean to say that he was uh.
Speaker 9: Uh he was not the world who l worldly wise.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 9: Half of the marriage is an understatement. So you know
Speaker 9: he was both naive, he was in the military. Uh,
Speaker 9: and he was completely taken by this hot young m
Speaker 9: hot a young woman who's with with the the shady past.
Speaker 9: There's been there's been some time.
Speaker 3: Um.
Speaker 9: He was uh. He he did her bidding.
Speaker 8: He was he was.
Speaker 9: Um he he was young and in love and uh
Speaker 9: and believed that uh he found the girl of his dreams.
Speaker 9: And they were going to they they were going to
Speaker 9: start a family, which of course they did do.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 9: And they were going to uh overcome her tawdry passed
Speaker 9: and they were going to live the American dream. Didn't
Speaker 9: turn out quite that way, but that was the intent.
Speaker 8: How many children do they have in short order? And
Speaker 8: how many boys? How many girls?
Speaker 9: Let's see.
Speaker 10: One, two, three, four, five, Susan, Sheila, Terry, Terry William,
Speaker 10: and Robert.
Speaker 9: William exactly, and Terry was the youngest, youngest.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so.
Speaker 9: Yes, and they had them one after the other. You're right,
Speaker 9: that's exactly how it went down. So, yes, Theresa became
Speaker 9: something of a a baby machine. But you know she
Speaker 9: was also at least according to her daughter.
Speaker 11: She was not.
Speaker 9: Especially true to to Bob either, but that's that's a
Speaker 9: whole other story.
Speaker 8: She would she would go out to bars while she
Speaker 8: was still married, and whether she was pregnant or not.
Speaker 9: Yeah, of course that was you know, that was part
Speaker 9: of her. That was her her lifestyle from the earliest days.
Speaker 9: That was true even back in Gaunt. I think.
Speaker 8: What did Bob What did Bob nor observe in terms
Speaker 8: of Again we mentioned that she had learned something from
Speaker 8: her own childhood Teresa, and then was repeating that with
Speaker 8: her own children. So what did Bob Nor realize early
Speaker 8: on in terms of their treatment of the children.
Speaker 9: Well, she pampered the boys. She made excuses for them,
Speaker 9: and she treated the girls, especially Susan the oldest like
Speaker 9: the second actually a three class citizen and you know,
Speaker 9: had no problem slapping the girls around. And the boys
Speaker 9: were given whatever they wanted and had jurisdics and uh
Speaker 9: over the girls YU when when Dad was away the
Speaker 9: boys and include including the u the oldest uh of
Speaker 9: of the the boys, it was not Bob's but Clifford's
Speaker 9: uh son, they had they had control and the girls
Speaker 9: had to do uh their bidding as if uh they
Speaker 9: were uh the the men of the house, and uh
Speaker 9: if if they protested in any way, uh, the boys
Speaker 9: would either lash out at them with impunity, or Teresa
Speaker 9: herself would administer the worst possible corporal punishment.
Speaker 8: Now, Teresa had a habit of living beyond her means,
Speaker 8: and so she would rack up in incredible bills that,
Speaker 8: despite their their working histories, could not support anything like this.
Speaker 8: But let me just ask the question of we never
Speaker 8: mentioned any real extreme religiosity in the Cross family early on,
Speaker 8: but is there any indication that Teresa, with her own
Speaker 8: family is introducing any religious ideas that say, might be
Speaker 8: alarming to anyone.
Speaker 9: Oh boy, well, you're you're asking me to pull up
Speaker 9: details from twenty years ago, Dan, And I'm not certain
Speaker 9: exactly where you're going here.
Speaker 8: I know that I know that.
Speaker 9: Later on, especially after she and Bob were divorced, that she,
Speaker 9: you know, she played the role. She was always looking
Speaker 9: for a sucker, and she found many of them, and
Speaker 9: if they evidenced any born again tendencies, then she would adapt.
Speaker 9: She was a consummate actress and played whatever whatever role
Speaker 9: the situation demanded the end, always justifying the means the
Speaker 9: end being land a husband and make him pay.
Speaker 8: Now, what was the fate of the relationship with Bob
Speaker 8: nor and and Teresa? And how did that affect or
Speaker 8: did that affect the relationship with the children and Bob nor.
Speaker 9: Well, they separated, divorced, Bob remarried in short order, and
Speaker 9: Teresa found a sucker named Ron Pulliam, and.
Speaker 11: She too.
Speaker 9: Remarried very quickly, and the oildren became ponds in uh
Speaker 9: in a war between Teresa and Bob. He Uh, Bob
Speaker 9: by that time was ready to go out and start
Speaker 9: all over again. Was not the best uh father in
Speaker 9: the first place. I mean, he was not the greatest
Speaker 9: father even when he was with Teresa. But but he
Speaker 9: was a better parent overall, I suspect than Teresa ever
Speaker 9: could have been. And and you know the Teresa took
Speaker 9: the children and treated them as chattel and essentially kept
Speaker 9: them unto herself and away from their father, which I
Speaker 9: think was the first of a series of tragic events
Speaker 9: that would eventually lead to to multiple murder.
Speaker 8: Now she me she meets again, goes through a succession
Speaker 8: of men, and now she meets Chester Harris. He's a
Speaker 8: four hundred pound veteran newspaperman not in the prime of
Speaker 8: his career, and tell us a little bit about Chet
Speaker 8: Harris and that relationship.
Speaker 9: Uh well, yuh h. Chet Harris was a as you say,
Speaker 9: he was a newspaperman, worked in the Sacramento He was uh,
Speaker 9: he was god.
Speaker 10: What was chat like?
Speaker 6: He was?
Speaker 10: Uh?
Speaker 9: He was a pack rat.
Speaker 8: He was he was a.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 9: He was attracted to her for obvious reasons because she
Speaker 9: would she was a U s a sexual object object
Speaker 9: to him and even later on when he discovered that
Speaker 9: she was cut holding him that I didn't dissuade him.
Speaker 6: He was uh.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 9: The big attraction to uh Theresa was that he uh
Speaker 9: A had an income and b had a house, so.
Speaker 10: So she.
Speaker 9: Made no She had no problem uh dealing with his predilections.
Speaker 9: He was into pornography, he was into.
Speaker 10: Uh uh.
Speaker 9: Kinky sex and uh he was uh always ready to go.
Speaker 9: He ordered her to wear moo mooves around the house
Speaker 9: and nothing else for the express purpose of servicing him
Speaker 9: at at a moment's notice. And none of this, by
Speaker 9: the way, escape the the the notice of the children
Speaker 9: as they were growing up there, especially the girls are
Speaker 9: watching their mother deal with men in this fashion over
Speaker 9: and over and over again, and ultimately began, of course,
Speaker 9: in getting this head of the story in a way,
Speaker 9: I suppose, but they modeled their own sexual identify identification
Speaker 9: on their mother, and you know this would have ramifications
Speaker 9: years later.
Speaker 8: Chet was.
Speaker 9: Let's see, how do I put this delicately? A big
Speaker 9: fat sex fiend. How's that?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Okay, Now, this is about the time you describe in
Speaker 8: the book that Susan starts calling Susan a witch, the
Speaker 8: oldest daughter, and saying that she has a demon. And
Speaker 8: so when I mentioned about religiosity or religion, that's what
Speaker 8: I was alluding to. When is it that she suddenly
Speaker 8: starts talking so extreme about demons and demons in her
Speaker 8: own daughter. So just tell us a little bit about
Speaker 8: what she says to the to the other family members
Speaker 8: about daughter Susan.
Speaker 9: Well, I don't think that you know at this point
Speaker 9: in the story that it has escaped anyone's noticed that
Speaker 9: Theresa might have a mental problem, that there might not
Speaker 9: be an overactive imagination at.
Speaker 1: Work, that.
Speaker 9: She had a great difficulty keeping her id under control.
Speaker 9: And this imagine imagining that she had about about Susan
Speaker 9: was I mean, the the not the first, but but
Speaker 9: certainly one of the most vivid of her various and
Speaker 9: sundry delusions. You know, there are shrinks after the fact
Speaker 9: that attributed her behavior towards Susan and then later Sheila.
Speaker 8: To a.
Speaker 9: And innate jealousy because they were coming into their their
Speaker 9: own sexuality, their own blooming at the same time that
Speaker 9: Teresa was pretty much used up. And you know, she
Speaker 9: was already by the time, you know, she hooked up
Speaker 9: with the chat. She began to develop uh, both his
Speaker 9: lifestyle and his body type, and gained weight and and
Speaker 9: she saw, you know, at the same time that she
Speaker 9: was going downhill quickly. She saw all three of her
Speaker 9: daughters blooming and um an in s Susan the oldest
Speaker 9: was UH, you know, becoming buxm and they had a
Speaker 9: UH was developing a a figure and was also overtly
Speaker 9: sexual as or a dire direct result of my modeling
Speaker 9: her her mother's behavior. And none of that set well
Speaker 9: with UH Theresa. So whether it was whether it was
Speaker 9: UH strict imagining or a manifestation of a deteriorating and
Speaker 9: ultimate lee schizophrenic personality, Teresa decided that her daughter was
Speaker 9: possessed by witches and that and that she was consorting
Speaker 9: with the devil. And she thought and she literally during
Speaker 9: her time with Chester Harris believed that that Susan was
Speaker 9: some sort of a character out of Stephen Keen.
Speaker 8: Now, the thing is we're talking about delusions or one thing,
Speaker 8: but she has the the dynamic you describe in the
Speaker 8: book is that she has these uh uh an older
Speaker 8: son Howard and Bill. And what she has is these
Speaker 8: sons that will do her bidding, like hold their daughter
Speaker 8: down hat and she'd gotten the practice of handcuffing her
Speaker 8: daughter at some point, even handcuffing her to a dining
Speaker 8: room table, I believe, in the living room, and this
Speaker 8: constant proclamation that she was a witch, she was possessed.
Speaker 8: And then when she left chet Harris, there was also
Speaker 8: talk within the family you describe in your book that
Speaker 8: she'd said that chet Harris had a coven and that
Speaker 8: they forbade the children from communicate with him. Yet Susan
Speaker 8: did communicate with him. So when we talk about delusions,
Speaker 8: it's delusions but taken to this other level within this
Speaker 8: family where the boys will do her bidding, who have
Speaker 8: had preferential treatment, which have already shown that she likes
Speaker 8: one daughter over another one, but obviously the sons have
Speaker 8: preferential treatment, and then the delusions come in and the
Speaker 8: jealousy and the competition. Yet at the same time you
Speaker 8: describe how the daughters are enlisted to use their sexuality
Speaker 8: to make money to bring it back to the family,
Speaker 8: because Teresa now has no real way of making money
Speaker 8: like she had used to when she had her youth
Speaker 8: and her beauty inter sexuality right, yes, well.
Speaker 9: In essence, what she did was turn her daughters out.
Speaker 9: They were you know, they by the time they had
Speaker 9: moved to the trailer park where all of this comes
Speaker 9: to a being new won at least for the two
Speaker 9: older girls, they had hard to say whether they did
Speaker 9: it on their own or they were just encouraged. I mean,
Speaker 9: according to Terry, the youngest and surviving sister the girls,
Speaker 9: this is like another example of the difference between being
Speaker 9: a girl and a boy. In the Nora family, the
Speaker 9: girls were encouraged not to go to school, to drop out,
Speaker 9: and you know, by the time they were into their
Speaker 9: early teens, Susan and Sheila spent more time trolling for
Speaker 9: tricks along a notorious strip north of Sacramento. Then they
Speaker 9: were in school, they just quit going to school altogether.
Speaker 9: The boys, on the other hand, especially William, not only
Speaker 9: stayed in school but excelled and were encouraged by Mom
Speaker 9: and and were indirectly supported by Uh, their their sister's prostitution.
Speaker 9: It was, you know, it was say the ultimate and
Speaker 9: dysfunctional families. And you know, Teresa, encouraged in part by
Speaker 9: her relationship with chet Uh and by her own religiosity,
Speaker 9: moved from the Bible, to the Book of Mormon, to
Speaker 9: anything that would give her signs as to ah where
Speaker 9: the devil was it any given hour, and all the
Speaker 9: signs eventually pointed to Susan.
Speaker 8: The interesting thing, or another interesting aspect, is that she
Speaker 8: believed that Susan had cast a spell on her, and
Speaker 8: that spell would take all the weight from Susan and
Speaker 8: potentially put it on the ever increasing weight of Teresa.
Speaker 8: But to be fair, Teresa at some point I don't
Speaker 8: know if she was suffering from mental illness, but she
Speaker 8: at least played into the game and admitted to some
Speaker 8: accusations about Chad Harris's coven. So either she was poking
Speaker 8: the bear or there was something else going on that
Speaker 8: you describe in your book that didn't help the situation,
Speaker 8: did it?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 9: No, No, there was there, and there was umn this
Speaker 9: belief that that uh, somehow uh Susan was uh an
Speaker 9: agent of the devil, and that.
Speaker 11: That which is uh m e.
Speaker 9: Everyone uh with a uh uh a normal view world
Speaker 9: view untainted by mental illness UH would see as just
Speaker 9: the natural course of things. Teresa saw as the the
Speaker 9: work of Satan. And rather than UH look to her
Speaker 9: daily diet and her uh her sloth as the cause
Speaker 9: of her weight gain, she had to lay the blame somewhere.
Speaker 9: So she laid it directly at the feet of her daughter.
Speaker 8: Let's talk about the shooting of Susan, because that leads
Speaker 8: to this incredible incident later, and namely her murder. Let's
Speaker 8: talk about the wounding of the daughter, and then we'll
Speaker 8: just fast forward to how it came that they wanted
Speaker 8: to take this bullet from her. So explain first the
Speaker 8: shooting and that rationalization for how that happened, and then
Speaker 8: we'll just fast forward to how we get to Susan
Speaker 8: and that bullet being attempted to be taken from her
Speaker 8: body and why.
Speaker 9: Let's see if I've got this right. I mean, you're
Speaker 9: probably gonna have to remind me of the details then,
Speaker 9: because it's been quite a while. I I I know that, uh, Teresa,
Speaker 9: And in fact, there there's something that I I, well,
Speaker 9: well go ahead and and fill in the details, because
Speaker 9: there there was. I had a conversation after uh, the
Speaker 9: book was written and published with uh William, who would
Speaker 9: not talk to me when I was writing the book,
Speaker 9: but after the fact got to be he got to be,
Speaker 9: you know, very open with me, and he maintained that
Speaker 9: that Susan was actually shot by by Terry, uh, not
Speaker 9: by Teresa.
Speaker 10: HM.
Speaker 9: No, I don't know. I don't know that that's true.
Speaker 9: In fact, I confronted Terry with it, and she maintained
Speaker 9: that that was not true. But you know, we're dealing
Speaker 9: with a family that where the truce is pretty slippery,
Speaker 9: so that remains an open question. Nonetheless, Susan was shot.
Speaker 9: She was shot in part because she was a witch.
Speaker 9: I mean, regardless of who it was that shot her,
Speaker 9: whether she was encouraged, whether Teresa encouraged Terry to shoot her,
Speaker 9: or Teresa shot her herself. Susan was shot. There was
Speaker 9: a bullet lodged in her body, but Teresa would not
Speaker 9: take her to emergency, would not take her to a doctor,
Speaker 9: because obviously the question would arise who shot her and why?
Speaker 9: And Thereesa couldn't have that, because this was a woman
Speaker 9: who many years, twenty years earlier, shot and killed her
Speaker 9: first husband and got away with murder. And now she
Speaker 9: took her daughter into an emergency and questions began to
Speaker 9: arise as to how she got shot, and she turned
Speaker 9: out to be on the police blot her to be
Speaker 9: the same woman who got away with murder twenty years earlier. Well,
Speaker 9: you know, it doesn't take a rock scientists who leap
Speaker 9: to the conclusion that she had done it again, which
Speaker 9: of course she did. But Susan stayed at home and
Speaker 9: had a bullet lodge in her and well we know
Speaker 9: what happens next.
Speaker 8: Well, tell us about why they wanted to remove the bullet,
Speaker 8: and as a result, tell us continue with the story
Speaker 8: of Susan's fate.
Speaker 9: Well, they wanted to remove the bullet because you know,
Speaker 9: you get rid of the bullet, you get rid of
Speaker 9: the evidence. And no one can say, or at least,
Speaker 9: there is no direct physical evidence that she was shot
Speaker 9: by someone. Maybe she just you know, fell hard on
Speaker 9: on a nail. Or something. I mean, uh, it all
Speaker 9: has to do with guilt and responsibility in the failure
Speaker 9: fail failure to take any uh. So it was when
Speaker 9: you know, she continued to worsen and developed fever and
Speaker 9: uh uh you know, the you're shot and it doesn't
Speaker 9: just uh heal itself. Well, you take the bullet out.
Speaker 9: So so the boys held her down and and you know,
Speaker 9: dug the bullet out and and she you know, I mean,
Speaker 9: in the most unsanitary fashion and wonder of wonders, Rather
Speaker 9: than get better, she got worse, a lot worse, very quickly.
Speaker 8: And then they hatched a plan to do what and
Speaker 8: what did they do?
Speaker 9: Well, this was Teresa's Teresa, you know, concluded that this
Speaker 9: witch to whom she had given birth seventeen years earlier,
Speaker 9: was going to die anyway, and she decided to just
Speaker 9: hasten things along. So she got the boys to load
Speaker 9: her up in the car and got the rest of
Speaker 9: the kids and drove up, drove up the highway over
Speaker 9: the Donner Pass into this same pristine woodsy area that
Speaker 9: I described to you at the top of the broadcast,
Speaker 9: and found the side road off to an area known
Speaker 9: I guess pretty much worldwide is Squaw Valley and came
Speaker 9: to a relatively a relative clearing in pulled to the
Speaker 9: side of the road. There was no one else around.
Speaker 10: It was.
Speaker 9: Early winter time, wasn't there wasn't much traffic, and the
Speaker 9: the boys dragged her out, made a makeshift funeral pile
Speaker 9: funeral pyre and loaded their sister on top and doused
Speaker 9: her with them m gasoline and while she was still
Speaker 9: alive and still moaning, Uh set her on fire. Hopp
Speaker 9: In car drove home and it wasn't until another car
Speaker 9: passed some time later that they saw the fire stop
Speaker 9: and saw the susan's remains and called the Sheriff's department,
Speaker 9: who came to the scene, and the following day the
Speaker 9: the case was reported as a Jane Doe who's set
Speaker 9: on fire near Lake Tahoe. And you know, no one
Speaker 9: had any identification of who she was, and so she
Speaker 9: remained for several years thereafter.
Speaker 8: Jane Doe now back at the at the home of Teresa.
Speaker 8: It's an interesting development too, because it it seems to
Speaker 8: boggle the mind that the father of some of these children,
Speaker 8: Bob Nor, is out of the picture, but then comes
Speaker 8: back in the picture and asks about the children and
Speaker 8: he gets a response. So after this Jane Doe is discovered,
Speaker 8: the police don't have any leads whatsoever, and the family
Speaker 8: doesn't give up any of the secrets. So just tell
Speaker 8: us about Bob nor coming back into the picture and
Speaker 8: what he has told when he asks about Susan and
Speaker 8: then later Sheila.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean, by this time, many years after the divorce,
Speaker 9: obviously Bob had started another family and wanted to see
Speaker 9: what had become of his children he lost touch of
Speaker 9: for some time, but when he finally relocated the the family,
Speaker 9: he uh confronted uh Theresa and asked what had happened?
Speaker 9: Where where Susan was and uh and was told that
Speaker 9: she was a runaway, that she'd run off and uh
Speaker 9: and that they had no idea where she had uh
Speaker 9: gotten off to. But she was, you know, she was
Speaker 9: a hooker and worthless and so on and so forth,
Speaker 9: so she could be anywhere, and Bob, never being the
Speaker 9: brightest bulb in the pack, uh took his uh his
Speaker 9: wife's word for it. One more time. Same thing with
Speaker 9: Sheila later on, But we'll beginning to that sh soon enough,
Speaker 9: I'm sure.
Speaker 8: Tell us about Sheila and her role in the family,
Speaker 8: and how she becomes to be out of favor in
Speaker 8: this family.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean, she was defending Susan, and she you know,
Speaker 9: she she tried to have her own life, but and
Speaker 9: in fact showed a little bit more spunk, I think
Speaker 9: than Susan probably did. But she was beaten down too.
Speaker 9: And and as was Teresa's want, whenever any of the
Speaker 9: girl children were disobedient or would not do as they
Speaker 9: were told, she was punished and punished severely, far more
Speaker 9: severely than any of the boys her obviously that would
Speaker 9: be the case, but but horribly so. I mean, you know,
Speaker 9: punished the way that a Nazi would uh punish uh
Speaker 9: a Jew. And um in this one instance, she was
Speaker 9: uh particularly defiant and.
Speaker 11: And Teresa.
Speaker 9: Beat her and UH locked her.
Speaker 10: In a.
Speaker 9: Closet, actually a cupboard, not even a closet. It was
Speaker 9: uh this very tiny kits not a kitchen cabinet because
Speaker 9: it was off on the side, but but nonetheless it
Speaker 9: was like the size of a kitchen cabinet, and UH
Speaker 9: locked her inside and left her there not for an hour,
Speaker 9: not for a day, but for several days. And of
Speaker 9: course at first she was Sheila beat on the cupboard
Speaker 9: and kicked and screamed and carried on, but nobody came
Speaker 9: to her rescue. Terry, after the fact, used to beat
Speaker 9: herself up all the time. Terry the younger sister, because
Speaker 9: like in any of the other members of the family,
Speaker 9: she knew that if she dared help her and got caught,
Speaker 9: that she too would be punished, just bad or worse
Speaker 9: than her sister.
Speaker 8: So she was.
Speaker 9: Sheila was locked away until she stopped screaming, and then
Speaker 9: it was silent. And even then Teresa didn't open the cupboard,
Speaker 9: just left her there and no food, no water, no
Speaker 9: bathroom breaks, uh, just locked in the cupboard. And then finally,
Speaker 9: some time later, they did open the cupboard and she
Speaker 9: was dead. Might have been a shock to any other family,
Speaker 9: but the Nora family took it in, especially the boys.
Speaker 9: I guess took his sort of instride. When Mom discovered
Speaker 9: the body, she ordered the boys to box it up
Speaker 9: and throw it in the trunk of the car, and
Speaker 9: then they went for another ride up into the Sierras.
Speaker 8: What's interesting in do you chronicle in the book that
Speaker 8: they're almost they're out to bury her. They got the
Speaker 8: cardboard box and they pull off to the side and out,
Speaker 8: a police car pulls up.
Speaker 10: And they ask them.
Speaker 8: Questions, and calmly and coolly, these family, the killer family
Speaker 8: just says, oh, we're just out for a pee officer
Speaker 8: and he didn't smell the body that had been putrefying
Speaker 8: for three days. So again they get away with murder.
Speaker 8: This is nineteen eighty five. And even more so baffling
Speaker 8: is that the police thought there was some incriminating evidence
Speaker 8: as sort of this other killer, Texas truck driver Benjamin Boyle,
Speaker 8: who had been convicted of rape and murder four months
Speaker 8: after this first body was found. So even more insulation
Speaker 8: from arrest was Teresa and the family. And so let's
Speaker 8: just also talk about what because Terry becomes the big
Speaker 8: hero in this case, in this story, and without her,
Speaker 8: well we would not talk right now.
Speaker 9: There would be no story. In fact, if there without her,
Speaker 9: it would remain probably remain on the books of both
Speaker 9: Nevada and Placer County is unsolved for murders to this day.
Speaker 8: Yes, Terry's sorry, go ahead, Well, Terry's.
Speaker 9: Sorry, that's okay, go ahead now.
Speaker 8: Now, Terry obviously has lived the same life as Susan
Speaker 8: and Sheila and William and Robert witnessed the same things
Speaker 8: this deluded, insane killer mother. Obviously, again we alluded to
Speaker 8: that she you know, was not having an easy time
Speaker 8: with this and it impacted her life relationships again, stormy,
Speaker 8: drug abuse, just an unstable life. So let's fast forward
Speaker 8: to the point where she gets to the point where
Speaker 8: she wants to talk. She's married to a man and
Speaker 8: finally comes around to telling him what does he do?
Speaker 8: When he's told, what does her husband do?
Speaker 9: Yes, well, I mean her husband along with her friends,
Speaker 9: especially after she sees the television program, encourage her to
Speaker 9: come forward. But you know, he tells her why you
Speaker 9: need to try to to let somebody know so that
Speaker 9: that your mother can be brought to justice. But Terry's
Speaker 9: initial efforts in that regard fell on deaf ears. She
Speaker 9: couldn't find anyone who believed.
Speaker 8: Her because she was.
Speaker 9: She herself. After Sheila died shortly thereafter, didn't have to
Speaker 9: figure too much in terms of what would happen and
Speaker 9: the next who the next victim would be because both
Speaker 9: sisters were now dead and dispot of Terry reckoned that
Speaker 9: she would be number three. So she dropped out of school,
Speaker 9: ran away from home, and del you know, developed the
Speaker 9: life as as a runaway and then ultimately married early.
Speaker 9: But she kept the secret to herself all these years
Speaker 9: because you know, she she had tried early on, especially
Speaker 9: when she she was briefly in the in a state
Speaker 9: home for runaways. She tried to tell this story, and
Speaker 9: no one believed her. They just figured that she was
Speaker 9: lying because that's what runaways did. And the story was
Speaker 9: entirely too fantastic to be have any basis in fact shows.
Speaker 9: So she got used to being, you know, the the
Speaker 9: boy who cried wolf, and no one believed anything that
Speaker 9: she said, and so she stopped even trying for quite
Speaker 9: a while. It wasn't until she was watching I can't
Speaker 9: remember what the program was, but it.
Speaker 8: Was America's Most Wanted.
Speaker 9: Yeah, one of the tabloid TV shows, America's Most Wanted,
Speaker 9: and you know, they had these mystery cases and uh uh.
Speaker 9: And she was encouraged by a friend of hers when she.
Speaker 8: She saw this.
Speaker 9: He related a story to a friend who was also
Speaker 9: watching the show, the story of her sisters in two
Speaker 9: bodies that were deposited in the Sierras, and she was
Speaker 9: encouraged to give it another try, and through America's Most wanted.
Speaker 9: She managed to get in touch with a sergeant with
Speaker 9: the Nevada County Sheriff's office who took an active interest
Speaker 9: immediately and said that he would follow up on her information.
Speaker 9: And he matched one of the bodies in his jurisdiction
Speaker 9: to Terry's story, and then went over to the next
Speaker 9: county over to look through their records and found the
Speaker 9: other body. And he knew that he knew that he
Speaker 9: had a winner. He knew that this young woman was
Speaker 9: not just spinning tales out of the ether, but she
Speaker 9: was in fact telling the truth about a monster, a
Speaker 9: monster who was still at large, still getting away with
Speaker 9: murder thirty years after the fact, by this time, before
Speaker 9: they well go ahead.
Speaker 8: Before they go down, before they hunt her down, really
Speaker 8: and it's a little bit of a task to find
Speaker 8: this woman. She's using wigs and disguises and aliases, and
Speaker 8: she's glombed onto what she had done earlier in her life.
Speaker 8: She was a nurse, and so she realized that one
Speaker 8: of her good gigs was a convalescent type treatment and
Speaker 8: care for people that were old, and she could help
Speaker 8: them out and and uh and exist and do well
Speaker 8: in that sort of environment. What was interesting too in
Speaker 8: it this is that without the corroboration of William and Robert,
Speaker 8: maybe this tale doesn't have as much credibility. So tell
Speaker 8: us about that corroboration and cooperation to a certain degree
Speaker 8: from the brothers once they are questioned and taken in
Speaker 8: by police.
Speaker 9: Well, first of all, the I mean the cops closed
Speaker 9: in pretty quickly on the brothers, but because they knew
Speaker 9: where they where they were, especially William. I mean William
Speaker 9: by this time had graduated. In fact, I think he
Speaker 9: may have been the only member of the family that
Speaker 9: actually graduated from high school. But he had, he had
Speaker 9: married and was in a position of some responsibility working
Speaker 9: at a warehouse in Sacramento.
Speaker 6: And his.
Speaker 9: You know, his younger brother by this time, Robert had
Speaker 9: himself gotten into trouble, was gone the other way. And
Speaker 9: I had been involved in a robbery murderer in Las
Speaker 9: Vegas and was I've been doing time in an eastern
Speaker 9: Nevada prison for that murder. So the two boys were
Speaker 9: relatively easy to locate. Teresa not so much as you
Speaker 9: say she was. She was in Reno for a while
Speaker 9: and then moved on to to Utah, and she was
Speaker 9: taking care of an an elderly woman and getting paid
Speaker 9: for it. I guess it's called assisted care. And they
Speaker 9: finally were able to track her down, and even though
Speaker 9: she lied to the cops and said that she was
Speaker 9: not who they said that they thought that she was,
Speaker 9: they were in fact able to prove that it was
Speaker 9: the reason they took her into custody. Now, the boys,
Speaker 9: William and Robert, both cocked to their parts in the
Speaker 9: disposal of their sister's bodies and made essentially made a
Speaker 9: deal with the prosecution to testify against their mother, and
Speaker 9: William got off relatively relatively free, in part because he
Speaker 9: had led a a a pretty exemplary life. I mean
Speaker 9: he's still you know, William's still around and living in
Speaker 9: Colorado now and trying to run away from his past,
Speaker 9: but he's also confronted it too. He's pretty stable. I
Speaker 9: don't know how you ever outrun that kind of childhood, But.
Speaker 6: Of the.
Speaker 9: Six children of Teresa cross Us, he's probably the only
Speaker 9: one who's genuinely survived and led what would euthemistically be
Speaker 9: referred to as a normal life. So they turned, they
Speaker 9: turned on their their mother and told the story, and
Speaker 9: that was in part what ultimately brought her to justice.
Speaker 8: Now, she obviously got her just due. What was the
Speaker 8: fate of Terry?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 8: How was it for her to obviously go through this trial,
Speaker 8: But was it of any benefit to her in terms
Speaker 8: of stabilizing her life after the fact in any way
Speaker 8: tell us about the fate of Terry.
Speaker 9: Well, now we come to a part of the story
Speaker 9: that's a little difficult for me on a personal basis,
Speaker 9: because I got to be very close to Terry.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 9: She was obviously my primary source in telling the story.
Speaker 9: This is essentially Terry's story. It's told from her point
Speaker 9: of view. She was the hero of the story. After
Speaker 9: it all went down, made the headlines. And Teresa was
Speaker 9: who by this time, incidentally had gone on a hunger strike.
Speaker 9: And when she showed up in court, uh, I mean
Speaker 9: when she was arrested, she weighed in excess of uh
Speaker 9: I think in the s excess of three hundred pounds.
Speaker 9: But at any rate, she was uh as big as
Speaker 9: a house. When she showed up in court uh for sentencing,
Speaker 9: she was raal thin. I mean, it was shocking how
Speaker 9: thin she was, and the skin just hung on her
Speaker 9: frame and her face, and she had a high, squeaky voice,
Speaker 9: not the sort of individual that you would ever judged
Speaker 9: to be capable of not just murder, but torture and
Speaker 9: and the kind of horrible and sessuous.
Speaker 1: Deet that.
Speaker 9: That were the backbone of her life she wound up with,
Speaker 9: as I recall, two uh two less sentences. At any
Speaker 9: rate it was she would have been eligible for parole
Speaker 9: in thirty two years, I believe, is how it ultimately
Speaker 9: shook out, which at her age was not likely. I
Speaker 9: haven't followed up to see whether or not she survived.
Speaker 9: I doubt that she did. But in her daughter's case, Terry.
Speaker 6: Was the.
Speaker 9: She was the object of tabloid TV for several years
Speaker 9: after after the case made the headlines.
Speaker 4: She was on.
Speaker 9: I don't Know Montel Williams and Maury Povich and I
Speaker 9: don't know you name it. Terry made an appearance at
Speaker 9: one time or another. She told her story. She had
Speaker 9: a great camera presence. She appeared on the outside to
Speaker 9: be abuliant. She was blonde like her mother, piercing blue eyes,
Speaker 9: but she was a tortured soul. And you know, by
Speaker 9: the time I met her, she was admitted stone cold alcoholic.
Speaker 9: She couldn't stay away from drink and you know, it's
Speaker 9: obvious to me now as it was then that she
Speaker 9: was self medicating. She fell in with a crowd that
Speaker 9: that he used any and all sorts of drugs in
Speaker 9: order to deaden the pain. And probably you know, more
Speaker 9: than any of her other peers, she had perfectly legitimate
Speaker 9: reasons for wanting to deaden that pain. She she found out,
Speaker 9: much to her sorrow. She wept about this every time
Speaker 9: I spoke with her on the phone. That the abuse
Speaker 9: that she sustained at her mother's hands when she was
Speaker 9: a child and was beaten on a regular basis, ruptured
Speaker 9: her her innerds, and she was incapable of conceiving or
Speaker 9: giving bir to a child. She married into abusive relationships,
Speaker 9: goaded her various husbands into beating her up, and she tried,
Speaker 9: you know, at one point she even tried to go
Speaker 9: back to school, but she fell back into her old ways.
Speaker 9: She was in the bar, attending and probably even in
Speaker 9: some hooking at one point or another. I suppose she
Speaker 9: moved around, lived in Kansas for a while, and then
Speaker 9: Utah again, and finally wound up living in Missouri. Saint Joseph, Missouri,
Speaker 9: I think is where it was she ultimately died, perhaps
Speaker 9: four or five years ago. I was told by her
Speaker 9: then husband that although it was I don't know, described
Speaker 9: in the autopsy as being accidental, that an accidental drug overdose,
Speaker 9: that in fact, he said that she did it on purpose,
Speaker 9: and that she committed suicide. She couldn't stand it anymore.
Speaker 9: And you know, I don't, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 9: it breaks my heart because I got to be relative.
Speaker 9: I mean, I got to be pretty close to Terry
Speaker 9: and to Robert. You know, Robert finally finished his sentence
Speaker 9: for the Las Vegas murder rap and got out, couldn't
Speaker 9: get a job, and he too moved back to Missouri,
Speaker 9: but he went to trucky truck driving school and ultimately
Speaker 9: got himself a job as a truck driver. And the
Speaker 9: last I heard, he was still driving a truck for
Speaker 9: a living.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 10: You know, was.
Speaker 9: I don't know, I mean, living as decent a life
Speaker 9: as one could conceive of under the horrific circumstances of
Speaker 9: his youth. So there were survivors, Sadly, the hero of
Speaker 9: the piece was not one of them. And William and Robert,
Speaker 9: I mean, you know, here we are irony of ironies.
Speaker 9: The two Princes of Theresa Cross are still alive and
Speaker 9: still getting along relatively.
Speaker 8: Okay, Yeah, it's incredibly.
Speaker 9: I don't know what the moral of the story is.
Speaker 9: I doubt that there is one, but it is a
Speaker 9: sobering and instructive study in American Gothic.
Speaker 8: Absolutely. I don't know if there is any moral to
Speaker 8: the story. It's just a profoundly sad and very very
Speaker 8: disturbing story, and hence the title Mother's Day. I want
Speaker 8: to thank you very much for coming on and talking
Speaker 8: about Mother's Day just before I let you go, And
Speaker 8: if you could tell us any contact information if you
Speaker 8: have Facebook, if you do Facebook, if you have a page,
Speaker 8: or if you have an email that people might be
Speaker 8: able to correspond with you find out more information or
Speaker 8: find out more of your work. Let us know about
Speaker 8: that if you could, Oh.
Speaker 9: Sure, Dan, I'm Probably the easiest thing is to just
Speaker 9: go to you know, my author's page. I'm in the
Speaker 9: in the Author's Guild and my author's page is my
Speaker 9: name w W W Dennis mcdougle dot com. I'm also
Speaker 9: in Wikipedia and I have an Amazon author's page as well. Uh,
Speaker 9: and you know, if people want to contact me directly,
Speaker 9: my email address is Dennis McDougal sixty at gmail dot com.
Speaker 9: And I try to respond to two people who to
Speaker 9: my readers. I've written a dozen books, so I hear
Speaker 9: from a lot of people. But but I'll, you know,
Speaker 9: I will try to answer whatever questions anyone might have
Speaker 9: about about the sad story of Teresa Cross and her
Speaker 9: store Across the Family.
Speaker 8: Now, I'd asked this question early on, and has asked
Speaker 8: this question too, that this book had originally come out
Speaker 8: I believe in nineteen ninety eight, so we're talking about
Speaker 8: quite a while ago. But it has been reissued through
Speaker 8: a publisher, Open Road. So tell us just a little
Speaker 8: bit about that new edition and its availability through Open Road.
Speaker 11: Sure.
Speaker 9: Open Road is a new publisher out of New York.
Speaker 9: They're primarily E books, but I believe they have paper
Speaker 9: capability as well, and they contracted with me to published
Speaker 9: two the books that I wrote some time ago, Mother's
Speaker 9: Day being one of them, and Blood Cold, which is
Speaker 9: the the story of Robert Blake Blake and Bonnie Bakeley.
Speaker 9: The Robert Blake was the our gang.
Speaker 10: Star who.
Speaker 9: Charged with the murder of his wife, Bonnie Bakeley in
Speaker 9: Hollywood and beat the rap a llah O. J. Simpson
Speaker 9: back in the early two thousands, so Blood Cold is
Speaker 9: also available on open road. They are a new outfit,
Speaker 9: as I say, out of New York, and they make
Speaker 9: a practice of finding Jim's at least that's the way
Speaker 9: they put it. I'm not sure that, you know, I
Speaker 9: would be so full of hubris to call these gems.
Speaker 9: But actually one of my editors said that Mother's Day
Speaker 9: was a class which was news to me. But nonetheless,
Speaker 9: they make a practice of tr of finding these older
Speaker 9: titles and bringing them back to a younger audience. And
Speaker 9: you know, I'm obviously, as the author, I'm very much
Speaker 9: in favor of that, but I also you know, I
Speaker 9: applaud them for what the the the whole idea of
Speaker 9: doing it, because these sorts of sagas, I mean, these
Speaker 9: sorts of stories. The reason that I did true crime
Speaker 9: in the first place was because I was far more
Speaker 9: interested in the psychology of what goes into making a
Speaker 9: criminal or a horrible crime, how it comes to pass,
Speaker 9: And then I was in the actual you know, nuts
Speaker 9: and bolts and blood and guts of the current crime itself.
Speaker 9: But I think these stories are timeless. I mean, I
Speaker 9: think these stories are the story. This is what the
Speaker 9: brothers Grim relied upon when they put together their fairy
Speaker 9: tales several centuries ago.
Speaker 10: This is the.
Speaker 9: The sum and substance of Greek myth. These, these modern tales,
Speaker 9: that of the Cross family or the Blakes, these are
Speaker 9: the stories that are that will live on long after
Speaker 9: all of us are gone and an open road. Guess uh.
Speaker 9: A lot of Brownie points in my estimation for seeing
Speaker 9: that and making these stories available to a new generation.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, it's well deserved to re release this book Mother's Day,
Speaker 8: And I wanna again thank you very much for coming
Speaker 8: on and taking the time to really explain this story
Speaker 8: and again the psychology behind a very very fascinating killer
Speaker 8: and her compliant family, very very interesting and unique tale.
Speaker 8: I want to thank you very much for coming on
Speaker 8: and talking about it. Thank you very much, Dennis, and
Speaker 8: have yourself a good evening.
Speaker 9: You do the same, Dan, and thank you very much
Speaker 9: for having me.
Speaker 8: Thank you all right, good night, good night,