Rotten Mango - #65: The Sisterhood Of Torture (Case of Michelle Knotek)

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

They knew something was different about their family. The sisters saw it. They had guests doing chores - completely nude - in the house. Guests being duct-taped to the walls. They had a man jumping from their roof onto his bare feet over and over again. Until his legs broke.  Even all this pain - was nothing compared to the humiliation and psychological torture taking place… what was really going on here? Who would finally tell? Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Butter being butter boob. Today's case is about Michelle Shelley Lynn Watson Rev. Long Knotech. I just had to get that out the way, sorry. Okay, so this woman, Michelle Shelley Lynn Watson Rev. Long Knotech, was arrested in 2004 and so much has been going on in my brain because of this. So she gets arrested, she's a suspected serial killer. She is someone who has tortured her three daughters. I mean, to the brink of insanity, to the brink of suicide

and the way that she tortures these kids is so humiliating, is so psychological, and it's just so disgusting. And there are so many questions, how did she even end up like this? What is going on? And why is she being released next year from prison? What's going on with that? This all started in my brain because Amazon was trying to sell me a book for the past

week. I don't know what it was. They said, you've got to buy it. Jeff Bezos' life depends on this one sale. They were pushing it down my throat. And finally, I decided, you know what? I'm just gonna get it. So I got this book.

I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought that this was gonna be like a casual nighttime read, not something that would be researched for a podcast. I thought it was about sisterhood. That's kind of what I got out of it. If that was a wholesome family relationship. No, I know that there's like, you know, crime committed. There was maybe one murder committed.

I didn't know it was a full-on serial killer. I didn't know that it was this torturous. I mean, it just gets so crazy. So the book is titled If You Tell by Greg Olson. And it is such a good book. I mean, I just like breeze through this. There is so much in there about this family and I'm just gonna jump right in.

I'm gonna drop you off in the middle of this and it all takes place. Wow, what a name, okay. Battleground Washington. The fact that this story starts in Battleground Washington is gonna be crazy. It all starts with Emily. Now, this is a fake name because her identity is being somewhat protected by a lot of people and for good reason. So Emily should just graduated high school

and she starts working at the local bowling alley. Now for small towns like this, I mean the bowling alley is the place to be. This is where everybody comes. Every weekend there's bowling leagues. This is where everybody gathers. This bowling alley was owned by none other than Les Watson. You could kind of call him the big shot in town.

Mr. Big shots, that's what they called him. The him and his family, they operated nursing homes, but they also owned this massive bowling alley, right? So she starts working there, fresh out of high school, saving money for college, and she runs into our boss, Les. Now Les, I mean, he's got all the money in the world. He's the president of Chamber of Commerce and he's a massive playboy He's 29 by the way. She's 18 and he tells her hey, I'm 22 so I can relate to a lot of 22 and I'm the head of

The president of Chamber of Commerce, you know, you get a lot done You know by the time you're 22. And I just relate to you and I just, I want to date you and he starts smooth talking her and she immediately falls for him. I mean, ignore the red flags that he has a first wife and three children that he completely abandoned in the state of California and ignore the fact that his mom is an absolute evil woman who is known for treating her employees like other shit. There have been reports, there have been rumors that his mom would actually go around stuffing employees heads into toilets and flushing water into their heads. Because she didn't like their performance. Wait, so what happens? Does that drown you?

I mean, I guess I don't think it would be as Intensive of drowning as if maybe you were to just stick your head into like a still body of water Because it's moving and maybe not I don't know maybe it would drown you. That's so odd So she would keep doing that. So these are you don't matter if red flags, but she's 18 He's such a smooth talker. So she ends up getting married to the guy. It's just a small wedding I mean she didn't even know his real age until after the wedding. She didn't know what kind of monster in law that she really was gonna have to deal with and then the next bomb dropped on little high school graduated Emily okay the day after the wedding the phone rings.

It's his first wife calling and she says take the kids when are you gonna come take the kids? I'm going to take the kids. What? So she hangs up and she's like, hey, babe, husband that I just married. Oh, what does your first wife mean by take the kids? I mean, it must be miscommunication, right? No, he had promised the first wife, hey, just let me get married to this new girl and I will take the kids from California and I'll just have this new girl raise them. I'll just have this 18-year-old raise my kids now.

So of course, I mean Emily being this new girl raise them. I'll just have this 18-year-old raise my kids now. So of course, I mean Emily being this amazing sweet person that she is. She was like, well, I guess that I can't really say no, you know, especially because the ex-wife, she was on drugs, she was on a lot of, she was an alcoholic, there was just a lot going on. So for the sake of the kids, okay, fine. Let's move them from California and straight into this newlywed house. So we've got Michelle, otherwise known as Shelley, who is six years old. She is going to be the star of today's story. Michelle Shelley, Lynn Watson, Rev. Long, Knotek. Yeah, that's Michelle. And then we've got a three year old named Chuck and then Paul, who is an infant that decided

to stay with the mom. So the mom, the ex-wife is taking care of the infant for now. Later, they're gonna get Paul to. So now they have this six year old and the three year old. Imagine being 18, getting married, and now you're watching two kids, like, what is happening? And immediately, you know, Emily's staying home

with Shelley and Chuck, and she's noticing some strange things. So Shelley and Chuck had a strange relationship. Chuck wouldn't talk. Like, no matter how much Emily tried to ask Chuck a question, Shelley would talk for him. She would butt in, she would answer the question before Chuck could even say a word. So it was like she was completely in control of her younger brother. It was really intense. Shelley would also tell Emily every single day without, without missing a beat. I hate you. I really hate you. Every single day

without a fail she would tell Emily, good morning, I hate you. I mean what would you do if you're Emily? I'm thinking I'd probably call that first wife back and be like, uh how did you raise this demon child? What's going on? Well that would be impossible because she just dropped off the face of the earth. She's stopped calling. She didn't send any Christmas cards. I mean, for the next seven years, radio silence. Absolutely nothing from the first wife. And then the couple with the Watson's, they get a call. LAPD says, hey, I heard that you guys are like the next of kin. You need to come pick up this infant. We'll now no longer an infant, the seven year old Paul. Because the mom's dead.

She's been murdered in LA. Murdered? Yeah, she's been brutally beaten in a motel room. Murdered. So they're like, oh my god. You know, now at this point, Shelley is 13 years old. Chuck is 10. You get it and they're so young now they gotta go get Paul. So they bring home Paul and they sit down all the kids and they tell them the bad news. Now, Shelley, who's 13, does not give a flying fork. Like she didn't care, there was no tear, there was no what happened.

Are we gonna catch the murder? Like none of that, she was just like, okay, did I mention that I hate you Emily? Like that was it. Yeah, just straight up, like did I mention, I despise you. I mean, they're probably going to remember there are birthmums at this point, right? Now they have three kids and they were trying to have kids of their own. Total, it will be five kids.

They will have Shelley, Chuck, Paul, and then two kids of their own. And Paul was just an absolute handful. He was so stubborn, he had no social skills up until this point. If he was hungry, he would climb onto the kitchen counters, open every single cabinet and just look through the food. If it doesn't pass his test, if he's not trying to eat it, guess where it goes. Toss to the ground. Yeah, I would go crazy. Chas a seven-year-old. As a seven-year-old. That's crazy. Yeah, and then the neighbors started coming to Emily being like,

hey, uh, is something wrong with your kids because I've been noticing some strange stuff. What do you mean? We'll chuck the middle kid. He would just stand in his room with the window open, looking out at the street, just crying. Just standing still, crying all the time. Do you guys hear that? What? So, using the three kids have gone through intense abuse?

I think that they went through intense abuse and that I think Shelley was continuing to abuse the rest of the siblings because it becomes evident later. I mean, it's the strangest thing. Shelley, the sister? Yeah, the older sister. So somehow the family tries so hard to manage to make this work. You know, they keep going on tons of vacations as a family. If we can just, if we can just patch it up with a ski trip, if we can just go boating

and washing to maybe, maybe we'll be a normal family. And honestly, it would have been really happy if it wasn't for Shelley, because if this trip was not Shelley's idea, it wasn't good enough. She's one of those people that loves Korean barbecue, but if she's not the one that said, hey, let's get barbecue tonight, she'd be like be like that's freaking stupid why would we get barbecue tonight do you know what I'm talking about like those types of people and she hated when her other siblings got any attention her way of dealing with it is not yelling is not you know punching anyone she would stuff tiny pieces of broken glass into the shoes of her siblings. Geez.

This was her favorite activity. And everything that she did was super cunning. She would pretend to help you, but her intention was to hurt you. So she would say, Emily, well let me do the dishes for you. You know, you cook so much today, I would love to do the dishes for you. So Emily being like, wow, she's really turning it around. Okay, do the dishes. So sweet. When you're not looking, Shelley would just throw away all the unwashed plates, all the utensils, pots and pans into the garbage and just walk away.

So you would take out the trash, open it up. Guess what? It's the dinner plates, some of them even broken because she had offered to do the dishes and you believed her. I mean, why even offer? Nobody asked her to do the dishes. It wasn't like it was a chore. She offered. You know, and if she felt like she was being nice and productive, she would just wipe the dishes with a cloth and not wash them and put them back. And if you confronted her, she'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about.

That's disgusting. That's not me. She would go up to her neighbors and say, Hey, I love babysitting. I love babies, I love kids. Why don't I babysit for you? And I'll even do it for free. That's how much fun I have babysitting. And then for us the baby is the right thing.

The baby's the way, yeah. And so the neighbors were like, this is the golden child of this neighborhood. Yeah, watch our kids, let's go on date night. So they come home, Shelley's like, well, they're doing good. They're in their bedroom and she leaves They go to their bedroom and the kids are terrified in their bed Just in their day clothes shivering in bed. So they're like what happened? Why are you so scared? What's going on? Why are you guys crying?

And they would say well, shelly Barricaded us into our rooms wouldn't let us out lock this in here and just watch TV and ate food us into our rooms wouldn't let us out lock this in here and just watch TV and ate food. She just left. So I mean I just she's like 15. I just don't understand why even watch these kids. Why even offer to do it for free. It's not I mean I would maybe get it if she's getting paid. She's like I want the money but I don't want the work. See I don't get it. What is it this mentality? Either she's like purposefully trying to stir some shit up, like trying to make things worse for people or she's trying to do good but she can function how to properly help people or

do things. She seems like the person that hates to be good but wants everyone to think that she is like this angel you know and it just doesn't connect in her head that she is like this angel, you know, and it just doesn't connect in her head that she is making herself out to be an evil person. Because later her nickname by the neighborhood is Psycho Shelley. So that's never a good nickname. I'm just saying. So at this point, like I said,

Shelley is 15 years old. During school hours, she decides, you know what, I just don't wanna go home today. She goes to her counselor, sits down, and with a very, very sad face tells her, I just can't do it anymore, you know? I just can't go home anymore. Until they brush her to CPS, and when she doesn't come home, you know, the parents, they don't get a call, Emily starts freaking out.

She calls the school, and they're super cold. They say, well, she's at a juvenile detention center. Now I can't say why? I can't say anything else. That's all I know. And they hang up on the mom. They hang up on the set mom Emily. So they rushed to the center because I mean she probably stole something. Did she do something? Did she mess up? Like how is she at a juvenile detention center? And so they start talking to the superintendent and they're like, listen, if she stole something, I'm sure we can pay for it. I'm sure there's a solution.

Let me just talk to Shelley. Let me just see what kind of trouble she's in. Well, no, you can't talk to Shelley because Mr. Watson, we've been told by Shelley that you're raping her. And so he's like, what? What are you talking about? Yeah, so this is a criminal investigation. You will have no contact with your daughter.

That's it. Goodbye. So they send the couple home and they're freaking out. I mean, they had a doctor order to examine her, which, honestly, I don't know, is that even like a thing? So they were looking for her Hyman being intact. They weren't looking for vaginal tearing. I'm sure that they were, but they didn't find any, right? And so they had a doctor order to examine her. And meanwhile,

they went along to see her. So they go home, they're shaken up. I mean, what do you do about this type of thing? Now Emily tries to comfort him and is like, she probably doesn't even know what that word is. She probably just said it. This is miscommunication. Don't worry, Liz. We're going to get to the bottom of it. So they start going through her room yeah question is they are innocent they were saying the parents are definitely innocent so it seems like it it seems like um the rest of Shelley's life will kind of show that she isn't a habit of lying a lot and it doesn't seem to be any evidence by the doctor or by any criminal investigator that there was rape because they go into a room and they start searching and it's stuffed in between her mattress,

they find a magazine called True Confessions. And the cover said, I was raped at 15 by my dad. So they flipped to that story and the story she was telling was almost the same as the one in the magazine that she had doggy eard. The parents just found that easily? Yeah, so they're like, there's no way that this is true. That's what they keep thinking. So the doctors that go and examine her and the girl had no vaginal tearing. She had her hymen intact, which honestly doesn't mean anything,

but in this case they used it as something. And they released her on one condition. She needs counseling. So now the doctors and the juvenile center is saying, Hey, we believe you guys didn't repair, but like she needs serious help, because this is a big accusation. This is serious.

So she gets kicked out of her school. They don't want anything to do with her. And these parents, they have money now, right? So they're trying every local school, like, please take our child. Here's all this money. Oh, no, no, no, no, we heard about what she did. No, no, no, thank you.

So eventually she starts bouncing around from different schools. They enlist her in a boarding school and even these very strict nuns who are known for, you know, knocking some discipline into a lot of children, they didn't want her. They're like, you need to take her back. This kid's crazy.

We can't do this. My grandma's Catholic, so I've been around a couple of nuns. They're intense, wonderful people, but they're very disciplined and they're very, you know, hard. They're like, yes, we're gonna get to the bottom of this, right? But yeah, they could not. They didn't want to deal with her.

And you think all these came from the early age? See, I think so. And I think maybe it has to do with the fact that Shelley was really close with her grandma once she started moving in with the dad's family. Now Anna Watson, the grandma is the toilet flusher. So maybe that kind of rubbed off? So Anna likes the grandma. Yeah, or Shelley likes the grandma.

They get along really well. Some people say maybe in a pot of jay. So Shelley never say, grandma, I hate you. No. Only to the mom. Yeah, only to the most step mom. She's like grandma, I love you. No only to the mom. Yeah only to the most step mom Yeah, she's like grandma. I love you. They love spending time together Wow the grandma never really yelled at Shelley yelled at everybody else never really yelled at Shelley So maybe the grandma trained her maybe she had it in her

And maybe it was just like this complicated mess of all of these things and so she just started going crazy Now after she gets kicked out of all of these things and so she just started going crazy. Now after she gets kicked out of all of these schools, Shelley left Emily and was like, I can't do this anymore. I'm gonna go live with my aunt and uncle. So she moves in with them and soon after they get divorced, they're aunt and the uncle and a lot of people suspect that Shelley had something to do with this. I mean she's known for tearing people apart and like planting these seeds and manipulating people, it just made sense. I mean, they were in such a happy relationship prior to taking in Shelley. So that was fine for Shelley, because she had just met her future husband, a Randy

Ravardo. So she's 17, and she was, okay, Shelley's beautiful, and I think that's what makes this story even more intense. She does not look like your normal sense of a torture. She doesn't look like this crazy toothless mom that just like hits her kids. Like yeah, I'm a serial killer, right? She's so pretty. I mean, she's got this natural red hair. She's got this beautiful face like flawless skin. I mean, she is pretty on the outside. So all the local boys wanted to date her.

She meets Randy who's got these dark guys, dark hair, and they just look like a magazine couple. So they start dating, and eventually Shelley is like, well, I've got to go back home because my aunt and uncle divorced, you know? I got to go back home with my parents. I'm going to work at my dad's nursing home. Why don't you come, Randy?

My dad can give you a job. What do you think about that? Not only will he give you a job, but he's going to give you a rent for your apartment. I know that you've been trying to say for college, so this could be the perfect opportunity. You would save so much money. And he's thinking,

well, this is too good to be true. I mean, you would think that your girlfriend's dad would hate you. He doesn't wanna meet you. He doesn't want you around, you know, his precious daughter with the heck. But I do need the money, so he pans up his car, he drives, and he meets the Watson family and of course they had other plans the minute that they heard about Randy they were all preparing for a wedding because

they wanted to get rid of Shelley like let's be honest there were just like we just need her to be somebody else's responsibility we can't do this anymore so once he gets there the plan is in motion he did feel a little bit strange you know the less was too welcoming it's mean, usually they want to question the boyfriend, but he was just like, oh man, you're the perfect fellow. Come in here. Put on my suit jacket. That looks like wedding attire. Have you ever thought about being a groom one day? Like he was just doing the most. So the wedding rolls around and none of Randy's family show up Did they see Shelley's true side before Randy did no because Shelley forgot to mail the invites

Quotun Quotun forgot so it was just a wedding with Shelley's family and Randy and he's like my family is not here Oh, yeah, I might have forgotten to mail those invites out Okay, this is so strange so Oh yeah, I might have forgotten to mail those invites out. Okay. There's this little strange. So yeah. So their whole wedding is dependent on that little paper invite. Pretty much. Yeah.

Okay. And so the parents, you know, the Watson's, they give them the newlywed couple, a free trailer to live in. And you would think that Shelley would be like, wow, this is amazing. Thank you so much. No, she hated it. She said it's disgusting. She kept whining. Why do I have to live here? And on top of that, her dad had to fire her because she had such bad performance. Imagine how shitty an employee you have to be for your own father to fire you. It was really bad, right?

So now she's jobless, unemployed, living in this trailer. She's complaining that she doesn't have to pay rent for this trailer because it's not nice enough and she started demanding for a new car. She said, Mom, Dad, I want a Volkswagen Beetle. The one Ted Bundy drove. I want one of those because I'm just as nasty. Shout out to all the people that actually drive Volkswagen Beetles, I think they're super cute. Anyways, so he tried to get her one, but he couldn't get his hands on one or maybe it was too expensive, so he ended up getting her a pink B-wit convertible instead. So he drives it up to the trailer. I mean, it was nearly brand new and it was beautiful.

The dad, the dad just does everything for her, right? And she immediately sees this car and she starts screaming. This. I want the pink Lamborghini not the blue one She's just screaming this is a horrible old maids car what the f*** dad I don't say this often, but when I do just know that I really mean it. I am enjoying wearing a pair of jeans Normally, I think jeans are super uncomfortable and they're not breathable, but I have recently found a pair that has told me

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Why won't you wake up? He calls the parents over. They rush her to the hospital. The doctors in the yard, they pump her stomach, and they come out to tell the parents. The contents in her stomach, she had only taken a very insignificant small amount of aspirin. There were no sleeping pills. There was no alcohol. So she just refused to get up? So she was faking it. So she took fucking two-tiled gnaw and said, yeah, this is it. I'm just gonna pretend to be dead. I'm alive.

But I'm dead. And so the parents were like, what? No, she wouldn't wake up. Yeah, no, very insignificant small amount of aspirin. Thank you. Have you guys try tickling her yet? Yeah, like you really couldn't get her up. What's coming on?

And so the parents, they confront her her and she told them that the ear doctors Her dumb as hell and it was sleeping pills. Okay She's like it was sleeping pills and I almost lost my life. What are you talking about? So once she decided that the car was not great enough She decided that the trailer was not good enough. So she has this new plan right a couple weeks later Randy comes home from school the trailer is completely ransacked and Shelley's face is all bloodyed up. And he's like oh my god oh my god what's happened? Why do you look like this? What's cool? Did someone hurt you? And she says this man came in, he attacked me, and he raped me. He took your

rifle and he ran off. I don't know what to do. So they call the police, they call the family over, and the sheriff questioned her for quite some time by herself. And when he came back out, he told the family, I don't know what to tell you, but her wounds are self-inflicted and she just fessed up that there was no man. So I mean, I'm not going to press charges for this fake police report, but y'all got to do something about it. So he leaves and the family again presents her with the truth. They say, hey, love you to death as shells, but that chair just told us that you agreed that you lied, that these are self-inflicted wounds.

And she's like, absolutely not dead. You don't understand. It's too dangerous for me here. I have to live in town until living a house. A trailer is too dangerous for a woman like me. And they agreed. They put her in a house. So after all of this, after all of this shenanigans,

Randy is still staying with her, okay? The rest of the family is still trying to support her. She gets pregnant. And this was, this is a lot of mixed feelings from everyone because first of all, she is not maternal. She's a shit show, her life is a shit show. But maybe this could change her personality. I feel like we all know that one person that like drastically changed once

they became a parent. Maybe that's Shelley. So Randy's parents, they get a call. Oh my god, you guys are going to have your first kid together. They get so excited and they didn't know this dark side of Shelley. So they're like, yes, we're going to bring the whole family. We're going to visit you guys. We're going to bring all these gifts. And once they come, Shelley refused to leave the bedroom. She did not even say hi to them. She refused to even see them once. She just didn't care. I don't want them here. What?

And so they left without seeing her, Randy was super embarrassed. And then once they left, all of the gifts mysteriously went missing. Wait, what does that mean? All of the baby gifts that they brought just mysteriously went missing. It seems like Shelley probably trashed it. Wait, after they left, she trashed all the gifts. So, did the family took the gift back home? No, the family was like, that's so strange.

We put it there. Shelley trashed it all. So, she doesn't like free stuff either. So, she doesn't like free stuff, but most importantly, I think that she doesn't like Randy being close to anyone, but her, you know, doesn't want him to be involved with his family, doesn't want her child to be like, oh, that's from Grandma and Grandpa, right?

Like, everything had to be Shelley, Shelley, Shelley, Shelley. And she just didn't like it. She didn't like the idea of her kid getting presents from someone else that wasn't her, which is crazy, right? And so this was a whole problem. Randy was confused by it, and then Randy gets a call from his sister, and she's like, hey, I left my sweater there. Do you mind shipping it back or like holding it for me? Just don't throw it away. It's my sweater, right? And she, she's like, I can do it. I can, I can ship the sweater. Wow, thank you. You're just such a wonderful wife. So she ships the sweater,

and the sister receives it in the mail. The outside packaging, the box, pristine condition, opens it up, and her sweater has been completely shredded with a pair of scissors. And she asks, do you know anything about this, Randy Shelley? And Shelley says, oh my god, must have been the postman. I don't get it. Her behavior is the oddest thing I've ever heard It's like something that you will see a five-year-old do yeah, and then you see those videos that parents holding the camera

Did you eat it can be? No, I didn't and their face is covered in chocolate But it's not even just no I didn't they have like a logical reasons exactly They're like no, I didn't it was the cat in the dog who ate it and this chocolate on my face is actually do do Right like so there's a kids do that because they can't think of the reasoning and consequences yet But seems like she still behaves that way, right? still Crazy so at this point her marriage is starting to fall apart when she gives birth to their

first daughter, Nikki, right? She demands that he give her all of his tricks right away. You know, Shelley is like, you, you can't have your paychecks anymore, you're gonna give it immediately to me. You don't sleep inside the house anymore. He would start sleeping inside of his car, and it just got so bad to the point that even the Randy loved his new daughter. His newborn baby, Nikki, he just couldn't take it anymore.

He had to leave. He felt so trapped and Shelley was so evil. So he leaves and she is immediately erect. She opens up every single credit card that she could under their joint account before he cut her off and then put him into debt. Just bought everything in sight, not even stuff that she wanted, just anything. And then randomly one day, she drops off Nikki with grandma Emily and then just leaves. She like drops off the face of the earth. Just one full year gone, not a word of where she went, nothing.

But did in the husband leave too? Yeah, so now she's gone too. Maybe she's doing some soul searching. Maybe she's dating somebody else. And then she came up to pick up Nikki, just a year later, never explained where she went and was like, where's my kid? Thanks somebody else. And then she came up to pick up Nikki, just a year later, never explained where she went, and was like, where's my kid? Thanks, bye. And took her kid. And nobody knew where she went? Nobody knew.

So she starts telling Nikki, you know, Nikki's getting to the age where she can talk. She can walk, and she's probably wondering, hey, what happened to, do I have a dad? What's going on over there, right? And she would tell her daughter, your dad abandoned us. And your grandparents hate you.

They wanted you gone. They kicked you out of their house. But it's okay, Nikki, because I love you so much. Anytime the dad ran D and the rest of his family would send notes for her birthday or would send gift cards or would send presents, she would swap out the tags, write her name on it, and present it to Nikki as if she saved up all this money being a single mom to buy her these amazing gifts. So Nikki was like, oh my god, I've got the best mom ever, she does everything for me. So at 24 years old,

Shelley goes into her second marriage to a man by the name of Danny Mung, and they immediately get pregnant and give birth to another baby girl by the name of Samantha. But everyone calls her Sammy, right? She's this beautiful girl. She's got this blonde hair with these big, big eyes. And would we say that Shelley's a good mom? Was she really wanted to pretend to be? So all day she would sit and watch TV on the couch. And when anyone would come over or when, you know, Danny would come home from work, she would pop up out of nowhere, grab the baby and act like she's so tired. Act like she had been carrying this baby nonstop all day. She couldn't even put the baby down because all the baby would do would cry if she put the baby down, right?

But there were signs of that lie. There were dirty diapers everywhere. There was bottles laying all over the crib. Sammy would constantly have these really intense diaper rashes, but she still would try to convince everyone, no no no no, I carried her all day. I didn't put her down, I didn't do any of that, no way. So she just like went out of her way to tell everyone I'm the best mom ever when nobody was asking, nobody cared. So the fighting with Danny starts getting worse. It seems to be a trend she ends up having a kid and then the fighting escalates. So with her second husband, it seemed that he

stood his ground a lot better than Shelley's family or his ex-husband. I mean, there would be dishes breaking for every fight, like every time that they would yell at each other, plates would be thrown. There would be holes punched into the dry wall of their house. So finally, after five years, they get a divorce. Now this is when Shelley starts dating a bunch of dudes, right? She's got one boy here, one boy there, and she would tell her two kids the same thing every single time. This is your new dad. Call him dad. She'd be dating a guy for like a week, and she'd bring him home and be like,

this is your new dad, Kevin! Call him dad. Every single year that they were enrolled into school, they had a new last name. It was just always the last name of the new boyfriend that she was dating. Not legally, no one questioned it. She would just write the new dude's last name on there. Insane. Now, around this time, Nikki remembered something incredibly strange happened to her. She was sleeping. When all of a sudden, she wakes up and she couldn't breathe. There was a pillow on her face and she starts screaming. I mean, she's a young kid.

She's like, I don't know what's going on, right? She starts screaming and then she's trying to like focus her vision. The pillow lifts from her face. She's still crying and she looks up and her mom is just looking at her. And she says, what is it? Baby, what's wrong? Someone put a pillow on my face, mom. No, it was just a dream.

Just a bad dream. No, no, it wasn't a dream, Mom. Someone put a pillow on my face. They were trying to suffocate me, Mom. And the mom just stared at her and said, it was just a dream. And so for the next couple of years, this will be something that Nikki thinks about non-stop, because there's just a lot of things that were strange about it. Her mom got their way too quickly.

Her mom didn't rush into the room. Her mom was just there. And why did she have that strange look on her face? She didn't look scared for her child. She didn't look concerned. It was almost like she looked intrigued. Curious. So by the time Shalia's 29, she's got a new man in her life. child she didn't look concerned it was almost like she looked intrigued curious So by the time Shelley is 29 she's got a new man in her life and his name is Dave

Kinotech. Yes, this is the last one to her very long list of last names, right? So she marries Dave That's how she got her name. She actually keeps those names. I don't know That's what she just went by. Just this really long name. I'm sure legally she didn't. Oh, maybe she did. I wouldn't doubt it. Okay, so Dave Kanoteck, he was this military man. He lived in Washington, and he was just a super simple guy. That's what everyone says about him.

He's nice, he's athletic, he's got this gentle personality, a gentle giant, if you will. So one day he walks into the sore thumb bar. Yeah, that's the name of the bar, the sore thumb bar. And he sees one of the most beautiful girls that he has ever seen with her bright red hair all over the place. And he just, he had to do it. He drank up some courage, you know, multiple shots. And finally asked her out and they immediately started dating. So just like the rest of her relationships, she quickly introduced him to her kids. Here's Nikki, here's Sammy.

And he just felt like they needed a father figure. He wanted to be that for them. He wanted, now that he's met the kids, their relationship must be serious, right? And then he gets a phone call. Shelly calls him and says, I don't know what to do. I just went to a doctor's appointment.

And I don't know, I'm just trying to make ends meet right now, but I have cancer. And I probably won't live for another year. I mean, Davis devastated. He just met the woman of his dreams, and now she has terminal cancer. She's gonna die. What are we gonna do, right?

And he just can't think, he just can't stop thinking about, is this the timing? Is this what's meant to happen? Am I supposed to marry her because maybe these kids are my kids? Maybe that's why we met each other at this time right before her diagnosis, because I'm supposed to be the follower to these children. So we manned up and he married Shelley. He married her. What? Yeah, and their marriage almost immediately turned into a shit show. Dave was constantly being pushed to his literal breaking point. Any tiny little thing Shelly would yell at him. She would say, you idiot, I can't believe I married such an R word.

You discussed me. You call yourself a man, and he would sit out on the porch with a gun to his head sobbing for hours, contemplating suicide. And shelly would see this, the kids would see this, and she didn't do anything to stop it, she just kept going, and any time he said, I can't do this anymore, I'm meeting my breaking point, mentally I'm not doing okay. She would say, well this is how couples talk it out. And he'd be like, what?

He was just terrified of being around his wife, anything was a weapon. The spatula in the kitchen, the fishing pole, the electrical cord. I mean, she would straight up whip people with electrical cords. Shelly was practically nocturnal as well, which just added to the scariness of her entire aura, her entire vibe. So she would do this thing every single night.

She wouldn't sleep. She would only sleep during the day when the kids were at school and her husband was at work. So all night, she's laying on the couch. She's got, you know, she's laying staring at the ceiling, the TV's on, her palms are just folded on her chest. She's thinking about, my husband's not home again. My daughter's are peacefully sleeping upstairs.

But for whatever reason, she just gets a little bit more angry. Every second of that long night, and it's just usually a little bit more angry. Every second of that long night, and it's just usually a small thing. Someone forgot to close the kitchen cabinet today, who the fuck was it? And she just gets riled up and she keeps getting herself more and more angry. How dare they not close that kitchen cabinet?

I could have been walking and hit my head on that kitchen cabinet. These ungrateful little shits. And she would just keep riling herself up and then in the middle of the night she would burst into the kid's room, turn on the lights and scream, you fucking little bitch, and would start pushing them around. And they would just immediately start saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, nobody even knew what they were getting yelled at for. She never really told them. And she would

just beat them up. And then she'd say, now go to sleep. And the next morning, it would be completely fine. She would just act like none of that happened. It's almost like Shelley wanted to psychologically mess with her own kids. So during one Christmas, the whole week before Christmas, Shelley locked Nikki, the eldest daughter into her room. She wasn't allowed to come out the whole Christmas break.

Like, yeah, you're out of school, but you can't come out to the living room. You, we're gonna bring you little shitty food here, like probably two pieces of toast. You're gonna pee in a bucket, that's it. Like, you're not allowed out of your room. She had no idea why she was getting this punishment, right? Then Christmas day rolls around,

and it's the most beautiful scene. A huge pile of presents in the living room, Nikki, Sammy, Mary Christmas condensers, open your presents, and the two girls were like the happiest that they had ever been. A huge pile of presents in the living room, Nikki, Sammy, Mary Christmas condensers, open your presents, and the two girls were like the happiest that they had ever been. They're just opening all of these wonderful presents, and it was the best day ever. Now, the next day immediately, Shelley rips the presents from their hands and takes it away. Locks them into a closet with the rest of all of their presents, and she would arrange

things and put tiny pieces of tape on the door to make sure nobody snuck in to the closet to play with their toys. I just don't get it. So she would spend this money that they really didn't have. They were not making a ton of money, right? She would stay at home mom and Dave was not making good money.

So she would spend all of this money to buy them presents, go through the trouble of wrapping it, they would open it, they'd be so excited, and then she would stuff them into a closet and torture them by never letting them play with it. Ah, so you think she's spent the money just to torture them? It seems like it. She just wanted to give it to them and have that moment of like, oh my god mom you're the best person ever, and then she would just rip it from them.

Oh, that is. And we she would just rip it from them. Oh that is. And we'll never let them play again. And so another Christmas, Shelley gave these tiny little bear pins in their stockings and they start opening up all of their presents, which is usually a shit ton, like I said. And obviously, these tiny little bear pins

could easily have been misplaced or maybe they were under a pile of massive wrapping paper and Shelley just went off. You girls are the most selfish and grateful kids. I mean, she was fully unhinged. So they spent the entire Christmas looking all over the carpet for these little pins. And finally, after hours, they found them tucked inside another Christmas gift. There is no way that the girls would have hidden them there. It was hidden. It wasn't placed. It wasn't look like it was thrown

in there. It looked hidden inside of another present. And everyone knew it had to be Shelley. It had to have been Shelley who hid it. And her plan was that they were going to get a beating on Christmas Day. So they all got beat up on Christmas Day. Now once they start going to school, it gets even weirder. Shelley would not let them shower for weeks at a time. All usage of the bathroom to even pee, to even poo, had to go through Shelly. I mean, it was so embarrassing for the kids because they would show up at school smelly and greasy and just what is going on. If she did let her kids pee and poo, she would sit right next to them and watch them, like there were some sort of science experiment. Like, she would

just stare at their face while they're trying to pee or poo. It was just the strangest thing. And it made people super un-easy. So a lot of the times the girls started peeing into bowls and throwing the pee out of their window and then hiding the bowl inside of their room. Because they just, even if their mom said yes, they would have to like stare at her while they peed. It's just really confusing. Now the house itself was even more confusing because Shelley loved cute little knickknacks. She loved better butterfly tea cups. She loved dusty rose wallpapers. So everything in the house was super pink, was super warm, was super just loving vibes, but she was just evil. And her number one target became Nikki, the eldest daughter. For whatever reason,

Shelley decides, okay, I hate my child. And she started coming up with these inventive ways to torture Nikki. So there was something called wallowing. The main focus of wallowing was humiliation. In the middle of the night, she would wait till everyone is asleep. And she would rush into Nikki's room, and it was like an ambush. She would rust open the door, turn on the light screen, get up, get up, close off, get the fork downstairs, you worthless piece of shit like she would just start yelling in the middle of the night.

3 a.m. Nikki is in deep sleep. She would wake up, super confused, start crying and start taking off all of her clothes. She would run downstairs where her mom would force her out into the backyard, completely naked, and she would say, Dave, calm down stairs. And she would make Nikki squat in the mud Completely nude and Dave would hose her down with ice cold water And she would say and Nikki would beg and Nikki would cry and the mom would say make her wallow She's a pig Dave teacher a lesson more water wallow Nikki meaning likeiki was supposed to kind of move around in the dirt

and just keep saying I'm sorry and I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah. She was forced to like squat and like move around in the dirt, covered in this wet water and just say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, like just beg for forgiveness for whatever mistake that she made. That she honestly had no idea, shelly wouldn't even tell her most of the time. And then she would drag her back into the bathroom, pour hot water into the tub,

just straight up hot water, and plop Nikki in there, which this is a lot of pain to go from ice cold water, especially in the winter times, and then just to straight into hot water, and she would constantly say, you're a pig Nikki, now clean up and go to bed. Now, Sammy was never as badly abused

because Sammy was kind of the funny one in the family. She was really good at handling her mom. She wouldn't fight back, so Nikki was someone that always tried to fight back. Like, why? Why? I didn't do anything wrong or... No, I didn't do that because sometimes Shelley would make up shit. And she'd be like, yeah, you did that. You hit my head. No no I didn't do that because sometimes shelly would make up shit and she'd be like yeah you did that you hit you hit my head no I didn't so it was better to just be like oh I don't remember but I'm sorry

and that's kind of what Sammy did and she was a great sweet talker she was also really popular at school Sammy so maybe shelly was worried that she had too many friends and would maybe want to tell one of them about this abuse that she had too many friends and would maybe want to tell one of them about this abuse. So this kind of feels like a personal attack, but here we go. Are you engaged and not sure how to make your wedding happen? If you guys don't know, my fiance and I have been engaged for, um, oh god, like something gnarly now. It's been insane. And you can join one million couples.

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samples before you purchase that Zola.com slash rotten promo code Save50. So while this is all happening at home, the Watson's, Shelley's parents, you know, Les and Grandma Emily, they thought that Shelley had changed. I mean, her stinky personality is still stinky. Don't get me wrong, but maybe she's a lot more like a mom now. Besides the two daughters, they never mentioned anything about the abuse. If anything, the two girls would only tell to their grandparents, yeah, mom is a little weird, which is kind of something everybody agreed on.

Like, that's the very nicest word that you could say to describe Shelley. So everyone was like, yeah, mom is a little weird, right? So besides Shelley, the family had another person to worry about. Shelley's littlest brother, Paul, was the newest troublemaker in the family. He was in and out of prison. He had gotten his girlfriend pregnant and now they have this son, Shane Watson, who's 13 years old and he has nowhere to go. I mean, he's been abandoned by both of his parents and Shelley decides, hey, why don't

you guys let me take him in. I'm already raising kids around that age, so Nikki was 14. Shane is 13 and Sammy is 10. So it'd be perfect. They would go to the same school. Everything would be on par. What? So I mean, okay, I guess if you want to raise him,

so they take Shane in immediately, loved by the sisters. He had this goofy personality and Shane immediately also started calling Dave and Shelley Mom and Dad. And the sisters felt like he was more of a brother than a cousin. So after about a week it became very clear why Shelley wanted him there. It's not because she's this amazing person, okay? It's because every single morning she would come up with this mile long list of all the

things that he needed to do in the house. So most of the time he spent it doing chores. He was terrified of Shelley. If he didn't do the best job or some small mistake happened, things inside of his room would start disappearing. So at first it was a pillow, then it was his blanket, eventually his entire mattress and bed were gone and he was sleeping on the ground. He can only wear one set of clothes so she took all of his clothes, which in the beginning once he first moved into them,

he was kind of popular at school. He was like this new mysterious bad boy, you know, 13 bad boy, and now he's just this smelly kid and everyone hated them. What happened? There was this massive transformation. So now he's wearing the same clothes every single day to school. So it seemed that Shelley hates Shane and Nikki. And so they kind of formed this alliance. They become super close. So they spend hours talking about how forked up Shelley is. And Nikki said that she knew by watching TV and other kids at school that her mom was different and that something wasn't right.

But her mom could still be nice at times. And she said, and I quote, I loved my mother because I didn't know I had a choice. I had to love her. This is where it gets really bizarre. So once Shelley finds out how close they're getting, you would think, okay, maybe she doesn't want it. Let's think like we're evil, like we're Shelley, right? Maybe she wants to destroy their bond, force them apart. The way she does it is so bizarre and really, really gross. She would force them out of their rooms in the middle of the night and she would demand them to take off their clothes in the living room.

So they would take off all of their clothes and once they're completely naked, they were forced to slow dance together. And sometimes David watch, sometimes Sammy was forced to watch and you know Shane and Nikki they would be crying the whole time because not only is it humiliating but it's just utterly disgusting. I mean these, they really think of each other as brother and sister and they are cousins, so they're disgusted, they're humiliated, they're confused, and they would be crying. And she would constantly make them do this. This weird, strange naked slow dancing. And then the punishments on Shane got more and more bizarre. So nobody even remembers what she was super upset about, but she was yelling at chain. And then she goes into her drawer, takes out duct tape and icy hot from the medicine

cabinet and undresses him completely. So he's naked, tapes his angles and his wrists, made him stand straight in front of the front door and applied icy hot on his penis. And chain is like, you know, 14, he's yelling in pain and the girls were forced to watch. It's really strange. So at 34 years old, Shelley becomes pregnant again. This is going to be their third kid. She was excited and so is Dave because Dave was like, this is a miracle. Not only is she still alive because she was supposed to die six years ago, but she's pregnant now even with her cancer

This is crazy amazing. It's a gift from God. Shelly is a gift from God So the couple is so excited, but shelly is like wait a minute There's just too much to do around here, you know Dave is working non-stop. He would do anything to stay awake at work He took on multiple jobs He slept in his car and he never saw a penny of his paycheck. It all straight up went to Shelley, he had nothing. He would go to the food bank to get food for his lunch. That's it. Like Dave would sometimes live in a tent

for like weeks on end. He had a miserable life. And so she was just taking all of his cash. She had the kids doing all of the work. So all of the night, all of the day, She would lay around on the couch watching crime shows and she would scream random things like she'd be watching a mommy Dearest or whatever and she would say things like what could a mom would do that to their kid? And everyone's just like frozen like what? She would eat these candy bars and just stuff the wrappers between the couch cushions And she would constantly think about new innovative ways to punish her kids and she just needed help that's just too much work for her to do. Crime shows candy and innovative, you know, punishments that's a lot on her plate.

So she decides to bring in her best friend by the name of Kathy Lorayno. This is Shelley's best friend. She was a hairdresser and she was also a witness at the couple's wedding, or her and Dave's wedding, right? And she was going through a bit at home. Kathy was fighting with her family. She came from a rough background. Her family had recently kicked her out. So Shelley offered her, hey, I'll give you a free place to stay, as long as you help me look after the baby, kind of like a midwife. At first, it seemed like a temporary thing, but it seemed that Shelley just did not want Kathy to leave. You know, Kathy's whole thing was, yeah, I'll do this for a while, and then once the baby gets a

little bit more stable, I'll go find some work, and I'll be out of your hair, and she would say, no, no, no, you need to stay with this Kathy. It'll be so fun. Plus, I really need you. And Kathy could not say no because she worshipped Shelley. She just loved Shelley for whatever reason. She would even say things to Shelley's's kids like nobody works harder than your mom I don't know why you guys can't do more to help out

Just constantly putting Shelly on a pedestal and probably during their entire friendship. She was manipulated You know Kathy believed that she was sick. Kathy believed that you know Shane and Nikki were just these trouble-making kids That we were causing nothing but trouble for Shelley, who's just trying to be this amazing mom, but also is dying of cancer, you know? And like, miracle pregnancy. And so Tori was born a week early. This is their third kid, right?

So they're all half-sisters, but they're really just like super strongly bonded later on, right? So Tori, the third daughter, she is born. And she's born a week early, but Shelley goes around telling everyone, she's a preemie. She's a premature baby. She had so many health conditions. Oh my god, you wouldn't believe it.

She had this heart condition that she needed to be watched. Non-stop, I couldn't even sleep a wink, you guys. I had to have this crib with this monitor attached. And these alarms would go off anytime that she stopped breathing because she has heart problems. In order to rush in the middle of the night, in order to pick her up, I'd have to do CPR. Oh, it was just so bad, right? This bed did exist. This alarm system did exist and it really stressed out the kids because it would go off every single night. The kids would rush downstairs because you know, these kids fell in love with Tori the minute that they saw her,

their little sister. They would rush downstairs. Tori would have this red face and the kids would rush downstairs because you know these kids fell in love with Tori the minute that they saw her their little sister They would rush downstairs Tori would have this red face and the mom would be like it's okay. I saved her I saved her They'd be like oh thank god another close call right now one night Nikki She couldn't fall asleep because she was so worried. She's like oh anytime now the the alarms are gonna go off and I got a Rush downstairs So she's like you know what I'm just gonna go off and I got a rush downstairs. So she's like, you know what, I'm just gonna go check on the kid.

You know, I'm just gonna go check on Tori. She's probably sleeping and she rushes downstairs. The alarms had not gone off yet. And Shelley was standing over Tori's crib with a pillow on Tori's face. So Nicky's like, mom, and for the first time, I've her Shelley seemed incredibly startled. And she said, she's okay now, I'm just putting the pillow in the crib. And so from that point on, Nikki tried to look

after Toi more because she remembered what happened to her when she was young. She saw this strange pillow incident happen again with Toi. I mean, it's just so strange. So the attention of having Tori kind of die down, she grew out of this creamy phase, I guess, and now she's this healthy infant. And after a couple of months, everyone was done falling over the infant.

They were like, oh yeah, okay, you've got a baby. Great, amazing, she's wonderful. So she starts up another medical mystery. She calls a per-step mom Emily and says, it's been confirmed. What? Wait, what's going on? Shelly, what's confirmed? I just got it confirmed today. I have non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I'm getting treatment, but it's serious. What? It's just this really, really bad illness. And it's deadly, you know, she could die. Very, a lot of people with lymphoma die,

so she's like, okay, okay, well, what can I do? So the next day, Shelley calls back her stepmom and says, they were wrong. It's not lymphoma, but it's cancer, okay? I mean, are they believing this, the family? So this is when Emily starts getting stressed out, because she is now a nurse, you know, she's working in this medical field,

and she's thinking how does a doctor make such a colossal mistake? Like how do you go from lymphoma to cancer? This doctor should have their license revote like this is disgusting and she's like tell me what doctor you're seeing where are you getting your treatments? I can go with you sweetie like it's gonna be hard but I can be with you as support and she said said no no no no no no don't worry about it. I have my best friend Kathy, she's here and she's taking care of me. Okay, well just let me know if you need anything okay. So this is when Emily starts investigating right? Shelley is complaining but she's really vague in her symptoms and her treatments. Shelley would call Emily non-stop to complain

about her illness but was so vague about it. Like I just don't feel good today. Well, what's wrong? Everything. Everything doesn't feel good. Like what part? What type of symptom are you feeling? Just everything, okay? And she's like, this is strange. So one day she's had it. She's on the phone with Shelly and she says, you know what? I'm sick of this cancer crap, okay? I think you're lying. She says, you know what, I'm sick of this cancer crap. Okay, I think you're lying. And she's like, what? None of this is adding up.

I know that you're lying. And she'll immediately start screaming. Sturros down the phone. Kathy picks it up and is like, you're really upsetting her. You know, I just don't think that this is a good conversation. And she's like, Kathy, you know that this is bullshit. You know that, right? You're being tricked. all of you guys are being tricked this is when Dave comes over now he's taking over the phone and he's going off on Emily what

kind of mother are you she's going through the fight of her life and you could care less and she's like okay Dave let me ask you something have you been with her have you went to the doctor's appointments with her? Have you looked at some of these treatment bills? Do they say Kimo on there? What kind of treatment is she getting to you now? And he says, well, I drive her to the hospital every single week.

And then what? Do you go inside? Have you talked to a doctor? No, I would never go inside. You know Shelley's too prideful. She doesn't want me to see her at her weakest during treatment. So she's like, what? You guys are all getting duped right now, but nobody believed Emily, they all believed Shelly. Nobody even looked for proof after. They just

believed Shelly. I don't understand. Someone with that type of pattern and behavior. They still believed it? Yeah. People who lie lie about having cancers the strangest thing to me Maybe it also feels dirty like I can't imagine if maybe someone I loved had cancer and another person was like Oh, was she's faking it? I don't think I could I don't think I could bear it to even ask for proof I Would just feel like oh God. god, like the chance that this person is wrong and this person does have cancer, and I'm asking for proof right now, like I would just feel like the shittiest person in the world. Maybe it's that, but eventually the tone

of the house started to shift. Kathy was no longer loved by Shelley. Anything Kathy started doing was never good enough, and it was just something that she needed to be punished for and all started with a piece of pie. So Shelley keeps pushing Kathy down the hills in the back. The backer, she's just pushing her down. So they've got a lot of land, right? So she's just pushing her down these hills, kicking her in the stomach, the kids are running outside, like what's going on, right? So they're all staring, they're not stopping it, because they're gonna get beat up and she just keeps yelling at Kathy. Kathy, you know that you did it! No, I didn't do it! You know that I did it! Kathy, you just don't remember! Kathy, listen.

You know I love you. I know I know and I love you too. Then you need to believe me when I tell you that you've been sleepwalking at night and I'm worried about you. I mean, of course you don't remember it. but Kathy, I found the meringue pie under your bed. I didn't put it there. Kids, did you put it there? And all the kids, they're saying, well, no, mother. And she says, well, then it must be you, Kathy, but I didn't do it.

I swear, Shelley. Well, of course you did, but you did it while you were sleepwalking, so you don't remember. Now, the kids knew exactly what was going on because they had seen this being done. They had seen it later on too. So Shelley would get on her hands and knees and stuff candy wrappers on Kathy's bed, and then at the same time pretend to find it

and say things like, oh my God, Kathy, come here. You've been sleepwalking like a pig again at night you just get up sleepwalk and eat all of our food you eat like a pig this has got to stop and she did this so often that Kathy went from there's no way I'm sleepwalking I didn't do this I don't even like pie to okay okay I'm sorry I'm trying I'm I don't know what's wrong with me I don't remember any of this I don't know what's going on okay, I'm sorry, I'm trying, I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't remember any of this, I don't know what's going on with me, I'm sorry. So then eventually it escalated. The next claim was that Kathy walked butt naked into Shane's room while she was sleepwalking.

And now Kathy is like, no, I didn't. No, I didn't, this is insane. What are you implying? No, I would never! Well, we all saw you. Didn't you, Shane?" And Shane said, yeah, he didn't. He knew this is a lie, but he was so terrified. So he said, yes. And Shelley said, Kathy, this has got to stop. You're a woman in your 30s. This is an under-aged teenage boy. This is illegal. I don't know what kind of feelings you have for him, but I just can't have that around here. So with that, she said, but that's okay. I'll fix you, Kathy.

And she took away all of her privileges. So most of the personal stuff that Kathy had brought with her knitting kit, her books, her clothes, all of that was taken. The only thing she was left with was a single pair of undies and a long dress. Kathy was then forced to do undies and a long dress. Kathy was then forced to do chores around the house completely naked. She wasn't allowed to pee or shower without permission. And I think this completely naked is very confusing because she's kids around the house, she's

Dave around the house, it just didn't make sense. Now it's Kathy needed to take a shower, it wasn't in the bathroom. She would take Kathy out to the backyard, make her completely stripped down nude, hose her down with cold water, and at this point she had been beaten by Shelley often. So Kathy had a lot of sores, she had a lot of blisters, and she would, Shelley would, grab a soap bleach, and pour bleach all over Kathy's open wounds her hair her face her eyes and Said you filthy pig this will clean you up and so Kathy was taking bleach showers in the backyard And so every single day she says you know Kathy you're a piece of shit you're a piece of shit

You can't do anything right and then eventually it seems like the kids and gaffy they start believing these lies. This household went through so much bleach that they always had to buy another bottle every single grocery shopping trip. Which I mean if you guys have bleach at home, I don't love bleach at home, but if you do, you buy like I don't even know like once a year maybe. Right? Everyone's like no, a lot more often you dirty hoe. Sorry. Okay, I don't know. Right? Bleach is just intense. Later, Dave will say that he didn't know that Bleach was harmful to the skin.

And he gives Shelley the same excuse. He says, Shelley would never have done that to Kathy if she knew it was harmful. So Dave is obsessed with Shelley, right? Are we getting this clear? He would even write a letter to Shelley that people would find later that said Remember your words to me years ago. You once said that angels take themselves lightly I'm married to an angel your eyes are the kindest eyes that I have ever seen. I thought he's trying to stay away from the house As much as he can. He's so scared of her, but he like believes that the sun shines out of her butt crack

Truly, I don't know. I have trouble believing this because he's trying to run away Or is he doing these gestures just so that she doesn't punish him as much you know what I mean Maybe but I mean it's gonna get even more confusing because he goes along with so much more stuff So if Kathy didn't move fast enough while she was doing all of these chores because I don't know, her blisters are full of bleach and she's dying, Shelley would force the kids to snap rubber bands at Kathy's naked body. Shane was forced to kick and punch Kathy and if he didn't do it, if he disobeyed, Shelley would start duct taping Shane to the wall, like completely naked, just like duct tape

him to the wall, like completely naked, just like duct tape him to the wall. And then these like sick twisted really strange games started happening. Shelly would lock Kathy into a closet, and then the kids would see her whispering through the door to Kathy, saying, it's okay, you're gonna be okay. I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you. Kathy, I love you. I will always keep you safe. You're the one that just locked her in there. You're the one that just beat her up. What's going on? Anyone who hurt you, Kathy, I love you. I will always keep you safe.

You're the one that just locked her in there. You're the one that just beat her up. What's going on? Sometimes she would force Kathy to stay inside of a closet the whole day. Then the kids get home from school and she says, oh my God, I just noticed I haven't seen Kathy all day. So she would search with the kids room to room and then finally she would find Kathy, rip open that closet door and say oh my god are you hiding in here because you're scared of Shane come here

come here I got you don't worry nobody is gonna hurt you it's like I don't even understand her brain at this point how does that even happen so Kathy starts losing weight she lost most of her teeth her hair had been chopped in this this frenzied bowl cut because shelly would just snip snip snip wherever she wanted and Kathy would go with them for all of their errands because they don't want to leave her home alone, but because now she looks malnourished, she was forced to ride in the trunk and stay in the trunk while the family ran. The rest of the errands. Sometimes these errands were just hours at the mall buying stuff. And whenever anyone, including Kathy, tried to run away, it was

usually Shayne or Kathy that did the most running away. The whole family would spend all day hunting them down in the car. Shelly was good at tracking people. That's what everyone says. She was like a hunter. That is where she felt the most comfortable. She was really good at finding out where people would go. She would lure them in with fake promises, mainly being sweet like, oh my god. What are you doing behind that bush, Kathy? Get over here! I thought you were gone! I thought something bad happened to you, sweetie. Oh my god, my heart is pounding. Come on, let's go home. And they would always fall for it. Now, the kids were starting to get worried about Kathy

because it was a parent that something bad was happening to her. I mean, her physical appearance, she had lost over 100 pounds. She had no teeth left. It was really bad. So one night they wake up in the middle of the night to hear some yelling outside. They look outside the window. The hills are covered with snow.

And Kathy is being forced to run barefoot to the top of a hill where Davis standing. And then Dave would just push her back down. She would tumble down the snowy hill, and then she'd be forced to run back up for hours that this would happen. So the next day the kids were kind of curious, they went outside to where the hills were, and there was just a trail of blood in the snow. They were just torturing her. They were just torturing her. They were just torturing her.

For fun at this point. Just for hours, the minute that she gets to the top of the hill, Shelley would yell at Dave to push her back down and then she would be like, run, run faster. What are you doing? She was also forced to write letters to her family saying that she's dating a trucker named Rocky. They're in love and I never want to come back to this shitty town. Okay, I'm gonna go find my romantic ending with this man.

And the family, I mean, they believed her. They didn't even blame her because their family came from a really tough, rough background. And so they thought, maybe this is her chance to get away. Maybe this is her chance to be the one of us that finds a happy ending. Eventually, Kathy would be moved so that she was sleeping outside in a building. It was this tiny space. It's a four foot by four foot really nasty wooden shed. And she'd be forced to sleep there just the whole time.

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Why is she being so vague? I need to get to the bottom of this, so decides to ambush her a surprise attack so she shows up at the house. She's knocking on the door. No answer. Nox even louder. No answer. Finally she gets an answer. Shelly opens the door and she's wearing a full face of completely white makeup all over her face. Like she just put the whitest powder all over her face. She had shaved off her eyebrows and she says, oh my god sorry, take me so long to open the door. I'm just really sick.

She put on makeup to look sick? Yes, the white makeup to look pale and sickly. And so they sit down in the living room. So Emily had brought Shelley's step sister. So they're sitting there and they're like, well, how are you feeling? We just want to go over some medical bills. What doctor are you seeing? We want to talk to them because obviously you're not doing well.

You know, maybe it's the doctor's fault. Maybe we need to get you to a second opinion, a second doctor. And she's like, I'm just too sick to even, I can't even think about that. Hold on, I got to use the restroom. I think I'm going to throw up. So Shelley limps to the restroom and she comes back with a lock of hair and she says, my hair. My hair is just falling out. And so she hands it to Emily and she says, cancels a bitch, huh? And Emily grabs it and she's looking at it. You know, Shelley, I think you are going through something.

Because it's strange, you know? I have never in my entire life seen people lose hair from cancer, from the middle. Where are your roots? And she's looking at it and it looks like someone had just chopped in the middle of her head. Where are the damn roots, Shelley? I can't, it's like those five-year-old behaviors. Like, what are you doing? So then finally, you know, Emily's like, I'm gonna go use the restroom before we leave.

She goes into the restroom, she inspects the trash can under a pile of tissues, she finds a pair of scissors with clumps of red hair, and there's red hair inside the scissors still. So it's obvious that she just caught her hair in the middle of her head, not even from the rope yet, root or the scalp, and she was like, I just lost my hair. So she brings out the scissors and she confronts Shelly. But Shelly is like, I don't know

what you're talking about. I have cancer. Okay, so one is why she keep on insisting that she has cancer, too, is why does Emily care? Because Shelly wants to be the attention of everything. She wants everyone to feel bad for her. She wants to be the center of everything, you know, and once she can't have that, it's cancer again, you know? And I think Emily cares because she cares a lot about her grandkids. She just feels like, what's wrong with you? Like, why are my grandkids living under this roof where they think that their mom is dying? That's not healthy. If you're not dying, don't tell the kids that you're dying.

Okay. It's just, you know, it's just the strangest thing. So Emily's like, what the actual fork is going on? At one point, Nikki's high school, they were doing a dinner, a spaghetti dinner to raise money for one of Nikki's high school classmates, whose parents has cancer. I went Shelley found out about this.

She was so pissed. She was like, how come you all do that for me? You don't want me at all. You're disgusting little brat So during this, you know this woman with cancer during her treatments. She needed some happiness, right? She needed something to take out her mind off of her cancer She shows so she decides that her and her husband Dave are gonna waterboard Kathy They didn't understand the assignment completely So I don't know which one's more painful husband Dave are going to waterboard Kathy. They didn't understand the assignment completely,

so I don't know which one's more painful, but instead of waterboarding her, which is when you put like a towel over the, um, the victim's head, honestly, it's a victim, okay? And then you torture them by pouring a bucket of water onto the towel, it feels like they're drowning, but they're not really drowning, so they're not going to die, right? But they didn't understand that assignment, so they just tied her up to a board and started pushing her head into a bucket full of water and legitimately drowned her over and over again for hours straight, while yelling at Kathy

for being fat and worthless. And so because Kathy was fat, Kathy's new diet was that she would only get to eat all the rotten food from the fridge, but she would have to do it with Shelley's making. So Shelley would blend them all together in a little smoothie maker, and it wasn't fruit, the rotten food from the fridge, but she would have to do it with shelleys making. So shelleys would blend them all together in a little smoothie maker, and it wasn't fruit, it was, it was sometimes vegetable, sometimes moldy cheese, molded hamburger meat, and she would blend it into a smoothie,

and force Kathy to drink it, and forced Kathy to tell her how delicious it was. She would sometimes force Kathy to swallow an entire cup of salt and she would be vomiting the whole day because that I don't even know what that can do to you, but not good. So yeah, she's like just swallowing cups of salt Just vomiting all day and she had bruises everywhere the kids would later say that it was like Kathy was one giant bruise One day Dave comes home to see Kathy just back inside. She's a lot back inside now and he hears this gurgling noise. So all of the girls they had left to go to the mall. So shelly with the kids are at the mall and it's just Dave and Shane at home. And he's like, what's that gurgling noise? I think that's just Kathy. So he goes

over to Kathy and she is covered, head to toe, and like her own vomit. She's making this choking noise. He tried shaking her and when he opened her mouth, there was vomit all in her nose and her mouth. He tried to perform CPR, but she remained unresponsive. Kathy was dead. So he calls Shelley and the girls to come back home immediately. And Shane tells Nikki, you know, Kathy's dead. So the kids, they start panicking. Shane and Nikki go check up on Kathy,

and she really was dead. So the whole family, they hatch up this plan, right? The girls get into the car and they drive them to a motel. So now the daughters, they're forced to stay inside of this motel, don't talk to anyone, don't answer the door. The rest of us are gonna leave. So now Dave, Shane, and Shelley, they come back to the house

and they burn Kathy's body in the backyard. It took close to eight hours, and Shelley kept saying, there's no reason to call the police, we are not gonna let anyone tear this family apart. So Dave collected all of the ashes in the bones, and he drove to Washerway Beach, which is known for washing stuff away, Washerway Beach, and through all

of the ashes into the ocean. That's it. Shelly continues to burn the rest of Cathy's belongings, and she asks Shane and Nikki to do some chores. Hey, that little fire pit over there. We burned some insulation. I need you guys to get little bits and pieces of the insulation out of there. They knew what they were looking for, they grabbed their buckets,

and they were looking for parts of Kathy, and it took them days, and they found the rest of her bones that had been like, you know, pretty much cut and stuff, little bone fragments, and they brought them to Shelley. And that was it. They made Kathy completely disappear. So at this point, Shelley is now trying to cover up the hard part, which is, you know, Kathy's family, they're at one point, they're gonna get it concerned. They're gonna be like, where's Kathy? What's going on?

So she sat Nicky down and forced Nicky to study Kathy's handwriting and forge letters to the family saying, hey, I'm never coming back. I'm in love with Rocky. We're going to Hawaii together. See you never. Sayonara bitches. And she pretty much wrote it and she was like, okay, this is great. She ships off those letters. We're going to Hawaii together. See you never. Sayonara bitches. And she pretty much wrote it and she was like, okay, this is great. She ships off those letters.

And then she starts doing one more thing. She was worried about one person in particular. Shane. And she kept saying, if you tell anyone, I will pin it all on you. I'll do it. I will tell them that you killed her. And he's like, what?

I promise, I will never do something like that, but she'll be keeps going crazy. Any time Shane was around, she would talk loudly about it. He's gonna bring us all down. You guys know that, right? Don't be idiots. Shane's gonna rat us out. It's only a matter of time. For over a year, just non-stop about Shane. Being paranoid about Kathy's murder, she hounded day that work called him every single hour of every single day saying, Shane's gonna turn us in. He's gonna ruin our family. You need to man up and do something about it. So finally one day Dave comes home. Shelly's

an absolute wreck and she says, I found these in the wood shed Dave. Can you believe it? And she's holding up these bloody panties. What? They're Tories. Shane hid them in the wood shed Dave, can you believe it? And she's holding up these bloody panties. What? They're Tories. Shane hid them in the wood shed. He's raping our baby. Tories? The youngest daughter.

Oh my goodness. Now obviously the kids didn't believe a single word. I don't know about Dave because that night, he beat the hell out of Shane that night. And then a few weeks later later Shane disappeared. He was gone So like I said normally this is you know Shelley's hunting season She loves hunting for these runaways But this time in particular instead of spending hours until they find Shane

Which they did every single time that Shane ran away They always found him Shelley always tracked him down. They spent about an hour looking for him Which is unusual and then Shelley said well, we can't find him. Let's pack it up. Go back home. Oh, yeah, and then they just completely stopped looking. So now Nikki kept asking questions. When are we going to go look for Shane again? When are we going to go look again? And then a week later, she just Shelley had a new story. Shane's doing fine. He called. He's in Alaska. He joined a fisherman's boat. That was his dream. That's what he's doing now. Don't worry about him. He joined a fisherman's boat. That was his dream. That's what he's doing now. Don't worry about him. Super strange. So they didn't really believe this, but they kept thinking, okay, Shane is out there somewhere. He's run away. Maybe he is out there living a life now. Probably not in Alaska,

but anything is better than here. And they said that every time that they would go out, they would scan the crowd for his face just in case. At this point, Nikki and Sammy are getting too old and she doesn't want them to talk to each other either. She doesn't want this to be a repeat of Shane and Nikki, so she would physically rip them off of each other if they even share two words together. These are sisters. She wouldn't let them talk. She would constantly tell Sammy that Nikki is the worst influence on her and she needs to stop talking to her. So finally, Nikki's dream comes true. This is when everything starts escalating into like what the fork. So she gets admitted into a local college, her dream.

You know, this is her dream to finish her degree, leave the house, get a job, anything. Any job is fine, right? But slowly her mom starts ruining it, took away all of her clothing, except her yard work clothes because now she's the one doing all the yard work. Always smelly, then she started forcing her to sleep on the floor where Kathy used to sleep. She took away all of her money, all of her transportation, and when she still wouldn't listen, she said, okay fine, Nikki, you're gonna go live with your aunt for a few weeks. That few weeks turned into a few months, and Nikki loved it there. So Sammy knows, okay, well, Nikki's going to move with our aunt and uncle and she's probably staying there because, you know,

it's for the best she hates our family. Jody, on the other hand, felt completely abandoned by her older sister. So she wrote a note to Jesus because I think Jody was kind of seeing Nikki as her mom because her mom is weird. So maybe, you know, Nikki is like this constant, very calm figure that shows her nothing but love and is not just going to yell at her randomly for some small thing that she didn't do. So Jody writes a note to Jesus and says that I know Nikki has gone because mom is mean to her, but please bring her back. Her mom finds the note and starts beating her. And she tells Jody, this is like where the whole campaign starts. She tells

Jody, your sister's evil. She beat me up. That's probably why I ended up getting cancer. Meanwhile, Nikki is just trying to get a life. She starts working at Basque and Robbins. Her second job, she starts doing the night shift at a motel. The motel even offered her a trailer to use. So she worked day in, day out, working non-stop, but she didn't mind it.

I mean, nobody was calling her worthless. Nobody was hitting her. Hard work was nothing to her. She could do hard work. And so Dave, on the instructions of Shelley, was stalking Nikki nonstop. Following his car, wearing shitty disguises, like fake moustaches that definitely, yeah, that's you, Dave.

We get it. He would throw a brick through her workplace window to cause a hassle. In hopes that Basque and Robbins would be like, oh god, ever since we hired this girl, should've been happening, we got to fire her, right? They would call and say, hey, that person that you hired is evil, and they would just hang up. Like these anonymous tips to say that Nikki was the worst person ever. I mean, what? So because college ruined Shelley and Nikki's relationship,

Shelley's now even more stressed because now it's about time that Sammy applies to college. So she's like, no, I can't do this with my second kid. So she gets rid of all of her applications and makes sure that they aren't turned in on time. No. And again, this was Sammy's dream too. So Sammy runs away and she stays with grandma Emily for a while. So finally, after a year of being separated,

the two oldest sisters with grandma Emily are reunited. And they said that there was so much emotion. So Nikki was about 22 years old and she had never looked prettier or happier. She was wearing jeans, she was wearing like fitted clothing, she had makeup on, and she outgrew that weird chopped

bowl haircut from the mom. I mean, she was beautiful, she was confident. And so she was like, wow, this is not even who I thought my sister was, like this is insane. And so finally, Sammy starts bargaining with Shelley, right? Nikki's doing her own thing, okay? She's working, and Sammy is like, I still want to go to college. So she bargains with her mom and says, if you pay for my college and you resubmit my applications, I will

move back in with you. I will remain in contact with you. I will still stay at my dorms on the weekdays, but I'll still remain in contact with you. I will not live with grandma Emily because Shelley was so jealous that she was with grandma Emily, right? And Shelley was she was spiraling at this point. She was tens of thousands of dollars in debt. She had Lupus, she had Ovarian cancer, she had, I don't know, 20 other diagnosis of cancer. Nikki refuses to come back home.

Sammy's at college that they're paying for and nothing's working. So Tori became her newest place to take out her frustration. So once a month, she would yell at Tori to get downstairs into the living room and take off all of her clothes. This is what she called puberty checks, time to check your progress, forced to take off all of her clothes, and if she didn't, she would say things like, why not? You think your mom's perverted or something? Take it off!

And then she would examine her breasts and then examine her vagina and then she had a strange request She said Tori, I need a lock of your pubic hair for your baby book What my pubic hair? No mom. What? No, nobody does that. What's wrong with you? Well your sisters did it for me. Why do you? Why do you always have to be so difficult? Just give me a lock of your pubic hair, it's not that bad. Mom, that's weird. You think it's creepy? There's nothing wrong with human body,

and if you think there is, then there's something seriously wrong with you. So the mom hands her a pair of scissors, and she walks into the bathroom, and she's like, okay, let me just get it over with. And she snips that a lock of her hair, walks back out, super embarrassed, and she's handing it to her mom, and she doesn't want to make eye contact.

She's like, just take it with the fact, right? And her mom isn't looking at her, so she looks at her mom and Shelley starts laughing. And she looks disgusted and she says, oh God, I don't want that. I just wanted to see if I could make you do it and just continue laughing. You're just shaking your head. Whenever they would be cleaning, the mom would force Tori to stuff things into her underwear. Like she would

just hand her garbage and be like, put that in your underwear, you little shit. That's literally what she would say. And so she would stuff like dirty newspapers into her underwear. And it was just the most confusing type of punishment in torture. She would force Tori to do yard work, but she would say first, unzip your pants.

So Tori would unzip her pants, and she would place an axe inside of her pant leg. So just like, you know, you're like loose pajama bottoms? Imagine an axe in one of those Like compartments so she would be limping careful not to cut herself But I'm assuming that's inevitable. She probably cut herself a lot with that axe and her mom would make her do all this heavy yard work And she would do it with an axe in her pants None of this is making sense. I have never researched torture like this before It's like maybe it's not the most gruesome or the most grotesque, but it's bizarre.

It's psychological. Yeah, really psychological and bizarre, and like, who even comes up with stuff like this? Yeah. If Tori ever pissed off her mom, she would get into bed and see all of the kitchen trash, bathroom trash, all under her blanket. And she would freak out. Sometimes her mom would force her to take off her underwear and she would sprinkle disinfectant powder onto her underwear. And Tori would scream that it burned and that it hurt, but she would just say, this is how you have to get clean.

This all girls do it. This is how you clean your vagina. If Tori forgets to clean the dog kennel for the dog, her mom would force her to crawl inside the dog cage with all of the poop. And then she would turn on the hose and keep spraying the inside of the kennel so it was a tornado of cold water and dog feces and urine and Tori trapped inside of there. So around this time, you know, Shelley starts having to do some yard work and she's not a fan of this. All of the rest of her kids are gone. Nikki has run away. She's working now. She's doing her own things. Samu's in college doesn't have time to come home and

visit her poor mother anymore. And Tori, she's too young to be doing any substantial yard work. I don't know why they have so much yard work to be honest. It's not like they were like running a farm or anything. They just she was just like you need to do all this yard work. So she decides to be friend someone by the name of Ron Woodworth and he was going through a difficult time. He had just recently gotten fired and evicted and had nowhere to go. His partner had just abandoned him so he had heartbreak mixed in with all of this and he just he was really sad and Shelley became his friend and she said why don't you come live with me?

You know you could do some work around the house and it would be nice to have a man at home because Dave is never home anymore And you could just um you could just do some yard work. Yeah, that's it. That'll be fun So Ron Woodworth starts living with the family Dave comes home one day and there's man living in their house And he's like, uh, what is this Shelley? And she just says, oh, that's my friend. He's gay. And that was that. So he was like, okay, so I guess he's living here now. I mean, I just, what? What is going on? Uh, so of course, you know exactly where the story goes. He starts doing work around the house. Then he's not allowed to leave the house. Then he's not allowed to have a bed, then he's not allowed to use the restroom, and then he's not allowed to have shoes. They would only feed him toast, water, and pills. Pills to like, sedate him.

And he just, he lost himself, he was forced to drink his own pee all the time. Oh my god. One of my biggest habits that I would do all the time before I found a gramma leaf was I would send out an email, sometimes a professional email, sometimes an informal friendly catching up email. And afterwards I would sit there and I would ponder for the next 20 minutes. Do you think that they're going to take it the wrong way? Do you think that, um, am I being too informal? Is this professional enough?

Wait a minute. Did I spell everything correctly? Am I grammatically correct? Are they going, am I being too informal? Is this professional enough? Wait a minute. Did I spell everything correctly? Am I grammatically correct? Are they gonna think I'm an idiot? I would just non-stop think about this. But now it's so much easier to write clearly and confidently, because I get real-time feedback and guidance on tone, word choice, clarity, and more with Grammily Premium.

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truly it works everywhere like mobile apps, Outlook, Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. So don't just say it make a statement. I wish that I could put this into my brain Imagine how amazing that would be do more than just spell checks say what you really mean with Grammily premium get 20% off of Grammily premium by signing up at Grammily dot com slash Rotten Mingo That's 20% off at g-r-a-m-m-a R-l-y.com slash rotten mango. So Nikki goes to visit her grandma Emily on the other side of town, right? Nikki is doing all of this work stuff. Finally she has time. She's like, Grandma, I'm coming over. They

start watching a crime show that night. So she's spending the night, right? And it was, I mean, there was just, things got weird. The grandma, Grandma Emily said there was some tension building inside of Nikki while they were watching this show. And she didn't think anything of it. Maybe it was the long drive or, you know, whatever it may be. Kids are weird. The next morning, Nikki breaks down completely. And she's weeping and she's sobbing and she says grandma.

Shelly and dad killed Kathy. What? So immediately grandma Emily is like, okay, what? You have to tell me everything. And she's like, I think they killed Shane too. And so immediately she gets on the phone. Grandma Emily gets on the phone, calls two different police stations. The one in their jurisdiction and the one that Shelley's house would be in right and they all say okay

Here's a fax number turn in your official statement. They faxed in no response Nothing you would think that there would be a response imagine faxing into a police station that you think that you have a murder on your hands Right nothing so Nikki goes to the police station She makes a full statement and lets them know that there is someone else living in the house now. There's some dude named Ron. Same thing is probably gonna happen to him and my little sister is in that house and we need to do something. They're all gonna get hurt. And they said, okay, we'll do something and she left that police station thinking, holy shit. She was nervous, she was tingling and she said something big is about to happen, our lives as we know it is about to change because this

is about to blow up, this is going to be crazy, my mom is going to be in prison, I don't even know how to deal with that, and then absolutely nothing happened, absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing happened, they don't check upon it, they don't really care, the police were like yeah, yeah sure, sure, and they they don't really care the police were like yeah yeah sure sure and they just didn't really investigate so Nikki did the most that she could with the police wouldn't investigate so she just kind of moves on with her life and this is where it gets crazy you know Nikki gets married yeah she starts trying to live a life that she always felt was impossible so I mean it's nice to see that she wasn't living with this. I'm sure to a degree she was, but she wasn't letting this torment in

the trauma get with her, right? So she gets married. She has a wedding. Sammy goes to the wedding. Her mom obviously wasn't invited. But yeah, beautiful moment. Anyways, back to Shelley. Things are really getting messed up in the Shelley household. Ron, he's barefoot doing all of these crazy things. They really started amping up the torture for Ron. They would have him jump off of the roof of their house over and over and over again. On to his bare feet. What? His, get these legs. His legs would be, if not, they would be sprained if not broken, and he would continue to jump. And then immediately after, they would shove him into a bath

of hot burning water mixed with bleach. And Tori said, this was the worst smell she had ever smelled. It's the smell of bleach and decomposing flesh. It's literally the smell that he's burning his skin off and then the smell of that skin dying, like dying flesh. And Ron smelled like that for the next month. Shelly would boil water and just pour it over his feet. His skin would melt off.

So at this point, I think everyone knew that this was going to be a Kathy 2.0 situation. He wasn't going to make it. Even if he went to a hospital, I think it would take a lot of work and a lot of time to get him to be healthy again. He had lost all of his teeth as well. He had pretty much no hair. He had lost weight. And then one morning, Tori wakes up and he's gone. And she's like, well where's Ron Mom? Oh, oh, he's just had another friend's house healing. I'm gonna go every single day to take care of him, but he's gonna get better at the friend's house.

But Tori, you can't tell anyone about him, you know that right? Yeah, okay Mom. So then out of nowhere, Shelley wants Tori to go stay with Sammy. She's like, go stay with your older sister on college campus. You haven't seen her in a while. So Tori, and she has no idea why her mom wants her gone. She's like, super stoked. She's like, yeah, I haven't seen Sammy.

So she meets up with Sammy and Sammy is like, okay, get ready. We're gonna have the best weekend. Two things are gonna happen. First, I'm gonna make you eat sushi for the first time. And she's like, oh, I don't want sushi. That sounds fasty. Second, we're gonna make you eat sushi for the first time. And she's like, oh, I don't want sushi, that sounds fasty. Second, we're gonna go see Nikki. Now, Tori had been brainwashed for years

into thinking that Nikki was literally the devil and terrified. She's like, I don't wanna see her. No, I'm not gonna see her. And she's like, no, you have to see her. We're just gonna have lunch, okay? It's gonna be fine. So finally, after years, they are reunited.

Nikki is now 28 years old. She's married, you know? She's moving on with her life. And Tori said that Nikki was the most beautiful woman she had ever laid her eyes on. She was poised. She was beautiful. She even smelled wonderful.

And this was like the biggest deal in Tori's life, seeing her sister again after all of these years. And she said that once she saw Nikki, any feeling that her mom was right just disappeared, because she knew that Nikki loved her. Like she felt it, she was like, my sister loves me, this is crazy, no. So the real reason that Shelley wanted her gone. Was it that her and Dave could, you guessed it, dispose of Ron's body. He was dead, you know? Dave needed to come and help.

She had stuffed Ron's body into the freezer. And finally, you know, Dave's coming back, but they have this huge problem. There was a burn band because of all of the national fires that were happening, the wildfires that were happening. You can't start a fire. You will literally have the cops called on you, even if you have like a little fire pit.

So he's like, what do I do? So instead he decides to dig a giant grave in the backyard. This was gonna be a temporary solution. He would have to burn his body later when the band was gone. Now at this point, a lot of investigators asked Dave, why?

This is the second time. Okay, maybe the first time we can kind of believe, I mean, you're still going to be charged, but like we can kind of believe that you've thought the best for Kathy and your wife and your family, but the second time, the second time, and he said, I love her dearly. There is no way Shelley would have caused any abuse on Ron or Kathy. She just didn't call 911 when Ron passed away. It was just out of fear of what happened in the past. Like I said, my wife worries about everything and she was just looking out for her family again. She's just always being the protector that she is.

I don't see where she had done anything wrong. Yeah, I too don't see the wrong enforcing my friends to jump off of my roof until they break their limbs. I think he's evil. Let's be honest. Like, yes, there's brainwashing. There's all of that. But he's evil. He pushed the other person down the hill. Because he was yelled at. I know. I know. I don't, I mean, come on. So yes, I believe he's totally brainwashed, but either way. Yeah. And the things that they've done to their kids, there's no excuse. You're a grown-ass man. Yeah. You're supposed to protect your kids, so.

I agree. The book, they did interview Dave for the book. So the book is very lenient on Dave in the sense of they think that he is just kind of like hopelessly in love but also hopelessly clueless of a guy. I've never seen someone hopelessly in love to a point that just... And terrified and tortured murder so many people and did all the things that they did to their kids.

Come on. But, okay, sorry, Devil's Advocato, would we feel the same way if Dave was the woman, if Dave was the wife? Yes, I did, because I totally shed on Elizabeth Crystal's mom. Yes, the fact that just the moment you say that they used to make their kids strut naked and do these crazy things, and he's just on the side watching and didn't do anything about it. Just that alone. Forget about all the other tortures. Yeah.

Come on. You're right. So that's what he said about it. I don't see where she had done any wrong. So I mean, I think that sentence says enough. So after this reunion that the sisters had, Tori is so happy. This was the best thing ever.

So she gets back to Sammy's dorm and they're just talking. They're folding laundry. They're talking. They're like, oh my god, how was it like, saying Nikki and all of that. And so they start talking and Sammy says, you know, there was this one time where mom used to wake me up in the middle of the night and she would just dump out all of my laundry onto the bed. I like three in the morning just screaming at me because she thought that I had misplaced a sock. And if I didn't find that sock, I wasn't able to go back to sleep and, oh my god, it was such a shit show. And that's in Tories says, oh yeah, she does that to me too. And everything freezes. For whatever reason, the two older sisters never saw abuse on Tories in the house. At this point, they

had all left the house, or they weren't home when the physical abuse towards Tori started happening. They knew that Tori would be yelled at but they always thought maybe the young one is not being hit. You know maybe she is kind of like the gem of the family. She's kind of like Shelley's little little little doll right? Yeah maybe they just didn't really think about it right? And so she's like frozen and she's like, what? She did that to you? Okay, Tori, tell me everything she did to you.

And so Tori starts telling her everything. I mean, the whole puberty checks, the disinfectant and her underwear, all of that. And they're both just in tears. And finally, they get to the subject of Ron. And she says, okay, Tori, is she doing that to him too? And she's like, yes, so Tori was too young to remember Kathy that well, right? And so immediately Sammy calls Nikki, and Nikki's like, oh my god, she's learning all of this information,

and Sammy and Nikki come to the conclusion that mom killed not only Kathy, probably Shane, and is probably going to kill her mom too. So they all start freaking out. Now at this point, Toy still has to go home. She's terrified. After all of this conversation, now she's even more scared. So the two sisters, they promise her we're going to get you out of there. Don't worry.

But you still have to go home. So she goes home with her mom and she acts like nothing's wrong. And she's like, yeah, I had fun. I'm just tired, right? And the two older sisters, they drive to a police station. And this time they said they would not leave until the police do something. And they told them everything from the beginning, all of the abuse, everything. And then at the end, Nikki looks at the same sheriff in the eye and says, if Ron is dead, you could have stopped it. And so the next morning, a knock came at, you could have stopped it.

And so the next morning, a knock came out the door at Shelley's house. And it was the police, but they weren't here for Shelley. They were here for Tori. It was with CPS. She was going to be taken away for suspected child abuse. And Shelley was not being arrested yet. So Shelley, I mean, she started freaking out. She's calling everyone. She's calling Nikki, Sammy, everyone demanding. Who told? Who, who did what? What's calling everyone, she's calling Nikki, Sammy, everyone demanding, who told, who did what, what's going on, everyone's denying it, and she's screaming at everyone, bloody murder,

don't you dare talk to the police, don't do shit, right? And they're like, okay, like calm down. Now the police were concerned that they didn't have enough to arrest Shelly, maybe for child abuse, but they wanted her for murder, so they kept trying to think of a way But then all of a sudden they were they were hitting a roadblock. They didn't know what to do, right? In walks in Dave Hey Dave, what are you doing here?

Um, shelly told me to come here because we don't know where you guys are keeping Tori and she wants to see Tori Okay, yeah, we'll tell you where Tori is. Why don't you come sit down in this interrogation room real quick? Um, which is one of the chat? That's a chat, yeah, buddy to buddy. Let's have a chat. Do you want some coffee? You want some water? So he sits down in the interrogation room and almost immediately they're like, hey, we

know that Ron is probably dead. And he confesses. He starts crying and he confesses to where Ron's body is and where the remains are. And so they press on a little bit more. And they say, well, what about Shane? Where did he go? Do you know if you ran away? And he says, he's not missing.

She kept yelling at me. That Shane was going to take the girls away. She kept saying things today of like you need to fucking man up, grow up here. What kind of man are you? Do you realize what that stake here? Do you want him to go and tell and then ruin all of our lives? And so one night I grabbed my gun and I shot him in the back of his head when he was asleep. So after he shoots Shane in the back of the head, he runs to Shelley and he says, oh my god, I did it. And guess what Shelley's reaction is? Why? You killed our nephew?

Why would you do something like that? What the heck, Dave? How classic. What are we going to do now? Why would you kill on that view? I guess we just have to do the same thing that we did to Kathy. So they burned his body and they took his ashes out to wash away beach. So at this point both of the parents are arrested. Sammy who is now 25 years old was given guardianship over Tori. Dave, February of 2004, he pled guilty for second degree murder of Shane Watson. Pled guilty to unlawful disposal of human remains and rendering criminal assistance, and his sentence was 15 years in prison.

So he's a freeman now. And Shelley, because there was no body for Kathy, the autopsy for Ron, they dug up his body, they couldn't determine which injury killed him, which is not crazy. Is that not insane? Okay, they couldn't determine, was killed him, which is not not crazy, is that not insane, okay? They couldn't determine, was it this or was it that? And if they can't determine that, they can't determine who inflicted that injury, and then they can't determine who's the murderer.

That's mind-blowing to me. So she ended up taking an Alfred plea. The Alfred plea is interesting because you pretty much plead guilty, but you also say that you're innocent at the same time. It's just saying, hey, I understand that the court has enough to convict me, but I'm not saying that I did it. It's almost like you're pleading guilty, but you're saving your face, right?

So both sides, they agree that she was going to be sentenced to 17 years. Now at the sentencing, she's in front of a judge and she says she gives her a little speech. She says in this jail and in this courtroom and in this community and everywhere else, I am known as some horrible monster, but I'm not. I've made horrible mistakes though. You kind of love it when apologies do this, okay. Kathy was my friend, she had value and she had purpose and she would have been there for me and I wasn't there for her. I was been there for me, and I wasn't there for her. I was not there when Kathy died.

I wasn't there for her. I believe I'm not guilty of murder or deliberately causing her death, but as a mother, I am responsible for my home environment, and she was mistreated in my home by Shayna Nikki. And now she's gone. And I'll never get over it, and I don't deserve to. So the judge listens to this, and he, uh, the judge hated this speech, and they threw the book at her, which means that when they agree that when you plead guilty,

the prosecutor is saying, hey, we're gonna ask the judge for 17 years, and you agree, okay, you're to ask the judge for 17 years. And you agree, okay, you're going to ask the judge for 17 years, but the judge can give you the maximum sentence if they want. So the judge says, no, I'm going to throw the book at you and add it five more years. I mean, it doesn't sound like a lot, but maybe a lot. So you're saying that hurt little speech pissed him off. Pissed him off.

I was like, what are you talking about? You know, like, you were on. But she only got what, 22 years. That's so, yeah. She was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the second degree murder of Kathy and a manslaughter charge for Ron's death. And Dave was released in 2016.

He feels a lot of remorse. He says that he thinks about Shane every day. He still works day in, day out. He keeps in touch with Sammy and Tori, but Nikki refuses to see him. And he understands. So Shelley will be released next year in 2022. She will be 68 years old.

And she still refuses to accept any of her charges. She says that this is a big mistake on the prosecutor's part. She also claims that she has cancer in prison. So the sisters, the no-tech sisters, I mean, they mainly talk to Greg Olson, who is a true crime author. He also has a lot of really good fiction books. They talk to him because she's gonna be really soon

and they think that she is still a danger to society. I think she's gonna manipulate people. She's gonna kill people, whether for money, whether for what, she's still a danger to society. I think she's going to manipulate people. She's going to kill people, whether for money, whether for what. She's still a danger. Now, Nikki in life, she's doing really well. She's living, I believe in Seattle in a million dollar house. She is married. She's got beautiful children.

She has this successful business. And Sammy, she still lives in her hometown and she's an elementary school teacher. She also has children of her own and she still has that humor that everyone loves about her. And Tori, she's in her 30s and she is absolutely beautiful and brilliant. She works in, I believe she does social media

for hospitality. Yeah. She's like a, not like an influencer. She's like a manager, like a full full-on like a real social media person Yeah, yeah, and um, they said that a lot of them even when they go to the grocery store They still can't smell bleach. They can't look at bleach They avoid it. They don't really like looking at duct tape or any of these things because it just brings them back to a weird place

tape or any of these things because it just brings them back to a weird place. Now the reason that people suspect that Shelley is possibly a serial killer is because well, I mean, the same reason that people think Charles Manson is a serial killer, right? Because she had facilitated all of these deaths, right? So there's Kathy, there's Shane, there's Ron, and also, Shelley had actually taken up sidewalk, taken care of an elderly man named Mac. I mean, he was elderly, but he mysteriously died, and he left his entire house to Shelly. So that is another possibility that there might have been more victims than we know of. And I think if she gets out, well, when she gets out, she is getting out.

It's not like it's parole, that's her release date. I think she's going to be a danger to society. And I think it's going gonna be the most unexpected danger Not a lot of people know about her yet. Yeah, and she is you know a nice looking grandma Exactly she's gonna be The next nanny Doss the gig like granny. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. She's gonna get out And she's gonna be like this is my new career. Yeah, she can get it with so much Yeah, so if you guys live on the west coast be on the lookout and I hope you guys enjoyed today's story

Let me know what are your thoughts on this and do you think that I mean this is one of those things where the story builds it up And then and then 22 years you're like what this is the most unsatisfying Annoying how you're like what? This is the most unsatisfying annoying how? What are your thoughts? And I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye!