If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

Raymond is in Pacific County, a particularly gray and wet part of Washington State where most industry is based around physically laborious products such as timber and oysters (and, more recently, marijuana). Dave Knotek was born and raised in Pacific County. He was considered a “hellion” of the family growing up but enlisted in the US Navy before returning to his hometown of Raymond.

In April 1982, Dave meets Shelley at a bar called The Sore Thumb. He asks for her number, and she gives it to him. The Sore Thumb burns down the next night. Dave and Shelley quickly begin dating, and he meets Nikki and Sami. Shelly is in danger of losing Grandma Anna’s house because she behind on mortgage payments, and Dave promises to try and help her save it. She confides in Dave that she has been diagnosed with cancer. Although she appears to be in good health, Dave worries about who will care for Nikki and Sami if she dies. Dave and Shelly marry in December 1987. Their wedding is attended by Shelly’s best friend, a hairdresser named Kathy Loreno.

Shelly’s father is happy to see her married again so that she will not ask him for more money. Les never fully forgave his daughter for her false rape accusation, but she apologizes without meaning it and tells him she is trying to be a better person. Shelly still talks badly about her father behind his back, but she tells him she has cancer and that she appreciates him more now as an adult.

Despite her young age, Nikki recognizes immediately that Shelly and Dave’s marriage is bound to be rocky. She witnesses her mother spew hateful insults at her new stepfather because he does not make enough money or care enough about the family, all while he points a shotgun at himself. He then drives off, returning later to find Shelly being sweet and loving and promising there won’t be any more fights.

Far more passive and submissive than her previous husbands, Dave does not hurt or swear at his new wife. Shelly, however, screams and become physically violent with him. She eventually begins to sever ties with his family when she notices that he often escapes to be with them. Dave realizes the best way to survive the marriage is to avoid Shelly and be away from the house as much as possible. When asked later why he didn’t leave, he says that it is because he knew Shelly would have hunted him down.

Dave and Shelly Knotek move their family to a rental home in the town of Old Willapa. The house, which they call “The Louderback House” in honor of the original owners, is situated at the end of a private road near the woods. Shelly loves the house, but her violent tendencies begin to escalate. She beats the girl with household items: spatulas, electrical cords, and more. She hits the girls’ heads against walls and locks them in closets or their rooms. Although the house is connected to city water, she tells the girls they had to save water and not shower. She even takes away the girls’ Christmas presents a few days after Christmas each year, claiming they do not deserve them, and hides them away with traps so she can tell if the children go looking for them.

Nikki and Sami wear extra layers to bed at night in case their mother forces them outside in the middle of the night. Nikki wears opaque tights to school to cover the bruises and cuts her mother has made. Despite knowing she could have told an adult, Nikki never did: “I didn’t want the attention. I didn’t want people to think I was weird. And no one ever asked. Not even once” (57). Both Nikki and Sami know their mother’s behavior is wrong, and they bond in their shared misery.

Shelly loves to take photos of her daughters and hang them on her walls, and Sami remembers her doing this as being particularly painful given the extreme abuse they experienced. While they would have fun with their mother while decorating sometimes, this was only when Shelly felt like being warm and charming.

Nikki and Sami are also subjected to a form of punishment Shelly calls “wallowing.” In the middle of the night, Shelly wakes the girls, tells them to strip naked and go outside, and then tells Dave to spray them down with a hose while the girls crawl on their hands and knees. This happens even in freezing temperatures. Afterwards, Shelly drags the girls into a scalding hot bath.

Sami notices that Nikki often has it bad when it comes to punishments from their mother. Nikki is aware of this, too. Sami is able to digest the abuse she sustains and still act loving towards their mother, whereas Nikki struggles to accept the abuse. She fight and rebels harder than Sami. Four years younger than Nikki, Sami figures out that being her mother’s ally is to her advantage if she wants to avoid the worst abuse. 

One time, Shelly locks Nikki in her room using a butcher knife in the door frame. Informing Nikki that she is ugly and useless, she eventually locks Nikki into her closet. Given the level of abuse in the house, Nikki finds some relief in being locked away. Shelly brings her a bucket to relieve herself and tells Sami that under no circumstances is she allowed to speak to her sister, but Sami tosses pinecones at Nikki’s window when she wants to communicate with her. Taking advantage of the situation, Nikki reads paperback books that she finds in the closet.

After Shelly frees Nikki, it isn’t long before she is back to torturing her oldest daughter. Shelly pushes Nikki through a plate glass door. Shocked, Shelly apologizes and treats Nikki to a nice dinner out and a haircut. As Sami recalls, her mother should have taken Nikki to the hospital but knew the doctors would see her daughters’ wounds. The girls’ grandmother, Lara, says that neither Nikki nor Sami would speak ill of their mother, only sometimes calling her “weird.”

Shane Watson, Shelly’s nephew and her brother Paul’s son, receives many kind and loving letters from Shelly. Shane’s mother was a Native Alaskan girlfriend Paul impregnated. Shane’s early life was chaotic due to Paul’s erratic presence and his mother’s substance abuse. Shelly applies for benefits so that she can take Shane in. When he comes to live at the Knotek’s house, he is friendly, positive, and kind. Nikki and Sami like him a lot, and he calls Shelly and Dave his mother and father.

Not long after he arrives, Shelly puts Shane to work doing chores. He becomes as scared of Shelly as Nikki and Sami are. When he does not do his chores to her liking, Shelly steals his belongings, tells him to sleep on the floor, forbids him from showering, and takes all but one set of his clothes. Shane and Nikki grow especially close due to their close age and shared experience of feeling like outsiders at home and at school. Later, Lara recalls visiting them and learning that Shane was sleeping on the basement floor on an old mattress. When Lara challenged Shelly, reminding her that he needed his own bed and room, Shelly shrugged and made excuses.

Although Nikki knows from observing other mothers outside of their home and on television that Shelly is not normal, she explains her mother’s behaviors away. As an adult, Nikki reflects on the fact that, as child, she depended on her. She also remembers, “I loved my mother because I didn’t know I had a choice. I had to love her” (77). Shelly’s abuse and punishments act as tests to see how far she can push her children’s love for her. When Shane arrives, she abuses him, forcing him to “wallow” as well. She humiliates Shane and Nikki for minor mistakes by making them strip naked and slow dance together. Dave ignores their misery. Later, Shelly’s daughters see Shelly’s use of nudity to torture them as rooted in power dynamics rather than sexuality: If she controlled their bodies, she could control their ability to run away.

Although both Nikki and Shane try to resist Shelly’s demeaning abuse, doing so only makes their punishments worse. One day, while Dave is out of the house, Shelly decides to force Nikki and Shane to strip down and sit outside with their backs against one another in the freezing cold. To distract themselves from the cold, they play a game jokingly titled “Kill Mom.” They are not let back into the house until well after dark. Shelly often asks them to draw her a bath, and they muse about throwing her radio into the bath with her. When she does ask them to draw her a bath, however, neither of them can bring themselves to hurt her.