The Messed Up Truth About Serial Killer Mom Shelly Knotek

Some may wonder how a mother of three and an active member of society could, according to Gregg Olsen’s “If You Tell,” turn out to be a manipulating, eratic, and sadistic killer. Taking a look at her history, clues pop up here and there as to the state of her psyche and may help to explain, though certainly not excuse Shelly Knotek’s behavior.

Knotek had a childhood filled with trauma. She and her brothers were raised by her father, Les Watson, and stepmother, Laura Stallings, after being abandoned by their biological mother, Sharon Watson, who was an alcoholic with mental problems. On the surface, they were the average, small-town family. According to Olsen, Knotek’s father was the tall, broad, and handsome type who owned his own businesses and charmed the heels off everyone in town. Stallings, in the beginning, was the template for the beauty and social ideals of the 1950s, and the two lived a classic boy-meets-girl story. 

Shelly Knotek’s mean streaks started early. She was just 6 years old when she and her brothers moved in with her father, and Stallins told Olsen she was told every day by her new step-daughter that she hated her. When Shelly was 13, her mother Sharon Watson was murdered. According to Stallings, Shelly had little to no reaction, moving on as if her real mother never existed.

As Shelly Knotek grew up, she screamed, threw things, bullied her brothers and her step-mother, and enacted small acts of violence. “Everything was a big drama with her,” said Stallings. “I knew from the way she acted that nothing was good enough.”

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