This Mother Purposely Made Her Family Dysfunctional To The Point Of Murder

Theresa Cross married Clifford Clyde Sanders in 1962 after only knowing him for five months. She became pregnant with her daughter soon after, and things appeared pretty easy going. That is until Theresa started suspecting Clifford of infidelity. Although she never had any evidence, she was convinced Clifford was sleeping around and grew possessive. During an argument where Theresa was furious he wasn’t spending time with her on his birthday, Clifford told Theresa he was leaving her. Theresa shot her husband in the back as he walked away.

Theresa was tried and was found innocent, as she claimed she only murdered her husband out of self-defense and the protection of her then-unborn child. She soon married a veteran named Robert Knorr and had four of his children, with six total children in her household. Her relationship with her children was extremely abusive. She burned them with cigarettes, threw knives at them, and forcibly fed them until they were sick. She would make one of her children hold the other down so she could torture them. She once held a pistol to her youngest daughter’s head.

Theresa would divorce Knorr and hold custody of the children. She married two more times. It was her oldest daughters, Suesan and Sheila, who received the harshest abuse. They blossomed into young women, and Theresa only grew older. Theresa believed Suesan turned into a witch and was making her fatter using spells. She chained Suesan to her bed and beat her, then forced the other children to beat her afterwards. She eventually shot Suesan in the chest. Suesan survived, but after Theresa forced one her brothers to remove the bullet, Suesan became sick and was dying of an infection. Theresa ordered her sons to help Suesan into the trunk of the car. Everyone drove out to the country and burned Suesan alive.

With Suesan gone, Theresa began directing her misery to Sheila. Theresa forced Sheila into prostitution to support the family. Theresa was happy about the money Shelia received, but paranoia soon set in as she believed Sheila was giving her a STD by using her toilet. She locked Shelia in a closet until she confessed to having an STD. Shelia died in the closet of starvation six days later. She ordered her sons to put her body in a cardboard box and leave the box on the side of the road.

The smell of Sheila’s body still lingered in the house, so Theresa ordered her youngest daughter, Terry, to burn it. This was in 1986. It wasn’t until 1993 when Terry (who ran away years before) talked to a police department that believed her story. Police found Theresa in Salt Lake City, acting as a caretaker for an 86-year-old woman. She was given two life sentences for the murder of her daughters. She died in prison in 2011. One of her sons, Robert, was also partially charged for murder of his sister, in addition to the time he was already serving for an unrelated killing.