Uncovering the Horrors of Abuse: A Review of “If You Tell” by Gregg Olsen

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis
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The arrests came on August 8, 2003, at a house on Monohon Landing Road in rural Pacific County, Washington, after local witnesses reported that two men and a woman living there were being abused (Daily Astorian). Three people who had lived under that roof were already dead. Gregg Olsen’s If You Tell is the book-length account of how that household worked, built around the three daughters who grew up in it and who finally got the police to listen.

A content note before going further. The subject is child abuse and murder, reviewers describe the material as graphic, and this review stays away from the worst of the detail.

Where the Book Came From

Olsen was born in Seattle in 1959, took a journalism degree at Western Washington University, and published his first book in 1990, according to his Wikipedia entry. The true-crime shelf is where he made his name: Starvation Heights in 1997, If I Can’t Have You in 2014, A Killing in Amish Country in 2016. His more recent The Amish Wife was nominated for the 2025 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. His publisher bills him as a #1 New York Times bestselling true-crime writer.

If You Tell was released by Thomas & Mercer on December 1, 2019, per Kirkus Reviews. The full subtitle is A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood. Oxygen reported that month that the daughters, Nikki, Sami and Tori, contacted Olsen about two years earlier because they were worried about their mother’s approaching release from prison. Kirkus adds that Olsen had access to the sisters, to Dave Knotek, and to a grandmother. That is a rare spread of voices for a book about a household like this one.

What Happened in Raymond

Shelly Knotek (Michelle on the court record) and her husband Dave ran a boarding home in Raymond. According to Publishers Weekly, she abused and controlled both her husband and their three daughters, and several people pulled into the household ended up dead: a nephew, Shane Watson; a close friend, Kathy Loreno; and a boarder, Ron Woodworth. The Daily Astorian reports that Loreno’s mother reported her missing in 1994, and that Shelly told deputies she had moved to California with a boyfriend.

The daughters each found a different way to survive. Nikki, the eldest, got out to her grandmother’s house. Sami, the middle sister, bargained for permission to go to college in exchange for keeping the family’s secrets. Tori, the youngest, stayed, and told others she was being targeted. When Woodworth died in 2003, Tori, then 14, and her sisters decided to call the police, per Oxygen, and that call led to the arrests.

The courts closed it out in August 2004. Shelly entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder and manslaughter in the deaths of Loreno and Woodworth. An Alford plea lets a defendant keep denying guilt while conceding that a jury would probably convict. She received 22 years. Dave pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting of Shane Watson, plus unlawful disposal of human remains and rendering criminal assistance, and was sentenced to 179 months, just under 15 years (Daily Astorian). He was paroled in 2016, according to Wikipedia. Shelly was released on November 8, 2022, after just over 19 years, the Chinook Observer reported.

Weathered white farmhouse at the end of a gravel road in rural Washington at dusk

A Book About Who Looked Away

The strongest choice Olsen makes is whose story the book follows. Reviewer Sarah Rachel Egelman, writing for Bookreporter, credits it with centering the survivors instead of the criminal’s psychology or the courtroom, and says it accomplishes what it sets out to do. The sisters are the narrative spine. The mother is the weather they live inside.

Nikki’s own description of that weather, as quoted in Oxygen’s coverage of the book, is blunt:

“My mother was like a ticking time bomb.”

Nikki, quoted by Oxygen

Two other threads run under the main one. The first is the adults who did not intervene. A small town, a house with visitors, a missing woman explained away with a story about California. The book cannot fully answer how that went on for so long, and Kirkus says so. The second is Dave. Kirkus describes him as often standing by passively, yet he pleaded guilty to a killing, and Egelman notes the book gives him room to tell his side. A reader will have to decide how much weight his account can bear.

There is also a counterweight. Egelman points to Lara, Shelly’s stepmother, who raised Shelly and gave the girls the unconditional love they otherwise lacked. It does not soften the book. It does show the sisters had at least one adult worth running toward.

Where the Reviewers Split

The critical response is divided, and the disagreement is worth knowing about before buying. Publishers Weekly was won over:

“This riveting account will leave readers questioning every odd relative they’ve known.”

Publishers Weekly

Egelman likewise found the sisters’ bond inspiring, while warning that the material is extremely graphic. She compares the book to Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, though she judges If You Tell less gruesome than that novel.

Kirkus was far cooler. Its headline sums up the complaint:

“Murder, torture, and sisterly love milked for all their potential melodrama.”

Kirkus Reviews

The reviewer found the prose overheated and repetitive, which dulls the impact of the victims’ stories, and the sisters themselves drawn as familiar TV-movie types. Both camps have a point. The facts here need no embellishment, and a reader who prefers restraint may find the book’s tone fights its material. A reader who wants the sisters’ side of a case that earlier lived in local newspapers and cable true-crime shows will find it here at length.

Three empty wooden chairs on a covered porch with fog beyond the railing

On Television and in the News

The Knotek case reached television well before the book did. Wikipedia lists appearances on Wicked Attraction (Investigation Discovery, an episode titled “Home Sweet Home,” 2010), Sins and Secrets (“The Murder Inn,” 2013) and Snapped (2013). No film or series adaptation of If You Tell itself turned up in the sources checked for this review.

The news cycle caught up again in November 2022. Olsen announced Shelly Knotek’s release on Facebook the day after it happened, and the Chinook Observer reported strong, mostly negative reaction in Raymond. The same article says she is not expected to return to Pacific County and that her current location was unclear. That reporting is now several years old, and anything about her whereabouts should be treated as out of date.

Who Should Read It

Readers who want a survivor-centered account of a case from rural Washington, and who can tolerate repeated scenes of cruelty, will get a lot out of it. Anyone looking for tight, unadorned reporting may side with Kirkus. Anyone for whom the subject is close to home may want to skip it or read it with support nearby. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is free, confidential and open around the clock at 800-656-4673, with online chat at rainn.org/hotline.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is If You Tell a true story?
Yes. It is nonfiction true crime, and the events are documented in court records and news coverage, including the 2004 sentencing reported by the Daily Astorian.

Who are the sisters in the book?
Nikki, Sami and Tori, the daughters of Shelly and Dave Knotek. Oxygen reported in 2019 that they were in their forties and thirties, with Tori the youngest.

What happened to Shelly and Dave Knotek?
Shelly received 22 years on an Alford plea and was released on November 8, 2022. Dave received 179 months, just under 15 years, and was paroled in 2016.

How graphic is the book?
Very, by the account of Bookreporter’s reviewer. Publishers Weekly and Kirkus both describe beatings, torture and killings. Read the content note above before starting.

Has the book been made into a movie or series?
None turned up in the sources checked. The case itself has appeared in television true-crime series, per Wikipedia.

Brass scales of justice beside a closed case folder on a wooden desk

Where to Read It

If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood is Olsen’s account of the Knotek case, told through the three sisters who ended it. See it on Amazon (affiliate link)

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.

Further Reading

Sources

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