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

Throughout If You Tell, Olsen uses imagery relating to hunting, predators, and prey to describe Shelly’s specific way of going after her abuse victims. For example, when Nikki realizes how hard it will be to run away before she turns 18, Olsen writes: “[…] her mom would track her down. She’d found Kathy in the mall. She’d even managed to track Shane in the middle of Tacoma. Her mom was a hunter” (156). Witnessing her mother’s violence in addition to her stalking abilities makes it more difficult to shake her mother’s hold over her. It also puts a damper on her ability to hold out hope for the future or plan an escape for herself.

What is most chilling about Shelly’s “hunter” mentality is that when she does catch her “prey”—namely her runaway daughters, Shane, Kathy, and Ron—she does not hurt them right away. She seduces them back into her care with loving words. This is a common dynamic in abusive relationships called “lovebombing,” making it more difficult for a victim to leave their loved one for good or to cut ties. She does this often with Shane in particular: “[…] Shelly found her wayward nephew and coaxed him back into the car with the words that meant more to him than anything. She told him how much she loved him. Words he had to have known by then were false” (123). Despite their knowledge of the truth, victims like Shane who have no other support system outside of their family fall victim to this loving care more than most. The hope that this time will be different, or that the violence will not continue, is hard to resist.

Shelly tries to hide her pattern by complaining about her victims, as if to portray them as nuisances that she is a saint to put up with rather than dependents she has strategically brainwashed and abused. By painting herself in an angelic light and those around her in a negative way, she makes it appear as though the people she “hunts” are being uplifted despite their horrible ways, but this habit is merely a red herring for her own need to control them.

Much like a sophisticated predator animal, Shelly slowly picks at her “prey,” namely Kathy and Ron, to break them down physically and psychologically. This slow death gives her the biggest thrill but also serves as a game to her. By comparing Shelly to a predator, Olsen highlights her animalistic nature. Given the nature of the crimes she committed, this language encourages the reader to question her humanity and how she could gain pleasure from her barbaric actions.

This hunting theme is particularly resonant and tragic at the end of the book, when it is revealed that Shelly most likely manipulated Dave into shooting Shane with a rifle. Unlike Kathy and Ron—whose murders were cold-blooded in a different way—Shane was shot as if he were a wild animal rather than a troubled yet big-hearted family member. Even through his dislike of Shelly, he trusted that their house was his home, making his death an even bigger betrayal.

Shelly’s tyrannical insistence on everyone in the family toeing the party line about what happened to Kathy and Shane plays a major role throughout the book. She goes to great lengths to craft detailed stories about what happened to them and why no has heard from them. She demands deep loyalty from her daughters and Dave in particular to stick to the story, randomly quizzing them on the details and asking if anyone has asked about the victims recently.

This is another means of control, and it allows her crimes to go unreported for an incredible length of time. All three Knotek sisters struggle with this brainwashing in different ways, but Sami in particular describes in painful detail just how hard it was to reconcile her desire to have her mother in her life while also being terrified of what she was capable of. When a school counselor confronts Sami about what she has said about her mother’s antics, she panics: “Sami sat there with mixed feelings. They believed her—that part was good. But now shit was going to hit the fan […] The elated feeling of calling her mother out for being a cruel, chronic abuser was fading. Fast” (213). Her love for her mother despite all of the violence she endures, and her fear of the unknown if her mother is arrested, force Sami to lie on her mother’s behalf.

This cognitive dissonance is created through Shelly’s intense pressure on her daughters to remain loyal. It is another classic abuser tactic to keep the victim from thinking independently or escaping their control. Shelly’s complicity and manipulation, as well as the failure of the Pacific County Sheriff to adequately investigate allegations against the Knoteks, makes it possible for Shelly to continue hurting others.

For Nikki, Sami, and Tori, this demand for loyalty at all costs is particularly painful and difficult. As Sami demonstrates, no one wants to get their mother in trouble. It is natural for a victim to want to find something redeeming in their abuser when they love them. Through a combination of Nikki’s strength, Sami’s grit and quick thinking, and Tori’s honesty, they are able to break the cycle of familial loyalty above all.