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The Raymond House of Horrors
23 Plays13 days ago
In this episode, we uncover the disturbing true story of Michelle “Shelly” Knotek, a woman once viewed as a caring and selfless pillar of the small town of Raymond, Washington, who was later accused of hiding unimaginable abuse behind closed doors. What began as a home that appeared to offer refuge to struggling friends, relatives, and vulnerable people slowly transformed into a place of fear, manipulation, and deadly control. Through survivor accounts, court records, and the testimony of Shelly’s daughters, Nikki, Sami, and Tori, we explore how years of violence and coercion remained hidden in plain sight until the family finally exposed the truth. This is the chilling story of how a woman known as Raymond’s “saint” became the center of one of Washington state’s most horrifying true crime cases.
⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes references to abuse, trauma, and death. Listener discretion is advised.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Beneath the Evergreens'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Beneath the Evergreens, where murder, mysteries, and mayhem lurk in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest. I'm Jess. And I'm Anna. From haunted forests and unsolved disappearances. To true crime cases buried deep in the moss and the mist.
00:00:14
Speaker
We're digging into the dark secrets hiding under the evergreens. Each episode will explore real cases, eerie encounters, and the legends that keep the Pacific Northwest up at night. So grab your flashlight, lock your doors, and join us Beneath the Evergreens.
Celebrating Episode 33
00:00:51
Speaker
Welcome to episode 33. Oh my goodness, episode 33 already? Episode 33 Tell me why it feels like we just started this. You guys, this has been a pipe dream of mine and Jesse's for so very long. feels like we've been talking about this for years, and now that we're actually doing it, it feels like it's just flying by. It is, but because it's so much fun. And i feel like I learned so much in these two.
00:01:15
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I'm turning into the biggest Washington State history nerd you've ever met. know I'll be like going post. I'm like, wait, I need to take in the history here or like stop and like read this sign because I might put it on the pod. Yes. Yes.
00:01:30
Speaker
Are you ready for the story i'm about to tell you? I am so excited for today's story. It's going to be a doozy. It's kind of a long one, so I might have to just jump into it. But forewarning to everyone out there, there is a little bit of child abuse in this case. And it is like mother dearest. So just hang on to your seats because it's a little gruesome.
00:01:50
Speaker
Oh, no. Yes. um How do you feel about the woods in small towns?
Small Town Dynamics and Story Setting
00:01:54
Speaker
I mean, I think the woods are beautiful from afar. Yeah. You're you're probably not going catch me and I'm just hanging out.
00:02:01
Speaker
Just chilling in the woods. but You know, when you, you didn't really grow up in a small town. No, certainly not really. My, I didn't really grow up in a small town either, but my perception from the outside looking in is there's always these pillars in the community.
00:02:16
Speaker
oh yeah. There's like the person who's the pastor or like the good Samaritan whatever. the town drunk or these are, maybe it's just like the stars hollow of it all. But that's what I think of when I think of small rural towns.
00:02:30
Speaker
Well, one of the characters in today's stories is from a small town in Raymond, Washington. Okay.
Unraveling Shelly's Past and Abusive Nature
00:02:37
Speaker
And she came off as a good Samaritan and as this pillar of the community But later we find out that she was not only the exact opposite, but she was on par with a demon from hell, quite frankly.
00:02:52
Speaker
Oh, my God. We're going to wind back to, like I said, a small rural town in Raymond, Washington. The population there is 2,000, just above 2,000, which is... just just above two thousand which is Tiny.
00:03:04
Speaker
That is wild. i so I remember in high school meeting a girl from Raymond. She like moved to my high school and no one had any idea where she was from.
00:03:15
Speaker
Literally, I had to look up where Raymond's at because i was like, where the hell is – I didn't even know that was a town. Yeah. I passed by there once, and it's so small. So small. It's crazy. Yeah. And then to have 2,000 people there, that means you're super spread out.
00:03:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Which I think lends itself to the story a little bit of why Michelle or Shelly was able to get away with everything that she did. So Michelle Kotek, also known as Shelly, as i previously said, appeared on the outside to be very compassionate, generous, and deeply selfless. Okay. Friends, neighbors, acquaintances saw this person as someone who would open their home at a moment's notice to anyone that needed shelter or maybe just a leg up or something like that. She took in, you know, struggling friends, vulnerable relatives, troubled teens, elderly people.
00:04:05
Speaker
She was also a health aide for a very long time, helping people with disabilities or or elder care, anything that they needed. And in fact, she often sacrificed her own comfort to help those others survive.
00:04:18
Speaker
Wow. She sounds incredibly selfless. Yeah, that's where how she appeared for sure. how um How did she get here? So Shelly got here because in her early childhood life, she, and this is described in Greg Olson's If You Tell, Shelly experienced horrible traumas in her childhood.
00:04:39
Speaker
Her upbringing was very chaotic, emotionally draining. um Lots of neglect, manipulation. She lived with her mom for a time, and and it said that her mom may have been in like the prostitution, sex worker trade. And so she was often alone at night, or she would bring men to the house. Oh, my God.
00:04:58
Speaker
Super unstable environment. Also drug drug abuse. There was also a period of time where her and her mom were homeless. Then she moved in with her dad. And as she was getting older, while she was living with her dad, she started really to hone in on this, on like constantly needing control of everything. She was very abusive to her brothers and would control what they would do.
00:05:22
Speaker
She was also very manipulative, and she also understood that a woman's emotional a woman's emotional power may be a huge asset when it comes to manipulation, and she would ask often gaslight everyone around her.
00:05:37
Speaker
She even at one point um claimed that she was being sexually abused ah by her father, and... As she was saying she was being sexually abused, they went into her room to to like try and prove this. They did like the whole rape kit and all that other kind of stuff. Didn't find really anything that would point to that. But what they did find in her room was a book that outlined another person's story about sexual abuse by her father.
00:06:00
Speaker
And she had like essentially notated in the book. And her story very much mirrored what this book said. That honestly makes me so angry. i feel like anytime someone comes forward with a story like that, right? You have to believe them.
00:06:16
Speaker
And then people do things like this. It just, it just, oh my God. It muddies the water. And yeah, like you said, you want to believe. Yeah. Because it's a whole, like, why would you?
00:06:27
Speaker
yeah Would you say your dad did like. Exactly. Yeah. Regardless, it it was very clear from early on that she had a lot of like psychological cruelty.
00:06:38
Speaker
that she would commit against people, I guess I would say. And she also um was very much like, like I said earlier about control and then punishments. She was very much a punishment person. So if you did something that she didn't like, she was going to give you the silent treatment or she was going to steal something of yours, or she was going to, there was some sort of punishment that would happen if you didn't do what she said.
00:07:06
Speaker
Well, Shelly, as she was growing up, she got married in her late teens to a man. And apparently this was a very volatile and emotionally unstable environment as well. According to Olsen's reporting from the If You Tell book, she had already developed, you know, a lot of her manipulative behavior. And she would essentially this this marriage that she was in, she would control everything.
00:07:31
Speaker
Essentially, she built a cult. What? He had to run everything by her. She always portrayed herself as a victim. So if, you know, they got into a fight or something like that, she would go up to other people in this very small community and twist things in ah in a manner that made her always the victim. And then her husband always was this person that's like abusive or doing all of these things. Yeah.
00:07:52
Speaker
Which sounds very toxic. Who knows what that truly that relationship truly was like. But based on what I'm hearing from her childhood and then based on this particular marriage, it seems like Shelly used this marriage as like a trial run to figure out how truly to be like a cult leader and and control people in ah in a very emotionally termed Emotionally charged environment. Oh my God. This, i I don't love the direction this whole thing is going in.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yes. So eventually her first husband, I wasn't able to get the exact date, but eventually her first husband decided to divorce her. He couldn't take it anymore. And so he divorced her. He he left her the house and he moved out of Raymond. That's how bad she poisoned the waters against him.
00:08:40
Speaker
He just up and left. This was very advantageous for Shelley because in the late 70s, at this time, it's the late 70s, early 80s, she met a man named David Kotek, who, what used to be in the Navy, acquaintances describe David as a very quiet, very socially awkward, passive, and emotionally dependent person.
00:09:01
Speaker
It sounds like her like perfect prey, if you will. Exactly. Traits that definitely... Shelly was looking for, especially as a dominant personality. She's looking for that wingman that will just do as she says. Yeah.
00:09:15
Speaker
People who knew the family or would come into the family, Shelly would quickly assume control of all of the relationships. So you know how it was sometimes when you're a couple and you meet other couples and kind of the men bond together and the women bond together or like, yeah, it's kind of like a bipartisan type situation. Yeah.
00:09:34
Speaker
Well, Shelly would actually just assume both roles and David would just be kind on the outside. So she would have these intimate, not intimate, but like like she would be the one making the friends and he was just kind of like along for the ride. Yeah. ah And she would kind of do things to make it make it so he was like a little more socially awkward, like maybe point out some of his inefficiencies.
00:09:54
Speaker
Which I'm just going to put it out here. If your partner is pointing out your... inefficiencies or your downsides to other people, that's not a healthy relationship. Absolutely not. Yeah. We got to nip that in the bud. Well, because David didn't really have a lot of prospects, he was very shy, didn't have a lot of experience with women. He just thought that this was how life was. Oh, poor guy. oh my God.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yes. And so in the middle of this interesting relationship, Shelly and David have three daughters together. Nikki, Sammy, who are closer in age, they're they're older. And then Tori was born six years after.
00:10:31
Speaker
and so because of this, Tori was babied a little bit more than the other girls. And this really showed up in some of the parenting styles that Shelly deployed on the girls.
00:10:43
Speaker
And this actually didn't, none of this came out, what I'm about to tell you, none of this came out until Nikki was actually 26 years old. They were so scared of their mother and the stuff that she put them through that they could not because they were scared that their mother was going to kill one of them. Oh my God.
00:11:03
Speaker
Abuse began when the girls were very young. At first, the daughters believed their mother's behavior were normal because they didn't have any comparisons. But then you start going to school and you start realizing that every aspect of their household was controlled within an inch of their life.
00:11:19
Speaker
We're talking emotions were regulated. Or emotions were um played with. So for instance, she would like steal their girls' as clothing, hide it somewhere, and then yell at the girls for losing their clothes. And then the girls would like randomly find it in a closet what months later.
00:11:38
Speaker
and then they had gotten, they've gotten grounded for like three or four weeks because they lost their shirt that she actually sold. Like very manipulative. Food was also a very big punishment. So she would remove food or like not allow you to eat or force you to eat moldy and like food that has passed its prime. whoa Punishments were pretty insane. And the older they got, the more diabolical it got, to be quite honest. Communications with outsiders were highly controlled as well.
00:12:09
Speaker
And the later later described their childhood as unpredictable, unpredictable and terrifying. Oh, my god Could you imagine explaining your childhood as like unpredictable and terrifying? No. No. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yes. Poor girls.
00:12:23
Speaker
And then another thing that they called out, which scares me, is that they kept saying that Shelly would switch instantaneously from affectionate and playful to violently enraged.
00:12:36
Speaker
Imagine trying to grow up and like you're learning your own um emotional regulation and you have this like loose cannon for a parent. Like, yes, you're just like your connections are just not forming well. Like 1000%. Oh my God. Yes. And one one outing went like this. So essentially the family is getting ready in the morning. Their mother is hiding their clothes, making them late, then yelling at them for being late in the morning as they're getting ready for church.
00:13:03
Speaker
The girls are leaving their house. They're just getting terrorized. they're They're having extreme punishments where they're like getting hit with belts, things of that nature. And then
The Tragic Fate of Kathy Loreno
00:13:14
Speaker
as they pull up to church, they're getting yelled at in the car, like violently yelled at. They pull up to church. She gets out and she's this very nurturing, gentle, oh, come on, girls. Let's go in the here. Let's do it. Like quiet voice. Could you imagine the mind f that you would have to go through? No. Oh, my God.
00:13:32
Speaker
And then all while this is happening, David, her husband, is just onlooking and then sometimes participating. Really? And to me, I'm kind of like – David, I think she picked because he has – I don't give him any leeway because I think at this point, like – You're complicit. Oh, 100%.
00:13:53
Speaker
You know if something's wrong, but you're doing it. But I also feel like Shelly, and we'll hear more about this as I go through the story. Shelly created this environment, and the only way I can describe it is it's cult-like. It's like the like the Mansons in a way, right? Yeah. You get in someone's head so much, and you've convinced them of all these things. Yeah. Yes, they're still responsible for their actions, but like they would not have done that without their leader. You know, Michelle was also very good at creating an environment of terror, as they said, where if you step out a line, there would be a swift and severe punishment.
00:14:27
Speaker
And so with this swift and severe punishment, you don't know who it's going to come to and you don't want to be the person that's next on the cha chopping block. Oh, yeah. so you're like – she's like pitting all the girls against each other. The girls and I think her husband as well. Oh, my God. And I think that's like the environment that we're working with and it's just – it's really unfortunate. So it's just really unfortunate. Sorry. Some of this gets pretty pretty dark. Yeah. Okay. So then we get to, it's the, the late nine or the early nineties. And because of her, because of Shelly standing in the community, she's able to make a lot of friends. And one of her best friends was actually Kathy Loreno.
00:15:06
Speaker
She was down on her luck. She was having a lot of family issues. She didn't have a lot of money. There wasn't a lot of job prospects in Raymond And so Shelly said, hey, you know what? You're going through a really rough time. How about you move in with us?
00:15:20
Speaker
And, you know, you can get on your feet and we can figure it out. Well, Kathy was considered in in society or like people who knew her before she moved into Shelly's house as warm, funny, socially interactive, very trusting. um Sometimes she struggled with alcohol abuse, but other than that, she...
00:15:43
Speaker
was ah Was an overall good person. However, Kathy grew up in a home that was very similar to Shelly's. lot of chaos, a lot of like punishments, a lot of unsettling behavior, which left her very vulnerable to manipulation. Oh, no.
00:15:58
Speaker
And so when she moved into the home in 1991, she started having severe conflicts. Let's just put it that way. Shelly, instead of giving her a room or like letting her stay on the couch, shoved a cot right next to the boiler in the basement what and would lock her in the basement.
00:16:19
Speaker
How did that last more than one night? Like, if I come to stay with you, I'm down on my luck. You put me in your basement and I'll caught, like, I'm not coming back that next day. So I think at first it started, it was like a slow introduction. Like, I really think this was like a cult. It was a slow, she, she got to stay on the couch at first. She was very kind. Shelly was very kind, but she did this like passive aggressive thing where she was like, Oh, Kathy. yeah You know, it's a really big burden that you're here, but, but it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. But like, it's a burden. You should actually, do you mind cleaning the bathroom since I'm letting you stay here for free? Like that kind of thing. And then Kathy doesn't have anywhere to go.
00:16:56
Speaker
Like she has to kind of stay here. So she's trying to like make it work kind of a thing, oh yeah which is awful. And then this is also her best friend. So like, just imagine all of the inner workings.
00:17:09
Speaker
No, that's fair. but But to your point though, like you have to have some sort of like primer yeah to get you to a point where you're staying in a cot next to a boiler in the basement. Yeah.
00:17:21
Speaker
I would – and it gets worse. Yeah. Oh, no. So that was just kind of step one. Then Shelly seemed to get a lot of kicks out of embarrassing Kathy. She constantly picked on Kathy's weight. She was she was a little – she wasn't overweight, but you could tell she had – She wasn't real thin. We'll just say that. Well, she started terrorizing Kathy essentially about her weight. She also would control where she went.
00:17:51
Speaker
She also, you know, controlled how she dressed and when she slept and when she was allowed to eat. Slowly over time, was like a prison guard for Kathy. Kathy ended up losing like 80 pounds. Oh my God.
00:18:03
Speaker
People in the town, when they did see her, they didn't see her often, but when they did see her, she was unrecognizable. Then people started getting alarmed because not only was she, she had lost like 80 pounds and was like super skeletal and like, and was really weak. So when people saw her in town, she could like barely walk and she was like out of breath a lot, but then she started losing her teeth.
00:18:23
Speaker
Oh my God. so this So this from the girl's perspective, cause this came out later. The abuse that Kathy went through was starvation, forced labor for hours, like 14 hour days worth of forced labor in the house.
00:18:40
Speaker
Beatings when she didn't do something correctly. Humiliation like making her stand outside naked in the middle of the Washington winter all night long.
00:18:51
Speaker
Not letting her back in the house. Sleep deprivation, not letting her sleep. Verbal degradation. Denial of medical care at all. Forced to eat spoiled food, just like her children. And then when she got beat by David,
00:19:11
Speaker
Shelly would come over with salt and bleach and make a salt bleached paste and put it in the wounds of her best friend. Oh my God. the hell?
00:19:23
Speaker
In fact, these beatings got so bad that one night, allegedly, Shelly beat Kathy so hard that she started violently throwing up and then having a seizure and then died in the family laundry room.
00:19:42
Speaker
That is not funny. What? Like, I'm just in shock. The kids all saw this. And David on was told by Shelly to essentially burn Kathy in the boiler in their basement to get rid of the body. And Shelly started lying about how Kathy had moved away with a boyfriend. Yeah.
00:20:04
Speaker
A truck driver and they started a new life in California and she no longer wanted contact with the family. And because of Shelly's status in the community as someone who is so selfless and yada, yada, yada, no one questioned it.
00:20:17
Speaker
What? Except for one person.
Nephew Shane's Evidence and Demise
00:20:20
Speaker
And that one person was Shane Watson. Who is Shane Watson you might want to know? Well, it's Shelly's nephew. Okay.
00:20:28
Speaker
yes Shane Watson actually was... Yeah, like I said, Shelly's nephew. And he was the son of Shelly's stepbrother. Around 1988, when Shane was approximately 12 or 13, Shelly convinced relatives that he would be better off living with her because he was having a lot of trouble in school. His parents were constantly like in and out out of jail kind of a situation. There was some drug use there. And she's like, you know what?
00:20:52
Speaker
I don't do drugs. I'm stable. He can come live with us. I have my girls. They can be a family. like I'll provide that stable environment together. Well, unfortunately, when Shane arrived at the house, he was immediately trapped.
00:21:09
Speaker
She, Shelly, was so abusive. He would get severe verbal abuse, like called stupid, ugly, like just all of these things. Beatings, humiliation, forced nudity. Again, if he did something wrong, he would be locked outside for multiple days.
00:21:27
Speaker
Food deprivation, he wouldn't be allowed to eat. exhausting physical torture and psychological torture, just awful, awful things. um In fact, at one point...
00:21:39
Speaker
Shelly got all of her kids in trouble for doing some, they didn't do the chores good enough. And so she forced all of her kids to strip naked and Shane. So three girls all naked with Shane and forced them to dance together for hours in the living room and was sitting there laughing at them. And when they were done, like forced them to stand outside naked in the cold and locked them outside.
00:22:05
Speaker
What the fuck? Oh my God. Isn't that insane? Yeah. So you may notice that Shane moved into the house in 1988. Kathy moved in in 91. So Shane has already had years of this abuse. yes He is watching essentially David and Shelly do the same thing to Kathy. And he is getting more and more like fed up. He can't take it anymore. He's getting to a breaking point. And all of the kids are like,
00:22:35
Speaker
so So all of the girls are so scared of their mother that they don't want to go to the cops. They don't want to go to CPS. They don't want to do all of these things. But Shane is like, you know what? F this. I can't take this anymore. Then comes the pivotal night where Kathy is murdered.
00:22:51
Speaker
by essentially the beating. Shane took pictures as evidence of Kathy's death. my God. death Which, do you know F the, how old was he at this time?
00:23:03
Speaker
At this time he was, so he moved in when he 13. So he was about 16, 17. At this point. So he witnessed all this. He takes pictures. He has his evidence and he's, he tells the girls, the the daughters, Shelly's daughters, that he's going to go immediately to the police.
00:23:21
Speaker
He's going to give it at two weeks, but he's going to go to the police. Well, the daughters were so freaked out because Shelly said that you guys have seen this death. You guys are all going to go to jail if you guys call the cops or anything. So you have to keep this a secret because you guys are actually going to go to jail. This is all your guys' fault.
00:23:37
Speaker
Well, because of that, the girls immediately tell Shelly Shane is going to like to to the police. they're goingnna expose He's going to expose us. Oh, my God. So in February of 1995, at the behest of Shelley, David goes up to Shane with a twenty two caliber rifle and shoots Shane in the head because he was going to and ex expose Kathy's death and the years of abuse that he had at the hands of these two individuals. So they shot him. Dave shot him. they let him
00:24:10
Speaker
They left him in the house for a while. His bones were actually underneath Shelly's bed for quite some time. What? Could you imagine sleeping on top of your dead nephew that you murdered? God.
00:24:20
Speaker
Then they take him outside and bury him. And then when people start asking questions, like her stepbrother... She says, oh, he just ran away. i don't know what happened. He started, he got into drugs really bad. He just ran off. He moved elsewhere. I don't, he wanted different life. I don't know where he went. I'm so sorry. i just, I don't know where i went. See, yeah I feel like that maybe works the first time, but two people that were staying with you just happened to run away.
00:24:45
Speaker
seems a little sus. Yeah. Well, and then it goes back to, she's picking her victims very particularly, I think too, because Kathy, she, you know, she was the alcoholic a little bit before she moved in and was having a lot of family troubles to begin with. yeah Shane, she takes in because he's having family troubles to begin with. And he also is having, you know, issues with school, stuff like that. And so his parents are like and out of jail. So they're not even checking in on him regularly. Right. So he's,
00:25:15
Speaker
stuck in this torture chamber. Yeah. So then we get to the third victim.
Ronald's Tragic End
00:25:21
Speaker
Ronald Woodward. um He was another vulnerable person. was another vulnerable person who essentially was trapped inside the Kotech home.
00:25:29
Speaker
Ronald struggled with financial instability, alcoholism, possible mental illnesses. He was known in Raymond across the town as like the local drunk. Like he didn't have a home necessarily to go to. He didn't have a lot of money. He would do odd jobs to get booze, but for the most part, he didn't have a home. and But people often saw him walking around Raymond.
00:25:50
Speaker
Gotcha. And what people soon started to notice in early 2000, like 2000, 2001, is that Ronald would regularly or yeah ronald would regularly stop by Shelly's house and they would get to Chatton.
00:26:04
Speaker
And she would make him food and stuff like that. And in fact, because Shelly was such a pious person, if you will, she invited him to come live with her.
00:26:14
Speaker
And that essentially became his death warrant. As soon as he moved in, he essentially was trapped in a cycle of escalating abuse. Again, she uses cult-like tactic. At first, it was love bombing. Like, we're going to help you. We're going to help you grow. We're going to do yada, yada, yada. But then it soon transitioned into degrading degrading punishments, like boiling water and pouring them over Ron's feet and then...
00:26:43
Speaker
pouring bleach over the feet when he did, he didn't do the yard work good enough. oh my god Starvation because he couldn't, quote, pay help pay for food. Severe physical abuse by David and Shelly. They would beat him unconscious in front of their kids. Humiliation.
00:27:00
Speaker
Forced labor despite poor health. So this guy had severe mental illness. He also is detoxing off of alcohol and they're still forcing him to work like 15-hour days. As people notice as he's living with Shelly that his health is getting worse and worse and worse. He's no longer able to walk. I wonder why.
00:27:18
Speaker
This one I have concerns with. Witnesses also described that they would often see Ronald on the second story roof of the house and he would jump off into gravel below the house with Shelly looking on.
00:27:37
Speaker
Naked. Naked, by the way. What? So he would be naked on the roof and she would be there and he would be forced to be jumped off or he would jump off. People didn't think that he was being forced. They thought it was just part of his mental illness.
00:27:50
Speaker
But no, she was essentially playing in people's faces is essentially what I'm gathering. No one called for like a welfare check or anything? like That's the first thing I would do. If I see some naked man on a roof and people below, like I'm like, oh, he's trying to commit suicide. I'm calling someone. Yeah. No.
00:28:06
Speaker
And I don't know if it's because it's a small town and people know Shelly or what was going on there, but that's just a wild, a wild story. And meanwhile, while all of this is going on, Nikki tells a story about how one day her mother got mad at her for losing a sweater that really her mother hid in the roof of the chicken coop. Her mother stripped her naked, locked her out of the house at night, and forced her to stay outside in 32 degree weather.
00:28:34
Speaker
oh my God. And then all of a sudden in 2003, Ronald died after he died. It was unclear how he died, but eventually his remains were recovered. I'm guessing he probably got beat to death along the lines of Kathy, but it's just unfortunate. Then enters
James' Manipulation and Suspicious Death
00:28:53
Speaker
our fourth victim. Remember how I said Shelly was a health aide?
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah. She met this man named James McClintock, who was obsessed with his dog, Sissy. James was an 81-year-old Pearl Harbor veteran, which is even makes it even more sad because Pearl Harbor was just awful.
00:29:13
Speaker
um And he was a retired merchant um living in Raymond, Michelle became involved with him as the health aide because he was in deteriorating health. He was wheelchair bound. And so he needed someone to look after her or look after him.
00:29:27
Speaker
She unfortunately was, well, not unfortunately, she was fired from the health aid agency due to to concerns about her behavior. least that's one good thing that's happening. That is one good thing that's happening. But I'm wondering if you got fired for concerns of against your behavior, what else were you doing with other people?
00:29:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So James didn't care, though. James really liked Shelly. She had manipulated him, whatever. So she said, hey, you can move in with me.
00:29:54
Speaker
ah You'll have full time care at my house and you can just you can come up with me. And he said, great. And so he changed his will. so that she would get $5,000 in cash and the care of his dog, sisy Sissy. And then after the dog died, he would give Shelly the ownership of his house, which was at the time $140,000. So little of a throwback. Do you remember the starvation case we covered? like Yes. you go This reminds me. like It's so similar. like you' just like like She convinced people just give her everything after they died. It's and it's wild.
00:30:30
Speaker
It is. It's hot. And then the abuse that they have to go through, it really, yeah I feel like there's more to this cult mentality. I feel like people are always like, I would never fall for a cult, never fall for a cult. But I feel like everyone hits a point in their life where they feel extremely like vulnerable or they're like off center. Yeah.
00:30:45
Speaker
And I feel like that's when people like this, if they catch you in that moment, they're Yeah. It can go awry. 100%. And for James, it did. Because 2002, authorities were called to the house because he had died from a head injury.
00:31:03
Speaker
Michelle claimed that he had fallen over. However, his death or certificate would classify the manner of death as undetermined and not accidental. And the reason for this is because...
00:31:15
Speaker
the injury just didn't make sense for a man that was in a wheelchair to have fallen down the stairs. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And, and just things weren't, weren't lining up. And, and, and actually,
00:31:28
Speaker
um When the broader investigation happened in 2003, they went into the room that James was in and they found blood evidence all over the place, like on his slippers all over the side of the wall. It was clear that something nefarious was happening. There's no details about like what type of violence had taken place, but it was clear there was violence. um And also another disturbing detail, um the dog sissy.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah. um Died. And she claimed $140,000. Well, it turns out the dog didn't actually die. so she So she told James that the dog died is what happened. James was devastated, changed the will again to give her the $140,000. No, she just took the dog and gave the dog away.
00:32:14
Speaker
ah So this man essentially was saving his whole will so that if he died, someone would be there to take care of his dog. So she just removes the dog, takes it away from him, sells it to somebody else so that she can get the money. This is also the fact that she clearly like values the the dog more than the humans that she's killing. like Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:33
Speaker
Oh my gosh. and like I mean, I love dogs as much as the next person, that's wild. Yes. yes And so at this point, at this point, Shelly and David essentially are getting away with this. Everyone still thinks that they're a perfect couple, that they they're doing nothing wrong. Shelly is like in love with this. she She thinks she's going to
Exposure and Investigation of Crimes
00:32:55
Speaker
get away with it. But then Nikki is 26.
00:32:58
Speaker
She's no longer living in in the home of her mother. and she... is starting to go into therapy. It's 2001. She remembers finding the bones of someone under her mom's bed and has this feeling that that was my brother or, you know, Shelly's nephew, her cousin.
00:33:20
Speaker
And so she decides that she's going to go to the Pacific County Sheriff's Office and report detailed like In detail, the abuse that she went through as a child and then the murder that she witnessed and then the abuse of Ronald and how Shane went missing and they never really got closure onto what happened and then the bones that that she found.
00:33:44
Speaker
Well, unfortunately, the cops didn't necessarily take her seriously. Are you serious? So they had an eye on Shelly from this point forward, but it wasn't until two years later when Sammy, Tori, and Nikki got together and they started comparing memories of the abuses that they had together.
00:34:03
Speaker
And at this point, Tori is 16 years old. there're At this reunion in Seattle, they're comparing memories about what happened and all of the abuse that they endured and the abuse that Tori, because she's still living in the home at this point, is it is enduring. Oh my God, yeah. And they decide all three of them to go to come forward because their mom was actively looking for another person to come live in the home.
00:34:26
Speaker
And they're trying to save someone from being murdered. So they all go to the police. And that is when on August 8th, 2003, authorities raid the home because they now have three persons that can cooperate each other's stories. Raid the home of Michelle and David. And this quickly becomes one of the most disturbing cases in Washington state history. So there's blood everywhere.
00:34:47
Speaker
There's, it's, the torture is evident. There's pictures of this abuse. The girls have evidence of the abuse that they went through. Also, the bodies were found on the property.
00:34:58
Speaker
Kathy, unfortunately, was never found because she was, according to the girls, cremated. But it was like a mother deer situation. Like, they just exposed Michelle for just being a disgusting person.
00:35:11
Speaker
And so August 12th, 2003, the Seattle Times published a reporting describing prosecutors' allegations that the Kotex had transformed their farmhouse into a site of torture and death.
Arrests and Sentencing
00:35:24
Speaker
Both Michelle and David were held on $2 million dollar bail, so they couldn't get out, which thank goodness for that. And then in February of 2004, Michelle entered an Alford plea. So you're accepting the charges, but you're not assuming the guilt is essentially how that works. And then on August 18th, 2004, she was sentenced to second degree murder and first degree manslaughter, only getting 22 years in prison.
00:35:51
Speaker
That's it? That's what she was sentenced to. David received a 15-year sentence for the second-degree murder and related charges to Shane Watson. And Michelle tried to appeal her sentence later, but she was not successful. But Michelle only served 18 years in the Washington Correction Center for Women in Gig Harbor.
00:36:11
Speaker
She was released November 8th in 2022. She's now out and about. And David was released after serving only 13 years. Are they still married? like are they are they They're not married anymore, but they're out and about. According to the daughters, Shelly will probably do this again.
00:36:30
Speaker
She's probably looking for her next victim now. Someone like that just doesn't change their stripes. And that is horrifying to me. what She killed four people. Like, what what is the rationale for letting her out and not, like, giving her a much longer sentence? That's insane. You killed four people. And not only did you kill four people, you tortured them. Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker
And then what about this child abuse? I get that your children are now adults, but you having them forced naked dance with each other for hours and, like, locking them outside naked, like, what is wrong with you? insane.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah. Isn't that disgusting? Yeah. So she only got 18 years. She only served, well, she got 22, only had to serve 18 of those and is now just in society, just doing her thing. Her daughters are happy that they finally broke years of silence and that they did get some justice for
Daughters' Fears and Advocacy
00:37:27
Speaker
Shane. But I mean, still 15 years for like murdering your nephew is crazy. That is ridiculous.
00:37:35
Speaker
But yeah, as of right now, the girls are terrified that Shelly's going to do this again or that, you know, but this time she's not going to be found. And, but they're sticking together and trying to highlight Shelly and track where she is so that people, people know what type of person she is and she won't do it again. But they forgave their father, David, which I mean, good, good for them, but I still feel like he also.
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah. I get you sipped the Kool-Aid, but you also did some pretty horrific things. Absolutely. But that is the story of Shelly Kotech. Oh my Mother dearest. That is horribly disgusting and I am so upset that she's out now. That's what I'm saying. It's like you kill the four people in the worst way.
00:38:19
Speaker
You took advantage of these people. Like you found people that were yeah low, so not low standing in society, but like didn't have a lot of prospects and were in ah in a very bad place. You tortured them. So much that you killed them and you only got 18 years.
00:38:35
Speaker
was ridiculous. And she's still in Washington state. So if you ever meet someone named Michelle, just run the other way. for you.
00:38:48
Speaker
Oh, thank you, friend. Oh my God. Yeah. Just let you hold that over. We'll just roll out. yeah I'm feeling a little bit of lost for words right now. Yes.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:38:57
Speaker
So that's it for today's dive into the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest. If you love the stories or shivered a little, be sure to subscribe and follow so you don't miss what's lurking beneath the evergreens next time. Thanks for joining us beneath the evergreens. We appreciate you diving into the mysteries with us.
00:39:12
Speaker
Until next time, keep your eyes open and your doors locked.