The Mother Who Burned Her Daughters for Nine Years

A mother locked her daughter in a closet without food or water, burned her body in the mountains, set her house on fire to destroy evidence, and for nine years no one pursued her. How did a legal system absolve her for her first murder in 1964 and ignore direct reports from her children for decades? In this episode, you will discover how a surviving daughter, watching television in October 1993, triggered the collapse of one of the most evil mothers classified on the psychological scale. You will learn about the nine years of impunity of Teresa Cross Norr, the patterns of manipulation that kept her free, and how forensic evidence preserved in an intact closet after a deliberate fire ultimately condemned her to life in prison. Case Details Victim: Susan Cross (burned alive in 1984) and Sheila Cross (locked in closet in 1985) Date: 1984-1985 Location: Sacramento, Nevada, Salt Lake City, California Status: Teresa Cross Norr sentenced to two consecutive life sentences since October 1995 - The closet where Sheila died was the only piece of furniture that survived the deliberate fire of the house, preserving crucial evidence of the crime. - Teresa was acquitted in 1964 for shooting her first husband Sanders in the back as he was leaving, establishing a pattern of judicial manipulation that lasted three decades. - Fifteen-year-old Robert was forced to extract a bullet from Susan's chest using a homemade "surgery" under duress, leaving physical evidence of the first attempted murder. - Terry's report about her sisters was dismissed as "fiction" by Utah police months earlier, but the televised identification of the body in October 1993 reversed the institutional verdict. Do you want to know how a legal system allowed a psychopath classified at level 22 on the evil scale to live unpunished while murdering her own daughters? Teresa Cross Norr, forensic closet, murder of daughters, Sacramento homicides, delayed justice, psychopathic mother, crimes 1984-1985, Salt Lake City crimes, criminal impunity, covered-up murder, America's Most Wanted case, true crime Spanish podcastTo listen ad-free and access premium episodes, start your 30-day free trial at obomedia.comOBOMEDIA presents true crime storiesa true crime podcast built on real cases.Every true crime story in our crime files follows the crime investigation from the missing person report to the trial: investigators and police building a murder case, a police investigation gone cold, justice for the victim and those who survived.We open the unsolved murder, the cold case reopened decades later, the mysterious death, the disappearance, the serial killer, the family murder, the murder mystery; the missing persons  a missing woman, a missing girl, a missing man found dead and the missing and murdered.From the infamous case to the unsolved case, from classic true crime to dark true crime and disturbing true crime: true crime reports, real crime stories, real murder cases, true murder stories and unsolved mysteries one true crime case at a time, from the OBOMEDIA true crime vault.© 2026 Created with OBOMEDIA technology. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text and related materials) are the property of their respective creator and are distributed under the OBOMEDIA name on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing and business inquirie