Secrets in the Box

Robert and Janet Kirkup set off in their motorhome in late 1991. A year later, the children stopped hearing from their mother. And then a humiliated Robert wrote that she had left him, run off with another man.

Shocking news for any family.  But in this one, it was received in profoundly conflicting ways.  When she first heard the news, Susan Waller, the youngest daughter, was relieved.

Susan Waller: (sighs) "Wow, maybe she finally got away from that abuser."

Abuser?  Yes.  At least in susan's childhood world, that's what - in her tortured memory - her father was. 

Susan Waller: I remember growing up--  I used to have this knot in my stomach because I was waiting for him to come home from work , and I would look out the window to see if he was stumbling-- That meant he was drinking.  That meant he was angry.  And that meant we were gonna get beat.

Look at the smiling photos.  The idyllic childhood.  The happy life.  How those pictures lied, said Susan, omitting what has now hardened into her recollection of the truth. 

Susan Waller: To me, he wasn't a father.  He was this-- evil man.

And once her sisters were gone, said Susan, she and her mother both had knots in their stomachs.

Susan Waller: She was terrified of him.

Keith Morrison: He'd hit her too.

Susan Waller: Uh-huh (affirm).

Keith Morrison: So he was a really bully in the house.

Susan Waller: Absolutely. 

And because they both lived in such fear of Robert, Susan says, the bond between her and her mother grew even stronger.

Susan Waller: I always felt so safe around my mom.  And I always wanted to be near her. 

Well, maybe not always.  She was a teenager after all.  And when her parents lost their home and hit the road, Susan, then 16, chose at first to live with her sister and avoid life in the motorhome.

Susan Waller: At that time I thought, "Wow.  This is my way out.  I'm gonna go live with Shauna."

But living with Shana was not without its own difficulties. So Susan left and - for a while - joined her parents in their tiny motorhome.

Keith Morrison: What was that like, living with the two of them in the little, confined space like that?

Susan Waller: Difficult.  It was-- I was a teenager. I mean-

Susan Waller: They were drinking.  And my mother was very unhappy.

Susan lasted five months with her bickering parents before fleeing their misery and heading back to shana. And when she heard the story that a man with money had come along, why wouldn't her mother leave?

Leave them all.  Leave the whole sorry mess behind.  And Susan, frankly, understood completely, and wished her mother well.

Susan Waller: I guess part of me, somehow, wished that she was off somewhere, on, in Hawaii, on a beach.

She left him.  Walked out on not just her husband, but the entire family.  That's one point on which Susan and her sister Shana, agreed - though, as you'll see, for very different reasons.

Keith Morrison: Was it upsetting?

Shana Thomas: Very upsetting.  I was angry with my mother. She always had all the money she wanted.  She always had her-- a nice car to drive.  And I could picture that.

Keith Morrison: That your father couldn't provide for her the way she wanted, so she found--

Shana Thomas: Absolutely.

Video   How to get suspects to admit the truth San Bernardino County Sheriff's Detective Greg Myler discusses with NBC’s Keith Morrison how he prepared for his interview with Robert Kirkup and describes some of the techniques investigators use during an interrogation. Dateline NBC

Keith Morrison: --a man who could?

Shana Thomas: I spoke with a lot of friends.  They said, "Oh, yeah, she could get up and walk away."

Funny thing about the childhood memories of siblings.  Shana and Susan were hardly the only sisters whose recollections strayed into contradictions. After all, they approached it from different perceptions and time changed things. Shana is a good deal older after all.  Still you have to wonder, were these people really from the same family, the same history?

Shana Thomas: (laughs) My mom had to have the best.  She had to keep up with the Joneses.  Or it wadn't good enough.

Shana, on her mother Janet:

Keith Morrison: She was spoiled.

Shana Thomas: She was very spoiled.  And she was very materialistic.

Even back in the best of days, said Shana, back when Robert was so frequently out of town for work, the children suffered the outbursts of parental temper.  But it wasn't her father Shana feared..it was her mother.

Shana Thomas: I don't know what I said to her.  I probably said somethin'-- I was a teenager.  She came out and she hit me as hard as she could, and it knocked me backwards.

Keith Morrison: So you remember your mom as being more volatile than your father?

Shana Thomas: Yeah.  Yeah.

In fact, Shana says her father never hit her or her sisters.  But there was a painful incident, Shana remembered... Which, she says, was the beginning of the end for her parent's marriage.

Years earlier her father confessed to an affair. Her mother could not forgive him.  And -  says Shana, attempted to pay him back.

Shana Thomas: I remember coming home from the bar one night and my mother was flashing one of the guys in the band.

So, another man with money?  She'd flirt, at the very least, said Shana. They'd argue. And she'd leave.

Shana Thomas: If there was another man that had a lot more money, and she was attracted him, and she was drinkin', she would go for it.

Shana, the eldest sister, believed her mother left for money. Susan, the baby, that she fled in fear. Oh, but there was one more sister, remember?  Sherry. The one who filed the missing persons report, who collected the contents of the box.

But Sherry had had enough of this family. She was drifting away. And then one day, she was simply gone.  Broke off all contact.  You'll see no more of her; none of them would. The burden of being angry, suspicious, finally grew too heavy to carry.

Susan Waller: It consumed her whole life.  And she got so tired and-- and said, "I give up. " And she simply handed me over the case and said, "I'm done.  You want to finish it?  Here you go."

It was not something Susan wanted. And Shana certainly didn't either, in fact, the rift between those two - their opposing memories and loyalties - was growing very wide.

Keith Morrison: Did you grow apart a lot in those years?

Susan Waller: Yes. And I always missed her. 

It was a poison gift, that box.   A sealed container in which there could be nothing good.

Susan Waller: So then I took it. (sighs) And I'm very, you know, sad to say that it took me quite a while.  I was scared.  I didn't want to face the box, and what was in that box.

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