If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood(7)

Near the end of the school year, the sister administrator at St. Mary of the Valley told Les and Lara that they would not accept Shelly as a returning student.

“We were willing to pay anything to keep her there,” Lara said. “No dice. The sisters stayed firm.”

The summer, Shelly took a scorched earth approach to her life in Battle Ground. She spent her days telling Lara how much she hated her and how she wished Lara would curl up and die. Lara, weary of holding back, let Shelly know more than a few times that she was no prize either.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “You are never happy or appreciative about anything.”

That was true. Lara didn’t need to look any further than her husband to see why. He gave Shelly everything she ever wanted. Despite all she’d done to him, literally smearing his name, Les treated Shelly like a little princess.

Princess Shelly couldn’t stay in Battle Ground.



Les Watson’s sister, Katie, was the next unwitting but well-meaning person to hurl a lifeline in the direction of the Watsons. Shelly had a way about her that could get people to take pity on her and side with her against the rest of the world. Her mother was murdered. Her dad was abusive. Her stepmom was mean to her. Katie offered to have Shelly stay with her for the summer after Shelly complained to her about how rotten her folks—especially Lara—were to her.

Lara overheard some of the conversations. Shelly was never one to hide her feelings. She spoke loudly and in a manner that made certain everyone heard.

“She was on the phone telling Katie how bad and how mean and how abusive I was,” Lara recalled. “How I wouldn’t let her have anything and that I didn’t buy her anything. [That] I called her bad names.”

Shelly’s pity party was a complete success.

The Watsons had a pickup and a camper, and they made plans to go to Disneyland that summer. The entire family packed up, put Shelly on a plane, and had a wonderful time without her.

A few weeks later, Katie phoned and said Shelly had told her everything. She and her husband, Frank, had decided to have “the poor girl” stay with them for the school year in their home on the East Coast where Frank was a mining engineer and the president of a coal company.

Lara couldn’t believe her good fortune. She knew Shelly had lied through her teeth about how things were in Battle Ground. That was fine with her.

Oh Lord! she thought at the time. God is so good at answering my prayers!

As it turned out, the East Coast was Shelly’s last stop on the high school education tour that had had her moving from school to school, family member to family member.

“It was awful,” Lara said of the two years Shelly strained her relatives. In Lara’s opinion, “The problems that [Shelly] caused between Katie and Frank were so bad they ended up getting a divorce.”

Shelly didn’t seem to mind any of that drama at all. She was moving on. She was not yet eighteen and she’d already met her future husband.





CHAPTER SIX

Every guy knows the moment when he meets the girl. The One. The one who spins him around like a top that turns so quickly it digs deep. Randy Rivardo first laid eyes on Shelly Watson in the summer of 1971, when she was seventeen. There was no denying she was a knockout, this new girl. Shelly caught the attention of a lot of local boys when she was staying with her aunt and uncle in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, and attending high school at Franklin Regional High. She and Randy started dating, and they went steady Shelly’s senior year. The two made a striking couple: Shelly with her red hair and flawless skin, and Randy with the dark eyes and hair of his Italian heritage. But it was a teenage romance, destined to be only a passing fancy and a happy memory. They went their separate ways after graduation in 1972, with Randy staying in Pennsylvania to earn money for college tuition, and Shelly eventually returning to Washington, where she took a job as a nurse’s aide at her father’s nursing home.

Later that summer, however, Randy’s old flame called. Shelly not only missed him, but she also knew of an opportunity. Her father had a job offer for Randy.

“Do you want to come out to Battle Ground?” she asked. “My dad will hire you as a maintenance man.”

Randy wasn’t sure. It was a good offer, but it was completely out of the blue.

Shelly sweetened the deal.

“My dad will put you up in a rent-free apartment,” she said. “You can save up for school faster.”

The idea intrigued him. The job only paid five dollars an hour, but after researching the cost of tuition at Clark College in Vancouver, Randy made up his mind. He drove out to Battle Ground and right into Shelly’s open arms.

Open like a Venus flytrap, that is.

Not long after he arrived, it grew clear that the Watson family had more in mind for Randy than being just a maintenance man. They wanted a husband for Shelly. Truth be told, by the time he’d pulled his car into Battle Ground, wedding plans were likely already in the works. It didn’t take long for the hook to be reeled in. Shelly told everyone how much she loved Randy. Les treated Randy like a long-lost son. Anything he needed, Les was right there to offer it, going above and beyond.

However, Randy had an inkling that something else was afoot. Shelly’s father appeared too eager to pass his daughter off to another man.

“They rushed this thing so much that Les picked out my best man because I didn’t have any friends or family in the area,” Randy recounted. “It was that quick.” Randy wasn’t a passive guy, but he kept his mouth shut. “I sat back and let it all happen.”