Don’t Look Behind You

get away from him because he was clearly molesting Heidi sexually.
    “I moved them in with me.”
    Lila May Notaro agreed to talk with Benson at her apartment in Tacoma. She told Ben Benson that she had married Nick Notaro in Marshfield, Wisconsin, in 1987. She was a dozen years younger than Nick.
    “How did you meet him?”
    “We both worked at Jimmy’s Cafe in Marshfield,” she began. “He was a cook and I was a waitress. I took him as being a kind gentleman. He treated me like a woman at the time … I saw his good side, him being a friendly, respectable person.”
    Lila May was raising her six-and-a-half-year-old daughter alone. She and Nick Notaro dated for about six months, and she was happy when he asked her to marry him. She knew virtually nothing about his past—not until the night before their wedding.
    “Did you know he had been to prison?” Benson asked.
    “Nope. Not until he said he was feeling guilty that hehad done something wrong, and he thought he should let me know before we got married—to see how I would react or if I would go through with getting married.”
    “Okay. And what did he tell you?”
    “He told me he killed his first wife and someone else. He said they had an argument and they were fighting, and she fell between the tub and the toilet, and then he took her and put her in the car—and went to a ditch. And she got out of the car and he went after her and shot her. Killed her.”
    “Did he tell you why he did that?”
    “Because of her having an affair.”
    “Did he say anything about the person she was having an affair with?”
    She shook her head. “Just some guy who lived here in Tacoma. Nick said he cut someone up and put him in a pipe in the backyard.”
    “All right. So then you went ahead with the wedding?”
    “Yes.”
    “How long were you married to Nick?”
    “Just about six years. The first three years were wonderful. He was dressed decent, he worked, and I didn’t have any problems until the last three years.”
    Lila May Notaro said that Nick had kept working at Jimmy’s Cafe until they had moved to Tacoma. He had moved out west a month before she did, and he got a job right away at Winchell’s Donuts.
    But their marriage wasn’t as successful once they moved to Washington State.
    “He just didn’t want to be bothered,” Lila May said. “He was starting to tell me that we should separate because itwasn’t working out—I guess it was because of the way he was treating Heidi. He didn’t want me to interfere.”
    Lila May said Nick would get mad at her seven-year-old daughter and make her sit still for long periods. “He wasn’t really disciplining her for the right reasons. I mean, he just took it out on her [because] of his actions.”
    “He eventually started molesting Heidi?” Benson prompted.
    “Yes—when she was the age of nine it started.”
    “When did you find out?”
    “It was a while. One night he got up and I thought he went to the bathroom, but he went into her room, and I looked and he was kinda under the blanket. I kinda got the idea he was doing something, but you know, I didn’t want to believe it ’cause I didn’t think he was that type—”
    A few weeks later, Lila May couldn’t lie to herself any longer. She had to leave for work at 7 a.m. “And he took Heidi and molested her—penetrated her and everything. Two days later, Heidi told me everything.”
    Lila May had been horrified, but didn’t know what to do. She first went to Geri Hesse and told her what Heidi had said about Nick. Her mother-in-law didn’t seem shocked. She’d said only, “Then you better believe her.”
    Geri Hesse told Lila May that Nick had also molested another girl—a young female relative—but she didn’t offer Lila May any solution to her problems.
    Lila May Notaro wasn’t a very brave woman; she didn’t have the courage to confront Nick. It was her boss at the donut shop—Janet Blaisdell—who suspected somethingwas wrong and urged Lila May to confide in her. When Lila May finally did, Janet went immediately to the phone and called Child Protective Services.
    Nick Notaro was arrested and the case of child molestation went to court. Sadly, it resulted in a hung jury. The prosecutor wanted Lila May to go to court again, but she said she was too frightened.
    “I had a bad feeling something was going to happen if I did it.”
    “What do you mean by that?” Benson asked her.
    “I felt like he would’ve tried to do