Knott Family Offers Reward in Bludgeoning

The family that operates Knott’s Berry Farm offered a $10,000 reward Wednesday for information in the bludgeoning of a 17-year-old great-granddaughter of the park’s late founder, Walter Knott, as she slept in her San Diego County home.

Desire Anderson, an honor student and figure skater aspiring to be a doctor, has remained in a coma and on life-support systems since the attack in her bedroom just after midnight Monday.

“We’re all in shock,” said Marion Knott of Newport Beach, Desire’s grandmother. “This is a beautiful young girl who has everything going for her. She’s outstanding. So sweet and so gentle.”

Knott said the family was offering the reward “because we have no motive, no idea why anybody would do this.” Sheriff’s deputies “have no leads on who would do it. This is out of the blue. It’s an area where nothing like this ever happens. It’s the most secure little community you’ve ever been in.”

The girl’s condition is “critical, day-to-day,” Knott said.

Police said an intruder apparently entered the family home in the 4400 block of La Canada in south Fallbrook through an unlocked door or window.

Diane Anderson, Desire’s mother, told deputies she heard someone in her daughter’s bedroom. The intruder “fled when her mother heard the noise and called out to her from the master bedroom,” Lt. Doug Clements said. Anderson “then went to her room when she received no response,” Clements said. “She discovered her daughter was seriously injured and called 911.”

Anderson said Wednesday that the family’s four-acre horse ranch is on a private road, that she recognizes the sound of every vehicle that uses it, and that she did not believe the attacker drove. She also said she believed the intruder came through a window, although she wouldn’t say why.

“We’ve lived there for 24 years and never locked a door,” Anderson said. “This is the old country.” But not locking the doors and windows “was wrong,” she said.

“I’ve cried and cried and cried for three days,” Anderson said. But Wednesday, she added, Desire’s “vibrations were more positive than they’ve been. Today I really felt good. She’s going to come home and sleep in her own bed soon, I know this. It’s like a movie that you watch on television, and you never think it’s going to happen to you. My daughter’s going to make it. She’s my partner.”

The girl, who suffered blunt trauma injuries to the head, was taken by Life Flight helicopter to Palomar Memorial Hospital, Escondido, where she is listed in critical condition.

Knott family members said they believe that a hammer ws used in the attack.

A supervisor with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said Fallbrook “is not crime-ridden at all. It’s real rural, avocado and citrus ranches, middle to high income. It’s a very small, quiet community, right next to the southern part of Camp Pendleton. There are a few problems with Marines and illegal aliens from time to time--the usual. But it’s not like the rest of the county. It’s pretty quiet.”

A senior at Fallbrook High School, Desire expected to apply to colleges this week and plans to be a doctor, her grandmother said. A member of the French club, she had completed all the French courses the school offers and had become a French teacher’s aide. She doesn’t date, and spends most of her time outside school training as a competitive figure skater, Marion Knott said.

“She is absolutely the most beautiful, gentle girl you would want to meet,” Knott said, fighting back tears.

The teen-ager’s uncle, Daryl Anderson of Newport Beach, said the family is “stunned.”

“It’s the American tragedy,” Anderson said. “You think it will happen to someone else and never to your own family. You just don’t know what to do or who to turn to when something like this happens. It’s just one of those stunning things.”

Anderson, who is a partner in Knott’s Berry Farm, described his niece as an A-student whose primary focus is academics.

“She’s very quiet and very smart and very involved in what she does,” he said. “She was in the process of applying for colleges for the fall of 1995.” Anderson said Desire’s first choice for college UC San Diego, where she plans to study premed.

The uncle said the family is desperate to find whoever attacked the teen-ager and hopes the reward will motivate someone to come forward.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Homicide Team II at the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department at (619) 692-5600.

Meanwhile, the family continues its vigil.

“It’s a waiting game,” Anderson said. “Right now, we’re just waiting for Desire.”

Russell Knott, Desire’s great-uncle, said Desire is an only child whose parents are divorced.

“She and her mother are very devoted--just like the Bobbsey Twins,” Knott said. “They are very close.”

The attacker, Diane Anderson said, “must have been a very sick individual.”