Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer?

by Ann Rule

  Cheryl was determined to work her way back through Brad’s past. She was going to find Rosemary and Ethel and Susan. She would try to get Loni Ann and Cynthia and Lauren to testify for her. She did not yet know the details of all of Brad’s previous marriages, divorces, and child custody cases, but she had reason to suspect they had been much like hers, and she was going to validate her suspicions. She was a woman on fire, prepared to ignore her own terror and throw herself into what seemed—at least to her—a life-and-death struggle.

  Cheryl was adamant that she would handle the witness list for her divorce trial—so adamant, in fact, that Betsy Welch was a bit put off. After all, Cheryl had hired her, yet sometimes it seemed she wanted to run her own case, and any attorney knows that “he who represents himself has a fool for a client.” But Cheryl was so caught up in this divorce and custody action that she had forgotten. “Don’t worry about the witnesses,” she told Welch. “I’ll have the witnesses.”

  Cheryl’s decision to open up Brad’s past to scrutiny may have been a fatal move. But she didn’t care. She was a tigress, obsessed with protecting her young. She was no longer cowed. She was no longer afraid. She feared no humiliation. She had become the worst enemy that Brad Cunningham had ever known. And the most dangerous.

  28

  Brad was angry when Dr. Russell Sardo declared that Cheryl was the primary parent of their children. More than most men, he considered himself an exceptional father, and he was sincerely dumbfounded when Dr. Sardo didn’t understand. He had pulled out all the stops when he talked with Sardo, certain he had won him over. Now he doubted Sardo’s competence as a psychologist.

  Under ordinary circumstances, Brad might have raged more at Cheryl over Sardo’s decision than he did. But it was during the week following his sessions with Sardo that he met Sara Gordon. And she seemed to be everything that Cheryl no longer was to Brad. She was as beautiful as Cheryl, but she was daintier, more delicate, and seemingly more pliant. True, their first date had been a little stilted, but then Brad turned on the charm and Sara responded. And he had quickly determined she had a handsome income, several times as much as Cheryl’s.

  Brad plunged into an intense relationship with Sara almost immediately and was soon courting her with his experienced and well-honed romantic fervor. As far as Sara knew—and all her information came from Brad’s lips—Cheryl was a monstrous mother, a faithless wife, and a morally loose woman. Brad would make sure that his about-to-be-ex-wife and his new love did not meet face-to-face. His relationship with Sara had nothing whatsoever to do with his determination to gain custody of his sons. Sara was the next step up for him; Cheryl was old—but very pressing—business.

  Even so, when his efforts to get custody of Jess, Michael, and Phillip were met by Cheryl’s inflexible stance and her temporary victory, it didn’t send Brad into one of his customary rages. He was still angry at Cheryl, but he had Sara to talk to now. She was on his side. Quite probably, their love affair made the summer of 1986 far more serene for everyone concerned than it otherwise would have been. Cheryl was still uneasy. When you have been living in a war zone and the shelling suddenly stops, the ensuing silence is eerie. She didn’t trust the quiet, didn’t believe for a moment that Brad had given up. He had moved back in with her once; she had no guarantee that he wouldn’t move in again.

  In June, to forestall such an eventuality, Cheryl invited her half brother, Jim Karr, to share her home with her and the boys. She could no longer afford the Gresham house and she looked for a rental more within her means. Her law career was just as remunerative as it had always been—even more so—but she would have to put away funds to pay for the legal fight she knew lay ahead. And so she made arrangements to rent a house on 81st Street in the West Slope area west of Portland just beyond the zoo. The public schools there were good. It would be another fresh start. And this time, she prayed, it would be a lasting one.

  There was no way she could keep her new address secret from Brad—he had to know where his sons were living—but she could move to a place where bleak and frightening memories didn’t mark every room. Cheryl wouldn’t be any farther away from Brad; actually his apartment at the Madison Tower was equidistant from Gresham and the West Slope. Nothing would change the fact that Brad still had dominion over Jess, Michael, and Phillip for nearly half of each week.

  Having her half brother live with her would make Cheryl feel safer. It wasn’t that Jim was a muscular hunk—actually, he was a slender young man whom Brad could easily have broken in two—but he would be another adult there in the house with her. That meant a lot to Cheryl, having somebody to talk to, someone who loved her, and a link to a time in her past when life was much simpler and much safer. But even the seemingly innocuous move of inviting Jim to move in with her set off another skirmish. Brad doubted that Karr was capable of caring for his three sons. He demanded that he have psychological testing to determine if he was suited for child care. Cheryl had warned Jim that Brad was prone to off-the-wall demands, so he shrugged and agreed to be tested. Jim met with Dr. Sardo for forty-five minutes in July of 1986, and Sardo reported that he would do just fine with Jess, Michael, and Phillip. Grudgingly, Brad agreed to the arrangement.

  Jim Karr was a journeyman carpenter and he had enough free time to help his half sister out. He and Cheryl would be able to mesh their schedules so that one or the other of them was always with the boys. The arrangement was symbiotic. Cheryl would give Jim fifty dollars a week, room and board, and gasoline and other necessities.

  That summer Cheryl and Brad continued to alternate time with the boys, pending the outcome of their divorce. July and August were almost spookily tranquil. When Brad asked to take his sons on vacation, Cheryl acquiesced without arguing. Even though the fear that he would simply disappear and take her children with him walked with her always, Cheryl knew about Brad’s relationship with Sara Gordon. She was reassured when Brad told her Sara was going along on their vacation. Sara had a practice to come back to and a solid reputation. Cheryl didn’t know Sara, but the boys liked her. It hardly seemed probable that she would help Brad hide the children from their mother. Her intuition was right. Brad brought the boys back on time. And Cheryl could breathe again.

  Meanwhile, she continued her investigation of Brad as if she were preparing for the biggest trial of her life—as, indeed, she was. She kept meticulous notes of every encounter she had with him. Brad was unaware that all of his phone conversations with Cheryl were written down and marked with date and time.

  Cheryl confided in Eric Lindenauer. She had been his mentor when he was a fledgling lawyer at Garvey, Schubert and now Eric attempted to be her protector and her confidant. Cheryl needed someone to talk to, someone with whom she could explore her doubts, her suspicions, and her fears. Eric was more than a decade younger than she was, and they had never had anything other than the most platonic of relationships, but he loved her as a brother would love her.

  Although Cheryl had not been actively involved in Brad’s business dealings during their marriage, common law made her a partner. Sometimes her signature had been required on documents; more often, she didn’t have to sign to be equally responsible: she was Brad’s wife. She had become aware of irregularities that troubled her. She told Eric that Brad hadn’t filed returns on his business income for the past three years. Before that, she said he had put false information on the returns he had filed. Cheryl had seen vast amounts of money pass through his hands; she had never been sure where it came from or where it went. She knew that Brad had owned heavy equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars—equipment that should have been listed when he filed for bankruptcy. All assets remaining in a bankrupt estate are legally supposed to be marshaled to pay creditors, and a trustee appointed to see that that happened. “Brad’s got construction equipment that’s never been accounted for,” Cheryl told Eric. “I’m sure he’s hidden it over near Yakima someplace. He’s driving brand-new vehicles. Nobody who’s bankrupt could have so much.”
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  Brad was still living at the Madison Tower like a man who had money to burn. Before his job with Citizens’ ended in mid-April, a professional “headhunter” had placed him in his top position with U.S. Bank. The bank had purchased his personal vehicle, a Volkswagen Cabriolet, and given it back to him to use. His new job paid close to one hundred thousand dollars a year and came with perks too numerous to list. He was basically in charge of all the commercial property loans in the Spectrum division of U.S. Bank. He hadn’t exaggerated to Sara when he told her about his position. He was at the top of the heap. There was the possibility of a multimillion-dollar award in his pending suit. But he didn’t have it yet, and the Houston law firm handling the case would undoubtedly take a large chunk of any payoff. Cheryl was concerned that Brad was spending a tremendous amount of money to maintain his upscale lifestyle, more money than even he made.

  Eric Lindenauer could see that Cheryl was on the offensive; she was through looking the other way and she would never make an excuse for Brad again. He, of all people, had seen Cheryl in action in the courtroom, and her offensive was tough. She confided that Brad had paid virtually nothing toward their household expenses for years. Even when he had worked for Citizens’ Savings as an upper-echelon executive, Cheryl had paid all the bills. “Maybe he’d buy pizza once in a while,” she said bitterly.

  Eric considered Brad “a major jerk—he was not a nice person.” He felt sorry for Cheryl, and he was amazed that a man like Brad could ever have attracted a woman like her in the first place. She was one of the most brilliant lawyers he had ever encountered. “Cheryl was fearless in court—one of the fastest people on her feet I’ve ever seen,” Eric commented. “Brad Cunningham was the only one to intimidate her. . . . She was the easiest person to like. Besides Brad, she had no other enemies.”

  Brad had quite clearly become an enemy. But that went both ways. Cheryl’s intimate knowledge of Brad’s machinations made her a threat to him. If he was only a blowhard, full of sound and fury and veiled threats, Brad couldn’t do physical harm to Cheryl. He had her on the ropes, but she was fighting back now, and she could be a formidable opponent.

  In August, when the time neared for Jess and Michael to be enrolled in school, the long, deceptively cool summer began to heat up. Brad’s phone calls had a new, more menacing undertone. And Cheryl continued to write down every word, every phrase. She often showed her notes to her brother Jim. “. . . Called my mother a lying slut on the phone when he called back.” “Won’t give me keys to get tires myself. If not resolved, he will dispose of tires.” Jim occasionally drove the van. He used her keys that she kept on a round leather key ring—car keys and house keys. She had separate office keys.

  Cheryl’s life was a paradox that summer. One part of her lived in the world of the devoted mother and successful young attorney. There were men who found her attractive, men who called and wanted to date her. Occasionally—very occasionally—she went out, but she always seemed to be listening, always waiting for something to happen. She was never completely with anyone, because another role she had assumed was that of quarry. There was no mystery about whom she feared. It was Brad. She had come to a place where she constantly watched her back.

  Eric knew that there was nothing he—or anyone—could do legally to protect Cheryl from Brad. It is one of the necessary incongruities of the law that one cannot call the police and report a crime about to happen. If that were possible, police dispatchers could never find enough officers to respond. Most of the frightening threats made in anger—or in drunkenness—are never carried out. True, restraining orders can be obtained, but they are only paper. Enraged stalkers are rarely put off by the words on a legal document.

  Brad obviously didn’t love Cheryl anymore, but he had a new woman and Eric certainly didn’t think he might physically assault Cheryl. He never had before, no matter how angry he was with her. The police would probably have dismissed such a notion, too. These were two professional people with too much to lose for them to engage in physical encounters. Eric tried to keep that thought in mind. Cheryl’s sister Susan agreed. She would recall saying, “I’m not afraid of Brad, Cheryl. He’s not going to hurt you—he’s not that dumb.”

  On August 13 Cheryl enrolled Jess in Bridlemile Grade School on the West Slope. Eric went along with her because she was afraid Brad might show up and make trouble. He didn’t, and she was relieved.

  Brad and Cheryl divided their three sons’ time as precisely as if King Solomon himself had shaved the days of the week with a fine-edged sword. He had the little boys Tuesday and Wednesday and every other weekend from precisely 7 P.M. on Friday to precisely 7 P.M. on Sunday. Neither one would permit the other to be even five minutes late in returning the boys from a visitation. Cheryl complained to confidants that Brad brought the boys back in faded old clothes, although they left her house in new garments. Phillip’s new carseat disappeared and was replaced by an old one.

  The most basic chores of everyday living had become a struggle. Cheryl had a brief respite when she took the boys on vacation with her. Her fear dissipated with every mile away from Portland. She spent Labor Day with her half sisters Debi Bowen and Kim Roberts—Floyd Keeton’s daughters by his second wife, Gabriella—and their families in Vacaville, California. But she had to leave early to get back; she had to be sure that Jess had a good start at his new school.

  September 2 was Jess’s first day at Bridlemile School. Eric had arranged to pick up Cheryl very early in the morning so they could drop Michael at his preschool, and also avoid Brad if he came to the house. Cheryl and Eric had just arrived at Bridlemile School with Jess when Brad suddenly appeared, carrying Phillip. Moments later, they were engaged in a clash of wills that appalled the principal, Peter Hamilton. Never before and never again would he see parents so out of control. “These people hated each other,” he would recall.

  The cause of their argument was not that unusual. Hamilton had seen any number of divorced parents who disagreed over where their children would go to school. It was the ferocious intensity of the fight between Cheryl and Brad that alarmed Hamilton. While scores of parents, first graders, and kindergartners stared, stunned, Brad was calling his wife a “slut” and a “cunt” and he looked at her with venom and naked hatred in his eyes. Here in a sunny hallway that smelled of wax and crayons and fresh first-day-of-school clothes, Cheryl and Brad seemed about to come to blows. Hurriedly, Hamilton ushered them into his office where they could talk without everyone in the building hearing them.

  Brad was enraged because he wanted Jess to go to Chapman School in downtown Portland, where he lived. Further, he was furious that his name did not even appear on the application for enrollment to Bridlemile. Cheryl had left the square marked “Father” blank. For twenty minutes, Brad and Cheryl railed at each other. Even with Hamilton’s attempts at mediation, nothing was settled—except they all agreed that Brad’s name should be added to the Bridlemile registration card. There was no agreement on where Jess would go to school.

  The excited little boy’s first day of school had been ruined. And Hamilton was so shaken by the confrontation that he jotted down what had happened on a five-by-seven card. He really didn’t have to; he could never forget the hatred that had suffused his office with an almost palpable cloud. He wondered how those two parents could ever have gotten close enough to each other to conceive the poor little boy who shrank against the wall as they fought over him.

  Brad told Sara about the scene at Bridlemile. He reported that Cheryl had yelled and screamed at him, that she had hit him, and that, in general, she had behaved like a trampy fishwife. “My impression from Brad was that Cheryl had caused the scene,” Sara recalled. “Brad said he was holding little Phillip in his arms and Cheryl screamed and caused a really big commotion. He said she almost hit Phillip while he was in Brad’s arms. He was very angry and upset.”

  After all the screaming and fighting, Jess was finally allowed to attend first grade at Bridlemile. He went to Bridlemi
le from September 2, 1986, until Friday, September 19. He had seventeen days of an almost normal childhood. After that, everything would change.

  Seeing her son in tears because his first day at school had been ruined, something in Cheryl had rebelled. She would give her little boys a normal childhood, no matter what it took. She would no longer allow Brad to play his terrible games with their lives. Yes, she had agreed to shared custody, but she no longer believed that either she or the boys would survive emotionally if that continued. She now wanted full custody; she wanted Brad out of her life, and out of their lives. She had been gathering evidence for months, and she was finally ready to face the thing she feared most.

  And that was Bradly Morris Cunningham.

  29

  Cheryl continued taking notes of everything her estranged husband said to her—both at home and when he called her at her office. She often read her notes aloud to Jim, or handed over the tablet for him to read. Eric Lindenauer was also aware that Cheryl was documenting all of her contacts or calls with Brad. Ostensibly she was getting ready for her day in divorce court. But literally, and almost unbelievably, she was preparing for another eventuality. If she should not be around to face Brad in court, she wanted a written record to exist of all that had taken place in the final months of her marriage.

  Jim didn’t want to talk with Cheryl about the dread possibilities she sometimes envisioned, but he listened as she spoke softly to him. “She let me know that she had changed her will so that Brad would have no control over her estate,” Jim said. Cheryl was no longer fearful only of losing her sons. She was afraid that they would lose her, that something might happen to her, something so subtle that it would seem tragic—but not criminal.