Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer?

by Ann Rule

  Once the pressure over Cheryl’s murder was somewhat off Brad, he started in on Brent again. He didn’t like his personality, he was too quiet, and he was boring. He told Brent that he thought he would probably turn out to be a serial murderer or someone like John Hinkley because he was too quiet. Brent was smart enough to feel that his father was projecting his own personality onto him.

  Asked about Brad’s treatment of his three younger sons, Brent told Capato he thought the three little boys were “scared to death” of their father because of his rigid schedules and routines. When Phillip was being toilet trained, for instance, Brad had sometimes punished him for mishaps by forcing him to sit on the toilet for as long as six and a half hours, “half the time crying, and in the dark.”

  Sara had tried to intervene when she was there and asked Brad to let up on the boys. She had also gone to Brent’s defense when Brad tried to kick him out over some transgression. “He threw a suitcase on the floor, threw all the dresser drawers on the floor, and began throwing things at the suitcase,” Brent said. “Sara came in crying and it was later resolved and everything was back to ‘normal’ as if nothing had happened.”

  Gradually, Mike Shinn and his investigators were going through the list of possible witnesses against Brad Cunningham: Lilya Saarnen, Betty and Marv Troseth, Jim Karr, all of whom had informative and often startling viewpoints on the man Shinn was about to meet in court. Jim Ayers was a tremendous help in re-creating the night of Cheryl Keeton’s murder and the investigation that followed. Greg Dallaire, Eric Lindenauer, and dozens of Cheryl’s coworkers at Garvey, Schubert and Barer were prepared to testify to the terror Cheryl had felt during the last year of her life.

  Shinn, Diane Bakker, Connie Capato, and Leslie Haigh were peeling the layers of Brad’s life away, and the further they peeled, the darker and more filled with poison he seemed to become. Here was a man who had had everything in life—good looks, money, success, power, beautiful women, perfect children—and yet nothing had been enough. Again and again, he had turned on the people who loved him—on his wives, on his children, on his mother and sisters. He was a cruel man and he appeared to be completely devoid of conscience. The more they learned about Brad, the more convinced they became that he had, indeed, been the person who bludgeoned his wife and the mother of his three little boys to death.

  But could they prove it?

  40

  Sara was back in her shaky marriage, if only temporarily. February 1990 was obviously a time of revelation for her, and she was coming to terms with some brutal truths. She was a strong woman; she had to be to have come so far in her career and to survive this strange and treacherous union with Brad. She no longer felt threatened by Brad, at least most of the time, and thought she could handle his temper tantrums and his hysterics. She recognized the “games” and the histrionics for what they were, and she still planned to stay only until the civil suit in Cheryl’s death was over.

  Since she had listened to his pleas to stand beside him through his trial, Sara certainly didn’t expect Brad to continue to cheat on her with Lynn Minero. A bargain was a bargain.

  But then, Brad was Brad. Sara was still wary, and still writing in her journal. “2–22–90, Thursday: Sometime during this week Brad repeated part of a conversation I had had only with my sister Rosemary from our bedroom phone when he was in Houston [Feb. 11]. It involved my losing a checkbook from U.S. Bank and wondering if he had taken it. I figured out that he must have recorded somehow in our bedroom. I had had numerous conversations from the kitchen phone and the office phone without his knowledge.”

  Now, Sara remembered that Brad had known other things he should have had no way of knowing. He knew that she had hired a private investigator, and he knew that she had asked her banker to change the credit line at her bank so Brad could not withdraw any more cash. Those were also things she had told her sister on the bedroom phone.

  Something was getting to Brad. He was “frantic” when he found out that Sara had spoken to Bill Schulte, a divorce attorney. “I told him no plans were made to file for a divorce—I simply wanted information and to secure an attorney for myself, since Brad had seen so many attorneys in the past.”

  On February 27, Sara wrote: “I walked over to the Hilton to wait for an 8:30 a.m. meeting with Brad and Wes [Urqhart, Brad’s Houston lawyer]. . . . Wes’s concern was about my guaranteeing the legal fees for Brad’s civil lawsuit. I told him I would do that. I also told him I had not filed for divorce and was unsure when and if I would. . . . Wes met with “Joe” Rieke and Jerry Elshire. Rieke also wanted me to guarantee Brad’s legal fees which I verbally agreed to do.”

  Sara did not delude herself that Brad wanted to keep her as his wife because he loved her. He needed financial cover, and she would do that. But she wasn’t doing it for Brad, she was doing it for the boys. She still believed they needed a father who was not in prison.

  Later that same day, Sara met again with Lynn Minero’s husband, Gary. She must have felt she was being pulled in a dozen different directions. Gary needed money too; Lynn was no longer working at the bakery and that put him in a bind. He said he needed $3,500, but only for sixty days; he would pay her back $5,000. Although the guilt was not her own, Sara knew it was Brad’s deviousness that had destroyed Gary’s marriage; he had small children, and his wife was clearly besotted with Brad. Sighing, she wrote a check for Gary’s living expenses.

  “We talked nonstop for an hour and I guess my overall reaction was one of relief because he confirmed almost everything that my instincts had been telling me about Brad and Lynn’s relationship. . . . Anyway, he asked Lynn if she was involved with Brad and . . . she broke down and told him everything. Things had started out with messing around in the office. She said they started having intercourse in the middle of December. . . . They usually went to the Red Lion Motel.”

  There were many more encounters, all the times when Brad had been away “on business.” According to Gary, Lynn blamed the affair on Sara. Brad had told her what “tight control” Sara kept over him. Sara and Brad had always talked two or three times a day “but he had come to resent the checking up on him. Brad had told Lynn he didn’t love me, he couldn’t stand to be around me, and he wanted her to leave Gary for him. Gary was concerned for my safety because Brad had told Lynn, ‘Don’t worry about Sara. I’ll take care of her,’ with no mention of working through a divorce with me.”

  “2–27–90: . . . Brad came home around 8:00 and did very little talking. Brad and the boys went to bed. . . . They were all in our bedroom and Brad locked the door. . . . I went to the apartment to sleep. . . . The next day, I decided to go ahead and file for divorce. I didn’t sleep very well at all at the apartment and decided to just stay at the hospital every night after that.”

  On February 28, Sara called her attorney Bill Schulte and told him about the past two days. She mentioned that she had given Brad’s attorney a check for fifteen thousand dollars and had promised to guarantee Brad’s legal fees in the civil suit. Schulte was appalled. For the first time in a long time, Sara had a champion—someone on her side. “Schulte went over to Rieke’s office and said I wouldn’t guarantee the fees. . . . Schulte was told that I had been having an affair with “this doctor in Baker” and that we [Brad and I] had always had a very open sexual arrangement.”

  Sara called Betty Troseth to tell her that she was leaving Brad. She wanted Cheryl’s mother to know that if anything ever happened to Brad she would look after Jess, Michael, and Phillip. Betty felt a familiar chill. She told Sara about the pervasive fear Cheryl had lived with in the last months of her life, of her belief that Brad would kill her. In the end, it had done Cheryl no good to be on guard. Betty said she was frightened for Sara, and for the boys too. She warned Sara to be very, very careful.

  Sara wrote, perhaps naively, “I look forward to the time when this whole mess is over with, and I can find out from Betty what Cheryl was really like. Of course, Brad has not painted a very flattering pic
ture of her to me—just like he painted a bad picture of me to Lynn. Betty said the first time she met me, she thought, ‘Oh no, there’s another Cheryl.’ It will be so good for the boys, especially Jess and Michael, to know what Cheryl was really like.”

  When Brad found out that Sara would no longer guarantee his legal fees, he began another fervent campaign to win back her love. He used pleas, and he issued threats and warnings. “Friday, 3–2–90: My case in surgery was cancelled. Thank Goodness! Had one conversation with Brad. He called me and said Burke and Shinn have won. He loves me and wants to talk with me. . . . He said Schulte doesn’t like him and might affect my feelings toward him. . . . Brad called again, says he’s lost 32 pounds, pleading with me not to get a divorce. There’s no good reason that our marriage should end. He can’t take another battle, another hassle in his life right now.”

  Brad warned Sara that “adversarial divorces” could have attorneys’ fees running over one hundred thousand dollars. “He says Rieke will not defend him if I don’t guarantee the legal fees. . . . He always loved me, but with ‘the knowledge of what I was doing,’ he sought comfort from Lynn. . . . It was due to the stress he was under from Shinn. . . . He said he never had anything [sexually] to do with Lynn. . . . He said we can gain trust in each other again.”

  Sara listened to Brad’s glib and persuasive words without expression. She recognized his lies too well now.

  Later that day, she took the three little boys to McMinnville to spend the night at her sister’s. Her cell phone rang twice but she didn’t answer it. She finally shut it off. She had other anesthesiologists covering for her at the hospital; no one needed her—except for Jess, Michael, and Phillip—and she didn’t want to hear any more of Brad’s pleas for reconciliation. He didn’t miss her, he missed her checkbook. He was about to find out that she had made her first and last payment on the Volvo station wagon Brad wanted to lease. That would make him absolutely furious, but she had decided to stop paying his way.

  The next morning, Sara called the boys’ baby-sitter and learned that Brad had been taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, suffering from chest pains. Once she had run to the ER, stricken with fear that she would lose Brad to a fatal heart attack. Not now. She had heard his cry of “Wolf” too many times. She took Michael and Phillip back to their sitter, and later, as she drove Jess to his basketball game, her car phone rang. It was Brad’s psychologist. “She said Brad was having an anxiety reaction. She wanted to talk with me to see how much of an emotional support I could be for Brad.”

  Emotional support, indeed. Sara did not rush to the hospital. She watched Jess play basketball. But her pager beeped. It was a nurse from Good Samaritan who told her that Brad asked that Sara stop by her apartment at Riverplace to pick up a letter he had left there for her.

  After the basketball game, Sara took Jess home and then went by her apartment. She felt an icy apprehension when she saw that somehow Brad had circumvented the tight security there and managed to slide a letter under her door.

  “I visited Brad in the ICU [intensive care unit] and he looked very pitiful and pathetic,” Sara wrote in her diary. “He had some IV’s in, was getting a Lidocaine infusion (No PVC’s on his EKG for a change) Nasal O/2 [oxygen] and was trying to sound very weak. He had me read the letter and then continued to tell me how much he loved me and wanted us to be together.”

  Brad told Sara how easily he had gotten into her apartment complex. “I told some women who were going in that my wife wasn’t answering the phone and I thought her phone wires were disconnected. They let me right in.”

  Sara knew she could never stay in her apartment again. Brad had such a guileless, charming way; he would always be able to get into any apartment she had—even the most security-conscious complexes. He was like smoke, able to creep beneath doors, through locked windows. There was no safety for her anymore.

  Looking at the “sick” man in the hospital bed, Sara felt nothing at all, except relief that he was in the hospital; it meant she could have one more night with the boys. “We went to dinner at Wan Fu’s and then stayed overnight in the trauma call room. It was a nice evening with them.”

  Sara kept the letter Brad had slipped under her door. Later that evening, something made her reread it. Brad had printed it in sprawling letters.

  My dearest wife,

  . . . I love you very much. . . . It may be too late . . . [but] our family is the most important part of my life.

  Brad wrote fervently that their problems should in no way be considered cause for divorce. He could not bear to let Sara go.

  We are humans. . . . I want to . . . rebuild our trust. I have made some mistakes—I sought refuge in Lynn when I thought there was no friendship or trust from you. . . .

  Brad explains, with his odd talent for reversing blame, that their marriage is in trouble mostly because of Sara’s omissions. If she had only given him an ultimatum sooner, everything could have been worked out. In essence, he was saying that it was her fault that he had continued his affair with Lynn for so many months.

  Moreover, he blamed his stress over the Houston lawsuit for whatever poor judgment he might have shown. Somehow, those worries had affected the way he felt about Sara. But he felt he was “o.k. now,” thanks to the fatherly concern shown by his attorneys, Wes Urquart and Joe Reike.

  Brad again reminded Sara that she had been less than direct with him. She should have been firmer when she accused him of having an affair with Lynn, and she should have told him he was working too many hours. “I know you think you were—but to me it takes a big message—in neon. . . .

  “I need you honey,” Brad pleaded,

  I need your love and affection—your mind, and your body. I can defeat those beasts in Houston with you. . . .

  I will renew our vows, pledge my support and understanding to you and work like you have never seen to strengthen our marriage and relationship. . . .

  I love you Honey,

  I need you.

  Your Husband

  Sara folded the letter and tucked it, without emotion, into her journal.

  The next day, Brad tried another tack. He told Sara he thought John Burke killed Cheryl. “Sunday, March 4: The motive was unrequited love. He then warned me to watch out—he may try to kill me too. Brad said to make sure I was always around people when I was on vacation.”

  Sara got the message. Brad had just told her that the person who killed Cheryl might try to kill her too.

  Apparently unaware of how seriously Sara took his not-quite-subliminal warning, Brad tried every device he could think of to keep her from filing for divorce. Since money was of paramount importance to him, he assumed everyone felt the same way and he kept reminding Sara of how much a complicated divorce would cost, upping the figure with every call.

  Next, Brad tried total honesty. “He said he’d like to tell me every detail about him and Lynn,” Sara wrote. “I told him I didn’t want to hear it.”

  Only six months earlier, Sara had been shocked to learn that Mike Shinn was attempting to file a civil suit against her husband, and she had chastised him for bringing more pain to her family. Now, she reached out tentatively to Shinn. She was not ready to admit to herself—and certainly not to anyone else—that she suspected that Brad had killed Cheryl. And yet she needed to know more. She needed to make some contact with the man who had been her friend years ago at Willamette University.

  Brad himself gave Sara an excuse to call Mike Shinn. He had been working out at the “Y” and he’d told Sara that he had seen Shinn there, watching him. “Brad felt intimidated by Mike Shinn,” she recalled. “He thought Mike was dangerous.”

  Sara knew that was patently ridiculous, but she called Shinn at home on March 4, 1990, and left a message asking him to call her at the hospital. He did a short time later, and she asked him if he belonged to the “Y” and worked out there.

  “Yeah, I do,” he told her.

  “Brad thinks you’re there to watch him.”

&
nbsp; Shinn laughed. “Sara, I wouldn’t recognize Brad if I bumped into him. He may have seen me working out, but I never noticed him. I only saw him once—at Jake’s—and that was for about half a minute.”

  An hour later, Sara talked with Brad. There was no way he could have bugged her phone at Providence Hospital, but it was almost as if he knew she had called Mike Shinn and that they had had a friendly conversation after she had asked him about the “Y.” Earlier in the day, Brad had begged her to stay with him because he loved her so, because “the family” needed to be together; now he was cold.

  “It was obvious already that I was now his enemy and the war had been waged. I couldn’t believe how fast he changed his whole demeanor toward me. He said we would each spend fifty thousand dollars in legal fees. He also said something about my using a fraudulent financial statement when getting the increase in credit at First Interstate Bank . . . this is a financial statement Brad prepared in January. . . .”

  Sara at least realized that even a pretense of marriage was impossible. Brad was now ready to talk about dividing up their furniture.

  41

  In the spring of 1990 the same rhododendrons bloomed in Portland, the same azaleas, the same sweet daphne—everything in nature was the same as it had been in the spring of 1986. And yet everything had changed and Sara’s word had reversed itself from a place filled with wondrous love to a dark abyss where loss and fear walked with her constantly.

  She had decided to move out of the house in Dunthorpe on March 5, and her journal entries showed that once Brad had accepted that, he set himself on what was, for him, a familiar path. “March 5, 1990: Brad moved all my clothes over to Rhonda’s [the baby-sitter’s] guest house in the morning. All my hanging clothes were on the couch. The clothes from my dresser and shelves were placed in brown paper bags and boxes.”