Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (106 page)

the same day, and that day was now long past.

Whether he would admit it or not, Brad was finding that the law was far

more intricate than he was prepared for.
 
Much of the testimony that he

wanted to elicit was closed off to him.
 
Again and again, Judge

Alexander reminded him that his questions centered on areas that he

should have handled when he was cross-examining Upham's witnesses.

Alexander sawþif Brad could notþthat many of his proposed witnesses

would damage his case.
 
But Brad refused to listen to most of

Alexander's warnings.
 
"At some point I can't protect him from all his

choices," Alexander said with resignation.
 
"I've tried to do that

through this whole trial."

Overriding Judge Alexander's warning, Brad called Phil Margolin, his

first attorney after the murder, and tried to get him to Ssay that the

Washington County D.A."s office had "kidnapped" his sons to testify

before the grand jury.
 
Margolin denied it.
 
The objections flew so

fast that the only information that came from this witness was that

Sara was the one who had paid for Brad's consultations with

Margolinþnot a particularly positive point for his case.

Often Judge Alexander had to remind Brad that he had run out of proper

questions.
 
"You're done, Mr. Cunningham.
 
The witness may step

down."

Brad called the tow truck driver who allegedly had told him that Cheryl

had made a date with Jerry Finch for later on the night she was

killed.

He wanted to reinforce his contention that Finch deliberately destroyed

evidence that would link him to Cheryl.

"What did it matter, [assumingj that Finch allegedly said he had a date

later with Cheryl?"
 
Alexander asked wearily.

Undeterred, Brad suggested that the missing garage door opener might

have been to Finch's garage.
 
"Evidence was destroyed," he said

again.

"I'm not saving that Mr.
 
Finch was the murderer...."

Brad seemed to be writing a Perry Mason script and Judge Tim Alexander

wasn't buying it.
 
Jerry Finch had been a happily married bridegroom.

There was no evidence whatsoever to show that he had ever seen Cheryl

before he viewed her body the night she died.
 
Alexander would not

admit testimony regarding Detective Finch from the tow truck driver, or

any testimony on "the Finch connection."
 
It was all hearsay.

Nevertheless, Brad tried again when he questioned Harley James Collins

Jr the tow truck driver who hauled away Cheryl s van.

"Was Finch upset?"
 
he asked.

"Objection!"
 
Upham said.

"Sustained."

"Was he emotionally disturbed?"
 
Objectiorl!" ' "Sustained."

Once more, Judge Alexander sent the jury out.
 
He pinioned Brad with

his stare and told him that he could be held in contempt of court for

asking questions he had been repeatedly warned about.
 
"I can sentence

you to jail for six months each time you do that," Alexander said.

"You could stay in jail longer than you might if you were convicted in

this trial."

"I'm walking just on the edge," Brad countered defiantly.

"And you're stumbling overþ" Brad had always argued with anyone who did

not agree with him.

Stubbornly he was arguing now with Judge Alexander.

"This is why we go to law school, Mr.
 
Cunningham," the judge said.

"It's a sophisticated concept.

Brad's witnesses remained elusive and he volunteered to fill the time

until someone showed up.
 
Was it an act of pure bravura?
 
Perhaps

not.

He had longed to get on the stand.
 
Hadn't he always been able to talk

his way out of anything?

Judge Alexander warned Brad of the dangers of taking the witness stand

himself.
 
The defendant in a criminal trial does not have to testify,

but if he does, he opens himself to cross-examination and to questions

from the prosecution whose answers might totally destroy him.

"Carefully consider the risk you place yourself in if you take the

stand," Alexander said.

Brad barely nodded, anxious to talk directly to the jury.
 
"I want the

jury to know that this will just be a portion of my testimony," he

said, adding that he would have much more to say.

"Okay.
 
If other witnesses show up, we'll take them."

Brad was smiling broadly and he shook his head when Alexander suggested

that he have Kevin Hunt or Tim Lyons question him on the stand.
 
No, he

was determined to go it alone.
 
As he limped to the witness chair,

hampered ever so slightly by the brace on his left leg, he was totally

in his element.
 
He sat, poised and supremely confident, waiting for

the jury to file into the courtroom.

It was 2:45

P.M. on Thursday, December 1, 1994, and suddenly the witness was Brad

Cunningham himself.
 
There was no one elseþat least not on that day.

He was the only witness he had, but he seemed quite comfortable to be

testifying.

Brad began with a brief autobiography of the years before he met and

married Cheryl.
 
He made no mention of his three previous wives.
 
And

oddly, in his description of his life with Cheryl, almost all he talked

about was his financial empire.
 
The jurors' eyes glazed over as he

told them in a friendly, confidentially soft voice about the huge

amounts of money he had madeþand lost.
 
"Debts of four million nine

hundred thousand dollarsþbut assets of fourteen million seven hundred

sixteen thousand..."
 
He spoke of banks, venture partners, his

construction equipment, his apartment complexes, his office buildings,

his laundromat, the homes in Tampico that he and Cheryl had bought, the

hay crop he had harvested.
 
The figures he tossed around were more than

most people made in three lifetimes.

During his first hour as a witness in his own defense, Brad didn't even

mention Cheryl's murder, but he talked in a mournful voice about having

to sell "the boys' house" in 1992.
 
"I got-a court order in Yakima and

a fair price of fifty-nine thousand nine hundred dollars, but the boys

and I only realized six or seven hundred dollars.
 
We sold because we

were behind in our taxes."

Brad's testimony was a litany of his own financial misfortunes caused,

always, by someone elseþBob McNannay, Saraþnever through his own

actions.
 
But after he had declared bankruptcy and everything seemed

lost, he told the jury, his and Cheryl's suit in Houston had finally

been settled in 1991.
 
In a settlement, the contractor would pay Brad

$380,000, and the bonding insurer Brad had sued lost in court and was

ordered to pay $609,700þplus interest.
 
The award ended up to be l

$1,765,537.49.
 
But all that was virtually wiped out by what Brad owed

Vinson and Elkins and other creditors.
 
"It took eight years," he said

proudly, "but we won."

A wave of what seemed to be genuine pain and loss swept across Brad's

face as he ended his testimony by saying, "It was very sad.
 
It wasn't

something that should have happened...."
 
The courtroom was hushed and

those listening expected Brad to say how sad it was that Cheryl hadn't

lived to realize they had finally won their suit.
 
Instead, he

repeated, "It was very sad.
 
We didn't have to declare bankruptcy at

all."

Judge Alexander had ruled that he would allow DNA testimony into the

trial, and Scott Upham would not rest his case until Dr. Cecilia Von

Beroldingen had presented the DNA analysis for the prosecution.
 
Dr.

Von Beroldingen had been left legally blind after surgery for a brain

tumor.

But she remained one of the outstanding experts on DNA in the country,

and she was able to testify with the use of magnifying devices.
 
She

was presently in California training with a guide dog.
 
She had already

flown back to Portland once to testify, and she would have to fly back

again because of the incompetent way Brad was handling his defense.

The trial, expected to be finished by Thanksgiving, was headed toward

Christmas with no sure end in sight.
 
In mid-trial, in an unusual move

Judge Alexander ordered that Brad be examined by psychologistsþone

chosen by the State, and one by Alexander himselfþto see if he was

indeed competent to conduct his own defense.
 
By Monday, December 5, it

would be decided whether the trial would continue with Brad acting as

the sole defense "attorney," or if there might even be a mistrial.

The question made for a glum weekend.
 
The Christmas lights were up all

along Main Street in Hillsboro and on the giant fir on the courthouse

lawn.

Nobody involved in this case seemed to have noticed.

On Monday, Judge Alexander excluded everyone but the principals and the

press from the courtroom.
 
Brad, as usual, had a number of issues to

take up with the judge, issues concerning the unfair way he felt he was

being treated.
 
With Kevin Hunt attempting to run interference for him,

Brad began to speak.
 
"My positionþ" Hunt quickly explained that the

first issue Brad was about to bring up had already been ruled upon.

Brad wanted a DNA report from his expert.

But that was not all.
 
He said he couldn't get his out-of-state

witnesses to court.
 
He felt he could not count on his attorneys to

find them.

"I can't get time with Lyons," he complained.
 
"I had other