Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (24 page)

could not understand how he could have married someone as stupid as she

was.
 
Loni Ann was bewildered.
 
She had believed that Brad loved her.

She hadn't changed, except to become a mother.
 
But Brad's behavior

toward her was suddenly and inexplicably cruel.

He insisted that she dress in a way that demeaned her.
 
He bought her

tiny little minidresses and push-up bras.
 
She looked like a hooker.

She was a young mother and she could hardly bend over to pick up Kit

without showing her underwear.
 
When Rosemar remarked about how

inappropriate her clothes were, Loni Ann blushed.
 
"I hate the way-l

look," she said, "hut this is all that Brad buys me to wear."

Brad was consumed with Gals Galore.
 
Loni Ann knew only what he told

her about the place and that frightened her.
 
He referred to "orders

coming down from Reno and Vegas."

"Brad said that was why they went topless," she said.
 
"Those were the

orders from Nevada."

When Brad gave up his football scholarships, Loni Ann was shocked.

How could he walk away from his lifetime dream?
 
Now the was working

with people who cared only about money.
 
Brad was away from home every

day from two in the afternoon until daylight.
 
She had no idea what he

did while he was gone, but he would come home "really pumped" because

the "big shots' from Vegas had been up for a confab.
 
And sometimes

Brad brought home television sets and furniture.
 
She didn't know where

he got them.

Kit s birth had marked the beginning of the disintegration of their

marriage, and Brad s verbal abuse escalated into physical violence.

The first time he pushed her, Loni Ann was shocked, but she explained

it away.
 
The second time he used force on her it wasn't so easy to

deal with.
 
But with every passing month Brad's physical assaults grew

in intensity and freclucncy.
 
"He would hit me," Loni Ann recalled many

years later.
 
He would grab me by the arms and bang me against the

wallþthrow me to the lloor, kick me, bang my head into the floor.

He hit me across the tace with his forearm .
 
. . split my lip."

She could never deternaine just what it was she was doing wrong.

She finally came to believe that it was just who she was.
 
Certainly,

Brad was growing beyond her in sophistication and in education.
 
He was

out in the world, becoming more and more competent in dealing with

people.

He was so smart and she was an eighteen-year-old girl with a new baby,

who helped support them by clcaning toilets and scrubbing floors.
 
She

knew she was probably boring to Brad.
 
At the same time Loni Ann was

puzzled at how possessive he had become.
 
He wanted to know where she

was every moment of the day.
 
That was kind of silly since she had

neither the inclination nor the opportunity to be with any man but

Brad.

And when Loni Ann had the temerity to ask if she might attend some

college classes, he laughed.
 
"That would be a real waste of moneyþ

you're too stupid to learn."

Brad was doing so well in his job managing the tavern that he concluded

it was ridiculous for him to continue at the University of

Washington.

He was going to college to prepare for a career where he could make

money, but he was already making money.
 
He dropped out of school,

although he would eventually return and gain his degree in Business

Administration in 1978 when he realized that a degree meant money in

the bank.
 
Brad was on his way to be the success he had always

envisioned.

Loni Ann was afraid when Brad was working for Gals Galore.
 
One time

she could see that he was really worried about something.
 
He wouldn't

discuss tavern business with her, but he instructed her, "Don't open

the doorþnot for anyone."
 
He was gone into the wee hours of the

morning and that made her more afraid.

Loni Ann was relieved when Brad went to work for a life insurance

company and then started his own business as a real estate entrepreneur

in the early 1970s.
 
He called his fledgling corporation "B.M.C. and

Associates."
 
Brad had not turned out to be the Big Man on Campus

everyone expected, but B.M.C. and Associates took off He proved to be a

natural.
 
People responded positively to him.
 
He had such an easy way

about him, making everyone he met believe that he sincerely liked them

and that knowing him would improve their lives and fortunes

immeasurably.
 
He exuded charm and capability at the same time.
 
It was

a talent, a genuine talent.
 
It didn't matter that his office was only

a little hole in the wall.
 
Brad had a million-dollar personality.

They were still living at the Mark Manor apartments in 1970 when Loni

Ann found she was pregnant again.
 
It was not an easy pregnancy, and

Brad was far less entranced with the idea of being a father than he had

been with their first baby.
 
After a long, difficult labor, Loni Ann

gave birth to Brad's second child and his first son on December 9,

1970.

Brent Morris* was only thirteen months younger than Kit.
 
Loni Ann had

come very close to dying during her exhausting labor, and she was too

weak to take care of her new son.
 
Brad's sister Ethel looked after the

red-headed baby until Loni Ann was strong enough to take over.

Gradually but inexorably, invisible walls rose higher around Loni

Ann.

There came a time when she had no freedom at all.
 
She had to account

to Brad for every minute of her life.
 
Their apartment was midway

between Burien and White Center, and since Brad always had the car,

Loni Ann had to walk several blocks either way to reach a grocery

store.
 
Brad ordered her to let him know whenever she would he gone

from the apartment and for precisely how long.
 
With a one-year-old and

a newborn to carry along on all her errands, it was difficult for Loni

Ann to know how long it was going to take her to get groceries and walk

home.
 
She often found herself running in a panic toward their

apartment in a futile effort to meet Brad's immutable schedule.

Brad's power over Loni Ann eventually expanded to the point where she

was not allowed to take the babies outside to play, or to go to the

playground, without notifying him.
 
He instructed her that she must

call either him or his receptionist and leave a message to tell him

where she was going.
 
If she went to get the mail from the box

downstairs and he called twice without reaching her, Brad left work and

came home.
 
He punished loni Ann for such grievous misconduct and he

did it physically.
 
Brad would backhand her and she would stagger

across the room and crumple to the floor.

Loni Ann didn't tell anyone.
 
Brad was nice to everybody but her.

"I was embarrassed and ashamed that my own husband would treat me so

poorly," she confessed.

It got worse.
 
After they had been married three years, Loni Ann was

the object of Brad's beatings two or three times a month.
 
Still, she

didn't tell anyone.
 
Once when she had tried to argue hack, Brad had

looked at her and said quietly, "You know, I could have things done to

you if I wanted to...."

This was the man she had loved since she was fifteen.
 
This was the man

she had believed was "absolutely, positively, one of the mostest

wonderful persons I've had the pleasure of getting to know."
 
Loni Ann

realized, far too late, that she no longer knew her husband at all.

Perhaps she had never really known Brad.
 
All she knew was that he was

ashamed of her, and that she and the babies seemed to mean nothing to

him.
 
And after a while, Loni Ann couldn't understand why Brad wouldn't

just let her go.
 
He didn't want her.
 
He had convinced her that no one

would want her.
 
They had both been very young when they got married,

and they had married because Loni Ann was pregnant.
 
Maybe they never

really had a chance at a lasting relationship.
 
Still, they stayed

together, working at cross-purposes perhaps, but together.

Loni Ann had no idea at all where she was.
 
She had come to this dark

place in a car with Brad.
 
She remembered that much, that part was not

a dream.
 
She knew she had wakened slowly from a nauseous, drunken

stupor as they hurtled through the night.
 
It was totally out of

character for her to get drunk.
 
Her life had become such a tenuous

balancing act that she needed, always, to watch and be ready.
 
She

never drank, nothing more than a beer or two, that was probably why the

drinks at the party had hit her like truth serum, loosening her

tongue.

Then she had thrown up until her insides felt sprained and bruised, but

it was too late.

The alcohol was already in her bloodstream.
 
She didn't weigh that much

in the first place.
 
Loni Ann had passed out from the combination of

alcohol and humiliation.

She could not really remember leaving the party.
 
She had a blurred

recollection of Brad dragging her out of the house and away from the

others.
 
Her arms hurt where his fingers had left deep indentations.

She was used to it now.
 
Brad was knocking her around regularly, but he

was always careful that the marks he left could be covered up by a

longsleeved, high-necked blouse.
 
That was the only time he let her

wear modest clothes.
 
He didn't want anyone to know he was hitting