Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (47 page)

parking area of Garvey, Schubert and found all four of the studded

tires on her van had been slashed.
 
They had, indeed, been "taken care

of."

Within a very few days after Cheryl hired Betsy Welch and even before

Welch could file the necessary documents for her divorce, Cheryl called

her, very upset, and said that Brad had announced he would be moving

back in with herþat his attorney's suggestion.
 
Aks a general rule,

that was good advice, and Welch knew it.
 
There is no rule or law that

says a spouse who has moved out of the home cannot move back in.
 
In

child custody cases, the parent who moves out acknowledges that the

parent left behind with the children is providing acceptable care.
 
In

a disputed custody, this gives the parent who remains the upper hand.

Brad had lost too many custody battles.
 
Even Loni Ann, whom he had

seen as the weakest link in his chain of women, had prevailed in court

and had been awarded Kit and Brent.
 
Lauren had controlled his visits

with Amy.
 
He had let his first three children go, finally, because he

had Jess, Michael, and Phillipþthree bright, handsome sons who looked

so much like himself He was not about to let Cheryl have them.
 
They

were his trophies, his prizes.
 
They reflected his boundless ego,

miniature versions of himself who would validate his manhood, his

potency, and his power.

Betsy Welch immediately called Brad's current lawyer and explained why

she felt it would be a fruitless and emotionally damaging move for Brad

to return to Cheryl's Gresham house.
 
But Brad did exactly what he had

threatened to do.
 
When Cheryl got home from work on the Friday evening

of a long holiday weekend, she found him in her bedroom.
 
She was

horrified, and she was angry, but she was helpless to get him out.

Betsy Welch could not go into court until Tuesday morning to ask for an

order to remove Brad.
 
Cheryl knew he wasn't there for anything more

than to reestablish his legal beachhead.
 
"It was a very long,

confrontive, unpleasant weekend," Welch recalled.

Cheryl asked him to go, but Brad refused to budge.
 
At one point, he

took Jess with him and locked them both in the master bedroom for

hours.

He would not allow Cheryl in to get her clothes, her makeup, or

anything else she needed.
 
The boys were frantic, Cheryl was frantic,

but

Brad stayed put, as if he had never left his "home" at all.

although the house had six bedrooms, Cheryl slept on the couch in the

recreation room so that she could watch the stairs from the master

bedroom, she was afraid Brad might leave with the boys.

It was a ghastly three days, and Cheryl wondered hopelessly if Brad

actually intended to take up their sham of a marriage.
 
He acted as if

he was home again for good, and the thought was almost more than she

could bear.
 
Knowing that he would listen in to all her phone calls on

the bedroom extension, she nevertheless called her mother.
 
Trapped in

the house with Brad, she had to have someone to talk to.
 
As they

discussed the situation, Betty made a bad joke about ways to get rid of

Brad.

"Maybe we should just poison him," she said.
 
"I think I read someplace

that a woman did that to an abusive husband, and they let her go .

.."

Neither mother nor daughter realized what a devastating impact their

conversation would have on Brad.
 
He looked at everything from his own

point of viewþthe point of view of a man who had virtually no sense of

humor, who believed that the end (his end) justified the means (any

means), and who considered women spawn of the devil.

Even though Brad had told her that he had to spend the weekend with his

sons, Dr. Sara Gordon was blissfully happy, delighted with the new man

in her life.
 
She had no idea of the hell Cheryl Keeton was living

in.

Brad seemed to Sara to be very kind, very honest, and quite

remarkable.

Often she marveled at her good fortune in finding such a man.

Within weeks of their meeting, she was as anxious as he to have his

divorce finalized.
 
She was just as concerned as he was about his poor

children who had to spend so much time with the woman Brad had

described to her as a slut and an incompetent mother.
 
She knew that

Brad was only doing what he had to do to save his sons.

Of course, Brad had never intended to leave Sara or the comforts of his

new apartment permanently.
 
Once he had proven that he could move back

in anytime he pleased, he left Cheryl's house and returned to the

Madison Tower.

Both of them aware of the inflammatory possibilities in the divorce

action they were handling, Jake Tanzer and Betsy Welch worked together

to find the best solution not only for Cheryl and Brad but especially

for Jess, Michael, and Phillip.
 
Apparently, each of the parents loved

the boys, and the opposing attorneys hoped that a psychologist could

help establish which of the dueling parentsþif either, and if not both

þshould have custody of their sons.
 
They needed to know who was the

"primary" parent.
 
Where would the little boys fare better?
 
With their

mother?
 
With their father?

Tanzer suggested to Betsy Welch that they contact an expert who was not

under the aegis of the family court to be sure they had the most

unbiased evaluation possible.
 
Dr. Russell Sardo, quite probably the

leading clinical psychologist in the family counseling field in the

Portland area in the mid-eighties, agreed to consult.
 
He would attempt

to establish whether Brad or Cheryl was the primary parent.
 
Dr. Sardo

would talk to each of them separately, administer the M.M.P.I (the

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) to both, and then visit

with Jess, Michael, and Phillip and hope to get a fix on the family

dynamics.
 
After extensive testing and multiple interviews, Sardo would

then deliver copies of his report to Jake Tanzer and Betsy Welch.

Dr. Sardo spoke first with Brad, on March 23, 1986, and found him very

verbal and quite comfortable in communicating.
 
His body posture was

relaxedþas if he were a man whose career had been fuli of highpowered

meetings, as, indeed, it had been.
 
Brad explained to Dr. Sardo that

he and Cheryl had been married for six years and separated for one

month.

"I am the children's primary parentþI always have been," Brad said with

assurance.
 
"My wife loves the children very much, but I don't think

she likes them.
 
She is not a natural parent, the children were anz

idea."

Brad stressed that he had been the one who longed to have chiidren in

their home, while Cheryl had always seen her legal career as her main

goal in life.
 
although he assumed that Cheryl's profession would equip

her to be a superior litigator and make her a trained negotiator, Dr.

Sardo wondered if he might not be speaking to the "skilled negotiator"

of this family.

Brad was very glib and dynamic.
 
And his description of Cheryl's

parenting abilities was devastating.
 
He told Sardo that she was not a

nurturer, she had no patience, she was overreactive and loses control,

and she was critical and condemning when dealing with her small sons.

He said that Cheryl often yelled at the boys, calling them "fuckers"

and "little assholes."

Cheryl's career took precedence over everything else in her life,

according to Brad.
 
She was alwav.s gone and it was his perception

that

Cheryl found it very difficult even to be around the childrenþunless

of course, she had someone to help her care for them.
 
Brad sighed a.s

he told Sardo that Cheryl just didn't have the inclination or the

skills to cope with the complete care of Jess, Michael, and Phillip.

"Perhaps hedonistic' would describe Cheryl," Brad said.
 
And he went on

to describe her as "a very sexual person" who had been "promiscuous.

Dr. Sardo listened quietly now as the man sitting in his office tried

to wipe out his wife with words.
 
The Cheryl Keeton that Brad sketched

sounded, indeed, like a selfish, dissolute woman who wouldn't be a good

mother for any child.
 
But Sardo had listened to a thousand couples

argue over their children, and he had long ago learned to reserve

judgment until he had heard both principals out.

Smiling expansively, Brad went on to say that he, on the other hand had

been absolutely faithful in his marriage.
 
As remote as such a

possibility might be, he said he actually hoped for a reconciliation.

He wanted nothing more than to be back with Cheryl and his children in a

solid family unit.
 
It had always been Cheryl who wanted the divorce.

He felt further, that she was seeking custod!
 
of their three boys not

because she wanted them, but "because she is combative."

Sardo was a little bemused by Brad.
 
He was, at the very least, a very

complicated man.
 
Sardo found him quite intelligent and sophisticated

and vet he caught inconsistencies in Brad's statements, jarring

discrepancies that a man of his obvious brilliance should have noted

and censored before they ever passed his lips.
 
Although Brad had

stressed early in the mtervlew how scrupulously faithful he had been

throughout his marriage, he suddenly reversed himself and described a

period when he and Cheryl had had an "open marriage."
 
During this

time, Brad admitted, he had had an affair with their nineteen-year-old

baby-sitter.
 
It hadn't lasted too long, and he had told Cheryl about

it.

"And how did she react?"

"We still kept her as our baby-sitter for months after that," Brad

replled.