Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (48 page)

Sardo's expression betrayed none of his private thoughts, gave no hint

of the weighing and evaluating of information that was going on in his

mind.
 
Brad plunged ahead, figuratively tearing Cheryl apart so that

she seemed to be a woman with no virtues whatsoeverþbeyond intelligence

and a vigorous work ethic.

Early on, Brad had described himself as the "primary parent."
 
But now

he recalled that he had begun that role only after his business

reverses.
 
"My bankruptcy changed meþalmost destroyed me.
 
. . I

concluded that a career and money are just not that important and that

my primary commitment to the children [takes precedence].... I will not

work more than forty hours Sa week now."

So, Sardo realized, Brad had not been the primary parent until the last

year or soþif at all.
 
His subject continued to talk volubly.
 
A few

moments later, Brad reversed himself again and said he had a job offer

from U.S. Bank that he intended to accept, although he would also keep

his current job.
 
Sardo noted that Brad seemed unaware that a second

job would mean he would be working far more than forty hours a week,

and that there would be little, if any, time left for his sons.
 
How,

then, could Brad be the primary parent?
 
Sardo didn't ask the question

aloud.

And Brad still hadn't recognized the rampant inconsistencies in his

statements.

Brad had, of course, fathered a number of children, and he listed his

offspring from his three previous marriages.
 
Brent, who was fifteen,

was currently living with him.
 
With intense feeling in his voice, Brad

recalled his deep concern about Brent and Kit when they were young.

He said he had begged their mother to change her "hippie" lifestyleþfor

the children's sake.
 
He had been upset at the idea of his two little

children being raised in the laissez-faire ambiance of "a commune."

Brad admitted he had married his second wife only because he needed to

be married so he could fight for custody of Brent and Kit.
 
He always

had done, and always would do, whatever he had to to make sure his

children were in the safest environment possible.
 
When the judge in

his first custody hearing ruled against him, he had quickly ended his

marriage of convenience.

Sardo mentally counted on his fingers.
 
Neither of Brad's first two

marriages had come about because he loved his brides.
 
Loni Ann

Ericksen had been pregnant and Cynthia Marrasco had been used as a

means to an end, an end not achieved.
 
There were also some glaring

gaps in Brad's review of his life as a parent.
 
Although he claimed to

have loved his third wife, Lauren, he didn't explain to Sardo why he

had left her when she was pregnant with his childþexcept to hint that

Cheryl had seduced him.
 
He said that he had, naturally, taken care of

that little girl, Amy who was born after he left Lauren for Cheryl.

When Brad walked out of Dr. Sardo's office, he was as confident as

when he walked in, and quite secure in his belief that he had made a

good impression.
 
He had been calm-þand yet he had shown his profound

feelings for his sons appropriately.
 
Cheryl would he nervous, she

would not come off well.
 
She was too intense, too scattered, and far

too frantic in her fear that he was going to take Jess, Michael, and

Phillip away from her.

On March 24

Cheryl presented herself to be tested and it was immedi atelv obvious

that she was nothing like the foul-mouthed shrew, the sexdriven

huntress, that Brad had described.
 
If she was that woman, she

certainly hid it well.
 
Dr. Sardo found Cheryl's demeanor much

different from her husband's.
 
She was very intelligent and verbalþjust

as he had found Brad to be, no surprises there.
 
However, Cheryl was

far more responsive to his questions.
 
Unlike Brad, she did not

immediately launch into her side of the case, but rather let Sardo

phrase questions for her to answer.

Cheryl said that she felt that their temporary custody truce was

working "fairly well."
 
But she agreed with Brad that all negotiations

in the past to seek a permanent order had been utterly fruitless.

These two areas were the only ones where Cheryl's perceptions matched

Brad's.

And although Brad had smiled and told Sardo that he and Cheryl could

work out custody without any outside counseling, Cheryl shook her head

in alarm.
 
They could not.
 
They had tried and it wasn't working.
 
It

wasn't working at all, it never could.
 
She was insistent that they had

to have someone mediate.

Brad, Cheryl said, had become extremely difficult to deal with, even

the most minor issues would spark yet another huge fight between

them.

In a sense, she had been surprised by Brad's stubborn and violent

response to her custody requests.
 
"In the past, when we discussed

divorce," she said, "Brad sometimes said he wouldn't even see the boys

and I couldn't deal with that."

As unhappy as she had become in her marriage, she could not rob her

sons of their father.
 
But currently that was not a concern.
 
Brad was

resisting every one of her suggestions about the boys, wanting to be

part of the most minuscule decisions about their livesþso much so that

they seemed unable to reach any resolution of their children's

future.

Cheryl told Sardo that she had no problem any longer in accepting that

her marriage was over.
 
She was at peace with her decision to

divorce.

Her marriage was completely dead.
 
There was nothing in the world that

could revive the love she had believed she and Brad felt for each

other, and she was anxious to get on with her life.

As for the "primary parent" question, Cheryl recalled for Sardo all the

times Brad had left her and the boys.
 
She had always been the parent

who stayed with the children.
 
She told him that it was she who had

been alone with her sons most of the time since October 1982, when she

returned to Seattle from Houston to resume her law practice to help

fund Brad's business in Texas.
 
Until they had moved to Portland in

early 1985, Brad had lived away from them, except for short visits.

When Sardo asked her to describe Brad, Cheryl said that he was very

demanding, very harsh, and used physical disciplineþincluding beatings

with a beltþon the boys.
 
Pondering his parenting stance, she finally

characterized it as "militaristic."
 
The father Cheryl described was

like a Marine D.l expecting his sons to obey instantly and without

question.
 
In his testimony, Sardo didn't mention the child's coffin in

their garage, or the dead animal "trophies" Brad had the boys bring

back from their trips to Yakima.
 
Perhaps Cheryl worried about what Dr.

Sardo might think of her for having allowed such things to go on.

Cheryl told Sardo that she was the caregiver, she was the nurturer,

although she had always tried not to say anything negative about Brad

to the boys.
 
He was their father, and she had wanted them to know him

and respect himþeven when he was always gone.
 
Little boys needed to

believe in their father.

But even when Brad was unemployed, Cheryl said, he had never stayed

home to care for the boys.
 
He was always leaving on tripsþto Yakima,

to Houston, to California, to whereverþalways working on some

mysterious projects.
 
She had had to hire baby-sitters.
 
Brad was

simply not a man who would submit to being tied down with regular child

care.

In the weeks to come, in sessions with Cheryl and Brad together, Dr.

Sardo would observe the interaction between them.
 
When Cheryl was in

the same room with Brad, she seemed to shrink and become very quiet.

Sardo was surprised.
 
Alth-cttgh Cheryl was the attorney, it was

obviously Brad who had a "very intrusive style" in transacting.
 
Sardo

noted that Brad applied pressure in a great many different areas at

different times, controlling the conversation as floodgates control the

ebb and flow of a river.
 
If he had not known better, he would have

thought that Brad, not Cheryl, was the experienced trial attorney.

Sardo also saw that Cheryl was actually a "little intimidated" by her

husband.
 
She made no attempt at all to negotiate with Brad alone.

He ran the show.
 
Very occasionally, Cheryl stood up to him on issues

that were vitally important to her.
 
There were certain lines that she

had drawn in her mind and she would not let Brad cross over.
 
Even so,

Cheryl was always the one on the defensive.
 
It was she who sat braced

for Brad's next verbal assault.

In the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory tests that Sardo

administeredþtests consisting of more than five hundred carefully

worded questions to be answered "yes" or "no"þBrad's and Cheryl's

personalities emerged clearly, like mountain peaks thrusting through

clouds.
 
The M.M.P.I test has many deliberate "lie" questions which appear

several times.

Anyone who tries to "fool" the test tends to answer the way he believes

the test designers want him to, and that "desire to please" is

transparently clear to those who chart test results.

Dr. Sardo's evaluation of Brad's M.M.P.I test results was that he

"presented himself as an individual who was very much in control, very

selective about the information he was providing, and very concerned

with trying to provide an appropriate picture.
 
The picture he tried to

put forth was one of sensitivity and tenderness."
 
But Sardo also

detected other traits in Brad's M.M.P.I scores.
 
The test revealed that he

was a "very guarded individual, who does not allow intimacy with