Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (52 page)

boys a normal childhood, no matter what it took.
 
She would no longer

allow Brad to play his terrible games with their lives.
 
Yes, she had

agreed to shared custody, but she no longer believed that either she or

the boys would survive emotionally if that continued.
 
She now wanted

full custody, she wanted Brad out of her life, and out of their

lives.

She had been gathering evidence for months, and she was finally ready

to face the thing she feared most.

And that was Bradly Morris Cunningham.

Cheryl continued taking notes of everything her estranged husband said

to herþboth at home and when he called her at her office.
 
She often

read her notes aloud to Jim, or handed over the tablet for him to

read.

Eric Lindenauer was also aware that Cheryl was documenting all of her

contacts or calls with Brad.
 
Ostensibly she was getting ready for her

day in divorce court.
 
But literally, and almost unbelievably, she was

preparing for another eventuality.
 
If she should not be around to face

Brad in court, she wanted a written record to exist of all that had

taken place in the final months of her marriage.

Jim didn't want to talk with Cheryl about the dread possibilities she

sometimes envisioned, but he listened as she spoke softly to him.

"She let me know that she had changed her will so that Brad would have

no control over her estate," Jim said.
 
Cheryl was no longer fearful

only of losing her sons.
 
She was afraid that they would lose her, that

something might happen to her, something so subtle that it would seem

tragicþ but not criminal.

One night Cheryl looked hard at her brother and said, "Jim, I fear for

my life.
 
Short of my collapsing and dying in front of you, I want you

to assume that any accident involved wasn't an accident.
 
Pursue it.

Pursue it."

Three times, Cheryl told Jim the same thing.

Three times, he told her not to be frightened.

The terrible scene at Bridlemile School had given Cheryl a glimpse into

the searing rage Brad was capable of.
 
Certainly, she had seen him

angry before, although he had usually shown his public face, the

smooth, charming facade of a man who had his life and his emotions

under perfect control.
 
But Brad had lost it at Bridlemile, just as he

had once lost it at the boys' Montessori School.
 
No, not just, this

time Cheryl sensed that he had been ready to kill her for having the

temerity to register his son in the school she had chosen.

She knew it was going to get worse.
 
She hadn't even brought out her

big guns yet, her list of witnesses from Brad's past.
 
And when she

did, she could envision what Brad's reaction would be.
 
It terrified

her.
 
She was fully prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep Jess,

Michael, and Phillip with her.
 
Cheryl never wanted them to be the

object of the kind of wrath that Brad was capable of.
 
But she also

knew full well that she might die trying to save them from that.

After Cheryl had made up her mind to divorce Brad in February, she had

returned to Portland with an iron resolve.
 
She had also been seized

with the premonition that she might have less time than she expected.

She had called her friend and coworker Kerry Radcliffe.
 
They had

attended law school together, and they both were employed by Garvey,

SchubertþKerry on the business side and Cheryl in litigation.
 
Kerry

still worked in the Seattle branch of the firm.

"She called me from Portland," Kerry later said, "in the third week of

February, on a Wednesday or a Thursday.
 
Cheryl was agitated.
 
She

said, I'm going to ask you a huge favor.
 
This might sound

unreasonableþ and demandingþbut I need to have this done."
 
She said

she had gathered her strength and filed for divorce.
 
She wanted to

have her will changed that day, and have me Federal Express it down to

her so that it would be effective right away.
 
She was not her normal

self.
 
She was very much upset."

Kerry had drawn up both Cheryl's and Brad's wills five or six years

earlier.
 
At that time Cheryl had expressly stipulated that all of her

estate was to go to her spouse, Bradly Morris Cunningham.
 
Now she

wanted to invalidate that will immediately.
 
She told Kerry that she

feared Brad's reaction.
 
But she wanted to be sure that, in case of her

death, nothing she owned went to Brad.
 
Jess, Michael, and Phillip

should inherit whatever she had.
 
She also told Kerry that she didn't

want Brad to be named guardian of the boys.

"I told her that until the divorce was final, this will might not have

the full legal effect," Kerry said.
 
"But Cheryl said, I want this

down.

I want it in my will."
 
I told her that if Brad were still alive, the

court would probably make him guardian, and she said, I know that, but

I want my intent in my will.
 
I don't want him to be guardian."

" Cheryl's first will had been pretty much a "boiler plate" will in

Washington, a community property state.
 
All property acquired after

marriage becomes community property of the two spouses in equal

shares.

What each partner brings into the marriage is separate property, and

that includes later bequests or inheritances.
 
Cheryl was adamant that

her new will override the community property statutes.
 
She was filing

for divorce in Oregon, which is not a community property state.

Kerry did exactly as Cheryl asked.
 
And she did it so hurriedly that

she actually FedExed it with a few typographical errors.

Cheryl's new will was blunt.
 
It said she was married to Bradly Morris

Cunningham, but was separated from him and in the process of dissolving

the marriage.
 
It stated her intention to leave all of her property to

her three sons, and "to make no provision for Bradly Morris

Cunningham."

The will Kerry Radcliffe prepared was a long document.
 
On page nine,

it read, "If it becomes necessary that a guardian be appointed for any

of my children, I name my mother Betty Marie Vandever.
 
If she is

unable to act in this capacity, I nominate my former stepfather, Robert

McNannay...."

Cheryl had considered a number of people who would take good care of

her children if she were no longer around to do it.
 
She asked Sharon

McCulloch if she and her husband would take them, and Sharon said, "We

considered it, and we would have if she'd put us in her willþ but our

children were so much older than Cheryl's boys."
 
Susan McNannay and

her boyfriend, Dave Keegan, were also willing to raise Jess Michael,

and Phillip, even though Susan wasn't twenty yet.
 
They agreed between

them to reassure Cheryl of their commitment to her children.

Cheryl had also tried to provide for the eventuality that Brad would

become the guardian of their children.
 
If she could not prevent that,

she would stop him from spending the money she left them.
 
She directed

that any funds from her estate were to go directly to pay for their

education, their medical care, et al and that nothing should ever pass

through Brad's hands first.

Kerry did not know, at that point, how completely Cheryl's marriage had

crumbledþor why.
 
"Cheryl told me that she felt very strongly that the

children should not stay with Brad.
 
She talked about his having guns

and firearms around.
 
She said something about a place in eastern

Washington that he'd filled up with canned goods .
 
. . as if he had a

survivalist type of mentality."

Legally, the job of a "guardian" is basically to act as a substitute

parent and provide a home and love to a minor child.
 
A "trustee" is

the guardian of a minor's money.
 
Often, of course, one person serves

both functions.
 
However, it is not unusual for a guardian and a

trustee to be two separate people.
 
A loving parental substitute may

have little knowledge about money matters.
 
Cheryl named her longtime

friend John Burke as the executor of her will.
 
He would become the

personal representative of her estate and have her will probated.
 
She

also named John Burke and Bob McNannay as alternate trustees of her

sons' inheritance.

Cheryl knew what she was doing when she picked her old friend to look

after her boys' money if she should die.
 
"She told me that of all the

lawyers she knew," Kerry said, "she trusted John Burke to be very strong

in that position.
 
He was somebody who could stand up to Brad.
 
She

knew that a lot of pressure would be put on this person.
 
She said,

Brad is very manipulative and he can wear people down."

" Above all, Cheryl didn't want Brad dipping into what belonged to the

boys.
 
She hadn't been able to put much aside, not with the expenses

she had carried for so many years.
 
But she had a retirement fund with

Garvey, Schubert.
 
And she had life insurance.
 
If she were dead, her

estate would be worth a few hundred thousand dollars.

Cheryl's secretary, Florence Murrell, witnessed the will that had been

drawn up so rapidly.
 
She had been Cheryl's friend as well as her legal

secretary, and she had watched the steady erosion of her confidence and

peace of mind about what might happen in the months ahead.
 
Kerry

Radcliffe had too.
 
It seemed impossible that anyone could get her down

the way Brad did.
 
"Cheryl was incredibly intelligent, very organized,

she was a very strong presence," Kerry would say later, fighting back

tears.
 
"She just took control when she came into a room.
 
She was a