Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (58 page)

Cheryl had seen the remodeling completed.
 
They all sat around and

talked.
 
Michael's birthday was coming up in about five days, and Susan

suggested that they all come down for a birthday party.
 
Cheryl tried

to be enthusiastic.

Cheryl was calm, even docile," Susan would remember.
 
"She was usually

moving a million miles an hour, but she was very peaceful.

She wasn't depressed: she was passive.
 
She was like someone I didn't

know very well.
 
She was subdued.
 
That was not typical."

Another thing Susan noticed was that Cheryl didn't talk about her

divorce or the custody battle.
 
That seemed strange because they had

all talked about those topics for months.
 
Susan had just baked rye

bread and they all had some.
 
Cheryl praised her sister's baking, and

then Susan played the piano for them.

In a way, it was just like their usual visits.
 
But Susan kept glancing

at her sister and she was appalled.
 
Cheryl looked as if she was

starving, she was pale and she was so terribly quiet.
 
"I hugged Cheryl

when she left, and she felt almost nonexistent," Susan said.
 
"She was

so thin.
 
Our last hug was much longer than usual."

After they left Susan's, Betty and Cheryl went to Sears and Cheryl

bought some underwear and socks for the boys, paying with her Sears

credit card.
 
When they got back to Betty and Mary's house, they talked

with him out in the driveway.
 
Mary had been changing the oil in his

car and he noticed that Cheryl's Toyota van was dirty.
 
He offered to

wash it for her, and she thought about it for a moment.
 
"No," she

finally said.

"I have to get back for the boys.
 
There might be an accident on the

freeway or something and I might be late.
 
Thanks, Maryþmaybe next

time."

Late that afternoon Cheryl headed south on the I-5 freeway.
 
The drive

to Portland ordinarily takes an hour, and even though she had to stop

briefly at her office at Garvey, Schubert to pick up some papers, she

would be at the house on the West Slope in plenty of time to welcome

her three boys home from their weekend visit with their father.

Jim Karr had also been in Longview for most of the weekend.
 
He headed

down to Gresham on Sunday to visit a friend and watch the Seahawks

game.

He planned to be back at the West Slope house in time to help Cheryl

put the boys to bed.

In Longview, Mary Troseth returned from the grocery store a few minutes

after seven.
 
Betty told him that Cheryl had called, very upset.
 
The

boys weren't home yet.
 
Brad had called her and said that he was having

trouble with his gas line.
 
Betty was worried.
 
She thought maybe

Cheryl should call the police and ask them to look for Brad and the

boys.

"I told her that you couldn't call the police just because someone was

fifteen or twenty minutes late," Mary said.

That made sense and Betty tried to be calm.
 
But she had caught

Cheryl's fear the way you catch a virus, and her dread grew with every

passing minute.
 
She called Susan between 7:10 and 7:15.
 
"Mom said

Cheryl was very upset because the boys weren't back," Susan remembered.
 
"Mom was on edge because Cheryl was unreasonably concerned."

It was unusual for Betty to call Susan and be so agitated.
 
It was

actually the first time Susan had heard her this way.
 
"Mom wanted to

go to Cheryl's house, and I told her to relax."

Betty and Mary's phone rang just before 8

P.M. It was Cheryl.
 
"Brad called and he wants me to meet him at that

Mobile station down by the I.G.A storeþbut I know that station's

closed...."

"No!"
 
Betty said.
 
"Don't go down there."

"I have to get my kids."

Betty begged Cheryl to wait until she and Mary could drive down to

Portland and go with her to pick up the boys, but Cheryl argued that

would take an hour at least.
 
She was going to go.
 
She had to go.

Betty couldn't change her daughter's mind.
 
"You call me the second you

get back to the house.
 
Don't wait for anything.
 
I want to know you're

safely home."

Cheryl promised she would.

When Betty called Susan again that evening, she was on the edge of

hysteria.
 
She was terrified that Cheryl was going to meet Brad and

told Susan that she thought she and Mary should head for Portland

immediately.

"Go to Portland, if you want to go, Mom," Susan said.
 
Now Susan was

catching the fear too.

"Something's not right," Betty said.
 
"I don't know what's

happening."

Susan put down the phone and told her father about Betty's two frantic

phone calls.
 
"I got very nervous too.
 
I had a lump in my throat all

evening," Bob McNannay said.

Betty waited anxiously for Cheryl's call.
 
Trying to ease her mind,

Mary placed calls to both Cheryl's number and Brad's.
 
There was no

answer at either, and no answering machine pickup.
 
At Betty's urging,

Mary kept calling but no one answered.

The next call that Betty received from the West Slope house was from

her son Jim.
 
She grabbed the phone before the first ring was over and

when she heard Jim's voice, she cried, "She's dead, isn't she?

Cheryl's dead!"

Jim said that wasn't true.
 
He didn't know where Cheryl was, but he had

found a note from her and he was going to go look for her.

Betty was inconsolable.
 
She knew her daughter was dead.

And, of course, she was right.

Brad had hired three separate attorneys to represent him in his divorce

from Cheryl, dismissing them one after the other even though they were

the best in the business.
 
He had consulted almost a dozen others.

He l need not have bothered.
 
How ironic that he didn't need a divorce

now.

Nor would there be any more custody battles.
 
Cheryl was dead.

And Jess, Michael, and Phillip were his alone.

Part IV Sara I i t .
 
Brad Cunningham had emerged as the prime suspect

in the death of his estranged wife, but the time frame of Cheryl's

murder was vitally important in establishing the possibility of his

guilt.
 
Brad could account for his movements on that Sunday night

almost to the minute.
 
If Danielle Daniels, one of the residents living

along 79th where it entered the Sunset Highway, had heard the sounds of

someone beating Cheryl to death, the time of the murder would have been

between 8:20 and 8:25.

In order for Oregon State Police detectives to be satisfied that Brad

had nothing to do with the crime, they would have to talk to witnesses

who could back up his alibi for that Sunday night.

Brad didn't have to prove anything.
 
In America, suspects and

defendants are innocent until proven guilty.
 
The legal burden of proof

rested heavily on the detectives' shoulders and on the Washington

County District Attorney's office.
 
If they could not gather evidence

and or witnesses that they believed would prove Brad guilty beyond a

reasonable doubt, he would go free.

There were numerous ways of checking on Brad, and the investigation was

still fresh.
 
Investigators could check phone records.
 
Perhaps they

could find outside witnesses who had had no interest in his activities

that night but who would remember seeing him.
 
The problem was to

locate everything and everyone who might be able to either validate

Brad's story or discredit it.

Brad's own six-year-old son had told the grand jury that his father had

left the apartment on Sunday night while he was watching a video and

television.
 
Children have little sense of the passage of time, but

detectives did check the running time of The Sword in the Stone and of

Rambo, the two moviesSess had been watching.
 
If the boy's recollection

was correct, Brad would have been away from the apartment for more than

an hour.

Officer Craig Ward of the Portland Police Bureau had a far better time

sense than a six-year-old boy, and so did Lily Saarnen, Brad's former

lover.
 
Ward didn't see Cunningham that Sunday night, although he was

Brad also had the means.
 
He was a strong man and had access to all

manner of weapons.
 
And he could have had the opportunityþif he had

been able to fit a murder into an extremely tight timetable.

Some of those who could verify where Brad had been that night or

establish time sequencesþDr. Sara Gordon, Officer Craig Ward, the

Houghtons, Lily Saarnenþwould make impeccable witnesses if they chose

to cooperate with the State.
 
Then there were his own little boys

although Jess, the oldest, was probably the only one whose recall might

be accurate.
 
But Sara Gordon loved Brad Cunningham and they had plans

for the future.
 
Lily Saarnen had once been intimate with him, and she

was still his friendþas well as Sara Gordon's.
 
And his own .sons

idolized their daddy.
 
Detectives hoped that more witnesses would

either come forward on their own or surface during the investigation.

Just as a medical examiner may find that the last time the deceased was

seen alive is the best way to establish time of death, the activities

of a murder suspect are best charted by the last time he was seen

before the murder by competent witnesses, and the first time he was