Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (72 page)

She should have been firmer when she accused him of having an affair

with Lynn, and she should have told him he was working too many

hours.

"I know you think you wereþbut to me it takes a big message þin

neon....

"I need you honey," Brad pleaded, I need your love and affectionþyour

mind, and your body I can defeat those beasts in Houston with you....

I will renew our vows, pledge my support and understanding to you and

work like you have never seen to strengthen our marriage and rela I

love you Honey, I need you.

Your Husband Sara folded the letter and tucked it, without emotion,

into her journal.

The next day, Brad tried another tack.
 
He told Sara he thought John

Burke killed Cheryl.
 
"Sunday, March 4: The motive was unrequited

love.

He then warned me to watch outþhe may try to kill me too.
 
Brad said to

make sure I was always around people when I was on vacation."

Sara got the message.
 
Brad had just told her that the person who

killed Cheryl might try to kill her too.

Apparently unaware of how seriously Sara took his not-quite-subliminal

warning, Brad tried every device he could think of to keep her from

filing for divorce.
 
Since money was of paramount importance to him, he

assumed everyone felt the same way and he kept reminding Sara of how

much a complicated divorce would cost, upping the figure with every

call.

Next, Brad tried total honesty.
 
"He said he'd like to tell me every

detail about him and Lynn," Sara wrote.
 
"I told him I didn't want to

hear it."

Only six months earlier, Sara had been shocked to learn that Mike Shinn

was attempting to file a civil suit against her husband, and she had

chastised him for bringing more pain to her family.
 
Now, she reached

out tentatively to Shinn.
 
She was not ready to admit to herselfþ and

certainly not to anyone elseþthat she suspected that Brad had killed

Cheryl.
 
And yet she needed to know more.
 
She needed to make some

contact with the man who had been her friend years ago at Willamette

University.

in a most terrible way, just as he had systematically erased Cheryl

from their memories.
 
Now, it was Sara who was not "Mom" any longer,

she was an evil person who was trying to kill Dad.

"March 9, 1990: .
 
. . First Interstate Bank called me, saving that

Brad ... wants a copy of my financial statement.... Brad went to AAI

and asked for my deposits.
 
They told him they were not at liberty to

give them to him.... At U.S. Bank, the Broadway Bakery Account is $2758

overdrawn."

Sara soon learned it was worse than that.
 
A bakery employee with

loyalty to Sara told her that many bills had gone unpaid for at least

three months, even though she had provided money to Brad to pay them.

The total of these billsþcombined with unpaid salariesþwas over twenty

thousand dollars.
 
Furthermore, Brad was negotiating to lease the

Broadway Bakery premisesþeven though it was Sara who owned the

property.

In an affidavit Sara drew up, she would list Brad's machinations that

began when he realized she was truly going to divorce him.
 
"Upon the

Respondent learning that I was filing this proceeding, he failed to

deposit the receipts from the bakery or from the delicatessen.... I do

not have any idea what happened to the money or how much money he

took.

He also immediately took large amounts of money from my credit cards on

cash advance.... I have now learned the Respondent has taken equipment

that is encumbered with debt .
 
. . it can [not] be sold or used to

reduce the debts I am personally responsible for.
 
I know he has a fax

machine, a copier, an espresso machine and a coffee grinder (a large

commercial model).... Respondent has left a van at the bakery in a

parking lot that is in danger of being towed.... I have paid $27,000 in

recent months over his being accused of killing his former wife...."

Sara realized that she would probably have to sell the Dunthorpe

house.

It was the only way out of the morass of debts Brad had piled up.

But the money drain was not her biggest concern, she was worried sick

about Jess, Michael, and Phillip.
 
Rhonda was still there and she told

Sara that the boys were wearing old clothes she had never seen, that no

laundry had been done, and they had no toys to play with because they

came to the guest house after school, instead of the big house, and

Brad had locked all their toys up.
 
Michael wasn't practicing the piano

and botched his piece at his recital.
 
Sometimes Brad didn't come home

until late and the boys had to sleep on Rhonda's couch.

From Rhonda and the boys' piano teacher, Sara learned that Brad was

telling people that she had left him for a doctor, that she didn't care

anything about the boys, and that she was happily vacationing with a

new lover.
 
It wasn't true.
 
She was working double, triple shifts to

fore , stall financial disaster.
 
An affair with another man was the

last thing on her mind.

Brad's attorneys were going after Sara for huge monthly support for him

and the boys.
 
He claimed the only income he would have was $350 from

the rental of the guest house, while his monthly expenses were

$11,422þincluding $450 a month for the Volvo lease, $590 a month for

payments on a new truck (with camper), $439 for his boat payment, and

$5,000 for his legal fees.
 
Married to Sara, Brad had become accustomed

to an even higher standard of living than he had enjoyed with Cheryl.

And he had no intention of lowering it.
 
Brad felt it would be

"demeaning" for him to have to submit bills to Sara's attorney.
 
He

requested through his attorney that Sara simply keep his checking

account solvent so that he could continue to write checks.
 
She thought

not.

Sara willingly continued to make the twenty-five-hundred-dollar house

payment, all insurance paymentsþincluding medical insurance for Brad

and the boysþall taxes, the bakery payment, and all other monthly

obligations.
 
She also paid Rhonda eleven hundred dollars a month for

as long as she stayed.
 
At least Sara knew that Rhonda cared about

them.
 
She asked only for a temporary restraining order to keep Brad

away from her Riverplace neighborhood and from Providence Hospital.

On March 12, 1990, Sara signed her newly drawn will, four years and one

month after Cheryl Keeton had signed her hastily prepared will.
 
The

language in Sara's will bore a somber resemblance to that in

Cheryl's.

"I declare that I am married to Bradly M. Cunningham.
 
A proceeding is

pending in the Multnomah County Circuit Court to dissolve our

marriage.

I have intentionally made no provision for my husband in this will.

"It is my intention that my husband Bradly M. Cunningham not receive

any assets by virtue of my death.
 
I have three children, Jess K.

Cunningham, Michael K. Cunningham, and Phillip K. Cunningham...."

Sara set up a "Sara Gordon Trust Fund" that would be administered by

members of her family and was to benefit her three adopted sons.

Brad let her see the boys only once, Sara was ecstatic.
 
When they were

together, it seemed as if they had never been apart and that somehow,

someway she was still their mom.

On March 30, 1990, Rhonda called Sara to tell her that the boys weren't

in school.
 
"they aren't here and I called the school.
 
Brad told them

he was taking the kids to Seattle for a few days and they might be back

to school by Wednesday."

Three days later, when Brad and Sara were to appear at a support L

hearing, he didn't show up and Sara learned that Brad had called

Michael's school and said he wouldn't be back.
 
Period.
 
Sara wasn't

sure where Brad and the boys were.
 
On April 11, someone called her at

the hospitalþat 7

A.M.þand said he was her attorney, Bill Schulte, calling collect.

Hospital operators had permission to put Schulte's calls through.
 
But

when Sara was paged and picked up the phone, she heard only a dial

tone.
 
She called Schulte and he assured her he had not called her

þcollect or any other way.

The Dunthorpe house was empty.
 
On April 21, Sara had the front door

rekeyed so that she could get in and clean the house before she listed

it with a realtor.
 
She had to fax a copy of a court order to a

Dunthorpe security officer in order to get into her own house.
 
The

agreement was that he would let a realtor with a prospective buyer in

to see the houseþbut when he tried to get in, he found all the locks

had been jammed.

Brad called Jack Lang,* the security man, from Houston, threatened to

sue him for trespassing if he let realtors in, and said that he was

going to change the alarm code.
 
Lang called his attorney, who advised

him not to let anyone into the house since ownership was in

contention.

In the last week of April 1990

Sara got a phone call at Providence Hospital.
 
It was Jess, and her

heart convulsed when she detected that he was crying.
 
His first words

to her were, "Mom, why do you have to sell the boat and the house?"

"Jess," Sara said urgently.
 
"Where are you?"

"Texas."

"When are you coming back?"

"I think when school is out .
 
.."

"I love you and I miss you very much," Sara said.
 
"I thought you were

coming back sooner."