Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (83 page)

been reiieved when no one questioned her about him.
 
She hadn't really

known anything that would help the police anyway.
 
But then Mike

Shinn's private investigator Chick Preston had discovered her

relationship with Brad and seemed fascinated with her recollections.

He urged her to talk to Shinnþwhose eyes lit up when she told him about

events of the week after Cheryl died.

Karen walked to the witness chair, a slender, almost girlish-looking

woman, her golden hair swept back from her face and caught in a black

ribbon.
 
If she wore makeup at all, it was so lightly applied that it

was invisible.
 
Shinn had noted that Karen was what seemed to be Brad's

type þthe same small features, the same symmetry and delicacy.
 
And she

was nervous.
 
All of the women in Brad's life were nervous when they

spoke of him, and most of all when they did so for the public record.

Karen told the jury that she had been interviewed for the first time

only about ten days before this civil trialþwhen Chick Preston

approached her.
 
She had worked for Brad for a little less than a year

at Citizens' Savings and Loan in Lake Oswego, beginning in June or July

1985.
 
An attorney, she was a loan closer, while Lily Saarnen was a

loan officer.

She said she started going out with Brad in May or June 1986.

"How long did you date him?"
 
Shinn asked.

"Two or three months."

"Were you in love with him?"

"No."
 
There was no emotion in Karen Aaborg's voice.

"Did you have an amicable parting?"

She nodded.
 
She and Brad, who was fifteen years older than she was,

had remained friends and had been in contact.

"Do you remember when Cheryl Keeton was killed?"

"Yes.... It was a Monday around lunchtime [when I heard].... One of our

temps from Citizens' called me and said a person named Cheryl Keeton

had been killedþor found killedþand wasn't that Brad's wife?"

Karen didn't know Cheryl, she had met her once very briefly.
 
She had

immediately called Brad.
 
"I said, Hi.
 
How are things going?"
 
He

said, Okay," and I said, Brad, what's going on, reallyþI heard that

Cheryl was dead," and he said that, yes, that was what had happened."

He had told her that he was just leaving to go talk to an attorney.

"This is the Monday following Cheryl's death?"

"Yes."

Karen testified that Brad had come to her apartment the next day

Tuesday, and talked to her about his movements on Sunday night.
 
He

showed up unexpectedly and spent an hour or so, telling her what he had

done on Sunday night in much detail.
 
She repeated to the jury what

Brad had told her.

His story began very like the version he had told policeþabout eating

with Sara and the boys in the pizza place.
 
Then he had had trouble

with "bad gas" or "water in his gas tank" with his Suburban.
 
Brad told

Karen that after he got back to the Madison Tower, he was supposed to

return the boys to Cheryl.
 
He said he called Cheryl to tell her he was

having car trouble but it was his impression that she was busy, that

she had someone there and wasn't interested in talking with him.
 
"[He

said] she sounded mad at himþjust leave her aloneþshe'd been drinking,

she didn't care about getting the kids back.
 
Then he decided the kids

would stay with him that night."

But from that point, the version Brad had told Karen became a little

different.

He told her he had gone down to the parking garage to get the boys'

backpacks and especially Phillip's blanket, and took Phillipþnot

Michaelþwith him, leaving the two older boys in the apartment.
 
I le

said he ran into Lily Saarnen in the garage and he also mentioned

seeing a police officer in the garage.

"Was this all in the same trip?"
 
Shinn asked.

"Yes, I think so.... [He said] he got whatever he needed to get out of

the car.
 
He went back upstairsþthe kids watched a movie, they fell

asleep, and the next thing he knew there was a police officer knocking

on his door about midnight or one o'clock."

"Did he tell you that he had more than one conversation with Cheryl

that night?"

". . . Yes, at least twoþmaybe three .
 
. . I think what I remember is

that Cheryl called him and suddenly wanted those kidsþchanged her tune

þand wanted him to return those kids riglot now.
 
I think he argued

with her .
 
. . because it sounded like she was with somebody and had

been drinking."

Karen had just cut a large hole in Brad's alibi for the night Cheryl

was killed.
 
He had told everyone else that he had been waiting for

Cheryl to come and get their sons.
 
He had never said that he refused

to let the boys go home to her because she was "drunk" and had a man

with her.
 
He had made a big point of saying that he had gone out on

the balcony to watch for Cheryl, but that she had never shown up.

Karen further testified that she had seen Brad several times that first

week after the murder.
 
She even took care of his boys while he was at

his attorney's office.
 
She kept them at different times for an hour or

so.

"Did he express to you his attitude about the police investigation that

was going on?"
 
Shinn asked.

"Yeah, he said the D.A. in Washington County was really out to get

himþthat this guy had almost a vendetta against himþ" "A vendetta?"

"Yeah, he said that he was convinced that Brad had done it, and that he

was going to get him.
 
Brad felt he was going to be arrested at any

time."

"Did he express his attitude about Cheryl's mother?"

"Well, yeah.
 
He was concerned that Cheryl's mother .
 
. . would get

the kids."

"Did he ask you to do anything about that?"

"Yeah, he asked me to take the boys and get out of the state, and just

kind of keep them, get them out of town, when things were very

traumatic and he could get arrested at any time."

"Where were you supposed to take them?"

"Out of the stateþnot out of the country.
 
He didn't want to know where

they were."

"Why?"

"Because if he was arrested, he didn't want to know where they were If

he was asked [by authorities] he didn't want to know."

Karen said that Brad had given her three thousand dollars he took out

of an account at First Interstate Bank.
 
She went with him to get the

money.
 
She had kept the money for a day or two, because she had

tentatively agreed to help Brad hide his children.
 
But then she

changed her mind and returned the three thousand dlollars.

Karen Aaborg was finally excused.
 
What would the jury think of a man

who was willing to have his children spirited away so far that even he

couldn't find them?
 
They had just lost their mother, yet he had

planned to hide them completely, delivering them to strangers

somewhere.
 
He had wanted to take them away from their mother, but he

apparently had been willing to abandon them so that their grandmother

could not have themþor so that they would not be vulnerable to other

enemies of Brad.

As the trial progressed, still without Brad in attendance, Shinn varied

his witnessesþsome from the past, some from the present, some from

Cheryl's career world, some from her family and her social world, and

some detectives and criminalists from the investigation of her

murder.

And gradually the jury began to see the image of Brad's life

psychopathology emerge.

Another friend from work, Janet Blair, told of witnessing Cheryl's new

will not long before her murder.
 
"As we were witnessing the will,

Cheryl said, I want this all taken care of so that if something happens

on this trip, Brad will not get anything and the children will get

everything."

And the other thing she saidþand I will never forget thisþis, If I'm

ever found dead, Brad did it."

" Sharon McCulloch testified, and Cheryl's cousin, Katannah King, and

any number of women who had worked for Garvey, vichubert and Barer.

They described a woman who had once had guts and strength and

brilliance, but who had become so subdued that she lived in fear that

her estranged husband was going to keep her children from herþeven if

he had to kill her to do it.
 
All the women spoke in voices tremulous

with tears.
 
None of them had been able to save Cheryl, all of them had

tried.

Katannah King testified in a voice so soft that the jurors had to

strain to hear her.
 
Cheryl had told her that Brad was at least three

years behind in filing his income tax.
 
A few weeks before Cheryl was

killed, Katannah said she had been alarmed when she listened to Cheryl

speak on the phone to Brad.
 
He was asking her to come and help him

with his income taxes.
 
And it made her angry.
 
"Cheryl said to him, No

way.

I'm not going to help you.
 
We're [meaning Brad's sister Ethel] working

against you, and I'm going to hang you for it."
 
Brad said to her,

Well, I'm not going to worry about it anywayþbecause you're not going

to be around to do anything."

" "When was the last time you saw Cheryl?"
 
Shinn asked.

"The last time," Katannah said softly, ". . . was on Saturday night at

Cheryl's mother's house.
 
She was very quiet, very quiet.
 
She was very

calm.... We talked and she took me home, and she said, You take care of