Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (84 page)

yourself, Katannah," and I said, No,you take care of yourself' and

that was the last I ever saw her."

Chief Criminal Deputy D.A. Bob Herman was the next witness.
 
He

testified that after Cheryl's body was discovered in the van, he had

accompanied O.S.P Detective Jerry Finch to her house on 81st Street.

There they met her brother, Jim Karr, and the three of them went into

the house.
 
When they walked into the kitchen, Herman said, "Jerry

found a note on the drainboardþ" "Let me show you my client's Exhibit

Two," Shinn said, holding a blowup of what Finch had found in Cheryl's

kitchen.

Herman read it aloud.
 
"I have gone to pick up the boys from Brad at

the Mobile station next to the I.G.A.
 
If I'm not back, please come and

find me .
 
. . COME RIGHT AWAY!"

Jim Karr had told Finch and Herman about the bitterness of his sister's

divorce, and her habit of taking notes on her conversations with

Brad.

"Do you remember any evidence of alcoholic drinking?"
 
Shinn asked

Herman.
 
"Beverage glasses?
 
Wineglasses?"

Herman shook his head.
 
"The house was neat as a pin."

"Thank you.
 
You may step down."

Sara Gordon took the witness stand to testify against her former

husband.
 
Almost five years earlier, she had been adamant that he was

an innocent man hounded by the police.
 
She had never liedþshe was not

a woman who could lieþbut she had answered only those questions asked

of her.
 
Now, Sara knew through bitter experience what kind of man

lurked behind the charming facade she had fallen in love with.

And she was prepared to tell the jurors about the real Brad

Cunningham.

Sara was remarkably pretty, and almost fragile in appearance.
 
For her

day on the witness stand, she wore a dark wine suit with a white

blouse.

And it was obvious that she was nervousþperhaps even frightened.
 
It

was also obvious that she was resolute.

As the jurors listened, enthralled, Sara relived her first meeting with

Brad and all that had transpired between them since the spring of

1986.

She had to open up her private life, reveal things that no woman would

want to tell.
 
It was terribly difficult for a woman of exceptional

intelligence to have to admit that love had temporarily obliterated her

common sense.

She described how rapidly her affair with Brad had progressed.
 
"He

made me feel very, very special.
 
He spent a lot of time with me, and

involved me in the activities with his children.... He seemed like a

very successful business person to me.
 
He was a lot of fun to be

with."

Brad had been Everywoman's ideal man at first, but he had soon revealed

himself to be an opportunist, adulterer, thief, and stalking

predator.

He was also a liar and had convinced Sara of a number of things that

were not trueþthat Cheryl was a loose woman, that he had been

designated the better parent by psychologists, that Cheryl and her

mother had been plotting to poison him.
 
"He told me that he stopped

eating at home unless he took one of the kids' plates or ate something

that they hadn't finished," Sara testified.
 
"He didn't eat until they

had eaten it first."

Mike Shinn led Sara through the events of September 21, 1986, when she

had lent Brad her Toyota Cressida, the vehicle that Shinn submitted was

the car he had used when he ambushed Cheryl at the Mobile station.

That whole week had been strangeþBrad's rage after Cheryl's deposition

on September 16, his phone threats to Cheryl that night, and the fight

they had on the stormy night of September 19 when he and Sara picked up

the boys.
 
Sara said she was surprised at his rage, and surprised how

quickly it dissipated after he told Cheryl that he would make her

"pay."

Shinn asked Sara when she had last seen Brad without clothing during

the weekend of September 19-21.

". . . Friday night."

"Did he have any bruises on his upper body?"

"No."

'4fter Sunday night, when was the first time you saw Mr. Cunningham

without clothes onþon his upper body?"
 
Shinn asked.

". . . Wednesday or Thursday morningþwe were taking a shower

together."

.

: "Did you see anything on his body that you had not seen prior to

Sunday night?"

"Yes.
 
I saw a very large bruise under his armþlike huge .
 
. . I can't

remember if it was the right or left arm.
 
It seems like the leftþjust

the back of the upper arm.... I remember being very shocked when I saw

itþand gasping.
 
It was very largeþlike this sizeþ" She held her hands

apart and demonstrated a circle the size of a cantaloupe.

Sara gave the jurors a precise time schedule for the night of Sunday,

September 21.
 
She had said goodbye to Brad and the boys shortly before

seven, she began.

"When is the next time you actually heard from Mr.
 
Cunningham?"

Shinn asked.

"He called me at the hospital right at seven-thirty.... He said that

Cheryl was coming to the apartment to pick up the children...."

"When is the next time that you actually talked to Mr.
 
Cunningham?"

"That was at ten minutes to nine."

"That was an hour and twenty minutes later?"

"Yes."

"What did you think he had been doing?
 
.
 
. . At eight-fifty, when you

finally got him on the phoneþtell us what was said?"

"I asked him where he had been," Sara said.
 
"He said he had been

waiting for Cheryl to pick the boys up.
 
He sounded very escalatedþ

very excited."

"Did he say anything about ever leaving the apartment?"

". . . I recall in my first conversation, I thought they were in the

apartment.
 
He said they were actually down in the lobby.... The next

day, he started saying no, Michael was with him.
 
They were doing

errands, getting the mail, taking shoes down to my car."

Shinn asked Sara how long such errands would have taken, the elevator

ride and then the walk to the garage or the mailboxes.

"Five minutes."

Sara was no longer on Brad's side.
 
She now had come to realize what

kind of man he really was, and she was testifying to everything she

remembered from the night of Cheryl's murder, knowing full well that

the details she recalled did not mesh with Brad's explanations to the

police or to Karen Aaborg.
 
She could understand now what Cheryl had

lived through in the last months of her life.

Sara went on to describe how they had kept on the move the first week

after Cheryl's murder, and how Jess, Michael, and Phillip were taken

out of state.

Shinn asked how long it was before she saw Brad and the three little

boys again.

"They eventually came back and I think they stayed with his aunt and

uncle in SeattleþHerman and Trudy Dreesen."

"Were you in love with Mr.
 
Cunningham by then?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"I was very committed to him and his children by that summer."

"You married him?"

"Yes .
 
. . in November of 1987.

"You adopted his children .
 
. .?"

"Yes."

The testimony moved into the rapid deterioration of their marriage, the

huge amounts of money Sara had given Brad to finance his various

ventures and expensive lifestyle, and the tremendous debts she had been

saddled with when they separated and divorced.
 
Nothing she had to say

helped Brad's case.
 
She no longer cared.
 
She had been frightened when

her testimony began, but as the hours passed, she seemed to experience

a catharsis.
 
She could almost see the humor in Brad's constant

manipulation.
 
She had been much more frightened during her marriage.

And she had had to tell this same story in her deposition before the

civil trial while Brad was sitting at the same table.
 
Only his

attorney Joe Rieke was between them then.
 
Even though she faced away

from Brad, she had been frightened.
 
Today he wasn't in the courtroom,

no one knew where he was.
 
Telling her story to Mike Shinn and the jury

was so much easier than what she had already been through, and she

seemed to relax as her testimony drew to a close.

"When did you file for divorce?"
 
Shinn asked.

"March seventh, 1990."
 
And then Sara recounted the terror she had

lived through during their divorce: the threats and harassments, the

sudden appearances and disappearances, the demands for money, the

destruction of the Dunthorpe house, the stalkings.
 
Now all that was in

the past.

Brad had cost her a million dollars.
 
But even that didn't matter.

What mattered was that she had not seen the three boys she had legally

adopted and had loved as her own for so long.
 
Her sons were growing up

without her.
 
She didn't even know if they were safe, living with a

father who was capable of violent rages and physical abuse.

"One final question," Michael Shinn asked.
 
"During that second phone

call to Brad on September twenty-first, when you found him at home,

what did you say to him?"