Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (85 page)

"I was angry.
 
My first response was, When I can't get hold of you, I

don't know if you're out killing Cheryl or Cheryl's killing you."

" "You were kidding, weren't you?"

". . . no, I was serious.
 
I was really concerned.
 
I didn't know where

he was.
 
It was so unlike him not to be in touch with me...."

"That relationship had reached such a peak .
 
. . where you were

actually partway serious .
 
. .?"

"Yes."

"What was his response?"

"He didn't respond."

! f L Dr. Karen Gunson, who had performed the autopsy on Cheryl, used

photos during her testimony that showed the terrible damage done to the

victim.

Dr. William Brady, a legend in forensic pathology who had been Oregon

State's medical examiner for more than twenty years, testified next.

Tall, slim, and dapper with a neatly trimmed snowy-white mustache and

Vandyke beard, he had studied the Cheryl Keeton case at Shinn's

request.

"Of all these autopsies and homicide investigations you've been

involved in," Shinn asked, "how would you rate the level of violence in

the Cheryl Keeton case?"

"The amount of violence .
 
. . would certainly have to be at the top of

my particular scale.... Actual physical assaults or beatings are

uncommon.... Of those I have had experience with, they fall into two

categories, .
 
. . a few blows .
 
. . and the other narrow category of

repetitive, extreme violence, of what we call overkill."
 
Of that now

exceedingly small group, .
 
. . this one certainly with the number of

injuries, the distribution, character type of the injuries .
 
. .

would rank this .
 
. . right up at the top of anyone's scale."

Dr. Brady went over each injury and told the jury that there were

minutesþ"quite some minutes"þbefore Cheryl actually died.
 
Her death

had not been instantaneous.
 
"She may well have been alive for a good

time after eight o'clock...."

"As much as twenty minutes or thirty minutes?"
 
Shinn asked.

"That's not unreasonable.
 
Probably less, but it may have been that

long."

"So we have fifteen to thirty minutes of beating?"

"I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that the beating occurred all

that time, because we have motionþa change of location of the

automobileþ" "For some reason," Shinn said, "there's a lull, and

there's more beatings?"

"What we can say medically is that there is a period of survival during

which time this lady had been beaten, lived, and died....We're not

talking about a single beating and then deathþno."

' It's not a merciful killing, was it?"

"That's an understatement."
 
Based on his experience, Dr. Brady said

that this particular type of overkill was "a crime of passion."

Dr. Russell Sardo, who had attempted to find some equitable way for

Brad and Cheryl to share their custody of their three little boys,

testified to his finding thatþin the endþhe had chosen Cheryl as the

primary parent.
 
Dr. Sardo was on the stand for a long time, and he

did an excellent job of explaining the dynamics he had seen between

Cheryl and Bradþhis aggression and her willingness to bend as far as

she could to reach some kind of a solution.
 
He commented that often

divorcing parents view children as "possessions," something to be "won"

from the other party like a house or a car or a boat.
 
Although that

was not true in Cheryl's case, it was in Brad's.

Lieutenant Rod Englert of the Multnomah County Sheriffs Office was a

much sought-after expert in a somewhat arcane area of expertiseþ blood

spatter evidence.
 
He could read all manner of things from blood

spatter, splatter, spray, drops, and stains.
 
He could actually

reconstruct crime scenes, showing direction of force, and he could

decipher whether blood spatter was of low, medium, or high velocity.

He was also an expert on crime scene psychology.

Englert had viewed the evidence from the Keeton homicide.
 
In his

psychological reconstruction of Cheryl's murder, Englert first

considered what type of person might carry out the "overkill" of two

dozen violent blows.
 
Then he tried to connect a sequence of events

that had taken place inside the Toyota van.
 
Englert began, "We have

four different motives to consider: Was it a fear thing?
 
.
 
. . Was it

revenge?
 
Was it sex?
 
Or was it theft?
 
Most homicides fall into one

of those categories.

"In crimes of violence, blood is often shed.
 
And through that

bloodshed, you can make interpretations."
 
Englert showed the jury that

round drops are usually low-velocity spatterþ"cast-off blood."
 
If a

person's hand is bleeding or if the weapon in the hand of a killer has

blood on it, and he throws it back, the blood will be cast off onto a

surface in an elongated shape with a "tail."
 
The tail always points

toward the direction of travel.

Medium-velocity impact spatter is blood shed by blunt trauma "If I hit

Mr. Shinn with a baseball bat," Englert said, "there will be no blood

i I from the first blow.
 
There will be a laceration."
 
He moved his

arm to demonstrate and Shinn never flinched.
 
The jury watched,

fascinated.

"The second blowþor even the thirdþwill produce medium-velocity

spatter....

As a result of my striking Mr. Shinn with this baseball bat," we start

creating a spatter patternþand I can hit him ten or fifteen times, and

you'll see a horribly bloody scene, but you can look at me and you

could swear I didn't do it because there will be very little blood on

the perpetrator.
 
There may be some on my shoes, there may be some

right here under my cuffs.
 
There may be some on the back of my hand,

but very, very little.
 
The force is away from the person doing the

striking."

In Cheryl's murder, there would have been massive amounts of blood

around where her head had beenþbut virtually no blood on the person who

struck those blows.
 
Englert had selected eleven photographs of the

Toyota van to show the jury what had happened to her.

"In my opinion, the first time she was hit was in the driver's seat.

You say, There's no blood in the driver's seat," but that's why.

The blood was directed away from the driver's seat.... Most of the

blows are to the left side of her body and to the back of her

head....

The first blow would not have shed any blood, but the next blowþ"

Englert pointed to the child's carseat behind the driver's seat.

The tails of blood were thereþpointing to the rear of the van, away

from the direction of blows.
 
"She was in the driver's seat, her head

leaning toward the passenger seat.
 
There were defensive bruises on her

arm where she tried to ward off the blows.
 
That's position number

one."

Position number two was on the console between the seats.
 
"She's

down.

She's bloody, .
 
. . she's moving her hands and transferring blood,

cloth on cloth [Cheryl's shirt moving against the upholstery], and

struggling.

Her only route of escape is toward the [passenger] door."

Cheryl was hit so many times that she was weakening.
 
This was chilling

testimony.
 
The courtroom was absolutely still, save for Englert's

voice.

Position number three, he demonstrated, was where most of the damage

was done to the back of Cheryl's head.
 
She was down, disoriented.
 
She

was stretching for the door but her head was at the headrest.
 
The

medium-velocity spatter showed on the passenger window.
 
At this point,

Englert felt that Cheryl was rendered unconscious.
 
"She was

strugglingþbut slowlyþto get out the door before this.
 
See the

lowvelocity blood where she rested?
 
The tails are pointed downward on

the back of the seatþas they would as if from a nosebleed.
 
She also

tried to open the door to escape.
 
There is medium-velocity spatter on

the inside of this doorjamb and it couldn't have gotten there unless

the door was open."

There was only one more position.
 
Position number four.
 
"Her but

tocks were on the console, her head is down and stationary, and she's

bleeding, saturating blood into the carpet on the passenger floor."

Englert held a photograph of the plastic bag found on the floor of the

passenger side.
 
There were transfer bloodstains there from Cheryl's

hair þbut there was no movement at all.
 
Englert agreed with Dr. Brady

that it had taken many minutes for the attack to take place.
 
Cheryl

had bled for a long time.

"If I understand you correctly," Shinn said, "the blood spatter trail

that you can read for us is more reliable than if we'd had an

eyewitness in this case."

"It's scientific," Englert said.
 
"It's reliableþas opposed to

witnesses sometimes, who are not as reliableþincluding myself" "What

kind of weapon was used?"

"It's a linear object."
 
Englert picked up a long police flashlightþa

Ken light that Shinn had procured.
 
The murder weapon, he said, would

have been something similar, with many different-shaped surfaces.

The blood on the ceiling of the van was cast-off blood, flung from the

blunt object used to bludgeon Cheryl to death, as her killer hit her

again and again.