Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (86 page)

Shinn asked Englert what he felt was the motive for this murder.

Englert wrote four words on the easel, and crossed them out one by

one.

"Sex?
 
No.
 
Theft?
 
No.
 
Because this is what I would term overkill."

This is one of the very few that you'll see with that much overkill."

Englert said if he had been there on the night of the murder, he would

have ruled out everything but "Fear" and "Revenge."
 
The fact that the

van had been rolled out onto the freeway, combined with the overkill,

made him believe the motive was revenge.

"You can just see the hatred in this case," Lieutenant Englert

commented, "because of the four different positions I described to

you.

You see a male who has a very strong personality, a very domineering

personalityþhe wouldn't be afraid."

Both Oregon State Police Sergeant Greg Baxter and Detective Jim Ayers

had always believed that Brad had taken his four-year-old son Michael

along with him when he went to confront Cheryl at the Mobile station.

"You mean her own son was used as bait to lure her to her death?"

Mike Shinn asked Baxter when he took the stand.

"That's exactly correct."

Ayers testified next.
 
He had worked closely with Shinn in

reconstructing this case.
 
When he took the stand, he was as anxious as

the people who had known Cheryl Keeton in life to see that her killer

was brought to justice.

Nobody ever knew what Ayers was going to look like, he worked

undercover as much as he did routine detective work.
 
He sometimes

looked like an accountant, but just as frequently he would resemble a

truck driver or a bearded biker.
 
Even those who knew him well could

often stand right next to him and fail to recognize him.
 
He was

extremely proficient on any detailþbe it drug enforcement, sex crimes,

or homicideþand he was a natural chameleon.
 
On the day of his

testimony, his hair was cut short and he wore horn-rimmed glasses.
 
He

was dressed in a striped shirt, dark suit, and tie.
 
He was, for the

moment, in his "accountant" garb.

Ayers told the jurors that when he and Detective Jerry Finch went to

Brad's Madison Tower apartment a few hours after his wife had been

found dead, they were there only to inform him of her death.
 
There had

been no reason to read Brad his rights under Miranda.
 
He was not a

suspect, he wasn't in custody.

"When you first got to Mr. Cunningham's apartment," Shinn began, "you

didn't know anything about himþor about her, did you?"

"No, other than that she was dead," Ayers said.

Ayers recalled the one-hour-and-fifty-minute conversation he had had

that night with Brad.
 
It was to be the last time Brad would ever talk

to him about anything.
 
After that, he had made himself unavailable to

the investigators.

"I asked him about the last time that he had seen Cheryl," Ayers

said.

"And he stated he had seen her Friday evening when he had picked the

kids up."

Ayers testified that Brad told him Cheryl had agreed to come to his

apartment and pick up the boys.
 
When Ayers said he had information

that Brad had planned to meet Cheryl at the abandoned Mobile station on

the West Slope, he denied it.

"What was the next conversation?"

"I asked him if he'd killed Cheryl."

"What'd he say?"

"He said, No."

" "How'd he say it?"

"He had a very brief display of emotionþand I mean brief.
 
. . a

fifteen-to-twenty-second display of emotion.
 
My interpretation of what

that was wasn't emotion over Cheryl having been killed, but he was

frightened by the fact that I had asked him that question."

Ayers repeated Brad's oft-told stories about Cheryl's affairs with a

number of men and her fondness for country-and-western music.
 
He said

that she hung out at a truck stop and often went to the nude beach on

the Columbia River.
 
At that point in the investigation, Ayers said, he

had no reason to doubt Brad's description.
 
Later, he said he had

discovered that Brad had been lying and he saw it as an attempt to suggest that any number of people might have had a motive to murder

Cheryl.

"Did he say he ever left the apartment?"
 
Shinn asked.

"Yes, he did," Ayers testified.
 
"He said he left one time just long

enough to take some things down to the garage, because he had an

inspection to do the next day."

"Did he tell you that he and the three little boys were sitting in the

lobby for a long time waiting for Cheryl to show up?"

"No."

"Did he tell you that he took Michael with him for a while, wearing his

jogging costume and his hunting jacket?"

"No.... I asked Cunningham if he was athletic," Avers said.
 
"He stated

No.

"He denied he was athletic?"

"Yes."

Shinn reminded Ayers and the jury of Brad's background as a star

football player.
 
And whoever had killed Cheryl had probably been

someone of considerable strength and almost certainly jogged from the

crime scene to the Mobile station to get his car.
 
BeyondSim Karr's

suspicions, Ayers had no reason to believe that Brad was lying.
 
In

retrospect, however, it seemed that he was denying anything that might

have linked him to Cheryl's murder.
 
And he would not have done that

unless he already knew how the crime had been committed.

Ayers testified that at one point Finch had asked if he could talk to

the boys.
 
"Cunningham just said, NO!þnot until I talk to an attorney

about it."

" "Why did you want to talk to the boys?"

"My strong suspicion," Ayers said, "and greatest fear, was that all or

at least one of those children were with Brad Cunninghamþ" Suddenly,

Ayers' voice faltered and he closed his eyes against tears swallowing

hard.
 
He could not speak.
 
Judge Haggertv realized that, for the

moment, Avers could not go on.
 
He called for a noon recess.
 
And when

court reconvened that afternoon, the jury listened to other witnesses

before Ayers returned to the stand.
 
He had regained his composure and

was able to continue his testimony in his usual professional voice.

"I had substantial concernþthat was shared by all the investigators in

this caseþthat Brad had taken at least one or all the boys with him.

That one or more of those boys might have been a witness to their

mother's death."

"He never let you talk to those boys?"
 
Shinn asked.

"No, not willingly."

"Eventually, you had to subpoena them," Shinn said, "and they had a i

lawyer by then Is it common for little children to have a lawyer when

their father is a murder suspect?"

"I've never encountered it."

In fact, six-year-old Jess had offered testimony to a grand jury that

implied his father had been absent from the Madison Tower apartment at

the time of his mother's murder.
 
But that had not been enough to

indict Brad for the crime.
 
And no one investigating the case had been

able to speak to the boys again.

When Jim Ayers stepped down from the witness chair, he hoped his

testimony would help to nail Brad Cunningham.
 
For years, he had wanted

to face Cunningham in a court of law.
 
Brad was not there now.
 
But it

didn't matter, the jury could still render its verdict.
 
If it ruled

against him, Cunningham could eventually face a criminal trial, and

Ayers would willingly take the witness stand again.

Ordinarily, the family of the defendant testifies for the defense.

In this trial, there was no defenseþonly an empty table.
 
But had there

been a defense, the female relatives from Brad's past would not have

testified for him.
 
They came to Judge Haggerty's courtroom to testify

for Cheryl's estate.

Ethel Cunningham Bakke, Brad's elder sister, wore a white pantsuit and

a dark aqua blouse.
 
She was blond with dark brown eyes and bore a

resemblance to her brother.
 
"Brad was so suave and so .sweet-talking

with the girls," she testified.
 
"He made money.
 
He knew how to turn a

dollarþ" "Did you know his wives?"
 
Shinn asked.

"Yes, I met Loni Ann because she was my baby-sitter when he was in high

school.
 
I met Cynthia because I went to court to help Loni Ann keep

her children.... I ran into my brother in a restaurant and I met

Lauren, who was about to have her baby.... They separated within a

month after that, and Cheryl came into his life.... My daughter got

married on June twenty-eighth, 1986, and my father said, Have you

called Cheryl?"
 
and I said, I don't know Brad's address or phone

number."

" Sanford Cunningham had told Ethel that Cheryl and Brad were having

problems and that she could "be nice and invite Cheryl to the

wedding."

"Did you call Cheryl?"
 
Shinn asked.

"I did.... This was in April.... I invited her to the wedding ...

and she said, I would like to know more about you and your motherþ' I

said, My mom's alive," and she said, You're kidding!"
 
and I said she

would be at the wedding."

Cheryl told Ethel that she was very afraid of Brad and that he had

threatened her.
 
"You're not the first," Ethel answered.
 
And so a