Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (97 page)

S2,250,000.

Brad didn't have S250,000.

A hearing was set for April 23 when the court expected to review the

bail and to consider extradition requests from Oregon.
 
For the first

time in his life, Brad was behind bars, dressed in jail issue clothes,

treated like a criminal.
 
It is quite possible that he never really

considered that such a thing might come to pass.

McKernan made one more effort to talk with Brad before he returned to

Oregon.
 
He explained to James Tweety that Brad had said repeatedly in

television interviews and to newspaper reporters that all he wanted was

a chance to "tell his side of the story."
 
McKernan was willing to

listen.

Tweety reported back that his client had nothing to say to any

representative of the Oregon State Police or the Washington County

District Attorney's office.
 
Disappointed, but not particularly

surprised, McKernan headed home.

Jess, Michael, and Phillip stayed with their father's recently widowed

uncle Herman.
 
He had grown to love them, but caring for three young

boys was a daunting task for Dreesen, who had a busy medical practice

and no woman in the house to help.
 
Moreover, he was still grieving for

his kind, beautiful wife.
 
Jess was thirteen, Michael was eleven, and

Phillip was nine.
 
Their mother had been dead for six and a half years,

they hadn't seen their adoptive mother, Sara, for almost three years,

their aunt Trudy was dead too, and their temporary "mother" Dana was

virtually gone from their lives.
 
They had lived in Houston, Portland,

Seattle Lynnwood, and Canada, traveling continually.
 
The central

figure in their world was their fatherþhe had seen to that.
 
Now they

had watched him kneeling in handcuffs and escorted to a patrol car by

uniformed officers.
 
Brad had been correct in his statement to Deputy

David Vasconi.
 
His arrest had been "very hard" on his children.

Even so, Dreesen noticed that the boys were less reclusive and more

animated after their father was out of the house.
 
they had never dared

to speak back to him on any subject, but as Dreesen commented to

another of Brad's relatives, "Once Brad was in jail, and calling to

talk with the boys, sometimes I've noticed that they actually disagree

with him...."
 
Jess, Michael, and Phillip were no longer the obedient

automatons that Brad had programmed.
 
They were brilliant young boys,

beginning to assert themselves, but they must have been terribly

confused.

Sara Gordon read the news of Brad's arrest.
 
The Oregonian headlined it

"Jury Indicts Man Six Years After Murder."
 
It confirmed what she had

finally come to believe: that Brad had indeed murdered Cheryl.
 
But she

worried constantly about Jess, Michael, and Phillip.
 
She had managed to

go on with her life, she had had no choice.
 
Brad was suing her for

child support, but he had made it impossible for her to see her sons.

They had been little boys when they went away, and nowSess was in his

teens.

Sara and Jack Kincaid had renewed their romance.
 
He had been there for

her when she needed someone solidþsomeone who told the truth.
 
They

were considering marriage and had purchased a secluded house that

fronted on Lake Oswego.
 
("I loved that house more than any other I've

ever had," she would remember.) They had been in their new home for two

months when Brad was arrested.

Brad's indictment meant that Sara would again be in a witness chair for

days of testimony.
 
This time, Brad would be in the courtroom, and she

knew he would instruct his attorneys to go for her throat.
 
If that had

to be, it had to be.
 
But it was something she dreaded.
 
She wasn't

alone.

Every other woman ever involved with Brad dreaded the thought of once

more testifying against him.
 
Their fear wasn't something they could

explainþnot to someone who hadn't lived through it.

Sara had never had children of her own, and Jack had raised his two.

They had planned a life without children, although Sara knew she would

always miss the sons she had been allowed to have for only a short

time.

But now Brad's arrest meant thatSess, Michael, and Phillip, by law,

might be returned to her.
 
Sara was their legal mother and she wanted

them back.
 
But she wanted to be sure they were comfortable with her.

She had no idea what Brad might have told them in the last three

years.

She had listened to their angry voices yelling at her on the phone,

heard Brad coaching them in the background.
 
For all she knew, her sons

might be completely brainwashed by now and consider her the ultimate

enemy, the real cause of their father's downfall.

Sara got in touch with Herm Dreesen and they talked about what would be

best for the boys.
 
The weekend after Brad's arrest, Betty and Mary

Troseth and Sara and Jack went up to Dreesen's house to see Jess and

Michael and Phillip.
 
They moved very gently and very slowly.
 
They had

some idea what the boys had been through.
 
And they knew the boys were

seeing relatives they hadn't been allowed any contact with for

yearsþrelatives their father had told them were dangerous and evil.

Ever so slowly, the ice melted.
 
Sara had never been anything but

loving to her sons, and they began to remember that.
 
They began to

remember "Mom" and they began to remember their grandmother, Betty

Troseth.
 
"Every weekend after that," Sara said, "I went up to Lynnwood

to spend time with them.
 
Herm and I agreed that they should finish the

school year up there, but that it would be best if they came back to

live with me and Jack."

Brad continued to fight extradition to Washington County, Oregon.

He was finally transported to Hillsboro and arraigned on murder charges

on May 6, 1993, in the county where Cheryl had died.
 
On June 6, Brad

pleaded "not guilty" to murder charges.

If Jess, Michael, and Phillip hadn't gone to live with Sara they would

probably have been placed in a foster home.
 
It was their decision and

they picked Sara.
 
But it was not going to be an easy road.

On June 22, 1993, Sara and Jack drove to Lynnwood and brought the boys

home to Lake Oswego.
 
By that time they had come to a decision about

their relationship.
 
The future they had planned together had to take a

backseat to Sara's sons.
 
"Sara and I had finally gotten to the point

where most of the financial messes Brad created were resolved or under

control," Kincaid remembered.
 
"We had a great life together and it

looked even brighter, despite the lingering concern about Brad's

continued legal harassment and some issues of personal safety....

Bingo!

Brad gets arrested.
 
Because I knew it wouldn't work with me living in

the same home as Brad's three children, Sara leased a home for herself

and the boys .
 
. . where she lives at this time.
 
Obviously, this has

taken a toll on our relationship, but not on our friendship...."

Sara had made her choice, the only choice she felt she could make.

Jack stayed in the house on the lake for a while, they still saw each

other, but it wasn't the same.

Brad was rapidly running out of family to support himþboth emotionally

and financially.
 
Herm Dreesen finally realized that he was merely

expedient to his nephew.
 
That was brought home loud and clear when

Brad assumed his uncle would pay for criminal defense lanyers, and

referred prospective attorneys to Dr. Dreesen.
 
Estimating

conservatively, a murder defense was going to cost two hundred thousand

dollars.

Dreesen had backed Brad for years now, given him and his children a

home, advanced money to him, tried to get a building project started,

but there was no way he could afford legal fees like that.
 
With his

refusal to guarantee Brad's legal expenses, his uncle Herm became

another one of Brad's "enemies."
 
He told the court that he was

indigent.
 
The State of Oregon would have to provide him with an

attorney.
 
But as always, he would continue to go through attorneys the

way a hot knife cuts through butter.

Sara hired a nanny to be with Jess, Michael, and Phillip when she was at

the hospital.
 
She was happy to see that they were all accomplished on

the Mac computer that Brad had bought them, and that they still loved

sports.
 
They began to rebuild their lives together, steadily narrowing

the emotional distance that three years had wrought.
 
Sara signed the

boys up for tennis, baseball, and basketball, and chauffeured them

around herself.
 
She went to every one of their games she could.

Jess loved to fish, Michaelþwho was the image of Cherylþhad a great

sense of humor, and Phillip had real talent as a cartoonist.
 
At first,

Phillip's drawings were mostly black on black, but gradually he began

to use yellow crayons, flooding his work with "sunshine."

Meanwhile, as Brad awaited trial, Sara had little sunshine in her life

beyond her sons.
 
She was under almost constant siegeþby phone and by

mailþfrom the man who gave his return address as "cunningham dad,

Washington County Jail, 146

N.E. Lincoln Street, Hillsboro, OR."
 
Brad addressed his letters to

"Cunningham" or "Cunningham Boys/3."
 
The envelopes were decorated with

cartoons demeaning Sara, and with pornographic references to Jack, whom

Brad had dubbed "The Infamous Lake Oswego WeaselþMr.
 
G.Q."

Brad had always related to his sons in an oddly demarcated manner.