Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (102 page)

however, he continued to attack Cheryl's morals, her family's morals,

and the police who had investigated her murder.

He offered up many suspects for the jurors to consider.
 
Jerry Finch of

course, a "persistent" older man who was "bugging" Cheryl, her many

other lovers.
 
He even suggested that her brother, Jim Karr, was not

above suspicion.
 
In the days ahead, he promised to reveal more

possible killers.

There was missing evidence, Brad suggested, and he listed items he

would request continually throughout his trial: a grocery receipt for

seventy-seven dollars' worth of groceries allegedly purchased by Cheryl

at the I.G.A on Sunday, September 21, 1986, the groceries, a garage door

control, fingernail scrapings from Cheryl, phone records, exterior

photos of the Toyota van, a bedroll allegedly given to Jerry Finch, a

"gold ring" found on Cheryl's belt.

The long Monday finally ended, but Brad was not yet finished with his

opening statement.
 
There was more lost evidence to be considered, lost

years, the secret lifestyle he insisted that Cheryl livedþwith cocaine,

illicit lovers, nude beaches, intrigue.
 
All of his innuendos were

completely alien to everyone who knew Cheryl.
 
And when they walked out

into the autumn afternoon, the trees around the courthouse were aflame

with color and it felt good to leave Brad's ugly accusations behind.

Judge Alexander warned Brad again the next morning that there were very

few attorneys in Oregon qualified to defend a murder case.
 
"You are

way, way off," he admonished.
 
"You have to follow the same rules they

do.
 
If you say something in the opening and then can't prove It,

you're opening yourself up for trouble."
 
He explained once again that

Brad was not to try his case during his opening statement, he was only

supposed to be outlining what the jurors could expect to hear and

see.

Brad stood in place at the lectern as the jury filed in the next

morning.
 
He was calm and gracious, speaking often of his financial

affairs, but, jarringly, the emotion evoked as he recalled lost

business deals seemed greater than when he spoke of his lost wife.
 
In

March 1993, he said, he was at his "nadir" financially.
 
The jurors,

none of whom appeared to be millionaires, appeared nonplussed by all

his talk of "million-dollar loans," "tax loss carry-forward," and

"bankruptcy."

They had agreed to sit on a murder jury and the defendant scarcely

mentioned the murder.

After he explained his status as an executive with U.S. Bank, Brad

frowned, remembering the period after Cheryl's murder.
 
"After Cheryl's

death, we were all very scared .
 
. . fear that the children would be

stolen þby Betty, or by Washington County.... I tried to stay available

to the police in case they wanted to arrest me."
 
He said that he and

his sons had endured a "tough" existence in Yakima that fall and

winter.
 
In late January he had finished building the barn, and "at

Sara's request, I moved back.

Then Brad began to talk about Sara Gordon.
 
Aware that she would be a

chief witness against him, he also had to impugn her morals.
 
He said a

C.P.A. told them that Sara could use his tax loss carry-forward, but

only if they were married.
 
This, he claimed, was the main reason for

the marriage.
 
"We weren't real compatible," he confided to the jury

Again boasting of his accomplishments, he told the jury about the

"dilapidated" building that he turned into the Broadway Bakery, and how

he found the formula for Svmptovir.
 
"I'm interested in chemistry and

math," he said.
 
"I was the guinea pig for Symptovir.
 
I started the

FDA process .
 
.."

From Brad's viewpoint, virtually nothing in his life had been what it

seemed to be.
 
He was the fall guy, the patsy, who had always struggled

against great odds.
 
He said that he and Sara learned after marriage

that the tax loss carry-forward could be used only against hrs

income.

The reasons for their marriage were gone.
 
Sara was not fair with his

children.
 
Yes, he admitted, he had had an affair with Lynn Minero his

bakery manager, but he blamed that too on Sara, because she had moved

out of their Dunthorpe home, deserting him.

It was Jim Avers, the Oregon State Police investigator, who was

basically responsible, Brad suggested, for Sara's change of heart about

testifying against him.
 
Ayers had encouraged Sara to "recall" the

bruise allegedly present on his arm after the murder.
 
"Sara and Ayers

broke into the house," Brad said, "and took pots, pans, bedding, a

computer Cheryl's wedding ring, a necklace that the boys had given

Cheryl for Mother's Day."

In his rambling opening statement Brad pointed his finger at many

enemies and spoke of his despair after Sara abandoned him.
 
He and his

sons had only an old VW bus that his aunt Trudv gave them.
 
"We had to

have a garage sale to live," he said, hanging his head.
 
"We made about

five thousand dollars."

Suddenly, Brad returned to Cheryl's rampant promiscuity and added that

she also disposed of assets in their bankruptcy.
 
He seemed about to

launch a still longer attack on his dead wife when Alexander warned him

that he had far exceeded the time limits and legal parameters of

opening statements.
 
When Brad paid no attention to the admonition

Alexander interrupted the verbal torrent.
 
"That's enough, Mr.

Cunningham.

Please take your seat!
 
Sit down!"

Judge Alexander explained to the jury that they had yet to hear one

word of evidence.
 
They were to go hack "to ground zero.
 
Start

fresh.

Wait until you hear testimony.
 
Listen to what is acceptable.

Disregard the vast majority of what you have heard."

Brad wanted Mike Shinn banned from the courtroom.
 
He might want to

call him as a witness.

"I'm going to permit Mr.
 
Shinn to stay," Alexander said.

And so it began, the whole sequence of Cheryl Keeton's life and death

passing once again through a courtroom.
 
Sometimes it would rain

relentlessly outside the Washington County Courthouse, and sometimes

the sky was clear blue.
 
There were unseasonal snow storms, but inside

the courtroom, no one knew.
 
Participants and gallery alike were all

caught in a window of time, a window that existed not in 1994 but in

1986, when the weather was warm and the sun had just set behind the

Coast Range mountains.

Again, Randall Blighton told of finding Cheryl's van crosswise on the

Sunset Highway, again Tim Duffy, the paramedic, recalled trying to save

Cheryl.
 
Witnesses who once lived on 79th Street returned.
 
Oregon

State Police troopers, detectives, sergeants, lieutenants,

supervisors.

Cops.

Medical examiners.
 
Attorneys.
 
Dr. Russell Sardo.
 
Most of the

gallery knew the witnesses by sight.
 
It was akin to seeing the same

movie for the fifth time, only this time the film would have an

ending.

Cheryl's family all testified, and Brad cross-examined Betty Troseth

savagely.
 
He had begun his character assassination of her during his

opening statement, saying that she drank and caroused and that some of

the men in her life had sexually abused Cheryl.
 
He asked her again

about the alleged abuse, and Betty looked not at him but through him as

she said she never heard of it.

"Do you recall making the statement that you wish you'd had four

retroactive abortions?"
 
Brad lashed out.

"Mr. Cunningham, let's not have any more outbursts like that," Judge

Alexander cut in, telling the jurors to disregard the remark.

Once again, Cheryl's mother had to live through the last conversation

she ever had with her oldest child, her pain achingly obvious.

It had not been a good morning for Brad.
 
Karen Aaborg testified about

the money he gave her to spirit his sons away, so far away that even he

could not find them.
 
Perhaps worse for Brad, she recalled the phone

calls she had overheard between Brad and Cheryl, and his saying, "I'll

kill Cheryl.
 
I'll kill her."

"I remember it pretty vividly, because he said it with such passion,"

she said.
 
Karen also remembered the time in February of 1986 when Brad

returned to Cheryl's home after he had moved out.
 
"He was trying to

make it so miserable for Cheryl that she'd ..

eave.

After the jurors left for lunch, Alexander turned to Brad.
 
"If you

ever had a chance with this jury, you just ruined it," he said quietly,

referring to Brad's attack on Betty Troseth.
 
"You're so convinced that

you're right that you're not listening to the advice I suspect these

lawyers [Hunt and Lyons] have given you."

Any real lawyer knew the cardinal rule of defense attorneys: you do not

attack the grieving family of the victim, and you do not portray the

victim as a loose womanþno matter what she may have been in life.

Brad had made devastating remarks about Cheryl, and several female

jurors darted looks at him that were no longer unreadable.

There was a buzz in the courtroom when Scott Uphamþnot Bradþ called

Jess Cunningham as a witness that afternoon.
 
Tall and handsome Jess

looked very much like his fatherþbut with a gentler when.
 
Under

Upham's matter-of-fact questioning, Jess explained that he was a

freshman in high school, and that he and his three brothersþMichael,

Phillip, and Brentþall lived with Sara.
 
He admitted that being in