Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (110 page)

he couldn't settle down.
 
I left to get blankets out of the car.
 
We'd

race like that.
 
Zip here.
 
Zip there."
 
He said he had changed into

shorts and a T-shirt because that was comfortable "and I felt I looked

good.

Cheryl was coming over to see my apartment."

There were no dishes to wash, Brad said, but Michael had helped him

wash three or four loads of laundry.
 
"He'd pour in the soap and I'd

throw the clothes in the dryer."
 
Female jurors exchanged glances.

Three or four loads of laundry would have taken at least four hours.

But Brad was on a roll now and seemed to be enjoying himself.
 
He

became magnanimous as he smiled at the jurors.
 
"All you wonderful

people had to sit here so long because I didn't know they'd bring in

income tax fraud and bankruptcy.
 
I thought we had a five-to-ten-day

case....

Ninetyeight percent of the time, I'm happy with court decisions,

because it's fair.

I am litigious...."

He talked of items that Cheryl and her brother had hidden from the

bankruptcy court.
 
"She was committing bankruptcy fraud by giving away

l i 1!

the bronze moose head, my Rolex, the stereo, the Nikon camera .
 
.

. and I was about to depose some of her partners.
 
It was the right

time to paint me black.... Cheryl wasn't a little wallflower.
 
She was

fully apprised of everything we did."

The transformation that took place in Judge Alexander's courtroom was

fascinating as Brad obviously felt he had the jury in the palm of his

hand.
 
He was alternately sarcastic and expansive.
 
"I wanted custody

so I killed my wife," he said almost laughing.
 
"That's ludicrous....

I wasn't interested in full custody.
 
You had to go for the whole

enchilada?
 
I didn't want it.
 
I was president of a

seventeen-million-dollar company.
 
My life was good.
 
All I wanted to

show the judge was that Cheryl couldn't be the primary parent.
 
She had

to spend time with Mr. Sloane,* Mr. Miller,* Mr. Thomas,* Mr.

Green,* et cetera.
 
She didn't have time to be the primary parent."

Brad smiled winningly.
 
"I tend to be too analytical.
 
I tend to be too

practical," he said.
 
"I'm not a day at the beach, sometimes.
 
Today, I

stand before you only ten percent of the man I was two or three years

ago.
 
I'm more introspective.
 
Cheryl was a good mother.
 
She was going

through a cycle.
 
I was too.
 
I was coming out.
 
She got her licks in

with her affairs with guys at the office.... My life was back on track

in September 1986

. . . I was on a career track, my kids were happy, I was making eighty

thousand a year, and I was dating Dr. Gordon.... I'm a person who has

fiscal responsibility.
 
I always have been."

Suddenly, Brad's charismatic smile faded as he talked of the pictures

of Cheryl after she was dead.
 
"I never saw those pictures before," he

said.
 
"They do that to shock you and upset you.
 
It bothers me.
 
They

have no right to take pictures of Cheryl and show them like that.
 
It's

a stunt."
 
His voice faltered and he began to cry.
 
"Believe me, the

police officers have a set too.... You have to find me not guilty.
 
You

have to look at the facts."

Brad continued to sob.
 
"I loved Cheryl.
 
I loved her in August of

1986."

His tears caught in his throat.
 
"I loved her in September of 1986."

His voice dropped dramatically.
 
"I can still hear her say, Possession

is nine points of the law."
 
.
 
. . I'm also a little naiveþI always

have beenþI'm always a little shocked.... Cheryl lied in her

deposition."

Spectators were transfixed by his performance.
 
"I don't have to prove

anything," Brad said softly.
 
"But I tried to.
 
This was not a life

experience I want, but I had a duty to my children.
 
This was

incredible.

I had no idea it would be like this technically.
 
I'm not very

proficient and Judge Alexander got mad at me."

Brad spoke of "depraved indifference" as he stood before the jury, but

Judge Alexander called it a day for him.
 
He would have the rest of his

two hours in the morning.
 
And when he resumed his final argument, Brad

explained that he had only wanted to put Michael on the stand, his

alibi witness, but the judge hadn't allowed it.
 
He said that he had

just begun to understand the way the trial should go when it was all

over.

And once again he went down the list of those he blamed.

"Your time is up," Judge Alexander interrupted.
 
"Make some concluding

remarks."

"Think about Cheryl's life," Brad said earnestly.
 
"Strange stuff.

I had no motive.
 
This was Mom.
 
This is Mom.
 
I can tell you on the

health of my children, I would never have killed their mom."

Scott Upham rose to give the prosecution's final argument.
 
He looked

at the jurors whose faces were as impassive as all jurors' are.
 
Had

they believed any of Brad's histrionics?
 
There was always the danger

of finding out that one or two jurors had bought a story that seemed,

to Upham, patently false.
 
He never quit until it was really all

over.

Still a little pale around the gills, he began, "This isn't about

theories.

This is about truth...."

Upham commented that real people didn't have stop watches as they went

about their lives.
 
All of Brad's careful manipulation of times was not

enough to change the facts.
 
There was no question, he said, that

Cheryl was terribly upset when she called her mother shortly after

seven on Sunday night.
 
"The month of September had been especially

brutal for herþall the incidents added to her fear and apprehension."

Even changing times slightly, Upham said, "the defendant clearly had

the opportunity to do what Cheryl said he would doþthat's sufficient to

find him guilty of murder."

Brad had deliberately staged a car wreck, he said.
 
Hadn't his first

question to Jim Ayers been, Did she die in a traffic accident?

No, Ayers had said.

Upham speculated about what Brad must have thought: Damn!
 
Now what do

I do?

"To believe he didn't do this [crime]," Upham said,"Cheryl's note would

have had to be a lie.
 
Her call to Betty would have to be a lie.

She'd have to lie to Jim Karr at seven-thirty.
 
She deliberately lied

three times?"
 
And then, Upham pointed out, Sara had, of course, lied

about her calls to Brad that went unanswered.
 
Mary Troseth's calls

weren't answered either, so that would make him a liar too.
 
"The last

lie was when Jess unlocked the door and Brad said, I've been jogging

around Sara's hospital."
 
That makes nine lies told by four different

people," Upham said.
 
"Jess, Cheryl, Mary, and Sara.
 
I believe Mr.

Cunningham is unworthy of your attention."

Brad's furious objection was sustained.

"Brad's lie," Upham continued undeterred, "was I'm excited about

showing her [Cheryl] my digsþeven though I'm destroying her in the

divorce, with the kids, and ruining her partners' reputation."
 
He

listed all the people who had to be wrong for Brad to be right, and the

list encompassed almost everyone he had been in contact withþor who had

seen him when he hadn't wanted to be seenþon the night Cheryl died.

"Mr. Cunningham is willing to say anything under any circumstances to

suit his convenience.

"Cheryl's note, the phone calls, the time-line witnesses, his behavior

after Cheryl's murder, and his contradictory statements all point to

guilt," Upham said.
 
"The autopsy shows that Cheryl Keeton was savagely

murdered.... But there was no sexual attack, and it was not robbery.

The motive was pure hatred.

"And he left his calling card," Upham added.
 
"His DNA."

Upham said that the only person who hated Cheryl was Bradly Morris

Cunningham.
 
Brad objected and was overruled.
 
Upham's final argument

was getting to Brad, and he objected constantly until Judge Alexander

reminded him, 7his is closing argument."

"Everybody's out to get Mr. Cunningham," Upham said wearily.
 
"He

consistently and relentlessly lies.
 
It just wears me out to think of

them all.
 
I'm not going to try."

Upham picked up a handful of the letters that Brad had sent to Jess,

Michael, and Phillip from jail.
 
While Sara cared for his children, he

had clearly tried to destroy their trust in her.
 
As Upham read

excerpts, the jurors' faces and body language reflected shock for the

first time in the trial.

"I worry about you.... Sara's destroying our father and son

relationship.... Her sick black soul ... controls you with money."

"Dearest Sons, Things are going really well.... Maybe her reign is

nearing the end."

"Dear Sons, She is sweating her butt off.
 
She is praying to her black

God, her devil master.
 
I think her condition is becoming critical and