Dead By Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer?
“It was Cheryl. "Brad called and he wants me to meet him at thatMobile station down by the I.G.A storeþbut I know that station'sclosed...." "No!" Betty said. "Don't go down there." "I have to get my kids." Betty begged Cheryl to wait until she and Mary could drive down toPortland and go with her to pick up the boys, but Cheryl argued thatwould take an hour at least. She was going to go. She had to go. Betty couldn't change her daughter's mind. "You call me the second youget back to the hou...se. Don't wait for anything. I want to know you'resafely home." Cheryl promised she would. When Betty called Susan again that evening, she was on the edge ofhysteria. She was terrified that Cheryl was going to meet Brad andtold Susan that she thought she and Mary should head for Portlandimmediately. "Go to Portland, if you want to go, Mom," Susan said. Now Susan wascatching the fear too. "Something's not right," Betty said. "I don't know what'shappening." Susan put down the phone and told her father about Betty's two franticphone calls. "I got very nervous too. I had a lump in my throat allevening," Bob McNannay said. Betty waited anxiously for Cheryl's call. Trying to ease her mind,Mary placed calls to both Cheryl's number and Brad's. There was noanswer at either, and no answering machine pickup. At Betty's urging,Mary kept calling but no one answered. The next call that Betty received from the West Slope house was fromher son Jim. She grabbed the phone before the first ring was over andwhen she heard Jim's voice, she cried, "She's dead, isn't she? Cheryl's dead!" Jim said that wasn't true. He didn't know where Cheryl was, but he hadfound a note from her and he was going to go look for her. Betty was inconsolable. She knew her daughter was dead. And, of course, she was right. Brad had hired three separate attorneys to represent him in his divorcefrom Cheryl, dismissing them one after the other even though they werethe best in the business. He had consulted almost a dozen others. He l need not have bothered. How ironic that he didn't need a divorcenow. Nor would there be any more custody battles. Cheryl was dead. And Jess, Michael, and Phillip were his alone. Part IV Sara I i t . Brad Cunningham had emerged as the prime suspectin the death of his estranged wife, but the time frame of Cheryl'smurder was vitally important in establishing the possibility of hisguilt. Brad could account for his movements on that Sunday nightalmost to the minute. If Danielle Daniels, one of the residents livingalong 79th where it entered the Sunset Highway, had heard the sounds ofsomeone beating Cheryl to death, the time of the murder would have beenbetween 8:20 and 8:25. In order for Oregon State Police detectives to be satisfied that Bradhad nothing to do with the crime, they would have to talk to witnesseswho could back up his alibi for that Sunday night. Brad didn't have to prove anything. In America, suspects anddefendants are innocent until proven guilty. The legal burden of proofrested heavily on the detectives' shoulders and on the WashingtonCounty District Attorney's office. If they could not gather evidenceand or witnesses that they believed would prove Brad guilty beyond areasonable doubt, he would go free. There were numerous ways of checking on Brad, and the investigation wasstill fresh. Investigators could check phone records. Perhaps theycould find outside witnesses who had had no interest in his activitiesthat night but who would remember seeing him. The problem was tolocate everything and everyone who might be able to either validateBrad's story or discredit it. Brad's own six-year-old son had told the grand jury that his father hadleft the apartment on Sunday night while he was watching a video andtelevision. Children have little sense of the passage of time, butdetectives did check the running time of The Sword in the Stone and ofRambo, the two moviesSess had been watching. If the boy's recollectionwas correct, Brad would have been away from the apartment for more thanan hour. Officer Craig Ward of the Portland Police Bureau had a far better timesense than a six-year-old boy, and so did Lily Saarnen, Brad's formerlover. Ward didn't see Cunningham that Sunday night, although he wasBrad also had the means. He was a strong man and had access to allmanner of weapons. And he could have had the opportunityþif he hadbeen able to fit a murder into an extremely tight timetable. Some of those who could verify where Brad had been that night orestablish time sequencesþDr.MoreLess
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