Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (111 page)

terminal...."

Brad slouched in his chair, quietly enraged, his jaw working as Upham

wound up his remarks.
 
"He's a master of trickery and deceit.
 
He has

special talents.
 
It's okay for him to lie, to violate court rules, to

destroy her family, to destroy Cheryl's memoryþokay to destroy innocent

motorists on Highway 26 to cover his tracks, but he can't overcome all

the witnesses and evidence.

"You do not need to be afraid," Upham told the jury.
 
"Cheryl Keeton

has told us what the truth is.
 
I went to meet Brad Cunningham on

September 21,1986, to get my kids but he tricked me and savagely beat

me...."

Brad had changed his mind, probably with Kevin Hunt's urging, and

allowed Judge Alexander to include the criteria for a finding of

manslaughter in the first degree as well as for murder as he read the

instructions to the jury.
 
He was, perhaps, not as confident as he had

been before Upham's final argument.
 
He slouched deeper in his chair

and leaned to one side with his jaw resting on splayed fingers.

Listening had always been difficult for him.
 
He seemed to have felt

his words were convincing, but now he appeared apprehensive.

The two alternate jurors, not needed, were dismissed and the jurors

filed out to deliberate.
 
It was so close to the noon break that no one

expected they would begin to discuss the case until early afternoon.

The "regulars" in the courtroom walked out into the chilly air and

headed toward the Copper Stone Restaurant.
 
For an hour or two, the

tension would be gone.
 
Too early to worry about a verdict.
 
Seated at

tables were Betty and Mary Troseth, Susan and Dave Keegan, Bob

McNannay, Jack Kincaid, Debi and Billy Bowen, Kim and Bill Roberts,

Mike Shinn, Katannah King, Donna Anders, and myself Sara Gordon was too

nervous to be presentþand, besides, she wanted to be with her sons when

the verdict came in.

Nobody ate much and conversation was determinedly cheerful, while

Christmas songs played on the Muzak and Hillsboro shoppers passed by

outside, intent on finding last-minute gifts.
 
Most of the trial-goers

had yet to buy a first present for anyone.
 
It was as if their lives

had been suspended until they knew if Brad would be convicted or walk

free.

If he did walk free, there would be no Christmas for Sara.
 
The first

thing Brad would do was come and take his sons away from her.
 
She had

no doubt about that.

There wasn't much happening on the fourth floor of the Washington

County Courthouse when we all returned.
 
A few days before, there had

been two murder trialsþBrad Cunningham's and Cesar Barone's.
 
Now

Barone, a suspected serial killer, had been convicted of the murder of

nurse-midwife Martha Browning Bryant, and Brad waited in his jail suite

for the verdict in his case.
 
The only courtroom that wasn't "dark"

that long Friday afternoon handled civil cases, and the complainants

and witnesses came and went as a score or more of people waited for the

Cunningham jury to return.

Experienced court watchers say a quick verdict is a guilty verdict, the

longer the time that passes, the more likely an acquittal.
 
The

afternoon dragged on.
 
When the clock over the public phone read two,

and then three, we all began to grow nervous.
 
How long did it take to

poll twelve jurors?
 
What were they doing in there?

The most nervous paced the circular route past the elevators, the wall

hanging, the civil courtroom, the waiting room, the phones, the water

fountain, and around again.
 
Of them all, Jack Kincaid was the

steadiest pacerþstopping only long enough to call Sara every hour and,

with great acting ability, reassure her that it looked great for a

conviction.

Did it?
 
Nobody knew.
 
To pass the time, everyone put up a dollar and

guessed an exact time the jury would come back.
 
The "pot" held more

than twenty dollars.
 
Cheryl's sister Susan, happily pregnant with her

first child, was designated the most reliable person to hold the

money.

At four o'clock, the jury had been out for five hours.
 
Allowing even

an hour and a half for lunch, that still left them more than three

hours to deliberate.

Nerves began to fray.
 
Kincaid was joined on his circular pacing route

by a half dozen others, and stern court guards stepped out of the civil

courtroom and shushed them.
 
The word was that the jury would not stay

after six to deliberate, and the thought of having to wait overnight

was agonizing.
 
Cheryl's California relatives had small children who

were looking forward to Christmas and they would have to leave.
 
But

somehow everyone felt that it was essential to wait, that being there

in the hallway was the last thing they could do for Cheryl, even

knowing that it couldn't really matter.
 
The jury was locked in its own

cocoon behind so many doors.

It didn't look good.
 
It was almost five, and all the pool guessers had

long since passed the time they had pickedþall but Mary Troseth.

And then Jerry Wells, the courtroom deputy who had always been full of

jokes and irreverent remarks, walked back to where Cheryl's family and

a few reporters waited.
 
For once, he was entirely serious and he

looked worried.
 
"Whenever the jury comes back," he said slowly, "I

want you all to know that there are to be no demonstrations, no

remarks, no noise.

l'll have to ask you to leave the courtroom if ,you can't live by those

rules."

"Is the jury coming back?"
 
somebody asked.

"I didn't say that," Wells said carefully.
 
"When it does, I'm telling

you that I mean that I don't care how much I like you, anybody who acts

up is out."
 
He looked straight at Billy Bowen, Cheryl's tall, husky

brotherin-law, as he spoke.
 
Billy grew emotional whenever he thought

that Cheryl had had no one to help her.
 
Now he looked back at Jerry

and nodded slightly.
 
He wouldn't cause any trouble.

Something was happening.
 
The elevator doors opened and Kevin Hunt and

Tim Lyons stepped out and hurried into Suzie Dudy's office.

Word was that Scott Upham and Jim Carr were on their way up the back

stairs from the D.A."s office.

The short corridor outside Judge Alexander's courtroom where spectators

had lined up every day for two months was suddenly full of people, some

leaning against the wall, others sitting on the floor.
 
Waiting.
 
It

was 5:15

P.M. on Thursday, December 22, 1994, and everyone sensed there would be

no overnight wait.

At 5:24, a bell began to ding in Suzie's office.
 
The jury was back.

The jury had a verdict.

At 5:40, Cheryl's family sat together in the back row of the courtroom

and held hands as they fought to contain their emotions.
 
Brad was

sitting at the defense table with Hunt and Lyons, Upham at his table.

Judge Alexander glanced at the gallery and repeated the warning that

Jerry Wells had given.
 
There were to be no outbursts when the verdict

was read.
 
Either way it went, it would be difficult to keep silent

after eight years of waiting.

The jury filed in silently and took their seats.

"Have you reached a verdict?"
 
Judge Alexander asked.

"We have, Your Honor," jury foreman Robert Wilcoxen said, and handed

the findings to bailiff Suzie Dudy.
 
She handed it to Judge Alexander

who read it without expression and returned it to Suzie.

Silently and quickly, court security officers Jerry Wells, Trish

DeLand, and J. C. Crossland had moved to stand behind Brad, creating a

barrier between him and the first row of the gallery where reporters

waited, pens poised.

"We find the defendant, Bradly Morris Cunningham," she read, "guilty of

murder...."

Brad sat slouched in his chair, his face turned away from the

spectators, but he shook his head very slowly back and forth as if to

say, This is all a terrible mistake.

Upham didn't ask for a poll of the jurors, but Brad wanted it done.

One by one they looked at him as they repeated "guilty" until the

twelfth "guilty" hung on the air.

"It was over so quickly," Susan Keegan remembered.
 
"After all those

years, -it was over.
 
When I walked out of the courtroom, Jim Carr

grabbed me and took me over to Scott.
 
Scott had tears in his eyes and

I hugged him.
 
I just kept saying to him, You never gave up.
 
You never

gave up!"

" While television cameras focused on Cheryl's family, Jerry Wells and

Trish DeLand waited to lead Brad back to jail.
 
Betty Troseth cried too

as she told reporters, "Cheryl believed in the justice system and now I

know it works."

P I ,] !

i.

: : For the first time in his life, perhaps, Brad Cunningham had lost

and lost big.
 
Jerry Wells observed that he could barely stand, his

legs turned to rubber by shock.
 
To no one in particular, Brad asked,

"Has anyone ever come back here on appeal?"

Wells looked away, but Trish DeLand said, "Yeah, a woman didþand she

got convicted the second time too."

Jack Kincaid rushed to the phone to tell Sara that she would have her

sons with her for Christmas, that, in all likelihood, she would have

her sons with her until they grew to be men.

While everyone outside was agonizing about what they were doing the

jurors had taken a quick vote when they first retired to deliberate.