Brad Cunningham is a Murdering D-Bag (Part Two)

In Part 2 of this chilling true crime podcast series, we uncover the brutal murder of Cheryl Keeton and the long road to justice that finally exposed her killer, Bradley Morris Cunningham.

After years of domestic violence, coercive control, narcissistic abuse, and psychological manipulation, Cheryl made the decision to leave her husband—a decision she feared would cost her life.

On September 19, 1986, Cheryl was lured to a remote location under false pretenses. Hours later, her van was discovered drifting across a Portland freeway, and inside was a horrifying scene that would shock investigators: Cheryl had been brutally beaten to death.

Despite overwhelming suspicion, the case against Bradley Cunningham was anything but simple. With no immediate forensic evidence, he evaded justice—continuing his pattern of manipulation, abuse, and control while starting new relationships and maintaining his facade.

This episode dives deep into:

•  The night of Cheryl Keeton’s murder 
•  The shocking crime scene on a Portland freeway 
•  The investigation and lack of physical evidence 
•  The wrongful death civil lawsuit that changed everything 
•  Testimonies from former wives, girlfriends, and family members 
•  The psychology of a serial abuser and manipulator 
•  The chaotic 1994 trial where Cunningham represented himself 
•  The final guilty verdict—8 years after the murder 

Through circumstantial evidence, survivor testimony, and a relentless pursuit of justice, this case became a landmark example of how patterns of abuse can ultimately expose a killer.

This is more than a murder story—it’s a deep dive into domestic violence escalation, toxic relationships, and the warning signs of abuse that should never be ignored.

⚠️ Listener discretion advised: This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence and domestic abuse.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Here. What's up, y'all? And welcome back to Storyteller where I try to find the wildest story I can each week, and Teresa hears it all for the first time. I'm Courtney. And I'm Teresa. And do I have a story for you?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

I hope it's the continuation of the other one, because that left on a little cliffhanger.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

And that I was like, no more podcasts for you guys. Yeah. We're in time. Super sorry about that, everyone. Uh, do you have a valid reason? I did move across the country, but I thought I'd be able to pull it off without an interruption in podcast, but it's okay. It was just one week. It's fine. We're back.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

It was really the rain I'd hit her in.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah. Uh-huh. It was crazy. And then I can't believe even after that rain, like two days later, it was like nothing happened. It was dust everywhere again. I'm like, what the fuck? I have a lot to learn. So uh well, yeah, welcome back to part two on our story on Brad Cumming Cunningham. And um, who sucks? He sucks. Like, I was going back through the script yesterday, and I was like, this guy is the worst. Like, he is, you know, in part one, we learned about what a womanizing, child abusing piece of shit he was.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Um, yeah, all that crazy shit he did to his own daughter. Yes, like throwing her clothes away and all that. Like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Seriously, like he, I don't even know how he has the capacity for it. I guess I should be happy. I can't understand how people are like that. So that's good. Um, yeah, yeah, a lot of energy he was putting into that. Um, and spoiler alert, he's going to get so much worse. Um, yeah. So when we Helm. Oh wait, he does kill someone. So I guess we haven't even got to the murder yet.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

We're on wife number four right now, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yes, we are. Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

So when we left like five or six kids.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yep. Um, let's see. So kids, we have possibly the one in high school, the Catholic baby. Um the mono baby. The mono baby. She just had mono, not a baby. And yeah, yeah. So we have Catholic, mono baby, front, Kate, Amy, and then he has three kids with Cheryl. So he will end with seven children.

unknown 2:50

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

My God.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Seven likes to torture.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah, like he's like, oh, look at all these kids I can abuse. Like, when I'm not abusing their wives for plotting murder. So uh yeah, when we left you last week, we had started to see just how nasty Brad had started to be with his fourth wife, Cheryl Keaton, um, constantly accusing Cheryl cheating on him, which it was Brad, who was fucking their 19-year-old babysitter, two of his coworkers at the bank, and any other woman that made eye contact with him for more than two seconds. So I don't know. He was definitely projecting onto Cheryl because he was the one cheating.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

By the way, I didn't read the story, I didn't look anything up, but I did look Brad up. And I know you said that he was a looker.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

He is not a looker, at least not my guy. I said in high school he was okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

No, I went back. I went way back.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Not not your cup of course. No, no, mm-mm, nope. He's not the one. Okay, good to know. Good to know. Yeah. Um, I have some incredible pictures of him when he's another spoiler alert, he will eventually go to jail, and uh he just looks fucking awful. And I they're the best pictures because you know this guy has been so obsessed with his appearance for so long, and so it's it's gonna be incredible. I can't wait to post those pictures. Uh so uh Cheryl, a badass lawyer who made partner at the law firm she worked for at just 35, was traveling back and forth between Portland and Seattle. He's battling it out in huge court cases and bringing in money to pay all of their bills and take care of the couple's three small boys. Brad would spend his free time in between being the village bicycle by calling Cheryl in Seattle and screaming at her. So he would either be calling her or spending all of Cheryl's money that he could get his lubed-up hands on. Uh he was Cheryl, God. I know, the poor thing.

unknown 5:07

Yeah. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Finally, on February 5th, 1986, Cheryl went to a clinic in Bellevue, which is a you know a suburb of Seattle, due to some uncomfortable symptoms she had been experiencing, and learned that she had a vaget a vaginal infection, courtesy of her whore of a husband. So that diagnosis may have been like the last drop for Cheryl. And as she readied to return to Portland that evening, um, she told her little sister Susan that it was all over. The fears be damned, her marriage was over. She could not just stick with Brad just because she was afraid of what he was going to do. She was going to divorce his ass. She was done.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

So when Cheryl got back to the couple of things, so that whole phrase that nothing says I love you like Chlamydia doesn't cut out room.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

If Cheryl would have really appreciated that phrase, that is horrible. That's a like a Valentine's catchphrase. That is so sweet and romantic. When Cheryl gets back to Portland that weekend, she's like, Brad, I need you to move out. And he very uncharacteristically went and he went quietly. He was like, Okay, bye. Which is crazy. Um, the break was, yeah, much calmer than Cheryl had hoped. And she was cautiously optimistic that they might actually there might be some hope that her and Brad would be able to split custody of their boys without a drawn-out bat. Cheryl learned that Brad had rented a very expensive apartment in the Madison Towers in Portland, and the rent was twice what they paid for their Gresham rental house. But Brad always had to have the best, so Cheryl wasn't so.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

She's footing that bell, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Well, she isn't paying for this, but like he would always be like, Oh, I don't have enough money to like pay the rent here. And then as soon as he leaves, he's renting the most upscale place he can get. It's twice as much. Brad is the worst. Yeah. Um, and Cheryl honestly didn't give a fuck where he lived, just it it wasn't with her. She's like, I don't care. I don't care. Like, whatever. Um, Cheryl's hope that Brad would be responsible um or reasonable as they headed for custody and divorce was squashed very quickly. Brad resumed his facts, his calls, and letters to Cheryl's two law firms, family members, and he really like whomever he could get on the phone with or an address for, he was just slandering Cheryl in graphic ways, hoping spreading rumors of her being a nymphomaniac, alcoholic, and weekend prostitute would help him in when the court battles came. So he would tell everyone he could like get a hold of that she was a lot lizard on the weekend. She was like, Cheryl loves a trucker. Cheryl loves a trucker. Yeah, and everyone's like the really like highly educated and sweet Cheryl. We don't feel like she's she's never given us lot lizard vibes. Like, that's weird. So whatever. Anyways, um, in March, Cheryl and Brad were able to come to a very shaky custody agreement where Brad would have the boys each weekend from Friday at 7 p.m. to Sunday at 7 p.m. Um, and it sounds like he would just like when he'd pick them up, he would come into her house and just like yell at her until all the boys were ready to go and then they'd leave. Like he yeah, he just sucks. So Cheryl would spend these weekends that her boys were away as a back case. Sure, that this would be the weekend Brad didn't bring the boys back to her. So these weekends were hell for Cheryl. Um, but other than her intrusive thoughts running her life, it was actually relatively calm between Cheryl and Brad as March came to a close. And that was because Brad had already met his next next victim and wife. The last week of March, yeah, he goes through them. Um the last week in March when he was involved.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Jesus!

SPEAKER_00 9:10

I don't know how he's not like calling them by the wrong names. Like I could barely keep up with their names as I was writing this. Like, how are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Uh if Sean were to like divorce me today, I'd be like, okay, I'm done. Right. Like I I don't have the energy, the want or the time for another relationship. I just be like, okay, I'm done. I am permanently single now. Yeah, I do. It's just crazy. I've got a brat summit.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yes, this man be running. So yeah. So the last second March, one of the women Brad had previously had an affair with at the bank, Lilia, um, she was now happily dating a doctor. She gushed through Lillia gushed to a good friend, a different doctor named Jeannie Hermans, an anesthesiologist, about how incredible in bed her old beau Brad Cunningham was, and how Lillia wanted to set Jeannie up with him. Jeannie was super embarrassed and confused why Lily wouldn't still be dating this man if he was still incredible, if he was so incredible in bed, um, in and out of bed, I guess. But Lillia was like, no, no, no, no. I'm I'm happy with my new boyfriend, I'm dating a doctor, you know. But you should definitely like hang out with Brad. He's just great and everything. There is Anne Rule points out in her book, like all of Brad's wives were terrified of him hiding out. I mean, his first wife, Lonnie Ann, like was hiding in this country. She like changed her name. She was so afraid of Brad. Um, but all of his affairs, all of his little girlfriends, all of those women were like, he was the bee's knees. Like, yeah, we ended our affair, but we've he's great and stuff. So it's just a weird little quirk and and role pulling that out. So I thought, well, that's how Lillia was, you know, to Jeannie. Oh, you should date him. So um when Brad called one night during the last week of March 1986, Jeannie agreed to a date. She would say later that he was a bit conceited and talked about himself, essentially, the whole time. And when he wasn't talking about himself, he was talking about all of his money on the first date. And Jeannie didn't think she'd be going out again with Brad Cunningham. He's such a yes. Um, but when he called for a second date, Jeannie had just been stood up by another man, so she was like, Fuck it, I'll go on a date with him. And it would be one of the biggest mistakes of her life. Um, because she didn't realize it then, because on the second date, Brad was super charming, like he just wooed the shit out of her. He was everything she thought she could want in a man. So and that continued.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

All the red flag stuff from date one is all of a sudden gone. Yes, like he's no longer like he's just worried about her, concerned about her, and okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yep, and she was like, Oh, that must have just been a fluke, not like him showing his true colors. Um, and in the first, you know, in the beginning, Brad was perfect, like most narcissistic Jack Wagans are. Like he just love bombed her and hid who he truly was. Um, he was kind, he paid attention to her, took her out to fancy places, bought her thoughtful gifts. And somehow, after all I have learned about this handsy motherfucker, Brad didn't pressure her to have sex and insisted they take that aspect of their relationship really slow. Like, I think it was like three months. I'm like, really? Oh my god, this is waiting for that committee to clear up. You might, you know, you might be right. He was like, I just need to get off some medication, but I'm on nothing. Um it's just scratch up. Uh so yeah, that April for Cheryl, it may have been somewhat quieter as Brad was really focused on love bombing Jeannie. Um, but the full the lull in this, like, you know, craziness was brief. And Cheryl Zora would later say that this divorce should have been quick and without fighting because custody was the only thing to figure out because there was no money to fight for Brad had all of it. So this divorce should have been simple. But Brad fought Cheryl on every little thing, like daycare, schools, sports, support payments, artwork Cheryl had in her office that Brad was like, that's mine, and I will not talk to you about like important matters like our children until I get that artwork out of your office. Like for three. Yes, like okay, yeah. Yeah, like, and then for like three months. So in Oregon, you were supposed to have your snow tires off of your cars by May 1st. Well, she started essentially in March being like, Hi, Brad, I need the other tires so I can take my snow tires off of the van so I don't get a ticket come May. Like, I don't know that she ever got these snow tires off or the regular tires. Like, he just fought with her tooth and nail. He was like, No, you don't get the tires. Yeah, they were for the van that she transported his children in, and he's like, No. So, yeah, just everything. Brad fought Cheryl on everything and with so much communication um that it was a wonder Cheryl got anything else done at work when she was constantly bombarded with faxes, letters from Brad fighting about if the sky was blue or not. Like he would fight about everything. Um, so then one weekend that spring, Brad moved back into the house. He had went shared with Cheryl and the boys. Like, she got home on a Friday night and the babysitter was gone. And Brad was just in there with his kids. Cheryl was freaking out. She was panicked. What the hell did he think he was doing? Moving back in. A terrified Cheryl called her lawyer, who called Brad's lawyer, who confessed that he had told Brad that week that it wouldn't look good for Brad that if he had that he had left the home where the boys lived when custody fight happened. So Brad's like, I'll move back in.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Oh, the fucking lawyer's fall. God damn it.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah. So Brad moved back in, and Cheryl had a weekend in hell, and Brad sequestered himself behind a locked door with one or another of their three sons throughout the weekend. Um, on Monday morning, Brad got up, didn't help Cheryl with his sons as she got them ready for the day, went to work, and thankfully did not return to the house after that. But he had made one thing clear to Cheryl. He could move back in into that house in her life easily. And she better not fucking forget it. So he was like, bye. I hope you had fun with like that psychological terror I just inflicted on you. See you later.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Hate this guy. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Fucking words. Oh, so Cheryl was living a nightmare, but Dr. Jeannie Hermans was blissfully in love with her handsome new boyfriend and felt so bad for him and all that he was having to deal with with his alcoholic, child-abusing his soon-to-be ex-wife. Because Brad filled her head with every lie he could about Cheryl. Um, Jeannie listened sympathetically as Brad, his face full of emotion as he laid out um how desperately scared Cheryl would win custody of his precious boys. That she was often, you know, because Cheryl was often blackout drunk and entertained a revolving door of men that his darling children had to witness. Okay. Jeannie just felt so bad for this incredible man who'd come into her life. So she's just completely steamrolled by, you know, Brad and you know, whatever he says about Cheryl. Things are not good.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Poor Cheryl.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I know. So spring turned into summer, and Cheryl and Brad fought, and Jeannie fell deeper into love with her perfect new man until September came. September came. September 16th, 1986, Brad and Cheryl were both disposed for their custody and divorce case. At the despos um des I can't say it. At the desposition. Thank you. You know, why did it sound weird? Brad talked about himself mostly. His favorite topic. He loved to talk about himself. Um and when it came to Cheryl, she was terrified and honestly should have never been able to sit in the same room with him. Um him listening as she talked about her traumatizing marriage to him. Like, even though he would sit in the other side of the room and like whisper and just make mean faces at her, like, she should have never been made to give that disposition there. I can say it, with him in the room. Like, what the fuck? Yay! Words. Um so even though she was terrified, Cheryl said her piece, and she told about Brad putting a lock on the bedroom door so he could fuck the teenage babysitter, how she had no money, and how he would scream at her in her son's school's hallway in front of the boys. And then when she was asked if Brad um should see the boys outside of her presence, Cheryl, who had always made it a point to make sure her sons knew where their father was, what he was doing during all of his absences from the family. Cheryl, who had even made it a point to try and share custody with Brad at the beginning of the divorce, dropped a bomb and said no. She did not think Brad should see their boys outside of her presence. She was legitimately worried about their safety. And Brad was seething at the other end of the table. Sherload's worried but determined eyes darting his way. Like she she was like, Well, I'm scared shitless, but I'm going for it. These people need to know what type of person Brad is. So she went on. Um, she started to tell her, um, tell all about the years of abuse her precious boys had suffered at the hands of their father. Um, Brad's lawyers asked for more detail. I'm sure hoping that Cheryl was bluffing, but our girl came with receipts. Cheryl showed up with detailed um accounts of the incidents and told every detail for specific, you know, times that this had happened. Um, Cheryl had told the court that Brad was a monster and he was so angry when he returned to the Madison Towers apartment where an adoring Jeannie was waiting for him. He could barely talk. His anger was like taking over him. He couldn't even get out words or a sentence, she said later. Um Jeannie was a bit fearful, but finally Brad called Cheryl, and Jeannie heard him tell Cheryl that she had lied that day in court. How dare you! And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Knowing she was sitting on a private conversation, Jeannie left the room as Brad railed against um Cheryl, and she missed what Brad told Cheryl next. He told her Cheryl would be sorry for what she had said that day, and then ended the call. And yeah, Cheryl spent some time that we're gonna have to be like.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

His daughter that he just basically kidnapped and tortured for a year, like all of his exes and stuff, and just to have them all come together. It's not like the only wife that he was actually not even really decent to, but didn't like psychologically torture that much was that older lady, like wife number two. And he just used her for money, and then like yeah, he did later.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

I think I mentioned it in our first one. He did write a book from jail later and wrote three chapters on that wife about how she was a swinger and got him into swinging, but that was it. That was what her abuse was. And I'm like, I don't know if I trust him to just be like, Really, you wrote three chapters on being a swinger? Okay. Uh so the weekend of September 19th saw Dr. Jeannie Herman working multiple shifts. While she would much rather be spending her time with Brad and his super cute little boys, she was working long hours so that she could make sure her and Brad's future was set up nicely after his divorce was final. Um, they only had been dating like six months by this time, but Jeannie and Brad fully intended to marry after his divorce from that she devil barrel was finalized. Like they were getting married. Or yeah. Um, and Jeannie's large salary would help them do it. Um, so when Sunday evening rolled around that weekend, Jeannie took a break from the hospital and met Brad and the boys at a pizza point close to the hospital. They all shared a great time together, and Jeannie's fishy boyfriend kissed her. Her goodbye as he and the boys love to return to the Madison Towers and wait for Cheryl to pick up the boys. Brad waved goodbye and told Jeannie that he'd see her in just a bit when he joined her in the doctor suite at the hospital that she stayed in when she was on call. So they had it's almost like these hot uh hotel rooms in the hospital for on-call doctors. And when he didn't have the boys, he would go spend those nights with her at the hospital. So she was supposed to see him by like eight o'clock that night or something at the hospital. Cheryl was to pick up the boys at seven per the interim custody arrangement, and she expected Brad. Um Jeannie expected Brad not long after that. But when she looked up at and realized it was eight o'clock and Brad was still not there, she called the apartment and got no answer. A little annoyed, Jeannie waited a little bit and called again at 8:30. Still no answer. Very annoyed. She called around nine, and then out of Brad answered. He explained he was a very angry genie. She had been like put on a pedestal by this man and he was always where he said he would be. So the fact that like he was late and not answering her phone calls, she was irate by this point. She when she first finally got him on the phone, she was like, motherfucker, and like hung up and then called back and was like, sorry, what is going on? Um yeah, so he explained to Jeannie that he hadn't answered earlier because he and the boys were down waiting for Cheryl. And now, even at two hours late, she still hadn't shown and wasn't answering the phone at her house. He apologized sincerely and Jeannie calmed down. And even when Brad said that he wouldn't be coming to the hospital that night, he had to stay home with the boys because Cheryl didn't pick them up and couldn't be reached. Um, she understood. She said goodnight to him and went to sleep in the doctor's suite, not knowing that this would be the last normal weekend she would ever share with Brad and his boys. At Cheryl's house, the evening was playing out very differently. Hours before Jeannie was finally being able to field Brad around nine. Cheryl was making ever increasingly frantic calls to her mother Betty as she fielded calls for Brad. Each call Brad made to Cheryl that night. Oh sorry, this sounded something weird. Each call Brad made to Cheryl that night, he was giving her a different reason why they would be a little bit late. He apparently was supposed to be taking the boys to Cheryl, not Cheryl picked them up. But he kept saying, Oh white, something's doing, you know, one of the kids is taking too long, something's going wrong. Finally, Brad's last call claim and he told Cheryl that if you needed to meet him, and he'd ask me to buy the freeway as he was having car troubles. Cheryl would have to pick up boys from him there.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

So meeting at the freeway, get the boys. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yep, sorry, my thing all um my thing froze up. Anyways, um, Cheryl also called her mother after getting this call from Brad, and Betty begged her daughter not to go, especially after Cheryl told her mother that she didn't know why Brad wanted to meet at this particular gas station because it was closed and had been abandoned. So yeah, Mama Betty was like, girl, don't do it. Like, do not go there. But no amount of bagging.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

But her boys are with him.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Exactly. And Brad knew that, you know. Yeah, no amount of begging. Cheryl was like, I'm going to get my babies. Like, this is crazy. So at 8 30 that night, as Jeannie was replacing repeated calls to the Madison Tower apartment trying to track down Brad. Randy Blyton was driving the Sunset Highway outside of Portland when he rounded a blind corner on the freeway and had to swerve at the last minute to avoid a blue Toyota van that was like this in the fast lane, and the front of it was like just bumping along at a snail's pace against the Jersey barriers in the middle of the interstate. So he's like, fuck, you know, supposed to swerve around this van that's just kind of down the fast lane. Um, and he undoubtedly thought, what the fuck? as he swerved, avoiding his death, if he had plowed into that van and was just about to keep going along his way when he recovered from his survive surprise and realized and realized one when he was going around the van, he saw a child's car seat in the back. And then he also was like, if somebody else isn't paying attention, he comes around that corner just like I did. They're gonna die. The people in the van are gonna die. He had to stop. So Randy's like, fuck it, I'll stop. So he you know, swirls around, looks at the inside, he sees the outline of the child's car seat. He he parks his car on the side of the show and acts reverses on the interstate. So he's kind of you know up to this van. And he is increasingly bewildered about the strange and dangerous scene he has stumbled on, knew he was going to have to stop once the image of that, you know, he's like, I gotta do this. So he parks, he runs across the interstate, which is usually, I guess, during this time of night is super busy because it's a Sunday night. Like, if people are out doing things, they're on their way home. Like somehow, amazingly, it wasn't busy during this point. So he runs across the interstate. Um, and he's just amazed that nobody has hit it so far. And he has some flares, he throws them out on the interstate. Um, and he's like, Oh god, I wonder if somebody had flares. I know I was like, Randy's very responsible. So yeah, he's like somebody had a medical emergency in this van. Like, what is going on? The lights are off on the van, so as it's getting dark, it's even harder for cars coming around that blind corner to see. Um, and he knew he was a sitting duck along with whoever was in the van, but he grabbed the door handle and pulled, and there was somebody in the car. But with the dwindling light of the evening and the slumped over position of the person, Randy was unsure if it was man or a woman because they were like slumped over in the front seat over the middle console, and like their head was down the passenger side, like down in the where your feet go. Um, he did know that even though that they were still in this dangerous position in the fast lane, he had to check to see if there was a baby in the back seat somewhere. Like he's like, oh my god, like I don't know who this is in the front seat, but is there a baby that goes with that car seat? So he is frantically like going all through and running his hand all over the back seat to make sure he doesn't feel an infant back there. Um and as he's doing that, he's getting coated in some sort of wet substance um that covered the whole interior of this van, but again, with the light going, he didn't really know what it was. Um, but relief washed over Randy when he didn't discover baby in the darkness of the back seat, and he returned to dealing with the horrific scene in the front seat. Randy took this all in in the matter of seconds, and again, what he noticed was a switch in a loafer type shoe. He knew that it was most likely a woman that was in the front seat. As he also saw a woman's purse wedged to keep the accelerator down accelerator down. So um, that is why the van just kept moving and like Yeah, I was gonna say, what's going on with the van that? Yeah, so um, yeah, ma'am. Randy gently questioned the body as he scooted it over gently to like get into the front seat, and he threw the van in reverse and finally got it over the shoulder and out of danger from on-priming traffic. But once there, Randy again tried to question the unmoving figure. Her body slumped over the middle console. Um, and Randy went around to the passenger side door and opened it to find a woman that even if he had known her her whole life, he wouldn't have recognized her. Her face had been beaten so bad.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Um like I'm guessing not all the white stuff was blood.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

It is, yes. And Randy, of course, not really, you know, just as a reaction, you know, when he got out of the van, he just wiped his hands down his pants. And so there's blood all over Randy now, too. Not just his hands, like his clothes are covered in it. So um, yeah, so this woman's beaten badly. There's blood everywhere, so she was beaten in the van. Um, this was the 80s. So Randy hopped his truck into his truck and peeled down the exit that was just right before where this van had gotten on the freeway. Um, and he knocked on the first house's door so he could try and find get help for the woman in the van. Randy took the exit to Southwest 79th, passing an abandoned gas station as he pulled up to the first house he found. Randy frightened the woman inside, but she did call 911 as Randy returned to stand vigil next to the beaten woman. He could already hear sirens approaching. So they were on it, they were there very quick. Now, Jim Carr had spent that Sunday at his girlfriend's house and met out with some friends for dinner that evening before he started on his way home to the house he shared with his sister and her three young sons, helping her with childcare. She was going through a horrible divorce and she had little money. So when Jim shut his car door in the driveway at 9:30 that evening, a figure approached him coming out of nowhere in the dark. Thankfully, it was an investigator who had gotten the address off the ID of the dead woman in the van on the freeway, less a half a mile away from the house. Jerry Finch, a detective, told Jim that his sister Cheryl was dead. Jim barely reacted because really, he wasn't even surprised by the detective's news. Cheryl had been sure of her impending death for months now, and he had heard about it almost daily. The only thing Jim could say was he did it. The bastard finally did it. Jerry Fridge, the investigator, is standing there like, say what?

SPEAKER_02 31:58

You know? Say what?

SPEAKER_01 32:05

And not reacting very well. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Did you do it? Yeah. So the bastard in question, of course, was Brad Cunningham, a detective. And after, you know, talking to Jim, and you know, it's it's a couple hours um later that two detectives knocked on the door at a quarter to midnight that night of Brad's high-rise apartment. The investigators had barely knocked on the door when it was opened by a wide awake Brad who did not seem to have been awakened there by the knock. In fact, it seemed he had been waiting by the door for a knock. He was just like, they'll be here soon. I just will wait right here.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Because he thought that somebody was gonna come plowed into her car, though, and that would be the cause of death.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Not like being vacant to death. That's what he was expecting. So he's just expecting news that his, you know, ex-wife is dead.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah. Well, and you think about it, as he set this up, this you know, scene, it wouldn't have just been Cheryl who died in the car accident. A ton of fucking people could have died on that interstate that night. And Brad did not give a fuck. He was like, send this car onto the freeway. Who cares what the fallout is? Like, which is just shows you again how awful he is. So, yeah, uh, they were the detectives were momentarily saddened that Brad was just like right there to rip open the door. But detectives recovered and informed the man about his wife's death. Brad showed no shock, no emotion at the news, which isn't entirely unusual, as everyone does react different to that type of news. What was unusual though, that Brad's first question was was it a traffic accident? Really? Investigators had never said how Cheryl died when they told Brad. So they were like, Oh, that's interesting. Jeannie learned about Cheryl's death when Brad called the hospital in the early hours of the morning. After learning the news, a stunned Jeannie hung up from Brad and sat frozen at what she had just heard. She had been worried about Brad's safety since they had met because of his bad divorce and how he constantly told her that Cheryl or her mother had tried to poison him many times. Not true. Um, I will tell you though, that in the book it is pointed out that he was convinced Cheryl was trying to poison him, so he'd make his own sons try his dinner before he'd eat it. Brad Cunningham, world's greatest dad.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Like that's the guy that like how was he with the boys? Like, when you're saying that him and Jeannie, the boys like all hung out, everything were the boys like like genuinely happy, or were they terrified of their dad?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Or is there at an age where they they know it's not like they're like babies because they're tying together, like he wasn't seeing like any abuse happening. But I think that she would say later she thought the boys had been so well trained, even at an early age, to be like afraid of their dad that they just were minding their P's and Q's whenever he was around. Like those kids had it down from a very young age, which is very sad. That's very sad. So yeah. Um, but now Jeannie got stunned in the hospital um with the news she had just gotten. Another thought occurred to her maybe fear had overtaken him, and Brad got rid of the would-be poisoner Cheryl before she got to him. Jeannie called Brad back and asked him point blank, Did you have anything to do with Cheryl's death? Brad told her, Absolutely not. Don't be silly. I am the greatest guy. Cheryl's a lot lizard. And of course, Jeannie was like, You're right. I forgot she was a lot lizard. My bad. And she just believed him. She was like, Well, I'm it's so much easier just to believe him. Um, investigators did not share her feelings though. They knew right away that the car accident had not killed Cheryl because it wasn't even an accident. Like her van wasn't even, you know, really beat up. It had some little from dwinking down the barriers. It wasn't a car accident, you know. Yeah. So on Monday after this happened, their suspicions were confirmed when the autopsy for Cheryl's frail body. Cheryl was five foot five and only weighed 100 pounds. Like she was so stressed out. She was so cheeny. The autopsy showed that Cheryl had suffered 25 blunt force hits to her head. And yeah, that's why it was said that they didn't know for sure, but it was probably something like a brick. So um, and they yeah, all landed on her face. Yeah, and that's somebody too. I mean, you're up close and personal, and you were delivering those kind of blows. Like, there is some anger behind that. There is some personal, like that's a random thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Yeah, that is definitely overkill.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Yeah, I mean, um, but no matter how frail she was, the autopsy showed something else. Cheryl had put up a hell of a fight about uh, you know, to whoever attacked her. The investigators were sure whomever had done this to her would show sh signs that they had been in a struggle. And when they had interviewed Brad the night Cheryl died, he had not shown any signs of injury, no scratches on his face, no bruises forming that they could see as he sat in front of them in jogging shorts and a t-shirt. After the autopsy of Cheryl was complete, officers had to track down Brad and get DNA samples to compare them to what they had collected from Cheryl's body and eventually from her van once it was processed. The only problem was they couldn't find Brad, and that was by design. Brad had told Jeannie when she got home from the shift at the hospital on that Monday that Cheryl had died. Um that Cheryl's death was because someone was actually after him, Brad, and everyone connected to him. They just got to Cheryl first. What?

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Right. Like the mob's after him.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

So Jeannie was fun. Did he piss off the cartel? What? What's going on? Okay. Yeah, unless one of the women you've been fucking is the mob boss wife. Who knows? But uh just ridiculous. But somehow, this very smart, educated woman, Jeannie, was stunned. And Brad must have been a good enough actor that she would have seen, like, she should have seen how ridiculous his claims of an impending hitman was instead. Um, his fear, like, was catching. She was like, Oh my god, you're totally right. Like, we gotta, we gotta hide. Am I in danger? Now that you're like tangled up with the mob, they're like, Jeannie's like, yes, let's stay on the move. We've gotta avoid these fucking hitmen that are hunting them. Like, oh my god. So they're the first week of their new life um was bouncing around from one safe house to another. Jeannie and Brad were finally able to have a little alone time and took a shower together, like on Thursday of this week. So Cheryl died on Sunday night. Um, Thursday, they're having some, you know, sexy time in the shower. And Brad turned around in the shower in the side of his back, and the massive bruise that covered a huge area on his back made Jeannie like cry out and ask Brad, where the fuck did you get that big bruise? Like, I guess it was stunning how big this bruise was. And Brad just shrugged and told her that he had been at the park with the boys and fell through the monkey bars. And that's why he had this bruise. Like, no big deal. Jeannie's doctor eyes, she's a trained doctor, noted deep purple of the bruise. It had yet to start to yellow, which meant the bruise was only three or four days old. I.e. Sunday night. Hello. Cheryl's murder had happened four days earlier, but Jeannie would say she didn't remember consciously making that connection in the moment. Um, later she would. Later she'd be like, oh fuck. So at least she'd realize that, yeah. It was later that same night when the couple finally tracked down Brad in a motel he was staying in that night with Jeannie, and they were startled awake by pounding at the door. When Brad answered, he was annoyed to see that the detectives were standing there with a warrant for his DNA. He's like, Oh my god. Uh there's no drama hiding out. Oh my god. Brad was annoyed, but agreed to go to the station and have samples taken. Um, when he left, investigators were a bit excited. They thought that it'd be very soon and they'd get word from the lab that they had matched Brad's DNA to what was found in Cheryl's car and on her. But their excitement, unfortunately, was short-lived. They learned quickly that none of Brad's DNA was found. There was literally no physical evidence or forensic evidence connecting Brad to the murder of Cheryl. Yeah. And it would be eight long years before anyone was held accountable for the horrific and violent death of Cheryl Keaton. Eight years. Yeah. Uh-huh. What the fuck? It's the worst. It's the worst. I have no idea. It's obvious he didn't wipe shit down because there was blood everywhere. Like, no idea how he accomplished that. So um, but in the interim, these eight years, Brad would be busy because it's Brad, and he's doing the most in the most annoying ways and horrible ways. He hate him. In November of 1987, a little over a year after Cheryl's death, Brad married Jeannie, and their life fell into a very familiar pattern. That pattern was that Jeannie went to work and Brad did not, and she paid for everything. So he's like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

And he cheated on her.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Um, and yeah, he's like, I've gone accustomed to this lifestyle. Like, I need you to support me. So Jeannie was like, okay, we're all gonna be together. She bought the family a huge house in an upscale neighborhood, but Brad quickly decided he hated almost everything about it. And so after she buys this expensive house, she had to sink another hundred thousand dollars into it to change everything that Brad hated. Um, and then she bought a jet boat to cruise the lake that the house sat on because Brad's like, we need a boat, we need a boat, Jeannie. God, he sounds like Sean with those boats. Like, we need a boat. He does.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

I don't like we don't have a boat with the dogs.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Maybe we don't get boats anymore. I don't know. So Brad's not working, Jeannie's paying for everything, including his child support to all of his former wives who are alive, um, and to the babysitter for the two youngest boys. As Brad was, again, not going to sit at home all day taking care of his kids. Like, so they got a nanny, so Brad could do what Brad does. He still needed a purpose, he felt like, and in his eyes. So when he decided he wanted to be a coffee shop bistro bar owner, Jeannie's like, I guess, and just wrote all the checks to finance that in Denver. Like, she was like, here's your, you know, the check for the lease from the upscale building downtown, and here's for all the equipment. Like, she just was writing checks like nobody's business. And for all of his, I'm like, girl, Jeannie, can I marry you? Like, I need right. Oh no, I can't.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

I'll treat you better than I'll cook for you at least.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

For all of Brad's boasting about what a fucking top notch businessman he was, Brad quickly ran the bistro into the fucking ground. I mean, hemerging money. But this business did enable Brad to do what he did best, which was sleep with his business manager. Um So it was pretty quickly after things. He was like, I need to hire an office manager. And then he hired the most attractive one who applied. Um, so absolutely no skills, no nothing. No, one thing about running an office. He was like, I hired the most unqualified person. They're the hottest of those. So Jeannie was busy working every minute she could, so her family didn't go bankrupt from Brad's near constant hemorrhaging of money, still knew that something was going on with her husband. So even though she was working all the time, she was like, something's off. And she started to keep a journal of her problems with Brad, just as Cheryl had started to do during her terrifying divorce from Brad. So there's a lot of similarities at the end of this whole marriage. Um, she also hired a private detective, and her fears were confirmed pretty quickly because he wasn't fucking hiding it. Brad was having an affair with the office manager. I mean, that did I think the private investigator's like, yeah, I was there for like 20 minutes. It's pretty obvious what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Oh, like yourself. Uh Deanny knew that her marriage to the man that she had once been so entranced with was over. She knew she was like, I know I used to thought I think he was perfect and everything was going to be so incredible, but she was like, uh, yeah. But leaving a cheating man was far easier than leaving three little boys that she was now a mother to. The boys even called, yeah, the boys even called her mom. And Brad had convinced her to adopt the boys not long after her marriage to him. Of course he did. Like that wasn't out of sentiment. Um, he probably knew if him and Jeannie ever to were to divorce, she'd be paying him a huge monthly child support payment. Jeannie made$150,000 a year in the 80s, which is an approximately$430,000 in today's money. So he knew if Jeannie decided to leave him, he'd be sitting pretty. Like financial. I think doctor cells make that much. Like, my god. Like Drew, be a teleporter, like be a house husband. Come on.

unknown 46:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

And so Brad knew if she wanted to leave, he'd be sitting pretty. And Jeannie knew if she left him, she'd never see those fucking boys again. Like, she just knew instinctively without Brad even having to say that out loud that she'd never see those boys again. By February 1990, so three years into this marriage, um, Jeannie knew she couldn't stay in the marriage and started to let Brad know that it was over. But as with Cheryl, she was hopeful that Brad would be willing to be civil and let her see the boys if she agreed to whatever ridiculous child support payment he asked for. She's like, he's obviously very money motivated, so maybe if I just give him all the money he wants, I'll still get to see the boys. So as Jeannie and Brad started to hash out the details of a divorce settlement, Brad wasted no time showing that his main focus was, in fact, getting all the money he could from Jeannie. So much so that he asked for such high amounts of child support and for her to keep paying all of the bakery bistro bills along with the mortgage Jeannie. Looked at the monthly request of funds for Brad and saw that if she agreed to this, she'd literally not be able to support herself. She'd have no way to live herself. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Every single penny would be going to him, huh?

SPEAKER_00 47:32

It is, yeah. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Brad just sneered when she pointed this out and responded with, Well, I just know how much you love to work. Okay, wow. Um, Brad's sneering turned into begging real quick, though, when he got the news that Cheryl's family and friends had filed a wrongful death lawsuit to the tune of$15 million against Brad, right as this was all going down. Yeah, incredible. Probably Brad had thought he had gotten away with killing his kid's mother, and in truth, he wasn't being charged with her murder now. Even after an exhaustive investigation that had been going on behind the scenes since the night Cheryl died, police just didn't have enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Brad was her killer. So frustrated, Cheryl's family and Fred sent an attorney who was unafraid of Brad. Because a lot of attorneys in Portland and Seattle had heard of Brad because he was always suing people, and they were like, no, I'm not taking that case on. Absolutely fucking not. And why I was like, okay, wow. So they found an attorney who was unafraid of Brad and very cutthroat in the courtroom to bring the wrongful death civil suit against him. These civil suit cases are often brought.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

Well, honestly, you think one of Cheryl's co-workers would want to be like, you know, like they had to known what hell they put she put up with. I mean, he was calling them and telling all those lies.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

And I think a lot of the people behind this, it wasn't just her family. A lot of it was her co-workers, but they were like, we can't prosecute it or something. We need to find somebody else. And they are the ones that finally found Mike Shin is his name to do this. Thank God. Um, yeah, so these civil cases are often brought about to bring evidence that is not like readily available to investigators. Sometimes these civil suits have different avenues to evidence that investigators can't get. So the end result is usually something that was presented in a civil suit can actually result in a criminal trial against the suspect. So that's why a lot of people they don't really want the money, they just want some new evidence to get in there, get the ball rolling kind of thing. So Brad was stunned that the civil suit was being brought against him. And his first car was to Jeannie blubbering and asking her not to leave him. He'd end his affair if she stayed. He'd work on their marriage if she stayed. He'd look better in court if he wasn't going through yet another nasty divorce if she stayed.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

If he got a job, would he get a job? Like a real job, not like a fake distro job.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

You should know by now, Brad. Like, yeah, I can't get constant training at a new job during all of this. So um, and Jeannie was no dummy, and she knew exactly why Brad Brad wanted to pause the divorce, but she relented because it meant more time with her boys. So she's like, I will try and just get through this civil suit with him if it means I have more time with the boys. It didn't last long though. This was in February, and Jeannie was fully done with Brad by March 5th, 1990. And as soon as he realized his embellished acting to get her to stay wasn't working anymore, he switched gears drastically. He went from like begging her to stay to all of your shit's on the lawn, essentially, like overnight. So she would like have a phone call with him and all your shit is not in the house that you bought. Um, so like she would have a phone call and she'd be like, Listen, um, you know, in the living room, the chest that the TV and the VCR is in, I just want the chest, I want the TV and VCR to stay for the boys. Well, she'd go over there to get her stuff and he would leave the TV and VCR and take the chest that she wanted. It was like that for everything.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Like reverse psychology that shit. Like, if you wanted the dresser, be like, like, take the dresser, take this, take that, just leave me the bed.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Genie was just like, he must have put so much work into doing everything, the exact opposite of what I wanted. But I'm like, girl, you should know that by now. That is that is this man's MO. Like, he he loves to do that shit. So um, he hauled all of Jeannie's shit out of the house. I mean she would go to pick it up. He would hire a security guard to watch her to make sure she didn't take any of his stuff, which is hysterical.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

With what money with all the charity guards?

SPEAKER_00 52:00

And the other girl, shut down that bank account then. Isn't all of Brad's stuff technically her stuff? Because he hasn't had his own money since they fucking met. Like, my God. Um, and then after she retrieved what little of her stuff was left, he barred her from the house that she paid for and from the boys. So he's like, Oh, and now you're cut off completely. Um, they had before the split, they had a great babysitter, an older lady named Rhonda, who was wonderful with the boys and who would talk with Jeannie to let her know what was going on with Brad and how the boys were doing. But Brad must have gotten wind of Rhonda's allegiance to Jeannie and gave her the boot very quickly after that. He was like, get out, Rhonda, goddamn. So um, it was in May of that year when he put out an ad saying he was looking to hire a nanny for his boys, and he interviewed a ton of women for the job, but quickly hired the youngest and most stunning of all the interviewees, Dana Malloy. Like, Dana had been a uh she had worked at the beauty counter at like her burgers before this. She was like, I don't have any experience. And he's like, You got the job. Yeah. And he got this.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

You don't need any experience. Like, shh, shh, I'll teach you.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Dana was about to learn the controlling and scary nature of her new employer that all the women who came before her had learned. The year 1990 and 1991 would feel like a hurricane swirling around those linked to Brad Cunningham. For Dana Malloy, her run as the just the babysitter only lasted about a month before Brad, nearly 20 years her senior, was betting her and they were a couple. Brad getting more controlling over her as each day went. Like, he was like, Where are you at? I mean, all the other shit he would do, the phone calls and stuff. Like, she was essentially a prisoner pretty much right away. So uh by the summer of 1990, Brad was talking about moving to Houston. It was obvious to Dana that Brad just assumed she'd go with him and the boys when they moved. But as fall and the impending move approach, Dana skedaddled, she got the fuck out of there. Brad was absolutely stunned. Like he often reminded her how she was uneducated and she needed him to guide her through life because she's basically a child still.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

And you know, well, I'm actually really surprised that he actually had a relationship with her as opposed to just a fling, because she didn't have any money or anything to bring into so what was the whole point of that?

SPEAKER_00 54:40

If he actually would have married this, he really wanted to, and they both would have just no, I don't want to marry you. Like he asked her on the daily, I guess, to marry him. And so it's just completely different from what his usual, you know, type is. It was just yeah, very strange. And he was absolutely shocked when the youngest and least educated of all of his paramours had gotten away with him. And in that shock, him and the boys moved to Houston that fall without Dana. Um, but he was in Portland not long after, about a month after the split and the move. And he was like, Hey girl, can I take you to dinner? Like, we didn't really have any closure. Like, let's just go eat and say our goodbyes properly. Like, because you ran away. And Dana agreed. She's like, All right, all right, I'll go.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

He ran away. He ran away.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Yeah, she was like, Dana agree to dinner. Yeah, so Brad and Dana have this lovely time together. Each, you know, they eat this expensive meal and drink some classy drinks, and it was sipping on one of those fancy cocktails that would be Dana's last memory of the night. And when she finally awoke, it was the next rope. Uh-huh. It was the next day, and she was seated in a plane in the seat next to Brad's as the plane touched down in Houston. He fucking kidnapped her. Jesus Christ. It is mind-blowing. How does the man have this much energy? Like, what in the world? Trying to figure out how he has any money to buy that plane. A very good point. And it's never really explained how he has money. It's not explained at all.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

So like I get when he's married, how he has money, because you know he's using these women for their money, but now he's going through divorce, and they're like, how does he still fucking have money? No, do they have to pay for the money?

SPEAKER_00 56:30

The owing does get um he does get social security for his three boys. So I think, but that's the only like income I'm aware of. So wow, I know it's crazy. So somehow after this very romantic kidnapping, Dana did not run screaming from the plane and Brad to the nearest police station. Instead, she settled into life with Brad and the boys again. And Brad soon after had her working as a stripper to pay for the luxury homes he insisted on renting. Stripper's not the right word. She was a high-class gentleman's club dancer lady. But I mean, he would be like, I don't want you to work. That's why I put you in my bed so you wouldn't be the nanny anymore. You are not gonna work. And then when he kidnapped her and brought her to Houston, he's like, I think I know something you might be really good at. And she made a ton of money. She never saw any of it because he took all of it. But yeah, so that was what oh, I think I'm just it's the craziest fucking thing.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

I don't even know. I think I have to be done with this guy. I don't even have to fucking finish this podcast. I think we're gonna I don't like it all the fuck. Do you kidnap somebody and they're like, okay, and then they're like, we're just supposed to- I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

We may have not been mean enough to people in our lives. We could have had people doing much more things for us. I guess I need to kidnap him. Maybe that's like me. I don't know. Yeah, I'd be like, probably like that. Yeah. Anyway, so that's what Dana's going through. Back in Portland that fall, Jeannie was finally granted her divorce from Brad in October. And the relief of legally being rid of Brad was stained by the pure pain of not seeing the boys or even knowing where they were all living. Like she had no idea where these kids were. Um, not knowing where Brad was was also a pain for the attorney bringing the civil suit against Brad. Mike Shin was damn certain he would find Brad to let him know where he when he was due in court. So Brad can never say he was unaware of the civil suit. Finally, an investigator in Texas did locate Brad, or at least Dana and the boys, and he left Summons at the school with the secretary at the boys' school and at the house with Dana. Mike Shin was like, I'm certain he's well aware of the civil suit. He can never say, Oh, I didn't know. Um, but when May 1991 came around and the civil suit got started, Brad never showed up. He never stepped foot in the courtroom. And it, you know, that makes some things easier for Shin because there's no one arguing against all this evidence that he's bringing. Um, and the civil state case was a parade of Brad's former wives and letter lovers and his family members, the women particularly, all there to tell about the horrors they had suffered when wrapped up with Brad. Even Jeannie went on the stand to tell all she knew about the weekend that Cheryl died and her own scary and her own scary divorce with Brad and how she was scared and some of the threats Brad was making. So it was pretty uh damning, all you know, all over. So finally, when everything was let out, a stunderer retired to deliberate and quickly found Brad responsible for Cheryl's death and awarded her estate a whopping$82 million as a settlement. Again, they went in asking for 15. Yeah, it had been the largest in Oregon's history at this point. Um, and Brad just ignored it. He was like, couldn't be me. Different Brad Cunningham. They don't care. Um but what he didn't know was that back in Portland, after the civil suit was won, it had finally been decided by the Multnum, I don't know if I'm saying, or the county that Portland's in, would proceed with a criminal trial against Brad Cunningham. So they were like, Well, now that that has been won, we can't really not do this. So um when Brad then that fall, for some reason, he thought he'd kind of return back to the Pacific Northwest. I don't know why he thought that was okay, but he moved his boys and his stripper sugar mama Dana back to the Seattle area. He had no idea that his time as a time as a premium was coming to a close. Where are you going? I've had to get my tea.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

I left it over on the other side when I bugged the computer. Sorry, I'm done.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:56

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

Oh my god. So in the fall of 1992, Dana finally escaped Brad. Again, he was dumbfounded that she of all of his women had gotten away from him. But she was like, I'm the one making money. I'm gonna go. Like, I hate you. And so Brad, you know, was at the lowest point in his life. He had no money, Dana had escaped him, and the man who had been obsessed with his appearance, undergoing multiple plastic surgeries on his face throughout the years, was going bald.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

Which go off to church.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

Surprise you didn't know about that. But things were about to get a lot worse for Brad, but better for literally everyone else. When he was arrested for Cheryl's murder in March of 1993, finally. When Jeannie got the news, she immediately collected those three boys. The reunion was strained at first, but quickly the boys began to see all of the venomous lies their father had been telling them about her since the divorce had been just that lies. Like he was full of shit. So the boys and Jeannie older boys. When finally he goes to trial, the oldest one is a freshman in high school, and I think then there's a middle schooler. Maybe the other oh my god, it's like, what in the world? Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

I feel like they should have already known that their dad was just a liar, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

Like it uh I think they had some idea, and it was pretty obvious once they were living with Jeannie again, just like how full of shit their dad was. Um, the boys and Jeannie all started to heal with one minor hiccup. When Brad would write or call from jail, he would continue spewing venom about Jeannie to the boys. He wrote letters, he wrote absolutely vulgar messages and drew pornographic pictures on the envelopes of the letters that he was sending to his young boys. Like, yeah, Jeannie saved everything and she reported into the DA, you know, she was like, This is what's going on, blah, blah, blah. But he didn't care. He was like, I'm gonna keep doing it, whatever. Um, there is, I don't know if I put it in later, but there's a part in the trial where somebody's like, next, we're gonna review his letters from jail, and he like gets the letters somehow, which are evidence. I don't even know how this happened, and he started to take all the letters out of the envelope so the jury wouldn't see the like pornographic drawings. As everyone prepared for Brad's trial, he went through attorneys like toilet paper until he decided he was gonna represent himself.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

There's there's an old saying that says he who represents himself has a fool for a client. And as the trial got started, it became clear to everyone who watched on that the saying was no truer than when applied to Brad Cunningham. The trial started in October 1994, and it was a fucking circus. Brad, acting as his own attorney, isolated between rambling about his financial portfolio throughout his life, barely mentioning Cheryl, whose murder the trial was about, and then he would go to listing all the various neato items he had owned throughout his life. Uh, you know, and then just would be admonished constantly by the judge for not knowing what the fuck he was doing serving as his own counsel. I guess it was like painful to watch. Uh Anne Rule was there for the trial, and she was like, it was awful to watch. It was, she said she didn't know how the judge had the patience that he had. Like, it was terrible. So um, on the other hand, the prosecution was running a very tight case, bringing on witness after witness that spoke volumes about what a cruel and abusive piece of shit Brad was and had been to them or those around them. And many spilled the beans on how abusive he was to his children throughout the years. So when Brad would get up. I know. Oh my God. Like, ugh, I think everyone, I think a lot of women were scared. A lot of women were really terrified, um, which he did murder one of them. So I guess that is valid. Um, but yeah, um, Brad would then get up to cross-examine and he wouldn't question people like you're supposed to do. He would make up statements that were outright lies and then try to bully whoever's on the stand to agreeing with them. And the judge had to be like, um, hey, you're breaking the law by just like making statements with no proof to back them up. Like, that's not what you do here. You don't get to just say whatever you want, and it's like taken as God, you know. But he'd been able to do that as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:44

Because I think I might need to watch it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

I know there isn't, and I wish there was. Like, I would love, I would love to watch it because I'm sure he just makes an ass out of himself constantly. And it would be iconic. Yeah. So as this shit show continued, It was obvious to court watchers that the prosecution was building a solid case with strong evidence that Brad killed Cheryl. Then Brad would get up there, and it was like watching a reality TV show featuring someone who had been lobotomized and came out of the procedure convinced he was a highly skilled attorney and part-time playgiral model. Like everyone's like, What are we watching right now? It is hard to watch.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

He was married to an attorney, so therefore he's attorney by prophesied.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

Qualified. Yeah. So finally, mercifully, the trial came to a close and everyone involved waited on bated breath to hear how the jury would rule. When the jury came back, they came back with a verdict of guilty. And after eight long years, justice had finally been served for Cheryl Keaton. Thank God. I ugh. Ironically, it was all the women that Brad had abused throughout his life: his mother, his sister, his wives, and girlfriends who had gotten up on the stand to testify, along with Cheryl herself, and the note that she had left the night she went to meet Brad at the dark abandoned gas station that finally put Brad behind bars. So it took way too long, but thankfully, it was all these women had the last word.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

So basically, the only evidence that they had was really just the emotional and mental and abuse that he had caused. But there was no, I still don't understand how there was no physical evidence. Like, how was there none of his DNA? Was there any like unknown DNA on her?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

Nope. Nope. So he must have done some cleaning up or was wearing gloves or something. The the biggest thing that, like, as far it wasn't physical evidence, but the biggest thing that put him away is once Jeannie and him divorced, she finally was like, Hi, I need to tell you guys some things about that night in the phone calls and um how she he was missing those phone calls. And then they would take his story, and he said throughout his story, you know, there's these certain people I saw in the apartment building that night, they'll vouch for me. And when they'd interview these people, these people would be like, No, or wasn't at that time, and so I think that was the timeline, is really what got them to finally get a guilty verdict, but still no physical evidence, ain't nothing there, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:24

Um especially knowing that she put up such a fight and everything. You think they'd be like DNA underneath the fingernails, you know, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

That's just yeah, it's crazy. So um, the aftermath of the trial was a time for healing. Brad was locked away, and his appeals have all been denied. Um, thank God. Jeannie.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:46

Can you imagine what his appeal is supposed to be like though? You should just let me go because I'm pretty great.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

I'm Brad Cunningham. Yeah. Do you know who I am? Yeah, I ran a bistro into the ground. I'm sure you've heard of me.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:04

Oh very strange.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:06

I don't know why that didn't work, but whatever. Uh Jeannie raised Cheryl's boys and they all cut off contact with Brad, each making that choice on their own when they were old enough to do so. Like they, you know, no one was making them do that. Brent and Kate from Brad's first marriage cut ties with their father and went on to be successful. And as I said in the first episode, Kate grew to be a stunner and was working as a model at the time of Brad's trial. Um, and Rule said that Kate did show up to the trial and just sat in the back row just watching her father go down. And then when he was like said guilty, she was like, Great, I'm done, and left.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

She didn't get up and testify about that fucking basically kidnapping and yeah, uh-huh, I guess not.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

And I mean, how the whole thing is just crazy. Um, another thing, they did make a movie about this case. Again, I can't find it because it was like a made-for-tv movie. Um, but apparently Anne Rule was like one of the extras, and then Dana Malloy, she she either played herself when at the trial in the movie, or she was an extra too. So they like had women from this from his crazy ass life. Like his style, I was like, I want to see that. I want to I want to see if I can see them. Like, but I can't find it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

So I couldn't want to just sit down and talk to Dana and be like, okay, girl, when he wanted you and kidnapped you, then you're like me with that. I know. This is my life now. I'll strip and support you.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:40

Like, I'm so glad she got away, though. Like, I'm so glad she got away.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:47

And kidnapped me like that and just took me to Houston. I I would be in the PlayStation.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:53

We would never make it out of the airport. No, I would be screaming, I would be making the biggest fucking scene. Like, what in the world? Is she imagining this is my life now? It's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

Uh I don't want to be like, girl, I know that you were young and everything, but yeah, you know, you were smart enough to get away for the first time. Yeah. What were you thinking the second time?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

Seriously. And I hope I hope things went well for Dana after she finally got away from him. I hope she had a great life. But yes, I'd love to be like, hi, what happened there? Or what? Yeah. Oh yeah, the whole thing. This story is just bonkers. So um, from jail, Brad thought people would like to know his side of the story and wrote an e-book that I mentioned, slamming every single person he has ever come in contact with. And I did read a bit of it, so y'all don't have to. And believe me when I say, he writes three full fucking chapters on being a swinger with one of his wives. And it was disgusting. And overall, the book is just chocked full of like, it's just a whole piece on like how incredible he is and the stunning things he's done with his life. And yeah, don't buy it because if any of that money goes to him, I don't know how the slayer rules, you know, work in Washington, but do not don't waste your time, also, because most of it you'll have to skip because you're like, I'm gonna throw up the mouth. It is essentially like rantings of a madman's. But he thought he's like, I'm gonna put it out there. People want to know the truth. Okay, um, yeah, and I would like to inform you before we end that he has very little hair left. And what he does have is styled into a Donald Trump-esque swoopy thing. But worse, somehow, it's even thinner than that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:44

But it is Yeah, I'm gonna have to check out the older picture or yeah, yeah, later picture though, because when I looked, I was like, okay, we're going back. We're gonna, we're gonna take it back and see how I was like, mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

Yeah, this is not the man for me. I just had to tell you guys that because I know his vain ass would hate it that I'm telling everyone about his bad hairs. Um, and that is the story of Cheryl Keaton and how her she was murdered by her little dick ex-husband, um, who sucks. Brad Cunningham is a douchebag, which I titled this. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:16

I wonder if it has like, you know how they have like those weird fan people that like just totally fangirl where guys in prison. I wonder if it has any of those.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:24

I don't and I always think, I bet I could write like a letter to the men that are like this, and you just you lie to them and you're like, oh my god, I read your ebook, and I think it's really hot how you were a swinger, and I think you're right about everything. Everyone's and they'd be like, Fucking yes. They wouldn't even question it. They'd be like, What do you want to know? Uh you're my new pen pal. And I'd be like, uh oh. But then get information from them, it would just be lies. So it's like there's no point.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:52

I know. Oh my god, it would be fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:54

It would be so fun. It would be so funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:57

Can we back in a year and you'll like read us letters from Bragg?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

Oh, and this is my new goal.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:09

Can we just sit down and pin a letter and see what comes back? See if there's any like pornographic drawings on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:16

Like, see if that's still his thing, or if he just wants to do that to his sons. Like, maybe I'll draw a pornographic drawing on my envelope to get the ball rolling.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:27

Yes. This is a weird like stick figure pornographic, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:31

Sure. It's like legs, wiener. Don't make balls. This is the one now there. Come on. This is a terrible idea session, but it's cool. Oh my god. Somehow I'll get out of jail and come kidnap you and make you a stripper. So jokes on him. I'll be like, I wasn't built to be a stripper. Well, sweetie, not through that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:00

I will say everyone's built to be a stripper. It's just a matter of where you're at.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:06

That's true. That's a fair point. That's a fair point.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:09

Could I be a stripper in Las Vegas? Hell no. Them girls are beautiful. Could I be a stripper in Great Falls?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:17

That's fair. I pay Buffalo Bills. Shit. Well, as always, thank you so much for listening to Storyteller. Tell your friends and join us on Instagram at storyteller.pod, TikTok at StorytellerPod, Facebook at Storyteller Podcast. And be sure to like, follow, comment, and download the podcast on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sorry about last week. We'll be better. Yeah, sorry, that was my bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:46

We will be better. Um