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Stranger still was the fact that the engine was still
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on and the vehicle was still in gear. There was
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no one in the driver's seat, but the vehicle itself
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was pressing up against the median. The insistent gas pedal
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held down by a purse. So somebody's purse is on
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top of the gas pedal.
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It reminds me of like movies when they put the
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dead body in the car and like put a rock
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on the gas pedal, it goes off a cliff or something.
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You know, it's interesting.
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You should say that because the similarities are very eerie.
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Hi Cassie, Hi Caitlin, Hi creepy people. Hello, Hello, this
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is PNW Hanson Homicides, where we shed about true crime,
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the paranormal, and all things spooky in the Pacific Northwest
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or the PNW. If you're nice, nicety, if you're nasty.
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We also do a Tiara reading at the end of
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every episode for a little bit of deeper insight into
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our topic.
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Can we skip to that right? Yeah? Go too? I know,
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all right, I'm ready, I'm in my blanky, let's go.
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I might fall asleep, We'll see.
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All right, Well, I mean it's hardly a lullaby but
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you know, lots of people fall asleep listening to true crime.
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That's true myself included. Yeah, keep your eyes on my eyes.
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Late on the evening of September twenty first, nineteen eighty six,
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Randall Blyton was traveling down Sunset Highway just outside Portland
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when he noticed something strange.
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I was trying to think of like strange things you
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could see in Portland, and just like so many things
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came to mind.
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Yeah, I you know, part of me is did to
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have you guess, but I'm gonna tell you right now,
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and I just don't think that you could. I don't
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think this would come up. It was a van that
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was sat stopped in the left lane of the highway.
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I mean strange, but not like unheard of, right, Yeah,
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I don't know.
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The way that it was described in so much of
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the source material was just so eerie. But at first
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glance it looked like a routine accident scene. So Randall's
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thinking maybe the driver had just lost control or even
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pulled over after like some sort of a mechanical failure
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or you know, some other type of car trouble. But
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something inside the vehicle caught his attention. What appeared to
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be a car seat. A father himself, he immediately instinctively
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began searching the car, fearing grievous injury.
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For a child.
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What would obviously be a pretty precarious situation at this
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point in the evening, because it was around eight thirty
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in September, It's going to be very dark, so visibility
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was not great, and his number one concern was that
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this was going to cause like a major pile.
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Up on the highway.
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Yeah, it was already causing like a pretty significant backup
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on the highway, but he was just worried that there
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would be like a larger collision. Basically, he would discover,
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to his uneasy relief, that there was no infant. The
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car seat was eerily and yet blessedly empty. I feel like,
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especially and you know, I can't speak to this myself,
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but I feel like as a parent in particular, there
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must just sort of be this feeling of like, oh,
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I'm so glad there's not a baby in there, but
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there is a car seat, and the fact that it's
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empty just you know, that would.
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Freak you out, Like where is it right?
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Yeah, Like it feels like there should be a baby
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or a toddler in the seat and just makes you
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uncomfortable that it's empty. He described kind of searching around
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the interior of the vehicle. It's pretty dark, but he
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wanted to make sure that there's not a baby that's
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like fallen onto the floor or somewhere else in the vehicle,
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so he did his due diligence there. Oh, I know,
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very very sweet man.
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I'm always worried because I have a car seat in
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my car for when I now but yeah, obviously I
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don't have the kid all the time, but the car
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seats in my car.
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So I'm like, what if I get into an accident
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and like something and someone thinks, yeah, they're going to
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think that.
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They're going to be searching for the kid. So I'm like,
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should I put like an unoccupied sign on it?
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When he's not Honestly like, that's maybe not a bad idea,
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Like that could be helpful to first responders. I hadn't
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thought of that. But strangers still was the fact that
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the engine was still on and the vehicle was still
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in gear. There was no one in the driver's seat,
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but the vehicle itself was pressing up against the median.
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The insistent gas pedal held down by a purse. So
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somebody's purse is on top of the gas pedal. That's
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so odd. Yes, yeah, it reminds me of like movies
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when they put the dead body in the car and
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like put a rock on the gas pedal, it goes
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off a cliff or something.
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You know, it's interesting you should say that because the
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similarities are very eerie. Though it was quite dark already,
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he quickly became aware of a copious amount of blood
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in the vehicle. So again he had been kind of
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on almost like his hands and knees searching around the
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interior of this vehicle because he was concerned there might
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be an infant that had become loosed.
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From the seat.
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I just, oh my gosh, it just like the idea
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of then realizing that your hands.
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Were covered in blood just keeps getting worse.
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Yeah, no, and it doesn't. It just doesn't really get
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a whole lot better. He would maneuver the vehicle off
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the highway and onto the shoulder of nearby seventy ninth,
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a safer position to explore the vehicle more fully and
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see if the person seemingly unconscious in the passenger seat
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might need assistance or medical treatment. He tried questioning the passenger,
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but they remained unresponsive. He believed the passenger was likely
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a woman, but their face was badly and very dramatically
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wounded to the point of unrecognizability. Shit, he said, if
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I had known this woman personally, and at that point
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he's just assuming it's a woman truthfully, based on like
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and wait and the shoes that they were wearing. He said,
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if I'd known her personally, I would not have recognized her.
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Ah, that is so scary to see someone like that
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mm hm.
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After engaging the emergency flashers and lighting flares, he went
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to a nearby home and instructed the woman that answered
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the door to call for help for a bad accident,
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stating that he was returning to the scene. So the
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person that calls nine one one is under the impression
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that this is a very bad vehicular accident because so
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far as so far as our good samaritan knows at
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this point, that's what he's encountering. Perhaps this description was
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why when officers arrived they initially treated the scene as
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a traffic accident, because of course they're getting their information
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from dispatch until they get on the scene, and that's
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the information the dispatch would have had to that point,
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but even in the darkness that had descended on the
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highway that fall evening, it didn't take long to realize
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that it was more likely something far more disturbing that
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had occurred. Something about the scene felt wrong almost immediately.
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Traffic collisions, leaf behind patterns, skid marks, vehicle damage, debris,
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all things that investigators can read like a story. In
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this case, the evidence did not match the story of
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a typical crash. Damage to the vehicle itself was relatively limited.
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Two things stuck out nearly right away. For one, the
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positioning of the vehicle raised questions because it's literally stopped
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bumping up against the median in the left lane, so
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it was like pretty much diagonal, like driving itself or
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attempting to desperately drive itself into the median.
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This is why you don't let purses drive, just saying well, yeah, yeah,
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be careful, secure all of your belongings before.
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Driving the vehicle, for sure. Secondly, the passenger's injuries did
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not seem to align with what investigators would expect from
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the type of vehicular crash suggested by the scene that
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appeared suspicious at best or worse. They quietly pondered, perhaps
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even staged. I think they immediately jumped to your theory
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of like this is like when you kill somebody and
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crash the car off the side of a cliff with
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a brick on the gas pedal.
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Yeah, it's like something out of a movie. Honestly. Yeah,
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her face was so badly beaten, but like the wreck
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wasn't that bad.
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This person at least one of their eyes was like bulging,
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and like that portion of like their rbidal socket was
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just like so bruised and inflamed, and it had basically
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like the size of it was just cartoonish.
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Like man like a softball.
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So I don't know how you do that in a
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car accident where the car sustains almost no damage. I
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guess maybe it's not impossible, but it feels implausible.
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I don't know.
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As medical examiners and detectives examined the evidence more closely,
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the conclusion became unavoidable. The passenger had indeed been brutally murdered.
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But on that night in nineteen eighty six, investigators didn't
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yet know the story behind the woman found in that
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Toyota van. Her name was Cheryl Keaton. She was a
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thirty six year old Portland attorney. Investigators desperately wanted to
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understand what happened to Cheryl Keaton, to understand how the
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life of a happy, success full working mother of three
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had seemingly unraveled into something terrible and dark. Once the
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death was determined to homicide, detectives began examining every aspect
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of Cheryl's life, where she had been that day, who
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she had spoken with, and who might have had reason
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to harm her. Cheryl Keaton had built what many would
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consider a very successful life. Intelligent, ambitious, and determined. She
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had pursued a career in law and became a practicing
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attorney in Portland after attending law school in Seattle. In
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addition to her career, she had also welcomed three sons,
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who were the center of her life. But while Cheryl
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was building a career in raising a family, her marriage
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to Bradley Morris Cunningham was deteriorating. At first, brad Cunningham
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could appear charming and personable. As time passed, tensions between
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the two escalated. Financial pressures, personality conflicts, and issues of
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control began to strain the relationship. Eventually, the marriage reached
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a breaking point, and the couple began divorce proceedings. By
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nineteen ninety six, the divorce had become deeply contentious, particularly
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because of the custody battle over their three children.
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Yeah, I could see that.
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The thing about this case is that, unfortunately, there are
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so many ways that it mimics or like the details
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align with other stories that we've talked about in a
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way it's like none, no, two stories are exactly alike.
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But after a while you kind of start to see
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where it's like there's also at the same time, these
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scenarios are just they're never really all that unique either.
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It's like there's such a playbook of you.
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Know how personal inflict and you know how some of
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these things play out, and it's just it's heartbreaking.
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It's heartbreaking to see like the same patterns, especially when
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you mentioned like a man who is controlling like that, right,
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it's not going to go well him right, getting things
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taken from him.
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No, that's exactly exactly what it is. And the scary
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thing for me, like when it really like starts to
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just make my skin crawl is when.
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There are kids involved, because it's.
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Another layer of you know, a relationship that maybe has
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really turned sour if, if you know, maybe not necessarily abusive,
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although in this case it certainly was. It just adds
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such a layer of complication and vulnerability for the person
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who is trying desperately to like get out of the
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clutches of this horrific person. Friends later said Cheryl had
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begun worrying about what her estranged husband might do as
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the legal fight intensified. Cheryl, herself and those around her
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had long feared that conflict would end in tragedy. Arguments
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had become more frequent, and the custody battle had intensified
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emotions on both sides. The ongoing divorce immediately drew investigator's attention.
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They began examining Cheryl's relationship with Brad Cunningham more closely
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due to the violent nature of the death. And this
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is something I.
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Have never heard of.
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Like, they know that she has died, and I think
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at this point they very very strongly suspect that she
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was murdered. But keep in mind, like they have not
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had time to process like a full autopsy, so it
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hasn't officially been determined to homicide yet. So I have
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never heard of this before. Four officers had been sent
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to her estranged husband's home to deliver.
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The death notification.
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And I realized that if they think there's a you know,
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perhaps a potential or a propensity for, you know, there
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to be some sort of conflict or especially if there's
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you know, the opportunity for there to be violence, that