Not an Accident: The Cheryl Keeton Murder

0:03 Stranger still was the fact that the engine was still on and the vehicle was still in gear. There was no one in the driver's seat, but the vehicle itself was pressing up against the median. The insistent gas pedal held down by a purse. So somebody's purse is on top of the gas pedal. It reminds me of like movies when they put the dead body in the car and like put a rock on the gas pedal, it goes off a cliff or something. You know, it's interesting. You should say that because the similarities are very eerie. Hi Cassie, Hi Caitlin, Hi creepy people. Hello, Hello, this is PNW Hanson Homicides, where we shed about true crime, the paranormal, and all things spooky in the Pacific Northwest or the PNW. If you're nice, nicety, if you're nasty.

1:02 We also do a Tiara reading at the end of every episode for a little bit of deeper insight into our topic. Can we skip to that right? Yeah? Go too? I know, all right, I'm ready, I'm in my blanky, let's go. I might fall asleep, We'll see. All right, Well, I mean it's hardly a lullaby but you know, lots of people fall asleep listening to true crime. That's true myself included. Yeah, keep your eyes on my eyes. Late on the evening of September twenty first, nineteen eighty six, Randall Blyton was traveling down Sunset Highway just outside Portland when he noticed something strange.

1:50 I was trying to think of like strange things you could see in Portland, and just like so many things came to mind. Yeah, I you know, part of me is did to have you guess, but I'm gonna tell you right now, and I just don't think that you could. I don't think this would come up. It was a van that was sat stopped in the left lane of the highway. I mean strange, but not like unheard of, right, Yeah, I don't know. The way that it was described in so much of the source material was just so eerie. But at first glance it looked like a routine accident scene. So Randall's thinking maybe the driver had just lost control or even pulled over after like some sort of a mechanical failure or you know, some other type of car trouble. But something inside the vehicle caught his attention. What appeared to be a car seat. A father himself, he immediately instinctively began searching the car, fearing grievous injury.

2:58 For a child. What would obviously be a pretty precarious situation at this point in the evening, because it was around eight thirty in September, It's going to be very dark, so visibility was not great, and his number one concern was that this was going to cause like a major pile. Up on the highway. Yeah, it was already causing like a pretty significant backup on the highway, but he was just worried that there would be like a larger collision. Basically, he would discover, to his uneasy relief, that there was no infant. The car seat was eerily and yet blessedly empty. I feel like, especially and you know, I can't speak to this myself, but I feel like as a parent in particular, there must just sort of be this feeling of like, oh, I'm so glad there's not a baby in there, but there is a car seat, and the fact that it's empty just you know, that would.

4:00 Freak you out, Like where is it right? Yeah, Like it feels like there should be a baby or a toddler in the seat and just makes you uncomfortable that it's empty. He described kind of searching around the interior of the vehicle. It's pretty dark, but he wanted to make sure that there's not a baby that's like fallen onto the floor or somewhere else in the vehicle, so he did his due diligence there. Oh, I know, very very sweet man. I'm always worried because I have a car seat in my car for when I now but yeah, obviously I don't have the kid all the time, but the car seats in my car. So I'm like, what if I get into an accident and like something and someone thinks, yeah, they're going to think that.

4:44 They're going to be searching for the kid. So I'm like, should I put like an unoccupied sign on it? When he's not Honestly like, that's maybe not a bad idea, Like that could be helpful to first responders. I hadn't thought of that. But strangers still was the fact that the engine was still on and the vehicle was still in gear. There was no one in the driver's seat, but the vehicle itself was pressing up against the median. The insistent gas pedal held down by a purse. So somebody's purse is on top of the gas pedal. That's so odd. Yes, yeah, it reminds me of like movies when they put the dead body in the car and like put a rock on the gas pedal, it goes off a cliff or something.

5:30 You know, it's interesting you should say that because the similarities are very eerie. Though it was quite dark already, he quickly became aware of a copious amount of blood in the vehicle. So again he had been kind of on almost like his hands and knees searching around the interior of this vehicle because he was concerned there might be an infant that had become loosed. From the seat. I just, oh my gosh, it just like the idea of then realizing that your hands. Were covered in blood just keeps getting worse. Yeah, no, and it doesn't. It just doesn't really get a whole lot better. He would maneuver the vehicle off the highway and onto the shoulder of nearby seventy ninth, a safer position to explore the vehicle more fully and see if the person seemingly unconscious in the passenger seat might need assistance or medical treatment. He tried questioning the passenger, but they remained unresponsive. He believed the passenger was likely a woman, but their face was badly and very dramatically wounded to the point of unrecognizability. Shit, he said, if I had known this woman personally, and at that point he's just assuming it's a woman truthfully, based on like and wait and the shoes that they were wearing. He said,

7:04 if I'd known her personally, I would not have recognized her. Ah, that is so scary to see someone like that mm hm. After engaging the emergency flashers and lighting flares, he went to a nearby home and instructed the woman that answered the door to call for help for a bad accident, stating that he was returning to the scene. So the person that calls nine one one is under the impression that this is a very bad vehicular accident because so far as so far as our good samaritan knows at this point, that's what he's encountering. Perhaps this description was why when officers arrived they initially treated the scene as a traffic accident, because of course they're getting their information from dispatch until they get on the scene, and that's the information the dispatch would have had to that point, but even in the darkness that had descended on the highway that fall evening, it didn't take long to realize that it was more likely something far more disturbing that had occurred. Something about the scene felt wrong almost immediately.

8:18 Traffic collisions, leaf behind patterns, skid marks, vehicle damage, debris, all things that investigators can read like a story. In this case, the evidence did not match the story of a typical crash. Damage to the vehicle itself was relatively limited. Two things stuck out nearly right away. For one, the positioning of the vehicle raised questions because it's literally stopped bumping up against the median in the left lane, so it was like pretty much diagonal, like driving itself or attempting to desperately drive itself into the median.

9:01 This is why you don't let purses drive, just saying well, yeah, yeah, be careful, secure all of your belongings before. Driving the vehicle, for sure. Secondly, the passenger's injuries did not seem to align with what investigators would expect from the type of vehicular crash suggested by the scene that appeared suspicious at best or worse. They quietly pondered, perhaps even staged. I think they immediately jumped to your theory of like this is like when you kill somebody and crash the car off the side of a cliff with a brick on the gas pedal.

9:43 Yeah, it's like something out of a movie. Honestly. Yeah, her face was so badly beaten, but like the wreck wasn't that bad. This person at least one of their eyes was like bulging, and like that portion of like their rbidal socket was just like so bruised and inflamed, and it had basically like the size of it was just cartoonish. Like man like a softball. So I don't know how you do that in a car accident where the car sustains almost no damage. I guess maybe it's not impossible, but it feels implausible.

10:25 I don't know. As medical examiners and detectives examined the evidence more closely, the conclusion became unavoidable. The passenger had indeed been brutally murdered. But on that night in nineteen eighty six, investigators didn't yet know the story behind the woman found in that Toyota van. Her name was Cheryl Keaton. She was a thirty six year old Portland attorney. Investigators desperately wanted to understand what happened to Cheryl Keaton, to understand how the life of a happy, success full working mother of three had seemingly unraveled into something terrible and dark. Once the death was determined to homicide, detectives began examining every aspect of Cheryl's life, where she had been that day, who she had spoken with, and who might have had reason to harm her. Cheryl Keaton had built what many would consider a very successful life. Intelligent, ambitious, and determined. She had pursued a career in law and became a practicing attorney in Portland after attending law school in Seattle. In addition to her career, she had also welcomed three sons, who were the center of her life. But while Cheryl was building a career in raising a family, her marriage to Bradley Morris Cunningham was deteriorating. At first, brad Cunningham

11:56 could appear charming and personable. As time passed, tensions between the two escalated. Financial pressures, personality conflicts, and issues of control began to strain the relationship. Eventually, the marriage reached a breaking point, and the couple began divorce proceedings. By nineteen ninety six, the divorce had become deeply contentious, particularly because of the custody battle over their three children. Yeah, I could see that. The thing about this case is that, unfortunately, there are so many ways that it mimics or like the details align with other stories that we've talked about in a way it's like none, no, two stories are exactly alike.

12:44 But after a while you kind of start to see where it's like there's also at the same time, these scenarios are just they're never really all that unique either. It's like there's such a playbook of you. Know how personal inflict and you know how some of these things play out, and it's just it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to see like the same patterns, especially when you mentioned like a man who is controlling like that, right, it's not going to go well him right, getting things taken from him. No, that's exactly exactly what it is. And the scary thing for me, like when it really like starts to just make my skin crawl is when.

13:27 There are kids involved, because it's. Another layer of you know, a relationship that maybe has really turned sour if, if you know, maybe not necessarily abusive, although in this case it certainly was. It just adds such a layer of complication and vulnerability for the person who is trying desperately to like get out of the clutches of this horrific person. Friends later said Cheryl had begun worrying about what her estranged husband might do as the legal fight intensified. Cheryl, herself and those around her had long feared that conflict would end in tragedy. Arguments had become more frequent, and the custody battle had intensified emotions on both sides. The ongoing divorce immediately drew investigator's attention.

14:19 They began examining Cheryl's relationship with Brad Cunningham more closely due to the violent nature of the death. And this is something I. Have never heard of. Like, they know that she has died, and I think at this point they very very strongly suspect that she was murdered. But keep in mind, like they have not had time to process like a full autopsy, so it hasn't officially been determined to homicide yet. So I have never heard of this before. Four officers had been sent to her estranged husband's home to deliver. The death notification.

15:00 And I realized that if they think there's a you know, perhaps a potential or a propensity for, you know, there to be some sort of conflict or especially if there's you know, the opportunity for there to be violence, that they're going to do everything they can to not only protect themselves, but they're headed into just for context, into an apartment building in Portland, and they have to think about how, you know, they might need to maintain the safety of literally like his neighbors if something goes down. But I have never ever heard of a case.

15:41 Where they send four four officers for a death notification. Wow, maybe they're like thinking of the kids too, which is good. Yeah, I don't know if that unless they knew where they were at that point or I'm not sure. I'm not sure that they I think probably them was that the children were likely with their father, as he you know, presumably would be the custodial parent in that moment if they're not with Cheryl. But I think it it just says a lot that this very slight. I mean, she was down to like one hundred pounds. She was very very fearful. At this point, she had dropped more weight, so she was down to like one hundred pounds. She was a very like everything that I encountered said she was a very slight woman, very like petite, and she had dropped down to one hundred pounds because this whole situation with their divorce, the custody battle, how fearful she was of him, Like she just obviously was struggling. Wow in a very serious way, Like people were saying, like, my god, she looks like gaunt. Like the part that really got me about this was like to think about this like tiny woman who actually like she has this like you know, very high power career and probably.

17:03 You know, can like kind of command. Respect, you know it like in a courtroom type setting, in a legal setting. But to think that like that is like the person that's facing up against this man that the police feel like they need to send for adult grown ass man man says to go you know, like they're not even arresting him. It's such a trope. But it's like the husband did it, and they're like, well, we're going to go talk to the husband, So I guess bring everybody like that just blew my mind. They recalled him being remarkably unemotional, barely reacting in fact, other than to suggest in a lone outburst that was it perhaps a traffic accident that led to her death?

17:53 Come on, man, way to like just give yourself away for real? Yeah, did it by chance look like a poorly staged car accident. Still, in this initial conversation, they tried not to read too much into his lack of outward reaction, because everybody reacts to these situations differently, and obviously they're actively going through a divorce, they are in a custody battle. You know, they were not on good terms, so perhaps even more so than you know, even a situation where you know it's a loved one that has passed away, it's like this is somebody that like currently he has a very complicated relationship with. So they're trying not to read too much into the fact that he's not getting all emotional. But as we know, people may react in myriad ways to a sudden death, but he didn't seem even remotely surprised. That's the part that gets me, Like, you don't have to be emotional, but the fact that it doesn't, like you don't have any sort of a oh almost like he already knew.

19:03 Weird that she was deceased and somehow new it was car related. Right. Yeah. I just think it's so funny because obviously there are people that can get away with certain things to varying degrees. But and I love the term just because, on the one hand, it kind of sounds so gross. But this is what Chris has explained to me in interviewing. They call it behavioral leakage. That makes sense. Yes, So a lot of it is like stuff like this is behavioral leakage. That's not like necessarily like on a physiological level.

19:44 But there are. Things that you might do that you don't even realize you're doing, like tapping on a table or like you know, you're bouncing your leg underneath the table or. Whatever it is. But I'm like, this is just so that's the word for it. I feel as detectives began piecing together the timeline of Cheryl's final hours, suspicion increasingly focused on her ex husband or soon to be ex husband, I should say, her current husband. I'll give you guys a moment, just let the shock, let you absorb, you know. I think we're as much as shocked as he was that he when he found out his wife.

20:27 Died, right, Yeah, I think we are having a similar emotional response. Yeah, but suspicion alone was not enough. Investigators would need evidence strong enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. What I think is really interesting here, and I don't talk about her much, even though there's actually a good amount of information that I was able to find about her, kind of her thoughts and feelings at the time, sort of as these events were playing out. But Brad Cunningham had a girlfriend. I think some sources describe her as fiance. I don't know. It really doesn't even matter. I believe she was an.

21:11 Er doctor, so like he clearly likes to surround himself with these very successful women. And the one time that officially in my note she's going to come up is a little bit later. But she really never suspected anything. She really believed him in this case, and she really loved his children, and she really believed that he wanted the best for them. To be fair, there's a lot of information that she wasn't privy to. Necessarily, she's only so close to this whole situation. I really felt bad for her actually, because. She seemed like a very compassionate and smart, just I mean, a really nice woman, And I was just like, fuck, how did what do these fuckers find find us?

22:02 Ladies? I mean, I mean, you. Can be strong and and successful but still have like that little bit of weakness maybe that they can sniff out and just keep poking at. Yeah. And you know the other thing is that a lot of times the archetype of what you know what, Brad is they wait until they got your ass tramped, and that's when you see who they really are. As detectives continued examining Cheryl's life, they began learning more about her estranged husband, Bradley Morris Cunningham Ask Huntingham, Cuntingham.

22:43 Oh, I love that, thank you, Oh love that for us. Okay. When investigators look into a homicide involving intimate partners, one of the first things they study is the history of the relationship. They look for patterns, financial speeds, escalating arguments, custody conflicts, or controlling behavior, anything that might help explain motive. In Chryl Keaton's case, the deeper detectives dug into the couple's past, the more complicated. That picture became. Not because it was unclear that Brad was a piece of shit just so that everybody's on the same page.

23:24 It's just because of the particular type of shit that he is. His particular brand of pos can make things a little confusing at times. Part of that complexity came from Brad himself. Years after the trial, he would write extensively about his life and his version of events, attempting to challenge the narrative that it developed around the case, particularly the one presented in the best selling true crime book Dead by Sunset by Anne Rule. Ooh and rue, she rules, She rules, and Brad rules. Yeah really, I actually I wasn't gonna pay for it, because that's just not how I rolled. But I was able to access a pretty sizable excerpt from his book, and Rule deconstructed whatever.

24:27 In his own writing, he portrays himself as a highly successful businessman and ambitious entrepreneur moving through the booming real estate markets of the Pacific Northwest during the nineteen seventies and eighties. Was he you know, I don't care enough. I don't care enough. Some of the stuff that he says, it makes no goddamn sense. The figures actively make no fucking sense. Like he talked about having real estate holding and the number of zeros he assigned. I'm like, this was the eighties. You're telling me you had nearly a billion dollars in real estate holdings in the nineteen eighties.

25:13 I don't know what's normal, but I'm. Not saying it's impossible. I just don't fucking believe you, and I'm about to tell you why. According to Cunningham's account, I almost said, Cuntingham, I. Wish you would have. According to Cunningham's account, his story begins in Buryan, Washington, a small community just south of Seattle, where he was born in October of nineteen forty eight. He describes himself as. An ambitious young man, drawn early toward business and finance. He attended the University of Washington, where he studied business administration and played on the university's varsity football team. Okay, so I do also, uh, I believe he does actually have a business degree from you dub. It's funny because he does intersperse so many like I shouldn't say so many.

26:12 There are certain facts that he intersperses with, just like what if on the surface, I want to dismiss a lot of things as just being lies. But then I was like, and you'll see, I'm about to tell you about my very exciting experiment trying to prove him wrong on something. And I guess technically I can't definitively you'll see, But what the fuck. It's just so annoying. I fucking hate people that just lie about shit, Like you told someone else that I also know something completely different. Did you think we were never going to talk about this? Like, yeah, it's such it's so obvious that you lied to one of us.

26:55 Oh my god, I just want to rip his face off. I think people just lie and like don't even they just don't even think about it. Yeah, they're just so confident, like like, don't have another thought in their brain besides what they're saying at the moment. It's fucking maddening. I can't. I just I simply can't. One moment he highlights in his autobiography involves a game in which he claims to have tackled O. J. Simpson Okay, who at the time was already becoming one of the most famous running backs in college football. Yeah. I tackled that guy. Yeah, Okay, So here's the thing, though, Okay, Brad frames the moment as a highlight of his athletic career in college and part of the early promise he believed defined his life. You DUB and USC did play in the era, okay, okay, roughly nineteen sixty seven nineteen sixty eight, and O. J.

27:56 Simpson won the Heisman in nineteen sixty eight while playing for you, So if not only possible, it's very probable that someone on the UDUB football team tackled Oj. Interestingly, though, for the years nineteen sixty six to nineteen seventy, Brad's name does not appear in UW's well documented football rosters. Weird, I know, I know so much about college football rosters. Now, I mean, that's the string I wanted you to pull. My Honestly, I didn't see this playing out this way, but now I have to tell you, okay, and it's in my notes. So I took the time you could take the time.

28:46 That is kind of funny, though. I searched beyond the suggested years of nineteen sixty seven and nineteen sixty eight, because why not, right, maybe he's remembering that piece wrong, like maybe it was nineteen sixty nine. But like I said, no, dice, maybe he was a JV player. I had a thought because I was like, right, JV, that's junior varsity. Maybe he said varsity but he was really JV. He's trying to pump himself up. But I learned that the University of Washington, as a Division One team, does not maintain a separate junior varsity or JV football team roster, as is standard for most major college football programs. Instead, they use a single, comprehensive roster, including freshmen, red shirts, and developmental players. However, in the late nineteen sixties, the University of Washington still fielded a separate freshman team, often called the Husky Pups. Oh C online digital records for the Husky Pups are scarce compared to the main roster.

29:57 But honestly, I think it's fair to say the that is just a motherfucking liar. Yeah, he doesn't appear on the roster. He could have been a Husky Pop. Is that what you're saying could have been? Seems unlikely, but definitely not farsay. Yeah. Also, I feel like it would be kind of funny if somehow in my research I had come across that like, oh, he did for sure tackle OJ on the field when he was at you dub, he just wasn't doing it in his capacity as a football player, Like he just stormed the field like those people that go running around new.

30:40 Was he the Was he a mascot? Maybe? I you know, I didn't find anything to support that, but what are you gonna do? I was also thinking like if you had said he was on the roster, like maybe someone else, Yeah, tackled him and they did like the pile on and he was like the last guy, Like, right, he just hopped on. I caught him. Come, I caught him. Nailed it. He also claims that he was contacted by the Dallas Cowboys, who allegedly offered him a position on their special teams in nineteen seventy.

31:22 On their special teams. Yeah, special teams is like you're not actually like you're not going. To the super Bowl. Typically, I don't know a lot about football, and I exhausted my ability to learn more about football with that last passage. So, uh, that's as far as we're going to go on that. But okay. According to Brad, the offer included an annual salary of around fifty thousand dollars, which was actually a considerable income at the time. Presumably he declined the opportunity claim. I mean, he was already earning comparable money working in property management and believed his future in business would ultimately be more lucrative than one in the arena of.

32:12 Athletics because he didn't actually play football. I mean, yeah, I feel like that's a fair I love that you picked up on that, but also I feel like for most people that's true. Even if you do get drafted a lot of times, it's like, you know, the smartest guys out there are making choices that are going to set them up for life after football, you know, after professional sports, whatever it is. He didn't even want to get started in professional sports. He's like Nay, and the Dallas Cowboys back then, like you want to I feel like, oh, that was primo.

32:53 Yeah. I mean, I don't know, but I'm just going by what you're saying. The Dallas Cowboys, I don't think in that era were like, oh, they went to the Super Bowl like every year or something like that. The height of their success as. A team, you know, in the last fifty years, to my knowledge, was in the mid to late seventies. So but if you had come on, you know, with them as nineteen seventy is dawning, like I don't know, but either way it would have been special teams and you're not going to the super Bowl anyways. I just love that even his like made up, fabricated bullshit dreams and. Stuff are still like just a little bit shy of.

33:33 Like not only making sense, but like it's like, Okay, cool story, bro. You know it's like believable because it's not too much. Yeah, it's still not believable though it's still not like it's really not. I don't know anything about football, and like the context of already understanding that, like he kind of seems like a liar. That was a help to me because yeah, don't I don't understand the sportsing ball, go sports, Yeah, go sports instead. Cunningham describes focusing his career on real estate finance. He portrays himself as operating primarily as a mortgage broker and mortgage banker in the Seattle and Bellevue areas, structuring loans and financing investment properties during a period when the Pacific Northwest property market was rapidly expanding.

34:26 So I don't know. Maybe he did at some point have nearly a billion dollars in real estate holdings. Hould my hair back while I vomit, Like I don't believe. I just don't believe it. In his own telling, those ventures were enormously successful. Of course, Cunningham claims that over roughly twenty years, he helped finance more than and here it is the nine hundred million dollars in income properties across the Pacific Northwest and Houston. Area of Texas. I guess technically he's not even saying that those are his holdings, but just that he was involved in those dealings.

35:06 Either way, I just kind of am like I don't care, Brad, like I don't care. Also, there again, it's like he did nine hundred million, not a billion, so like in his yeah, it's a little more believable. Yeah, I'm just like, come on, Brad, if you're just gonna so obviously lie about so many things, like at least go big or go home, you know, Like I feel like I could respect. That more in a way. I don't know, he's just trash. It's I'm never gonna like him. I really want to know, like what he would say his dick size was, Oh boy, you know, it's funny you bring that up like one inch above average.

35:50 Yeah yeah, he would be like it's a solid five point seventy five inches or some shit like, oh boy. At one point, he says he and Cheryl held more than a million dollars in certificates of deposit at First Interstate Bank and Seattle. He further asserts that even excluding Cheryl's income as an attorney, the couple generated more than a million dollars per year through a mix of cash flow investments and equity holdings, which I don't know. In nineteen eighties, I don't know. It just seems I don't know. Maybe maybe I don't believe you. I don't trust you, and I don't like you. So whatever. These claims form a central part of the image Brad Cunningham constructs in his own writing that of a self made financial success moving comfortably through the high energy real estate culture of the Pacific Northwest during that era. After completing his undergraduate degree, he also pursued graduate studies, enrolling in a master's program in econo at Portland State University. So very loch Da of him, and he really did those things I am given to understand that he really did enroll in the master's program at PSU. Yeah, all right, you know I didn't call PSU. I don't know that they would even be willing to verify that.

37:19 But give me the receipt, give me as transcripts. But his personal life was just as complicated as his professional one. Before his relationship with Cheryl Keaton, Brad had previously been married. His first marriage was to a woman named Marilyn, which I think is a pseudonym used in Anne Rule's book. Doesn't really matter. Whom he married while still a junior at the University of Washington. The couple had two children together, a daughter and a son actually named Brad Junior. Because of course, that marriage eventually ended, and he would later enter into other relationships before eventually meeting Cheryl. I guess I could have stopped reading it, but I had to read this, So I'm going to.

38:09 Give you like the elevator pitch. Version of it, because my god, this man is. I cannot tell you how unhinged his book reads. Just the section that I was able to access for free. It is truly spectacular. In the worst way possible. One of the most extensive portions of Cunningham's autobiography focuses on a woman he identifies as Joan, whom he says he dated for roughly four to five years. According to his autobiographical account in the ebook, he lived with Joan in the Beaux Arts Village, an affluent residential enclave in Bellevue, Washington.

38:54 She worked as a teacher at Ivanhoe Elementary School, teaching second and third grade students. Which is why it feels a little. Unsettling to read about how he describes her and how much he describes so so much. It is truly unseemly. He devotes long passages to describing their life together, portraying it as glamorous, socially adventurous, and at times openly hedonistic. Okay, so they like allegedly just went to a bunch of orgies, organistic orange you glad I came. Oh okay, I know it works two ways.

39:40 I like it. He recounts frequent parties, travel and gatherings that he characterizes as sexually permissive social environments, basically orgies and key parties, which is super cool if that's a thing that you want to participate in, and that part's fine. What I feel like as role Icky is that number one, he's a liar, so I have to wonder how much of it he's making up. And number two, I just don't understand why when you are talking about deconstructing and Rule's book about the murder of your wife, that this features so prominently.

40:21 Yeah, that is weird. It is upsetting. It's literally and maybe he's thinking. Oh, it's it's my autobiography, So I have to tell everything that happened in my life. Everything that I wanted to happen in my life. To make it real, I have to write it down. Yeah. Yeah, it could be some manifesting. Yeah, yeah, it could be that. So the orgies and all of the details which he specifically claims to mention only briefly and to not go into graphic detail, but which occupy a surprisingly large portion of his narrative. Those passages are revealing not necessarily because of the events themselves, because I could give a shit who or when or why or how many people you fuck, but because of the way he chooses to present them. His writing frequently lingers on physical descriptions and lifestyle details, constructing a very particular image of himself and the world he believed he inhabited. The amount of time he spent talking about this woman's nipples.

41:30 Ungodly, truly truly, truly offensive. Yeah, no, I mean the amount of time he spent describing her physical appearance overall, truly, just. Like he does say all of. These other things about her, like how she's like the most intelligent and well traveled woman that he's ever been with. And she was I guess, like fourteen years his senior, so she was older than him, a very sophisticated lady, seemingly, But my god, why do we need to know so much. About her nipples? Apparently she was a dead ringer, a doppelganger for Alyssa Milano in The Charmed Days.

42:12 Of course she was. Yeah, oh boy. He actually includes an illustrative image that I assume is like a screenshot from porn or something to show you what he's talking about with her nipples. I just because the description of them isn't enough. Yeah, it's just too much. I just I feel like the Lady Doth protests too much. How much can you say about nipples? I thought this was all about taking down and rule. The title of the book is Anne Rule Deconstructed. Do you think Anne Rule spent this much time talking about this woman's nipples? I can't imagine that she did, okay, because I feel like you went on a really long time about the nibbles. Well, it made me so mad.

43:01 I was like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? And he talks about he goes on and on about the orgies in the like, and he specifically says how he doesn't want to go into graphic detail and how he's not going to and and oh I didn't. I like really like I summarized it. I gave you the cliff Notes version, and I was like, I feel like, I feel like you've said so so much. It's just I can't believe that's possibly true, Like wow, Like what. Why did I need to know any of this? How is this helpful? Context? Also for like the task at hand, which. Is deconstructing and Rule.

43:44 But autobiographical accounts written by criminal defendants are always complicated sources. They often reveal as much about how the author wishes to be perceived as they do about objective history facts. I would argue more, maybe more, it reveals more about him and what he wants people to think about. Him than it does about objective historical facts. But that's just maybe that's just me. I don't know. For investigators examining the murder of Cheryl Keaton, the question was not how Brad Cunningham described himself in his own narrative, because who gives a flying fuck. The question was whether the evidence surrounding Cheryl's death would ultimately tell a very different story, and spoiler alert, I feel like they have very different stories. Once Cheryl's death was classified as a homicide, detectives began reconstructing her final day. They interviewed co workers, friends, and family members, reviewed phone calls and statements, and compared those details against Brad Cunningham's account of his own activities that night. Clear that Cheryl was fearful for her life and perhaps even her children's lives. Brad's own relatives told authorities that he hated women like in a very classic in cell controlling asshole way. Detectives continued to look for

45:17 gaps in the timeline contradictions, the smallest of instances where statements did not match what other witnesses had described. Cheryl's brother, Jim Carr, had been living with her and the boys for about three months prior to the murder, which had alleviated some of the fear that she and her family felt about what lengths Brad might go to. I will say that Jim, I can't imagine how guilty he must feel for things that are absolutely outside of his control and not his fault. And I will also say that, as.

45:58 Kind of one of the first people to be notified of her death, as he reached out to their family, no one was surprised. And unfortunately, and I'll have to tie this in, but even prior to actually receiving the death notification, because of the circumstances of that night, his hackles were already up, as were those of some of the family that he immediately reached out to with concerns. So the fact that like they were like, we knew this would happen, and to not have received confirmation, but to just already know that your worst fears are playing out, I can't fucking imagine it, because there's.

46:45 Really like nothing you can do. There's nothing you could have done. No, like you can't just like tie her up and hold her hostage in your house, you know what I mean? No, No, Teeter, she did nothing wrong. They did wrong, Like, the only person that did something wrong is a spoiler alert, it was Brad. The night she died, Cheryl had left a note behind for her brother about meeting Brad to pick up the boys, because this was a Sunday and Brad should have been returning the boys to her by seven pm that evening, and she would get almost frantic when they deviated from the custody arrangements. Well, yeah, Brad supposedly had some car trouble that evening and the pickup location that she described in the note was a gas station that her brother knew full well was not in operation at the time. It was basically it was abandoned.

47:43 I think it recently, Like the shop was closed, so it seemed like an odd meeting spot, especially if you just had car trouble. You'd think you would want to go someplace where the business wasn't closed. He was like, it would make more sense if they went to like a service station that was open, because maybe he needs something for the car. But that made him nervous immediately, and he had actually reached out to their mother based on the note that Cheryl left about meeting Brad. She said, I told her do not do that do not go to meet him, and she said, I know she's dead, but like. The kids, I can understand like a mom doing whatever they need to do because they're worried about their children.

48:29 Of course, I will meet you anywhere. Give me back my babies. And it's a public place, you said, an abandoned please. Yeah, it sounds like this service station had recently gone like out of business. So what a creepy place to ask someone to meet you seriously, and her brother, like I said, immediately, he was like that's not good. And this poor guy, like what. Is he supposed to do? You know. The part that was like heartbreaking about this is on this particular evening, like if her kids were home, he very rarely like went out late at night. Keeping in mind that her vehicle was discovered on the side of the highway around eight thirty pm, so not even that late, even for a Sunday night. Eight thirty is not crazy late in the evening. It was significantly later than the agreed upon seven pm pickup time for them to change hands of you know, custody of the boys. But like, it's not like he was out until midnight. And even if he was, like he's a young man, he should be able to, you know, have a life, right, But he had gone out with his girlfriend, and he was like, the whole reason why I felt okay about doing that was because you know, I'd been staying there. She seemed like she was starting to feel more comfortable. She felt safer with me there with the boys, and I knew

50:03 that it was Brad's time and they wouldn't be home until later. So I went out that night thinking like, Brad has the boys, like she's fine when you know they get handed back off, like no big deal. I think it made her more nervous to be alone in their home with the kids. There is the impression that I have because she was worried about her safety. But I feel like, as a mom, especially you know, someone who has concerns about maybe even the safety of your own kids, like it's bad enough that something could happen to you, but the idea that like something could happen to you and your kids is just like a bridge too far. So he thought like this is a good time, you know, everything should be good. It's just made me want to cry because I could think about like if this were my brother, he would just literally probably never stop beating himself up over something like this, even though like objectively, there's just nothing that he did wrong and the fault is completely someone else's.

51:08 But it's like, because it's like literally insane for someone to kill somebody else, Like it's not a normal thing. As much as you might be like worried about them doing something or think right should or not be surprised afterwards, you're not like they're actually going to do that, because it's yeah crazy, I mean, you're at. Least hopeful that's never going to happen, And the fact that you know it did and the way that you know it's happened is just it's awful. And he has no reason to feel bad. I just know that, Like survivor's guilt in these type of instances, it's like that's so hard to overcome. Like I know why he would feel bad. I would have those same feelings. In the years after Cheryl's death, investigators continued gathering information, reviewing evidence, and revisiting the circumstances surrounding the night she was found dead in her van along the Sunset Highway. But while the criminal investigation moved slowly, another legal battle began to unfold.

52:16 In nineteen ninety one, Cheryl's estate filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Brad Cunningham. Civil cases operate under a different legal standard than criminal trials. In a criminal case, prosecutors must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I think we're all hopefully familiar with that principle at this point. That pesky little law I know. In civil court, however, jurors must decide whether a defendant is responsible based on a preponderance of the evidence, essentially whether it is more likely than not that the defendant.

52:57 Caused the death. It's like the person. Yes, it's like a forty nine fifty one, like in the zoo thing what we talked about. I remember that, Nat, You've never seen this before. During the civil trial, jurors heard many of the same details investigators had been examining for years, the bitter divorce, the custody fight over the couple's children, the financial disputes, and the circumstances surrounding Cheryl's death. After hearing the evidence, the civil jury reached a decisive conclusion. They found Brad Cunningham responsible for Cheryl Keaton's death and awarded Cheryl's estate, a truly massive wrongful death verdict and award like a like a roll serious amount of moolah.

53:52 Was it nine hundred million dollars? It wasn't, but it wasn't the millions. Nice. They'll never see a scent of it, as is often the case, that's how this plays out, but we get something, I think, in a way even better. The decision was significant not only because of the financial judgment, which is kind of whatever, You're never going to see that money, but because it publicly established that a jury believed Brad Cunningham was responsible for Sheryl Keaton's killing. That verdict brought renewed attention to the case and helped shift the momentum of the investigation because they're like, oh shit, it's a different burden of proof with the civil case, right, But if these people believe it, we just have to give them enough and then we can get a criminal prosecution case together and a conviction on.

54:53 An actual case, convict that cunting Ham. For years, the case had existed in frustrating gray area, strong suspicions but not yet enough evidence for prosecutors to move forward with criminal charges. The civil verdict helped change that investigators and prosecutors took another look at the evidence that had accumulated over the years. Eventually, they concluded that the case had reached a turning point. After nearly a decade of investigation, prosecutors believed they had finally assembled enough evidence to bring the case to a criminal trial. Nearly a decade after Cheryl Keaton's death, the case finally reached the courtroom. Brad's girlfriend at the time, Fancy Pans doctor, who.

55:46 I truly do feel bad for, paid. The retainer for not just his lawyer, but also as separate attorney to represent the children, which was a major priority to Brad. So he wanted somebody that was looking out for the best interests of his children allegedly, and I think it was simply a miscalculation on his part. And here's why he was enraged when he learned the children were allowed to speak with law enforcement with the detectives and their counsel received an earful once he was made aware again, you've hired an attorney to look out for their best interests. Their mother was murdered, and you are certainly a person of interest, sir, and they are a key component of your alibi for that evening. Yeah, how exactly did you think that law enforcement wasn't going to speak to them?

56:49 I wonder if he thought, like the attorney would like tell them what to say or like speak for them as I wonder if that's why he wanted an attorney for them. I don't know. Interesting, I'm glad they got to talk. Holy shit, you're gonna be so glad. You're gonna be so fucking glad. The prosecution argued that Cheryl's death had not been an accident, but a murder disguised this one. They presented evidence about the nature of Cheryl's injuries, which were numerous and fucking horrific. She was literally beaten to death, and also who was driving the car if she was in the passenger seat, Like, where's that person in this whole scenario?

57:31 Yeah, mm hmm, yeah, begs the question, doesn't it that? Right? There? Is already so fucking suspicious, Like you did not think this through. And they also presented evidence about the circumstances surrounding the crash, such as the fact that the ambiguous, anonymous, unknown driver of Cheryl's vehicle. Who couldn't have it was the purse convict. The purse right, it was a ghost. It doesn't even make any fucking sense. You're so stupid, You're so bad at life and crime, You're so bad at being bad.

58:16 You know, I don't want you to be better. I don't. I don't wish that on any of us, but like it's kind of it's sad and a little insulting to all of our intelligence. They also emphasized the escalating conflict between Cheryl and Brad during the divorce and custody battle that was like, really, really really key to their case. Interestingly, not surprisingly, psychiatrists testified that Brad was both paranoid and antisocial, as well as a narcissistic sociopath mic drop. Yeah, they were like, is that did we do it?

59:00 Is he and jail yet? I feel like you just need the evidence of the book that he wrote, or the auto autobiography that he wrote. Yeah, autobiography really, Like, I don't know, I don't know if it's ethical to use that in a political capacity to diagnose him, but it feels like, I don't know. Man. The couple's son, Jesse, also testified, So it kind of makes sense once you know how everything went down, why Brad got so fucking upset that they talked to the kids because the couple's son, Jesse, testified as a young boy, his memory of events, including critical details, was truly astonishing.

59:45 He didn't have all of the right mouth words for certain things. He recalled watching the Sword into Stone with one of his brothers, while Brad claimed to have been doing chores around the house and in their apartment building. Both Brad and his brother, one of his you know babies, not his like adult man brother, were gone long enough for the movie to have finished while they were still gone. Wow, so two of Brad and Cheryl's children watched a movie while they were presumably doing chores and errands, and it finished. And the legal team that like walked him through all of this, and I'm assuming maybe there were you know, some consultants there that, like, you know, a child psychologist, the way that they walked him through, and like his memory was so vivid and detailed, but like, if you dismissed him outright because he's a child and like he doesn't know all the right words to say, like this could have gone very differently. But they said, well, how did you know that the movie finished? Because you know, children are easily distracted, and he said, well, and this is They were using a VCR and if you don't know what that is, I'm sorry. You have the Google machine, You're just gonna have to figure it out yourself. They were watching this movie and at the end he didn't know how to rewind it, so it went to the

1:01:17 fuzzy screen. Yeah, he said, it went to the fuzzy screen, and I didn't know how to fix it, so we just turned it off and then he went into another room. After that, Jesse recalled then also watching Rambo while his father remained away from their apartment. The legal team worked carefully to communicate on his level to parse out the incredible level, level of depth of his memory that evening. As a juror, it had to seem just like a complete fucking torpedo to Brad's alibi of having been home with the boys that evening at the time of Cheryl's death.

1:01:58 I can't recall off the top my head how old this child was, but I will say I got really nervous in the book. I was like, oh my god, how old is he? Because they said Jesse was asked, well, what day was that was that Saturday? And he said I don't know the days, like he didn't know days of the week. What they did was they literally drew out a diagram. Okay, so these days you go to school, right, and we don't have to know anything about Monday through Friday. That's fine, okay. And this day you go to. Soccer and on these days you see your daddy, and these are the weekends.

1:02:40 And it wasn't leading. It was just meeting him where he was at in terms of like language skills, and it. Just, yeah, that's so smart. I was like, he's so little. He doesn't really like understand Saturday or Sunday. And I'm like, oh, kids, someday they're gonna be so critical to you. You can't even imagine his younger brother that was supposedly out running errands and doing chores with Brad. My understanding is they never really could get him to talk about the events of that evening with anyone. It sounds like he was younger. I believe he was only like four years old, and he would hide under the table when they tried to talk to him, and he cried a lot. I don't know if they've ever determined, you know, in later years, what he might have seen or understood about the events of that evening. But like suffice to say, he was not going to be useful as a witness. I'm not an expert, but it seems like clearly whatever he went through or was still going through because he had lost his mom, Like, this kid was so traumatized and it's such a tender age at.

1:04:00 Four, like his brain might not even like let him remember that. Yeah. I just I feel like at certain ages, and depending on the kid, there are just things that like even if you saw or heard, I'm not sure that your brain will always let you like recall those memories. And you just know you don't want to talk about it. And it's scary and it's sad. Poor baby, I know, And I really, I mean, I hope for his sake that like he's just upset because he doesn't have his mommy, and you know, who are these people and why are they asking me these questions? But okay, I'm not crying. You're crying. I don't know why you always say that, crying to thank you for this not a holiday week?

1:04:46 I know. Wait, it's all, oh yeah, it is a holiday. Oh the song of my people? How come you get the defense counter that the prosecution's case relied too heavily on speculation and circumstantial evidence without a direct eyewitness to the crime. They argued the evidence was insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which I would say, the testimony of your own goddamn kid, I think pretty much wiped out any doubt that I had, But that's just me. Witnesses testified about the couple's relationship, and investigators explained how the case had developed, and there were a lot of people that touched.

1:05:26 On this case. Hearing the accounts of people that reported to the scene that was a rough, rough discovery. Experts discussed the evidence surrounding the crash scene. Ultimately, the jury was asked to weigh the prosecution's narrative against the defense's claims of reasonable doubt. After deliberations, the jury returned its verdict. Bradley Morris Cunningham was found guilty of murder. Thank god. I don't know what I would have done if I'm I probably I don't know if I would have come across this case if he hadn't been convicted. Who knows. You scared me though, for a minute by saying what you said about the circumstantial evidence.

1:06:11 I think the prosecution team was a little bit fearful and ment I mean they went to bat for this, and having the testimony of a child be such like a that's like a heavy hitter in this case, Like that's got to be a little bit nerve wracking. It went against Brad's alibi and that was that was the critical strike. Following the verdict, Brad Cunningham was admitted to the Oregon State Penitentiary on January ninth, nineteen ninety five, where he began serving a life sentence. Cheryl Keaton was a lawyer, a mother, and a woman whose life ended far too soon. She was laid to rest at Bunker Hill Cemetery in Cowlitz County, Washington. And it breaks my heart and I hate to do this right at the end, but there's not a better place to put this in terms of linear storytelling. So some final sad details that serve as a reminder to all of us perhaps to have our affairs in order, because everyone's final wishes should be respected. Cheryl wanted to be cremated, but the retelling is that one of her paternal aunts raised a fuss because they were Southern Baptists, and they don't cremate people.

1:07:31 So she was buried her aunt. Yep, what do you would say to you, how over someone's life. I honestly, I can't believe it. She was also apparently. Buried in a very garish like bright like a pink coffin, and her immediate family knew that she would have hated that. She didn't want to be buried in the first place, but it was a ridiculous recept to go for her final resting place. I don't understand. Things are always rough when it's family. But her mother, however, put her foot down about a viewing, knowing that Cheryl would not have wanted that, I think, particularly based on how she died. And you know, they can do a lot of really incredible things, but a viewing just would have been.

1:08:27 Really really hard. Yeah, really really difficult in this case, and it actually gets worse. It's crazy that we just talked about this, I mean, like off air, but we talked about like how traumatic, Yeah, like a viewing can be, especially a child who's like forced to go look. Yeah, I feel like this is so much like in a way, like there's no good way for somebody to die and people all process that grief differently, and I feel like you can try to fight it, but I feel like, I think you just have to make your peace with the fact that it's just it's gonna it's gonna fuck you up a little bit for a minute.

1:09:09 But sadly Brad and the boys did not attend Cheryl's funeral. It's heartbreaking. And of course he had a ridiculous excuse about not being informed by the family, and he said, you know, besides, the cemetery was just so difficult to find. But he didn't know about it, but he tried to find the cemetery. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, get your fucking story straight. And of course this was long before you know, the civil and then eventual criminal proceedings, So it's like, what what could they do. That is so telling, Like, oh, I wasn't aware of this funeral, but I couldn't find the cemetery.

1:09:54 He's just such a fucking pathological player. And I don't know, I mean, they may it sound like the way that he said it was like maybe he had attended a funeral there and just already knew, like, oh, this place is just so hard to find. It's just like you found it once. Before, Yeah, but even exactly. But even if that were the case, it's like, Okay, well clearly you had at some point, you know, found it before. So I don't know what to tell you. But the children, as well as. Cheryl and her family certainly deserved better. But true to the psychiatrist's assessments, Brad really was just a selfish liar from start to finish to some people, like funerals don't carry the same meaning as other people. But I can't even imagine having that choice taken away from me and by the person that took her.

1:10:50 Oh wait for me, Like, I feel like it was probably important for the kids to be there, and he just. Wanted to pull the wole over everyone's eyes, but like, especially there, even though he knew that it wasn't a traffic accident, he told them. He told the kids that what it was. That's what it was. Wow, Which is another thing that's like so telling is like you asked if it was a traffic accident and then you tell your kids that after law enforcement tells you know, that's not what it was. Like you really do have to be a sociopath a narcissist because you're not thinking. About what that does to your kids. Yeah, because then they're going to have to find out later like that that's not what happened. And you know, my dad lied to me. And even if he didn't have anything, even if he wasn't conrested.

1:11:44 Exactly exactly, even if he wasn't the person that killed her, that's just so hurtful. And I know that, Like it's tough to find, you know, the age appropriate words to explain things to kids sometimes, but like that's just lying, You're just lying. Should we try to bust out the taro real quick? Yeah, let's do some tero. I did have one more thing to say about her. She's on the other side, and I hope she doesn't, like really care about how she was buried and stuff, you know, like, I hope she's just at peace with whatever happened down there, And. You know what, to be honest, I would be haunting the shit out of that an. I was wanting peace for her soul, Caitlin, I know, but you know what, you can have peace within your own soul but not wish for it for other people.

1:12:36 I think I think I can. I think I contain magnitudes and I think that I can hold space for being at peace within myself, but also wishing you the fucking worst. Wow. What deck are you using? PNW? You know it the nasty PNW? Oh did you have a popper? I did? And you know what's weird is it didn't like pop out and fly away. It just like as I was like, I don't know what you call that folding the deck back in, it like popped out to where all of the other ones were, like the backside of the card.

1:13:23 That one flipped just flipped itself within the refolding deck with the image side out. I mean to me, that's saying something I think. So, okay, I'm gonna give her one more shift. Okay, I'm a sprey this one I am. And then let's talk about what section of the deck we're feeling. So I have the deck running like the length of my keyboard. So do you want me to just run my fingers along and we can. Do about five point seven five inches in to the left. Okay, so from my left yeah? Oh shit, Okay, well this is where everyone realizes that I'm a little less certain about what five point seventy five inches.

1:14:11 And get a ruler. Yeah, okay, I'm going with my gun. Oh shit, what is it? I think this might be the first time we've gotten this card. Really the tower, oh, the tower, I mean there's a bagel. I'm g real looking tree here. I was like, what is that? I can't even tell the tree a redwood, it looks like it. Yeah, since it's a new card, I think to us, I will look in the Little Book and the like, Look. I don't recall ever getting this. I don't think so, which you would think, just based on vibes. You would think like the obvious things would pop up more.

1:14:54 But because it's because they're so obvious, like they don't like. The death card means like change, we talk about it, excitele and tower card is like complete upheaval of your life. But like ultimately for the better is how I feel about it. But yeah, yeah, it could have other meanings. Okay, I'm going to read from the Little Book and then I'll go to our main interpretation. Good. I love these little interpretations. They're so poetic. I do too. This is a Douglas fir Oh Okay, I was wrong. Crisis, destruction, ruin, chaos, collapse, trauma, devastation, sudden change, trauma. A spark catches, and the tinder dry forest flares up like a matchhead. A wave of heat and fleeing wildlife precedes the spread.

1:15:48 It's a tree on fire. That's why I thought it looked red to me. The way that the image looks to me is that it's a tree kind of in the foreground of an approaching fire. Oh ooh that imagery too. Yes, that makes it even harder to see. And I will say symbolically it makes that much more sense for this case. It's kind of like you said, like everyone kind of saw it coming, but maybe it was like blocked out by what they I don't know, wanted to see instead. I mean, you can see something coming, but it's like at the same time, especially, I feel like in the eighties, it's like there just were not as many laws enacted to protect women and children in these instances. And it's already it's so tricky, it's so messy when you're going through a divorce and you're going through, you.

1:16:44 Know, a custody battle. It's just so unfortunate because it is so foreseeable in this case, but also like it feels like so out of anyone's control at the same time. Yeah, because of that, Okay, Nests, dens and roosts burn, Millions of homes are engulfed, Millions of lives, plant and animal are sacrificed in fire. Nothing will be the same after the cataclysm, but destruction doesn't mean conclusion. Life returns after a fire in time, and sometimes a towering giant even survives the burn. They carry the scars and twist around the damage, but they keep growing.

1:17:30 Just reminds me of everyone who is left behind, the children and the family. Well, and specifically when it transitions to talking about nests dens, it's like that is like the language around that very specifically refers to, you know, the young. The tower keywords are change, freedom, upsets, destruction of the old. The tower usually depicts a fortress. Like structure, some to those remaining from medieval times in parts of Europe, being destroyed by fire or lightning. In some decks, the tower's crown is being blown off by the fiery impact. The blast catapults human figures out of the windows, like the Death Card and the Devil. The tower tends to engender fear when it comes up in a reading. However, the tower does not necessarily represent ruin and devastation, although its appearance usually does Harald's swift and dramatic change, sometimes shocking and extremely upsetting change. Many people interpret the tower as signifying catastrophe, but whatever disruption or destruction it heralds is ultimately for the best.

1:18:45 Or maybe not. Sometimes in this case, if you're drawing, like I feel like if you're drawing after the fact and you already kind of know what happened. Part of me thinks that maybe even Cheryl herself would interpret things as like having worked out for the best in a way because in the end, like he's behind bars and he can't do this to another woman as he almost certainly would, Yeah, and their children are protected from him. I don't know. I mean I can't. I can't speak to this from you know, personal experience, really, but I have to imagine that as a mom, it's like good, like my kids are safe, and like in the end, it's it's kind of like, you know, like that's that's what would have been perhaps most important to her, I mean, everything that I understand about who she was as a as a person and as a mom. If you can't engineer a better outcome like that, that is the best that you know that you can hope for, is that you know it ends here.

1:19:57 Yeah, it's interesting too that you said like the crown is being destroyed and like her face was beaten. When this card appears, it usually means you've ignored or denied something that's rotten and needs to be blown apart. You're probably surprised, but you shouldn't be. You knew changes were necessary, but you refuse to take action. Then something happens, losing a job, the end of a relationship, an accident, a financial setback that forces you to face reality big time. Your life is collapsing around you, but that old, worn out structure had to go. The tower demands you free yourself from the self created fortress in which you've imprisoned yourself.

1:20:43 In the wake of the chaos, a new order can grow. In a reading about money, this card heralds a major change in your finances. I will say, Bradley's finances look very different now, right, and perhaps you, from your attachment to wealth, status, possessions, and the related responsibilities, he got cut off. If the reading is about your work, the tower may represent a sudden job loss or change in your workplace. Yes, you're shocked and feel the rug's been pulled out from under you. But this may be exactly what you need to escape the walls that trapped you. In a reading about love, this card suggests you need to overthrow false ideas, old habit patterns, and outdated ways of relating to a partner, Like do you by chance hate women and as a result treat them like abject trash?

1:21:38 A breakup or major change in a relationship is necessary an eminent wominent. I feel like it's really interesting that it talks about very specifically, like you knew changes were necessary, but you refuse to take action, Like. You knew what you were doing was wrong, like Brad new. Yeah, as much as anyone like Brad can know or care, arguably you know, maybe he can't. But like, even if you don't understand, like ethically, morally, or like have an emotional connection to why what you're doing is wrong, you can't understand that it's legally wrong. It's so funny to me how someone who is a narcissist and clearly thinks the world of themselves can be so stupid and do such stupid things, such evil things, in such a stupid way.

1:22:35 That like you are literally your own downfall. You're your own tower card. Yeah, that is the vibe, like, yeah, you lit the match that started this fire, and I hope you. Burn the imagery too. Of fire is just like a It's what you think of when someone is like angry, like hot headed, like impulsive. Absolutely, what was the other card? I'm curious? It was the Five of Swords. Damn What can I say? When it picks up the vibe, It picks up the goddamn vibe. Keywords are change, adjustment, loss, destruction, conflict, indecision, and sadness. The Five of Swords symbolizes the devastation of war and recommends using diplomacy to resolve problems.

1:23:24 Yeah, and sod to murdery. After a battle, Finger Bunnies, you realize fighting isn't the best way to settle disputes. The cost of winning may not be worth the losses you've endured. In a reading about money, this card represents disputes over money, perhaps in illegal matter. It also warns that even if you quote unquote win, you may suffer. Try to resolve differences without drawing swords. In a reading about love, this card says you won't get what you want by arguing hurtful words can be taken back. Try to resolve problems amicably, honestly and fairly. You may have to make some changes in order to improve a situation. I mean, you know what, no takesia back seats in this situation either.

1:24:14 I just feel like all of these shitty dudes like need well sometimes shitty women too, but like they all needed a tarot reading before they did what they did to be like, look, it's not going to work out good for you. Yeah, yeah, I mean, or you could just watch some forensic files and they could tell you, you know, Like. I just I'm like, nobody is going to tell you that this is, you know, a good idea. Have a creepyst day. Well, see you next Thursday. Unless you're cunting Ham convict, not counting Ham. We need a gavel sound honestly though, gosh, I don't know why.

1:25:00 I just suddenly was looking around me like do I have a hammer. I'm like the same thing, right. Yeah, I mean kind of. No, just be careful where you're hammering.