“Karla. Please hurry. I don’t know what to do.”
“What—is—the—problem?” Thompson repeated his question. “I need you to calm down. What’s the problem?”
“SHE’S NOT BREATHING!” the woman screamed.
Records place the call at 1:53 p.m. Friday, June 3, 2005.
The caller was Sarah Brill Sheehan.
David’s ex-wife.
Karly’s mother.
My daughter.
To clarify: Sarah was not my daughter, not in the literal sense, or even in the adopted sense, but in that way people choose others as “family.” For a precious time in our lives, I chose Sarah and she chose me.
She had in every way imaginable been a part of our family. During a very unsettled time in her life, Sarah slept under our roof, ate at our table, did her homework at the kitchen island, and sat curled up next to me on the couch as I read to her from Nappy Hair, a book I’d bought to help celebrate Sarah: Everybody is talking about little Brenda’s hair—the nappiest, the curliest, the twistiest hair in the whole family. And by the time Uncle Mordecia’s done celebrating, everyone’s going to want hair just like hers.
Sarah loved the book, as did my other three daughters. They would beg me to read it over and over and over again. And I would, over the echoes of laughter that the story and the telling of it evoked.
But that Sarah, the girl whom I had loved so well, had long been lost to me, and I to her. I am reminded of that every time I click on that 911 call on my laptop and hear the screams of a woman I don’t recognize.
I’m a former cop reporter. I spent years tracking the daily logs of the Oregon State Police, Pendleton and Hermiston Police, and the Umatilla County Sheriff’s office. I followed the petty thefts, the domestic brawls, the barking dogs, the drunk drivers, the disorderly conducts, the car wrecks, and the sex abuse cases. On rare occasions, there were murders, kidnappings, and at least one shootout.
I know that criminal activity isn’t just law enforcement’s headache and taxpayers’ burden; it is somebody’s nightmare. A worried father. A distraught mother. A praying sister. A brokenhearted brother. A frightened wife. A desperate husband.
I’d interviewed these folks and I’d included their quotes in the stories I wrote about how their loved ones ended up imprisoned—or worse, dead.
Just up the road from where I live now is a family who misses the young son they lost to alcohol poisoning. The parents allege that a friend’s father plied their son with vodka. An investigation was conducted but no charges were brought.
Down the road in the opposite direction is the school where two young girls won awards for scholarly achievements. The older of the girls crouched in the aisles of a convenience store the night her daddy, in a standoff with police, was shot dead. The younger girl was born after their father died.
In a trailer not three miles from here lives a one-armed woman named Karen whose son was charged with and convicted of a murder-for-hire plot. He’d paid to have his ex-wife murdered. Her two-year-old quadruplets were discovered naked and smeared in their mama’s blood. She was lying on the kitchen floor in her Florida home, shot in the face, her throat sliced like a deer.
And thirty miles down the road from where I sit typing is the prison that has become home to Shawn Wesley Field. I’ve been inside the doors of Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution. I interviewed women inmates about how difficult it is to be away from their children during the holidays. I talked to the inmates who work in the woodshop crafting items that are sold to raise funds for the American Cancer Society. I’ve heard the convoluted tales of how women became victims of domestic violence, then went on to endanger their own children through their own crime sprees.
I get it.
There’s more than one face behind every crime and there is more than one heartache behind every headline.
I never expected the face, or the voice, behind the crime to be anyone I knew. And I certainly never expected the heartache behind the headline to belong to anyone I loved.
Chapter Three
That’s not to say that I didn’t have some premonition. The minute Sarah told me she was leaving David, I knew. I knew. I knew. Deep down in the volcanic depths of my soul, I knew that her decision was going to put Karly at risk, but I never thought for one minute that it would result in Karly’s death.
I’m not sure how I knew that other than personal experience. Raised by a single mother, I understand how hard a job single parenting can be. My mother didn’t choose to raise three children on her own. My father was killed in Vietnam.
His absence created chaos, some of which continues to this day. I grew up imagining, perhaps daydreaming, about all the ways in which my life might have been different had Daddy been around. If Sarah divorced David, I feared Karly could be burdened with that same nagging loneliness.
More importantly, I worried that if Sarah ended up with custody, Karly would grow up ignored, pushed aside, neglected.
In 1987, when we moved to Pendleton with our four young children, We attended the Free Methodist Church. It was there that we first met Gene and Carol Brill, Sarah’s parents.
Gene is retired now, but when Sarah was growing up, he worked as a lab technician for Interpath Laboratories. Carol worked with special-need students at Sunridge Middle School in Pendleton. Active people, Gene and Carol both love the outdoors, boating, hiking, and such. They’ve adhered to an industrious and disciplined work ethic. They host Bible study fellowships in their home. With his salt-and-pepper beard, lanky stride, and calm demeanor, Gene has the aura of a beloved professor. Carol’s white hair has a kink to it and she moves in an overly energetic manner. She talks fast and passionately, sometimes with an edge, like someone desperate to make a point, lest she be misunderstood.
Although friendly with one another in the way churchgoing people often are, we did not socialize with the Brill family. I must have seen Sarah during our years at the Free Methodist Church, at Vacation Bible School, during Easter or Christmas programs, or while picking up our own kids following Sunday School classes. I must have known Sarah as Gene and Carol’s adopted daughter. People of color stand out in a town where less than ten percent of the population is anything but white. However, the first time I actually recall meeting Sarah, she was a fresh-faced girl in high school, and I was a substitute teacher.
I liked her from the start. Sarah was sassy, a part of the reason she was attending Helix High, a small rural school on the edge of a farming community not far from Pendleton. Sarah wasn’t an at-risk student, but she was doing her damndest to earn that designation.
Sarah was stunning in a Halle Berry way. She had the same sugared-caramel complexion, and the small-waisted, lean build of an athlete. Sarah was a standout runner in high school. She tilted her head when she smiled, the coy manner of girls who are told all their lives that they are so pretty, and who desperately need others to think so.
Not only was she beautiful on the outside, Sarah possessed an engaging personality. She came across as someone who loved life deeply. Her laughter was light, airy, uplifting—like bubbles blown from a plastic stick. She was keen of mind, sharp of wit, and had an earthy, soft-spoken style that forced others to be better listeners. Believing Sarah could easily make a misstep, I was inclined to not only hear what she said, but all that she didn’t say.
It was Carol who first told me of the troubled relationship they shared. We were standing in the hallway at Sunridge Middle School when Carol mentioned something about Sarah giving her fits. It was hardly an unusual thing for a parent to say and I probably would not have remembered it had it not been for my friendship with Sarah. When Sarah’s erratic behavior reached a point where it couldn’t be dealt with at home, the Brills sent Sarah off to a boarding school for troubled teens. It was one of many steps they took to try and help Sarah. They feared that without intervention, Sarah’s troubling behaviors might turn into a pattern for life.
Gene and Carol adopted Sarah when she was an inf
ant. They also had two biological children, Doug and Kimberly. During the time I knew her best, Sarah had a close relationship with her father and her brother but not with her mother or her sister.
An attentive mother, Carol was cautious about Sarah’s manipulative personality. Theirs was a strained relationship. Carol attributed a lot of Sarah’s problematic behavior to her attention deficit disorder and to abandonment issues, the result of having been adopted.
During the writing of this book, Carol asked me to read the book Primal Wound. “It explains Sarah,” she said. The book’s author, Nancy Verrier, is herself the mother of two children, one of whom is adopted. The book is a testimonial, part experiential and part theory. The overarching message, however, is that the connection between the birth mother and her biological child is so profound that when disrupted it creates a “primal or narcissistic wound” in that child.
Verrier suggests that this wound will manifest itself in a variety of ways: a profound sense of loss, basic mistrust and/or anxiety, emotional and behavioral problems making it difficult to maintain healthy relationships with others and leading to self-esteem issues. Critics of Verrier’s theory decry its victim mentality. Her proponents insist that acknowledging this primal wound is the first step toward healing it.
Having never raised an adopted child myself, I respect Carol’s insights on Sarah. Narcissism remains the most commonly held assessment of Sarah by people familiar with her. Police and attorneys alike use the term to describe her, as do those who, at one time, considered themselves some of Sarah’s dearest friends.
People like me.
On a chilling winter’s day, when Sarah called to tell me she was leaving David, all I could think of was Sarah’s selfishness.
That and those deeply disturbing fears I had for Karly.
Chapter Four
Sarah was in town, hoping to bring Karly by for a visit, in February 2003 when she called. I didn’t find that out until years later, during another heated exchange between the two of us. I don’t know that it makes any difference now, but I like to tell myself that, had I known then, perhaps I would have responded differently, more thoughtfully, perhaps more carefully.
I’m ever mindful as I tell you this tale that I have my blind spots and my own difficult relationships with people I love, Sarah included.
Still, I do think each and every person connected to Karly and affected by her death ought to ask themselves the question Judge Holcomb raised: “Was there something (or something more) I could have done to prevent this?”
Several people in this case have been willing to answer that question honestly. Among them was former District Attorney Scott Heiser. It called for an exceptional degree of integrity for him to conclude: “This homicide was preventable and we in the system failed, and I’ll carry that around for the rest of my life.”
My own answer goes back to that angry phone exchange with Sarah.
I was driving my red Beemer north on Highway 395 between Stanfield and Hermiston when my cell rang. I was on my way to the office, where I worked as the lone Oregon Bureau reporter for a Washington State newspaper. I was preoccupied, thinking about pressing deadlines and the mortal brawl I was having with an editor over a leave request.
I had asked for time off to make a trip to my father’s battlefield in Vietnam with a group of other sons and daughters whose fathers had also died there. I offered to write an award-winning story documenting the trip. The editor informed me that he wasn’t the least bit interested. “Choose the trip or choose the job,” he said.
In response, I had turned in my resignation. In a week, I’d be boarding a plane bound for Ho Chi Minh City. I explained all that to Sarah early on in the conversation.
If I hadn’t been so caught up in my own affairs, if I had been more attentive, Sarah probably would have let me know that she was in town and that she wanted to bring Karly by for a visit. But sensing that I was distracted by deadlines, or something else, Sarah never said anything about being in town or having Karly with her. For all I knew, she was calling me from the home she shared with David in Corvallis.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
There was a brief lull in the conversation, and then in one breath Sarah replied that she was taking one-year-old Karly, leaving David, and seeking a divorce.
I was driving past a grocery store at the time. I remember that because it has a big parking lot where I could easily have pulled off and parked. I could have put aside my own pressing agenda and taken the time to really listen to Sarah.
I felt panic rise up. My chest tightened. My stomach clenched up. I had this vision of a forlorn Karly sitting on the edge of her bed crying softly and missing her daddy. The way I had done countless times as a young girl. I was struck by an uncommon fear, of a kind I had not felt since leaving behind my own chaotic childhood.
My next visceral reaction was bombastic anger, all of which I’m sure was not fueled by Sarah’s revelation as much as the discord of my own life; still, Sarah received the full brunt of my rage.
“What are you thinking?” I cried. “David adores you. He loves Karly. You can’t do this!”
Sarah said nothing.
Taking a deep breath, I gripped the steering wheel with my left hand and the phone with my right one.
“Why?” I asked Sarah, in a tone more restrained. “Why are you doing this? Is David abusive? Is he cheating on you? What’s happened?”
I thought back to that evening in 1998, when Sarah brought David to meet Tim and me and the kids. She and David were married by then. They married in a Reno rush. Sarah had always been a woman of passion and impulse. It was part of what I loved best about her, this reckless tendency to make every day seem like a fast ride in a Corvette, roof down, hair blowing, not a care in the world. It was also what worried me most about her.
I had been concerned that she’d made a mistake in choosing a husband so quickly, but my fears were unfounded. Tim and I appreciated David’s quiet demeanor, his unassuming ways, and his adoration of Sarah. David and Tim bonded over all things soccer. We hoped that this marriage meant Sarah had finally managed to get her footing on something level, something solid and sure.
But headstrong as ever, Sarah grew increasingly defensive and argumentative as she outlined her reasons for leaving David: “I’m not happy anymore.”
I was pissed. I could not believe that Sarah was going to walk out on her marriage. For what? The possibility of some future bliss in the wild blue beyond? Then, suddenly, it occurred to me that more likely Sarah wanted to continue courting the advances of the stable of lustful admirers she had always maintained. Swallowing my anger, I thought I’d try a more gentle approach.
“Please, honey, don’t do this. David loves you. He loves Karly. Please,” I begged.
Sarah blew me off. “You don’t understand,” she said. “You don’t get it. I’m not happy.”
My fury flared again. I’d been through my own fair share of marital struggles. I wasn’t about to let Sarah marginalize me in such a flippant fashion. I knew how to get down and scrappy.
“Listen, Sarah,” I seethed, “you are not always going to be able to trade off your looks. One day you’re going to wake up old and ugly, then what?”
I’d never spoken so harshly to her before, but somehow I knew that if Sarah left David, Karly would be neglected. I knew it as surely as I knew my mother’s name.
“I don’t care about your happiness!” I snapped. “You have a daughter to think about. You’ve got to think of what’s best for Karly.”
Sarah retreated. I waited for some reply, but none came and stone-cold silence pushed us to separate corners. After a brusque goodbye, we both clicked off our cell phones.
I left the next week for Vietnam, and the following year my husband and I moved from Pendleton to Hermiston, thirty miles west. That was the year I began to have a disturbing, reoccurring dream. This dream terrified me, because throughout life my dreams have served as a source of warning.
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There was the dream I had the day we buried Daddy, where I saw my brother standing before me bloodied from head to foot. The phone call that startled Mama and me from our naps was a neighbor woman calling to tell Mama her boy was in a bad accident. Then came the knock at the door, and my brother was standing there awash in blood the way he had been in my dream.
There had been the dream I had of a girlfriend’s husband searching room to room for his wife. I knew what he didn’t know: she had been slaughtered. I woke with the urge to call and tell him to pray for his wife, whom I figured was in some sort of danger. He did as I urged, and three weeks later, she was diagnosed with the virulent breast cancer that would eventually take her life.
I seriously consider the dreams that haunt me. The one that came after my fight with Sarah was deeply disturbing. In that dream, I bury dead children. Not my children, but somebody’s children. Upon waking, I have the awful sense these children are dead because I’ve murdered them and hidden their bodies. The dream is so vivid it is hard to know when I wake if I am really awake or still in the midst of a nightmare.
One morning upon waking from the dream again, I rolled over to face Tim. He was reading, one hand propped up behind his head, the pillow folded into the crook of his arm. With his other hand, Tim held an aging paperback copy of The Problem of Pain. Tim has read that book so many times over the course of our marriage I wonder sometimes if it is his form of therapy. The books pages are stiff and the color of smokers’ teeth; a few have begun to loosen from the binding.
“I had a bad dream,” I said, snuggling into him.
“You did.” It wasn’t intended to be a question, only a half-hearted acknowledgement that Tim had heard me.
“How many children have we killed?” I asked.
“What?” Tim dropped the book to his chest. “What are you talking about?”
KARLY SHEEHAN: True Crime behind Karly's Law Page 2
