If Sarah abused our rules while living with us, I never knew of it. Sarah adored our children. If not out of respect for us, then out of love for them, she tried to set a good example. I appreciated that about her. Sarah’s circle of associations was quite small, so I’m not sure where she had met her latest beau, Steve, but they quickly became a steady item.
Steve was a plain fellow, orange-headed and bony thin, but he had a good job and money to burn. He came to Pendleton to help establish Wildhorse Resort and Casino. Steve was one of a slew of financial people who swooped into town to help the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) put their gaming business together. He pampered her with lavish gifts and elegant dinners out, spending as much time with her as his hectic schedule would allow. They would pop in and out of the house, coming from somewhere or going someplace else.
He was a nice enough fellow and always at Sarah’s side, but, nonetheless, I was certain Sarah didn’t consider him a keeper. The pickings of singles were slim in Pendleton if a girl ruled out cowboys and ranchers. Steve was simply someone to keep her entertained until she moved off to greener pastures.
At some point, perhaps while she was living with us, Sarah took up gambling in a bad way. Video gaming became her drug of choice, an addiction that would eventually lead to the break-up of her marriage to David. By the time the two divorced, Sarah had put the Sheehan household into tens of thousands of dollars in debt, most of it from gambling.
An estimated 2.3 million Americans are pathological gamblers, and experts say another 5 million adults have serious gambling problems. Research suggests those who suffer from attention deficit or hyperactive disorders, as Sarah does, are more prone to become compulsive gamblers.
Gambling is a socially acceptable behavior. For most, it starts out as harmless recreation. A compulsive gambler is expected to self-diagnosis and self-report. But the addict will resort to extreme measures of manipulations and deceitfulness, hocking possessions, lying, and outright stealing or engaging in other criminal pursuits to feed the frenzy created by their addiction.
If a person is a meth addict, physical symptoms will make it difficult to deny there’s a problem. Their complexion gets bad. Teeth rot out. Muscle starts wasting away. It’s easier to mask a gambling addiction than it is to mask a meth addiction. While many of Sarah’s friends recognized she had an addiction to gambling, Sarah blamed her financial woes on poor fiscal skills.
“I’m shitty with money,” she told Detective Wells.
That may have been the most truthful statement Sarah made in her numerous interviews with the police.
•
Money was one of the issues Tim and I addressed with Sarah during the time she lived with us. Sarah loved nice things. No sin in that, but there were times when the manner in which she obtained the things she wanted gave us pause. Sarah preferred easy cash to the hard-earned kind.
I didn’t blame Sarah for trading off her looks and using them to her good pleasure. But over time, I came to question the extent to which Sarah capitalized on her physical attributes.
My unease switched to alarm after Sarah made a trip to Corvallis for a weekend and returned to Pendleton on a Sunday night driving a spiffy new pickup truck, glossy white with lots of shiny chrome.
Tim was driving around in a beater at the time, and he had a full-time job. Sarah was working at the bank part time. We were more than curious about how she could afford such a nice rig. But Sarah was twenty years old, and we respected her privacy.
Not long after she arrived back home with that new pickup, I started receiving phone calls from a young man asking for Sarah. I took his name and number and passed his messages on to her. For some inexplicable reason, Sarah refused to return his calls. The calls continued, almost nightly.
At first, I assumed it was some other poor schmuck who was smitten with Sarah, but there was something about the young man’s tone that nagged at me. I kept telling Sarah to call him back. She never did. Finally, one night, I up and said, “Son, it’s obvious to me Sarah isn’t going to return your calls. Is there something I could help you with?”
“Yeah, maybe,” he said, sighing. “I loaned Sarah $5,000 of my school loan money to buy a truck. Now spring term is here and I need to pay tuition, but I haven’t heard from Sarah since she was down here.”
Holy crap.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” I said. “I’m afraid you’ll never see that money again.”
I doubt Sarah ever repaid him, but he didn’t call our house anymore after that.
One dark night while a heavy rain fell, making the streets slick, the repo man came and towed Sarah’s new toy away. That is what happens when you fail to make the monthly payments.
A year after Shawn Field was shackled and shuffled off to a prison cell for the murder of Karly, Glamour Magazine named Sarah their 2007 “What Are You Made Of? Reader of the Year.” They flew her to New York, where they wined and dined her, and presented her with diamonds and a big fat check.
Sarah got the award for her work with the nonprofit, now-defunct “Karly’s Angels,” a charity Sarah reportedly established to assist “single mothers” like her. David found out about Karly’s Angels and the Glamour award via an e-mail announcement that Sarah apparently sent to her entire mail group:
-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah Sheehan [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 2:07 PM
Subject: karlys angels gets props
hiya - for those of you who aren’t in the know, KA (Karly’s Angels) was recognized nationally n NYC recently. I still have a lot of updating to do to the website, but now at least, i have some help! jilann’s work donated a computer (awesome)! and my friend jaelyn, who is also a single mother, will begin doing research next week. karly’s angels is pulling it together, with the second annual golf tournament to be held the first weekend in june. tbd. jilann, jaelyn and i travelled to new york city last saturday for a few days of sight seeing, sleeping and attending some really fantastic events.
i was chosen as one of three glamour magazine readers as woman of the year and was allowed to bring two guests. i chose jilann for all of the amazing support she has given me throughout the trial, and for being such an amazing friend to me since i moved here to bend and things weren’t what i had expected. endless nights of vino and venting has fasted our friendship! i asked jaelyn to join because she is affiliated with karly’s angels. we stayed at the fantastic hotel mela, which is right in the heart of times square. on monday we walked around the block to the conde naste building that houses not only glamour mag, but the likes of GQ and a zillion others. security was pretty decent. i am enclosing the link to the awards ceremony so that you may see pictures of it all.
www.wireimage.com/GalleryListing.asp?navtyp=gls=1=15=362=295236&nbc1=1
i would like to thank each and every one of you who has supported KA. i am excited to begin promoting for our next event, and with the generous donations from many of you, and a seriously generous donation from tag heuer and glamour mag, KA will be able to begin fulfilling our goals of helping children of single parent families! and that makes me happier than any of you can imagine ;) god bless, S.
There’s more talk about the wine and the parties than there is mention of the murder that gained her the attention.
David had asked Sarah to stop copying him in on her e-mails. He’d even asked her to stop using Sheehan as her last name. That took me by surprise because Sarah told me David had urged her to keep her last name. She’d tagged that onto the conversation in which she’d told Tim and me Karly had passed. At the time, I’d thought it odd that it even came up in the conversation.
David called me shortly after he received Sarah’s e-mail. Usually, David is polite, congenial, always the essence of calm, cool, and collected. Not on this night. He was clearly and profoundly disturbed.
“What’s next?” he asked angrily. “Time’s Woman of the Year? The
Nobel Prize? It’s amazing a person with her background and trail of destruction is being feted like a hero of society. I found it interesting that nowhere in her e-mail did Sarah mention Karly except for Karly’s Angels.
“And how ironic that she would play golf on the first weekend of June. Shawn commenced the final three-day beating ordeal while Mom of the Year was at golf—although she indicated to me that week that she would skip golf because she didn’t have a sitter. ”
I promised David that I would contact Glamour immediately. I sent an e-mail that evening to Nikki Ettore, at Glamour; to Ulrich Wohn, CEO at TAG Heuer, the diamond watch company that helped sponsor the award; and to Kris Kaczor, video editor at 750 Productions. All were people Sarah had copied on the same e-mail she sent to David.
It has come to my attention that Sarah Sheehan was recently named a Glamour magazine reader of the year. Sarah’s daughter, Karly, was tortured to death by Sarah’s boyfriend. Court documents are clear that Sarah was, if not complicit in this crime, at least very neglectful of her daughter. Before you highlight this woman as a Glamour girl, you should take a moment to read through the court documents. I think you might discover that there is much more to the story than just a woman and daughter being victimized. It could lead to some very embarrassing press for Glamour in the long run.
Karen Spears Zacharias, author/journalist
A representative for Glamour magazine sent the following response:
Thank you for your e-mail. To clarify, Sarah was honored in a WHAT ARE YOU MADE OF? contest, not a reader of the year. Glamour cannot comment on any allegations that may be made against the winner. It simply picked the winner based on her charitable efforts with Karly’s Angels.
DANA ARISTONE | FASHION MERCHANDISING DIRECTOR | GLAMOUR MAGAZINE | P: 212-286-5392 | F: 212-286-4174
I passed Glamour’s response to David, who sent me the following e-mail:
Karly’s Angels was founded on 8/16/07 (according to the website). Three months ago. Two weeks ago, she received donations from Glamour & TAG that would enable her to “begin fulfilling” their mission, emphasis on “begin.” So what happened between 8/16 and 11/1 that would warrant receiving an award? Where’s the track record? Did she receive an award because she got a tax ID, and has a website under construction?
Ulrich Wohn did not respond to me. He did, however, send David a letter after David penned his own letter explaining how he had long nurtured an appreciation for TAG Heuer and their watches, ever since he was little boy growing up in Ireland. In fact, when David finally earned that master’s degree he’d been pursuing the year Karly died, he’d rewarded himself with a TAG watch. The Glamour award to Sarah dulled the sheen on David’s long-held infatuation with TAG. He urged Wohn to take action. To his credit, Wohn responded with compassion:
Dear Mr. Sheehan,
Thank you for your e-mail and bringing this to my attention. First and foremost, I am writing to express to you on behalf of the entire TAG Heuer organization my sincerest condolences on the tragic death of your daughter Karly and deep sadness for the anguish you and your family have had to endure.
With our recent awards, please know that TAG Heuer’s intention was to honor women who have positively impacted their communities and to promote charitable action and giving. The winners of the contest were chosen by Glamour Magazine solely on the basis of the essays they wrote as contest entries, as specified in the contest rules.
While we realize that no amount of money can compensate for the pain of your loss, we have made a donation in Karly’s honor to The Retreat, a wonderful charity for children who are the victims of domestic violence.
Again, I appreciate that you brought this very serious matter to my attention.
Sincerely,
Ulrich Wohn
Photos of Sarah collecting her award were circulated via the celebrity wire:
Early as it may have been, a perfectly coiffed Uma Thurman seemed pleased to emcee TAG Heuer and Glamour Magazine’s first What Are You Made Of? Awards breakfast last week.
Thurman, who is a brand ambassador for Heuer and appears in the company’s ads, joined Heuer North America president Ulrich Wohn, Glamour editor in chief Cindi Leive and Glamour vice president and publisher Bill Wackerman and others at Condé Nast Publications Inc.’s New York headquarters at 4 Times
Square to laud three women who have positively impacted their communities.
Sarah Sheehan received an honor for starting Karly’s Angels, a not-for-profit network of resources for single parents…Thurman presented each winner with an engraved diamond-studded Tag Heuer Carrera Chronograph watch.
— Sophia Chabbott
David was angry and unnerved by the manner in which Sarah exploited their dead child for financial gain. “If Sarah had undertaken five percent of her maternal responsibility, then Karly would still be alive,” David said. “She has gotten away with so much. I can’t let her rewrite history and make this artificial life for herself.”
Sarah was not a single mother, abandoned, left to raise a child without support from Karly’s father. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sarah was never a single mother. From the outset, David was Karly’s primary caregiver. Even the chart notes made by nurses following Karly’s birth document that fact:
“Husband is supportive. Father of baby very concerned and primary caregiver. Baby has been rooming in and father doing most of baby care while mom rests. Offered newborn class. Mom feeling too sore and wants father to go. Father took baby to class. Husband helps with baby. Patient anxious, needs lots of support and detailed explanation of procedures.”
Within a couple of months of Karly’s birth, Sarah returned to her freewheeling ways and resumed her social nightlife as a regular fixture at various clubs around town.
Chapter Thirteen
The city’s nine-hole course and club, called Par 3, located north of town on Highway 20, is a favorite among locals. Parents bring their children out to play the putt-putt course. Couples sit in the booths, sharing fries off each other’s plates and ordering another local brew. Women and men weathered by too much golf and too many cigarettes totter on bar stools in a trance, pushing the chiming buttons of the video poker machines.
Eric DeWeese was manager at Par 3 the afternoon I stopped by following that phone call from a very distraught David. David said he’d heard Sarah had posted a flyer at Par 3 announcing a benefit golf tournament in Karly’s honor, but it was all part of Sarah’s newest moneymaking venture.
It was one of those rare dry winter days in the valley with a hand-drawn sun stuck to a felt-board sky, looking all make-believe. I sat in the parking lot at Par 3, gathering notebook and pen, and praying to learn what became of the Sarah I once knew.
A cursory scan as I passed through the door didn’t reveal the flyer mentioning Karly’s Angels. Overstuffed booths on my right, bar on my left. One man sat hunched over his bourbon, another over his second beer, the first bottle still on the bar.
A television blared from behind the bar. Leaning between the two men, I asked the girl wiping a glass if the manager was around, and if I could please speak to him. I could smell a burger sizzling on the grill, and beer sloshed on the floor for the last how many years.
Eric slid into the booth across from me. He was darkly handsome, all khaki and yellow polo, clean-shaven as a deacon. He sat sideways, back to the window, face to the bar, ready to hop up at a moment’s notice. The barmaid turned the TV down a notch.
“What can you tell me about Sarah?” I asked.
“She’s very attractive, very pretty, very flirty,” Eric said. “A fairly big gambler, though. If she had $500, she’d spend it. If she had $1,000, she’d spend it. She was a party girl, always liked to have a good time.”
He paused, and in his best manger voice asked, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’m good,” I said. “Did you know Karly?”
“I knew Sarah for four years before I even knew she had a daughter. Crazy, hu
h? I assumed Sarah didn’t have custody. She wasn’t much of one to talk about personal things. She was the kind who’d ask you to watch Karly for ten minutes and come back eight hours later. Sarah was kind of a lost soul.
“I feel sorry for what happened and all, but anybody who thinks Sarah is a victim is a fool. Sarah put Sarah first, not Karly. Good mothers don’t go out gambling. That gambling thing is a big turn-off.”
“Is that why you never took up with her?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Eric said. “I hired her as a cook but after a couple of months I moved her to the bar. But then $300 to $400 came up missing. I never came right out and accused her of stealing but I had to let her go. She quit coming out for a while after that but then she showed up again. She’d have a mimosa, gamble, golf, have lunch, drink, smoke and gamble some more.”
“You ever see her use hard drugs?” I asked.
“I’ve seen her smoke some pot. She was taking pain pills left and right. She’d had some kind of surgery—I don’t remember what. But she was popping those babies left and right. You damn sure shouldn’t be taking those if you’re drinking.”
“Do you think Sarah is an alcoholic?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Eric said. He shifted around in the booth, so he could see the ESPN scores better. “But she didn’t have the same kind of addiction to alcohol as she did to gambling.”
“You think Sarah was involved in her daughter’s death in any way?”
He pondered that question for a minute before answering.
“It’s not too farfetched to think she could do this. Why would you go off and leave your child the way she did all the time? I never saw any signs of abuse but she sure had a lot of free time to spend here.”
KARLY SHEEHAN: True Crime behind Karly's Law Page 6
