It was late afternoon on an unusually warm day in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. I’d left the Court of Appeals after spending the better part of the day holed up in a corner under the watchful eye of the court administrator, rifling through boxes of evidentiary materials. Bracing myself for a look at the post-mortem photos of Karly, I’d inadvertently pulled out a photo from a stack of 8x10s, and nearly collapsed in a heap when I discovered I’d grabbed hold of an autopsy photo.
I was prepared, but barely, to see Karly as the police had found her that afternoon in June, 2005. I knew I would have to look at those photos in order to understand the documents I’d spent the past eight months studying. But I didn’t yet know about the autopsy photos.
Tough as I can be, I don’t watch CSI, or any of those other forensic shows. I’ve been on the scene of all sorts of crimes, but I don’t want to see people carved up, even on television. I’d kept my act together while I was in the Appeals office, but as soon as I got to the car, I broke down sobbing. I called Connie, a dear friend in nearby Albany. “This is one of those moments when I think I might actually have reached my breaking point,” I said. “I’m not sure I can go on with this.” Connie calmed me with words of thoughtful encouragement. As soon as we hung up, my cell rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hi. Is this Karen? This is Delynn Zoller.”
No matter how many times it occurs, I continue to be amazed by such strong coincidence.
Delynn agreed to meet me for dinner at New Morning Bakery, the same place where I’d met with David. We picked a table near the front window where we could talk freely, out of the eavesdropping range of others. The evening rush was in full swing. A steady line of people shuffled past the glass and chrome cases filled with spinach and mushroom quiche, fruit salads, hazelnut tortes, and lemon bars. Steaming soups, thick with tomatoes or white sauce, were ladled into heavy ceramic bowls. People called out to one another from behind the self-service coffee pots.
A pretty woman, Delynn is bright-eyed. Her back is strong and straight. She sits erect on the edge of her chair, ready to move at a moment’s notice to put out whatever fire might need it. She’d be a ringer for the actor Julianne Moore if she dyed her brown hair red and put on a smack of red lipstick. Delynn is a reserved woman who lacks the self-confidence and the assertive attitude common among women who know they are pretty.
Delynn began caring for Karly in June 2004. Providing childcare for over two decades has made Delynn a keen observer of children’s behavior. She knows when something is not right. Her intuition is sharp. Yet the daycare provider’s voice, as that of a high school dropout, may have been easily dismissed in a community where over half the population has at least one college degree. Some may have tuned Delynn out simply because she was a born-again evangelical and openly expressed her faith in God.
At her home, Delynn kept a framed photo of her deceased mother on a coffee table. Karly would point to it and ask Delynn about her mom, about heaven, about Jesus. “Karly talked more about God than any of my other daycare children,” Delynn said. “We talked a lot about heaven, about what would happen there. I told her heaven is the most wonderful thing. I told her how much God loves us, how much I love God. Karly said, ‘I love God, too, Delynn.’”
When tussles broke out among the other children, Karly would often intervene. “She would referee,” Delynn recalled. “She understood what was right and wrong.” Karly was a peacemaker. She wanted everybody to play nicely, to get along, and to be happy. Much more verbal than other children her age, Delynn said, “Karly could carry on a conversation like an adult.”
But Karly refused to tell others about the ongoing horrors she endured. Whether she did that because of threats from her abuser or because of her own tender heart is something we will never know.
Picking through the grapes and melon of her fruit salad, Delynn paused her fork midair and said she regarded Sarah as a distant mother. “Sarah really had this unnatural way about her.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Karly would cry and this blankness would wash over Sarah,” Delynn said.
“Like she was ignoring Karly or didn’t know how to handle her?” I asked.
“Maybe a bit of both,” Delynn said.
In October 2004, Karly arrived at Rugrats Daycare with her blonde, wispy hair tightly wound into an elegant French braid.
I’d taught Sarah how to French braid. I’d spent untold hours on school mornings fixing my daughters’ hair. They’d come to me, hair ribbon or bow in hand, and ask me to put their hair in a ponytail, to crimp it, curl it, or to French braid it. Sarah would sit on the stool at the kitchen island and watch as I divided a head of hair into three strands, wrapping one end over the other. What I did for one daughter, I did for three daughters.
“Will you teach me to do that?” she asked.
“Sure,” I replied, and I did.
Despite the bakery’s suppertime crowd, Delynn wept unabashedly as she recalled how lovely Karly had been on that particular day.
“I told Karly how pretty her hair looked but I could tell she had been crying. Her eyes were all red and watery. ‘Karly,’ I said, ‘you have princess hair,’ which is what I call a braid.”
Instead of being delighted by Delynn’s comments, Karly was agitated. “My mom said I don’t have princess hair,” Karly said. “She said I have ogre hair.”
Karly’s comment startled Delynn. She thought the young girl must have misheard her mother.
“I told her, ‘No, your hair is beautiful, just like Princess Fiona’s hair.’”
Delynn recalled that Karly behaved oddly all day long. She slept a lot. When Sarah came to pick her up that evening, Delynn remarked to Sarah that Karly had been worn out. She asked if Sarah had put any gels or anything else like that on Karly’s hair, some kind of allergen, because Karly’s eyes were so irritated. Sarah said no, nothing came to mind.
The next day’s events startled Delynn and haunt her to this day.
“Sarah called and said Karly would be late to daycare because she had to take Karly in to get her hair cut. I said, ‘Gosh! That’s so sad. Her princess hair?’ And Sarah said, ‘Yes. It got in a big mat and there was no way I could comb it out.’”
When Karly showed up later that day, her soft blonde locks had been hacked off. Her eyes were swollen and red. She had been crying. “I think Karly was very embarrassed by her short hair.”
Sarah told Delynn she’d left the braid in overnight and she’d woken to find the braid matted. “Here, I’ll get it,” Sarah said, rushing out to her car. It was a disquieting moment when Sarah displayed the braid.
“I am sure my face registered shock because I was thinking about what Karly said the day before about having ‘ogre hair.’ I was so upset for Karly,” Delynn said. “Sarah kind of laughed and said, ‘Can you believe this?’ She said she wanted me to see it because she couldn’t believe it and wondered what I thought about it.”
What Delynn thought was that Sarah was strange as all get out. She didn’t believe one word Sarah was saying. “I couldn’t figure out what may have happened, but I was thinking it was weird that any little kid’s hair could do that over one night and that it was even weirder that her mother would show it to me.”
“What did it look like?” I asked.
“It looked like the mat on a dog,” Delynn said.
Why are you showing me this?
Delynn wondered. “I’d never had a parent do something like that before. It made me wonder if she was hiding something. To be honest, I didn’t believe her. In my gut I thought, ‘This mom has done something to her daughter’s hair.’ I didn’t trust Sarah was telling me the truth.”
Her suspicion of Sarah left Delynn feeling guilty. “I didn’t have a good relationship with Sarah. I felt bad that I didn’t believe what she said, but I didn’t.”
Despite her issues with Sarah, Delynn put on a front for Karly. “I told her tha
t I loved her haircut.” But the haircut shamed the little girl.
“My mommy said that I don’t have princess hair now and that I’m not going to be Princess Fiona,” Karly said.
It infuriated Delynn that the haircut humiliated Karly.
“I told Karly how pretty she was, that she looked like a little pixie.”
Karly snapped at Delynn: “I’m not a princess anymore!”
“Well, you can be a fairy princess because fairy princesses have short pixie hair like you,” Delynn reassured Karly.
But Karly never again referred to herself as Princess Fiona. From that moment on, Karly referred to herself as Prince Charming.
Chapter Sixteen
When Sarah had Karly’s hair chopped off, it was the first sign of trouble. Police investigators, Delynn, David and Karly’s doctor all agree that something bad happened to Karly that night. Did Shawn jerk Karly upside the head? Did Sarah?
That’s sheer speculation, of course. A badly matted braid is not proof of abuse, but that hair incident was the first hint of the violence that would follow. It would be the event that a host of people would puzzle over as the investigation, which had started as potential child abuse, turned into an investigation for murder.
David had a couple of extended business trips in October and November, 2004. Prior to leaving, he’d made daycare arrangements with Delynn. It gave David peace of mind to know Delynn was watching after Karly.
He was out of town, but Sarah warned David before he returned home that she had taken Karly in for a haircut. She also casually mentioned she and Karly had spent three nights at her new boyfriend’s place. David didn’t like it one bit, but divorced parents all over this country understand you cannot dictate the ex-spouse’s dating behavior, even if children are involved. Shawn wasn’t the first man Sarah had introduced into Karly’s life since her breakup with David. In fact, there had been several. David worried that Sarah’s lack of discernment would negatively affect their daughter.
On Monday, November 15, 2004, David wrote a letter to Sarah. He was trying to find a civil way to let her know he was worried about her lifestyle choices:
Hi Sarah:
I have something I need to talk to you about, and figured that this was the best way to initiate it—and remove the tone of my voice from the picture. I definitely don’t want to appear unreasonable or confrontational, so bear with me.
I am really dismayed that Karly has effectively moved in with Sean (not sure if name is spelled that way or ‘Shawn’). While maybe you haven’t officially moved in, it looks like Karly spends her nights with you at his house. I think it is very irresponsible of you to do this again. You only started dating in September, and by the end of October you have our daughter living at his house. How can this possibly strike you or him as a good idea? I think you have a long track record of making bad decisions in relationships by rushing into things, and now you are with a guy who is also content to rush in, and both of you are bringing two young girls along for the ride.
I firmly believe that Karly does not like the situation at all. Of course, it is hard to believe everything she said, so I won’t go by what she tells me about not liking it over there. What I will go by is what Karly doesn’t say to me—she never asks for you anymore. I don’t hear her say, “I want my mama” the way she used to say a month ago.
Hopefully you can at least have a think about things, and reflect a little on what’s best for Karly. On Saturday night after you dropped her off, she slept from 7 p.m. until 9 a.m. on Sunday morning (when I decided to wake her). Any thoughts on why she is so tired over the last few weeks? Similarly, why she has experienced such dramatic hair loss over the last few weeks?
I think we should take her to Dr. deSoyza and have her take a look at Karly’s scalp.
David
He never got around to mailing that letter to Sarah. He decided against it because he feared Sarah would dismiss the letter as a rant from a jealous ex, and David didn’t want to be mistaken for that by her or anyone else.
Sarah said she and Shawn discussed whether Karly should go to Delynn’s daycare. “It was a fairly reoccurring conversation between us,” she said. “Shawn’s opinion was Karly shouldn’t be in daycare. He said if I was a good mother, she would be with me all the time.”
And once Sarah took up with Shawn, Karly’s attendance at daycare became sporadic. It was one of the things Delynn kept track of in a journal, following more obvious signs that Karly was in distress. Delynn’s relationship with Sarah grew increasingly strained.
“If it hadn’t been for David,” Delynn said, “I would not have taken care of Karly because I don’t work for people I can’t get along with and I couldn’t get along with Sarah. She always acted like she was irritated or annoyed with me. I guess we just didn’t click.”
David was traveling a lot that fall and Delynn noticed Karly’s eating and sleeping patterns were changing.
“That’s when I began to keep a journal, writing down all the things that worried me. Karly always seemed hungry. She was asking for food all the time. She hadn’t done that before. And she was complaining about being tired all the time. Karly would tell me that she wanted to take a nap. When a kid wants to take a nap, you know something is up. Three days in a row, Karly fell asleep while watching Barney. Something just wasn’t right.”
Delynn wasn’t the only one who started keeping a journal. Sarah kept notes, too. She later told a jury Shawn had forced her to keep a diary. Her so-called diary consisted of a few notes scribbled on notebook paper. Sarah’s “diary” seemed to have a clear agenda: to frame David for the abuse of Karly Sheehan.
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2004
Karly woke up this morning very upset again. She repeated the phrase “I’m scared of my daddy” several times. Could not get her to say why though. I asked her what’s scary about Daddy, and she cried more. Very upsetting.
Saturday, Oct. 30
Karly woke up stressed out again this morning. After a long night of being awake, whimpering over breakfast and needing to be held. When I told her everything would be okay, that nobody was going to hurt her, she said, “My daddy hurts me” and began crying hysterically. After calming her down a bit I just held her some more.
Saturday, Nov. 13
Went shopping with Karly, she seemed fine until the AT&T store. After playing for a little while, she came up to me crying & saying she was scared of her daddy. Over & over & over again. It was quite disturbing.
Not only was Sarah not married to Shawn, she wasn’t financially dependent on Shawn, either. She had a job, made her own income. Throughout the time she was with him, Sarah maintained a separate apartment with her friend Shelley. Sarah was free to come and go as she liked. She spent a great deal of time at Par 3. She had only met Shawn two months prior to writing these notes.
By mid-November, Karly’s hair was pixie short, and appeared to be thinning. Delynn noted that Karly “cries uncontrollably for her daddy several times during the day,” a direct contradiction to the notes Sarah kept.
Delynn further expressed her concerns about Karly. “I talked to Sarah about Karly being so tired. Sarah said she sees the same thing at home. Karly cries constantly for her daddy.”
For several weeks, between the braid mess and the crying jags of November, Delynn debated notifying authorities. Weighing heavily on her mind was another child, Jasara, a young girl she had cared for some years prior.
Delynn kept Jasara from the time she was born until she was two, when the family moved to California. It was shortly after the move that the little girl was brutally beaten by her mother’s boyfriend. The last time Delynn saw Jasara, she was being carried to the car by her mom’s new boyfriend.
“When the sleeping Jasara opened her eyes and realized that she was being held by Jacques, she turned to me and reached out her arms,” Delynn recalled. “I felt that the look in her eyes was pure fear. At the time, I could not shake that away. I thought logically that it was probably because
she did not know him very well, but I will never forget the way she looked at me and reached for me, and now I know why. It was to save her from him.”
It’s a haunting memory.
•
Karly was an articulate, sunny-natured, inquisitive child, until Sarah hooked up with Shawn. Then Karly became withdrawn and moody. In mid-November, Karly made a startling proclamation to Delynn.
“My daddy hits me,” she said.
All the daycare kids were sitting around the table, munching on crackers and turkey slices, apples and grapes, or sucking on their sippy cups when Karly put down her juice and began slapping her head to show them how she was being hit. “I’m scared of my daddy,” she added.
Stunned, Delynn asked, “You mean your daddy David?” And Delynn could have sworn, and indeed did swear later, that Karly answered “Yes.” But it was noisy and kids were chattering about one thing or another, all vying for attention. Surely Delynn must have heard her wrong. David would never hit Karly. Delynn was sure of that. She told investigators and the jury that.
“Delynn, you need to talk to my daddy,” Karly said.
“What do I need to say to your dad?” Delynn asked.
“You need to tell him no! Don’t hit me!”
On Tuesday, November 16, 2004, Delynn waited until the lunch table was cleared and all the kids were down for a nap before she called the state’s child abuse hotline. She kept a detailed log of the conversation.
Delynn talked first to an intake officer who took the information and told her someone would call her back. Meanwhile, David called to check on Karly, something he did as a matter of routine to see how his daughter’s day was going. Delynn didn’t mention what Karly had shared with her but she did suggest that David needed to take Karly to see a doctor. David agreed and said he would see to it.
KARLY SHEEHAN: True Crime behind Karly's Law Page 8
