Wells asked who was at the house when Karly stopped breathing.
“Shawn.”
Wells made a couple of notes regarding Shawn, where he worked— Grempsey’s Restaurant— and information about Shawn’s daughter.
“Can you tell me what happened? What’s been going on? I heard Karla’s been sick,” Wells said.
“She has really bad allergies,” Sarah replied.
Someone knocked on the door. Wells excused himself and said he’d be right back after he made a phone call. He left the recorder running.
Sarah, crying harder, said, “Shelley, my baby’s gone. I can’t do anything, oh, Shelley.”
Shelley simply could not offer Sarah any consolation. Karly was dead. What comfort was there now?
“She was supposed to grow up and be beautiful and popular and fun and funny, now she’s dead,” Sarah cried. “Why did this have to happen? No, no, no, God, oh, my God, I didn’t do enough. What didn’t I do? What could I have done?”
Shelley urged Sarah to take a drink of water.
“No,” Sarah said, pushing it away. “I just want to know why she is dead. There has to be a reason. You just don’t decide to die. I just can’t believe, oh my God, I can’t breathe.”
“Take a deep breath,” Shelley advised. “Hold it. You can do it.”
“Oh, my God, it’s all my fault,” Sarah said, gasping, sobbing. “Why didn’t I think of something to do? I should have known something was wrong. I should have known it was something besides allergies.”
Chapter Thirty
Sarah had an idea of who had done this horrible, horrible thing to her daughter.
David.
At the hospital, during those early hours following Karly’s death, Sarah met with Detective Wells and others from the Corvallis Police Department, and told them about the Children’s Services investigation and about her jealous ex-husband.
“Karly was with David more than she was with me because I’m going back to school and working. I’ve always worked but David’s just, you know, more established,” Sarah said.
Sarah said that over the past several months Karly had been saying that her daddy hits her. “I’d asked Karly, ‘Why does he hit you?’ and Karly said, ‘He hits me because I go pee pee.’ Karly was very afraid of going to the toilet. I’d ask her again, ‘Where does your daddy hit you?’ and she’d point to her bottom or someplace else.”
Detective Wells asked if Karly was potty-trained. Sarah replied mostly but that she was wearing a diaper that morning because Sarah hadn’t done the wash and Karly didn’t have any clean panties.
Sarah told Detective Wells that Karly had really loved being at
Shawn’s, that she loved Kate and the cats, but that David had stirred up trouble by asking Karly, “Is Shawn going to be your new daddy? You love Shawn and not me, don’t you?” According to Sarah, that’s when Karly’s attitude started to change, when she started pulling her hair out and hitting herself.
“Karly has been showing up with all these injuries,” Sarah said. “Shawn is convinced David is harming Karly. Shawn said he put cortisone on her because it brings out bruises faster and he wanted to see what else David had done because he’s convinced that David’s not appropriate with Karly. He’s trying to bring the bruises out so we can show what David does.”
Shawn had been taking pictures to document the abuse, Sarah said. Shawn had even shown her photos that very morning of some of Karly’s injuries.
“When Karly got to our house she was pretty bruised already, and then, you know, the bruises tend to get worse before they get better,” Sarah said.
Sarah had noticed a bump on Karly’s head earlier that week, and asked Karly what happened.
“She said her daddy hit her with a spoon. She had also said that her dad had hit her on her feet with a spoon for going potty.”
Detective Wells asked if Sarah had noticed any bruising on Karly’s feet.
“This morning she was crying so I was tickling her feet and it hurt her really bad. I looked at her feet; they were really swollen, and I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And she said, ‘My daddy hit them with the spoon.’ They were real tender.”
Karly’s feet weren’t the only thing bruised that Friday morning, Sarah said. “When Karly got up this morning, it was totally shocking to see her. Her eye was swollen shut.”
The more questions police asked, the more animated Sarah became, and the more convinced she was she’d better leave the hospital before David showed up. Sarah appeared so terrified of David that police considered him a real threat.
“Based on everything Sarah told us, we saw David as a threat and a potential suspect,” Wells said. They began to make plans to keep David and Sarah away from each other, not only at the hospital, but also later throughout the night.
Police told Sarah and Shelley they could not return to their apartment. It had been secured by police and would be searched. No problem, Shelley said; they could stay at her parents’ house in nearby Salem.
In his summary notes, Wells said Sarah had trouble keeping information straight. “Based on my training and experience, her demeanor, reactions, emotional state, and ability to recall information were consistent with victims of crimes and those who have been traumatized by events,” Wells said.
The detective would later change his mind about why Sarah couldn’t keep her story straight. “Interviewing Sarah was exhausting,” Wells said. “She was the most draining individual I’ve ever interviewed. If I asked her what her address was, she’d take twenty minutes to answer. She couldn’t remember anything. She was quiet, had an almost monotone voice. She never volunteered anything.
“Sarah was extremely cautious, watching her own back, always making sure she wasn’t going to get tripped up and charged with anything. She is way smarter than she comes off.”
Shawn Field’s behavior hadn’t been normal either. Emergency crews who arrived at 2652 NW Aspen Street thought it odd that the sandy-haired man, wearing nothing but athletic shorts and sunglasses shoved back on his head, kept pacing back and forth, “like a trapped animal.”
Instead of offering to help the police officers and other medical personnel as they had attended to Karly, Shawn busied himself pushing a heavy wood dining room table up against a bedroom door. He then tossed the dining room chairs atop it.
Andy Louden, a battalion chief with the Corvallis Fire Department, at first thought Shawn was moving the furniture to make way for the medic crew. He’d witnessed Shawn attempt to comfort Sarah earlier. As Shawn embraced her, he rested his hands on Sarah’s breasts, momentarily fondling them. It was a crass gesture that struck Louden as wildly inappropriate.
Gary Thurman, one of the emergency medical technicians, went outside to get the backboard to put Karly on. As he was going back inside the duplex, he overheard Shawn talking to Sarah.
“Don’t talk to the paramedics, don’t talk to the police,” he urged.
Lieutenant Steve Bowen, also with the Corvallis Fire Department, heard the same thing. Bowen told Chief Louden what he and Thurman overheard. Louden offered to take both Sarah and Shawn to the hospital, but Shawn said no, he’d better not go, that his daughter Kate was due home soon. He didn’t know dispatchers had already called the school and told them to keep Kate there.
Sergeant Fieman told Shawn investigators were going to need his help around the place in order to determine why Karly stopped breathing. Fieman called headquarters and told them he was pretty sure they had a homicide on their hands, that somebody needed to get some search warrants in order. The Benton County Major Crime Investigation Team had been notified. Harvey and Wells were en route.
Fieman looked around the place. The car in the driveway, a pristine white Aspire, had a child’s car seat in the back and a Bush/Cheney sticker on the bumper. An empty Starbucks cup was in the console. An American flag hung motionless from the apartment’s doorpost.
An assortment of tennis shoes, big ones and little ones, were lined up just inside the doorway.
The child had been found lying partly on the white carpet of the living room and the cold linoleum before emergency crews had whisked her away. A child’s pink coat hung from the coat rack. On the wall behind the rack was a framed copy of famous love quotes.
Pushed up against the west wall was a leather sectional, all white, draped with an orange-and-black Oregon State Beaver throw. A black-and-white cat lay asleep on the couch. A child’s white rocker sat motionless in the sunrays coming through the sliding-glass door onto the south patio. Dishes were washed and stacked.
Down the hallway were several ornately framed oversize portraits of a dark-haired girl, Shawn’s daughter, Kate. A Hillary Duff poster was pinned to the shut door on Fieman’s right. He opened it cautiously. Bold letters spelled out the child’s name on one wall: K-A-T-E. To his immediate left, a set of metal-frame bunk beds was pushed up against the wall. Red curtains hung from the window across the room.
The leopard-print bedding of the top bunk had been left unmade. There was no mattress on the bottom bunk; just a couple of small boxes, holding frames or books, and various other belongings. There were more posters pinned to the ceiling.
Missing was any sign to indicate a three-year-old lived in this home. The only photos were Kate’s, the only artwork hers. The clothes in the closet were Kate’s. There wasn’t a bed, not even a mattress on the floor for Karly. There was an absence of anything that spoke to her life in the place, that Karly had even been a guest there. She slept on the floor where the cats prowled, with only a pink pillow and a blanket.
Fieman continued down the hallway. Just past the bathroom, he saw the pile of dining room furniture Shawn had shoved up against a door. It didn’t take police officers long to figure out the reason for the barricade. Fieman noted there were six planting pots on the counter in the kitchen.
Fieman looked over at Shawn, who’d put on a t-shirt and was pacing around the living room.
“My daughter will be home from school very soon,” Shawn said. “What am I going to tell her?”
Fieman didn’t answer, not at first. Then, tucking his chin down and cutting his eyes toward Shawn, Fieman offered him a bit of advice: “If it was me, I’d tell anyone who asked me the straight-out truth.”
Shawn stopped pacing as Fieman continued, “I’m not going to ask you any questions about Karla at this time, but let’s just say I did, or somebody else was to—if it were me, I’d tell the whole truth so everybody would know exactly what happened.”
Shawn stood still.
Fieman shrugged his shoulders, lifted his chin, and looked straight into Shawn’s eyes. “The police are going to find out the truth anyway; you might as well tell it to them up front.”
Shawn’s head dropped so low his chin was almost resting on his chest. Closing his eyes, Shawn whispered, “Oh, God.”
The veteran police officer took Shawn’s sigh to mean one thing: defeat.
Fieman shared his observations with Detectives Harvey and Wells when they arrived.
“Situations like this require we do an investigation,” Detective Harvey said after introducing himself to Shawn.
“I understand,” Shawn replied. His voice was soft, agreeable, but his demeanor was anxious. There were no tears, no outbursts of grief, but Shawn seemed nervous.
“I’d like to search the place, see if there’s anything that might help us determine what happened to Karla, if that’s okay with you,” Harvey said. “There’s not anything illegal in the housethat you’re worried about, is there?”
Just moments later, Shawn confided to Officer Steve Teeter: “I can’t believe what I did in my bedroom. My life is over.”
“What do you mean your life is over?” Teeter asked, his eyes widening.
“That guy over there will tell you all about it,” Shawn said, nodding his head toward Harvey, who had walked outside to talk privately with Sergeant Fieman.
A few minutes later, when Harvey returned, Teeter told him about the exchange with Shawn.
“He’s got a marijuana grow in the bedroom,” Harvey said.
That explained the blockade Shawn had constructed from the dining room furniture, but it raised other questions. For starters, who worries about getting in trouble with the law for growing marijuana plants when there’s a battered child lying on the floor, not breathing?
That’s one of the questions Detective Harvey hoped to settle when he asked Shawn to join him at the Law Enforcement Center. Shawn Field was not under arrest.
Not yet.
Shawn said he’d be glad to go in for questioning, but first he’d have to see to his daughter. School was nearly out. Sure, go ahead, not a problem, Harvey said. But Shawn changed his mind, called Eileen Field, his ex-wife, and asked if she could pick up Kate. Something had come up that needed his undivided attention.
In the patrol car, on their way to the police station, Harvey got a call from Wells.
“The girl’s dead. Beaten to death,” Wells said.
“Got it,” Harvey said, cutting his eyes at Shawn.
“There’s more,” Wells said, pausing. “The emergency room doctor said there’s evidence she was sexually assaulted.”
David spent a fitful Friday night at John Hogan’s place. Earlier that evening, Detective Stauder and another officer had interviewed David at the hospital. The three-hour interview was grueling, particularly given that David was still in a state of shock. The detectives asked if he had anything to do with Karly’s death. David replied that he hadn’t seen Karly since Monday.
“What do you think happened?” Detective Stauder asked.
“I suspect Karly was over at Shawn’s house—she doesn’t like being over there—so Karly was acting out and Sarah couldn’t deal with that. I think she overreacted,” David said.
“Have you ever had any funny feelings about Shawn?” Detective Stauder asked, “Like a mother’s intuition kind of thing?”
“He’s a liar and fraud,” David said.
Detective Stauder warned David that his own house had been sealed off so Corvallis Police Department’s evidence team could give it a thorough search. They seized the sheets from the laundry and an unlaundered Nike t-shirt that belonged to Karly. It had a red stain on the front. David told them it was from their last meal together, the pizza they had before he dropped her at Sarah’s on Monday.
Wells warned investigators to be on the lookout for wooden spoons. Sarah told Wells that David used wooden spoons to discipline Karly. Every drawer, every cupboard, all closets, and all garbage cans were checked for a wooden spoon; the Corvallis Police found none. What investigators did find in David’s home were toys galore, dozens of framed snapshots of Karly, and racks of the girl’s clothes hanging in the closet. “It was apparent Mr. Sheehan was dedicated to Karly,” the police report concluded.
Detective Wells came to the same conclusion. “Once we did the search and met David we could tell he was a victim. For most of us, David was out of the picture as a prime suspect that night.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Emmet Whittaker was in the south of France, two months into a six-month trip around the world, in June 2005 when he received a disturbing e-mail from his good friend David Sheehan.
It wasn’t so much wanderlust that took him away from his job at HP as it was this nagging feeling that there had to be something more purposeful to life than work. Emmet wasn’t yet sure if he wanted to settle in the U.S. He had come to Corvallis in 1996 along with David Sheehan and a host of other Irish natives for training at HP’s headquarters, and he’d fallen in love with a girl named Sanna, who also worked at HP.
When Emmet’s tenure on the green card was up, Emmet took Sanna home to Dublin, where he continued to work for HP. But while Sanna loved Emmet’s Ireland, it wasn’t home for her. Sanna went back to HP in Corvallis, and Emmet took a leave of absence from work and set out to see the world.
Keeping in touch with friends, even good friends, can be difficult when traveling.
“Dave and I are the
kind of friends who like to sit down over coffee, breakfast or a pint and discuss life a bit,” Emmet said. His distinct Dublin accent carries a weightiness of wars fought and lost.
As he traveled, Emmet kept in touch with David primarily by e-mail and the occasional phone call, but David had not told Emmet about Karly’s deteriorating condition, the state’s investigation, or Sarah’s new boyfriend. Nor had David discussed with Emmet his fear of deportation, although it’s a common fear among immigrants.
“If you are on a green card, you are a guest of that nation,” Emmet said. “If you show up on the radar for anything, even if it’s unwarranted, you can be deported. It’s a very real fear.”
Still, Emmet knew nothing of the terror Karly had endured or the fears David left unspoken until the bright June day in 2005 when Emmet received a phone call from an HP co-worker who told him Karly was dead, and shortly thereafter an e-mail from David, telling him the same. Emmet sat down before a computer screen in an Internet café in the south of France and logged into his e-mail.
“I was greatly shocked,” Emmet said. “The e-mail was quite short. He said Karly was dead. I believe he said she was murdered. I was absolutely horrified.”
Emmet left the café after sending David a note back, telling him if he needed anything at all that Emmet was there for him. Then Emmet when straight to the home of his goddaughter and her mother, where he’d been staying, and wept freely for David and Karly.
“I was horrified by it, thinking about Karly. It was gut-wrenching.”
Emmet followed the news of Karly’s murder from afar, reading the local newspaper reports in the Gazette Times. He called Sanna and asked her to go to David, to see if there was anything she could do to be of help.
News of Karly’s death spread rapidly through the offices and hallways at Hewlett-Packard. Although Liz Sokolowski and David Sheehan worked for the same company, the two had never spoken. Still, she knew who he was, knew he was married, or had been. When she heard about Karly’s murder from her friend Sanna, she was staggered by the news.
KARLY SHEEHAN: True Crime behind Karly's Law Page 16
