KARLY SHEEHAN: True Crime behind Karly's Law

by Karen Spears Zacharias

  Chapter Forty-One

  A t 10:13 a.m. on October 31, 2006, minutes after Dr. Chervenak stepped down from the witness box for the final time, Joan Demarest announced, “The State rests, Your Honor.”

  “Counsel for the defense, you may call your first witness,” Judge Holcomb said.

  “The Defense rests, Your Honor,” Dan Koenig said. His voice steady and certain.

  A stunned silence followed Koenig’s announcement. No one had expected the defense to put Shawn Field on the stand, but to rest without having offered one bit of evidence to the contrary?

  Just the day before, expert witnesses for the defense were milling around the hallway outside Courtroom Number Two of the Benton County Courthouse, waiting for their turn to offer testimony that would help persuade the jury that Shawn Field was innocent of this murder.

  It was a bold, cocky move, a strategy intended to convey to the jury that the defense didn’t think the state had done its job; they had not proven Shawn Field guilty. The defense was banking that the jury would agree on that.

  “I was totally shocked,” Joan Demarest said. “It’s not uncommon for the defense to lead everyone on like that and then ‘Surprise!’ Sometimes it’s the only strategy they have. But I didn’t really expect it in this case. I thought they would have offered some expert testimony regarding their theory of Karly dying from previously inflicted injuries.”

  Perhaps, Demarest reasoned, the testimony offered by Dr. Chervenak was too strong to dispute. “I don’t know if they just gave up or what. They had made so many promises about the evidence they were going to put on. So I was absolutely shocked.”

  Judge Holcomb, however, was not. “The defense is not required to put on a case, and in a lot of cases, they don’t,” she said.

  Judge Holcomb turned toward the jurors. “Members of the jury, that concludes the testimony in the case. It’s now time for lawyers to make their closing arguments. Ms. Demarest, you may address the court, the jury.”

  Discombobulated by the defense’s move, Demarest wasn’t yet ready with her closing arguments. She needed a few moments to gather her thoughts. She asked the judge for a brief recess. Demarest was hoping for two hours; Judge Holcomb gave her twenty minutes.

  After the recess, but before the jury was brought back, Dan Koenig asked Judge Holcomb to dismiss all twenty-three counts against Shawn Field, from aggravated murder to torture, to the last two counts of growing the marijuana Shawn had been so panicked about hiding.

  “We ask for a judgment of acquittal due to a lack of evidence,” Koenig said, going through each count, one by one.

  Judge Holcomb denied his repeated requests. The jury was brought back and seated around ten o’clock that last day of October, 2006. For the next hour they would listen and take notes as Joan Demarest, her voice sometimes thick with emotion, presented her closing arguments.

  “You have heard a lot about what kind of child Karly Sheehan was, about how she touched a lot of people’s lives,” Demarest began. “She liked to play princess until the defendant entered her life. Toward the end of her life, Karly told her daddy she didn’t think she was a princess anymore.”

  That was because as soon as Shawn Field entered her life, a marked change came over Karly, Demarest said. “She stopped wanting to spend time with her mother because when she was with her mother, Karly was exposed to the defendant.”

  Demarest continued, detailing the ways in which Sarah Sheehan was manipulated by Shawn Field. “She was freshly single, a single mom, who was desperate for approval, desperate for a successful relationship,” Demarest said.

  Sarah was neither newly single nor a single mother, given that David did the bulk of parenting, but the point Demarest was trying to make was that Shawn preyed upon the unwitting Sarah. “The defendant trained Sarah Sheehan not to question him,” Demarest said.

  But, the prosecutor added, it’s your job as jurors to do just that: to question Shawn Field and judge his intent.

  “It’s one of your toughest roles as jurors, because a number of the charges you are considering require proof of intent, and there’s no magical tool that allows you to see into someone’s mind to determine intent. You have to determine intent by the evidence of the crime,” Demarest explained.

  Then, in order to emphasize the evidence one last time, Demarest put up the poster-sized photos of those pictures of Karly taken on Shawn’s camera. “What evidence showed you is that even after Karly looked like this on Thursday night, Shawn kept going. Karly ended up with sixty external injuries. She’s got at least ten in these pictures. Each one, according to

  Dr. Chervenak’s testimony, caused Karly significant harm and pain. Dr. Chervenak told you how children recoil when they are in pain to protect themselves and withdraw. Karly might have been scrambling away from the defendant on the floor, trying to get away, covering her head, trying to protect her internal organs. But the defendant kept going. Blow after blow after blow to her little body,” Demarest said, pounding her hands together on the first mention of the word blow. “Shawn Field kept going. Karly was likely screaming, crying, recoiling, and even twenty minutes, before she was dead, Karly was trying to please the defendant, responding to a likely command to smile for the camera. Up until the very end, Karly Sheehan was trying to please the defendant to try and stop him from abusing her. But we know after this picture was taken, the most brutal injury of all was inflicted upon her—the injury that killed her.”

  Some of the jurors were weeping. Demarest, pregnant with her second child, allowed the tiniest bit of emotion to sweep over her as she envisioned Karly cowering. The prosecutor maintained her professional demeanor, but the wrongness of what Karly suffered could be heard in the slightest quiver of Demarest’s voice.

  “The defendant had told Sarah Sheehan that someday it’s all going to come down to who lies the best,” Demarest said. “Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant engaged in an ongoing pattern of abuse, mistreatment, and torture of Karly Sheehan. After the defendant entered her life, never again was there a picture showing the joy in her eyes, the smile on her face, and her carefree nature. The defendant destroyed Karly’s life, and he tortured the soul out of her, and we ask that you find him guilty.”

  Judge Holcomb excused the jury for a short break. When court resumed it was Clark Willes, co-counsel for the defense, who stood before the jurors.

  Not that Sarah Sheehan was on trial, Willes was quick to point out. She isn’t, but perhaps she should be, he suggested. Willes displayed various exhibits that included details of Shawn Field’s bank statements, and what Willes considered some of the most damning evidence against Sarah Sheehan: copies of the text messages she sent during the last hours of her daughter’s life.

  On Thursday, June 2, 2005, David sent Sarah a text message asking how Karly was doing, and whether she’d made it back from daycare all right. David worried less when Karly was with Delynn than he did when she was with Sarah. At 10:03 a.m., only minutes after David sent that text, Sarah texted back: “Staying home. Karly much better 2day despite jumping on bed when told NO!”

  That text, Willes told the jury, was a set-up. Karly already had injuries. The nurses who tended to Karly on Friday, June 3, 2005, said they knew from experience that some of her injuries had to have been several days old. “Sarah knows she’s going to have to deliver her daughter back to David Sheehan in two days, and she’s setting up the excuses,” Willes explained. Just like in December 2004, when Sarah told David, “This happened on my watch.”

  Sarah had gone so far as to call her boss on Thursday morning to say she wouldn’t be in to work because Karly had fallen from the bunk bed and Sarah needed to take her to the doctor, Willes said. Only Sarah didn’t take Karly to the doctor on Thursday, or on Friday. Instead, Sarah worked later in the day on Thursday, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m., although she didn’t get back to Shawn Field’s home, and to Karly, until midnight.

  “Sarah wanted to convince you that she worked off the clock during those hour
s,” Willes said. “But when did the manager go home? Nine o’clock. The manager went home at nine because the raffle was over. Sarah wants you to believe she was working off the clock,” Willes said. “And the district attorney wants you to believe that Sarah is a controlled woman, who doesn’t have an independent thought or an independent mind. But when she wants to go out and play, Sarah goes out to play. When she wants to go out and drink, and party, and go to the parking lot with somebody else, she does it. Remember, she has her own place. She lives with her child by herself sometimes. She has her own job, her own checking account, and she pays her own bills, sometimes.”

  Willes reminded jurors that as early as October 2004, Sarah was blaming David Sheehan for Karly’s injuries, and when Karly died, Sarah blamed David for that, too.

  And on that last day of Karly’s life, Sarah claimed that she could not take Karly to the hospital because Shawn wouldn’t let her, wouldn’t give her the car—yet, Sarah received fifteen phone calls between 9:48 a.m. and 1:37 p.m.

  “This is what her child looked like Friday morning when Sarah woke up,” Willes said, displaying a photo of a battered Karly for the jury to see. “Sarah gets fifteen phone calls on a regular basis that day, and the district attorney wants to indicate to you that Sarah Sheehan couldn’t get help, didn’t have a car, couldn’t take her child to the hospital. Couldn’t Sarah have talked to any one of the people she spoke to that day, asked for help, including her good friend Shelley Freeland? Yet she didn’t mention a word of it.”

  Shawn Field was not responsible for Karly Sheehan’s death, Willes said. Shawn had nothing to gain from it. Sarah, on the other hand, did have a motive. “We have a little girl, Karly, who is getting in the way of her mother having some fun,” Willes said.

  The only reason Shawn Field was taking photos of Karly was because Sarah told him that David Sheehan was doing this to Karly, Willes said. “You couldn’t miss the sixty bruises on the little girl’s body. Wouldn’t you take pictures?” Willes asked the jurors.

  Willes offered no explanation for why it was that Shawn Field didn’t take Karly to the emergency room himself. He offered no explanation for Shawn Field’s behavior at all. He didn’t have to, he told the jurors.

  “We don’t have the burden of proving who did this—the state does. We don’t have to present anything. The question before you is has the state met the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

  “Let me put it in different terms. If Sarah Sheehan were sitting where Shawn Field is now, and evidence had been presented like it is, would you start considering that Sarah Sheehan was guilty?” Willes asked.

  Keep in mind, Willes told jurors, that when Sarah Sheehan was under oath, she answered, “I can’t confirm or deny that statement” more than thirty times.

  “Wow!” Willes said.

  As sirens wailed by the open windows of the courtroom, Willes apologized for taking up so much of the jurors’ time.

  “You are parents, and that’s what the state is really relying on: your gut reaction, we have to get somebody. Use the facts. Don’t use your gut, because if guts were right, Susan Smith in North Carolina wouldn’t be in jail today, Diane Downs in Oregon wouldn’t be in jail today, Andrea Yates in Texas wouldn’t be in jail today. It’s because somebody followed the facts, and that’s what Mr. Field is asking you to do in this case. Thank you.”

  Clark Willes finished his closing statements and Judge Holcomb excused the court for an afternoon recess.

  “We will reconvene at 3:45 p.m.,” Holcomb said.

  Following the break, Joan Demarest offered a fairly direct rebuttal, when she replayed the 911 call from Friday, June 3, 2005.

  Once more the jurors heard the voice of Sarah Sheehan:

  “911. What’s your emergency?” Thompson asked.

  “OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!” came a female voice.

  “I need you to calm down. Where are you?”

  Inaudible, hysterical crying.

  “Hello? I need you to stop crying.”

  “Tww…gasp…Tww…sob. Northwest Aspen Strrrreeeeetttt!”

  “I can’t understand you.”

  “Twenty-six-fifty-two. Twenty-six-fifty-two Northwest Aspen Street. Twenty-six-fifty-two Northwest Aspen Street. Aspen Street. Twenty-six-fifty-two Aspen Street.”

  “Twenty-six-fifty-two Aspen?” Thompson repeated back.

  “Yes. Yes. Northwest. Right across from Hoover.”

  “What’s the problem?” Thompson asked.

  “Karla! Karla! Come back! Karla! Come baaaack!”

  It was nearly five o’clock when Judge Holcomb dismissed the jury. “Members of the jury, that concludes the arguments in the case. I have fourteen pages of instructions, and given the hour, and as long as the day has been, we are going to stop. I am sure you have families you’d like to get home to, and, perhaps, celebrate or give out candy for trick-or-treating.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Judge Janet Holcomb gave the jury instructions on Wednesday, November 1, 2006. “Members of the jury, it is your sole responsibility to make all the decisions about the facts of the case. You must evaluate the evidence to determine how reliable and how believable it is. Remember, any witness who lies in some part of their testimony is likely to lie in other parts of their testimony.

  “Do not allow bias or sympathy. Do not decide on guesswork, conjecture, or speculation. When you make your decision about the facts, you must apply legal rules to those facts to reach your verdict. A defendant has the constitutional right to not testify. This cannot be considered an indication of guilt.”

  It took the jury three days to reach a verdict in the month-long murder trial. The jury returned their verdict on Friday, November 3, 2006. They declared Shawn Wesley Field not guilty on all five charges of aggravated murder and one count of murder, but they found him guilty of the remaining seventeen charges, including felony murder and torture. Some of the jurors wept as the verdict was read.

  Consensus among the jurors did not come easily. Initially, five jurors were ready to give Shawn Field the death penalty. One juror wanted to throw out everything but the manslaughter charge. “We spent many hours talking a few fellow jurors down from what I considered an emotional, perhaps even justifiable, impulse,” one juror said. “We insisted, time and again, to ‘show the evidence’ for intentional murder, as opposed to intentional, excessive abuse that led to death, which we’d already voted for unanimously. In the end, we voted unanimously against these charges, not because everyone was convinced Shawn was not guilty, but because we couldn’t find evidence to support them.”

  The question they hemmed and hawed over was not whether Shawn was guilty but to what degree he was guilty. Did he intentionally murder Karly or was he “just” torturing her? Explained one juror: “I felt a little manipulated by the torture charge, as it was not something that came to mind during the trial, but was written and defined in such a way that we had to sign on, and one of the biggest traps, to me, was the total number of charges against him. We were instructed to consider each charge independently, and not pick the most severe charges, as one might think.”

  Intent proved to be as difficult to determine as Joan Demarest warned it would be. “We don’t know that he intended to kill her. That’s what hung us up for a long, long time,” said a juror. “Was the murder the result of some other crime? Did he intend to kill her?”

  Another juror recalled how fraught with emotion jury deliberations had been. “We concluded from the evidence we had that the abuse was not accidental. There had been a pattern of abuse, but there was no evidence to show that killing Karly was intentional. Shawn would have gotten rid of the marijuana plants if he’d planned to murder Karly that day. It was an afternoon of tearful exchange.”

  Jurors found little evidence backing up the prosecutor’s claim that Shawn Field was abusing Karly for financial gain. A more likely scenario, they reasoned, was that he was abusing Karly as a means of payback at Sarah. “Who knows? Maybe S
hawn became frustrated with Sarah’s catting around,” said one juror. “I know what he did, but I can’t tell you why he did it. All I can conclude is there is barely a rational thought in the man’s head. Nothing stirred him, with the exception of when his daughter testified.”

  The jurors had noticed how pained Shawn Field appeared when his daughter was on the stand. “It was clear that he loved her,” said a juror.

  Several of the jurors were upset that Joan Demarest put such a young child on the stand. “Kate was traumatized,” said another juror. “I felt sorry for her.”

  The prosecution had taken such care to provide proof of Shawn and Karly’s DNA on the two large spoons found in the trash can at Shawn’s house, but the fact that the spoons were recovered from the trash was more problematic than helpful for the scientists among the group. “Anything in the trash is a mixing ground for DNA,” a juror explained. “We never accepted the spoons as evidence because of that.”

  The evidence that ultimately persuaded the jurors that Shawn Field killed Karly Sheehan came down to the photos of the battered Karly taken on Shawn’s own camera; the timeline, which included text messages from Sarah Sheehan’s phone; and lastly, the expert testimony of Dr. Carol Chervenak.

  “Finally, we just decided we couldn’t figure out what was going on in Shawn Field’s mind, it is so twisted and dark,” said a juror. “There was a lot of crying but I think everyone realized, let’s go with what we’ve got, or we’ll be a hung jury, and none of us wanted that.”

  In regards to the defense’s closing argument that Sarah Sheehan had played a part in the killing of her daughter, Karly Sheehan, many of the jurors agreed. “I don’t understand why the District Attorney didn’t charge her with reckless endangerment at the very least,” said one juror.

  Sarah may not have delivered the blow that killed Karly, but she was complicit in the murder, said another. “We saw the pictures of what Karly looked like that last day of her life. I couldn’t see a total stranger looking like that and not do something.”