A Silence of Mockingbirds (9 page)

W
hen 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 day-care 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.

Later that afternoon, when Sarah arrived to pick up Karly, Delynn
told her the same thing: Sarah needed to get Karly to a doctor to evaluate
her. “She’s tired all the time and, look, see how her hair is coming out in
patches?” Delynn said, pointing to the bald spots.

But Sarah, defensive, acted as if Delynn was making a mountain out
of a molehill. She told Delynn she had spoken with her mother about
the hair loss. According to Sarah, her own sister had suffered extensive
hair loss when she was the same age as Karly. Sarah said the sort of hair
loss that Karly was experiencing “was normal in our family.”

Such a statement made absolutely no sense. Any genetic propensity
toward hair thinning or balding was not passed along to Karly from
her Aunt Kim or her Grandma Carol or Grandpa Gene. There was no
genetic legacy passed along to Karly via the Brill family at all. Sarah was
adopted.

Unfortunately, Delynn was unaware of the embedded deceit.

Leaning over the table at the bakery where Delynn and I sat long after
our meals had grown cold, Delynn took a sip of Pepsi, pushed her
brunette hair back off her high forehead, and exhaled a deep sigh. Her
regret over Karly’s death was palpable.

I waited. Silence no longer makes me uncomfortable. Grief will not
be bossed, coerced, or cajoled. It comes and goes as it pleases, and if you
try to hurry it along, it will refuse to leave.

A few minutes passed where the only noise was the clanging of
dishes and the chatter of people trying to decide what to order, whether
to have that slice of apple pie. After a few minutes, Delynn jumped back
into her story.

“It was almost like God was talking to me. Karly said, ‘Delynn, my
daddy hits me. My daddy bites me.’”

Delynn said now she was sure Karly had to be talking about Sarah’s
new boyfriend. “I knew she couldn’t mean David. I had never seen him
act in any way wrong.” But when she first called authorities, Delynn had
to tell them exactly, verbatim, what Karly said. “I was just sick,” she said.
“I knew it meant I would get David into trouble, and I knew Karly loved
her daddy.”

Delynn said she never believed David was the one harming Karly.

“I did not trust what Karly was saying when she said, ‘My daddy
bites me, hits me,’” Delynn said. “I just had this gut feeling she could not
tell who it was for some reason and maybe she was saying ‘Daddy’ in
order to tell somebody, but not to tell on the somebody she was very
scared of.”

Or could it be that Karly’s abuser coerced her into hiding the truth?

D
r. Shanilka deSoyza agreed to meet me at a coffee shop
near the campus of Oregon State University. The doctor, a
native of Sri Lanka, was Karly’s doctor from birth.

An afternoon rush crowded the shop. I chose a seat near the
storefront window, put down my bag, and placed my order. I was half-way
through my latte when a small-boned woman in dark slacks, a
periwinkle-blue sweater and black flats approached me and introduced
herself.

Dr. deSoyza’s hair is black, cropped short, stylish but functional,
perfect for a mother on the run. She has two children. Her oldest child,
a girl, is a high-functioning autistic. She told me that and much more
as students, fueled by caffeine, hovered over newspapers, laptops, and
textbooks.

The doctor maintained a professional demeanor but she also had a
vulnerable quality to her. It rose to the surface the minute she began to
talk about her own children.

She was in her fourth year of medical school in Cincinnati, Ohio,
when her first child was born.

“I had no idea she wouldn’t be a typical child,” deSoyza said. Her
daughter would not sleep or take a bottle. Residency turned into a
nightmare; overwhelmed, deSoyza left medical school. She and her
husband relocated thousands of miles away to Hermiston, Oregon, a
town where they had friends.

Five years passed before deSoyza felt comfortable enough to leave
the pastoral life of Hermiston to return to the tyranny of residency. The
couple returned to Ohio, but planned to raise their family in Oregon as
soon as deSoyza finished her program.

They needed to relocate to an area where their daughter could get
the best medical and educational care possible. So the couple settled
in Corvallis in 2001 and deSoyza went to work for Samaritan Health
Services.

Dr. deSoyza was Sarah and David’s general physician. When David
mentioned that they needed to find a pediatrician for the baby they
were expecting, Dr. deSoyza told David that she was capable of treating
children. Dr. deSoyza had seen her share of children in her practice.
For a time, she treated the children at Corvallis’ Children’s Farm Home,
a residential treatment facility for children with behavioral problems.

The family doctor was very familiar with Karly, and her parents.
“Karly was a little girl with a big personality,” Dr. deSoyza said. “A little
bit mischievous.”

She knew David and Sarah were divorced. Dr. deSoyza considered
David a very good father. Sarah, however, often seemed overwhelmed.
“She was flaky,” deSoyza said. “But I’ve dealt with moms a lot flakier
than Sarah.”

After the couple split, it was usually David who brought Karly in
for medical care. Karly saw the doctor in June 2004 because David
wanted to discuss some digestive issues Karly had been experiencing.
Dr. deSoyza didn’t see Karly again until November 17, 2004. This time
it was at the request of an official with Department of Human Services
Child Welfare, who wanted Dr. deSoyza to evaluate the child for signs
of possible child abuse.

Before making that first call to the state’s abuse hotline, Delynn had
attempted to collect more information from Karly.

“Does your momma work at night?” she asked Karly.

Karly nodded yes.

“Who takes care of you when your momma is gone?”

“Shawn does,” Karly said.

“Do you like it when Shawn takes care of you?” Delynn asked.

“No, Shawn spanks me,” Karly whimpered.

That was exactly the answer Delynn expected. Suspicious of Sarah
and her lifestyle, Delynn needed to get as many details as she could.
She repeated what Karly had said back to the child in hopes that Karly
would elaborate.

“Shawn spanks you?”

“No,” Karly said, shaking her head. She was clearly agitated now,
panicky even. “My daddy spanks me,” she said, and began to cry. “I’m
tired, Delynn.”

Troubled that she had upset the fragile child, Delynn said, “You
eat a little now and then you can lay down on the couch, okay?”
Karly nodded.

When David called after lunch, Delynn told him Karly had been
listless all morning long, preferring sleep rather than playing with the
other children. She did not eat her lunch.

“You need to get her in to a see a doctor,” Delynn said.

“Okay,” David said. “I’ll do that.”

“You know as a daycare provider I’m required by law to report the
changes I’m seeing in Karly,” Delynn warned.

“You do what you need to do,” David said. He was at his wits’ end
trying to figure out what was wrong with Karly. David had asked Delynn
if she had ever seen hair loss like Karly’s before. She had not. David
welcomed the idea of the complaints about Karly coming from someone
besides himself. Any time he questioned her, Sarah would accuse him
of being jealous and controlling. David didn’t know if Karly had some
undetermined illness or if she was miserable about her mother’s new
living arrangement. He knew, however, that Sarah lived in a constant
state of flux, changing jobs, changing boyfriends, and changing living
arrangements every few months.

On Tuesday, November 16, 2004, Matt Stark was working at the Oregon
Department of Human Services (DHS), the state agency responsible for
protecting children from neglect and abuse, when he first received a
referral for assessment alleging possible physical abuse regarding Karla
Isabelle Ruth Sheehan.

That next day, in the early afternoon, Stark called Delynn, who
carefully outlined her concerns: Karly’s erratic sleeping pattern, her
hair loss and an occasional odd bruising. Delynn told Stark she’d
insisted the parents get Karly in to see a doctor immediately. David
had called to say Karly had an appointment that very evening with
Dr. deSoyza at Samaritan Health Services in Corvallis. Oh, yeah, and
there was one more thing Stark should know: Sarah, Karly’s mama,
was upset and she was a force to be reckoned with.

“David told her I’d called the state and that it was her fault,” Delynn
said. “Sarah accused me of getting David mad at her. In the meantime,
I’m looking at their daughter asleep on my couch, thinking, why is
Karly sleeping for six hours here? Why is she behaving this way?”

Stark collected background information from Delynn. After
discussing the case with one of his coworkers, he called Detective Karin
Stauder of the Corvallis Police Department.

Stauder handled most of the child abuse cases for the police
department and served on the Linn/Benton Counties Child Abuse
Response Team (CART). The two discussed the case in detail. Then
Stark called Dr. Carol Chervenak, the medical director for the child
victim assessment center, known as the ABC (All Because Of Children)
House, in nearby Albany.

“I asked Dr. Chervenak for some guidance,” Stark said. “And I
reported the disturbed sleeping patterns and hair loss specifically.”

Dr. Chervenak should have evaluated Karly. That was standard
operating procedure for any suspected case of child abuse—but Stark
made an exception, allowing David and Sarah Sheehan to take Karly to
see her doctor instead.

Stark’s decision proved to be a critical blunder, an error in judgment
in a long line of such miscalculations. The moment former District
Attorney Scott Heiser referred to as a “failure.”

Another key piece of information overlooked was that Sarah’s live-in situation had recently changed. There was a new man in her life, and
in Karly’s. Instead, Shawn Field was about the last person investigators
suspected. He was a hometown boy. His daddy was a longtime employee
of HP. He came from good stock. Shawn had yard signs and bumper
stickers on his car urging people to vote conservatively—to protect
family values.

Dr. deSoyza agreed to see Karly at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday,
November 17, 2004. Shortly before Sarah arrived to pick up Karly from Rugrats,
Delynn attempted to pry information from the child. “I asked how she got the
‘owies’ on her head. I hadn’t noticed them the day before, but they were little
scabby areas. She told me, ‘My dad did it. He bites me.’”

Delynn was more confused than ever. She drafted a letter for the doctor, insisted
Sarah read and initial it.

Nov. 17, 2004

To whom it may concern:

Today Karly slept over 5 hours at daycare. On Friday, Nov.
12, she slept 4 hours (2 naps). Tuesday Nov. 16, she slept 4 hours (2 naps)
as well. Karly is requesting to take naps. She complains of being tired. She
fell asleep 2 times before lunch 2 different days the week of Nov. 8 while
she was sitting up watching “Barney.”

These 2 days are NOT the same days I have allowed her to nap
in the morning. Karly has been eating very well (not as much today) and requests
“more” food often. Karly is listless and will not wake up from noise (other
children) and seems uninterested in childcare routine and activities.

She fell asleep (after asking to go take a nap) on the couch
at 9:20 a.m. and I could not wake her up until lunchtime. She ate sparingly
and requested to go back to sleep. I laid her down again at 1:00 and she fell
back to sleep at approx. 1:15 p.m. She will not wake up readily to prompting
and at 3:30 I tried to wake her. She would not wake up. Her hair loss is noticeable
and I am concerned about her health. Delynn Zoller.

Delynn was the first person to file a report of possible child abuse.
Had she failed to do so, Delynn could have been in trouble with the law
herself.

David and Sarah had no idea a caseworker would join them
at the doctor’s office. They were talking with Mona Schneider, Dr. deSoyza’s
nurse, when Matt Stark showed up. A bookish-looking fellow with straight brown
hair, Stark looks like the sort of person who might pluck a guitar and write
songs rather than a man who spends his afternoons jotting graphic notes about
child abuse.

After introducing himself, Stark asked David and Sarah what
changes they had observed in Karly. As her parents talked, Stark
scribbled some details about the toddler’s appearance that he would
later translate for investigators:

“Karly had short, patchy hair and it appeared that she had lost some
hair in areas concentrated to the left and right sides from the center of
her head. I also noticed a yellowish spot at the top of Karly’s head. It
appeared at first glance to be bruising, an aging bruise or fading bruise.”

Stark asked about Karly’s recent sleeping patterns and, of course,
the hair loss. To his credit, Stark also asked Sarah whether or not Karly
was ever left alone with her new boyfriend.

Was Karly ever left alone with Shawn?
That one question had been
burning the edges of David’s sanity for weeks now. David’s heart quickened
as he searched Sarah’s eyes for any hint of deception. Surely, Sarah wouldn’t
lie to a state investigator when the welfare of her own daughter was at risk.
Sarah stared directly into David’s eyes as she answered Stark’s question.

“I was looking right at her as she told Matt Stark that Shawn was
never alone with Karly,” David said. “Like an idiot I believed her. I didn’t
think Shawn was ever left alone with Karly, so how could he possibly be
harming her?”

David would later learn of other lies Sarah told him about Shawn. “I
can’t believe all the lies she told to protect him from the start. She told
me they met at a playground, but in fact it was at a bar.”

Stark was pleased with how cooperative David and Sarah were, but
as soon as Stark told Sarah and David that he wanted to speak to Karly
without them present, the little girl got visibly upset. Worried about
Karly’s reaction, Stark asked Nurse Schneider to stick around and assist
him with the interview. She did.

Karly never made eye contact with Stark, nor did she answer to any of his
direct questions, even the simplest ones. The stuffed animals and the action
figures the nurse had retrieved from a toy bin distracted her. Karly nodded
her response to most of the questions. Whenever Stark attempted to ask more
detailed questions, specifically, “Tell me about your father,” Karly immediately
began crying for her daddy.

Stark ended the interview.

Dr. deSoyza greeted Karly warmly and noticed right away that
the toddler wasn’t her typical self. During routine visits, well-baby checks
and such, Karly was always talkative, vivacious, and full of mischief. Generally,
she liked to pull out all the drawers and explore the exam room, but not on
this night.

“Karly seemed a little clingy, a little subdued,” Dr. deSoyza noted.
The doctor spotted a small bruise on Karly’s right cheek and hair loss at
the crown of her head, toward the back. The spot wasn’t tender to the
touch but it did have some discoloration.

After speaking with David and Sarah, Dr. deSoyza ordered blood
work to test for lead poisoning. She also ordered an iron and thyroid
panel. All the tests came back within normal range. Karly’s tiredness,
bruising and hair loss were not the result of an underlying medical
condition. At this visit and the ones that would follow, Dr. deSoyza was
stumped by Karly’s ongoing symptoms. It was difficult for the family
doctor to contemplate child abuse, given her long-standing relationship
with David and Sarah. She regarded them as caring parents. It was
her reluctance to entertain child abuse that would help throw the
investigation off-course.

But that night, before leaving the doctor’s office, Matt Stark told
David and Sarah that the state would continue its investigation, in
cooperation with the Corvallis Police Department.

It was an ominous statement, and embedded within it was a
warning for David.