Empty Promises


Expertly analyzing a shocking, headline-making case, Rule unmasks the deadly motives inside a seemingly idyllic marriage: a beautiful young wife,
a rising star in America's top-ranked computer corporation, and a prosperous husband, the scion of a family building business. With an adorable
son and a gorgeous home, the couple seemed to have it all. But a furtive evil permeated their days and nights, dragging them into a murky world of
drugs, sordid sex, and con operations. In this realm, one of them would prove to be a virtual innocent, the other a manipulator with no conscience.
Sudden, violent death brought their charade of a fairy-tale romance to a tragic end -- with a brutal crime that might never have come to light were it
not for the stubborn detectives and prosecutors whose fight for justice spanned an entire decade.
Empty Promises recounts several other cases where the search for love brought only lies and betrayal -- a cautionary primer, perhaps, for those
who trust too much too soon. Powerful because they strike so close to home, the cases in Empty Promises will leave readers shaken by the
realities of love gone terribly -- and fatally -- wrong.

This searching analysis of the shooting of three children in Oregon by their mother devolves into a study of personality. In May of 1983, Diane
Downs drove to a Williamette Valley hospital emergency room with her children, all gravely wounded; one did not survive the first hour, and the
other two were disabled for life. Downs initially told of a "bushy-haired stranger" who had committed the crime, but frequently changed her story.
Under police questioning she recalled her childhood with a cold, domineering father who abused her sexually, her weak mother, a rape by one of
her bosses, her failed marriage and many men with whom she had sex. One of these men, whom she claimed to love, did not want children, and
that may have prompted the crime, speculates the author. The greatest strength of this book is the exploration by ex-policewoman Rule (The
Stranger Beside Me of the aberrant personality of Downs, who is now imprisoned and not eligible for parole until 2009

Dr. Deborah Green was a brilliant, wealthy, married mother of three who was convicted of repeatedly trying to poison her husband and of killing two of her children in a fire she methodically set in the family home. Rule (A Fever in the Heart, LJ 11/1/96) proves once again that she is a master of the true-crime genre?she builds the narrative from Green's days as a student of superior intelligence through her years in an increasingly unhappy marriage to her physician husband. Rule carefully chronicles Green's bizarre behavior and takes the reader through the arson investigation as well as Green's husband's illnesses, surgeries, and attempt to rebuild his life with his remaining child, who escaped the fire. Peppered throughout the narrative are quotes from Green herself, which expose her twisted thinking and her attempts to rationalize her behavior. An outstanding chronicle of a crime investigation as well as a riveting profile of a brilliant mind and empty soul.
-?Christine A. Moesch, Buffalo & Erie County P.L., N.Y.


Brad Cunningham was handsome, brilliant, a high-school hero in his native Seattle, a football star at the University of Washington. His family background was unusual, with a Native American mother of whom he was ashamed and an Anglo father who was contemptuous of women. As an adolescent, Brad was violent with his sisters and his mother. This pattern continued in his first, second and third marriages but reached its apogee with his fourth wife, Cheryl Keeton, a highly successful lawyer by whom he fathered three sons. When their marriage collapsed and she sought custody of their children, Brad, a bank executive, threatened her; in September 1986, she was found bludgeoned to death in her car on an Oregon highway. The case remained unresolved until Cheryl Keeton's estate filed a civil suit for damages against Brad in 1991. A criminal trial followed in 1993, in which Brad was found guilty of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 22 years. Rule (Small Sacrifices) provides a perceptive character analysis of a malignant, self-centered, charismatic con artist. It's a chilling, haunting portrait.

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