Empty Promises: And Other True Cases Read online

  She noted that Steve talked a great deal about his sex life, and was surprised to find out that he was married to her old friend, Jami Hagel. But she was revolted to hear the way he talked about Jami.

  A number of women who worked with Steve soon learned that he slyly turned most conversations into sexual revelations. He often invited them to bring their boyfriends and come to parties at the Sherers' house in Redmond. Most said no at once, but a few were trapped into accepting when they ran out of excuses. Steve never threw any real parties, however. He invariably gathered the men into the den, where he showed them pornographic videos. Jami, while polite, always seemed embarrassed and uneasy when they entertained like this.

  There was no question that Steve had the toys to attract people to his home or his mother's vacation homes. He was able to persuade a few couples to go for boat rides on Lake Washington. Once he and Jami threw a Murder Mystery Game at their house in Redmond. But Steve most often turned people off by the way he treated his wife. All his joviality and energy were nullified by his cruelty toward Jami.

  "He had a controlling personality," one of Jami's Microsoft co-workers said. "He didn't smile or talk nice to her. She was open and friendly at work, but around him she was full of apprehension, anxiety and fear."

  Through it all, Jami stayed close to her mother and father. It was probably that connection that helped her survive emotionally. The things that mattered most to her were her son, Chris, her job, and the family she grew up with before Steve came along. By 1990, Jami realized that she couldn't stay in her marriage much longer. She still had too much self-esteem, however deeply buried, to allow Steve to destroy her. The old problem loomed, of course: walking away from Steve might be impossible. He never let go of anything or anyone until he was done with them, and he would use a dozen or so manipulative devices to hold on to Jami.

  Another friend was Brenda Yamamoto, who had worked at Microsoft for eleven years. She and Jami had offices in the same building. There were other friends that Jami felt close enough to to confide her despair. Janet Gilman had been hired at Microsoft the same day Jami was, and Janet remembered all too well the disintegration of Jami's marriage and the fear that gripped her.

  By mid-1990, Steve was apparently aware that Jami was inching away from him; he was jealous and suspicious. If it is possible to stalk one's own wife while still living with her, that was what Steve did. He called Jami continually at Microsoft, and she sometimes hid out in Janet's office to avoid his phone calls. They could hear the phone shrilling endlessly in Jami's office.

  On occasion, Janet was in Jami's office when Steve called, and he sounded like a rage-aholic, always furious about something. Even standing a few feet away, Janet could hear him yelling at Jami, who held the phone away from her ear and rolled her eyes at Janet.

  From those frequent calls, Steve progressed to dropping by Jami's office. Other employees' spouses came to their building only on special occasions. But not Steve. Most of Jami's co-workers at Microsoft knew Steve only by sight, but he grew more and more familiar as he appeared in Jami's office two or three times a day to check on her, just to be sure she was there. He called her even more often than before. It was difficult for her to get any work accomplished, and his calls and drop-ins interrupted her interviews with job applicants.

  Although Microsoft maintains a low-key atmosphere, this behavior wasn't acceptable for long at any business complex. Jami was mortified by Steve's constant visits, and the more he clung to her and spied on her, the more she pulled away.

  Sensing her withdrawal, Steve again began sending her flowers. One afternoon, Michael Sandberg, a mail clerk at Microsoft, delivered a long white box to Jami. She opened it, and he saw two dozen red roses nestled in the green tissue paper. "I said, 'Hey, you've got flowers,' " Sandberg said, "and she said, 'Yeah, they're from my husband.' She couldn't have cared less."

  Jami's two worlds had collided. She sometimes came to work with dark circles and bags under her eyes, and the women she worked with noticed bruises on her arms. She seemed haunted. It was getting crazier. Jami had never sneaked around on Steve, and they all knew it. She went from home to work, then to day care to pick up Chris, and then home again. But Steve seemed obsessed with the idea that she was cheating on him. Her women friends asked each other, "When would she have the time?"

  Occasionally, Steve stood out on the green campus at Microsoft and Jami— as well as everyone in her unit— could see him watching her windows. It was to them the sickest kind of voyeurism. Steve and Jami still lived together; they were still married. Why was he so obsessed?

  Once, Jami had to call Security to have Steve escorted from her office when he shouted so loud that his voice carried to nearby cubicles. Jami was terribly embarrassed, but nothing seemed to embarrass Steve; he felt entirely within his rights as he shadowed Jami. In his mind, she still belonged, totally, to him. The words he had once written to her in a sentimental card, words that had thrilled her at the time, came back to haunt her: "I can't stand not having you within my sight."

  Janet Gilman and Jami still had lunch together, most often at the Taco Time at the Bear Creek Shopping Center in Redmond. "Steve started to phone me," Janet said. "He wanted to verify that Jami had gone to lunch with me— where we went, what we had to eat, even what we talked about. After a few times, I just told him I wasn't going to do this anymore. He was spying on her."

  Steve had good reason to worry; Jami was planning her escape with utmost secrecy. The wife he had controlled for a half-dozen years was straining at the bars of her cage. With Janet and with other women friends, she was now talking about how she could get Steve to move out of the house. She was making the payments, and it was her Microsoft stock that secured the loan from his mother. She said that she wouldn't be stealing anything from Steve because he had put virtually nothing into the house. It seemed only fair to her that she and Chris should have a home.

  Sometimes Jami seemed strong and confident that she could have a life after Steve. She actually thought she could remain in her new house. She asked people about changing the locks, wondering if that would be enough to keep him out.

  At other times, though, Jami was more realistic, and willing to find another place to live where Steve wouldn't know her address. She could never leave the Seattle area— she was too close to her parents and brothers. Most of all, she would never leave Chris; she knew Steve would fight her for custody, just to make her life hell. She also knew that she and Chris belonged together. "She wanted to get away," Sherri Gruber, another friend, said, "but she was afraid— afraid for her life, and she wanted to take Chris with her. She was looking for anywhere she could hide from Steve."

  Sometimes Jami was pessimistic and stoic: "I'll never get away from Steve," she said flatly to Janet Gilman. "It doesn't matter where I go— he'll find me."

  6

  In 1990, Jami Sherer was twenty-six years old, and she had made some terrible choices in her life. She was not perfect, but she was a loyal daughter and sister, a wonderful mother and a dependable and intelligent employee. Then something happened that gave her hope that she could divorce Steve and leave all the bad memories behind. Ironically, it was Steve himself who introduced her to the man who would be the catalyst for her leaving. Lew Adams* was no prize; like Steve, he was addicted to cocaine. Technically, he was married, but he was separated from his wife. He was certainly not a man a woman should base her hopes on, but to Jami he looked like a lifeline. She came to know Lew because he was one of the sources of Steve's cocaine supply. Steve often suggested that Lew come home with him to make up a sexual threesome. He sometimes insisted that Lew spend the night on their living room couch. Steve even boasted to Lew that he enjoyed the idea of watching Jami with another man, but added that he would kill her if she ever cheated on him.

  When Lew met Jami Sherer, his heart melted. She was a dainty little thing with huge dark eyes and a tremulous smile. Although Steve treated her badly, she never fought back. Lew soon learned tha
t Steve had a way of making people do what he wanted. He wanted to see Jami again, but not with Steve anywhere around. Lew certainly wasn't in a position to offer her anything but a shoulder to cry on and an understanding ear, but he called Jami at Microsoft, and she was touched that he had. He felt sorry for Jami. He listened to her and told her she didn't deserve Steve's abuse.

  Lew was a few years older than Steve, five feet ten, and a slender 160 pounds. He was handsome enough, but in a dissipated, tight-wired way that reflected his addiction. Lew had graduated from high school in 1978, but his recall of the eighties was only a drugged blur. He took a job with Costco, the huge warehouse-store chain based in Washington State. Later he transferred to a new branch that opened in California as the company boomed. But when the company cut back its work force, Lew was one of the first to go.

  He later admitted that his cocaine use was out of control. He dealt from an ounce to five or six ounces at a time in order to supply his own needs. He snorted enough, however, to damage his nasal membranes. Concerned, he had gone to a doctor who told him, "I can't help you. You have to help yourself."

  Lew did himself little good; all he did was switch to freebasing crack cocaine. His dealing was a penny-ante operation: He took buyers' money, bought some crack, kept a little, and gave the rest to his buyers. During those years, he married a pretty young woman, Dru Adams,* who worked for the warehouse stores, and they had two children. "I stole to support my habit," he admitted, "and to support my family. I didn't get caught every time I stole."

  By 1990, Lew Adams was separated from his wife and living with his parents in the north end of Seattle. He had a job with a local Chevrolet dealer where he repaired used cars that were turned in for new models. He continued to sell cocaine, and Steve Sherer was one of his customers. There were parallels certainly between Steve Sherer and Lew Adams, but there were just as many areas where they differed: Lew had a conscience, no matter how deep he tried to bury it. Lew also respected women, and he did not believe in mistreating them.

  His fledgling relationship with Jami was no storybook romance. How could it be? Steve was orchestrating the whole thing. Steve even urged Lew to make the first call to Jami at work, although she didn't know it. Steve had decided that Lew would be part of their first threesome.

  Jami was drowning, starving, and struggling to be free of Steve. In her desperation, she perceived a great deal more in Lew Adams than he was able to provide. He was as embarrassed by Steve's sexual scenarios as Jami was.

  Meanwhile, by September 1990, Jami's friends at Microsoft saw a change in her. For the first time in a long time, she seemed optimistic as she told them she'd met a man who really seemed to care about her. She was like a schoolgirl when she talked about Lew, and even though they could see trouble ahead, her friends were so glad to see Jami smile again that they didn't have the heart to tell her to slow down. Surely she didn't have to be reminded that there would be trouble if Steve found out. They had no inkling that Steve had set it all up.

  Lew and Jami spoke on the phone a few times during the final days of the month. They met on Thursday, September 27, and Jami confided to several friends that she was going to see him alone on the weekend. On Friday, Jami told Brenda Yamamoto that she was so happy— she was going to meet Lew on Saturday.

  Kay Eck, who always felt like a kind of mother figure to Jami at Microsoft, recalled talking with her that week. "She put on a good front," Kay said, "[but] she felt like someone was stalking her for a few weeks.… She had hang-up phone calls. But she was so happy on Friday [September 28] —like a weight was lifted from her shoulders."

  That bright and sunny final week of September 1990 stood out in many people's minds. Lisa Cryder recalled it well. She and Jami had been friends since they were little girls playing in front of their houses in Bellevue, and they'd ridden horses together. "Then in the middle of the eighth grade," Lisa said, "my mother got remarried. Jami was an eastside kid and we moved across Lake Washington to Seattle, but we stayed friends."

  Lisa and Jami became really close again as adults when they gave birth to their babies only nine months apart. They got together to do fun things with their infants. At first, Lisa was surprised at Jami's changed physical appearance, but she soon realized that she was the same Jami underneath. Lisa's reaction to Steve, however, was similar to that of Jami's other friends; she was outraged by the way he treated Jami. On the last Saturday of September, Jami confided to Lisa, "I've met someone who listens to me— who's comforting me."

  Lisa was glad for Jami. "I told her to leave Steven," Lisa said, "that she should divorce him."

  Lisa offered Jami a place to run to. Her own marriage wasn't working well, and she and her husband were about to embark on a ninety-day trial separation. There was room in her Rose Hill home for Jami and Chris. This time, Jami said yes. She was enthusiastic about moving in with Lisa.

  Jami was finally ready to leave Steve. She knew he would be furious, but she felt strong enough to face him. If it meant leaving her house too, that was the price she would have to pay.

  Jami Sherer was playing a dangerous game, though. In order to spend Saturday, September 29, with Lew Adams, she told several untruths: She told her mother that Lisa had an advertising promotion event in Tacoma on Saturday, and she was going with her. She told Steve the same thing. She was lying to both of them, something that she had never done until she met Steve. Other things about her personality had changed; they were ways of surviving. Jami learned to be devious from a master, doing what she had to do to avoid violent fights, but she was ill equipped for deceit. She didn't feel strong enough to face life alone, so she lied about her date with Lew. Steve had undermined her self-confidence to a point where she couldn't leave him until she had another man to leap to.

  The old Jami would never have considered Lew Adams a safe jumping-off spot, but she no longer felt pretty or smart or interesting or lovable. Steve had chipped away at her self-esteem with his constant derogatory comments. If she had ever really been his "little rose," he'd long since forgotten about that and all the promises he'd made to her.

  On Friday night, Jami visited her parents and left Chris with her mother. On Saturday, she spent the day with Lew Adams. Remarkably for her, when Jami found out that her mother had to work on Saturday morning until almost noon, Jami had agreed to leave Chris with Steve for a few hours. But Steve called Judy Hagel in a short time and said he had decided to go out himself and he was going to bring Chris to her.

  It was a fairly ordinary Saturday for the Hagels; they often had Chris on weekends. Steve picked him up at about five-thirty that evening, and Judy assumed Jami would be home at the Redmond house within half an hour. But Jami called her mother about seven and said that she would be a little bit late.

  "I told her to call and tell Steve that," Judy remembered. "So she did and Steve brought Chris back over to our house and left him with us and went out."

  Jami's twin brothers, Rich and Rob, went out with Steve. They would remember later how angry he seemed and that he spoke again of what he would do to Jami if he ever caught her being unfaithful.

  At 2:00 A.M., Judy Hagel answered her phone and it was Steve asking if Jami was at her house. She could tell he was on something, but didn't comment on it. "I said, 'No, Jami isn't here,' " she recalled, "and then I didn't hear from him again until he called one more time and asked for her."

  Judy was concerned. She had never known Jami to stay out so late, but Jami knew that Chris was safe with Judy, so maybe she had gone to Lisa's to sleep. Judy tried to tell herself that.

  Steve called Judy Hagel again at seven-thirty in the morning to tell her that Jami had come home and was on her way to the Hagels'.

  That was a relief for Judy, who felt that her worries of the night before had been silly. "I gave Jami a big hug, and she walked in and Jerry was sitting at the table. She crawled up on Jerry's lap and she said, 'Daddy, I want to come home.' So we said, 'Okay! Gladly!' "

  Judy could tell that Jami h
ad something on her mind, so she asked her husband to take Chris downstairs so they could talk. "I asked her what was going on. I said, 'Where were you last night?' "

  "I was with Lew— he's a friend of Steve's. We went out for a pizza."

  "Why?"

  "Because he's somebody to talk to. He understands what's going on." "Jami," Judy sighed, "you're not improving yourself any here. Where does he work?"

  Jami had mentioned "Costco, in Lynnwood," but Judy wasn't sure if Jami had said that Lew or his wife, Dru, worked there or if she'd said that both of them worked there. All in all, it didn't sound good to her. Why on earth would Jami go out for a pizza and stay out all night with some friend of Steve's? Why hadn't Jami talked to Dru about her worries? If anyone understood how awful Jami's marriage was, Judy thought it would be Dru.

  Jami never got a chance to explain the situation to her mother because the phone began to ring. "It was him [Steve] calling for her, and I said, 'Give us time to talk,' and I hung up. We didn't even get to sit down at the table before he was on the phone again, and she kept saying 'I don't want to talk to him— I don't want to talk to him,' and it just kept on ringing. I finally said, 'Jami, you've got to talk to him, just for a minute.' "