Family finds sister was murdered in Mesa in 1999

Mesa, Arizona - Cheri Cantrell left her family behind about 30 years ago with no real explanation. Her sister Bonnye Hughes often worried and wondered about the sister she hadn't heard from since probably 1992, she assumed Cantrell just didn't want to be found. The family finally did find her late last month. They learned through an Internet search that Cantrell had been murdered 10 years ago in the desert in east Mesa.

Cheri Cantrell left her family behind about 30 years ago with no real explanation. She'd drop by for short stays at her sister Bonnye Hughes' home occasionally and call one of her other siblings from time to time.

While Hughes often worried and wondered about the sister she hadn't heard from since probably 1992, she assumed Cantrell just didn't want to be found.

The family finally did find her late last month. They learned through an Internet search that Cantrell had been murdered 10 years ago in the desert in east Mesa.

"We're all pretty devastated because we all wonder why she stayed away," Hughes said. "Between all of us, there are plenty of houses she could stay, but she chose not to."

Now, Hughes is trying to find the money for a better final resting place for Cantrell than a pauper's grave in west Phoenix. She's also wrestling with the grief, guilt of not searching harder and second-guessing that came with the discovery of a murdered loved one who had distanced herself from her family.

And then there's the matter of the man convicted in Cantrell's death. He will be released from prison next year after serving a 10-year sentence for manslaughter, an outcome that angers Hughes.

"I know if we were there, it would have made a difference," Hughes said. "It wasn't manslaughter. He left her in a very degrading place in a degrading way."

Cantrell's death was well-documented in news articles in 1999, and the Mesa Police Department hyped the capture of her killer by reprinting in its 2002 annual report an East Valley Tribune article describing how the case was solved with DNA.

But while police found her killer, they couldn't find her mother or seven siblings scattered around the country.

Little was known about Cantrell except that she was homeless, and the people who lived on the streets with her in 1999 and attended her memorial knew nothing about her either, according to an Oct. 18, 1999, Tribune article.

They didn't know where she came from. She grew up in Flagstaff and California.

They didn't know if she had children. She had three.

They didn't know if she had ever married. She had, at least once.

Hughes said that from reading their descriptions of Cantrell, she knows for certain they were talking about her sister.

They said that although she struggled with mental illness and alcoholism, she was typically cheery and upbeat, unlike most in her situation.

"She was a really caring person - she always wanted to help somebody," Hughes said.

Cantrell was the oldest child in a family of five girls and three boys.

She began rebelling as a teenager, and while the rest of her brothers and sisters either went to college or entered the military when they moved out, "none of that ever panned out for her," Hughes said.

"She always felt she was the black sheep of the family - she was always getting into trouble," said Hughes, who lives in Yuba City, Calif.

Looking back, Hughes believes she suffered from mental illness that went undiagnosed and untreated.

Hughes saw her for the last time in 1979.

"She was always welcome. It wasn't like we ever blocked her out," Hughes said.

Cantrell lived for a while in Oregon. When their mother died in 1994, the family contacted police in the state to find Cantrell, but the search was unsuccessful.

Cantrell had made her way to Mesa by no later than 1998, when she had the first of two run-ins with police.

On Oct. 5, 1999, a 72-year-old man on a morning hike found Cantrell partially nude on her back in a spot near Southern Avenue and 97th Street where it appeared transients camped.

Clothing and trash were strewn around and an old mattress lay nearby.

There were also beer cans, cigarette butts and prints of a very large pair of Nike shoes.

Cantrell carried no ID, just a green lighter, three AA batteries, a silver hair clip, a key ring and a red discount card for radio station 98 KUPD-FM.

An autopsy revealed that she had been strangled, and her fingerprints revealed her identity.

Police sent the cigarette butts, beer cans and Cantrell's fingernail clippings for DNA analysis, but they had no other leads.

Two months after the murder, Rodger H. Brady, who was 43 then, was headed back to prison, where he had spent most of his life since his teen years.

This time, he was going away for 4½ years for being a repetitive drunken driver.

One of his previous convictions was for a December 1986 rape in which he tried to strangle a woman with a shoestring at a desert spot in east Mesa, according to court records.

"I was trying to force the girl into something she didn't want to do," he told police.

He was sentenced to 7½ years.

Not long before his DUI conviction, the Arizona Legislature passed a law requiring sex offenders to provide their DNA for a national database.

Mesa police got word on Sept. 14, 2000, that there was a DNA match for Cantrell's murder.

Brady's DNA was on four cigarettes at the scene, mixed with Cantrell's on four other butts and under Cantrell's fingernail clippings.

Investigators went to visit Brady in jail, but their interview didn't last long.

He hadn't drunk beer with anyone at the crime scene, he said.

He didn't know Cantrell, he said.

When the detective told Brady he was investigating Cantrell's death, Brady's response came with laughter.

"I didn't do it," he said.

That's when he asked for a lawyer.

A grand jury indicted Brady on a count of second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 10 to 22 years in prison.

Mesa police could place him at the scene, but according to a police report, they could find no other evidence to prove he strangled her.

People police interviewed had never met Cantrell or heard Brady speak of her.

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office offered Brady a deal in which he would plead no contest to manslaughter and receive a sentencing range of 5 to 10 years, the maximum for the crime. A no contest plea is an admission of sufficient evidence for a conviction, but it does not require a confession like a guilty plea does.

Brady admitted to a pre-sentence report writer that he and Cantrell were great friends and were drinking beer together, but he said she was alive and lying on a mattress when he left her.

"He feels responsible for her death because he should not have left her there," the report reads.

Brady declined to be interviewed by the Tribune.

Hughes said Brady's changing story on knowing Cantrell is proof to her that he strangled her.

"I believe that if the prosecution had gone with what they had, I am sure they could have convinced all 12 jurors that he was guilty," she said. "With what I have heard so far, I don't see Brady convincing even one juror, especially if Cheri's family were there."

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office declined comment, saying the case happened before County Attorney Andrew Thomas' time in office.

Hughes said she and her siblings would make cursory searches on the Internet for her, but nothing ever came up.

Last month, Cantrell's son found an obituary originating from Oregon for Cantrell, which got other family members to start searching.

Finally, someone found the reprinted Tribune article in the 2002 Mesa police annual report.

"I believe, in her time, she would have come back to look for us, but her time was brutally taken away from her and us," Hughes said.

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