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Tonight on Dateline. Oh my God! Karina, sit up. She said, I just drove by the Coopers and something's wrong.
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There's police and ambulances there. My mom said, I just got a phone call that Ryan is dead.
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I approach Ryan and I observe a bullet hole. He was shot twice. Somebody came into my house and killed my husband.
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When you get a case like this, you consider all possible suspects. Houston's known as a ladies' man who had a particular affinity for older women.
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He was into the cougars. I would say so. Sometimes Karen could drift into bad Karen.
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Yeah, when she had way too much to drink. Law enforcement recovered Snapchat messages.
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Snapchat messages don't actually go away. They don't go away. It was horrible language.
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Disgust. It's pretty clear evidence of what their plan was. The truth was coming out.
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for everyone to know. That was a tough pill to swallow. A brutal murder on a family farm.
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A plot hatched on Snapchat. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with The Farmer's Wife.
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It was June 18, 2021. Night had settled over the cornfields in Trayer, Iowa. The air was still and quiet.
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Ryan Cooper, a fourth-generation farmer, was home with his wife Karina and their three kids, in the comfort of their farmhouse.
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Ryan had fallen asleep on the living room recliner, not unusual after a long day working the land.
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His younger brother Aaron lived just a mile down the road. and your phone rings.
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About what time is it? 4.30. It was Ryan's wife, Karina. She called and was screaming that somebody was in her house.
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Does she give any more detail? No. It was just screaming and frantic and couldn't really make out too much of what she was saying
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besides somebody who's in her house. Grabbed my gun and headed towards Ryan's house.
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Do you just haul it over there at top speed? Yep. On the way, he called 911. Karina had also called emergency dispatch.
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When Aaron arrived at the house, he could hear Karina. So that's loud. Yeah, it was very loud.
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Aaron saw his 11-year-old nephew, Cade, at the window. He jumped out of the truck, still on the phone with 911.
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I am armed. Do you want me to proceed? Yeah. Every kid just came out and told me to come out.
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Okay. She's still screaming. So I went in the house and walked in the living room, and that's when I found my brother.
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What the f***? What the f***? Aaron is a volunteer firefighter, so he'd seen death before.
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But never like this. This was his brother. A lot of blood all over both of them.
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Big pool on the floor. And what's the first thing you do when you see that? And what do you say? What do you do?
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I don't really remember what I did. I checked for his pulse, and there was no pulse.
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Do you know if he's been shot? No. He has not, but there's blood coming out of his mouth.
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And you're in the, and all over on the floor. It was horrible. Worst thing I've ever seen.
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Minutes later, a sheriff's deputy arrived and spoke with Aaron. What's going on?
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Ryan was in his recliner chair, Karina sitting on top of him, still wailing. Ma'am, what happened?
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I don't know! The deputy searched the darkened rooms with a flashlight, making sure an intruder wasn't inside.
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He called for backup. 1079 is seven headed this way as well. They're almost to your location now.
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Tama County Deputy Travis Foster arrived next. As I walked towards the house, I could see two individuals, a male and a female.
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The male was identified as Aaron Cooper, and the female was found to be Karina Cooper.
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What happened? She said, I asked Aaron where the victim was, and he advised that the other deputy
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and his brother Ryan were inside the residence in the living room. I walked in, and Ryan's leaning back in his chair,
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slumped over. She's hysterical. That's the wife. County 7. Get a hold of the Emmy's office.
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I also advise 86-1 we have one deceased male. Soon the house was swarming with police, paramedics, the medical examiner, everyone trying to figure out what happened.
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Does he have any problems, mental health problems or anything? No. Well, you're fine.
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Aaron got the children out of the house and into his truck. He called his and Ryan's sister, Michelle Wilson.
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And he said, Ryan's dead. I'm like, what do you mean dead? Like, how? I don't know. And I said, you know, can you tell what happened? He's like, no, I don't. I don't know.
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In my mind I thinking did he fall and hit his head You know something at the farm Karina was still distraught when Deputy Foster brought her to his patrol car Can you tell me what happened A loud noise I got something to fill
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Did you see anybody else in the house? So did he do that to himself? No way. No way.
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Okay. she's just inconsolable and that's a typical response from losing a loved one
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or someone that's very close to you you know you kind of you know you just don't know what to do
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I'm here for you alright I'm here for you alright we just gotta figure out what happened first
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okay you wanna stand up yeah I need air okay okay just take a seat alright In those early morning hours at the crime scene, Karina, now a widow, could barely speak.
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But as the mystery of what happened deepened, there would be plenty of talk around this tiny town.
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Us girls are very inquisitive. The real housewives of Tama County. We took his phone and looked at all the messages.
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What did you think when you heard that? It was gossip. To think that everything could have just been a complete lie that whole time, it's hard to swallow.
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The sun was just beginning to rise over the cornfields when word spread. Something terrible had happened to Ryan Cooper.
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Karina's friend, Ashton Wilson. One of my good friends called me and said, I just drove by the Coopers and something's wrong.
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There's a lot of police and ambulances there. I think you need to check in with Karina.
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But before she could get there, her phone rang again. It was her mom. And she said, I don't know what happened,
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but I just got a phone call that Ryan is dead. Oh my gosh. Ryan's close friend, Jamie Earhart,
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rushed over to the farm to try to find out what happened. What are you left to think in those early moments?
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No idea. I mean, did he have a heart attack? Did he have a whatever? I mean, you know, maybe it was a health-related deal.
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There was another thought that this could be a medical issue. One of the deputies, their ambulance crew said
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it could have been a medical thing, like a hemorrhage. In those first chaotic hours, anything was possible.
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But after taking a closer look, the medical examiner determined Ryan did not die from natural causes.
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When does that information start coming out about what really happened to him as far as his injuries?
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By the middle of the day, maybe by the time we got to TUR, maybe, I think we probably had heard that there were gunshots.
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Investigators wondered if Ryan had taken his own life. Was it suicide? Did he shoot himself?
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Yeah. How did that sit with you when you heard that? Oh, not well. I'm like, there's no way. I can't imagine him doing that in the first
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place and I can't imagine him doing that in his home. Hard to imagine because at 42 years old, Ryan seemed to have it all. Was it clear that Ryan
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wanted to have a life on the farm when he grew up? For sure. Absolutely. There was never any question that he would be involved. That was
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his passion coming home and helping dad and being there to help with harvest and planting.
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As soon as he was 18, he went and got his license and started trucking and loved it.
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The Cooper farm went back four generations. Across the 2,000 acres of land, there were cattle
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to haul and fields of soybeans and corn to manage. Michelle, an accountant, did the bookkeeping while
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brothers Aaron and Ryan managed the crops and the animals. Mom would have been so proud to have seen
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all of us working together at the farm. The farm had always been a family affair,
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and Ryan wanted to keep it that way. Have some kids and live happily ever after. Farmer wants a
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wife. Yeah. Ryan was divorced with a young son when he started dating Karina Alpers. I've known
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Karina for a long time, and I thought she was a pretty fun person and all that kind of stuff, so
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and she always had very terrible taste in men and I told her that forever until she met Ryan.
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Where Ryan was quiet and reserved, Karina was outspoken. She was also a hairstylist.
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If you lived in town, chances were she cut your hair. All three of my kids got their first haircuts from Karina.
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She did my hair for a decade. I'm sure you two talked a lot. Yeah, therapy sessions half the time, yes.
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Exactly. Very much so. Karina and Ryan married and quickly built a family. They had their first baby.
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And then another one followed? Mm-hmm. Another boy? Yes. And then they had one more?
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Yep, little girl. A girl. Ryan and Karina were part of a tight circle of friends that included Jamie's wife, Carmen.
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She was, I mean, fun, outspoken. And Kirstie Shetta. You even had a name for your friend group that is dear to my heart?
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We did Tama County Housewives. I mean, I love that. The Housewives did girls trips, fun runs, and plenty of bar hopping.
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Ryan and his friends preferred adventure. Outdoor stuff, freedom type things. We did snowmobile trips and motorcycle trips and vacations and all kinds of things like that.
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Boating and camping Fun times Yeah great times But in recent months Jamie thought Ryan seemed down Did you feel like Ryan was acting a little differently Yeah the only thing that really comes to mind is we always do a trip to northern Wisconsin
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He always goes, no matter what, and he looks forward to it and made every excuse in the world not to go and then still went.
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And then when he got there, he just wasn't himself, wasn't his normal self. But suicide? Not Ryan.
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But he's not that kind of person. That's just not, that's not him. No. There's no way.
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He would never hurt himself and he would never, ever do anything like that in his own home with
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his wife and kids there. That home on the farm Ryan loved so much was locked down. The scene of
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a growing investigation when Tama County Detective Trevor Killian arrived a few hours after the first
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frantic call. I drive up the lane and the former sheriff is sitting there. So he walks me inside.
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The sheriff tells me that he thinks that there's a single gunshot wound to the face.
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Thinking it was suicide, they'd been looking for a gun. And when they moved the body to the floor, that's when they realized that there was no firearm present.
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And then I crouched down and I'm just taking a look at him. And then I observed what appeared to be a second bullet hole.
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I looked at the sheriff and I'm like, he's been shot twice. Wow. So this is very likely not a suicide if he's been shot twice.
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Yes. You have a murder on your hands. We do. This is 100% an active crime scene.
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Nobody comes here. What in Ryan's life had led to this deadly ending? Do you know anyone that was having any reason to hurt him?
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No. Nobody. He doesn't hurt anyone. Ryan and Karina Cooper's children had been taken from the crime scene to a relative's
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house. Ashton rushed over to be with them. They're so little. I mean, that was the first thing is, how did we go on? Do they know what
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happened? The boys were 11 and 8, the little girl only 4. Obviously, there was a lot of shock, crying. When I got there, both of the boys had been
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blood on them. Oh my gosh. So I knew that they obviously knew what had happened at that point.
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Friends, Jamie and Carmen were there too. I just said, I just, they gotta be strong.
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I'll stop there. That they need to be strong and that mom was hurt really bad right now.
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That we'd be there for her. Ryan and Karina's son, Cade, was feeling what seemed like a very adult emotion.
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guilt. Probably one of the most memorable comments was, you know, Cade just being terribly upset that
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he didn't sleep on the couch with dad that night. His mom wanted him to sleep in his room that night.
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She had just done another remodeling, repainting, you know, got his room all fixed up and
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moved around for him. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation joined what was now a
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homicide investigation. Is that normal that in a case like this that DCI comes to help?
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We do ask the assistance of the DCI as we're not fully capable of handling a full-blown
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death investigation. That morning, DCI agents interviewed Karina at the sheriff's office.
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Hours had passed. Her voice was a little steadier as she recounted the moments before she discovered
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her husband dead in the living room. There was a sound like something crashed in the kitchen.
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It sounded like something falling. It scared me. Kind of laid there for a second.
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Uh-huh. See, kids woke up, which they didn't. I got up and I peeked in the living room.
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He was laying there and I went to the kitchen and turned the light on in the living room and then...
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Okay. I just looked like he was sleeping. Okay. and then I walked up to him to touch his foot there in blood like everywhere.
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She said that she just heard a loud bang, which she got up to investigate, and that's when she found her husband was covered in blood.
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I know I scared the kids because Kate came running down. I thought, I don't know what I thought.
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I thought somebody was in the house. I put them in my bedroom and told them to lock the door.
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I think I'm going to get him to wake up. I think I'm going to get him to wake up.
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Did you hear any other sounds or commotions or anything other than the woman that woke you up?
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No, nothing. Like, cars go by all time of the night, and I didn't see it. I looked out the kitchen window.
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I didn't see anything. Okay. No sounds like the front door slamming shut or... No.
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Anyone running down your desk or down your steps or anything like that? No, nothing.
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Do you know anyone that had any reason to hurt him? No. Has he had any issues with anybody?
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No, nobody. He doesn't hurt anyone. Of course, investigators had to ask some difficult questions.
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That should be personal, okay, but again, these are things we need to ask. Has there been any marital issues between the two of you?
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We had a rough patch shortly after his mom passed away where we just weren getting along There wasn any real issue
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We were just both sad and communicating. She said they had their arguments, but they fought and they made up and everything was just fine.
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So no trouble in paradise for the Coopers. According to her, there was no issues.
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no issues that nobody else has he's been sleeping on the recliner yes he works a lot of hours and
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it's just sometimes easier to come home he just he sleeps in the reclining chair no affairs of any
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kind no by name or by you and the only reason i ask is if if someone went in and did something to
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him i'm just thinking about like uh the scorn lover type of thing or anything like that no okay
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so there's no we don't go anywhere we don't do anything he might go to the bar afterward with
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his friend riley and he's never home past eight that's how exciting we are investigators let
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karina get back to her children mom brought her back to my mom's house i met him there
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this is karina's brother kurt alpers if i remember right karina took a shower she was
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obviously messy. A bunch of her friends came to my mom's house and visited and gave their
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condolences. It was just a lot of crying, a lot of questions. Once Ryan's autopsy was complete,
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family and friends learned he had been murdered, shot twice in the face. What's going through your
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mind when this gets out? Nobody breaks into houses and shoots people in Dreher, Iowa, so
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it's just not something that happens. Crime scene techs had swabbed a home for fingerprints,
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for DNA. They photographed the house room by room, taking careful note of the blood pool and spatter
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on the walls of the living room. Outside, they photographed a partial bloody shoe print.
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Did that give any credence to this intruder theory that maybe that was an intruder running
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from the house? It did line up with that somebody had come inside and was at least at the scene
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and stepped in the blood and then left. In the driveway, another clue. There was a purse that was thrown outside of a vehicle door.
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It was Karina's purse. Is that suggesting that it could be a robbery? Yeah, that's what it appeared to be with Karina saying that
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an intruder had came in and had robbed them and shot her husband. And while investigators hadn't yet found a gun,
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They found a shell casing on the living room floor. It appeared that he was shot with a .22.
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And does that tell you anything? A .22 caliber? I mean, probably every farmer has one.
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They shoot coyotes, raccoons that are on their property. This could be anybody in the area.
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Yeah, and there's a major highway right there. Someone could easily jump on that highway and just be gone.
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Yeah, you got three different ways that you can go up the gravel. You can go east or west from the residence.
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East or west, the road out was open. But a tip would soon pull detectives right back to the farm.
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The only one that we've really had any business dealings with that have maybe gone awry would be Nolan.
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One thing that strikes you about this area is just how peaceful it is, and it feels so safe.
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Yeah. I can only imagine how this area must have been shattered by something like this, the fear.
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Yeah, without knowing what happened. It was sleepless nights for a while, for sure.
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Not knowing if we were in danger or not. I mean, it was terrifying to go home thinking that somebody murdered our friend a mile from our house.
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And, I mean, cameras went up on the farm all over. Locks were changed on the house within the week.
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Karina and the three kids stayed with her brother, Kurt. Karina said that she was always scared, fearful that whoever had done this is going to come for the family.
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Every night, I'd double-check the locks on the house. I bought a motion sensor, light.
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Kurt and his wife tried their best to distract the kids. We tried to keep them busy, keep their minds off things.
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I mean, you can only forget for so long before it comes back. And everyone had their own theory about what happened.
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My first assumption was that somebody stopped on the highway for some reason and was looking to rob the house or something like that
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and saw that Ryan was sitting in his recliner and freaked out. The town next to us was having their big celebration that weekend.
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Could it have been somebody that was here with the carnival? There was a lot of theories, a lot of speculation.
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It was really anything, anything that people could use to cope with what happened.
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Tama County Sheriff Casey Schmidt was a deputy at the time. I've met people in Tama County that will leave their doors unlocked and have for 60, 70 years.
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That just shows the type of community that we are. It's almost more shocking when it happens in a smaller community because everybody's so close.
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Everybody wants to know why it happened, what happened. It was Detective Killian's job to find those answers, and he didn't believe a random intruder was responsible.
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It just made no sense that somebody would come to a farmhouse and walk in the door and shoot someone in the face for no reason.
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You would think if it was an intruder or some type of robbery gone bad that usually...
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The robber is interrupted in some way. But you're assuming that Ryan was sleeping, right?
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Based on where he was found. Yeah, it did not appear that he had tried to get up.
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There was no defensive wounds. And while Karina's purse was in the driveway, there was cash on the kitchen counter, untouched.
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So if not a robbery, the detective thought it had to be personal. They talked to Karina again.
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Did Karina have any idea who may have wanted to do this to Ryan? The only name that she brought up was Nolan DeWall.
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That was a name Ryan's sister knew well. The only one that we've really had any business dealings with that maybe gone awry would be Nolan.
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Nolan DeWall had been a business partner in the Cooper Farms cattle operation, and he had some trouble with the law.
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A few years earlier, he was involved in a bank fraud scheme, writing bad checks totaling a quarter of a million dollars.
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He was good at like shifting things from here to there to try and cover. And some of those things kind of started happening in our business too.
00:25:05
Sneaky stuff. Yeah. And so, you know, it just got to the point where I think, you know, we're going to have to terminate this relationship and get out.
00:25:14
Would Ryan have been involved in that heap? The decision making of it's time for Nolan to go?
00:25:20
For sure. Yep. So Nolan and the Coopers cut ties. He lived and worked a 30-minute drive from the farm, and that's where investigators found him.
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Did an interview with him and just kind of asked him about Ryan Cooper, and he said that he had heard, because it was out, that he had been killed.
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Nolan denied having anything to do with Ryan's murder. And while he did own a .22 caliber pistol,
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he told police he didn't have it handy for them to look at because he kept it at his brother-in-law's house.
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detectives wanted to get their hands on that gun for testing and check out nolan's alibi
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and he wasn't the only person they needed to talk to you find out that there may have been an
00:26:05
altercation at a bar with ryan a few nights before the murder yes so there was someone at the bar
00:26:11
that night that had called us for a tip that says hey i think you should go talk to this person
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He could be a suspect. So we get a hold of the bar owner. He did make the comment to us that there was this Ronald Binken and Ryan had gotten to a verbal altercation.
00:26:30
The men knew each other through the farming business. I don't really think that he liked Ryan Cooper.
00:26:37
What was the altercation about or this verbal argument? What was it over? So nobody really told us what it was about.
00:26:44
They just said that they were having an altercation together. Detectives went to the bar and asked to see security footage from that night.
00:26:54
There was no audio associated with the video. It was just a picture. It just looked like a couple people having a normal conversation.
00:27:01
There was no finger pointing. There was nobody standing up, getting in anybody's face.
00:27:05
And there was certainly not a fight as it was put to us. That lead went nowhere.
00:27:11
Same with Nolan DeWall. Investigators did find his .22 caliber pistol. It was at his brother-in-law's house, like he said.
00:27:18
So that firearm was submitted and it did not match with the shell casing that was at the scene.
00:27:23
And we were able to follow up with his alibi that he wasn't even in the area. They cleared him as a suspect.
00:27:32
But investigators weren't out of names yet. Someone else had popped up on their radar.
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A young man with quite the reputation. He liked the older ladies. Oh, nice cougars.
00:28:00
Investigators trying to figure out who in this farm town might have hated Ryan Cooper enough to shoot him were crossing names off their list, including his former business partner and a man Ryan encountered at a bar.
00:28:12
Detectives were also eyeing someone else, a farmhand whose reputation around Trayer preceded him.
00:28:18
Houston Danker is a young man whose name just kind of popped up almost immediately.
00:28:26
Assistant Tama County Attorney Geneva Williams joined the investigation at the beginning.
00:28:31
He's known as a ladies' man. He was known as someone who had a particular affinity for older women.
00:28:38
He was only 23 years old and friends with Kirstie's son. He liked the older ladies.
00:28:44
He likes cougars. Yeah. We'd be working out at the gym in the mornings, and he was still in high school at this time.
00:28:53
Then he would drive up to the front window and watch us through the window, work out.
00:28:59
And Houston wasn't just ogling. There was one woman in particular that he wrecked their marriage.
00:29:05
Is that his best friend? Yeah. One of his high school buddies' mom, too. Yeah. Okay, that really is Stacy's mom.
00:29:13
Yeah. So he had an affair with his best friend's mom, and her marriage ended? Oh, yeah.
00:29:21
Houston was a client of Karina's at the salon, and investigators learned that Ryan thought he was interested in more than a haircut.
00:29:29
They heard Houston had been messaging with Karina on Snapchat, and Ryan wasn't happy about it.
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He is also brought in to talk to investigators. Yeah, Houston showed up at the Tame County Sheriff's Office.
00:29:41
Just grab a seat where... Yeah, if actually you'd grab a seat here, it'd be great.
00:29:43
So be good. His demeanor was very relaxed. Cooperative. He was very cooperative.
00:29:50
He was kind of joking with the DCI agent in the interview. Keep to mind, I don't know you.
00:29:54
I known you for what 10 minutes now Yeah But you kind of got a reputation where you pretty successful with the ladies right I the one Better luck than some
00:30:06
Or not as bad as others. Years ago. Years ago. Yeah, I mean, it's bad to say, but I'm young with two kids.
00:30:13
The rumor that's going around is Ryan, or you and Karina were Snapchatting. Did that actually happen at some point?
00:30:24
And I'm like, yeah, it's not anything, you know, just your typical Snapchat, like I said, Snapchat, random, you know.
00:30:31
What I was told, and keep in mind this is sometimes second and third hand through people, is that Ryan found out that you're Snapchatting.
00:30:40
Did Ryan never know about you two Snapchatting? Oh, yeah. But he said it was no big deal.
00:30:46
They were just friends. There's no point in kind of dancing. if you were screwing around with her
00:30:53
or what doesn't make you a killer, everybody's got weird s*** going on in their life, right?
00:30:57
Okay. So, I don't want you to get too nervous about it because if you had an affair with Karina,
00:31:04
it doesn't make you guilty of anything other than you had an affair with her. Right.
00:31:08
Well, I'll put it this way. I'll completely dumb it down. So, like, with me and Karina,
00:31:13
I was literally sitting there like, I would say, a gay best friend. I'm more like a gay best friend.
00:31:20
Only he's not gay. That's correct. Karina was 20 years older than Houston. He said she gave him advice and even offered to help him out with his kids.
00:31:32
Me and my baby mama split up. She loves kids, whatever. And she always told me, you know, if you're ever in a pinch,
00:31:40
hey, you know, I don't have a problem watching your kids. And then the snap tatting, did that kind of coincide with watching the kids?
00:31:46
Yeah, that's where that picked up. You're the hopeless single dad that needs help every now and then.
00:31:54
That's pretty well kind of the way, yeah. Houston said he was home asleep when the murder happened.
00:32:01
What time do you think you went to bed? Oh, probably 11, 11.30. So after a while.
00:32:10
Yeah, I'd say 10.30 a while. Did the investigators believe him? Yeah, I mean, we would follow up with this alibi to see.
00:32:19
So it's a long process for us. We added several rumors that we got to track down right now.
00:32:25
Yeah, so you're just one of them. I get it. Don't feel too spot. The interview ended with investigators concluding this lead was likely a dead end.
00:32:34
Just another red herring. I think they kind of explained it as just a friendship that maybe somebody had misinterpreted it as being a relationship.
00:32:45
But the idea that some kind of love triangle might be at the center of the murder was juicy gossip for a small town.
00:32:53
Ashton was quick to dismiss it as an absurd rumor. It was almost laughable. You know, one of my good friends' husband was just murdered and the rumor mill is just flying now.
00:33:04
There was a 20-year age gap. Investigators asked you about Houston? Yes. They asked if we thought maybe he was involved and I didn't think so.
00:33:13
I didn't think that was his way of doing things, just not his way of. He's more into cougars than killing.
00:33:20
I think he's more of a lover than a fighter. Months passed, the fall harvest arrived and still no arrest.
00:33:29
Yeah, it was very frustrating. And we were in touch with law enforcement weekly and we knew they were working on things, but it's just everything takes time and we just had to be patient.
00:33:40
And then, you know, as it became a cold case, then it was like, oh, you know. Did they actually call it a cold case?
00:33:47
Yes. The law enforcement? Yep. About six, seven months in. That seems so quick. It's only been seven months.
00:33:52
Right? Yeah. It hasn't even been a year. The trail to Ryan's killer had gone cold, but it was by no means frozen.
00:34:01
The truth about someone in his inner circle could be the key to it all. Enter Karen.
00:34:07
Sometimes Karen could drift into bad Karen. And, yeah, when she had way too much to drink.
00:34:26
In the months after Ryan Cooper's murder, Ashton Wilson saw her friend Karina doing her best to raise her three children without him.
00:34:33
It wasn't easy. She gave up cutting hair and moved with the kids into a different house on the Cooper farm.
00:34:39
And Karina's just feeling lonelier as the time goes on? Is that how you saw it? You know, I think so.
00:34:46
I think, you know, not as many people were reaching out or checking on her. She was just feeling, you know, lonely.
00:34:53
Truth was, while Ashton had remained close with Karina, other friends like Kirstie and Carmen had drifted away.
00:35:00
We did something together at least once a week, and we'd talk almost every day until our relationship really kind of went south.
00:35:09
The breakdown started before the murder, because being a real housewife of Tama County alongside Karina meant real drama sometimes followed.
00:35:19
Karina had a nickname when she was drinking. Yep, we called her Karen. Karen. Yeah, Karen. But it was Karen before there was all the Karens of the world.
00:35:27
So we should have copyrighted that, actually. It started off as a very fun, just general nickname for her.
00:35:37
Turns out Karina's alter ego wasn't always so funny. Sometimes Karen could drift into bad Karen.
00:35:43
Yeah, when she had way too much to drink, and she would use that as the excuse. Kirstie remembers one particular incident after a golf tournament.
00:35:55
There was many drinks to be had and she just kind of turned vile She would go outside the clubhouse and scream Like people could hear her from everywhere
00:36:06
What is everyone thinking when this is happening? Everybody thought, what is going on?
00:36:11
Everyone were like, Ryan, do you think it's time to take her home? And he's like, she ain't going to listen to me.
00:36:18
Jamie and Carmen say those drunken outbursts were often directed at Ryan. It could be just the smallest thing that would just set her off.
00:36:27
Like, why did you wear those boots? Why didn't you wear these other boots tonight?
00:36:30
I mean, just something like that. How did Ryan take it? He just kind of watered on a duck's back.
00:36:37
The friends hadn't told police about Karina's belligerent side, but investigators had their own concerns about her behavior.
00:36:45
Despite that cold case designation, detectives were still following up on leads.
00:36:49
and they couldn't shake the idea that some of the things Karina did seemed off, starting the morning of the murder.
00:36:56
Karina, instead of calling 911, calls Aaron, her brother-in-law. Yeah, that to me seems very odd in this case.
00:37:04
You call 911 if someone's hurt. If you need the police, you need the ambulance, you need to fire, you call 911.
00:37:12
Assistant County Attorney Geneva Williams says investigators were also scrutinizing
00:37:17
how Karina acted when the first responders did arrive. It seemed very unusual for her to be sitting on his body,
00:37:26
not trying to render any kind of aid, not allowing others to come and render any aid.
00:37:34
Everyone understands that people have different trauma responses, but it just seemed overboard.
00:37:41
She also thought it was odd that Karina wasn't more attentive to her children in that moment.
00:37:45
I'm always looking from the vantage point of a mother. And I just could not understand and I could not wrap my mind around why she wasn't initially running to protect her children.
00:38:01
And she seemed to be too wrapped up in her own emotional display. And there were things about Karina's story that didn't add up.
00:38:14
Like when she told one of the deputies she tried to get a gun to protect herself, but couldn't open her safe.
00:38:20
I couldn't get my gun out of the safe. You couldn't get your gun out of the safe?
00:38:26
Because when the deputy tried to do it himself. He was able to open up the safe, which then he goes, well, this is really weird.
00:38:32
She said she couldn't get her safe open, but I just walked over and opened it. Detective Killian also thought it was strange that Karina's 100-pound Rottweiler ransom had somehow slept through the attack.
00:38:44
Even Karina told us that the dog patrols the house at night and goes and checks on the kids in their bedrooms and makes sure that everybody's safe.
00:38:52
But the dog was asleep at the foot of the bed? It was in her bedroom at the foot of the bed, never got up, never woke up.
00:39:02
But for all the things about that first day that raised red flags, it was what Karina didn't do in the months that followed that really struck Detective Killian.
00:39:11
So Karina Cooper never contacted us and asked where the investigation stood. That would be something that you would think someone would be interested in, you know, who's taking your husband.
00:39:22
Yeah, you would think that she would want to know. Like, she would be demanding, like, why is this taking so long?
00:39:28
And she never contacted us. Karina didn't call them, and investigators had not talked to her since about a month after the murder.
00:39:37
Her brother Kurt said she had good reason to keep her distance. Karina would get upset when she was asked questions.
00:39:45
She felt like she was being accused. She felt like they thought she had something to do with it.
00:39:52
Investigators certainly had their suspicions. And the people of Trayer, Iowa had some as well.
00:39:58
That's a hot potato right there that you now have in the palm of your hand. I sat on that for quite some time.
00:40:05
One of the DCI agents slides the Snapchat conversation forward up on the dash, and there's just this pause.
00:40:16
There was another twist in all of this that you did not see coming. Right. We thought that the book was closed, and then they uncovered another chapter.
00:40:35
Ryan Cooper's family was not surprised to learn investigators suspected Karina was involved in his murder.
00:40:47
They wondered at themselves. Sister Michelle agreed that something about Karina's reaction seemed off from the start.
00:40:54
You don't know how anyone's going to respond in those kinds of situations, but just something didn't seem to mesh with the events of the day.
00:41:03
you want to stand up yeah okay like she was very broken up and very um emotional but
00:41:13
just not as genuine as you would think you felt like she was acting maybe maybe a little
00:41:21
and as time went on they could see she wasn't hounding police for answers like she never had contact with law enforcement again she did talk to aaron about the investigation
00:41:32
One morning she called and I think she saw they had found a shell casing and she wanted to know what that meant.
00:41:39
It seemed odd to me just because I would think she would know what a shell casing is because we've shot guns.
00:41:46
Erin thought she was playing dumb. While neither sibling wanted to believe Karina was capable of killing their brother, they were growing more and more suspicious.
00:41:55
She not behaving in a way of someone who innocent and wants their husband murder to be found But authorities urged them to keep Karina and the kids in their lives
00:42:06
So they celebrated holidays together and invited them on family vacations. If you think that this woman killed your brother and then you have to be nice to her, I don't even know.
00:42:16
Is the strategy just to keep her sort of, you know, off her guard? Yeah, so it was don't shun her out of the family and maybe something will come about that, that she'll let her guard down and let something slip.
00:42:30
She never did. More months passed. Detectives kept working and collected digital evidence using an investigative tool called geofencing.
00:42:38
They analyzed the cell phone and GPS data from traffic around the Cooper farmhouse in the hours before and after the murder.
00:42:45
It's an imaginary fence that would go over the property. We were looking for devices to, did anybody come there?
00:42:53
And did anybody leave? The geofencing data led to a major discovery. What they didn't see.
00:43:00
So we had no devices or anything coming and going from the residence. What was a possibility based on that?
00:43:06
That potentially Karina had murdered her husband. That the killer was inside the house.
00:43:12
She was. That was the theory anyway. They were eager to confront Karina with this new evidence.
00:43:19
But it had been almost two years since she last spoke with investigators, and they were worried she wouldn't agree to a meeting.
00:43:25
That's when the family keeping Karina close paid off. She'd always trusted Ryan's brother Aaron, and he asked her to sit down with detectives again.
00:43:34
Like, all right, here's your time to talk to them and settle anything that they have to talk about.
00:43:40
She said yes. And she said yeah. It was May 2023. A DCI special agent met Karina at the farm.
00:43:48
This will be an interview with Karina Cooper. He asked her to take him back to that June morning when she found her husband, Ryan, shot in his recliner.
00:43:58
I got up and kind of just to look and find that noise and find Ryan. Why didn't he wake up to that?
00:44:06
Yeah. When I went in the living room, I said his name a couple of times because it looked like he was sleeping.
00:44:13
She again described the chaotic scene when Aaron and first responders arrived and found her wailing on Ryan's lap.
00:44:20
I remember Aaron over my shoulder took his pulse and he was on the phone with 911 because I remember him saying, no, there's no pulse or something about it that I screamed and screamed.
00:44:30
I know that and I'm embarrassed that I did everything wrong I just remember screaming
00:44:37
I thought somebody was here The investigator drilled down on the details from that morning
00:44:43
And was Ransom in the bed or was he sleeping? No, he was at the foot of the bed Because you said you almost tripped over him
00:44:49
I did trip over him You did? But Karina grew impatient with the interview I need to be finishing up soon
00:44:55
so if there's something you have to do yet Yeah, yeah, I appreciate your time Thank you so much.
00:45:01
The investigator had one more thing to ask her about. So, Karina, I mean, at this point, the case fact shows that nobody did come into the house that night.
00:45:11
Somebody did. Somebody obviously came in here. My husband's dead. He is, Karina.
00:45:17
And we both know at this point why that is. Karina, we know that it wasn't someone coming inside the house.
00:45:24
You're leaving my property now. Somebody came into my house and killed my husband.
00:45:29
Karina, go figure out who killed my husband. Yeah, well, we did. We did. No, you obviously did.
00:45:37
Karina stormed outside. The investigator followed. Let's talk about it. No, get off my property.
00:45:43
You want to talk to my lawyer? Well, I don't want to talk to you. I just want to talk to you because you're the one that knows what happened to Ryan that night.
00:45:51
No, I don't. If I knew what happened to my husband, I'd be in jail because the f***ing f***er would be dead.
00:45:57
Karina. Get off my property! I talked to the investigator right after that. He said it didn't end well, and he got kicked off their property,
00:46:10
and she was not going to talk to them again. The sit-down didn't yield anything useful,
00:46:15
except maybe a glimpse at Karina's famous temper. Detective Killian felt they had a strong enough case against her.
00:46:21
But it was up to the Iowa Attorney General's office to file charges, And he says the assistant AG assigned to the case wasn't receptive.
00:46:29
More months passed until a chance encounter with the AG herself allowed the detective to make his case.
00:46:36
I had a conversation with her that I feel she's got this big momentum of really pursuing Iowa cold cases.
00:46:43
This is a cold case. I felt like your office maybe wasn't given the assistance that we needed.
00:46:50
And she said that she was not aware of that. Soon after that meeting, a new prosecutor from the Attorney General's office was assigned to the case.
00:46:58
But it wasn't just a fresh set of eyes that would finally break it open. There would also be a fresh set of revelations.
00:47:05
We took his phone and looked at all the messages, and it was just tons of messages of I love yous and messages.
00:47:13
Oh my gosh. So it was like clearly an affair. It was fall 2023. A new prosecutor was assigned to review the Ryan Cooper case.
00:47:37
Assistant Attorney General Michael Ringel. It's one of those cases where I look at it and we're not at a standstill.
00:47:42
We're not dead in the water. There's things that we can do. Ringel spent three months with investigators and the local prosecutor
00:47:48
looking at the case from every angle, reviewing witness statements and eliminating all other possibilities
00:47:54
before coming to the same conclusion as Detective Killian. We thought there was enough evidence
00:48:00
to proceed mike comes in and says i think we have enough for the arrest on february 16th 2024
00:48:06
detective killian rolled onto the cooper farm with a team of deputies karina walked outside to greet them all right we got some paperwork for you
00:48:16
well you're under arrest what yep so we're placing you under arrest there's going to be
00:48:21
some people at the sheriff's office that are going to be talking to you why am i under arrest
00:48:25
if you'll let me my children you guys my children what is happening here what is happening so we have a copy of your warrant for you i don't understand what
00:48:38
this is insane my kids are going to be so scared how is this happening dog one oh
00:48:49
I got a call from Trevor Killian in the morning and said, we just arrested Trina.
00:49:00
Can you come over and get the kids? What's that like? It was a lot of emotion. Six to your stomach type of feeling.
00:49:10
It wasn't a good feeling. Ashton got a frantic phone call from one of Karina's sons.
00:49:17
The cops are here arresting Mom. What goes through your mind when you hear that?
00:49:21
Unbelievable, you know, what is happening. I just did not believe it. They're out of leads, and this is their next one.
00:49:30
Ashton was sure Karina was innocent. So was Karina's brother, Kurt, who visited her in jail soon after the arrest.
00:49:36
I do remember she saying to me, you don't believe any of this, do you? And I told her, absolutely not.
00:49:43
No, you didn't do it. They're mistaken. He found his sister, two defense attorneys, Erin Hawbaker and Nicole Watt.
00:49:51
And what were your first impressions? My first impression was that she was possibly a victim here of a wrongful prosecution.
00:49:59
Why did you think that? Because it didn't sound like there was any evidence against her at all.
00:50:03
They're looking at Karina as the sole killer in this. And yet you have this shoe print coming out of the house.
00:50:13
Right. The physical evidence did not line up with her being responsible for this.
00:50:18
Like the fact that no murder weapon had been found. And another gaping hole. No proof of any motive.
00:50:25
Investigators were working on that. And right after the arrest, they reached out to Karina's close circle of girlfriends, including Kirstie.
00:50:32
And they called and said, I don't know if you know, but Karina's being arrested.
00:50:38
And we would like you to come down and for us to talk to you. I mean, you must have been just shaking.
00:50:44
I still am. Like you're shaking now. I mean, I can only imagine in the moment. Yeah.
00:50:48
What are they hoping that you can offer? I think just what kind of person she was, if there was anything going on.
00:50:57
It was the first time Kirstie spoke with investigators. They had questions about Houston Danker, the young womanizer who jokingly called himself Karina's gay best friend.
00:51:08
Rumors of an affair between the two had not died down, and detectives wanted to see what Kirstie knew.
00:51:14
Turned out, a lot. I had heard some things that really started to kind of concern me.
00:51:22
It was several months before the murder. Kirstie was hanging out with some other moms.
00:51:27
Another friend came and said that she was with Houston Danker all day. There was just like hundreds of messages coming through between him and Karina.
00:51:36
What kind of messages? And that's what we were like, what do you mean? He was only a couple years older than my son.
00:51:46
Then Houston himself showed up at the house. Us girls are very inquisitive. So we took his phone.
00:51:54
The Real Housewives of Tama County. We took his phone and looked at all the messages.
00:52:01
and it was just tons of messages of I love yous and messages. Oh my gosh. So it was like.
00:52:08
This is on his phone. Clearly an affair. I mean, here she is. She has this great husband, children, business farm friends,
00:52:16
and then now she's with this guy half her age. Although I just couldn't even wrap my head around and understand that.
00:52:24
I mean, that's a hot potato right there that you now have in the palm of your hand.
00:52:31
I sat on that for quite some time, and I regret that probably to this day. But now she told investigators everything.
00:52:43
Did that feel at all cathartic to you that you'd held this in for so long, and then now it's finally out in the open?
00:52:49
Yes and no. Like, I want to help bring justice to Ryan, but also there's those years of friendship.
00:53:02
Did you feel like you were, in a way, betraying Karina? Yeah. But Kirstie's story wasn't hard evidence.
00:53:09
The messages she saw were on Snapchat and long gone. That's because Snapchat is designed to delete most communications 24 hours after they're seen.
00:53:18
Authorities had been in possession of Karina's phone since the day of the murder
00:53:22
and found no evidence of an affair with Houston. Now, the new prosecutor wanted a second look.
00:53:28
Did you sort of feel like it was a bit of a Hail Mary since it had already been looked at?
00:53:32
To some degree, yes. He reached out to a forensic investigator at the University of Iowa
00:53:37
and asked her to try to extract additional evidence from the phone. She hit pay dirt.
00:53:42
Turns out deleted Snapchats sometimes don't completely disappear. The expert was able to recover a trove of messages between Karina and Houston Danker.
00:53:51
What exactly are you reading on these messages? The Snapchat messages made clear that Karina Cooper and Houston Danker were engaged in some sort of an affair The gay best friend is having sex with his female friend
00:54:07
It was all there on Karina's phone. Messages like this one from Houston. You got to see me in my underwear this morning, and I haven't gotten to see you.
00:54:16
In another, Karina tells Houston, just fell even harder for you. They even discussed having a baby through IVF.
00:54:23
There were discussions of essentially Houston Danker assuming Ryan Cooper's role in Karina's life.
00:54:31
Conversations about having their own children together, essentially plans for the future.
00:54:35
It was time to talk to Houston Danker again. What would the young man have to say now?
00:54:41
Are you guys telling me that I'm the one that did it? Investigators wanted another interview with Houston Danker,
00:55:00
the young man they just confirmed was having an affair with Karina when her husband was murdered.
00:55:04
He ended up being in Cedar Rapids and agrees to meet the DCI agents in Menard's parking lot.
00:55:16
Thanks for taking time out of your busy workday. Obviously, at this point, Karina's been arrested, you know.
00:55:24
Yeah. As things have moved along, there's still a few gaps in our knowledge. They told Houston they knew all about the affair, and now he readily admitted to it.
00:55:34
You'd become romantically attracted to her. Yeah. Right, and things had progressed.
00:55:38
Yeah. Houston told them Ryan had confronted him, and he lied his way out of it. Did he basically ask you if there was something going on between you and Karina?
00:55:48
Pretty much. You just straight up said no. Yeah. When he got a hold of me about that, I mean, that made me feel pretty low.
00:55:53
I mean, to call a spade a spade, it felt bad for kind of pissing in his cheerio.
00:55:58
Okay. Did you guys ever talk about a plan to relocate together or live together at some point in the future?
00:56:08
No. One of the DCI agents slides the Snapchat conversation forward up on the dash.
00:56:15
and there's just this pause. And they upped the pressure even more. It wasn't true, but they told Houston
00:56:25
that Karina was cooperating from jail and was pointing the finger at him. Karina has a way of explaining this.
00:56:36
And it's Houston who is the love-crazed person who just hated Ryan. And that will be the story
00:56:45
to get sold and that's not true no it's not true tell me about that night so i mean just to be
00:56:51
honest with you karina wanted me to go over there and do it yeah let's start over uh and talk about
00:57:00
these early morning hours right um i guess what i'm gonna ask you guys right now are you guys
00:57:06
telling me that i'm the one that did it Then it all came spilling out. His version of events anyway.
00:57:16
Who first put the idea forward to end his life? Krayna. What would be the next thing then that would happen in the plan?
00:57:25
Was to, I guess, be together? And live life together? Which, that would never happen.
00:57:34
Was this 50-50? Would you say? I would feel like I was forced in a lot of that stuff.
00:57:42
Houston said the plan was for him to be the shooter, but then he changed his mind.
00:57:47
How did she receive that? When you're like, I kind of want to do this. Not very good.
00:57:53
Call me a pussy. You know, thought you were going to take care of us. Things like that.
00:58:01
Houston said he did agree to help. He lent Karina his gun. Okay. Ryan got shot with a .22 that I own.
00:58:10
Who shot him? Karina. Where were you at? At home. He said that after Karina killed Ryan, he drove to the farm to retrieve the weapon.
00:58:23
He was careful to leave his phone at home. Where was it at when you picked it up?
00:58:27
In the driveway. What vehicle did you drive over there to pick the gun up? A four-wheeler.
00:58:35
kind of be under the radar, I suppose. Houston Danker is denying having anything to do with the shooting.
00:58:42
Correct. But he's implicating himself. He thinks that he did nothing wrong. He said it was all Karina,
00:58:50
an older woman who manipulated him. She's a pretty dominant person. It was so forced upon me.
00:58:57
And like I said, once again, should have just been a bigger person, said, Karina, f*** you.
00:59:01
This is stupid. This is f***ing dumb. What are we doing? Investigators didn't believe all of Houston's story.
00:59:08
They suspected he was in the house when Ryan was killed. That bloody shoe print found at the crime scene
00:59:15
turned out to be from a Van sneaker, which matched his shoes. Are you guys arresting me? Just be honest with me.
00:59:23
At this point, based on what you just shared with me, we do need to place you under arrest.
00:59:29
Like Karina, Houston Danker was charged with first-degree murder. That was a big shock
00:59:39
because we were told early on that they talked to him several times and he wasn't a suspect anymore.
00:59:45
That he had an alibi and there's nothing they had on him. Turns out that was not the case.
00:59:51
Yeah, that was not the case. Ashton at first thought Houston arrest meant Karina was innocent I felt relief because I thought I told you guys I told you she didn do this I knew she couldn do this And then it took about five minutes for it to kind of hit me that they did this together
01:00:09
That's a tough pill to swallow. Yeah. But was that the whole story? A jury was about to hear two very different versions of events.
01:00:19
She tells Houston Danker, go, now's the time. She's wrapped up in something, doesn't think this is actually going to happen.
01:00:40
Karina Cooper and her much younger lover, Houston Danker, were each facing life behind bars for killing Karina's husband, Ryan.
01:00:49
There would be two separate trials. Karina's would come first. The prosecutor knew there were challenges.
01:00:57
I mean, this is a farmer's wife. Her children are in the house. She's a hairdresser.
01:01:03
She's, you know, a member of this tight-knit community. Did you worry that jurors would have a hard time seeing her as a cold-blooded killer?
01:01:13
Yes. I think it's something that's really hard for people to understand. We had a concern that jurors maybe wouldn't allow themselves to believe it.
01:01:21
The prosecution team was a trio. Joining Michael Ringel and Geneva Williams was Assistant Attorney General Israel Kodiaga.
01:01:28
The evidence will show that she is a murderer. Evidence in this case will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she is guilty.
01:01:39
They told the jury that Karina and Houston planned the murder together, executing Ryan while he slept.
01:01:45
And the state said the two had a plan for financing their future together. There was also a lot of money involved in this as far as life insurance that Karina was set to collect.
01:01:56
Correct. We were able to find out that there was an insurance policy in the amount of $500,000 of which Karina was the beneficiary.
01:02:05
Prosecutors showed jurors footage of the chaotic scene at the farmhouse, including Karina sitting on her husband's bloody body.
01:02:14
They said she did that for a reason. She jumps on Ryan. She puts her face, forehead, hair, into the blood coming from Ryan's face.
01:02:28
Why is her face on the left side where the bullet holes are? Because she's concealing evidence.
01:02:36
I believe that she pulled the trigger and that caused back spatter or blood to spray onto her face,
01:02:42
which explains why she was sitting on Ryan Cooper when law enforcement arrived, rubbing her face essentially on the wound, covering her own face in blood.
01:02:52
That's what Ryan's brother Aaron walked into that morning. Aaron has first responder training and testified that he noticed something odd about the blood.
01:03:02
At that point, it looked like it was darkening. It wasn't bright red. What did that mean to you?
01:03:08
That it wasn't immediately fresh. Prosecutors argued that meant Ryan had been shot earlier than Karina claimed.
01:03:16
And they said her phone backed that up. You extracted some health data from Karina's phone that showed something suspicious to you about her movements.
01:03:27
Yes, it showed that she was up and was moving around the house during a period of time that she said she was asleep.
01:03:34
A full 10 minutes before she called for help. The phone shows that she was walking between 423 and 433, 170 steps.
01:03:49
The state called the Cooper's eldest son, Cade, to the stand. With cameras barred for his testimony, the now 15-year-old told the jury that on the night of the murder,
01:03:58
his mother instructed him to sleep in his own bed instead of his usual spot on the couch near his dad.
01:04:04
It was a critical piece of information that shows the level of planning and calculation on her part.
01:04:11
Is it possible that she's just a mom, you know, saying, hey, you're not getting a good night sleep.
01:04:16
I want you to start sleeping in your own bed. It's absolutely possible in isolation.
01:04:21
But when you look at the full constellation of evidence, every piece together, is it probable or likely that this was an innocent act?
01:04:30
It's not. The state also called friends, including Carmen Earhart, who told the jury about fights she
01:04:37
saw between Ryan and Karina. She was arguing with Ryan. Another friend tried to step in and kind of like, to solve the situation.
01:04:46
She even grabbed that person by the hair and ripped them back out of the argument.
01:04:50
So you could physically tell that she was very upset. Another friend, Theresa McBride, testified she heard this threat directed at Ryan.
01:05:00
Well, the one that stands out in my mind is the night that she yelled at him and said that she hated him and would shoot him in the face.
01:05:12
But the state's strongest evidence appeared to be Carina and Houston's own words.
01:05:17
Those Snapchat messages recovered by the prosecution's expert. And those messages revealed a lot more than just pillow talk.
01:05:25
In one, she belittled Ryan as just her sperm donor. In another, she seemed to wish he was dead.
01:05:32
You found one of her Snapchat messages to Houston Danker said, I'm wishing for a rogue semi-accident, no survivors.
01:05:40
And Ryan drove a truck. He did. He drove a semi with some regularity for his farm duties.
01:05:46
And yes, she sent that message to Houston Danker, which clearly indicates, from the state's perspective, malice.
01:05:53
But the most damning were messages about the murder itself I certainly think they done a good job of deleting the most incriminating snaps And a lot of what they did was pretty stupid
01:06:06
Pretty easily discovered. Roughly an hour before the 911 call, Houston messaged Karina.
01:06:13
Okay, babe, seriously putting the phone down. Have to get this expletive done. I love you.
01:06:20
Karina replied, go. She tells Houston Danker, go, which was the sign that the coast was clear for him to come into the house and for the two of them to commit this murder.
01:06:33
And the state said if there was any doubt about what they were discussing, look at what else Houston said.
01:06:39
Remember those casings. Karina's reply? Absolutely. 100%. They shoot Ryan. The plan is for Houston to get out of there as fast as possible out that door, which is exactly what happened.
01:06:54
Karina's job is to find shell casings. She uses her cell phone flashlight to search around.
01:06:58
She finds one. She doesn't find the other. Karina's brother, Kurt, had stood by her side since her arrest.
01:07:08
Now, as he sat in court, the full weight of the evidence sunk in. I was disgusted.
01:07:13
It was disgusting. coming home from the trial that my mom muttered something like, where did I go wrong? I mean,
01:07:22
it's not something she did, obviously. How could Karina possibly recover from this?
01:07:30
She was about to try by telling her story directly to the jury. I was disgusted and scared of losing my husband.
01:07:45
Over and over, Karina Cooper told friends and family she did not kill her husband Ryan.
01:07:58
Now, her defense was about to explain what really happened. Houston Danker killed Ryan Cooper.
01:08:06
Houston Danker shot Ryan Cooper in the face. The strategy was point the finger at Houston Danker that he's your guy that you want to be focusing on here.
01:08:16
He is and that it's like she's wrapped up in something, doesn't think this is actually going to happen, and then it does.
01:08:21
Karina's story was the opposite of what Houston told police. In her version, the younger man coerced her into taking part in the murder.
01:08:30
Houston Danker solicited Karina. Houston Danker manipulated Karina. Karina Cooper was in a dream world, and then it became real, and then she was in too deep.
01:08:43
And no one could explain that better than Karina. You swear or affirm that the testimony you'll be giving in these proceedings will be the truth.
01:08:50
I do, Your Honor. You decided to put Karina on the stand. Yes. And why? Because that's something that we don't see very often.
01:08:57
The jury needed to hear that she's a regular person, a good mother, somebody who loves her children, and who would not do this.
01:09:04
And so she had to take the stand so the jury could see more than just her sitting next to us at the table silently.
01:09:12
From the witness chair, Karina described how, as a married mother of three, she ended up in a relationship with a man 20 years younger.
01:09:19
How did you meet him? I knew of him for years, but I started cutting his hair is how I met him.
01:09:26
And I was being showered with attention by him being told I was beautiful and funny.
01:09:32
funny. Why can't I find a woman like that? And it became very flattering to me. Karina testified that the romance was mostly a fantasy that played out on Snapchat.
01:09:44
It's odd because when I would cut his hair, we would talk about the same things that I would
01:09:49
talk about with any other customers. It wasn't lewd. It wasn't flirtatious. That was when we
01:09:58
snapchatted at night that that it was like we were shy in person but became other people when
01:10:05
we were texting each other at one point did it become physical there was one physical encounter
01:10:11
yes the last time i cut his hair before he killed ryan it would have been in february i cut his hair
01:10:18
and we had sex after that she told houston to stop coming to the salon why did you stop cutting
01:10:26
his hair because I didn't want that chance of that happening ever again. It was an online
01:10:33
fantasy thing and when it became a physical in-person thing I was disgusted and scared
01:10:41
of losing my husband. But Karina said Houston refused to back off. Houston acted like he was
01:10:49
my husband and Ryan was my boyfriend. Karina told the court that Houston was the one who wanted Ryan
01:10:56
dead. Did Houston talk about killing Ryan? Several times. Did you ever take him seriously?
01:11:04
No, I thought he was full of crap. He's got quite a reputation around town with women and telling
01:11:11
tall tales. She insisted she had no idea what Houston was planning to do until the worst had
01:11:17
already happened. You get to the living room, you turn on the lamp. What happens? I see Ryan and then
01:11:23
I see a large pool of blood. I shook his foot. And then I just started screaming.
01:11:36
Can you tell us why you called Aaron instead of 911 first? Aaron lives less than a mile from us.
01:11:43
Aaron is a first responder. Aaron is the person closest to us that I would trust in a time of emergency.
01:11:50
I called him because I was panicking. Ryan was killed with her three children home.
01:11:57
Would you ever orchestrate the Your husband with your three kids home. Never. One of the points that you wanted to make for the jury was that what kind of mother would kill her husband in this small farmhouse with the children home?
01:12:14
That was one of the reasons I believe that she was innocent, because for all intents and purposes, she seemed like a very good mother.
01:12:22
Karina said although she never saw Houston in the house, she knew no one else could have killed Ryan.
01:12:27
Then when the police get there, why didn't you tell them? Houston shot my husband.
01:12:35
I was so scared. I instantly thought I was being set up in one of his plots that he laid out all the time through Snapchat.
01:12:45
I panicked. And then did you continue to lie to law enforcement for years? I did.
01:12:58
Once she committed to a path which wasn't coming clean about her relationship with Houston Danker, it was too late.
01:13:05
You know, if she would have come forward and said, this is what was going on, this might have been a different result.
01:13:11
From the beginning, the defense understood the importance of addressing some of the most damaging evidence.
01:13:17
The elephant in the room, which is, you know, the Snapchat. There's a message about a rogue semi-accident that we saw on the Snapchat.
01:13:24
Did you want your husband dead? No. Why would you say that? Because I have a really sick sense of humor sometimes, inappropriate humor, and I was probably angry.
01:13:40
Like people have said, especially when I drink, I can say, I have a sharp tongue sometimes.
01:13:46
I can say nasty things. And what about that message she sent just before Ryan was killed?
01:13:51
The one prosecutor said simply read, go? She testified there was more to it. I know I said more.
01:13:59
I sent three messages in a row. What did they say? Go to sleep. Three messages. Like putting periods in between the words to emphasize go to sleep.
01:14:10
In other words, she was telling Houston goodnight, not come over and help me kill my husband.
01:14:17
The defense said the prosecution's expert had essentially hacked into Karina's phone and didn't recover everything.
01:14:22
for everything. She claims she said go to sleep, that there were three messages and the data didn't retrieve completely.
01:14:28
And we fought a lot about data loss from phone information and phone dumps It essentially a hack The software is them kind of getting through the back door and being able to expose some information but they can answer They can figure everything out But one thing was clear in those digital conversations
01:14:45
According to the defense, once Ryan was killed, communication between the lovers abruptly ended.
01:14:51
Nobody testified to any indication of a continued relationship between Karina and Houston. So
01:14:57
Why does it end? It ends because it became real and he actually killed her husband.
01:15:05
Houston Danker on this evening went rogue. And he actually did it. Among those listening in court was Ashton.
01:15:14
Still struggling to make sense of it all. You watched her up there. How did that feel?
01:15:20
I mean, there was parts of her story that became believable. Maybe she was manipulated into this.
01:15:31
Would the jury feel the same way? The testimony you'll be giving in these proceedings...
01:15:46
Karina Cooper had just told the jury she was manipulated by Houston Danker, and he was the one who shot her husband.
01:15:53
You state you loved Ryan Cooper? Yes. You loved him? Yes. Very much? Yes. Now, prosecutor Israel Kodiaga made it his mission to poke holes in her story.
01:16:06
You are the lover. That's what you call him, yes. What do you call him? I called him an online inappropriate relationship.
01:16:15
We felt confident that even if people did have sympathy for her, we could remind them of the evidence that they'd seen.
01:16:23
The person you just referred to as a spam donor, that's your husband, Brian. Cooper, who you tell this jury you loved so dearly.
01:16:34
I think we all called the people that we love names at times. He then asked Karina to read her own loving words to Houston.
01:16:42
I swear, heart emoji. It just felt even harder for you, which I don't think I could have been any more crazy
01:16:49
over you than I already was. And the exchanges got more explicit. The prosecutor wanted the jury to hear it all.
01:16:56
Good morning, baby. You would have woke up to your horny wife's hand wrapped around your this morning.
01:17:01
He asked about suggestive photos the pair swapped. He wrote you got to see me in my underwear this morning and I haven gotten to see you You got to see him in his underwear that morning He in a snout shadow but yes
01:17:16
The prosecution also wanted to know this. If Karina was so innocent, how could she possibly explain that text exchange about picking up the shell casings?
01:17:25
Then he says, remember those casings. F***ing remember those. No ifs, ands, or buts.
01:17:35
That's what he said. You say absolutely 100%. That was the Snapchat I sent, yes.
01:17:46
You watched Karina testify. Yep. Your thoughts on what you were seeing and hearing.
01:17:53
Lies. All lies. It actually made me go back and think about everything, every conversation I'd ever had with her, how much I thought she probably lied during all of those also.
01:18:04
Even her own attorneys had to admit Karina's cross-examination did not go well Cross-examination was pretty brutal
01:18:12
But it was more just a shock effect of embarrassing her And that's what the state did, they succeeded
01:18:17
After that, the case went to the jury It was not a long wait Three and a half hours later
01:18:24
Has the jury in fact reached a verdict? We the jury find the defendant, Karina Cooper
01:18:29
Guilty of the offense of murder in the first degree I felt a lot different than I thought I would feel.
01:18:36
It wasn't relief. It wasn't happiness. It was just, I want to say it was sad how it went down.
01:18:46
I mean, we lost another family member. And it doesn't bring back Ryan. And it doesn't bring Ryan back.
01:18:54
The women who once considered Karina a close friend felt the same sense of emptiness.
01:18:59
Nobody in their wildest dreams would ever think that you would have a friend that could do this.
01:19:07
And it gives you a lot of trust issues with people from now on. But few felt as wounded as Karina's own brother.
01:19:16
This is hard for me to say. I think as Karina aged, she wasn't mentally stable, I guess.
01:19:24
I think she believed she was smarter than she actually was. Now, don't get me wrong, she was a smart woman, but I believe she thought she could actually
01:19:32
get away with this. As excruciating as it was to sit through the trial, Ryan's family prepared to go through
01:19:38
it all again with Houston Danker set to go on trial a month later After his last interview with police prosecutors expected Danker to blame Karina for the murder scheme But by now they also done a deep dive into his electronics And it turned out
01:19:53
he wasn't the most clever criminal when it came to searching the web. Talk about some of the things
01:19:59
he was searching for. Considering different potential poisons, the best gun to use to kill
01:20:04
someone. The questions included, how do people get caught for shooting? And the best way to kill
01:20:11
somebody with no evidence. Maybe that's why he changed his mind as the trial was beginning.
01:20:17
That morning of jury selection, I got called from Mike Ringel, the prosecutor, and
01:20:22
hey, about five minutes ago, he pled guilty. Everything came to a screeching halt. It did.
01:20:30
And that was a good feeling. Just not having to go through that again was good. Both Karina and Houston Danker were automatically sentenced to life behind bars.
01:20:45
Ryan's children now live with their uncle Aaron and his wife. And their uncle Kurt has found a way to stay in their lives, despite the horrible things his sister did.
01:20:56
I wouldn't say it's awkward anymore. It was in the beginning, you know, but it's just not anymore because they're so great.
01:21:05
They're another good family. Life on the family farm churns on. Through seasons of planting and harvests, Aaron built a new, bigger house on the land
01:21:17
where the kids can grow up with their cousins who are really like siblings now. What's life like on the farm now that you've doubled your children three to six?
01:21:27
Yeah, it's busy. There's usually something going on at all times, so it's somewhat out of control chaos. It's a ride.
01:21:41
A ride, just like Ryan, a man who loved farm and family, would have wanted. that's all for this edition of dateline and don't forget to check out our talking dateline
01:21:56
podcast which will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode available wednesday in the
01:22:02
dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts we'll see you again next friday at 9 8 central
01:22:08
i'm lester holt for all of us at nbc news good night .