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Tonight, on Dateline. There was tape all around the property. My grandma told me that my dad and Karen's been shot and killed.
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It was violent. They called it a crime of passion. Someone with a lot of rage in them had to do that.
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We didn't have DNA, fingerprints, anything like that. The family felt like you weren't doing enough, because there's no arrest.
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Yeah, I know it's incredibly frustrating for them. You put your detective hat on.
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I did. I had a digital recorder. I was able to record both sides of the conversation.
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Why did you tell a detective about that? Give some proof showing you weren't involved.
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I wanted the truth. There's finally an arrest. We were delighted. This case is based on rage and obsession.
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You have to testify. It was terrifying. I put on my game face. You're not going to intimidate me.
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A determined daughter forced to come face to face with a cold-blooded killer. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
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Here's Andrea Canning with Deadly Obsession. The fourth exploded on a Thursday that year, blazing its way into a long weekend.
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So there's fireworks, hot dogs, parades. Everybody's just kind of having a good time, enjoying life.
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One couple had extra reason to celebrate. You had never seen Mike and Karen so happy.
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No, they were especially happy that night. With no reason to think the fun would end anytime soon.
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You had no idea something was coming that was going to rock your family to the core.
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No idea. I thought that I heard gunshots, and even though it was July, they didn't sound like firecrackers.
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Soon the police would show up. There'd be plenty of theories. When he told me what had happened, I knew who did it.
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This is that crazy psychopath. But would there be enough evidence? You've got all these receipts and gas and you're doing all the math, but...
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Nothing physical, no. The only thing certain in that moment, two people in love were gone.
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Their celebration over. It was the end of a long Fourth of July weekend. Mike Sisko and Karen Harkness had planned a small cookout for that Sunday afternoon.
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July 7, 2002. Just the two of them and their parents on the back deck of Karen's house in Topeka, Kansas.
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Carol Sisko is Mike's mother. They had invited us for a fish fry. And so the Wurzwicks and I had got there about the same time.
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So this is Karen's parents? Yes. And so we all got out of the car, knocked on the door.
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No one answered. So we went around to the back. They saw the sliding glass door was slightly open.
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They stepped inside, into the kitchen, took a bottle of wine out of the fridge, and made themselves comfortable.
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We were on the main floor, and they had a brochure of Jamaica on the table, too.
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A fun trip planned. Yes. And we looked around. I mean, we could tell that they hadn't planned dinner.
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Yeah, they should have been starting to cook and have the food out. Yeah, you know, we hollered for the kids and started looking around.
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Karen's dad headed downstairs to her bedroom. Within minutes, he was back, his face pale.
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He says they've been shot. Oh, my gosh. I mean, this is, how do you... He wouldn't let me go downstairs, and I'm so glad he didn't.
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She was stunned. Her son Mike and his girlfriend Karen were dead. Uh, yes, we just gone to our daughter's house. She's downstairs and she's dead.
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Surprising that you would get a call like that here? Yeah, it's not usual to get that type of call out here.
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There's not a lot of gunshots, not a lot of violence out here. Richard Volley was a homicide detective for Topeka's police department back then.
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He was on the scene within minutes of getting the call. I'd seen murder suicides before.
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And that was the first thought that came to my mind. my mind in that neighborhood, it's typically not going to be a typical crime. It's going to be
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a family affair and somebody shoots somebody and shoots themselves. And that's what I believed I
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was walking into. So this is your gut feeling. Right. He talked briefly with Karen's dad,
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then headed downstairs. I didn't turn on any lights when I went down there, just used my
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flashlight. I could tell there were casings down there. I could tell there were multiple shots.
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At first, the detective saw Karen face down on her bed. She had been shot at least twice.
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He assumed Mike had killed her before turning the gun on himself. But when he walked to the other side of the bed, he found Mike.
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His body was on the floor, wedged between the wall and bed, as if he'd just tumbled off.
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And he'd been shot multiple times, too. So this idea that this could be a murder-suicide quickly goes out the window.
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Yeah, it's obviously not a murder-suicide. And how could you tell that? Because, well, there was no gun present. Way too many rounds in both of them to be a murder-suicide.
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Of all the crimes you'd seen in your career, how bad was this one? Seems pretty bad ones but this was significant There a killer at large Yes Killer you need to find Yes He had no idea an investigative and legal saga was just beginning
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It would span more than 20 years. It was a long search. And we searched a lot of places.
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It was a needle in a haystack. And take trial after trial after trial. This is a soap opera moment.
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Yeah. It was sick. They're very bizarre. I wanted the truth. I'm telling the truth.
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And I'm doing the right thing. And I'm not moving. 47-year-old Mike Sisko and 53-year-old Karen Harkness had been found murdered in her basement bedroom.
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Detective Richard Volley was trying to make sense out of what he was seeing. What could you tell as far as just how many times they'd been shot, where they'd been shot?
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Well, I didn't spend a lot of time counting. I knew it was multiple times by the casings.
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It appeared that he'd been shot in the belly and then rolled over, and he took the sheets and covers with him as he rolled off the bed.
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But then somebody stood over him and shot down into him, as evidenced by the rounds that we found underneath him.
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He figured the couple had been sleeping when their killer opened fire. Do you believe that the perpetrator was inside the house waiting for them, or do you think they came in after? Any idea?
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My belief is the person came in after. But in looking for hiding places, somebody could have hidden in there, but it didn't really make sense to me.
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It seemed to make more sense that they came in afterwards, waiting until they went to sleep, and then snuck in the house.
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He was certain after he looked around a bit more. Was there any forced entry into Karen's place?
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No, no forced entry. No. The sliding door was ajar, but Mike and Karen smoked on the back deck of the house and didn't lock the door,
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which in southwest Topeka, that's probably not that unusual. Yeah, I was going to say a lot of people would probably do that.
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Yeah, and I believe that's the way the person entered. As police continued investigating the scene, Karen's parents and Mike's mom were busy calling their families.
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My grandma called me and just asked me if I could come to Karen's house. And I said, sure.
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Mike's daughter, Haley, was 17 at the time. When I got to Karen's, there was tape all around the property.
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What a shock to the system. Yeah. What are you thinking? I honestly didn't even think, you know, there was something going on at Karen's house.
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Who told you? And I sat down and I think it was my grandma that told me that they had been shot and killed.
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My gosh, your reaction to that. I mean, just unbelievable. It was unbelievable. I was just in shock.
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I don't think I said two words. Her grandmother continued calling the rest of the family.
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She said something awful happened. Mike's sister, Kathy Boots, and her husband, Mark, could hardly believe it.
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They had just seen Mike a week earlier. They'd been fishing together. He always had a great story to tell.
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And he was just the best in every way. Always upbeat, they said, despite having weathered a divorce four years earlier.
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Mike was traveling constantly as a salesman. What do we have in Uncle Mike? And raising two kids.
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This candle is for looks plus smell. He really felt like this was just a tough patch they could get through, I think.
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Big smile, real big, Mike. Let's see your teeth. Oh, those are nice. And then he met Karen during a night out with friends.
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She was also divorced with two kids. After that, his family said you couldn't keep the smile off his face.
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He lightened up when he met Karen. It really lightened him up. Was this a fresh start for Mike?
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Yes. I think he felt so. Yeah, he really loved her. And she's a very interesting person, beautiful, athletic, outgoing, had lots of friends.
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Including her own adult children, Chad and Erin. She was the best mom and the best friend I could have ever hoped for.
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I could count on her to make me feel better, no matter what the circumstances were.
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She always had the right things to say and always the best advice. I could get down on myself if I was having a bad day,
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but she was always there to pick me up and make me feel better. Cheering you on, keep going.
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Absolutely, yes. Karen knew how to draw people in. Her friend Linda Bryden saw it every day at the Topeka Tourism Office where they worked together.
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Her personality was perfect because we would go to trade shows and try and meet event planners,
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bring their events here possibly, and she was really good at it. Karen and Mike had just been to Linda's house for the fourth.
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And her and Mike both said, yeah, we're getting old and fat, but we're happy. So they were in love.
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Were Mike and Karen talking marriage? They were. What were their plans? The week before the murder, I talked to Mike, and he was asking me where's a good place to go on a honeymoon in the Caribbean.
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I said, you know, St. Thomas is great. Lots of really good places to go, and he was real happy about it.
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That's likely why he had that brochure on his table, the one his mom saw. It was there among recent photos and a coffee cup.
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That cup caught the detective's eye. There was a coffee cup found on the kitchen table in the house and a coffee cup in Mike vehicle out in the parking lot in the driveway Suggesting the couple had been out shortly before their deaths But where Maybe it was a place where luck the good and the bad collide
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Did you see them on the video? Yeah, we found them on the video. Lead detective Richard Volley was working the case of his career,
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a double homicide with the killer still at large. So far, all he had was a lot of unanswered questions.
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The biggest unknown, who would want to kill Karen and Mike? And even more baffling, why?
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Honestly, I'm going through robbery, burglary, that kind of thing. Voli and his team began at the beginning,
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tracking the couple's whereabouts during their last hours alive. One of their first leads, those two coffee cups found at the scene.
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From a convenience store? From a convenience store. Voli's investigators traced the cups to a gas station near a casino called Sack and Fox.
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Had the couple spent time there? Your investigators spoke to a neighbor about a conversation with Mike the night before?
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Yes. The next door neighbor had spoken to Mike and they'd mentioned that they were going to the casino that night.
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Detectives made a beeline for the second Fox. We went to the casino, got with security people, got all the videotape that we could.
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Did you see them on the video? We found them on the video and kind of threw the cameras, walked through the casino with them to the different slot machines that they'd played at.
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Are they having a good time? Does anything seem out of sorts? No, no, they're just a regular couple having a good time that night.
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Voli wondered if they'd won some money and attracted the wrong kind of attention.
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Did you think that maybe someone followed them from the casino to rob them of their winnings?
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Yes, yes. Anyone following them inside the casino? No one followed them. They didn't have any confrontations with anybody.
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Just before 1.30 a.m., Karen and Mike left the casino. Did the cameras follow them outside?
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Followed them out, at least to the parking lot. When they get out to the parking lot, it's dark. It's late at night.
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So I don't believe it gets them all the way to their car. Is it possible that there was someone near their car that just wasn't picked up?
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It could have been. Volley's investigators also paid a visit to that gas station.
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We obtained videotape from that store and found that they had, in fact, gone in there, gotten coffee.
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That's where the coffee cups came from. Minutes later, the couple could be seen pulling out in Mike's Ford Expedition.
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Anyone suspicious around them or anything going on with Mike and Karen? No, there was no one around the store.
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Nobody followed them in. Nobody followed them out. They were by themselves. So that kind of, you know, puts a damper on the possible idea of someone following them from the casino.
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Right. It doesn't appear that they were followed at all. Investigators believe the couple drove straight home from there.
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There was a report from one of the neighbors that they'd heard a car slam around 2.30, 3 o'clock.
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Which fits with your timeline. Yeah, that's probably Mike and Karen coming home that they heard a car door slam.
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Then another sound. Michelle Delgata was 18 at the time and living a few doors down with her mother.
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I was kind of tossing and turning, wasn't really sleeping. I was still pretty much awake.
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I heard a car idling outside the front of the house. And I thought that was weird, just given the time that it was.
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And then she heard something even louder, several pops in a row. Even though it was July, they didn't sound like firecrackers.
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and it wasn't like a lot of them. And then they, just as quickly as they started, they stopped.
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Hours later, her neighbors were found dead. There were police cars on the street,
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helicopters overhead, police tape on our neighborhood. And like, I still remember really vividly,
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my mom just looked at me and she was like, I don't think those were fireworks that you heard.
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Crime scene investigators spent hours processing the house, but in the end, they determined nothing of value was taken.
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In the basement, Mike had $900 plus, and Karen had $200 or $300 in her clothes, and her purse was there.
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Everything was there that should have been there, and it didn't appear like anything had been taken.
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So any jewelry? No, nothing. Any electronics? Everything seemed to be there. So if robbery wasn't the motive, maybe the autopsies would offer a clue.
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The coroner's report revealed that Karen took three bullets in the shoulder, one in her arm, and one in the buttocks.
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Mike was shot at least once in the back, twice in his chest, and twice in the stomach.
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Did this feel very personal to you, the locations, the number of shots fired, the location of the victims in bed?
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Yes. Yeah, we have to look at what the shot selection tells us and the number of shots, what it tells us.
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If you consider a 10-round magazine with one in the gun, that's 11. That means somebody's most likely emptied their gun.
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Oh, my goodness. And shot it dry. That sounds like rage. Yes, exactly. And that's what it looked like, was rage.
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Someone's sending a message with this killing, these killings. Yes. Definitely. A message for sure.
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But from whom? The police are looking at everyone initially as a possible suspect.
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Oh, of course. Including you. Yep. The families of Karen and Mike thought they might hear word of an engagement that Sunday afternoon Instead loved ones like Mike sister Kathy and her husband Mark were processing news of the couple murder It hit us all pretty hard really hard
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I was used to talking to him most every day, and Mark was used to talking to him and doing things with him,
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and it left a huge void, a huge void. It really changed our lives. It was just, it was awful.
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Karen's son, Chad. Sunday evenings were usually our night alone. Before the start of a work week, we'd go out and have some chips and salsa,
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maybe a couple margaritas, and talk about the last week, the upcoming week, and spend a couple hours together most Sunday evenings.
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But on Sunday night, July 7th, Chad was spending time with lead detective Voli at the Topeka Police Department, where the conversation was anything but comforting.
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The police are looking at everyone initially as a possible suspect. Oh, of course.
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Including you. Yep. I sit there and being asked, did you murder your mother? Did you murder Mike?
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I just remember, I can't believe this is happening. This is real. You know, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't just having a horrible dream.
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They asked you to take a polygraph? Yes. For Detective Vully, no one in the couple's orbit was in the clear.
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You have to start talking to everyone in their circle. Yes. And there's a lot of people.
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They have a lot of friends, a lot of family. Yep. Where do you start? You generally start just in the center.
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I mean, with the immediate family. That also included Chad's father, Karen's ex-husband.
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The divorce had been Karen's idea, not his. I think she was just ready to move on and be more happy in life than she was.
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You brought him in for an interview? Yes. So was there any thought that this divorce maybe wasn't amicable or there was some money, perhaps a play for Karen's ex or jealousy that he may have wanted to get, you know, Mike and Karen out of the picture?
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Certainly. Yeah. He, too, was asked to take a polygraph. Vole and his team also took a closer look at Mike's side of the family.
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That included his two teenage children, Haley and Dustin. Mike's son, Dustin, you learned was out of town.
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Yes. He was on a canoe trip in Missouri. Lots of eyeballs on him. Yes. Around the time of the killing.
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Yes. Vully also learned that Mike had a good relationship with Dustin, but things between father and daughter had been strained.
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I wasn't home when he wanted me to come home, and I was just really doing my own thing.
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So you were fighting with your dad? Yeah. Things went from bad to worse when Mike started dating Karen.
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He did spend a lot of time with Karen. And so me and I felt like I was, I wasn't replaced, but I wasn't as special.
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Then Haley started seeing a guy named Chris. Your dad at the time didn't think you were ready for this serious relationship?
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Well, me and Chris hung out a lot and my dad didn't really like Chris. Just a few weeks before the murders, Mike and Haley's issues reached a boiling point.
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And my dad told me that I needed to follow his rules, be home at curfew and that kind of thing, or I'd have to move out.
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And so I moved in with Chris and his family. So there's a lot of problems going on between Haley and her boyfriend and Mike.
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Yes. You had to take a hard look at that. Sure. We didn't really, we weren't really getting along for a little while.
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The day after the murders, the detective asked Haley to come in for an interview.
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She told Foley she was with Chris at his parents' house in North Topeka the night Mike and Karen were killed.
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This is a hard question I have to ask you, but do you think you have any ideas what happened?
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I don't know. Haley went on to suggest a theory police had already ruled out, that the crime was connected to Karen and Mike's casino winnings.
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I've been thinking about it because they went to the casino the night before. and they would have won a lot of money.
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During a break, she seemed to whisper a prayer. Please help them. Help me. And appeared to get emotional.
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Still, Haley's rift with her father was hard to ignore. How many times have we seen a child is upset with the parents,
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kills them so, you know, they can be out of the picture and go on to live, you know, a nice life?
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Was that something that you considered? Oh, we considered everything. Then, not long after the murders, the detective got a big tip.
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I believe it was a bank alert. A check was discovered that had been cashed on Mike's account.
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It was just a blank check forged. Someone was stealing from Mike's bank account.
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Wow. I mean, this must really pique your interest. Certainly. Somebody pretending to be Mike.
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Right. Did you think it was possible that the killer might have cashed the check?
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It's obviously something we have to run down. A new lead that would point Voli to someone close to Mike's inner circle.
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Close enough to kill? The First Thing to Haley's boyfriend. Was that a friend of Chris's?
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An associate. I wouldn't say a friend. Somebody that would have known him. Did it lead you to focus back on Chris, that maybe Chris had something to do with Mike's murder and then gave his associate the checkbook?
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Obviously, we had to rule it out. Turns out, though, the guy who forged the check was in jail the night of the murders.
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So he's out. Right. As the killer. Yes. But that didn't put the young couple in the clear.
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The detective had to be sure. Haley and Chris, you did have them take polygraph tests.
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Yes. People react to polygraphs in different ways. If they're just, yeah, let's get it over with. When can we do it? If they have that kind of attitude, then we look at them one way. If they're like, yeah, maybe I will, then we look at them a different way.
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Did Haley and Chris easily agree to a polygraph? Yes. They passed. Yes. And their alibis checked out, as did those given by Karen's ex and her son Chad.
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They were all cleared. I can't even imagine the feeling when the police are looking at everyone around you,
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your family members, Mike's family members. Yeah, but, you know, you've got to start somewhere, you know,
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and eliminate and narrow it down to who really committed such a horrible act. But the next name on the detective's list seemed an unlikely one.
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Mike's ex-wife, Dana Chandler. Unlikely because she had recently moved to Denver, which was an eight-hour drive from Topeka.
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I'm like, okay, all right. So she's not even in the area. She's not in the area.
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So it sits in the back of my mind that, oh, here's the person we have to check on because it's not likely somebody is driving 500 miles to do this.
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Dana and Mike had lived in Colorado when their kids were young and it's where Haley felt particularly close to her dad
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We loved being in the mountains and just hiking, you know fishing and camping and all that stuff
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He taught us how to do all of it I remember I would, you know, hook my own worm and unhook my own fish
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I mean, we were really into it Haley said her mom, who stayed home to raise her and her brother
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worked hard to keep the household running She had the nice car and she always wanted to look nice and she was very busy.
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Would you describe it as kind of a typical family? Yeah, we had a backyard with the dog. We had the sandbox, all the fun stuff, you know, as kids.
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But those happy memories masked a troubled family. There was always just arguing, you know, just like the constant tone of the household that we were just accustomed to because that's all we knew.
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Mike and Dana were married for about 15 years when they got divorced. They tried to get back together and make it work. It just didn't last very long.
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It wasn't to be. Your dad ends up getting full custody of you and your brother? Yeah.
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How did that come about? The custody was a battle. My mom really wanted us. My dad really wanted us.
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My mom was found to be really unhealthy and was drinking quite a bit at the time.
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And so when my dad got custody, she moved to live with her sister to try to get a handle on her alcohol problem.
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Ann Hammer, who met Dana in AA, says Dana worked hard to get her life back together.
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Both were recovering alcoholics and became instant best friends. What do you think it was about you and Dana that you wanted to spend more time with her?
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Well, I mean, Dana was friendly. She was kind. She did not have custody of her children.
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And at the time, I did not have custody of my daughter. And that really kind of formed a bond between us as mothers.
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Did Dana miss her kids? Did she want to get them back? Yes, she did. She did very much.
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Anne says Dana was driven, had gone back to school to get her master's degree in accounting.
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She also remembers the fun times they had together, like at a New Year's Eve party where she grabbed this photo of Dana.
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And just two days before the murders, during that long Fourth of July holiday, she and Dana spent an enjoyable day in the mountains together.
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The next time you hear from Dana, she has some terrible news to share with you. She called and told me that Mike had died, and she was extremely upset.
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What was she saying? She was crying. I really couldn't get a lot out of her. Did you worry about Dana?
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I did, sure. Sure, she was my friend and she was upset. Later that week, Dana drove down to Topeka for Mike's funeral.
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Detective Voli had already spoken to Dana on the phone, but figured while she was in town, they could meet.
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She agreed to an interview, but it had to be in her lawyer's office. So she had retained a lawyer?
00:28:58
Yes. You know why we're here. We're looking at the death of your husband and his heart.
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What was your first impression of her? What was her demeanor like when you meet in this attorney's office?
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She was calm. She was reserved, very put together. Dana spoke so softly she could barely be heard on the police recording.
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You never lived here, you never lived here. Did she offer any suspects for you of someone she thought might have wanted Mike and Karen dead?
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No, she just said generally that Mike had a propensity for getting himself in trouble.
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Like the time she said Mike got into a bar fight years earlier. And when the detective asked where she was the night of the murders, Dana said she was in her Colorado apartment.
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In fact, she shared what she did that entire weekend, saying she spent most of her Saturday shopping.
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She went to the King supermarket she went to Target she went to the AutoZone and she went to the gas station After a night alone she said she got up early Sunday to drive two hours west to Granby Colorado
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There, she said she went hiking by herself for a few hours. And she could prove she'd been to many of those places she stopped at that weekend.
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She had receipts. All that's adding up. All that's adding up. I mean, the errands were absolutely, that was certain that she did that.
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There was no question on that. The interview ended, and it seemed like a dead end.
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But was there more to her story? And I said, what was purchased? And he said, two five-gallon gas cans and a cigarette lighter.
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Why would she need gas cans? That's what we didn't know. That's what we had to try to find out.
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A week after the murders, grief was suffocating both families. I think I laid in bed most of the time after that, and I don't remember functioning much.
00:31:09
I guess that's how I handle things. You must have heard from so many people saying how much they miss your mom, how much they love your mom.
00:31:17
Yes. She had told me in our conversations throughout the years what she kind of envisioned for after she would pass.
00:31:27
She said, don't sit around and cry. Have a party. And we went to her favorite spot in Topeka.
00:31:35
And the owner had two chairs set up, one for Mike and one for my mom. And he'd bought them both their favorite drinks and had them on the chairs.
00:31:44
Oh, my gosh. You're going to make me cry. I know. It was pretty great. Detective Voli had been asking the families a lot of questions.
00:31:54
And he was still looking at Mike's ex-wife, Dana, who seemed to have a strong alibi.
00:31:59
Did you actually retrace her steps of where she said she was? Yes, through the King Soopers and the Target and the AutoZone and the gas station.
00:32:08
First, that AutoZone visit. She had a newer car. So I'm thinking, what on earth could a person in her situation buy at AutoZone?
00:32:20
Dana told him she bought a cigarette lighter and didn't mention anything else. But Dana's bank statement, which showed the total, but not what Dana actually bought,
00:32:29
indicated more than just a lighter. I called up the AutoZone and said, can you check back through your receipts?
00:32:36
And he went back through and I said, what was purchased? And he said, two five-gallon gas cans and a cigarette lighter.
00:32:42
Why would she need gas cans? That's what we didn't know. That's what we had to try to find out.
00:32:47
The detective became more curious after he subpoenaed her cell phone records. The phone records were blank from 3 o'clock on Saturday till 7 o'clock on Sunday.
00:33:00
Blank as in the phone wasn't used? The phone was not used during that 27-hour period.
00:33:06
I didn't just have that period of time to look at. I had a period of time before that.
00:33:11
There was no other blank periods of that length. So she was regularly using her phone.
00:33:15
She was regularly using her phone. That period stood out. And there was something else about Dana's story, that she drove west from Denver and went hiking in the mountains.
00:33:25
To get from Granby, where she said she hiked, the most direct route is through Rocky Mountain National Park, which has video at both ends at the guard gates.
00:33:36
I covered a murder there for Dateline. They record your vehicle. everyone that comes through there was she on there we sent detectives out there and they obtained the
00:33:45
video from both ends of the park to make sure that she had not gone through there and she hadn't
00:33:51
so the detective figured dana wasn't telling the truth about where she was and dana's account seemed even more wobbly after he got a call from one of her friends expressing
00:34:02
concern his name was jeff jeff told the detective dana had asked him to help out with her attorney's
00:34:09
following the murders. But first, he wanted to know more. He's asking her questions like I would
00:34:15
ask. You know, where were you? Can you prove that you weren't involved in this? She said,
00:34:21
I left Saturday and went for a drive in the mountains, and I didn't come back till Sunday,
00:34:27
Sunday night. And he said, well, you got a hotel receipt or something? And she says,
00:34:31
no, I slept in my car. Okay, well, did you see anybody? Did you see the fires that were out there?
00:34:39
Like big fires? Big forest fires. So she says she's sleeping in her car, but there's forest fires around the area?
00:34:45
Yeah. Jeff was skeptical, and so was Detective Voli. Because Dana told him she spent Saturday night in her Denver apartment and left for the mountains on Sunday morning.
00:34:57
He started putting the pieces together, a shifting alibi, an off-the-grid cell phone, and two gas cans.
00:35:05
And he had a huge lightbulb moment. She could get to Topeka and out of Kansas without stopping for gas.
00:35:14
Instead of heading west to go hiking, what if Dana really drove more than 500 miles east on I-70 to Kansas to kill Mike and Karen?
00:35:24
This is the highway that you think Dana Chandler took to get to Topeka from Denver?
00:35:30
Yes. You had a feeling that even though Dana Chandler had the gas cans, she may have stopped somewhere along the way between Denver and Topeka, perhaps to use the restroom.
00:35:40
I thought it was a possibility that she would have. And just to cover our bases I sent a couple detectives on I and hitting every gas station convenience store along I to try to find video or any evidence that she had been in any of those places You trying to catch her driving to Topeka Yes None of the gas stations had security camera video of Dana or her car
00:36:07
But about halfway along the route, in Kansas, the detective got lucky. There was a clerk that was 70% sure that she had seen Dana on Saturday night,
00:36:19
which would have been appropriate to the time it took her to travel from Denver to Topeka.
00:36:23
Are they showing a photo then? They showed her a photo and she said, yeah, that lady looks familiar.
00:36:29
I think she stopped here. Still, he knew he needed more. Was there anything at all that placed her in Topeka during the window of the murders?
00:36:40
As far as physical evidence, no. That's a challenge for you. Yes. You had no DNA, no fingerprints, no solid evidence placing Dana Chandler in Topeka,
00:36:50
no murder weapon, no confession, no eyewitness, seeing her go into the house. None of that.
00:36:56
Right. It doesn't mean she wasn't there. Just we haven't found the physical evidence.
00:37:01
Two months after the murders, he dropped in on Dana's close friend, Anne. You get a
00:37:05
surprise visit at work. Right. From Detective Voli and another plainclothes detective.
00:37:11
They had told me that Mike and his fiance had been murdered. Up to this point, all you knew was that Mike was dead and that was it.
00:37:18
and now it's a double homicide? Right. And Dana might be involved? Right. What is your reaction as you're hearing this?
00:37:26
I was shocked. I said, no way did she do this. I couldn't even imagine that she had anything to do with it.
00:37:33
I didn't see a mean bone in her body. I had been friends with Dana for years, and it just, it was shocking.
00:37:40
I just couldn't believe it. It would take more than two decades to put the whole story together.
00:37:46
After secrets crawled out into the open, I had been recording our conversations.
00:37:51
And danger never seemed far away. Did you worry your mom might try to seek revenge on you?
00:37:56
Absolutely. I'm sure your stomach is turning. Yes. It was sickening. It was crushing.
00:38:02
This is the mother-daughter showdown for the ages. Absolutely. Dana Chandler was now the focus of the investigation.
00:38:23
Police weren't buying all of her alibi, especially where she said she'd traveled that weekend.
00:38:29
And they were discovering more about her. According to Mike's family and friends,
00:38:33
Dana did not move on after the divorce, and she wanted to make sure Mike didn't either.
00:38:39
Caught in the middle was Mike's new love, Karen. It started to get really, really bad.
00:38:46
She would be in my office crying. She said it was just awful. Linda said her friend would come to her with stories of Mike's out-of-control ex-wife.
00:38:56
Describe the phone calls that Karen would get. They would typically be in the middle of the night and call, hang up, call, hang up, call, hang up.
00:39:08
Call and say horrible, vile things. Call Karen names. Karen began to wonder if her relationship with Mike could survive.
00:39:17
She loved Mike, but she didn't know if she could live with someone being that intrusive into their lives and manipulative.
00:39:28
Did she think about breaking up with Mike? She shared with some of us that she didn't know if she could do this.
00:39:38
Investigators learned that type of behavior had gone on for years. That Dana even sent graphic messages about Mike and Karen's sex life to her daughter.
00:39:46
had called Karen a tramp. I just said, I don't want to hear about this. Why are you bringing me into this?
00:39:52
But I just knew that she did not like Karen at all. And she just was really angry at my dad.
00:39:59
She would verbally attack my dad in public. And it would happen at soccer games.
00:40:04
The school play? Yeah. So people are seeing this. Yeah, it's really embarrassing.
00:40:09
The movie Fatal Attraction really comes to mind when you think about some of the actions of your mom
00:40:16
Yeah, it didn't seem real. It was just hard to comprehend. Karen's son thought Dana couldn't accept her ex having a new relationship.
00:40:25
She just, I guess, couldn't handle the fact that he didn't care for her anymore.
00:40:33
And Mike's sister said she too witnessed some of Dana's behavior during a stay at his house.
00:40:39
It must have been one or two in the morning. I'd woken up and the light was on out back.
00:40:44
and we opened the blinds and it was Dana jumping on the trampoline. The trampoline was near the
00:40:51
house so we could hear it. And then she just started laughing hysterically. She says Mike also told her about a chilling incident that happened a few weeks before the
00:41:01
killings. Mike came home one day after work and the kids were still in school and found her sitting
00:41:08
in his breezeway that had been locked with a cup of coffee. And he said, what are you doing here?
00:41:15
I'm calling 911. And she said, no, no, wait a minute. The kids are both at ages where they
00:41:21
really need us. I think we should get back together. Just very calmly. And he said,
00:41:28
are you kidding me? For Mike, the strange encounter cemented something he'd been thinking
00:41:34
about for some time. He called me right after. He said, I'm marrying Karen. Then, just days before
00:41:40
the murders, on that fishing trip with his brother-in-law, Mike shared a chilling premonition.
00:41:46
Mike said, when I'm gone, please make sure that the kids are raised properly and have what they
00:41:50
need Are you really serious He said yes something going to happen When Dana finds out that Karen and he were going to marry that going to be the trigger And that was the last time I saw him alive Karen son suspected Dana from the beginning
00:42:06
I knew who did it. I mean, I said I know that this is that crazy psychopath, Dana Chandler, that did it.
00:42:16
The detective felt he had built a solid case against Dana. There was her harassing behavior, her suspicious cell records,
00:42:23
and the witness along I-70 who thought she saw Dana the night of the murders. She's a good witness.
00:42:29
She's a really good witness, yes. Still, the local district attorney didn't think the case was provable beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:42:36
The DA didn't think everything you'd gathered was enough. They didn't believe there was enough evidence to take it to court.
00:42:42
How frustrating was that for you? Even though I knew in my heart we were on the right track, the DA didn't agree,
00:42:48
So we keep moving forward. Months would turn into years. Then a setback. That key witness, the gas station clerk, passed away.
00:42:59
Does this become a cold case or do you say, I'm not giving up? I'm going to keep searching for that evidence that the DA needs?
00:43:07
I made a promise to Karen's dad when he wasn't convinced that the investigation was progressing fast enough or far enough.
00:43:16
I said, I've got 12 years before I retire. I will have this case that whole 12 years.
00:43:24
Nobody else is going to get it. It's going to be mine. During the long wait, Mike's daughter found her days filled with regret.
00:43:31
I was wrestling so badly with the guilt that I had from being so terrible to my dad
00:43:38
and never being able to say I was sorry. And I just wanted to do something to redeem myself.
00:43:43
and she started having uncomfortable thoughts about her mom. I really wanted to find out who did it,
00:43:49
and I needed to know if it was my mom. You put your detective hat on. Yeah, I did.
00:43:55
Haley was about to go undercover. It was completely my plan. It was 2005, three years after the murders, and there had been no arrest.
00:44:17
I think that Detective Voli had his whole heart in solving this murder, but he couldn't do it by himself.
00:44:26
For you, it felt like the murders fell through the cracks. Yeah. Without answers, Haley found herself asking the toughest question of all.
00:44:35
Did your mind go there that could my mom be capable of doing this? Is that possible?
00:44:40
Yeah, it did. It was hard to believe that my mom would actually kill them. But I couldn't think of anyone else who would have done it.
00:44:49
By then, she was living in Colorado with her boyfriend Chris and was more determined than ever to find out what happened to her dad and Karen.
00:44:57
So she embarked on a bold new approach to investigate her mom, herself. Are the police involved at all? Have they asked you to?
00:45:05
It was completely my plan. I came up with the idea myself. A fire was lit. Yeah.
00:45:13
Haley, just 20 years old, began secretly recording conversations with her mother.
00:45:18
Take us to this moment where you first decide to record your mom. I had already been talking to her from time to time.
00:45:26
and I questioned her about it. I really wanted the truth. Recording it wasn't hard.
00:45:33
Was this over the phone? Did you meet somewhere? So I really only had a recorder for my phone.
00:45:39
So I would record our phone conversations. Honestly, like through all this, it just seems like you don't want to help.
00:45:47
I had no idea what your dad and Karen were doing. You were involved, man. In a span of about four years, Haley made six recordings.
00:45:59
At times, it was clear she was torn. I want things to be cool. You're my mom. I just need to heal me.
00:46:09
Nothing to do with it. Okay? I'm not going to make her say anything. She's going to say what she's going to say.
00:46:15
I'm just recording it. I'm asking legitimate questions. One of Haley's first probing questions was one also gnawing at the detective.
00:46:23
Why did her mom buy those gas cans? Her mom told her something she'd never said before.
00:46:37
She got the gas cans as a favor to a woman at AA. I wish that I would have gotten a name, but I didn't.
00:46:56
I was encouraging her to try to prove she didn't do it. And her best convincing evidence that she didn't do it was,
00:47:05
Haley, just believe me. What about her phone? I would ask her, why did your phone go unanswered?
00:47:11
What's going on with the cell phone? Haley, as far as my cell phone goes, I was not able to pick up the signal in the lounge.
00:47:19
Okay, so you went up to the mountains? Yes, okay. I didn't have a cable. You're trying to catch your mom in a trap.
00:47:30
That was definitely the gamble. I wasn't sure if it was even going to work. But then you started to get somewhere.
00:47:37
Yeah. Is there a night in the mountains then, like, that weekend? She seemed to confirm she was in the mountains, which is what she told her friend Jeff.
00:47:48
and that contradicted what she told Detective Voli that she'd spent the night at her apartment.
00:47:54
So Haley asked exactly where she was. What city were you in? What city were you in?
00:48:00
are you buying this what she's telling you i'm completely not buying it after months of secretly recording her mom hayley let detective voley in on her operation
00:48:16
he jumped at the opportunity to get something solid on dana so he gave hayley a key fob with
00:48:23
a voice recorder hidden inside hayley met her mom at a restaurant and placed the fob on the table
00:48:28
How nervous were you as you're recording her? It was a little nerve wracking. It's barely audible due to the noisy restaurant.
00:48:38
Haley put her mom on the spot. At one point, I asked her to just take a polygraph test.
00:48:44
That would be one step to show that she didn't do it. And she asked me if I'd ever thought about killing my dad.
00:48:51
And I said, no. You know, but she said, well, I have thought about killing him. That's big.
00:48:58
Yeah. I mean, you know, we can say in passing like, oh, I could kill him, you know.
00:49:05
But to think about killing someone to the extent that you're worried it will show up on a polygraph test, that's pretty bad.
00:49:13
What did you think when you heard that? That's just another one of those little pieces that we put into that pile of evidence that here she is on audio admitting that she thought about.
00:49:25
Eventually, as Haley kept pressing her mom, Dana shut down. My attorney advised me not to talk to anybody about anything about that weekend.
00:49:35
Then I'm going to thank you to God. Okay, I understand. I don't understand why you can't tell me.
00:49:43
I'm just letting my mom back. But Dana was dug in. I say something that doesn't agree with what my first day was,
00:49:52
Dana had changed her story, and she left Haley and Detective Vully more convinced than ever that she'd committed the murders.
00:50:05
Haley definitely catches her in some inconsistencies. You know, the inconsistencies on the gas can, that was big.
00:50:11
So just saying, yeah, I thought about it, that's important. That gives us something in Dana's own words.
00:50:19
It may have been important, but without a confession, it wasn't enough for the DA to take the case.
00:50:29
In 2007, five years after the murders, Vully was promoted to sergeant and was transferred out of the detective squad.
00:50:37
But he didn't give up hope that something or someone would change his luck. And one day, out of the blue, a stranger approached him.
00:50:46
It's going to change everything about this. Everything. It certainly does. I don't know how you'd move on without closure, without resolution, without justice is what it was for me.
00:51:11
It wasn't right. It was 2008 and Haley was starting to lose hope. But what she didn't know was that Sergeant Volley's chance encounter with a stranger would forever change the trajectory of the case.
00:51:24
The man was campaigning to be the new DA. And I said, good luck to you. If you happen to make it, I've got a case I want to present to you.
00:51:32
It's the Harkness-Sisco case. He says, I know about it. I'm going to start a cold case unit.
00:51:38
And we're going to look at that. And he got elected. He was elected. He did start the cold case unit.
00:51:44
This was the first case that he looked at. We looked at it for two years, just shoring it up as much as we possibly could until they were comfortable that there was enough evidence there to bring it to court.
00:51:55
What do you think changed? Perspective and part of it. This one says, if I lose, I lose.
00:52:02
But I'm going to get down swinging. The DA called us in and said, we have, I think, as much as we're ever going to have.
00:52:09
Do you want us to charge her and go to trial? Yes. I mean, no hesitation for me.
00:52:15
Is there any conflicting feelings there that you're pushing for your mom to be arrested?
00:52:22
I was really scared because she was going to find out that I had been recording our conversations.
00:52:29
So arresting her and taking her to trial was great. You're terrified of the one woman who is supposed to love you the most in this world.
00:52:39
Absolutely. Dana Chandler was living in Oklahoma at the time. It was 2011, nearly a decade since Mike and Karen had been killed.
00:52:48
Authorities caught up with her in a parking lot and arrested her with guns drawn.
00:52:53
She was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Dana pleaded not guilty and went on trial in a Topeka courtroom in March 2012.
00:53:01
We're covering this around the clock every day. Sherman Smith is editor-in-chief of the Kansas Reflector, covering state politics.
00:53:09
Back then, he was an editor for the Topeka Capital Journal. One of the reasons why the community fixated on this so much
00:53:15
was because it involved a couple of community members in a relatively safe neighborhood,
00:53:21
and that just doesn't really happen much in Topeka. The prosecution argued Dana was the only person
00:53:27
who hated Mike and Karen enough to kill them. The motive has always been that Dana Chandler
00:53:32
was so bitter about the failure of her marriage. She despised her ex-husband and despised even more
00:53:39
that he was going to be married again. To prove motive, prosecutors called friends and family, including Haley, who was by then 27.
00:53:49
What that like going to trial knowing that you be helping the prosecution try to put away your mother It was terrifying And it was very awkward And it was hard to not feel like you are doing something totally wrong and betraying your mom
00:54:09
But I was only doing what was right. If you believe she did this, then she has to pay.
00:54:15
Yeah. I wanted the jury to know how much she hated them, what she put them through.
00:54:23
Karen and Mike. Yeah. The prosecutor said Mike was scared of Dana and got a protection from abuse order against her, which she violated.
00:54:33
The defense countered that there was no physical evidence tying Dana to the crime scene.
00:54:38
It took less than 90 minutes for the jury to find her guilty of both counts of first-degree murder.
00:54:45
She was given two life sentences. I was glad for the family. The work I did on the case was shown to be good.
00:54:53
so I was happy about that. But still, you're not jumping for joy after somebody gets convicted of a murder
00:54:59
because nobody wins. There weren't any winners that day at all, but we were relieved.
00:55:06
To tell you the truth, we were relieved. Haley, who was just a teenager when her father was killed,
00:55:11
says she felt almost reborn. I felt like my life was starting. You know, that was behind me.
00:55:18
And this was the new fresh start, a new beginning. Chris and I got married, and we started having kids, and it was great.
00:55:28
Sergeant Volley, who had fulfilled his promise to Karen's dad to never give up on the case, retired in 2014.
00:55:35
But this fresh start for all of them came to a screeching halt. You get some news that's going to rock your world.
00:55:42
Yeah, the Kansas Supreme Court overturned the conviction. In 2018, six years after the trial, the state's highest court ruled the prosecutor had misled the jury about that protection from abuse order.
00:55:56
It never existed, and the prosecutor knew it. Both murder convictions were tossed.
00:56:02
For me, it felt like the Supreme Court was doing the right thing. You know, that it had become abundantly clear that there were a lot of problems with the way this was prosecuted.
00:56:11
prosecuted. Haley knew that if the state chose not to re-prosecute the case, her mother would
00:56:16
walk free. Did you worry your mom might try to seek revenge on you, given that you testified
00:56:21
against her the first time? I was terrified if she would get out of jail. And I had kids now.
00:56:28
Yeah, could she harm one of your children? Was that a fear? Harming them or just trying to
00:56:35
see them in general. The fate of Dana Chandler's case was in the hands of Mike Kage, the third district attorney
00:56:43
to oversee it. What was your biggest concern going in, deciding to retry this? Just making sure we made the right decision.
00:56:51
We look at the case itself and try and decide what's the right thing here. Does justice demand that we move forward?
00:57:01
Kage believed it did. Dana Chandler would remain behind bars until her retrial. Her case and her cause began attracting attention.
00:57:10
No DNA, no confession, no fingerprint, you know, not even snitch witnesses. Daryl Burton is the founder of a non-profit organization called Miracle of Innocence.
00:57:20
Its mission is to help those who may have been wrongly accused. And this is based on your own personal experience.
00:57:27
Yes. You were wrongfully accused. Yes, wrongfully accused and faced a death penalty and sent to prison for nearly 25 years for a crime that I didn't commit.
00:57:37
Convicted of murder in 1985 and exonerated in 2008, Darrell believed Dana's case mirrored his own.
00:57:44
To him, the lack of physical evidence spoke volumes. You cannot find a case where you would investigate all of these different avenues and not find something, some connection.
00:57:57
It just doesn't happen. I think that's what makes this so complicated is that Dana looks so bad with her behavior towards her ex and his new girlfriend.
00:58:08
But then there's that, you know, where's the smoking gun? It don't have to be a smoking gun.
00:58:14
It could just be a water pistol, anything. Lack of evidence aside, do you believe Dana Chandler is innocent?
00:58:20
I do. I believe she's innocent in my heart of hearts. His organization hired a top-notch defense team to represent Dana in her high-stakes retrial.
00:58:29
What would this new jury think? I'm sure your stomach is turning. Yes. in august 2022 dana chandler stood trial for a second time for the murders of mike sisco and
00:58:56
karen harkness 20 years earlier prosecutor charles kitt acknowledged the evidence the state
00:59:02
didn't have. The prosecution's case remained largely unchanged from the first trial.
00:59:22
Haley once again took the stand. Seeing your mom this time around, did it feel different at all?
00:59:28
My mom looked so different. I mean, she'd been in jail for 11 years, and it was still hard to see her.
00:59:36
But, you know, time had passed, and I had grown, and so I think it was a little bit easier.
00:59:43
She really obsessed over him. She told the jury how her mom seemed perversely fixated on her dad and Karen.
00:59:51
It was a big part of my conversations with her was where your dad what he doing and your dad did this to me in bad talking him and Karen And did that continue up until his death Yeah
01:00:06
But the prosecution told the jury it wasn't just what Dana said. It was also what she did, like showing up in Topeka unannounced
01:00:14
or incessantly calling Mike and Karen. He was distraught. Mike's brother-in-law, Mark, testified about Mike's growing concern
01:00:21
over what his ex-wife might be capable of. Mike told me that the patterns of harassment had increased
01:00:29
and that he feared for he and Karen's lives And the state argued Dana's changing alibis for the weekend of the murders were full of holes
01:00:37
A weekend in which her cell phone went dark for more than 24 hours Perhaps the most chilling testimony came from Dana's friend Ann Hammer
01:00:47
She now believed Dana was guilty and told the jury about a road trip Dana said she took about a month before the murders
01:00:53
She told me that she had driven to Kansas. She told me that she knew nobody was in the house
01:01:01
and that she went into Mike's home through the window. After that, she did go to his girlfriend's
01:01:09
house and sat outside her house waiting for them to come home, but they didn't show up.
01:01:15
Did you think that Dana's story about the drive was possibly a dry run for what she ended up being
01:01:22
accused of. That's absolutely what I did think of it. She's just practicing. May I please the court?
01:01:29
But Dana Chandler's defense attorney, Tom Bath, reminded the jury of the glaring holes in the
01:01:34
prosecution's case. In 20 years, the state had no evidence, no evidence whatsoever, that placed
01:01:41
Dana Chandler in Karen Harkis' home in the city of Topeka or in the state of Kansas.
01:01:48
and that hasn't changed. The defense argued this was a classic example of a botched investigation
01:01:55
led by a detective with tunnel vision. Votley essentially started on this path right from the start.
01:02:01
When they get their mind fixed on a suspect, that's almost like you can get a bull's eye every time.
01:02:06
You know how you get a bull's eye every time where you stick the arrow in the tree
01:02:08
and you just draw a circle around it. Daryl Burton attended the trial to support Dana.
01:02:13
And I think that's what they did with Dana. You know, he said, we got this person
01:02:16
and we're going to build our case around this person. The defense highlighted Voli's many missteps,
01:02:22
hammering him on cross-examination about the parts of the investigation he failed to document.
01:02:27
Did you do a report on this? No. You didn't even do any notes about what Dana said, did you?
01:02:32
No. Right. And taking him to task for the things he did document that later went missing.
01:02:38
Where is that tape, detective? I don't know. As for that dry run, the defense pressed Dana's old friend on her memory.
01:02:46
And do you remember that some of the information you gave about Dana, you weren't sure if it was true or if it was a dream?
01:02:52
Absolutely. The defense argued the rest of the prosecution's case was just noise.
01:02:58
Dana wasn't angry or obsessed and never harassed Mike or Karen. All those phone calls, for instance, just a mom trying to reach her kids.
01:03:06
And so what if her cell phone went dark for 27 hours? This was 2002. Service was limited.
01:03:12
Roaming charges were sky high. and people weren't tied to their phones like they are today.
01:03:18
2002 was a different era for cell phones. Many people's phone would not show calls.
01:03:23
You know, for the defense, I think they were just kind of throwing their arms in the air going,
01:03:27
just because she can't prove she was in Colorado doesn't mean she was in Kansas.
01:03:30
You know, there's no evidence she was there either. And in fact, said the defense, there was evidence someone else was in that house.
01:03:36
A hair found on a shell casing did not match Dana or either of the victims. There is reasonable doubt at every turn.
01:03:43
And we ask you to return a verdict, not guilty, not proven. Thank you. Jury deliberations started after three weeks of testimony.
01:03:52
One day passed, then another, then another. Day one, day two, day three, day four.
01:03:59
This is going on almost a week. That wasn't good. We knew it wasn't good. I'm sure your stomach is turning.
01:04:06
You're getting a bad feeling here. Yes. On the sixth day of deliberations, the jury filed back into the courtroom.
01:04:14
I understand that the jury is unable to reach a unanimous verdict at this time. Is that correct?
01:04:21
That's correct. The judge declared a mistrial. All right, thank you very much. And the families found themselves right back where they started.
01:04:29
Oh, it hurts. You've already done one and then now two, and then now you have this lack of resolution.
01:04:34
It's a roller coaster, yeah. Definitely a roller coaster. and there was no getting off as the case careened towards a third trial.
01:04:43
And this time, all bets were off. There is a big, big twist coming that you did not see coming.
01:04:51
Wow. Shocking. This is the mother-daughter showdown for the ages. Absolutely. In the fall of 2022, despite two trials behind them, prosecutors decided to roll the dice again and try Dana Chandler for a third time.
01:05:21
The victims' families were relieved, but the long wait for trial wouldn't be easy.
01:05:26
Dana was granted bond. So now she's out. You've testified against your mom twice, and now she's a free woman.
01:05:33
I was really nervous about her getting out on bond. I felt better because she was supposed to stay in Kansas and she'd have an ankle monitor.
01:05:46
But still, I knew it was nothing for her to drive any distance. Karen friend Linda was anxious too Several of us the very first trial when we testified against her we said if she gets off I a little concerned
01:06:07
The prosecutor's decision to retry Dana was a major disappointment for her friend Daryl.
01:06:12
He vowed to stick by her and for the next two and a half years, continued to raise money to keep lawyer Tom Bath on the case.
01:06:20
How are you feeling heading into trial number three? I was feeling she had a good chance. And I said to Dana, I said, you know, Dana, I said, Tom is likable. I said, if he gets in front of a jury, they're going to like him.
01:06:35
Dana's third trial began in February of 2025 in a county northwest of Topeka. The courthouse was different, but the players were the same until minutes before opening statements.
01:06:47
Dana made a stunning decision. She fired her attorneys. Dana would represent herself.
01:06:54
She really flips the switch on this one. Yeah, that was a blindside. Even her staunchest supporters were dumbfounded.
01:07:03
I said, you know, Dana, I don't understand. You know, what are you trying to do?
01:07:06
What are you doing? You're not a lawyer. You know, you need an attorney to, you know, to understand court rules, procedures, and court etiquette.
01:07:14
You know, this is my life, you know, and this is my case, and I think I can help myself.
01:07:22
Counsel, are you ready for the case? Yes, Your Honor. Okay. Prosecutors argued their now familiar case.
01:07:29
Same motive. That this defendant was obsessed with Mike and Karen, that she hated Mike and Karen,
01:07:38
that she told Haley that she had thought about killing Mike. And the same disturbing stories.
01:07:44
Phone harassment, rapid fire phone calls, stalking, showing up. I looked out the blinds of his bedroom, and it was the defendant jumping on a trampoline and laughing.
01:07:58
When it was Dana's turn, everyone knew they were in for something different. And sure enough, she threw the typical trial playbook out the window.
01:08:07
For her first witness, Dana called herself, speaking in a monologue about herself.
01:08:13
I start by stating my name. My name is Dana Chandler. I, as everyone knows, have been accused of double homicide. And I am innocent. I did not kill Mike and Karen.
01:08:27
With her sisters and other supporters looking on, Dana told the jury she was a woman who'd been dealt a bad hand.
01:08:34
She said her ex-husband left her impoverished and shut out of her children's lives, and she'd endured a lonely battle against alcoholism.
01:08:42
Yes, she said some of her behavior was ugly, like those graphic messages she'd sent Haley about her dad and Karen's sex life.
01:08:49
But that was the alcohol talking. I mean, seriously, Haley was 14 years old. I am just so ashamed and embarrassed about that.
01:08:59
And I hated that Haley, that I put Haley through that. She took the blame for that, but not for all the rest.
01:09:06
She said she was actually getting along with Mike at the time of the murders. and that all those damning stories told by Mike and Karen's families
01:09:13
were either misrepresented or never happened. There's been testimony that I used Haley and Dustin to spy on Mike.
01:09:23
I stopped Mike. None of that's true. And Dana said she hadn't changed her alibi about where she was the night of the murders.
01:09:32
She'd slept in her car in the Colorado mountains. This is a map of the route that I took.
01:09:39
As Dana moved around the courtroom, she didn't always come across like a polished attorney.
01:09:44
She struggled with her computer. Stopped testimony to put on her puffy coat. And she complained about our cameras.
01:09:56
That camera back there is daylight. I find that very distasteful. I'm sitting here
01:10:03
I'm getting my life stored With that camera pointing to me It's so obnoxious to me
01:10:09
And I'm very uncomfortable Doing that right now Did you worry that the jury might be sympathetic
01:10:16
To her or think Wow, this woman is taking on This burden of being her own attorney
01:10:22
Maybe she didn't do this Yeah, it concerned me a little bit I thought, yeah, it's possible
01:10:27
She could be seen as sympathetic To the jury Of course, the fact that Dana was her own attorney meant that she got to question every witness herself,
01:10:37
including the man she felt had tormented her for 20 years, Detective Voli. Morning.
01:10:43
Good morning. Dana worked him over on the stand, pressing him on every move he made during the investigation.
01:10:50
She was asking him questions that either he didn't recall or refused to acknowledge and answer.
01:10:56
and then she would approach him with some documents, reports that he had prepared.
01:11:02
Well, I can see that it's not accurate because I've obviously made an error on that.
01:11:06
It was coming across as effective. She used a note he'd written to portray him as a man desperate to solve the case,
01:11:13
not for justice, but to protect his reputation, an allegation he denied. You were feeling a great deal of pressure to solve this crime.
01:11:22
I always feel a great deal of pressure to solve any murder. To the point to where you were concerned that the perceived problem, that the crime had not properly been investigated, would fall on you.
01:11:37
That memo lacks context. Yet even though he turned her life upside down, Dana said the detective still couldn't produce a single piece of direct evidence that tied her to the crime.
01:11:49
Were there my fingerprints in the house? No. Were there any of my hair in the house?
01:11:54
No. Was there any DNA in the house? No. He never found evidence that she... or knew how to use a gun either.
01:12:02
What was that like having your murder suspect keeping you on the stand for two days,
01:12:08
just line by line of all your work? I mean, the tables have turned. She's now interviewing you.
01:12:14
The irony was so thick, I could have cut it with a knife. Being questioned by Dana was equally surreal for Mark and Kathy.
01:12:23
What was bizarre for me was I was getting a drink of water when she came to cross-examine me.
01:12:30
And I hear this. And she's trying to put on this persona that we're old friends.
01:12:39
Dana accused you of having mental health issues. Yes. Isn't it true that you're bipolar? You've been diagnosed bipolar?
01:12:47
No, it's not true. It was demented. But the person who dreaded the face-to-face with Dana most was her daughter.
01:12:55
Knowing that I was going to have to get up on the stand and be questioned by her was like upsetting my stomach to have to talk to her.
01:13:07
What was your strategy with her, your approach, knowing that your mom's playing the role of attorney?
01:13:16
I put on my game face. I remember right before I went in to testify, I remembered like a soccer pep talk that my dad gave me as a kid to get ready for the big game.
01:13:29
Because I needed to be my best and I needed to be ready for a fight and just like I can do this, you know.
01:13:38
And I remember reminding myself where I stand. I wanted the truth. I'm telling the truth and I'm doing the right thing.
01:13:46
and I'm not moving. Hello, Miss Hill. If Haley was Dana's child, you couldn't tell.
01:13:55
She attacked Haley's memories, suggesting Mike was the unhinged parent after the divorce, not her.
01:14:01
When your dad and Karen drove up, your dad stormed over to the car. Oh, no. No, he did not.
01:14:08
And he started banging on the window. What? No, he did not. And I'm like, no, that did not happen.
01:14:17
She was making things up. And she made Haley revisit disagreements they'd had in the past,
01:14:24
laying bare their fractured relationship for the jury. Is this a good setting to explain our personal relationship?
01:14:32
Well that a lot of what this trial is about is my relationship with you Despite their problems Dana insisted she tried to be there for Haley after her father was killed But I did try to call you was your testimony
01:14:46
Yes, you did. And you wouldn't answer your phone. Yeah, I didn't want to talk to you.
01:14:50
You didn't want to talk to me. But I tried to talk to you, correct? Yes. How do you feel you did?
01:14:57
I feel really good. I did great. Did you feel like your dad was with you? I do. Dana Chandler had had her say
01:15:06
Now prosecutors would have a chance to question her A double murder case that began on a 4th of July weekend
01:15:13
Was about to end with its own fireworks Ms. Chandler, it is a yes or no I'm not going to be corralled into this little box of yes or no, Mr. Kidd
01:15:32
Dana Chandler had conducted her defense her way. I think this case is a character assassination.
01:15:46
But the decision to represent herself came at a cost. There were constant delays as Dana sifted through documents and corralled her witnesses.
01:15:54
She tested the judge's patience. I'm going to ask you to stop talking right now unless you really have something.
01:16:01
You have a motion to make. By contrast, the prosecutors moved their case along like clockwork.
01:16:11
They know what they're doing. They've got their witnesses in order. They've all been briefed.
01:16:15
Everybody's on the same page. The prosecution took advantage of Dana's inexperience at key moments.
01:16:23
Remember the gas station clerk who believed she saw Dana in Kansas the weekend of the murders?
01:16:27
Because that woman died, the judge had ruled her story inadmissible. But Dana asked the detective a question that allowed him to talk about it.
01:16:35
We also have, and it hasn't been mentioned yet, a Patty Williams in Wachini, Kansas.
01:16:43
The prosecutor played the revelation for all it was worth, showing the jury how the clerk had identified Dana in a photo lineup.
01:16:50
So she looked at this lineup of six photographs for about 10 seconds? Yes. And what did she say?
01:16:57
She pointed to the person in position four on the lineup. and said she was about 70% sure that the woman in four
01:17:05
was the woman that had been in the store. The prosecution, I mean, these guys, they were literally running circles around Dana.
01:17:13
Well they been to law school They tried many cases This is their life their job It not Dana job Right And she never tried a case ever you know in her life The prosecutor also had a chance to do something he been wanting to do for years
01:17:28
question Dana on the stand. By testifying, she'd put herself in that precarious spot.
01:17:33
I'm ready for Carlos. The prosecutor asked Dana a series of yes or no questions and called her out when she refused to comply.
01:17:41
Ms. Chandler, is it fair to say you don't like the rules when they apply to you?
01:17:45
No, that's not true at all. The rule is, when you're asked a question, answer that question, and then wait for the next question.
01:17:53
Do you understand that? That is, what you're asking me is not necessarily, and I understand you're trying to corral me, keep me on the short leash, yes or no.
01:18:03
I understand the tactic. But you're not capable of doing that? I do. He took aim at her alibi and got her to admit that she had told different stories about that weekend.
01:18:15
So what you told Detective Oli is not consistent with what you told Jeff Bailey, is it?
01:18:21
As far as my trip to... Ms. Chandler, it's not consistent with what you told me.
01:18:25
Okay, yeah, I would agree with that. The prosecutor also pointed out the sheer number of witnesses who Dana said hadn't told the truth about her.
01:18:33
Tim Sisko and Kathy Boots were wrong about saying Mike saw you in his breezeway in May,
01:18:39
approximately six weeks before the homicide. Is that correct? Yes, they are absolutely wrong.
01:18:44
Kathy was mistaken or wrong on her testimony about seeing you jump on Mike's trampoline.
01:18:49
It's inaccurate that that happened, absolutely. Haley and Dustin were wrong when they said that you used them as your little spies.
01:19:00
Yes or no? I was not using them as my little spouse. How do you think she did on cross-examination?
01:19:10
She didn't do too good. The whole trial was just painful. It's like you're sitting on the shoreline and you're watching someone drown.
01:19:17
You throw them a life preserve and they throw it back. It was just painful. When both sides rested and the case went to the jury, Mark and Kathy were optimistic.
01:19:26
Are you feeling good? Yeah, I felt very confident. I was feeling great. And they wouldn't have to wait long for the decision.
01:19:35
Three and a half hours after deliberations began, everyone gathered in the courtroom for the verdict.
01:19:44
The jury comes back guilty. Yeah, yeah, guilty. Does it feel even better this time around because of everything you been through that maybe this is final now Yes This time with her representing herself exposing herself with all of her stories
01:20:07
I feel it is over. It's fully out there. Everyone knows what happened. Karen's son Chad was also grateful it was over.
01:20:18
I was elated and just felt peace and calm and even some tears of joy. On the other side of the aisle, Daryl was despondent.
01:20:30
How did that feel when you see Dana being cuffed and led away after weeks of fighting?
01:20:37
It was sickening. It was crushing, devastated. She turned and she looked at her family and she blew them a kiss.
01:20:44
And then, you know, the sheriff took her out the back door. 23 years after Mike and Karen were killed,
01:20:54
their families are just starting to get used to life after Dana Chandler. But for Karen's daughter Erin, the pain of her mother's death is never far away.
01:21:04
As heartbroken as I am for my loss, what literally brings me to my knees is the fact that our two amazing sons
01:21:17
will never know a life or a world with her in it. Haley feels that ache, too. She was just a teen when she lost her father.
01:21:27
Now she's a mother of three. I'm sure he would have made a great grandpa to your kids.
01:21:36
He would have made, like, the best grandpa to my kids. and Karen would have been a great grandma too.
01:21:44
I think your dad would be proud of you for all that you've done to fight for him.
01:21:51
I hope my dad's proud of me. That's all I wanted. That's all for this edition of Dateline
01:22:04
and check out our Talking Dateline podcast. Andrea Canning and Keith Morrison will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode,
01:22:12
available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. And starting this weekend, in addition to Fridays and Saturdays,
01:22:21
you can tune in to Dateline Sundays at 10, 9 central. We'll see you then. I'm Lester Holt.
01:22:27
For all of us at NBC News, good night. you