Deadly Obsession

26:34We had the sandbox. All the fun stuff, you know, as kids. 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. 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. It wasn't to be. Your dad ends up getting full custody of you and your brother? Yeah. How did that come about? The custody was a battle. My mom really wanted us. My dad really wanted us. My mom was found to be really unhealthy and was drinking quite a bit at the time.

27:16And so when my dad got custody, she moved to live with her sister to try to get a handle on her alcohol problem. Anne Hammer, who met Dana in AA, says Dana worked hard to get her life back together. 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? Well, I mean, Dana was friendly. She was kind. She did not have custody of her children. And at the time, I did not have custody of my daughter. And that really kind of formed a bond between us as mothers. Did Dana miss her kids? Did she want to get them back?

27:59Yes, she did. She did very much. Anne says Dana was driven, had gone back to school to get her master's degree in accounting. She also remembers the fun times they had together, like at a New Year's Eve party where she grabbed this photo of Dana. 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. 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. What was she saying? She was crying. I really couldn't get a lot out of her.

28:36Did you worry about Dana? I did, sure. Sure, she was my friend and she was upset. Later that week, Dana drove down to Topeka for Mike's funeral. Detective Volley had already spoken to Dana on the phone, but figured while she was in town, they could meet. She agreed to an interview, but it had to be in her lawyer's office. So she had retained a lawyer? Yes. You know why we're here. We're looking at the death of your husband and his heart. What was your first impression of her? What was her demeanor like when you meet in this attorney's office? She was calm. She was reserved, very put together. Dana spoke so softly she could barely be heard on the police recording.

29:20You never lose, James Began. Did she offer any suspects for you of someone she thought might have wanted Mike and Karen dead? No, she just said generally that Mike had a propensity for getting himself in trouble. 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. In fact, she shared what she did that entire weekend, saying she spent most of her Saturday shopping. She went to the King's Supermarket. She went to Target. She went to the AutoZone. And she went to the gas station.

30:02After a night alone, she said she got up early Sunday to drive two hours west to Granby, Colorado. 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. 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. There was no question on that. The interview ended, and it seemed like a dead end. 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. Why would she need gas cans?

30:39That's what we didn't know. That's what we had to try to find out.

30:56A 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. I guess that's how I handle things. You must have heard from so many people saying how much they missed your mom, how much they love your mom. Yes. She had told me in our conversations throughout the years what she kind of envisioned for after she would pass. She said, don't sit around and cry. Have a party. And we went to her favorite spot in Topeka. 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.

31:44Oh, my gosh. You're going to make me cry. I know. It was pretty great. Detective Volley had been asking the families a lot of questions. And he was still looking at Mike's ex-wife, Dana, who seemed to have a strong alibi. 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. 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? 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, indicated more than just a lighter.

32:31I called up the AutoZone and said, can you check back through your receipts? And he went back through and I said, what was purchased? And he said, two five-gallon gas cans and a cigarette lighter. Why would she need gas cans? That's what we didn't know. That's what we had to try to find out. 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. Blank as in the phone wasn't used? The phone was not used during that 27-hour period. I didn't just have that period of time to look at. I had a period of time before that.

33:11There was no other blank periods of that length. So she was regularly using her phone. 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. 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. 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 video from both ends of the park to make sure that she had not gone through there, and she hadn't.

33:52So 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 concern. His name was Jeff. Jeff told the detective Dana had asked him to help out with her attorney's fees following the murders. But first, he wanted to know more. He's asking her questions like I would ask. You know, where were you? Can you prove that you weren't involved in this? She said, I left Saturday and went for a drive in the mountains. And I didn't come back till Sunday, Sunday night. And he said, well, you got a hotel receipt or something?

34:31And she says, no, I slept in my car. Okay, well, did you see anybody? Did you see the fires that were out there? Like big fires? Big forest fires. So she says she's sleeping in her car, but there's forest fires around the area? 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. He started putting the pieces together, a shifting alibi, an off-the-grid cell phone, and two gas cans. And he had a huge lightbulb moment. She could get to Topeka and out of Kansas without stopping for gas.

35:15Instead 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? This is the highway that you think Dana Chandler took to get to Topeka from Denver? 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. I thought it was a possibility that she would have. And just to cover our bases, I sent a couple detectives on I-70 and hitting every gas station convenience store along I-70 to try to find video or any evidence that she had been in any of those places.

35:58You're trying to catch her driving to Topeka? Yes. None of the gas stations had security camera video of Dana or her car. 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, which would have been appropriate to the time it took her to travel from Denver to Topeka. Are they showing a photo then? They showed her a photo and she said, yeah, that lady looks familiar. 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?

36:40As 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, no murder weapon, no confession, no eyewitness, seeing her go into the house. None of that. Right. It doesn't mean she wasn't there, just we haven't found the physical evidence. Two months after the murders, he dropped in on Dana's close friend, Anne. You get a surprise visit at work. Right. From Detective Voli and another plainclothes detective. 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.

37:19And now it's a double homicide? Right. And Dana might be involved? Right. What is your reaction as you're hearing this? I was shocked. I said, no way did she do this. I couldn't even imagine that she had anything to do with it. I didn't see a mean bone in her body. I had been friends with Dana for years, and it just, it was shocking. I just couldn't believe it. It would take more than two decades to put the whole story together. After secrets crawled out into the open. I had been recording our conversations. And danger never seemed far away. Did you worry your mom might try to seek revenge on you?

37:56Absolutely. I'm sure your stomach is turning. Yes. Yeah, it was sickening. It was crushing. This is the mother-daughter showdown for the ages. Absolutely.

38:19Dana Chandler was now the focus of the investigation. Police weren't buying all of her alibi, especially where she said she'd traveled that weekend. And they were discovering more about her. According to Mike's family and friends, Dana did not move on after the divorce, and she wanted to make sure Mike didn't either. Caught in the middle was Mike's new love, Karen. It started to get really, really bad. 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. Describe the phone calls that Karen would get.

38:58They would typically be in the middle of the night and call, hang up, call, hang up, call, hang up. Call and say horrible, vile things. Call Karen names. Karen began to wonder if her relationship with Mike could survive. She loved Mike, but she didn't know if she could live with someone being that intrusive into their lives and manipulative. Did she think about breaking up with Mike? She shared with some of us that she didn't know she could do this. 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, had called Karen a tramp.

39:48I just said, I don't want to hear about this. Why are you bringing me into this? But I just knew that she did not like Karen at all, And she just was really angry at my dad. She would verbally attack my dad in public. And it would happen at soccer games. The school play? Yeah. So people are seeing this. Yeah, it's really embarrassing. The movie Fatal Attraction really comes to mind when you think about some of the actions of your mom. 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. She just, I guess, couldn't handle the fact that he didn't care for her anymore.

40:33And Mike's sister said she, too, witnessed some of Dana's behavior during a stay at his house. It must have been one or two in the morning. I'd woken up, and the light was on out back. And we opened the blinds, and it was Dana jumping on the trampoline. The trampoline was near the 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 killings. Mike came home one day after work and the kids were still in school and found her sitting in his breezeway that had been locked with a cup of coffee.

41:12And he said, what are you doing here? I'm calling 911. And she said, no, no, wait a minute. The kids are both at ages where they really need us. I think we should get back together, just very calmly. And he said, are you kidding me? For Mike, the strange encounter cemented something he'd been thinking about for some time. He called me right after. He said, I'm Mary and Karen. Then, just days before the murders, on that fishing trip with his brother-in-law, Mike shared a chilling premonition. Mike said, when I'm gone, please make sure that the kids are raised properly and have what they need. He said, are you really serious?

41:52He said, yes, something's going to happen. When Dana finds out that Karen and he were going to marry, that's going to be the trigger. And that was the last time I saw him alive. Karen's son suspected Dana from the beginning. I knew who did it. I mean, I said I know that this is that crazy psychopath, Dana Chandler, that did it. The detective felt he had built a solid case against Dana. There was her harassing behavior, her suspicious cell records, and the witness along I-70 who thought she saw Dana the night of the murders. She's a good witness. She's a really good witness, yes. Still, the local district attorney didn't think the case was provable beyond a reasonable doubt.

42:36The DA didn't think everything you'd gathered was enough. They didn't believe there was enough evidence to take it to court. How frustrating was that for you? Even though I knew in my heart we were on the right track, The DA didn't agree, so we keep moving forward. Months would turn into years. Then a setback. That key witness, the gas station clerk, passed away. 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? I made a promise to Karen's dad. when he wasn't convinced that the investigation was progressing fast enough or far enough, I said, I've got 12 years before I retire.

43:21I will have this case that whole 12 years. 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. I was wrestling so badly with the guilt that I had from being so terrible to my dad and never being able to say I was sorry. And I just wanted to do something to redeem myself. And she started having uncomfortable thoughts about her mom. I really wanted to find out who did it. And I needed to know if it was my mom. You put your detective hat on. Yeah, I did. Haley was about to go undercover. It was completely my plan.

44:12It was 2005, three years after the murders, and there had been no arrest. I think that Detective Voli had his whole heart in solving this murder, but he couldn't do it by himself. For you, it felt like the murders fell through the cracks? Yeah. Without answers, Haley found herself asking the toughest question of all. Did your mind go there that could my mom be capable of doing this? Is that possible? 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. 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.

44:57So she embarked on a bold new approach to investigate her mom, herself. Are the police involved at all? Have they asked you to? It was completely my plan. I came up with the idea myself. A fire was lit. Yeah. Haley, just 20 years old, began secretly recording conversations with her mother. Take us to this moment where you first decide to record your mom. I had already been talking to her from time to time, and I questioned her about it. I really wanted the truth. Recording it wasn't hard. Was this over the phone? Did you meet somewhere? So I really only had a recorder for my phone. So I would record our phone conversations.

45:42Honestly, like through all this, it just seems like you, you don't want to help. Tell me, I had no idea what your dad and Karen is working with. You were involved, man. In a span of about four years, Haley made six recordings. At times, it was clear she was torn.

46:10I'm not going to make her say anything. She's going to say what she's going to say. I'm just recording it. I'm asking legitimate questions. One of Haley's first probing questions was one also gnawing at the detective. Why did her mom buy those gas cans?

46:33Her mom told her something she'd never said before. She got the gas cans as a favor to a woman at AA.

46:53I wish that I would have gotten her name, but I didn't. 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, Haley, just believe me. What about her phone? I would ask her, why did your phone go unanswered? 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 mountains. Okay, so you were up to the mountains? Yes, okay. I didn't have a cable. You're trying to catch your mom in a trap. That was definitely the gamble. I wasn't sure if it was even going to work. But then you started to get somewhere.

47:37Yeah. Is there a night in the mountains then, Mike? That we can. She seemed to confirm she was in the mountains, which is what she told her friend Jeff. And that contradicted what she told Detective Voli, that she'd spent the night at her apartment. So Haley asked exactly where she was.

48:04Are you buying this, what she's telling you? I'm completely not buying it. After months of secretly recording her mom, Haley let Detective Voli in on her operation. He jumped at the opportunity to get something solid on Dana. So he gave Haley a key fob with a voice recorder hidden inside. Haley met her mom at a restaurant and placed the fob on the table. How nervous were you as you're recording her? It was a little nerve-wracking. It's barely audible due to the noisy restaurant. Haley put her mom on the spot. At one point, I asked her to just take a polygraph test. That would be one step to show that she didn't do it.

48:48And she asked me if I'd ever thought about killing my dad. And I said, no. You know, but she said, well, I have thought about killing him. That's big. Yeah. I mean, you know, we can say in passing like, oh, I could kill him, you know. 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. 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. Eventually, as Haley kept pressing her mom, Dana shut down.

49:29My attorney advised me not to talk to anybody about anything about that weekend. Now I'm going to thank you to God. Okay, I understand, but I don't understand why you can't tell me. I'm just wanting my mom back. But Dana was dug in. I say something that doesn't agree with what my first date of life, that I'm taking my story, and I don't want to risk doing that either. Dana had changed her story, and she left Haley and Detective Vully more convinced than ever that she'd committed the murders. Haley definitely catches her in some inconsistencies. Yeah, the inconsistencies on the gas can, that was big.

50:11So just saying, yeah, I thought about it, that's important. That gives us something in Dana's own words. It may have been important, but without a confession, it wasn't enough for the DA to take the case.

50:29In 2007, five years after the murders, Vully was promoted to sergeant and was transferred out of the detective squad. 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. It's going to change everything about this. Everything. It certainly does.

51:02I don't know how you'd move on without closure, without resolution, without justice is what it was for me. 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. 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. It's the Harkness-Sisco case. He says, I know about it. I'm going to start a cold case unit, and we're going to look at that. And he got elected. He was elected.

51:41He did start the cold case unit. 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. What do you think changed? Perspective and part of it. This one says, if I lose, I lose. Let him go down swinging. The DA called us in and said, we have, I think, as much as we're ever going to have. Do you want us to charge her and go to trial? Yes. I mean, no hesitation for me. Is there any conflicting feelings there that you're pushing for your mom to be arrested?

52:22I was really scared because she was going to find out that I had been recording our conversations. 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. Absolutely. Dana Chandler was living in Oklahoma at the time. It was 2011, nearly a decade since Mike and Karen had been killed. Authorities caught up with her in a parking lot and arrested her with guns drawn. 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. We're covering this around the clock every day.

53:04Sherman Smith is editor-in-chief of the Kansas Reflector, covering state politics. Back then, he was an editor for the Topeka Capital Journal. One of the reasons why the community fixated on this so much was because, you know, it involved a couple of community members in a relatively safe neighborhood, and that just doesn't really happen much in Topeka. The prosecution argued Dana was the only person who hated Mike and Karen enough to kill them. The motive has always been that Dana Chandler was so bitter about the failure of her marriage. She despised her ex-husband and despised even more that he was going to be married again.

53:41To prove motive, prosecutors called friends and family, including Haley, who was by then 27. What's that like going to trial knowing that you'll 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. But I was only doing what was right. If you believe she did this, then she has to pay. Yeah. I wanted the jury to know how much she hated them, what she put them through, and... Karen and Mike. Yeah. The prosecutor said Mike was scared of Dana and got a protection from abuse order against her, which she violated.

54:33The defense countered that there was no physical evidence tying Dana to the crime scene. It took less than 90 minutes for the jury to find her guilty of both counts of first-degree murder. She was given two life sentences. I was glad for the family. The work I did on the case was shown to be good, so I was happy about that. But still, you're not jumping for joy after somebody gets convicted of a murder because nobody wins. There weren't any winners that day at all, but we were relieved. To tell you the truth, we were relieved. Haley, who was just a teenager when her father was killed, says she felt almost reborn.

55:13I felt like my life was starting. You know, that was behind me. And this was the new fresh start, a new beginning. Chris and I got married and we started having kids and it was great. Sergeant Volley, who had fulfilled his promise to Karen's dad to never give up on the case, retired in 2014. But this fresh start for all of them came to a screeching halt. You get some news that's going to rock your world. 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.

55:55It never existed, and the prosecutor knew it. Both murder convictions were tossed. 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. Haley knew that if the state chose not to re-prosecute the case, her mother would walk free. Did you worry your mom might try to seek revenge on you, given that you testified against her the first time? I was terrified if she would get out of jail. And I had kids now. Yeah, could she harm one of your children? Was that a fear? Harming them or just trying to see them in general.

56:38The fate of Dana Chandler's case was in the hands of Mike Kage, the third district attorney to oversee it. What was your biggest concern going in, deciding to retry this? Just making sure we made the right decision. We look at the case itself and try and decide what's the right thing here. Does justice demand that we move forward? Kage believed it did. Dana Chandler would remain behind bars until her retrial. Her case and her cause began attracting attention. No DNA, no confession, no fingerprint, you know, not even snitch witnesses. Daryl Burton is the founder of a nonprofit organization called Miracle of Innocence.

57:19Its mission is to help those who may have been wrongly accused. And this is based on your own personal experience. 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. Convicted of murder in 1985 and exonerated in 2008, Darrell believed Dana's case mirrored his own. 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. 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.

58:08But then there's that, you know, where's the smoking gun? It don't have to be a smoking gun. It could just be a water pistol. Anything. Lack of evidence aside, do you believe Dana Chandler is innocent? 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. What would this new jury think? I'm sure your stomach is turning. Yes.

58:50In August 2022, Dana Chandler stood trial for a second time for the murders of Mike Sisko and Karen Harkness 20 years earlier. Prosecutor Charles Kitt acknowledged the evidence the state didn't have. This case is not based on DNA. This case is not based on hair. This case is not based on fingerprints. This case is based on jealousy, rage, and obsession. The prosecution's case remained largely unchanged from the first trial. Haley once again took the stand. Seeing your mom this time around, did it feel different at all? My mom looked so different. I mean, she'd been in jail for 11 years, and it was still hard to see her.

59:36But, you know, time had passed, and I had grown, and so I think it was a little bit easier. She really obsessed over him. She told the jury how her mom seemed perversely fixated on her dad and Karen. It was a big part of my conversations with her was, where's your dad, what's he doing? and your dad did this to me in bed talking him and Karen. And did that continue up until his death? Yeah. 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 or incessantly calling Mike and Karen. He was distraught. Mike's brother-in-law, Mark, testified about Mike's growing concern over what his ex-wife might be capable of.

1:00:24Mike told me that the patterns of harassment had increased 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, 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. She now believed Dana was guilty and told the jury about a road trip Dana said she took about a month before the murders. She told me that she had driven to Kansas. She told me that she knew nobody was in the house and that she went into Mike's home through the window.

1:01:05After that, she did go to his girlfriend's house and sat outside her house waiting for them to come home, but they didn't show up. Did you think that Dana's story about the drive was possibly a dry run for what she ended up being accused of? That's absolutely what I did think of it. She's just practicing. May it please the court. But Dana Chandler's defense attorney, Tom Bath, reminded the jury of the glaring holes in the prosecution's case. In 20 years, the state had no evidence, no evidence whatsoever, that placed Dana Chandler in Karen Harkness' home in the city of Topeka or in the state of Kansas.

1:01:48And that hasn't changed. The defense argued this was a classic example of a botched investigation led by a detective with tunnel vision. Votley essentially started on this path right from the start. When they get their mind fixed on a suspect, that's almost like you can get a bull's eye every time. You know how you get a bull's eye every time? Where you stick the arrow in the tree and you just draw a circle around it. Daryl Burton attended the trial to support Dana. And I think that's what they did with Dana. You know, he said, we got this person and we're going to build our case around this person.

1:02:19The defense highlighted Voli's many missteps, hammering him on cross-examination about the parts of the investigation he failed to document. Did you do a report on this? No. You didn't even do any notes about what Dana said, did you? No. Right. And taking him to task for the things he did document that later went missing. Where is that tape, detective? I don't know. As for that dry run, the defense pressed Dana's old friend on her memory. 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? Absolutely. The defense argued the rest of the prosecution's case was just noise.

1:02:58Dana 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. And so what if her cell phone went dark for 27 hours? This was 2002. Service was limited. Roaming charges were sky high. and people weren't tied to their phones like they are today. 2002 was a different era for cell phones. Many people's phone would not show calls. You know, for the defense, I think they were just kind of throwing their arms in the air going, just because she can't prove she was in Colorado doesn't mean she was in Kansas. You know, there's no evidence she was there either.

1:03:32And in fact, said the defense, there was evidence someone else was in that house. A hair found on a shell casing did not match Dana or either of the victims. There is reasonable doubt at every turn. and we ask you to return a verdict, not guilty, not proven. Thank you. Jury deliberations started after three weeks of testimony. One day passed, then another, then another. Day one, day two, day three, day four. This is going on almost a week. That wasn't good. We knew it wasn't good. I'm sure your stomach is turning. You're getting a bad feeling here. Yes. On the sixth day of deliberations, the jury filed back into the courtroom.

1:04:14I understand that the jury is unable to reach a unanimous verdict at this time. Is that correct? That's correct. The judge declared a mistrial. Thank you very much. And the families found themselves right back where they started. Oh, it hurt. You've already done one and then now two and then now you have this lack of resolution. It's a roller coaster. Yeah. Definitely a roller coaster. And there was no getting off as the case careened towards a third trial. And this time, all bets were off. There is a big, big twist coming that you did not see coming. Wow. Shocking. This is the mother-daughter showdown for the ages.

1:04:57Absolutely.

1:05:12In the fall of 2022, despite two trials behind them, prosecutors decided to roll the dice again and try Dana Chandler for a third time. The victims' families were relieved, but the long wait for trial wouldn't be easy. Dana was granted bond. So now she's out. You've testified against your mom twice, and now she's a free woman. 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. But still, I knew it was nothing for her to drive any distance. Karen's friend Linda was anxious too. Several of us, the very first trial, when we testified against her, We said, if she gets off, I'm a little concerned.

1:06:07The prosecutor's decision to retry Dana was a major disappointment for her friend Daryl. 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. 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. Dana's third trial began this past February in a county northwest of Topeka. The courthouse was different, but the players were the same. Until, minutes before opening statements, Dana made a stunning decision.

1:06:49She fired her attorneys. Dana would represent herself. She really flips the switch on this one. Yeah, that was a blind sight. Even her staunchest supporters were dumbfounded. I said, you know, Dana, I don't understand. You know, what are you trying to do? 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. You know, this is my life. You know, this is my case. And I think I can help myself. Counsel, are you ready for the dance? Yes, Your Honor. Okay. Prosecutors argued their now familiar case. Same motive.

1:07:31That this defendant was obsessed with Mike and Karen, that she hated Mike and Karen, that she told Haley that she had thought about killing Mike. And the same disturbing stories. 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. 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. For her first witness, Dana called herself, speaking in a monologue about herself. Start by stating my name.

1:08:15My 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. With her sisters and other supporters looking on, Dana told the jury she was a woman who'd been dealt a bad hand. 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. 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. But that was the alcohol talking. I mean, seriously, Haley was 14 years old. I'm just so ashamed and embarrassed about that.

1:08:59And I hated that Haley, that I put Haley through that. She took the blame for that, but not for all the rest. 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 were either misrepresented or never happened. There's been testimony that I used Haley and Destin to spy on Mike. I stalked Mike. None of that's true. And Dana said she hadn't changed her alibi about where she was the night of the murders. She'd slept in her car in the Colorado mountains. This is a map of the route that I took. As Dana moved around the courtroom, She didn't always come across like a polished attorney.

1:09:44She struggled with her computer.

1:09:50Stopped testimony to put on her puffy coat. And she complained about our cameras. That camera back there is dead on. I find that very distasteful. I'm sitting here, giving my life story, with that camera pointing to me. It's so obnoxious to me. And I'm very uncomfortable doing that right now. Did you worry that the jury might be sympathetic to her or think, wow, this woman is taking on this burden of being her own attorney. Maybe she didn't do this. Yeah, it concerned me a little bit. I thought, yeah, it's possible 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, including the man she felt had tormented her for 20 years, Detective Vole.

1:10:42Morning. Good morning. Dana worked him over on the stand, pressing him on every move he made during the investigation. She was asking him questions that either he didn't recall or refused to acknowledge and answer. And then she would approach him with some documents, reports that he had prepared. Well, I can see that it's not accurate because I've obviously made an error on that. It was coming across as effective. She used a note he'd written to portray him as a man desperate to solve the case, not for justice, but to protect his reputation, an allegation he denied. You were feeling a great deal of pressure to solve this crime.

1:11:21I 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.

1:11:40Yet 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. Were there my fingerprints in the house? No. Were there any of my hair in the house? No. Was there any DNA in the house? No. He never found evidence that she owned or knew how to use a gun either. What was that like having your murder suspect keeping you on the stand for two days, just line by line of all your work? I mean, the tables have turned. She's now interviewing you. The irony was so thick, I could have cut it with a knife. Being questioned by Dana was equally surreal for Mark and Kathy.

1:12:23What was bizarre for me was I was getting a drink of water when she came to cross-examine me. And I hear this.

1:12:34And she's trying to put on this persona that we're old friends. Dana accused you of having mental health issues. Yes. Isn't it true that you're bipolar? You've been diagnosed bipolar? No, it's not true. It was demented. But the person who dreaded the face-to-face with Dana most was her daughter. 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. What was your strategy with her, your approach, knowing that your mom's playing the role of attorney?

1:13:16I 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. 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? And I remember reminding myself where I stand. I wanted the truth. I'm telling the truth, and I'm doing the right thing. And I'm not moving. Hello, I'm a seal. If Haley was Dana's child, you couldn't tell. She attacked Haley's memories, suggesting Mike was the unhinged parent after the divorce, not her. When your dad and Karen drove up, your dad stormed over to the car, right?

1:14:06Oh, no. No, he did not. And he started banging on the window. What? No, he did not. And I'm like, no, that did not happen. She was making things up. And she made Haley revisit disagreements they'd had in the past, laying bare their fractured relationship for the jury.

1:14:37Despite their problems, Dana insisted she tried to be there for Haley after her father was killed.

1:14:50You didn't want to talk to me. But I tried to talk to you, correct? Yes. How do you feel you did? I feel really good. I did great. Did you feel like your dad was with you? I do. Dana Chandler had had her say. Now prosecutors would have a chance to question her. A double murder case that began on a 4th of July weekend 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.

1:15:38Dana Chandler had conducted her defense her way. I think this case is a character assassination. But the decision to represent herself came at a cost. There were constant delays as Dana sifted through documents and corralled her witnesses. She tested the judge's patience.

1:16:06By contrast, the prosecutors moved their case along like clockwork. They know what they're doing. They've got their witnesses in order. They've all been briefed. everybody's on the same page. The prosecution took advantage of Dana's inexperience at key moments. Remember the gas station clerk who believed she saw Dana in Kansas the weekend of the murders? 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. We also have, and it hasn't been mentioned yet, a Patty Williams in Wachini, Kansas. The prosecutor played the revelation for all it was worth, showing the jury how the clerk had identified Dana in a photo lineup.

1:16:50So she looked at this lineup of six photographs for about 10 seconds? Yes. And what did she say? She pointed to the person in position four on the lineup and said she was about 70 % sure that the woman in four was the woman that had been in the store. The prosecution, I mean, these guys, they were literally running circles around Dana. Well, they've been to law school. They've tried many cases. This is their life, their job. It's not Dana's job. Right. And she's never tried a case ever, you know, in her life. The prosecutor also had a chance to do something he'd been wanting to do for years, question Dana on the stand.

1:17:30By testifying, she'd put herself in that precarious spot. 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. Ms. Chandler, is it fair to say you don't like the rules when they apply to you? 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. Do you understand that? That is what you're asking me. And I understand you're trying to corral me, keep me on a short leash, yes or no. 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.

1:18:15So what you told Detective Oli is not consistent with what you told Jeff Bailey, is it? As far as my trip to... Ms. Chandler, it's not consistent with what you told me. 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. Tim Sisko and Kathy Boots were wrong about saying Mike saw you in his breezeway in May, approximately six weeks before the homicide. Is that correct? Yes, they are absolutely wrong. Kathy was mistaken or wrong on her testimony about seeing you jump on Mike's trampoline. It's inaccurate that that happened, absolutely.

1:18:52Haley and Dustin were wrong when they said that you used them as your little spies.

1:19:01Yes or no? Yes. I was not using them as my little spurs. How do you think she did on cross-examination? 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. 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. Are you feeling good? Yeah, I felt very confident. I was feeling great. And they wouldn't have to wait long for the decision. Three and a half hours after deliberations began, everyone gathered in the courtroom for the verdict.

1:19:41We, the jury, find Dana Chandler guilty of murder and the first degree is charged with counsel. The jury comes back guilty. Yeah, yeah, guilty. Does it feel even better this time around because of everything you've been through that maybe this is final now? Yes. This time with her representing herself, exposing herself with all of her stories, I feel it is over. It's fully out there. Everyone knows what happened. Karen's son Chad was also grateful it was over. 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. How did that feel when you see Dana being cuffed and led away after weeks of fighting?

1:20:37Yeah, it was sickening. It was crushing, devastated. She turned and she looked at her family and she blew them a kiss. And then, you know, the sheriff took her out the back door.

1:20:5223 years after Mike and Karen were killed, 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. As heartbroken as I am for my loss, what literally brings me to my knees is the fact that our two amazing sons 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. Now she's a mother of three. I'm sure he would have made a great grandpa to your kids.

1:21:37He would have made, like, the best grandpa to my kids. Yes. And Karen would have been a great grandma, too. I think your dad would be proud of you for all that you've done to fight for him. I hope my dad's proud of me. That's all I wanted.

1:22:02That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check out our Talking Dateline podcast. Andrea Canning and Keith Morrison will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. And starting this weekend, in addition to Fridays and Saturdays, you can tune in to Dateline Sundays at 10, 9 central. We'll see you then. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.