Deadly Obsession

Summary

Dateline NBC Podcast Summary: "Deadly Obsession"

Introduction "Deadly Obsession," an episode of Dateline NBC released on April 8, 2025, delves into a harrowing true-crime story that spans over two decades. Hosted by Andrea Canning and Lester Holt, the episode explores the brutal double homicide of Mike Sisko and Karen Harkness in Topeka, Kansas, and the relentless pursuit of justice by their families and a dedicated detective.

The Crime Scene On July 4, 2002, amidst the festivities of Independence Day, Mike Sisko and Karen Harkness were found murdered in Karen's basement bedroom. Initially presumed to be a murder-suicide, Detective Richard Volley quickly dismissed this theory due to the lack of a weapon and the extensive gunshot wounds inflicted on both victims. The crime was ruled a “crime of passion” [00:59].

Investigative Challenges Detective Volley faced significant obstacles, including the absence of DNA evidence and fingerprints. The only leads were two coffee cups traced back to a nearby gas station and a casino visit the couple made the night before their deaths. Despite thorough investigation, no immediate suspect emerged, leaving the community and the victims' families in despair [03:23].

Family Turmoil and Suspicions Mike and Karen's families grappled with the shocking loss, particularly Hailey Sisko, Mike’s teenage daughter, who sensed underlying tensions within her family. Hailey began suspecting her mother, Dana Chandler, a divorced mother with a history of obsessive behavior towards her ex-husband Mike. Hailey noted, "I knew who did it. I mean, I know that this is that crazy psychopath Dana Chandler that did it" [21:23].

Dana Chandler: The Prime Suspect As Detective Volley honed in on Dana Chandler, her behavior raised red flags. Her cell phone records showed a significant blackout during the time of the murders, and testimonies revealed her obsessive fixation on Mike and Karen. Despite her calm demeanor and seemingly airtight alibi, inconsistencies in her story and relentless harassment towards Mike and Karen painted a troubling picture [33:02].

The Trials and Retrials In 2012, Dana Chandler stood trial for the murders, with Hailey Sisko testifying against her mother. Despite a compelling case from the prosecution detailing Dana’s motive rooted in jealousy and obsession, the lack of direct evidence led to a unanimous Verdict of guilty. However, in 2018, the Kansas Supreme Court overturned her conviction due to prosecutorial misconduct, specifically the use of a non-existent protection order against Dana [62:17]. Undeterred, prosecutors retried Dana in 2022. During the third trial, Dana shocked the courtroom by representing herself, leading to a dramatic and prolonged trial process. Ultimately, in February 2023, Dana was found guilty of both counts of first-degree murder, securing two life sentences [86:31].

Impact on the Families The prolonged legal battles left the Sisko and Harkness families emotionally drained. Hailey Sisko, now a mother herself, found closure only after Dana’s final conviction, though the scars of the ordeal lingered. She reflected, "I wanted the jury to know how much she hated them, what she put them through" [60:25]. Meanwhile, Detective Volley fulfilled his promise to never give up on the case, highlighting the complexities and challenges inherent in seeking justice without concrete evidence.

Notable Quotes

• Hailey Sisko [21:39]: "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."

• Detective Richard Volley [07:13]: "It was a long search and we searched a lot of places. It was a needle in a haystack."

• Dana Chandler [76:59]: "I am innocent. I did not kill Mike and Karen."

• Hailey Sisko [55:26]: "I have thought about killing him."

Conclusion "Deadly Obsession" encapsulates a gripping narrative of love, betrayal, and the quest for truth. Through meticulous investigation and unwavering determination, the Sisko family and Detective Volley navigated the murky waters of suspicion and legal hurdles to bring Dana Chandler to justice. This episode underscores the profound impact of true-crime on families and communities, illustrating the enduring pursuit of closure and the resilience required to overcome unimaginable loss.

Transcript

[Lester Holt]

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[Andrea Canning]

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[Lester Holt]

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[Andrea Canning]

Tonight on Dateline.

[Hailey Sisko]

There was tape all around the property. My grandma told me that my dad and Karen's been shot and killed. It was violent.

[Lester Holt]

They called it a crime of passion.

[Andrea Canning]

Someone with a lot of rage in them had to do that. We didn't have DNA, fingerprints, anything like that.

[Lester Holt]

The family felt like you weren't doing enough because there's no arrest.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, I know. Incredibly frustrating for them.

[Lester Holt]

You put your detective hat on.

[Hailey Sisko]

I did. I had a digital recorder. I was able to record both sides of the conversation.

[Andrea Canning]

Why don't you tell a detective about that?

[Lester Holt]

Give some proof showing you weren't at all.

[Hailey Sisko]

I wanted the truth.

[Lester Holt]

There's finally an arrest.

[Hailey Sisko]

We were delighted.

[Andrea Canning]

This case is based on rage and obsession.

[Lester Holt]

You have to testify.

[Hailey Sisko]

It was terrifying. I put on my game face. You're not getting intimidate me.

[Andrea Canning]

A determined daughter forced to come face to face with a cold blooded killer. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with Deadly Obsession.

[Lester Holt]

The fourth exploded on a Thursday that year, blazing its way into a long weekend. So there's fireworks, hot dogs, parades. Everybody's just kind of having a good time, enjoying life. One couple had extra reason to celebrate. You had never seen Mike and Karen so happy. No. They were especially happy that night. With no reason to think the fun would end anytime soon. You had no idea something was coming that was going to rock your family to the core. I thought that I heard gunshots. And even though it was July, they didn't sound like firecrackers. Soon the police would show up. There'd be plenty of theories.

[Andrea Canning]

When he told me what had happened.

[Lester Holt]

I knew who did it.

[Andrea Canning]

This is that crazy psychopath.

[Lester Holt]

But would there be enough Evidence. You've got all these receipts and gas and you're doing all the math, but nothing physical.

[Andrea Canning]

No.

[Lester Holt]

The only thing certain in that moment, two people in love were gone. 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, July 7, 2002. Just the two of them and their parents on the back deck of Karen's house in Topeka, Kansas. Carol Sisco is Mike's mother.

[Hailey Sisko]

They had invited us for a fish fry, and so the Worstwicks and I had got there about the same time.

[Lester Holt]

So this is Karen's parents? Yes.

[Hailey Sisko]

And so we all got out the car, knocked on the door, no one answered. So we went around to the back.

[Lester Holt]

They saw the sliding glass door was slightly open. They stepped inside, into the kitchen, took a bottle of wine out of the fridge and made themselves comfortable.

[Hailey Sisko]

We were on the main floor and.

[Lester Holt]

They had a brochure of Jamaica on the table, too. Fun trip planned. Yeah.

[Hailey Sisko]

And we looked around. I mean, we could tell that they hadn't planned dinner.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah, they should have been. And it was about time. Starting to eat, cook and cut the food out.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. You know, we hollered for the kids and.

[Lester Holt]

And started looking around. Karen's dad headed downstairs to her bedroom. Within minutes, he was back, his face pale.

[Hailey Sisko]

He says they've been shot.

[Lester Holt]

And. 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. She was stunned. Her son Mike and his girlfriend Karen were dead. 911, what's your emergency, miss?

[Andrea Canning]

We've just gone to our daughter's house.

[Lester Holt]

She's downstairs. Surprising that you would get a call like that here.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, it's not usual to get that type of call out here. There's not a lot of gunshots, not a lot of violence out here.

[Lester Holt]

Richard Volley was a homicide detective for Topeka's police department back then. He was on the scene within minutes of getting the call.

[Andrea Canning]

I'd seen murder suicides before, and that was the first thought that came to my mind. In that neighborhood, it's typically not going to be crime, a typical crime. It's going to be a family affair, and somebody shoots somebody and shoots themselves. And that's what I believed I was walking into.

[Lester Holt]

So this is your gut feeling.

[Andrea Canning]

Right.

[Lester Holt]

He talked briefly with Karen's dad, then headed downstairs.

[Andrea Canning]

I didn't turn on any lights when I went down there. Just used my flashlight. I could tell There were casings down there. I could tell. There were multiple shots.

[Lester Holt]

At first, the detective saw Karen face down on her bed. She had been shot at least twice. 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. His body was on the floor, wedged between the wall and bed as if he just tumbled off.

[Andrea Canning]

And he'd been shot multiple times too.

[Lester Holt]

Okay, so this idea that this could be a murder suicide quickly goes out the window.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, it's obviously not a murder suicide.

[Lester Holt]

And how could you tell that?

[Andrea Canning]

Because, well, when there was no gun present, way too many rounds in both of them to be a murder suicide.

[Lester Holt]

Of all the crimes you'd seen in your career, how bad was this one seen?

[Andrea Canning]

Some pretty bad ones, but this was significant.

[Lester Holt]

There's a killer at large.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Killer you need to find.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

He had no idea. An investigative and legal saga was just beginning. It would span more than 20 years.

[Andrea Canning]

It was a long search and we searched a lot of places. It was a needle in a haystack.

[Lester Holt]

And take trial after trial after trial. This is a soap opera moment. Yeah, it was sick.

[Andrea Canning]

Very, very bizarre.

[Hailey Sisko]

I wanted the truth. I'm telling the truth and I'm doing the right thing and I'm not moving.

[Lester Holt]

47 year old Mike Sisko and 53 year old Karen Harkness had been found murdered in her basement bedroom. 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?

[Andrea Canning]

Well, I didn't spend a lot of time counting. I knew it was multiple times by the casings. 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. But then somebody stood over him and shot down into him, as evidenced by the rounds that we found underneath him.

[Lester Holt]

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?

[Andrea Canning]

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. It seemed to make more sense that they came in afterwards, waited until they went to sleep and then snuck in the house.

[Lester Holt]

He was certain after he looked around a bit more. Was there any forced entry into Karen's house?

[Andrea Canning]

No forced entry, no. The, the sliding door Was ajar. But Mike and Karen smoked on the back deck of the house and didn't lock the door, which in southwest Topeka, that's probably not that unusual.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah. I was going to say a lot of people would probably do that.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah. And I believe that's the way the person entered.

[Lester Holt]

As police continued investigating the scene, Karen's parents and Mike's mom were busy calling their families.

[Hailey Sisko]

My grandma called me and just asked me if I could come to Karen's house, and I said sure.

[Lester Holt]

Mike's daughter, Hailey, was 17 at the time.

[Hailey Sisko]

When I got to Karen's, there was tape all around the property.

[Lester Holt]

What a shock to the system.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

What are you thinking?

[Hailey Sisko]

I honestly didn't even think, you know, there was something going on at Karen's house.

[Lester Holt]

Who told you the news?

[Hailey Sisko]

And I sat down and I think it was my grandma that told me that they had been shot and killed.

[Lester Holt]

My gosh. Your reaction to that, I mean, just unbelievable.

[Hailey Sisko]

It was unbelievable. I was just in shock. I don't think I said two words.

[Lester Holt]

Her grandmother continued calling the rest of the family. She said, something awful's happened. Mike's sister, Kathy Boots, and her husband Mark could hardly believe it. They had just seen Mike a week earlier. They'd been fishing together. He always had a great story to tell, and he was just the best in every way. Always upbeat, they said. Despite having weathered a divorce four years earlier, Mike was traveling constantly as a salesman. What are we having, Uncle Mike and raising two kids. This candle is for looks plus smell. He really felt like that this was just a tough patch they could get through. I think they smile real big. Mike, let's see your teeth. Oh, those are nice. And then he met Karen during a night out with friends. She was also divorced with two kids. After that, his family said you couldn't keep the smile off his face. He lightened up when he met Karen. It really lightened him up. Was this a fresh start for Mike?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

I think he felt so.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah. He really loved her. And she's a very interesting person. Beautiful, athletic, outgoing, had lots of friends.

[Lester Holt]

Including her own adult children, Chad and Erin. She was the best mom and the best friend I could have ever hoped for. I could count on her to make me feel better. No matter what the circumstances were. She always had the right things to say and always the best advice.

[Andrea Canning]

I could get down on myself if I was having a bad day, but she was always there to pick me up and make me feel better.

[Lester Holt]

Cheering you on. Keep going.

[Andrea Canning]

Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

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. Her personality was perfect because we would go to trade shows and try and meet event planners, 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, and her and Mike both said, yeah, we're getting old and fat, but we're happy. So they were in love. Were Mike and Karen talking marriage? They were. What were their plans?

[Andrea Canning]

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? I said, you know, St. Thomas is great. Lots of really good places to go. And he was real happy about it.

[Lester Holt]

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. That cup caught the detective's eye.

[Andrea Canning]

There was a coffee cup found on the kitchen table in the house and a coffee cup in Mike's vehicle out in the parking lot in the driveway.

[Lester Holt]

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. Did you see them on the video?

[Andrea Canning]

We found them on the video.

[Lester Holt]

Presented by 20th Century Studios. The Amateur Critics rave. The Amateur stands right up there with Bourne as one of the most exciting spy thrillers in many years. It's a tense, unpredictable ride that constantly finds new and inventive ways to up the stakes. Starring Academy Award winner Rami Malek and Academy Award nominee Laurence Fishburne. The amateur rated PG13. Only in theaters and IMAX this Friday. Get tickets now. Hey, it's me, Paige desorbo, and I'm so excited to share my new shoe collection at dsw filled with my favorite styles and trends for spring. Because if you know me, you know I'm kind of obsessed with shoes. And by kind of obsessed, I mean head over heels. You're going to love these shoes. So snag super cute styles like cute flats, fun heels and cool sneakers from the Paige Desorbo Collection right now at your DSW store or dsw.com.

[Andrea Canning]

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[Lester Holt]

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[Andrea Canning]

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[Lester Holt]

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[Andrea Canning]

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[Lester Holt]

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[Andrea Canning]

Terms apply.

[Lester Holt]

Cancel anytime through apple under profile settings. Lead detective Richard Volley was working the case of his career. A double homicide with the killer still at large. So far, all he had was a lot of unanswered questions. The biggest unknown who would want to kill Karen and Mike. And even more baffling, why?

[Andrea Canning]

Honestly, I'm going through robbery, burglary, that kind of thing.

[Lester Holt]

Volley and his team began at the beginning, tracking the couple's whereabouts during their last hours alive. One of their first leads. Those two coffee cups found at the scene. From, like, a convenience store?

[Andrea Canning]

From a convenience store.

[Lester Holt]

Volley's investigators traced the cups to a gas station near a casino called Sac and Fox. Had the couple spent time there. Your investigators spoke to a neighbor about a conversation with Mike the night before?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes. The next door neighbor had spoken to Mike, and they'd mentioned that they were going to the casino that night.

[Lester Holt]

Detectives made a beeline for the second Fox.

[Andrea Canning]

We went to the casino, got with the security people, got all the videotape that we could.

[Lester Holt]

Did you see them on the video?

[Andrea Canning]

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.

[Lester Holt]

Are they having a good time? Does anything seem out of sorts?

[Andrea Canning]

No, no, they're just a regular couple having a good time.

[Lester Holt]

That night, Vouli wondered if they'd won some money and attracted the wrong kind of attention. Did you think that maybe someone followed them from the casino to rob them of their winnings?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes. Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Anyone following them inside the casino?

[Andrea Canning]

No one followed them. They didn't have any confrontations with anybody.

[Lester Holt]

Just before 1:30am Karen and Mike left the casino. Did the cameras follow them outside?

[Andrea Canning]

Followed them out, at least to the parking lot. When they get out to the parking lot, there's. It's dark, it's late at night, so there's. I don't believe it gets them all the way to their car.

[Lester Holt]

Is it possible that there was someone near their car that just wasn't picked up?

[Andrea Canning]

It could have been.

[Lester Holt]

Volley's investigators also paid a visit to that gas station.

[Andrea Canning]

We obtained videotape from that store and found that they had, in fact, gone in there, gotten coffee. That's where the coffee cups came from.

[Lester Holt]

Minutes later, the couple could be seen pulling out in Mike's Ford Expedition. Anyone suspicious around them or anything going on with Mike and Karen?

[Andrea Canning]

No, there were no one around the store. Nobody followed them in, nobody followed them out. They were by themselves.

[Lester Holt]

So that kind of, you know, puts a damper on the possible idea of someone following them from the casino.

[Andrea Canning]

Right. It doesn't appear that they were followed at all.

[Lester Holt]

Investigators believe the couple drove straight home from there.

[Andrea Canning]

There was a report from one of the neighbors that they'd heard a car slam around 2:30, 3:00.

[Lester Holt]

Which fits with your timeline.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, that's probably Mike and Karen coming home that they hear.

[Lester Holt]

Car door slam, then another sound. Michelle Delgada was 18 at the time and living a few doors down with her mother. I was kind of tossing and turning, wasn't really sleeping. I was still pretty much awake. I heard a car idling outside the front of the house, and I thought that was weird, just given the time that it was. And then she heard something even louder. Several pops in a row. Even though it was July. They didn't like firecrackers and it wasn't like a lot of them. And then they, just as quickly as they started, they stopped. Hours later, her neighbors were found dead. There were police cars on the street, helicopters overhead, police tape on our neighborhood. And like, I still remember really vividly, my mom just looked at me and she's like, I don't think those were fireworks that you heard. Crime scene investigators spent hours processing the house, but in the end, they determined nothing of value was taken in the basement.

[Andrea Canning]

Mike had $900 plus and Karen had two or three hundred dollars in her clothes. And her purse was there. Everything was there that should have been there. And it didn't appear like anything had been taken.

[Lester Holt]

So any jewelry?

[Andrea Canning]

No.

[Lester Holt]

Any electronics?

[Andrea Canning]

Everything seemed to be there.

[Lester Holt]

So if robbery wasn't the motive, maybe the autopsies would offer a clue. The coroner's report revealed that Karen took three bullets in the shoulder, one in her arm, and one in the buttocks. Mike was shot at least once in the back, twice in his chest and twice in the stomach. Did this feel very personal to you? The locations, the number of shots fired, the location of the victims in bed?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes. Yeah. We have to look at what the shot selection tells us and the number of shots. What it tells us. If you consider a 10 round magazine with one in the gun, that's 11. That means somebody's most likely emptied their gun.

[Lester Holt]

Oh, my goodness.

[Andrea Canning]

Shot it dry.

[Lester Holt]

That sounds like rage.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes, exactly. And that's what it looked like, was rage.

[Lester Holt]

Someone's sending a message with this killing, these killings. Definitely. Yes, definitely a message for sure. But from whom? The police Are looking at everyone initially as a possible suspect.

[Andrea Canning]

Oh, of course.

[Lester Holt]

Including you?

[Andrea Canning]

Yep.

[Lester Holt]

The families of Karen and Mike thought they might hear word of an engagement that Sunday afternoon. Instead, loved ones like Mike's sister Kathy and her husband Mark Were processing news of the couple's murder. It hit us all pretty hard. Really hard. I was used to talking to him most every day, and Mark was used to talking to him and doing things with him, and it left a huge void. A huge void.

[Andrea Canning]

It really changed our lives. It was just. It was awful.

[Lester Holt]

Karen's son, Chad.

[Andrea Canning]

Sunday evenings were usually our night alone before the start of a work week. We'd go out and have some chips and salsa, maybe a couple margaritas, and talk about the last week, the upcoming week, and spend a couple hours together most Sunday evenings.

[Lester Holt]

But On Sunday night, July 7, Chad was spending time with lead detective volley at the topeka police department, where the conversation was anything but comforting. The police are looking at everyone initially as a possible suspect.

[Andrea Canning]

Oh, of course.

[Lester Holt]

Including you.

[Andrea Canning]

Yep. I sit there and being asked, did you murder your mother? Did you murder Mike? 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.

[Lester Holt]

They asked you to take a polygraph?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

For detective woolley, no one in the couple's orbit was in the clear. You have to start talking to everyone in their circle.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

And there's a lot of people. They have a lot of friends, a lot of family.

[Andrea Canning]

Yep.

[Lester Holt]

Where do you start?

[Andrea Canning]

You generally start just in the center. I mean, with the immediate family.

[Lester Holt]

That also included Chad's father, Karen's ex husband. The divorce had been Karen's idea, not his.

[Andrea Canning]

I think she was just ready to move on and be more happy in life than she was.

[Lester Holt]

You brought him in for an interview?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

So was there any thought that this divorce maybe wasn't amicable, or there was some money perhaps at play for Karen's ex Or jealousy that he may have wanted to get, you know, Mike and Karen out of the picture?

[Andrea Canning]

Certainly, yeah.

[Lester Holt]

He, too, was asked to take a polygraph volley. And his team also took a closer look at Mike's side of the family that included his two teenage children, Haley and dustin. Mike's son Dustin, you learned, was out of town?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes. He was on a canoe trip in Missouri.

[Lester Holt]

Lots of eyeballs on him.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Around the time of the killing.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Volley also learned that Mike had a good relationship with Dustin, but things between father and daughter had been strained.

[Hailey Sisko]

I wasn't Home when he wanted me to come home. And I was just really. I was really doing my own thing.

[Lester Holt]

So you were fighting with your dad?

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

Things went from bad to worse when Mike started dating Karen.

[Hailey Sisko]

He did spend a lot of time with Karen. So me. And I felt like I was. I wasn't replaced, but I wasn't as special.

[Lester Holt]

Then Haley started seeing a guy named Chris. Your dad at the time, didn't think you were ready for this serious relationship.

[Hailey Sisko]

Well, me and Chris hung out a lot. And my dad didn't really like Chris.

[Lester Holt]

Just a few weeks before the murders, Mike and Haley's issues reached a boiling point.

[Hailey Sisko]

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. And so I. I moved in with Chris and his family.

[Lester Holt]

So there's a lot of problems going on between Hayley and her boyfriend and Mike.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

You. You had to take a hard look at that.

[Andrea Canning]

Sure.

[Lester Holt]

We didn't really.

[Hailey Sisko]

We weren't really getting along for a little while.

[Lester Holt]

The day after the murders, the detective asked Hailey to come for an interview. She told Foley she was with Chris at his parents house in North Topeka the night Mike and Karen were killed.

[Hailey Sisko]

This is a hard question I have.

[Andrea Canning]

To ask you, but do you think you have any ideas what happened?

[Hailey Sisko]

I don't know.

[Lester Holt]

Haley went on to suggest a theory police had already ruled out. That the crime was connected to Karen and Mike's casino winnings.

[Hailey Sisko]

I've been thinking about it because they went to the casino the night before and they would have won a lot of money.

[Lester Holt]

During a break, she seemed to whisper a prayer.

[Hailey Sisko]

Please help, help me.

[Lester Holt]

And appeared to get emotional. Still, Hayley's rift with her father was hard to ignore. How many times have we seen a child is upset with the parents, kills them, so, you know, they can be out of the picture and go on to live, you know, a nice life. Was that something that you considered?

[Andrea Canning]

Oh, we considered everything.

[Lester Holt]

Then not long after the murders, the detective got a big tip.

[Andrea Canning]

I believe it was a bank alert. A check was discovered that had been cashed on Mike's account. It was just a blank check forged.

[Lester Holt]

Someone was stealing from Mike's bank account. Wow. I mean, this must really pique your interest. Certainly somebody pretending to be Mike.

[Andrea Canning]

Right?

[Lester Holt]

Did you think it was possible that the killer might have cashed the check?

[Andrea Canning]

It's obviously something. We have to run down a new.

[Lester Holt]

Lead that would point volley to someone close to Mike's inner circle. Close enough to kill. Investigators were running down a promising lead in the double homicide of Mike and Karen. Someone forged Mike's signature on one of his checks.

[Andrea Canning]

The first thing you do is try to try to find out who it was that cashed it.

[Lester Holt]

And they did. It was a small time criminal, one who had a connection to Haley's boyfriend. Was that a friend of Chris's?

[Andrea Canning]

An associate? I wouldn't say a friend. Somebody that would have known him.

[Lester Holt]

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?

[Andrea Canning]

Obviously, we had to rule it out.

[Lester Holt]

Turns out, though, the guy who forged the check was in jail the night of the murders. So he's out, right? As the killer?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

But that didn't put the young couple in the clear. The detective had to be sure. Haley and Chris. You did have them take polygraph tests?

[Andrea Canning]

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 that we look at them one way, if they're like, yeah, maybe I will, then we look at them a different way.

[Lester Holt]

Did Hayley and Chris easily agree to a polygraph?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

They passed.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

And their alibis checked out, as did those given by Karen's ex and her son Chad. They were all cleared. I can't even imagine the feeling when the police are looking at everyone around you. Your family members, Mike's family members.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, but, you know, you gotta start somewhere, you know, and eliminate and narrow it down to who really committed such a horrible act.

[Lester Holt]

But the next name on the detectives list seemed an unlikely one. Mike's ex wife, Dana Chandler. Unlikely because she had recently moved to Denver, which was an eight hour drive from Topeka.

[Andrea Canning]

I'm like, okay, all right.

[Lester Holt]

So she's not even in the area.

[Andrea Canning]

She's not in the area. 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's driving 500 miles to do this.

[Lester Holt]

Dana and Mike had lived in Colorado when their kids were young, and it's where Haley felt particularly close to her dad.

[Hailey Sisko]

We loved being in the mountains and just hiking, you know, fishing and camping and all that stuff. He taught us how to do all of it. I remember I would, you know, hook my own worm and unhook my own fish. I mean, we were really into it.

[Lester Holt]

Haley said her mom, who stayed home to raise her and her brother Worked hard to keep the household running.

[Hailey Sisko]

She had the nice car, and she always wanted to look nice, and she was very busy.

[Lester Holt]

Would you describe it as kind of a typical family?

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. We had a backyard with the dog. We had the sandbox. All the fun stuff, you know, as kids.

[Lester Holt]

But those happy memories masked a troubled family.

[Hailey Sisko]

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.

[Lester Holt]

Mike and Dana were married for about 15 years. When they got divorced, they tried to.

[Hailey Sisko]

Get back together and make it work. It just didn't last long.

[Lester Holt]

It wasn't to be. Your dad ends up getting full custody of you and your brother.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

How did that come about?

[Hailey Sisko]

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. And so when my dad got custody, she moved to live with her sister to try to get a handle on her alcohol problem.

[Lester Holt]

Ann 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? Yes, she did. She did, very much. Ann 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. Did you worry about Dana?

[Andrea Canning]

I did.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

She agreed to an interview, but it had to be in her lawyer's office.

[Lester Holt]

So she had retained a lawyer?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes. You know why we're here? We're looking into the death of your assessment and.

[Lester Holt]

What was your first impression of her? What was her demeanor like when you meet in this attorney's?

[Andrea Canning]

She was calm, she was reserved, very put together.

[Lester Holt]

Dana spoke so softly she could barely be heard on the police recording.

[Andrea Canning]

You never listening to speaking.

[Lester Holt]

Did she offer any suspects for you of someone she thought might have wanted Mike and Karen dead?

[Andrea Canning]

No, she just said generally that Mike had a propensity for getting himself in trouble.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

She went to the King supermarket, she went to Target, she went to the AutoZone and she went to the gas station.

[Lester Holt]

After 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.

[Andrea Canning]

All that's adding up. I mean the errands were absolutely that was certain that she did that. No question on that.

[Lester Holt]

The interview ended and it seemed like a dead end. But was there more to her story?

[Andrea Canning]

And I said what was purchased and he said two 5 gallon gas cans and a cigarette lighter.

[Lester Holt]

Why would she need gas cans?

[Andrea Canning]

That's what we didn't know. That's what we had to try to find out. Foreign.

[Lester Holt]

I can't tell you how often I hear, oh, I'm a little ocd. I like things neat. That's not ocd. I'm Howie Mandel and I know this because I have ocd. Actual OCD causes relentless unwanted thoughts. What if I did something terrible and forgot?

[Andrea Canning]

What if I'm a bad person?

[Lester Holt]

Why am I thinking this terrible thing? It makes you question absolutely everything and you'll do anything to feel better. OCD is debilitating, but it's also highly treatable with the right kind of therapy. Regular talk therapy doesn't cut it. OCD needs specialized therapy. That's why I want to tell you about nocd. NOCD is the world's largest virtual therapy provider for ocd. Their licensed therapists provide specialized therapy virtually and it's covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. If you think you might be struggling with OCD, visit nocd.com to schedule a.

[Andrea Canning]

Free 15 minute call and learn more.

[Lester Holt]

That's nocd.com want to pull off the season's freshest trends? You just need the right shoes. That's where designer shoe warehouse comes in. Loving wide leg jeans. Pair them with sleek low profile sneakers. Obsessed with the sheer trend. Try it with mesh flats. Feeling boho comfy sandals. Nail the whole free spirited thing. Find on trend shoes from the brands you love like vertical Birkenstock, Nike, Adidas and more at dsw. Every morning we choose how to begin our day. I think about the people at home. They tune in because they are curious, they care about their world and they.

[Hailey Sisko]

Care about each other.

[Andrea Canning]

There's always something new to learn, whether.

[Lester Holt]

A news event or a new recipe. And when we step through the morning together, it makes the recipe we come here to make the most of Today. We are family. We are today. Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. Weekdays at 7am on NBC. A week after the murders, grief was suffocating both families. I think I laid in bed most.

[Hailey Sisko]

Of the time after that and I don't remember functioning much.

[Lester Holt]

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, you know, 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. Oh my gosh, you're gonna make me cry. 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?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes, through the King Supers and the Target and the autozone and the gas station.

[Lester Holt]

First that autozone visit, she had a new car.

[Andrea Canning]

So I'm thinking what on earth could a person in her situation buy at AutoZone?

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

I 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 5 gallon gas cans and a cigarette lighter.

[Lester Holt]

Why would she need gas cans?

[Andrea Canning]

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

[Lester Holt]

The detective became more curious after he subpoenaed her cell phone records.

[Andrea Canning]

The phone records were blank from 3:00 on Saturday till 7:00 on Sunday.

[Lester Holt]

Blank as in the phone wasn't used.

[Andrea Canning]

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. There was no other blank periods of that length.

[Lester Holt]

So she was regularly using phone.

[Andrea Canning]

She was regularly using her phone. That that period stood out.

[Lester Holt]

And there was something else about Dana's story that she drove west from Denver and went hiking in the mountains to.

[Andrea Canning]

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.

[Lester Holt]

I covered a murder there for Dateline. They record your vehicle, everyone that comes through there. Was she on there?

[Andrea Canning]

We said, 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.

[Lester Holt]

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 concern. His name was Jeff. Jeff told the detective Dana had asked him to help out with her attorney's fees following the murder. But first he wanted to know more.

[Andrea Canning]

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? And she says, no, I slept on my car. Okay, well, did you see anybody? Did you see the fires that were out there?

[Lester Holt]

Like big fires?

[Andrea Canning]

Big forest fires?

[Lester Holt]

So she says she's sleeping in her car, but there's forest fires around the area?

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

Jeff was skeptical, and so was detective Volley 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 light bulb moment.

[Andrea Canning]

She could get to Topeka and out of Kansas without stopping for gas.

[Lester Holt]

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? This is the highway that you think Dana Chandler took to get to Topeka from Denver?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

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?

[Andrea Canning]

I thought it was a possibility that she would have. And just to cover our bases, I sent a couple detectives on i70 and hitting every gas station, convenience store along i70. Try to find video or any evidence that she had been in any of those places.

[Lester Holt]

You're trying to catch her driving to Topeka?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

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.

[Lester Holt]

Are they showing a photo?

[Andrea Canning]

Then they showed her a photo, and she said, yeah, that lady looks familiar. I think she stopped here.

[Lester Holt]

Still, he knew he needed more. Was there anything at all that placed her in Topeka during the window of the murders?

[Andrea Canning]

As far as physical evidence, no.

[Lester Holt]

That's a challenge for you.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

Right. It doesn't mean she wasn't there. Just. We haven't found the physical evidence.

[Lester Holt]

Two months after the murders, he dropped in on Dana's close friend Anne. You get a surprise visit at work.

[Andrea Canning]

Right.

[Lester Holt]

From Detective Volley 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. And 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.

[Andrea Canning]

It was shocking.

[Lester Holt]

I just couldn't believe. Would take more than two decades to put the whole story together. After secrets crawled out into the open.

[Hailey Sisko]

I had been recording our conversations, and.

[Lester Holt]

Danger never seemed far away. Did you worry your mom might try to seek revenge on you?

[Hailey Sisko]

Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

I'm sure your stomach is turning.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes. It was sickening. It was crushing.

[Lester Holt]

This is the mother daughter showdown for the ages.

[Hailey Sisko]

Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

Dana Chandler was now the focus of the investigation. Police weren't buying all of her alibi, especially where she said she 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. They 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.

[Hailey Sisko]

I 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. 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.

[Lester Holt]

So people are seeing this.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. It was really embarrassing.

[Lester Holt]

The movie Fatal Attraction really comes to mind when you think about some of the actions of your mom.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. It didn't seem real. It was just hard to comprehend.

[Lester Holt]

Karen's son thought Dana couldn't accept her ex having a new relationship.

[Andrea Canning]

She just, I guess, couldn't handle the fact that he didn't. Didn't care for her anymore.

[Lester Holt]

And 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. And 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 Marion Karen. Then just days before the murders, on that fishing trip with his brother in law, Mike shared a chilling premonition.

[Andrea Canning]

Mike said, when I'm gone, please make sure that the kids are raised properly and have what they need. I said, are you really serious? He 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.

[Lester Holt]

Karen's son suspected Dana from the beginning.

[Andrea Canning]

I knew who did it. I mean, I said, I know that this is that crazy psychopath Dana Chandler that did it.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

She's a really good witness. Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Still, the local district attorney didn't think the case was provable beyond a reasonable doubt. The DA didn't think everything you'd gathered was enough.

[Andrea Canning]

They didn't believe there was enough evidence to take it to court.

[Lester Holt]

How frustrating was that for you?

[Andrea Canning]

Even though I knew in my heart we were on the right track, the DA didn't agree. So we keep moving forward.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

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. I will have this case. That whole 12 years, nobody else is going to get it. It's going to be mine.

[Lester Holt]

During the long wait, Mike's daughter found her days filled with regret.

[Hailey Sisko]

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.

[Lester Holt]

And she started having uncomfortable thoughts about her mom.

[Hailey Sisko]

I really wanted to find out who did it. And I needed to know if it was my mom.

[Lester Holt]

You put your detective hat on.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah, I did.

[Lester Holt]

Haley was about to go undercover.

[Hailey Sisko]

It was completely my plan.

[Lester Holt]

I can't tell you how often I hear, oh, I'm a little ocd. I like things neat. That's not ocd. I'm Howie Mandel and I know this because I have ocd. Actual OCD causes relentless unwanted thoughts. What if I did something terrible and forgot?

[Andrea Canning]

What if I'm a bad person?

[Lester Holt]

Why am I thinking this terrible thing? It makes you question absolutely everything and you'll do anything to feel better. OCD is debilitating, but it's also highly treatable with the right kind of therapy. Regular talk therapy doesn't cut it. OCD needs specialized therapy. That's why I want to tell you about NO cd. NOCD is the world's largest virtual therapy provider for ocd. Their licensed therapists provide specialized therapy virtually and it's covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. If you think you might be struggling with OCD, visit nocd.com to schedule a.

[Andrea Canning]

Free 15 minute call and learn more.

[Lester Holt]

That's nocd.com@designer shoe Warehouse, we believe that shoes are an important part of, well, everything. From first steps to first dates, from all nighters to all time personal bests. From building pillow forts to building a life for all the big and small moments that make up your whole world. DSW is there and we've got just the shoes. Find a shoe for every you from brands you love at brag worthy prices at your DSW store or dsw.com hey everyone, I'm Jenna Bush Hager from the Today show and I'm excited to share my podcast Open Book with Jenna. It is back for season two. Each week, celebrities, experts, friends and authors will share candid stories with me about their lives and new projects. Guests like Rebecca Yarros, Kristin Hannah, Ego Wodom, and more. Like a good book, you'll leave feeling inspired and entertained. Join me for my podcast, Open Book with Jenna. Listen now on Apple podcasts. It was 2005, three years after the murders, and there had been no arrest.

[Hailey Sisko]

I think that Detective Olley had his whole heart in solving this murder, but he couldn't do it by himself.

[Lester Holt]

For you, it felt like the murders fell through the cracks.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

Without answers, Haley found herself asking the toughest question of all. Did your mind go there? The but could my mom be capable of doing this? Is that possible?

[Hailey Sisko]

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.

[Lester Holt]

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. So she embarked on a bold new approach to investigate her mom herself. Are the police involved at all? Have they asked you to?

[Hailey Sisko]

It was completely my plan. I came up with the idea myself.

[Lester Holt]

A fire was lit.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

Hailey, just 20 years old, began secretly recording conversations with her mother. Take us to this moment where you first decide to record your mom.

[Hailey Sisko]

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.

[Lester Holt]

Was this over the phone? Did you meet somewhere?

[Hailey Sisko]

I really only had a recorder for my phone, so I would record our phone conversations.

[Lester Holt]

Honestly, like, throughout all of this, it.

[Andrea Canning]

Just seems like you.

[Hailey Sisko]

You don't want to help Tammy. I had no involvement.

[Andrea Canning]

I have no idea what your dad.

[Lester Holt]

And Karen weren't doing. In a span of about four years, Hailey made six recordings. At times, it was clear she was torn. I want things to be normal. You're my mom. I know. I just need to hear.

[Hailey Sisko]

Nothing to do with it.

[Lester Holt]

Okay.

[Hailey Sisko]

I'm not gonna make her say anything. She's gonna say what she's gonna say. I'm just recording it. I'm asking legitimate questions.

[Lester Holt]

One of Haley's first probing questions was one also gnawing at the detective. Why did her mom buy those gas cans?

[Hailey Sisko]

You had a couple gas cans, Mom. I mean, it's that question right there.

[Andrea Canning]

Help me get beyond that.

[Lester Holt]

I don't want to be there. Her mom told her something she'd never said before. She got the gas cans as a favor to a woman at aa. What was her name? Can we get a hold of her?

[Hailey Sisko]

I mean, if she could say that.

[Lester Holt]

That would just be awesome.

[Hailey Sisko]

I have no idea. And I wish that I would have.

[Lester Holt]

Gotten her name, but I didn't.

[Hailey Sisko]

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 Hailey. Just believe me.

[Lester Holt]

What about her phone?

[Hailey Sisko]

I would ask her. Why did your phone go unanswered?

[Andrea Canning]

What's going on with this cell phone?

[Lester Holt]

Hailey inspires my cell phone. All goes, I was not able to pick up a signal in the mountains.

[Hailey Sisko]

Okay, so you. So you went up to the mountains?

[Lester Holt]

Yes.

[Andrea Canning]

Okay.

[Lester Holt]

I didn't have a signal. You're trying to catch your mom in a trap.

[Hailey Sisko]

That was definitely the gamble. I wasn't sure if it was even going to work.

[Lester Holt]

But then you started to get somewhere.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. You spend a night in Valleys. Then, like that weekend.

[Lester Holt]

She seemed to confirm she was in the Mountains. Which is what she told her friend Jeff. And that contradicted what she told Detective Volley, that she'd spent the night at her apartment. So Haley asked exactly where she was. Are you buying this? What she's telling you?

[Hailey Sisko]

I am completely not buying it.

[Lester Holt]

After months of secretly recording her mom, Haylei let Detective Volley 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?

[Hailey Sisko]

It was a little nerve wracking.

[Lester Holt]

It's barely automatic due to the noisy restaurant. Haley put her mom on the spot.

[Hailey Sisko]

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. And 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.

[Lester Holt]

That's big.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah, I mean, you know, we all. 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. That's pretty bad.

[Lester Holt]

What did you think when you heard that?

[Andrea Canning]

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 it.

[Lester Holt]

Eventually, as Haley kept pressing her mom, Dana shut down.

[Hailey Sisko]

My attorney has advised me not to.

[Andrea Canning]

Talk to anybody about anything about that weekend.

[Lester Holt]

So I'm gonna take his advice. Okay. I understand.

[Andrea Canning]

But I don't understand why you can't tell me.

[Lester Holt]

I'm just wanting my mom back. But Dana was dug in. If I say something that doesn't agree.

[Hailey Sisko]

With what my first Dana was, and I'm changing my story, and I don't.

[Lester Holt]

Want to risk doing that either. Dana had changed her story, and she left Haley and Detective Volley more convinced than ever that she'd committed the murders. Haley definitely catches her in some inconsistencies.

[Andrea Canning]

You know, the inconsistencies on the gas can, that was. That was big. So, just saying. Yeah, I thought about it. That's important. That gives us some. Something. In Dana's own words, it may have.

[Lester Holt]

Been important, but without a confession, it wasn't enough for the DA to take the case. In 2007, five years after the murders, Volley 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.

[Andrea Canning]

It certainly does.

[Hailey Sisko]

I don't know how you'd move on without closure, without resolution, without justice is what it was for me. It wasn't right.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

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 Sisko case. He says, I know about it. I'm going to start a cold case unit, and we're going to look at that.

[Lester Holt]

And he got elected.

[Andrea Canning]

He was elected. He did start the cold case unit. This was the first case that they 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.

[Lester Holt]

What do you think changed perspective and part of it.

[Andrea Canning]

This one says, if I lose, I lose, but I'm gonna go down swinging.

[Hailey Sisko]

The DA called us in and said, we have, I think, as much as we're ever gonna have. Do you want us to charge her and go to trial? Yes. I mean, no hesitation for me.

[Lester Holt]

Is there any conflicting feelings there that you're pushing for your mom to be arrested?

[Hailey Sisko]

I was really scared because she was gonna find out that I had been recording our conversations. So arresting her and taking her to trial was great.

[Lester Holt]

You're terrified of the one woman who is supposed to love you the most in this world.

[Hailey Sisko]

Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

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. Sherman Smith is editor in chief of the Kansas reflector, covering state politics. Back then, he was an editor for the Topeka Capitol 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 Chan 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. To 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?

[Hailey Sisko]

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.

[Lester Holt]

If you believe she did this, then she has to pay.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. I wanted the jury to know how much she hated them, what she put them through. And Karen and Mike. Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecutor said Mike was scared of Dana and got a protection from abuse order against her, which she violated. The 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.

[Andrea Canning]

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 know, you're not jumping for joy after somebody gets convicted of a murder because nobody wins.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Hailey Sisko]

I 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.

[Lester Holt]

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?

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2018.

[Lester Holt]

Six years after the trial, the state's highest court ruled the prosecutor had misled the jury about that protection from abuse order. It 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?

[Hailey Sisko]

I was terrified if she would get out of jail, and I Had kids now?

[Lester Holt]

Yeah. Could she harm one of your children?

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. Was that a fear, harming them or just trying to see them in general?

[Lester Holt]

The fate of Dana Chandler's case was in the hands of Mike Cage, 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? Kagay believed it did. Dana Chandler would remain behind bars until her retrial, her case and her cause began attracting attention.

[Andrea Canning]

No DNA, no confession, no fingerprint, you know, not even snitch witnesses.

[Lester Holt]

Darrell Burton is the founder of a non profit organization called Miracle of Innocence. Its mission is to help those who may have been wrongly accused. And this is based on your own personal experience?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

You were wrongfully accused.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes. Wrongfully accused and faced the death penalty. And sent to prison for nearly 25 years. For a crime that I didn't commit.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

You cannot find a case where you would investigate all of these different, you know, avenues and not find something, some connection. It just. It just doesn't happen to me.

[Lester Holt]

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. But then there's that, you know, where's the smoking gun?

[Andrea Canning]

It don't have to be a smoking gun. It could just be a water pistol, anything.

[Lester Holt]

Lack of evidence aside, do you believe Dana Chandler is innocent?

[Andrea Canning]

I do. I believe she's innocent in my heart of hearts.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

What if I told you that right now millions of people are living with.

[Andrea Canning]

A debilitating condition that's so misunderstood, many.

[Lester Holt]

Of them don't even know that they have it. That condition is Obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD.

[Andrea Canning]

I'm Dr. Patrick McGrath, the chief clinical officer of NOCD.

[Lester Holt]

And in the 25 years I've been treating OCD, I've met so many people.

[Andrea Canning]

Who are suffering from the condition in.

[Lester Holt]

Silence, unaware of just what it was. OCD can create overwhelming anxiety and fear.

[Andrea Canning]

Around what you value most, make you question your identity, beliefs and morals, and.

[Lester Holt]

Drive you to perform mentally and physically draining compulsions.

[Andrea Canning]

Or rituals.

[Lester Holt]

Over my career, I've seen just how devastating OCD can be when it's left untreated.

[Andrea Canning]

But help is available.

[Lester Holt]

That's where NOCD comes in. NOCD is the world's largest virtual therapy.

[Andrea Canning]

Provider for obsessive compulsive disorder. Our licensed therapists are trained in exposure and response prevention therapy, a specialized treatment.

[Lester Holt]

Proven to be incredibly effective for OCD.

[Andrea Canning]

So visit nocd.com to schedule a free 15 minute call with our team. That's no c d.com.

[Lester Holt]

Join me, Jacqueline Coley, on a brand new podcast seen on the screen presented by Make It Universal and Rotten Tomatoes. Meet the innovative people people at NBCUniversal as they share their journeys, inspirations and the movies that shape them. Each episode is an intimate and fun conversation about the impact of film seen on the screen is available now. You can find it on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your favorite podcast.

[Andrea Canning]

Hey everybody, I'm Al Roker from the Today Show. Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the all new. Start today at everything you need for a healthier you all in one place. Fitness challenges for all levels, meal plans that are easy and delicious and so much more.

[Lester Holt]

It's built to fit your lifestyle and.

[Andrea Canning]

Our experts will guide you every step of the way.

[Lester Holt]

Come on, let's do this. To subscribe download start today from the App Store on your Apple device now.

[Andrea Canning]

Terms apply.

[Lester Holt]

Cancel anytime through Apple under profile settings. In 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.

[Andrea Canning]

This case is not based on hair. This case is not based on fingerprints. This case is based on jealousy, rage and obsession.

[Lester Holt]

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?

[Hailey Sisko]

My mom looked so different. I mean, she'd been in jail for 11 years and it was still hard to see her. But you know, time had passed and I had grown and so I think it was a little bit easier. She really obsessed over him.

[Lester Holt]

She told the jury how her mom seemed perversely fixated on her dad and Karen.

[Hailey Sisko]

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 and bad talking him and Karen.

[Andrea Canning]

And did that continue up until his death?

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

He was distraught.

[Lester Holt]

Mike's brother in law Mark testified about Mike's growing concern over what his ex wife might be capable of.

[Andrea Canning]

Mike told me that the patterns of harassment had increased and that he feared for he and Karen's lives.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

She told me that she had driven to Kansas.

[Lester Holt]

She told me that she knew nobody was in the house and that she went into Mike's home through the window. After 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 please in court. But Dana Chandler's defense attorney Tom Bath reminded the jury of the glaring holes in the prosecution's case.

[Andrea Canning]

In 20 years, the state had no.

[Lester Holt]

Evidence, no evidence whatsoever that placed Dana.

[Andrea Canning]

Chandler in Karen Harkness home in the city of Dubai, Topeka or in the state of Kansas.

[Lester Holt]

And that hasn't changed. The defense argued this was a classic example of a botched investigation led by a detective with tunnel vision.

[Andrea Canning]

Boatley 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 bullseye every time. You know how you get a bullseye every time? Where you stick the arrow in the tree and you just draw a circle around it.

[Lester Holt]

Darrell Burton attended the trial to support Dana.

[Andrea Canning]

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.

[Lester Holt]

The defense highlighted Volley's many missteps, hammering him on cross examination about the parts of the investigation he failed to document.

[Andrea Canning]

Did you do a report on this? No.

[Lester Holt]

You didn't even do any notes about.

[Andrea Canning]

What Dana said, did you? No.

[Lester Holt]

Right. And taking him to task for the things he did document that later went missing.

[Andrea Canning]

Where is that tape, Detective? I don't know.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

Weren'T sure if it was true or.

[Lester Holt]

If it was a dream?

[Andrea Canning]

Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

The defense argued the rest of the prosecution's case was just noise. 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. 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. And 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.

[Andrea Canning]

And we ask you to return a verdict.

[Lester Holt]

Not guilty, not proven. Thank you. Jury deliberation 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. It wasn't good. We knew it wasn't good. I'm sure your stomach, you're just is turning. You're getting a bad feeling here.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

On the sixth day of deliberations, the jury filed back into the courtroom. I understand that the jury is unable to reach a unanimous verdict at this time.

[Andrea Canning]

Is that correct? That's correct.

[Lester Holt]

The judge declared a mistrial. All right, thank you very much. And the families found themselves right back where they started. Oh, it hurts. You've already done one, and then now two, and then now you have this lack of resolution.

[Andrea Canning]

It's a roller coaster.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Hailey Sisko]

Shocking.

[Lester Holt]

This is the mother daughter showdown for the ages.

[Hailey Sisko]

Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

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. 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.

[Hailey Sisko]

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.

[Lester Holt]

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. The prosecutor's decision to retry Dana was a major disappointment for her friend Darren. 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?

[Andrea Canning]

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 gonna like him.

[Lester Holt]

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. She fired her attorneys. Dana would represent herself. She really flips the switch on this one.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, that was a blind side.

[Lester Holt]

Even her staunchest supporters were dumbfounded.

[Andrea Canning]

I said, you know, Dana, you know, 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. Darrell, you know, just. This is my life, you know, this is my case, and I think I can help myself.

[Lester Holt]

Counsel, are you ready to begin? Yes, you, Honor.

[Andrea Canning]

Okay.

[Lester Holt]

Prosecutors argued their now familiar case. Same motive.

[Andrea Canning]

That 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.

[Lester Holt]

And the same disturbing stories.

[Andrea Canning]

Phone harassment, rapid fire phone calls, stalking, showing up.

[Lester Holt]

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. My name is Dana Chandler.

[Hailey Sisko]

I, as everyone knows, have been accused of double homicide and I am innocent. I did not kill Mike and Karen.

[Lester Holt]

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, Haylee was 14 years old.

[Hailey Sisko]

I am just so ashamed and embarrassed about that.

[Andrea Canning]

And I hated that, Hayley, that I put Haley through that.

[Lester Holt]

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 Hayley and Destin to spy on Mike.

[Andrea Canning]

I stalked Mike.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Hailey Sisko]

This is a map of the route that I took.

[Lester Holt]

As Dana moved around the courtroom, she didn't always come across like a polished attorney. She struggled with her computer, stopped testimony to put on her puffy coat, and she complained about our cameras. That camera back there is daylight. I find that very distasteful. I'm sitting here giving my life story with that.

[Hailey Sisko]

That camera pointing to me is so.

[Andrea Canning]

Obnoxious to me, and I'm very uncomfortable.

[Lester Holt]

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?

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, it concerned me a little bit. I thought, yeah, it's possible she could be seen as sympathetic to the jury.

[Lester Holt]

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 Volley.

[Andrea Canning]

Morning. Good morning.

[Lester Holt]

Dana worked him over on the stand, pressing him on every move he made during the investigation.

[Andrea Canning]

She was asking him questions that either he didn't recall or refused to acknowledge an 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.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

You were feeling a great deal of.

[Lester Holt]

Pressure to solve this crime.

[Andrea Canning]

I always feel a great deal of pressure to solve any murder to the.

[Lester Holt]

Point to where you were concerned, that.

[Andrea Canning]

The perceived problem, that the crime had not properly been Investigated would fall on you. That memo lacks context.

[Lester Holt]

Yet even though he turned her life upside down, Dana said the detectives still couldn't produce a single piece of direct evidence that tied her to the crime. Were there by fingerprints in the house?

[Andrea Canning]

No. Were there any of my hair in the house? No.

[Lester Holt]

Was there any DNA in the house?

[Andrea Canning]

No.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

The irony was so thick, I could have cut it with a knife.

[Lester Holt]

Being questioned by Dana was equally surreal for Mark and Kathy.

[Andrea Canning]

What was bizarre for me was I was getting a drink of water when she came to cross examine me. And I hear this, and she's trying to put on this Persona that we're old friends.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Hailey Sisko]

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.

[Lester Holt]

What was your strategy with her, your approach, knowing that. That your mom's playing the role of attorney?

[Hailey Sisko]

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. 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.

[Andrea Canning]

Hello, Ms. Seal.

[Lester Holt]

If Hailey 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, Karen, drove up, your.

[Andrea Canning]

Dad stormed over to the car.

[Lester Holt]

Right? If you recall.

[Andrea Canning]

No.

[Hailey Sisko]

No, he did not. And he started banging on the window. No, he did not. And I'm like, no, that did not happen. She was making things up. I felt like you all.

[Lester Holt]

And she made Haley revisit disagreements they'd had in the past, laying bare their fractured relationship for the jury.

[Hailey Sisko]

Is this a good setting to explain our personal relationship?

[Andrea Canning]

Well, that's a lot of what this.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Hailey Sisko]

Was your testimony.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Hailey Sisko]

You did, and you didn't. And you wouldn't answer your phone?

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah.

[Hailey Sisko]

I didn't want to talk to you. You didn't want to talk to me, but I tried to talk to you, correct? Yes.

[Lester Holt]

How do you feel? You did?

[Hailey Sisko]

I feel really good. I did great.

[Lester Holt]

Did you feel like your dad was with you?

[Hailey Sisko]

I do.

[Lester Holt]

Dana Chandler had had her say. Now prosecutors would have a chance to question her. A double murder case that began on a Fourth of July weekend was about to end with its own fireworks.

[Andrea Canning]

Ms. Chandler, it is a yes or no.

[Lester Holt]

I'm not going to be corralled into this little box of yes or no, Mr.

[Andrea Canning]

Kid.

[Lester Holt]

Dana 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. Mr. Ham, I'm going to ask you to stop talking right now unless you really have something you have a motion to make.

[Andrea Canning]

I'm just exercising my right to be heard.

[Lester Holt]

By contrast, the prosecutors move their case along like clockwork.

[Andrea Canning]

They know what they're doing. They've got their witnesses in order. They've all been briefed. Everybody's on the same page. Yes.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

We also have, and it hasn't been mentioned yet. A Patty Williams in Waukenie, Kansas.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecutor played the revelation for all it was worth, showing the jury how the clerk had identified Dana in a photo lineup.

[Andrea Canning]

So she looked at this lineup of.

[Lester Holt]

Six photographs for about 10 seconds.

[Andrea Canning]

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.

[Lester Holt]

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.

[Andrea Canning]

And she's never tried a case ever, you know, in her life.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecutor also had a chance to do something he'd been wanting to do for years. Years. Questioned Dana on the stand. By testifying, she'd put herself in that precarious spot. I'm ready for Carl's. The prosecutor asked Dana a series of yes or no questions and called her out when she refused to comply.

[Andrea Canning]

Ms. Chandler, is it fair to say you don't like the rules when they apply to you?

[Lester Holt]

No, that's not. That's not true at all.

[Andrea Canning]

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.

[Hailey Sisko]

I understand what you're asking me is not necessary.

[Lester Holt]

And I understand you're trying to corral.

[Hailey Sisko]

Me, keep me on a short lease.

[Lester Holt]

Yes or no?

[Andrea Canning]

I understand the tactic, but you're not capable of doing that.

[Lester Holt]

He took aim at her alibi and got her to admit that she had told different stories about that weekend. So what you told Detective Oley is.

[Andrea Canning]

Not consistent with what you told Jeff Bailey, is it?

[Lester Holt]

As far as my trip to Ms.

[Andrea Canning]

Chandler, it's not consistent.

[Hailey Sisko]

I would agree with that.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecutor also pointed out the sheer number of witnesses who Dana said hadn't told the truth about her.

[Andrea Canning]

Tim Sisco 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, there is. Absolutely wrong. Kathy was mistaken or wrong on her testimony about seeing you jump on Mike's trampoline.

[Lester Holt]

It's inaccurate that that happened.

[Hailey Sisko]

Absolutely.

[Andrea Canning]

Hayley and Dustin were wrong when they said that you used them as your little spies.

[Lester Holt]

Yes or no?

[Andrea Canning]

I would. Yes. I was not using them as my little spies.

[Lester Holt]

How do you think she did on cross examination?

[Andrea Canning]

She didn't do too good. The whole trial was just painful. It's like you sitting on the shoreline and you're watching someone drown. You throw them a life preserve, and they throw it back. It just. Was just painful.

[Lester Holt]

When both sides rested and the case went to the jury, Mark and Kathy were optimistic. Are you feeling good?

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, I felt very confident.

[Lester Holt]

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. We, the jury, find Dana Chandler guilty of murder in the first degree.

[Hailey Sisko]

As Charishin.

[Andrea Canning]

Counselor.

[Lester Holt]

The jury comes back guilty.

[Hailey Sisko]

Yeah. Yeah, guilty.

[Lester Holt]

Does it feel even better this time around because of everything you've been through? That maybe this is final now?

[Hailey Sisko]

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.

[Lester Holt]

Karen's son Chad was also grateful it was over.

[Andrea Canning]

I was elated and just felt peace and calm and even some tears of joy.

[Lester Holt]

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?

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, it was sickening. It was crushing, devastating. 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.

[Lester Holt]

23 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.

[Hailey Sisko]

Or a world with her in it.

[Lester Holt]

Hailey 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.

[Hailey Sisko]

He would have made, like, the best grandpa to my kids. And Karen would have been a great, great grandma, too.

[Lester Holt]

I think your dad would be proud of you for all that you've done to fight for him.

[Hailey Sisko]

I hope my dad's proud of me. That's all I wanted.

[Andrea Canning]

That'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.

[Lester Holt]

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