It Took 3 Trials to Convict Dana Chandler of Double Murder—Could She Be Innocent?

After three trials, Dana Chandler was convicted of the 2002 double murder of her ex-husband, Mike Sisco, and his girlfriend, Karen Harkness, who were shot to death in Topeka, Kan., after a night out at a casino. 

The case of who killed Sisco and Harkness went cold until a 2009 episode of 48 Hours made Chandler a suspect. She was then arrested in 2011.

Chandler was initially convicted in 2012, but the ruling was overturned six years later due to significant prosecutorial misconduct, leading to a second trial that ended in a hung jury in 2022. Representing herself in a third trial in 2025, Chandler maintained her innocence but was ultimately convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.

She will not be eligible for parole for 50 years, with credit for approximately 13 years of time she has already served. Chandler, now 66, will effectively spend the rest of her life behind bars. 

Chandler and Sisco's daughter, Hailey Seel, gave a victim impact statement at sentencing, saying she sees her mother as an “evil killer.” “I hate it,” Seel continued. “I don't want to call you evil killer, but I can't live in a fairy tale."

Seel asked the judge to show mercy on Chandler if she confessed to the crime and expressed remorse. However, if her mom continued to deny her involvement in the deaths, as she did, Seel asked the judge to give the maximum sentence.

Chandler’s first trial took place in 2012 when she was 52.

Her defense focused on the evidence that was lacking in the case against her. Chandler's attorney, Tom Bath, insisted she was more than 500 miles away in rural Colorado at the time of the murders, which he said explains why her phone records go silent.

Shawnee County Deputy District Attorney Charles Kitt agreed there was a lack of physical evidence—no DNA, fingerprints or murder weapon were ever recovered from the crime scene— but focused on Chandler's hatred of Sisco and Harkness. He argued Chandler turned off her phone so she couldn’t be tracked. 

“This case is based on jealousy, rage and obsession,” Kitt said in court before he introduced records of more than 600 phone calls Chandler made to Harkness and Sisco in the six months before the murders. 

A jury convicted her of first-degree murder on circumstantial evidence after deliberating for 83 minutes, but the Kansas Supreme Court later ruled she should be retried due to prosecutorial misconduct. The county's Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Spradling, the lead prosecutor on Chandler’s case, was formally disbarred by the Kansas Supreme Court in May 2022. 

The Court said Spradling violated several rules of professional conduct and engaged in a serious pattern of “grossly unethical misconduct,” including “ignoring the order of a district court, repeatedly making arguments that lacked evidentiary support, intentionally lying to the Supreme Court in her briefs and in oral arguments, and making false statements during the disciplinary investigation.” 

Chandler stood trial for a second time for the murders in the summer of 2022, with her defense using the same arguments they made in 2012. Her attorneys argued police bias and incompetence, which they summed up as tunnel vision. No other suspects were considered.

“The state had no evidence, no evidence whatsoever that placed Dana Chandler in Karen Harkness' home, in the city of Topeka or in the state of Kansas,” defense attorney Tom Bath said.

The prosecution presented a similar case as they did in the first trial, arguing that “jealousy, rage and obsession” led Chandler to kill her ex-husband and his girlfriend.

Kitt said police “learned there's one person that has motive to have committed these crimes. And that was Dana Chandler.”

More than 60 witnesses were called during the four-week trial, including a former neighbor who claimed to have seen Chandler near the Harkness home on the night of the murders . But after six days of deliberations, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision and remained deadlocked. There were seven votes to convict and five to acquit.

A judge declared a mistrial and Chandler was released. 

Chandler’s third trial, in 2025, was moved to Pottawatomie County for a better chance at an untainted jury pool. She dropped her defense team, represented herself and was convicted again on two counts of first-degree murder.

During her sentencing hearing, Chandler held a handful of papers against the left side of her face to block the view of photographers. According to the Kansas Reflector, she delivered about two hours of combative remarks after she listened to victim impact statements by Seel and others.

“I have always maintained my innocence,” Chandler said. “I continue to maintain my innocence. I was not in Topeka, Kan., on July 7. I never owned or possessed a 9 mm firearm. What is happening in this courtroom is a grave injustice. I was not the one who killed them.”

Shawnee County District Court Judge Cheryl Rios said she saw the victims through the eyes of their families and friends who were at the hearing.

“I understand that there are no words that this court can say to change what happened, to bring back Mike and Karen, to be able to live all those missed moments,” Rios said. “I understand that there is no justice in that sense.”

Kansas Department of Corrections records show Chandler resides at a maximum-security prison in Topeka. Her discipline record contains a dozen entries and includes reports of lying, interfering with official duties, disruptive behavior and having less dangerous contraband. 

Chandler’s case is getting another look by Eileen Umbehr, a Kansas woman who is convinced Chandler is innocent, and will be the center of a new three-part HBO documentary called A Killer Story.

“When they arrested Dana, everybody believed they got the right person, except for us,” Umbehr said in the documentary of her and her husband Keen. “They focused on Dana Chandler in spite of the fact that they couldn’t put a weapon in her hand or that she lived 540 miles away.”