Murders of Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness

Mike Sisco, 47, and his fiancée, Karen Harkness, 53, were shot and killed in the early hours of 7 July 2002 at Harkness's home in west Topeka, Kansas. Both were found in a basement bedroom with multiple gunshot wounds.

Investigators focused on Sisco's ex-wife, Dana Chandler, who was living in Denver, Colorado. Chandler has said she was west of Denver in the Rocky Mountains when the killings took place. She was arrested in 2011, nearly a decade later, and charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

In 2012 a Shawnee County jury convicted Chandler of two counts of premeditated first-degree murder, and she was sentenced to two consecutive life terms with no parole eligibility for 50 years. In 2018 the Kansas Supreme Court unanimously reversed the convictions, finding that prosecutor Jacqie Spradling had committed misconduct by telling jurors in closing argument that Sisco had obtained a protection-from-abuse order against Chandler and that she had violated it; neither statement was true. Justice Dan Biles wrote that the state's obligation was to bring about "a just conviction—not merely a win." Spradling was disbarred by the Kansas Supreme Court in May 2022.

Chandler was retried in Shawnee County in 2022. On 1 September 2022, after about 35 hours of deliberation over six days, the jury announced it could not reach a verdict; jurors were reported to have been split seven to five in favour of conviction. Prosecutors decided to try her a third time.

The third trial was held in Pottawatomie County, in Westmoreland, in early 2025, with Chandler representing herself. The prosecution's case was circumstantial, relying on evidence including repeated phone contact between Chandler and the victims and a 27-hour gap in her cellphone activity around the time of the killings; no DNA, fingerprints or recovered weapon linked her to the scene. On 7 March 2025, after closing arguments that morning, the jury found her guilty of both murders. On 3 June 2025 Judge Cheryl Rios sentenced her to two consecutive life terms. Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay said the verdict reaffirmed that Chandler had killed the couple "in an act of calculated vengeance."

Chandler has maintained her innocence; at the 2025 trial her defence argued that there was no evidence she committed the murders. In March 2025 she asked to be released on bond while appealing, and a court appointed counsel to assist with post-conviction proceedings.

The case is the subject of the HBO documentary series A Killer Story, released on 10 September 2026, which re-examines the investigation and follows people who believe Chandler was wrongly convicted, highlighting the absence of physical evidence. As of September 2026, Chandler remained imprisoned under the 2025 convictions.