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Hello, I'm Keith Morrison, and I'm here with the one and only Andrea Canning.
I like that. And we are Talking Dateline.
Today's episode is called, Deadly Obsession.
Yeah, this was back in 2002 when Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness were found murdered in Karen's home in Topeka, Kansas.
The investigation uncovered a suspect with a motive for murder, but it would take the determination of Mike's daughter and three trials before the killer was brought to justice.
If you haven't heard the episode yet, it's the one right below this one on our lists of podcasts.
So go there and listen to it or watch it if you wish stream it on Peacock and then come back here.
And when you come back, Andrea has a clip to share among other things from her interview with the jury foreperson from Dana's second trial in 2022.
He's got some interesting things to say about what went on inside the deliberation room.
Often a surprise and it was this time, too.
Later, we'll be back to answer some of your questions from social media, so stick around for that.
In the meantime, hello Andrea.
Hello Keith. This was an interesting story that took a long, long time to clear, my heaven.
Yeah it did, I mean we don't get that very often, three trials.
Two is frequent, but three is not, hardly ever.
Yeah, that's really when the DAs bold, and they're like, we're not giving up.
Yeah. Sure. So that's what happened here?
It's what happened here, and it was fascinating for the reason that there, the obvious reason, that there just wasn't any particular evidence that would point to this woman, except for some vague circumstantial stuff.
It had to be all piled together.
But, I mean, did you find the evidence a little bit weak in this one?
Yeah, I mean, if you're looking for fingerprints or a witness or DNA or that she sort of even vaguely confessed or something, it just didn't have any of those things.
You know, no one saw her in Topeka.
There was one gas station clerk who thinks they set 70 % sure it was her halfway between Denver and Topeka.
It seems to me that 70 % is another word for reasonable doubt, but who am I to say?
I mean, I think that was the crux of this, right?
for the defense was reasonable doubt.
How far away did she live from Topeka, remind me now?
Eight hours. An eight hour drive away from Topeka, Kansas.
Yeah. So the allegation is that she drove there and back in the course of what?
24, 25, 27 hours, something like that?
Yeah, it was quick.
Her alibi was that she was in Rocky Mountain National Park.
So it was eight hours.
They think that she drove the straight shot from Denver to Topeka, and then I don't think we got into this in very much detail.
But they think afterwards she went into Nebraska, I believe it was, and then came around in a weird way to go home.
So how would they know that she took that route?
There's a lot of theories, Keith.
Speculative is the word that comes to mind.
A lot of speculation in this particular episode.
I mean look, you know, we've done stories where the computer in a car will reveal kind of where the car went and when it went there.
No such technology in her car?
No, there was nothing in her car and also I mean there's other things too, it's 2002, you know, they made a lot out of that her phone was turned off for 27 hours.
But then if you think about 2002, we didn't have internet on our phones.
We weren't looking for the latest headlines every five minutes.
We weren't texting people all day long.
Isn't it fascinating actually to interrupt you for a moment?
Because our origins are in Canada and my whole philosophy about media is very McLuhanesque, right?
We are creatures of our machines and the machines change who we are and what we are and how we behave and everything about us.
So now looking at the world today, you couldn't imagine that somebody would go for all that length of time with a phone turned off without consulting it, without anything, Yeah.
Or without any technology in the car or anywhere else that would reveal where she was.
Right. You can't do that anymore.
There was nothing. And I mean - But then it was possible, was it?
Yeah, I mean, back then, you know, that, especially if she's saying she was hiking in the mountains and maybe you're not getting service in the mountains.
Maybe, you know, there's any number of reasons you wouldn't be on your phone if that was true, if they don't actually believe she was in the mountains.
Well they don't know, though, do they?
They don't know. But it's, the interesting thing was though that she's saying she was camping and there were big forest fires going on.
But how far away from these fires was she?
I think that the thought was that she was close enough that that smoke would be, you know, in her vicinity.
And let's not forget, she gave two different accounts of where she was that night.
Initially she said she slept in her apartment and she was alone.
Then she told her friend, Jeff, this man that she tried to get to help her with her legal, her defense.
She told him that she had slept in her car while she was camping.
So we have two different stories about where she was.
And quite different stories, completely different stories.
And you know, and that's like the beginning of the end a lot of times for people, right, is these conflicting stories.
But I kept going back to, wow, I mean, that was, the evidence, the evidence was what the evidence was, but even in 2002, where DNA was nowhere near as advanced as it is now.
Going into somebody's house and shooting two people in cold blood and getting out again and getting in your car and driving God knows how long to get back to your house again, doing all of that without leaving a single hair or trace of anything behind.
I mean, was she wearing some sort of special CSI gear when she went in this house or what?
We don't know that obviously, but some people criticized the crime scene texts and how that was done.
But her friend had just been with her before the July 4th holiday.
They spent that day in the mountains and she said she was doing great.
Dana was happy. They had fun.
She didn't even talk about her ex. And then that's what was so weird. And then what, she's just gonna suddenly snap like that?
But the detective did say that there was a phone call that Friday between Dana and Mike.
And there's speculation that he might've told her, you know what, I'm marrying Karen.
How would a marriage affect the rest of Dana's life?
I think the way that they would see it, the prosecutor, the detective, they would see it of this obsession of hers and this jealousy and rage, and that pushed her over.
And it's not about anything logical.
They would say it's the obsession.
If he put a ring on her finger, what's the difference?
Yeah. I don't think Dana liked that.
Well, even before the murder, she was driving them crazy with the hundreds of phone calls and the emails and the showing up.
Like, she's on the trampoline.
Tell me more about this trampoline because that kind of stands out in people's minds as an important event.
I mean, for me, the trampoline was the moment of the story.
That was the Glenn Close, if you will, fatal attraction moment of everything, right?
It could be the bunny moment almost, except for not as violent.
There was a custody hearing, and Mike's sister was visiting, and they went back to Mike's to spend the night at Mike's.
His sister was scared.
She felt really uncomfortable after the custody hearing, and she just had this bad feeling about Dana, and she was worried that Dana might do something, and Mike's like, no, no, no, no, it's fine.
Look, I'm here. You take my bed.
I'll sleep on the couch, I'm here to protect you, your brother." And in the middle of the night, they hear this bounce, bounce, boing, boing, the springs, right, boing, boing.
And they're like, what is that?
And they look out the blinds and there's Dana jumping on the trampoline in the backyard, laughing hysterically.
I mean, that's a bunny -boiler type moment.
I mean, it's the problem for Dana is that it's so hard to get around all that erratic behavior.
I'm not saying she's crazy, but, you know, that's that's the terminology that you heard. She hated Karen and she, she was jealous and obsessed and full of rage.
And that was driving the train.
Yeah. I guess according to the jury it did.
And maybe it did. However.
We have the view from the middle jury, right?
Yes. Yes. So we're going to hear an extra clip after this little break, if you don't mind, from your interview with the jury for a person whose name was Benjamin Alford, like an Alford plea, only that was his name, from the 2022 trial.
And he's going to explain what led to a mistrial and say some fascinating things about what goes on in a jury room.
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If she had not acted as her own defense attorney, do you think that they would have got a conviction that last time around?
I mean, it's hard to say because she would have had that really good defense team again.
Yeah. And, you know, I think what you said at the very beginning of this talking date line, reasonable doubt.
And they were very effective, obviously, in that second trial, and so who's to say that they wouldn't have been effective again?
Well, and here is our interview clip with the jury of four person Benjamin Alford from the second trial in 2022.
You decided to use playing cards as a way to vote guilty or not guilty.
Yeah, the best way to determine to start off And then, to move forward, I thought would be to come up with a system where we could vote anonymously.
We chose red for guilty and black for not guilty.
Everybody chose a card from the deck based on what their verdict was.
And then you put all the cards together.
And then we put all of the cards in the middle, and then I pulled them out, shuffled them, and then we flipped them one by one to find out where we were.
Where were you? No, we were at a 50 -50 split, 6 -6.
What was your first vote?
Not guilty. Not guilty.
Where do you go from there when it's split, 6 -6?
At that point, once we realized that, okay, we're at a split, what's it going to take to get either way, we talked about it.
you know, one of the biggest issues was the drive and the timeline.
Things didn't add up.
The elephant in the room was, there was nothing that actually tied Chandler to the location.
Nothing put in your eyes, Dana Chandler, into Pekah, Kansas?
Nothing tangible. Everything was circumstantial.
The people who felt she was guilty, what was convincing them?
Rage. When you realize that you're split, but is that kind of like, guys, I think we're done?
We did the vote, at this point, kept our card for the last one and it was, all right?
So this is your vote, if we're going to call it, you need to explain your position and why you chose it.
Oh, so wait, was everyone not anonymous anymore?
On this last day. Oh, okay, interesting.
And this was, if we're going to call it, then we should at least know why each of us, you know, obviously if you're all in a room together, there's only 12 of you.
It's pretty easy to figure out who's guilty, not guilty.
Did that help at all, hearing everyone finally, you know, openly give their decision?
It helped close everything.
Like, as far as, come to a conclusion that we can't move forward. The whole amount of discussion would bring us there.
That's so frustrating.
And... That's not what you want.
That's not what I wanted.
It's not like I wasn't going to try and pressure anybody towards any decision.
Everyone needed to make their own decision.
And so then I wrote up my statement.
You sent it to the judge?
And sent it. And it was like, just passed it around, everybody read it, and said, everybody agree.
On jury, missed trial.
Yeah. Interesting. Interesting.
Smart guy. And clearly somebody who wanted to do a good job.
And frankly, in the second trial, before she testified, that's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to make.
And he talked about everything you and I talked about.
The motive versus the circumstantial evidence, the motive versus the lack of evidence.
Juries, we know this, jury like motives, but you don't need a motive.
Yeah, they're not required.
I think in this case, it was motive plus circumstantial evidence.
Motive driving the whole thing.
And then she really, gosh, she hit that home run for them in that third trial with going to motive because she showed how kind of out there she can be.
Yeah, she did not do herself any favors by representing herself and it's a cautionary tale.
I think most defendants should absolutely not be playing the role of lawyer.
Oh, you bet. And she was so arrogant that she did it and clearly didn't recognize that she was, sinking her own boat as she sailed along.
Let's talk for a moment now about Hailey if we can.
Andrea, the central character, really in your story besides the character of the mother who we can't, you know, discern toward the end of the show.
But now I get it. I mean, having watched the whole program and having seen her mother in court, okay, I see why maybe she would testify against this woman.
However, there was a long period of time during which she was sort of campaigning for a case here, and that's so unusual.
I mean, what was - It is.
How did she deal with that on a personal level?
Because she was, it's like for Haley she didn't have that resolution.
It was like she was always hanging in the balance, like what is going on?
Did my mom do this?
Didn't my mom do this?
I need to know because you can just imagine that living like that every day, like that Groundhog Day of uncertainty and lack of resolution.
And at one point, so Hailey moves to Colorado just for a fresh start with her boyfriend and Dana shows up and has somehow found her address.
And she was kind of freaked out by that.
Why is she here? And I think that was part of what propelled her to say like, I need to do something here.
My mom's reaching out to me, so she starts recording their phone calls just on her own.
Why did she come to see her?
Did she provide a reason at the time?
I think just I miss you, you know, wanted to see her.
To know what you know, control what you say?
Or was it, did it go that far?
The mom would say, oh, I want a relationship, I love you, I care about you.
What was her true motive?
I don't know. But that's what she would say to Hayley.
What would Hayley have said?
Or did she tell you anything about her, what it was like to grow up with that woman?
We touched upon some of the things she'd show up at soccer games.
Yelling and screaming at Mike.
You know, she was unhinged at times and how embarrassing for a child.
I mean, they did have some good times.
They went on camping trips, they went fishing.
But unpredictable. Unpredictable and - So she could turn on a dime and suddenly be scary.
That's what it sounds like.
It just, poor Hailey, it just sounds like she just didn't get a fair shake.
The one thing I will say about Hailey is she actually just had a baby not too long ago.
She has other children as well, but she's such a great mom.
Like, just from the little interaction I had with her, but we did the interview in her aunt and uncle's house, the brother -in -law and the sister.
And so it was a more intimate setting.
You know, we weren't, we did part of the interview there, so we weren't just off in some, you know, warehouse, doing an interview, and you got to see the family in their natural environment.
And I just, it made me so happy to see what a great mom Haley is and how much she loves her kids.
Well, yes and it's good to see the child.
Not repeat the sins of the parent.
And so now we're gonna take a little break.
And when we come back, we'll answer some of your questions from social media.
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So we're gonna listen to some of our questions.
First audio questions.
This is from Lucy Tavares, I believe it's pronounced on Instagram.
Hey Lucy. Hi, this is Lucy and I am an avid fan.
and I am re -watching the episode for Deadly Obsession.
I was going back and forth last night, but the Yukon women's game was on so I couldn't stop watching that but I'm re -watching the episode and I was just wondering how many of you thought that Dana had such narcissistic tendencies especially when she took over her own case and defended herself.
I love you, Shawn. I'm an avid fan.
Thank you. Thank you, Lucy.
And Keith, can we just say quickly, congratulations to UConn Ladies Basketball for winning the national championship.
Congrats to them. Will you be watching the game?
I saw just highlights, but I don't blame Lucy for going back and forth.
That's a big, big deal, big game.
It's a big deal. And yeah, it's like what you talked about, Keith.
Once a person opens their mouth and starts to, you know, be the architect of their own movements in a courtroom, you get a sense of their character pretty quickly.
Yeah, absolutely. Here is one from X.
This is from at Mikeh1990.
Mike and Karen seemed like people you would have wanted to be friends with.
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that.
I think they like to have fun, they met at a bar, from what I was told, You know, they like to go out.
They like to go to the casino. They like to camp, and fish.
And I think that this was a new beginning for them.
They'd been together for a little while, and I think they were excited, really excited about the future.
Sure, fresh starts at that stage of life can be tremendously exciting.
Wonderful. A murder mystery ex writes, "'Help me out on this.' What was that court clerk doing with that device over her mouth during the trial?
Did anyone else see that?" Yes, well there is a perfectly good answer for that.
It's so funny that he just asked that because I was on a different story and I asked that question just three days ago.
And? And I said, are they talking into that?
And that's what it is, they're just repeating everything.
It's over their mouth, repeating every word. And I was like, oh, I don't think I would want that job.
That sounds very difficult.
Well, it does and that's I guess a newer technology that instead of having to type really, really fast, You do use a speech to text device.
All right, our next question is from Rawhide Velvet.
Longtime Dateline fan, we first met her at CrimeCon.
She says, dude, this lady is smart.
Talk to the cops all you want, but to do it without a lawyer is just stupid.
I admire and respect police officers and as they do their duty.
And as I've said frequently, I think that homicide detectives are some of the finest people on the face of this globe.
I've met a lot of them, and they're wonderful people, and they care, and they're, you know, they're deeply empathetic toward the victims. So, you know, that said, never a good idea to meet with a homicide detective or with a police department who wants to question you without the assistance of a lawyer.
You're nuts if you do that.
That's just not the way things ought to be.
And even at the very least, just to calm your nerves and have someone there just for you, even if you're innocent.
Like, just have that peace of mind.
Especially if you're innocent.
Okay. Strong Girl 51, good title, says this family drama is heartbreaking.
Huge respect for Dateline producers for navigating this mess and respecting their dignity.
Aww, that's so nice.
Well we had a great team on this one.
Thank you. They're all wonderful people.
And just as an aside, you know, for anybody listening to this, we've been at Dateline a long time, And we've only been able to do what we have been able to do because we have the best imaginable people we work with.
They are the absolute best. And at Anon 13, with a good sum up remark, really heartbreaking.
Imagine being glad your mother has found guilty of a double homicide.
Poor Hayley. Completely agree with that.
Her dad's gone, her mom's in prison.
But Haley has an amazing family, and that's what she needs to focus on is the wonderful family that she does have that loves her.
Interesting story, Andrea.
Thank you. Fascinating.
Thank you. Thank you for doing this.
That is it for our Talking Dateline this week.
Thank you for listening.
And remember, if you have any questions about our stories or a case you think we should be covering, you can find us on social media at DatelineNBC.
If you've got a question for Talking Dateline, And leave us a voicemail at 212 -413 -5252, or record yourself and send it to us via DM on social media.
And don't forget to join us this Friday and every Friday on Dateline.
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