Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness were shot to death in their bed on July 7, 2002.
A decade later, Sisco’s ex-wife DanaChandler was convicted of killing the Topeka, Kan., couple. But that verdict was overturned in 2018 by the Kansas Supreme Court on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct, and a retrial in 2022 ended with a hung jury.
However, a third trial last year resulted in Chandler—who pleaded not guilty every time—being sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole for 50 years after she was found guilty of double murder.
“I have always maintained my innocence,” the now-66-year-old said during her June 2025 sentencing hearing. “I continue to maintain my innocence. I was not in Topeka, Kansas, on July 7. I never owned or possessed a 9-millimeter firearm. What is happening in this courtroom is a grave injustice. I was not the one who killed them.”
Count Eileen Umbehr and KeenUmbehramong those who believed Chandler was innocent. And the new HBO docuseriesA Killer Storychronicles why the Kansas couple devoted years of their lives to proving it.
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“They focused on Dana Chandler,” Eileen says in the three-part series, “in spite of the fact that they couldn’t put a weapon in her hand or that she lived 540 miles away.”
Here is what to know about the unusual murder case behind A Killer Story:
What happened to Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness?
Sisco and Harkness were planning to host their parents for a cookout at their Topeka home on the afternoon of July 7, 2002.
The two couples arrived at around the same time, Mike’s mom Carol Sisco recalled on NBC News’Dateline last year. When no one answered the front door, she said, they went around back and saw a sliding door was partially open.
Harkness’ father, Harold Worswick, described to CBS News finding the bodies of his 53-year-old daughter and her 47-year-old fiancé in their bedroom.
Both had been shot multiple times, since-retired Topeka Police detective Richard Volle, who led the investigation in 2002, said on Dateline. The murder weapon was never found, but investigators determined a 9mm semiautomatic pistol was used in the slayings.
Topeka police said at the time there was no forced entry and it didn’t appear to be a robbery gone wrong, as Harkness was still wearing jewelry and there was cash in the house that the couple had just won during a night out at the Sac & Fox Casino.
Weeks, then months, went by without a break in the investigation and the case turned cold.
When was Dana Chandler first accused of killing Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness?
Volle recalled questioning Chandler, Sisco’s ex-wife, four days after the murders. The detective told CBS News in 2008 that Chandler said she’d been home in Colorado on the night of July 6, then spent the next day driving through the mountains. But the Denver-based accountant—who shared daughter Hailey and son Dustinwith Sisco—hadn’t been arrested or charged with any crime when an October 2009 48 Hours special named her as a suspect.
Chandler told CBS News at the time she didn’t have anything to do with the double homicide.
After the show aired, Hailey, who was 17 when her dad was killed, told the Topeka Capital-Journal she was “100 percent firm” that her mother pulled the trigger.
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In fact, Hailey had made sure the case stayed on police’s radar, explaining to the Greeley Tribune in November 2009 that she felt like “the only one who was keeping it alive.” The then-24-year-old said she had even secretly recorded conversations with her mother, hoping Chandler would implicate herself.
That didn’t happen, but local authorities said they were getting new tips in the wake of the 48 Hours broadcast, and then-Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylordirected his office to make the case a priority.
In July 2011, Chandler was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
What happened at Dana Chandler’s first murder trial?
Hailey and Dustin were among the 80 prosecution witnesses who testified during their mother’s March 2012 murder trial. Prosecutors alleged that Chandler harassed Sisco after their 1998 divorce and called him five times two days before the murders, livid that he planned to marry Harkness.
Defense attorney Mark Bennettsaid in court that the “lack of evidence” in the case was “overwhelming.”
But Chandler was found guilty, with jury members later telling CBS News they reached a verdict after 15 minutes of deliberations.
She was sentenced on Aug. 20, 2012 (coincidentally what would have been her and Sisco’s 30th wedding anniversary), to two consecutive life sentences with parole only possible after 100 years, 50 for each victim.
How did Keen Umbehr and Eileen Umbehr get involved in Dana Chandler’s murder case?
The Umbehrs saw the 48 Hours special on the then-unsolved murders and were sucked right into the mystery.
And after Chandler was convicted despite the prosecution having no DNA, fingerprints or other physical evidence, the Umbehrs were convinced she was innocent and took it upon themselves to set her free.
Keen, an attorney, filed a complaint with the state disciplinary office in July 2016 accusing prosecutor Jacqie Spradling of misconduct, alleging that during her closing argument she falsely claimed Sisco had obtained a protection order against Chandler in 1998 that his ex then violated.
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An appellate court subsequently confirmed that no such order existed and the Kansas Supreme Court overturned Chandler’s conviction in 2018. But the justices also wrote in their opinion, per CBS News, that, despite the State’s case relying on “limited circumstantial evidence,” there was enough to retry Chandler, as she “had motive and opportunity and engaged in suspicious behavior after the murders.”
Chandler remained in jail while awaiting a retrial.
“I believe she’s innocent,” Keen told the Kansas City Starin 2020. “Injustice just annoys the hell out of me.”
During a 2020 disciplinary hearing, Spradling admitted to making “embarrassing and humbling” mistakes during the Chandler trial, per the Capital-Journal, but denied that she intentionally lied to the jury when she referenced a protection order.
The state disciplinary board ruled in 2021 that Spradling should be disbarred for taking a “win-at-all-costs” approach during the Chandler trial and another unrelated case In a May 2022 opinion upholding the decision, the Kansas Supreme Court agreed that the prosecutor had engaged in a “serious pattern of grossly unethical misconduct.”
Chandler was retried in 2022, but the judge declared a mistrial after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. Foreman Ben Alfordtold the Topeka Capital-Journalafterward that “the prosecution wasn’t there to put the whole case together.”
After spending more than a decade behind bars, Chandler was released from jail with GPS monitoring.
What happened at Dana Chandler’s third murder trial?
Chandler went on trial for a third time in February 2025, this time in Pottawatomie County, about 60 miles away from Topeka.
In an unexpected twist, Chandler dismissed her attorneys as opening statements were about to get underway and said she’d be representing herself—which ultimately included cross-examining her own kids.
The defendant also spent seven days testifying, Chandler arguing that no one could place her in Kansas during the murders, let alone at the scene of the crime, and that she had never owned nor had access to a 9mm firearm.
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She was again found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and later sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for 50 years.
“I hope that from here out,” Hailey told 48 Hours after her mother’s sentencing, “the victims and the families can be remembered more.”
Where are Eileen and Keen Umbehr now?
As relayed in HBO’s A Killer Story, Chandler’s decision to represent herself at her third trial prompted them to cut ties with the defendant, if not stop discussing the case.
“I think it was maybe the first time that they had reckoned with how much they had sacrificed,” series director Matthew Galkin told Vanity Fairahead of the Sept. 10 premiere. “I think they took it as just the ultimate show of disrespect for the work that people had done for her.”
Where is Dana Chandler now?
Chandler’s motion for a fourth trial was denied last year, with the judge ruling she missed the filing deadline. According to the Capital-Journal, she is appealing her 2025 conviction.
Meanwhile, she is serving her sentence at the maximum-security Topeka CF-Central, per the Kansas Department of Corrections. Online inmate records note she’s working in a job and her earliest possible release date is December 8, 2063.
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