Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: Deadly Obsession

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Keith Morrison and Andrea Canning sit down to talk about Andrea’s episode, “Deadly Obsession.” In 2002, Mike Cisco and Karen Harkness were found murdered in Karen’s Topeka, Kansas, home. As the investigation into their deaths unfolded, a suspect emerged with close ties to one of the victims and a history of obsessive behavior.  Andrea and Keith discuss the trail of circumstantial evidence that led to an arrest, followed by three trials. And they discuss the wisdom of a defendant choosing to represent themself at trial. Plus, they answer viewer and listener questions from social media. Have a question for Talking Dateline? Leave it for us in a DM on social media @DatelineNBC or in a voicemail at [phone] for a chance to be featured on a future episode!Listen to the full episode of “Deadly Obsession” on Apple: https://apple.co/43Mj1h6Listen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6HMXYws6aYPTcCU8W6xVog 

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. This was back in 2002 when Mike Sisko 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 list 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 for person 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, 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, you know, we don't get that very often, three trials. Two is frequent, but three, hardly ever.

Yeah, that's really when the DA is bold and 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 said 70% sure it was her halfway between Denver and Topeka.

It seems to me that 70% is another word for reasonable doubt. But you know, 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. That'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? Yeah. Because our origins are in Canada and my whole philosophy about media is very McLuhan-esque, 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, or without any technology in the car or anywhere else that would reveal where she was. You can't do that anymore. There was nothing.

But then it was possible, wasn't 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, 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 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. Quite different story, completely different stories. And you know, and that's like the beginning of the end a lot of times for people, right, Is these, the conflicting stories. But I kept going back to it.

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've 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 have 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... I don't think Dana liked that. Well, she was already, even before the murder, she was driving them crazy. Obsessing about it.

With the phone call, 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, 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 And they, 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 Bonnie 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 the terminology that you heard. She hated Karen and 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 the jury room. 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 dateline, reasonable doubt, and they were very effective obviously in 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, 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. Then we put all 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? 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 Pica, 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, 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. 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, 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, you know,

amount of discussion would bring us there. That's so frustrating. And... It's not what you want. It's not what I wanted. And 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 just like passed it around. Everybody read it. Does everybody agree? On jury. Next trial.

Yeah. 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. Yes, sure.

The motive versus the circumstantial evidence, the motive versus the lack of evidence. Yeah. Juries, we know this, juries like motives, but you don't need a motive. Yeah, they're not required as you know. 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, you know, 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. and clearly didn't recognize that she was sinking her own boat as she sailed along. Yeah. Let's talk for a moment now about Haley, if we can, Andrea. The sexual character, really, in your story, besides the character of the mother who we can't, you know, we 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? 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, you know, lack of resolution.

And at one point, so Haley moves to Colorado, just for a fresh start, you know, 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 you know, I think that was part of what propelled her to say, 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, wanted to see her. To know what you know, control what you say? Or did it go that far? The mom would say, I want a relationship. I love you, I care about you.

Uh-huh. What was her true motive? I don't know, but that's what she would say to Haley. What would Haley 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.

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. So she could turn on a dime and suddenly be scary. That's what it sounds like. Poor Haley. Unpredictable. Unpredictable. So she could turn on a dime and suddenly be scary.

That's what it sounds like. It just, poor Haley. It just sounds like she just didn't get a fair shake. The one thing I will say about Haley 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 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, you know, not repeat the sins of the parent.

Yeah. And so now we're going to take a little break and when we come back, we'll answer some of your questions from social media. So we're going to listen to some of our questions. And 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 rewatching 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 rewatching 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 your show. 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. Yes. Were you watching the game? I saw just highlights, but I don't blame Lucy for going back and forth. I don't know. for going back and forth. No, no, that's a big deal. It's a big deal. And yeah, it's like what you talked about, Keith. Once a person opens their mouth and starts to 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 Mike H. 1990. 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. 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. Yeah. Murder Mystery X 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? Oh my gosh.

Of course, yes, well, there's a perfectly good answer for that, right? 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, 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. Long time 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 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. It'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. You know, 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. That's so nice. Well, we had a great team on this one. They're all wonderful people. Just as an aside, 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 Anan13 with a good sum up remark, really heartbreaking. Imagine being glad your mother is found guilty of a double homicide, poor Haley. Yeah. 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. Yeah, 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, leave us a voicemail at, are you ready? 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.