A Killer Story | Crime Seen episode 218

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[00:00:57] True Crime Review Podcast, where we get to the heart of how True Crime stories are told. We've got a couple of bits of housekeeping. We're still looking for a name for our listeners. A couple of weeks ago, Chappelle suggested the scene team. He also tried to block Matt Scott's claim to the 15th appearance. So Mari and I deputized Mildred to make the decision.

[00:01:15] Yes, Mildred came through. She said, another incredible episode. You never disappoint. Loving the scene team name and Chappelle is spot on as always. I followed him forever, but choosing between Matt and Chappelle at 15 episodes was tough. The shout out officially won me over to Chappelle's side. I just keep that between us because Matt was so sweet to me at RehabCon. We'll keep it between us, Mildred, yes. Woof, phew, lucky we're not recording.

[00:01:42] Also, huge thumbs up for the Vince Young Untold Documentary. Highly recommend. As Mildred has written, so it shall be done. Sorry, Matt. For those of you not quite in the know, Matt was trying to claim his appearance in Milwaukee at our live show as an episode. So the jury was out. Yeah. But Mildred's come down. Sorry, Matt.

[00:02:06] So that just means Matt has to come on pretty soon and get back even with Chappelle. Exactly. And we also heard from Thundercats, who had another suggestion for our listener name. Investigators. I like that. I like that. That is good. Yeah. Keep the suggestions coming in, everybody. Yes. Last week we watched The Hooters Murders, Deadly Shift. Sarah, what did we watch this week?

[00:02:32] We watched A Killer Story on HBO. It was produced and directed by Matthew Galkin. He previously directed One Night in Idaho, The College Murders, and that is Documentary Girl's preferred documentary on that case. And Murray, I think you and I liked it very much too. But I don't want to ever see anything else about that case. Sorry. Done. Great.

[00:02:53] And to talk it all through, that's killer story. Recently returned from her murder detox and joining the Five Timers Club today, it's Kirsten McInnes. Kirsten! Is this my fifth time? I was going to say, I feel like I just haven't been on very much. That feels like more than I thought. So that's exciting. So happy to be talking to both of you. I would say I am still on a murder, you know, diet, but maybe a little more flexitarian.

[00:03:22] I was like, Murray, I'll come back on. I'll talk about a murder, but it can't be too bleak. Obviously all murder is bleak, but I think anyone who watches true crime documentaries knows that some are more disturbing than others. Even though the detective says that they were shot nose to tail, which I thought was very unnecessary. Yeah, I didn't love that, but I felt like they really glossed over that and then we were out and we didn't have to talk about discussion of the actual physical evidence. Exactly. After that. Of which there was none, apparently.

[00:03:52] Yeah. Yeah, five doesn't seem like that a lot when you're staring down the barrel of 15, you know, so not everybody is Chappelle and Matt, so don't feel bad about it. Well, now I feel like I'm in competition. I'm going to need to be coming back basically every episode until I can win. But that's also, I'm not trying to be the third co-host either. So it's a tough situation to be in.

[00:04:18] Well, we already got one of those. SDB, our official third chair, is knocking on the door of 20 episodes. So she will never be caught. See, I know I can't compete with that. Yeah. Yes. I think you're close with Asia. I think Asia is... Just about to do five. Yep, just about to do five. If so. Oh, bah! Ish, I'm winning right now. We need a panel. Yes, there you go.

[00:04:42] We're thinking of getting a panel of all our gal pals to cover a documentary where there's no crime except capitalism. That's how I got it past Mari's gates. The boss needs to say, where's the crime? I said, capitalism. We're going to cover a documentary called Cookie Queens in January, something light to start the year about Girl Scouts. And we thought, yeah, let's get all our gal pals on and really rip into these children.

[00:05:09] We don't have Girl Scouts in Canada, so I don't know that I'm qualified to speak on that. You're qualified to look at it. You were a girl once. So true. Yeah. So we'll get back to listeners on that a little bit more about Cookie Queens. But yeah, there you go. You and Asia can compete. Asia will be coming on to talk about the Swan documentary. Kirsten, did you watch the Swan back in the day? Do you know what I'm talking about?

[00:05:34] I was not allowed to choose what was on the television as a child. It was, if you want to know what I watched, it was CBS procedurals and football, baseball and golf. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That tracks. That's how you're kind of true crime adjacent now slash probably afraid of a lot of that stuff. Right. I'm afraid of golf. Yeah. Honestly, same. Yeah.

[00:06:02] All that land being watered. It's terrible. Terrible for the environment. Make it grow over. Give it back to the wild. That's what I say. That's not happening. No. That's too many rich billionaires playgrounds. Too many rich richies rich. Exactly. That's why we need to eat the rich. And the Girl Scout cookies. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes. So let's get to this crime. For those people who haven't watched it, it's very interesting because I was going to ask you both who the victim is. So we're very victim-centric here on Crime Seen.

[00:06:32] We like to really interrogate how documentaries center the victim. And I am going to suggest that the actual people who are murdered are not the victim as far as the documentary is concerned. And let's unpack that as we go. Okay. Yeah. In July 2002, Mike Sisko and his fiancée, Anne Harkness, were shot and killed in their bed in Topeka, Kansas.

[00:06:55] In 2012, Mike's ex-wife, Dana Chandler, was convicted of the killings and sentenced to 100 years in prison. That conviction was overturned in 2018 due to prosecutorial misconduct. She was retried in 2022, resulting in a hung jury. In 2025, she was tried again, found guilty, and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Kristen, I'll start with you.

[00:07:20] What were your overall thoughts on this three-part docuseries before we dive into the grains? So it's just very strange. Everything about this is very strange. Yeah. So it's just super weird. As you said, the documentary frames this as Dana is the victim of the crime. Well, two people are dead. They were executed in their home.

[00:07:46] And it's just, it's hard because from how the documentary shows it, there really is no evidence to truly indicate that Dana did it the way that it is framed in the documentary. Or at the very least, there's heaps of reasonable doubt. And so then it is, well, she is also a victim in that she's been in jail for decades. But again, two people are dead. Exactly. Mari, what were your overall thoughts? Well, my overall thoughts was this was a really good three-parter.

[00:08:16] Again, HBO Max knows how to really spotlight their documentaries and docuseries. This came out over three weeks, released on a Thursday. And the cliffhangers were cliffhangering. They were worth the cliffhanger. It wasn't just bullcrap. I thought I learned a lot. I thought it was very stylized. It was almost like kind of weird to say, but stylized almost like a Western kind of in that first episode.

[00:08:44] When we see the reporter who is driving down the hill, just all very stylized, really good camera work. Very good talking heads. How they had our two main talking heads, Eileen and Keene, the Umbers, who get invested into this crime.

[00:09:05] And who contact Joe Sexton from the New York Times and ProPublica, who awesome, just awesome commentary by Joe Sexton. Just give that man something. I'll watch it. He is so compelling to me. He was so funny. He's like, this crazy lady was emailing me. I didn't respond to her. And just, it was, I loved it. I really loved the talking heads. I loved all of it. I loved how it's stylized.

[00:09:33] Now, again, cursing is right here. The victims and the crime are kind of glossed over in a sense because the crime isn't the story. The crime is pretty straightforward. You know, it's one of those things that a person walks into the house of Mike Sisko and his girlfriend, kill them, shoot them. I think it was one of them received five shots.

[00:10:01] One of them received 10 or 11, something to that effect. And then we're off to the races. And I think it kind of gives you that feeling of the police kind of automatically zeroing in on Dana, which we know is not really good police work. You have to really try and work from the outside in.

[00:10:21] And that because of, to me, what I came away with this documentary being like is because of the shoddy police work and the horrendous prosecuting of the case, that we'll never know the actual truth. Now, could Dana be the perpetrator? Maybe. Maybe. But I personally am not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt just because, again, the horrible prosecution and the horrible police work here.

[00:10:52] So it's just, it's, it's satisfying in an unsatisfying way. Once that third part was done, I was like, this was, this was cinema. Now, was it the outcome I thought should have happened? No? It was, it's so weird. It just shows you how weird the justice system is down here. Yeah. It's so weird. I think that Joe Sexton is the most marvelous narrator. He takes us through.

[00:11:20] He has wonderful hair and beard. In fact, there's a lot of very good beards. Very good beard showing in these three parts. Joe Sexton's not least. So three 38-minute parts, whisking through, not an ounce of fat. You know, we always say, oh, maybe something could be cut, but I don't know what. Nothing in this. Nothing could be cut. There are no reenactments. There's some archival footage, some archival tape. It's really clear where that's being used. And I really appreciated that.

[00:11:50] I think that in a way, it's a social documentary about Eileen and Keen Umber who believe with all their hearts that Dana is innocent. Not only do they believe she's innocent, but they believe that they know who did do it. As it unfolds, they believe they know who did do it, which is Karen's son-in-law.

[00:12:12] As this documentarian gives us a drip feed of information, we find out that Keen and the son-in-law have had beef in the past. Okay, it doesn't mean he didn't do it, but it does color our view of these two crusaders for justice. And they are amazing. I see them as victims as well, and I have a reason for that. I agree with Jo. Right at the end, Jo says, I know who did it. I just don't know how they did it.

[00:12:41] And I thought, Jo thinks Dana's guilty. But the question that is raised if she is guilty is there has to be due process. There has to be good police work. There has to be scrupulous prosecution. Everybody should be telling the truth on the stand. The prosecutors should be telling the truth. The police should be telling the truth. So even if, say, okay, let's say Dana's guilty.

[00:13:05] She should not be in jail because she was not tried successfully to be on reasonable doubt. The hung jury was 7-5, which is 7 for conviction, 5 for not. That is reasonable doubt there. So once you decide it's not a documentary about Mike and Karen's deaths, but there's much more social justice aspect. I think it's super successful. Kirsten? Yeah, I think that that's a really good point.

[00:13:34] Like you just kind of have to completely divorce it from the inciting incident and look at it for what it is, which is truly a discussion of, honestly, the justice system in the U.S., but also kind of the power of citizen detectives and journalism to bring attention to a case that nobody else is really talking about. Honestly, when the documentary started, I thought that it was going to be about a journalist filing for a restraining order from a psychopath that is emailing them 2,000 times in two years.

[00:14:02] The fact that it was really that level of harassment that then resulted in a real relationship and creates this documentary is just, it's very unexpected. I don't think at any point what I thought was going to happen, happened. Yeah, yeah. And each part was so distinct, right? Like that first part is the Umbers getting Joe involved.

[00:14:29] Again, the quickness of covering Mike and Karen's death. Kind of like the investigation or very lack thereof. And Kirsten makes a good point. It was, what, 48 hours that basically gets her arrested? Like, because we were like, we don't really like that lady. Like, it was so weird. She doesn't get arrested for seven years. And there's not, again, there's not much hard evidence tying her. It's, it's so interesting.

[00:14:56] And then that second episode, we're introduced to the alternative suspect who the Umbers think is the alternative suspect. Like we said, Karen, the victim Karen's son-in-law. And he, I mean, he was looking kind of good for it. And then the weird thing to me about how they ruled him out was they said that they had hairs on the bullet casing that didn't match him. That they had a single hair.

[00:15:21] But I'm like, but if they didn't match Dana, then why, why can that evidence rule him out but not rule her out as well? A single hair could come from anywhere. Anything. It could be on your pants when you come in from outside. It could, you could pick it up at the movie theater on the bus in a store. It's one single hair. That's not compelling evidence to convict or defend somebody.

[00:15:50] I just don't think that that's relevant information. If it had turned out to be, you know, either of the two potential options presented by the documentary's hair. I guess maybe you could say it's more damning. But I don't think that it's exculpatory. So it would be more damning for Dana, right? Because Dana said she had never been inside their house. There's no evidence of her inside the house.

[00:16:14] Even if it did match to the son-in-law, he could have said, well, you know, his wife has a key to that house. He's been in that house multiple times. But I just don't understand no follow-up. If we're, if we're saying, oh, we, we, we have this hair. We think it might be linked to the crime. It's not linked to the two people that we think it is. But that's it.

[00:16:37] We're not gonna, we're gonna use it to, to say one person isn't at fault while the other, while we're gonna ignore it by saying this other lady is at fault. But we're not gonna try and figure out who it came from. No. I have a theory on that, Mari. Once the blinders are on, the blinkers are on with not all, not all policemen, but somehow always a policeman. No. Mm-hmm. It's very hard to sway them from the decision.

[00:17:05] I mean, we have examples where a young person is charged with a crime. They claim innocence. There isn't any evidence that they were there. They're put in jail. And then someone else confesses or turns out to have done it. And the police say, well, they were accomplices. Yep. They're very reluctant to let people go once they are in the prison industrial system. Exactly. And my other theory is that they didn't like Dana.

[00:17:34] She's not a very likable person, but even unlikable people are allowed to have justice. So let's jump to the third episode, which rips apart this very gentle building of information over the two episodes that we've talked about. Kirsten, what did you think about Dana defending herself and how and why that is a super bad idea?

[00:17:56] It's never a mentally stable person making the decision to defend themselves in court. And this is my bias, but I do feel like often guilty people defend themselves because they already think like, oh, I can get away with a crime. I can also convince everyone else, especially if they tend to be charming in other aspects of their life.

[00:18:23] They think, oh, I could charm, you know, the court as well. And of course, that's not always true. Sometimes innocent people make poor decisions as well. And I don't know if I think that's the case in this case or not, really, because I feel like we weren't actually even given enough information to come to a full conclusion on who we think did the murder. I feel.

[00:18:47] But it's just you never hear about a self-wrap going well. I think that probably the most famous example of a self-wrap in a murder trial would be Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy. He was guilty as hell. Yep. And he did real good. Chomp personified. Chomp personified. Still found guilty. If you're not Ted Bundy, don't do it. He was still found guilty, but also escaped twice during the process. Slippery.

[00:19:14] So I will just jump out the window of the law library and get away for several months. Okay. Okay. Kill more people. Yeah. Yeah. No, I completely agree. That third episode knocked me on my absolute ass when I tell you it was so good. That cliffhanger of there was a surprise eyes with eyewitness and the lady sits down and they're like, can you tell us who you saw on July 6? And she's like, yeah. Yeah. And she's about to point and it's a cliffhanger.

[00:19:43] I was immediately going into the third episode. So let me put you in my mind frame. I'm like a surprise eyewitness who this is the first time in 20 years we're hearing about her. I was like, okay, I'm already skeptical. My skepticism high up when they come in and they're like, so you're testifying that you heard a gunshot around 1230 before 12. Yes. And he kept hammering it. And I was like, uh, and then we get Joe Sexton.

[00:20:12] She testified to something that could not have happened. Boom, boom. And then they open with the opening credits. I was like, oh, it's about to get real sticky. And it was so good. That first half of that third episode, when we have this neighbor lady on the stand testifying that she heard a gunshot and may have seen a person running around at 12, a little bit before midnight. She even testifies that she made a 911 call and had a 911 call.

[00:20:42] They bring up the 911 operators. The lady's like, there is absolutely no long call. We checked from her landline, her cell phone, her address. No long call. And then on top of that, Mike and Karen were alive at midnight. I was like, oh my God. Like on CCTV in the casino. I was so pissed. I was like, why would you put this lady on the stand?

[00:21:08] That prosecutor, my God, that prosecutor is lucky they got a mistrial because I would have been one of them five would have been acquitted. Because why would you do some stupid shit like that when we're right here at this retrial? Because we got to talk about that last lady. That last lady lied about some shit. So why are we some more here? I can. How is a whole prosecutorial office this dumb?

[00:21:35] And not only this dumb, but this dogged to pursue this lady with the evidence that they have. And so when they declared the mistrial, I was like, okay, third trial. Let's get it. Let's go. And when she said, I want to represent myself, I was like, damn it. Yeah. Damn it, Dana. Why would you do this? Why would you do this? It just made no sense.

[00:22:00] I was like, if she would have just presented the exact same case, if she had her exact same lawyers, she would be out. I really kind of want to know what was the decision behind that because that makes absolutely no sense to me. I'm sorry, Sarah. Episode three had me. Yes. You've been in jail for how many years? I do think that at a certain point, you're like, okay, well, the prosecution screwed up the first time.

[00:22:26] The prosecution screwed up the second time and it still wasn't enough for me to be free. Like, at this point, I can't trust anyone but myself. So I have to just do it. I can see how the human brain goes to places that it wouldn't normally go after being locked up, basically like an animal, for years and years and years. For a crime that you're saying you did not commit. Yeah. I think Terry Anderson, our neighbour lady here, and she's on our carpool footage and I thought, oh, fine.

[00:22:56] Then she's interviewed for this documentary. I thought, you sit there and say? I think she believed that she saw her. There's something in her mind. I think she's a fantasist where she's told herself that story from 20 years ago. But, Kirsten, let's go off about the now disbarred Jackie Spradling. I leapt to look her up because I actually thought she was one of the Lindsay Clancy prosecutors, but she's not. But she is in their mould.

[00:23:24] They are sisters under the, I was going to say wig, but your lawyers don't wear wigs. Well, I don't know if you'll always wear wigs, Kirsten. Don't do wigs anymore, but they do still have to wear like the silly robes if it's a Supreme file. Sisters under the silly robes then. So what was your impression of Jackie Spradling there? It just, what are we, what are we doing?

[00:23:51] How is this, like, you went through how many years of education, how many years of lurking and getting certified to be a lawyer? You want to be an agent of the court and you want to be prosecuting bad guys. And then you're just like, whatever. We'll lie. We'll say whatever we want. What are you doing? How did you get here?

[00:24:17] I think it's that thing of, like, making a murderer, whether he did it or not. They decide that he did and then fold up the evidence or evidence, inverted commas, that they did it. The same thing happened to Karen Reed, but again, citizen sleuths. Turtle Boy is the one that broke that whole thing open to the public and I believe is instrumental in her having been found not guilty. But, Mara, you wanted to talk about Jackie Spradling.

[00:24:46] She gets up there, gets this police officer, this Vole police. My God, this was some bad policing. I'm so mad that she represented herself in the third trial because she was able to turn her around. Yeah, he was. But he gets on the stand. Jackie Spradling asks him, did Mike have a protection of abuse against Dana? And he said, yes, she had a protection of abuse.

[00:25:13] Jackie Spradling says, can you outline what a protection of abuse order is? He outlines what a protection of abuse order is, meaning he knows what it is. And then she goes back and follows it up. So it is confirmed that Mike had a protection of abuse order from Dana. He says, yes, all of that bullshit lies. They had a, because of the divorce proceeding and normal divorce proceeding and custody proceedings,

[00:25:38] they, there's always a protection order, like a minimum level protection order against both parties. When there is in a custody battle or custody dispute, which is different from a protection of abuse order, which is what I think people think of the average restraining order is. So they, yeah, they just went up there and flapped their gums and lied. And I'm glad that that first trial was overturned because you just can't do that, right? You can't lie to get a suspect in jail.

[00:26:06] And I should have known something like that was going to happen because they included that fist bump, her fist bumping the DA. I was like, that looks weird. They included that two or three times. And I was like, don't do that. Do I like this lady? No. I didn't like her. I didn't like her hair. Her hair was aggressively unlikable. Well, now you've mentioned Volley. Kirsten, what happened? So Volley is there and he does things like he's interviewing his chief suspect,

[00:26:33] but out of the two and a half hours interview, only an hour is recorded. Well, the tape ran out, Sarah. It's obviously just normal human error because, of course, why would you be monitoring the tape recording an interview with a prime suspect in a double homicide? You know? Obviously, you just, you want it to run out, actually. So it can be your word against theirs, you know?

[00:26:58] And I think that what actually, I think this, I've gotten to the core of what pisses me off so much about this. Because you hear all the time about how police departments have such pressure on them to close cases. And that results in the blinders, as you said, Sarah, and people, officers being unwilling to see alternative theories when they are locked in on who they think it is. Because they need to close the cases so they can get promoted, so they can make more money. And that's part of like the hellscape that we're living in.

[00:27:28] Get those people into the prison industrial complex so that you can make more money outside so that you can move up in the world. And I hate it, but I can at least understand how that happens to someone who already is of the mind of becoming a police officer and they're in that situation. But why the prosecutors go along with it is what pisses me off. Because they have so much more education and should have more knowledge on what is enough to actually convict someone on. And they should be saying, no, throw it out. You don't have enough.

[00:27:58] Resubmit it when you have more evidence. But it's something to just go along with it. Like, you know what? Oh, we only got an hour and a half of the two and a half hour conversation. It's enough. It's fine. We'll just rely on him. It was taped. It's just that that other tape is just mysteriously gone because it's the one that is the nub of the argument about whether her alibi story changed or not. But it's also like she got arrested so much.

[00:28:26] Time had passed since the crime, right? And I think a normal person who does not commit a murder is actually not sitting there and thinking so deeply about, oh, I need to remember exactly what I was doing every minute of that night. Because they didn't do it. So why would they think they have to defend against it? Whereas someone who has done something wrong probably has put a lot more thought into saying the exact right thing.

[00:28:53] It's just like on when we watch traitors, right? Oftentimes a faithful will slip up and say like, oh, I'm so sad that we killed this person. And you killed someone. You're a traitor. But no, the traitors don't get caught like that because the traitors are careful with their speech, as would an actual murderer be because they know that they did something wrong that they have to have an alibi for. Whereas an innocent person isn't thinking, OK, I'm at the gas station. It is OK.

[00:29:22] It's 657 right now and I'm leaving the gas. Like nobody else is thinking that way. If you don't have anything to hide. Lust auf frische Vielfalt zu kleinen Preisen? Dann ab zu Rewe! Helle, kernlose Tafeltrauben. Frisch und aromatisch. Klasse 1. Je 500 Gramm Schale für nur einen Euro. Oder frische Lauchzwiebeln. Je bunt für nur 59 Cent. Und mit Rewe Bonus sammelst du zusätzlich 10 Cent Bonusguthaben. Frische Vielfalt. Kleine Preise. Rewe. Dein Markt.

[00:29:50] Marie, let's go to what I think is the coup de teatro, let's say, of this series. And that is when, defending herself, Dana is tied up in knots by the police officer, Vole, and the prosecution about whether her alibi changed or didn't change.

[00:30:16] And then we go and we talk to Eileen, and Jo Sexton says to her, so what do you think about this changing story? And she says, I don't want to comment. And he says, oh, come on. Come on, Eileen. Social justice warrior. The truth will out. What's your comment? And she is unable to speak. Do you think there was a bit of a revolution going on in her mind? Or what do you think was going on there? There was a revolution in her mind?

[00:30:41] I think she was just pissed that, like they said, Dana undermined all of that hard work that they had been doing for two decades. By putting herself on that stand and putting herself in that position for her to be confused like that. In both trials, she never spoke. It was, at least you knew that you were looking forward going into that second trial.

[00:31:08] I don't understand why she decided to veer off the plan that they had for the second trial to just do this in the third trial. It felt like she was just trying to talk. And realistically, sometimes that's what quote unquote innocent people do. They think if I just get my story out, then everybody will believe me. But that's not how the justice system works. That's not how, like you might think you know and understand every example in this case.

[00:31:38] But supposedly you're telling it to 12 new jurors who are untainted and unbiased. They don't know what happened in the previous two trials. They don't have that, like we do as the audience watching this documentary, the knowledge of what happened in that second trial to lean on. They just see you over here bumbling through witnesses, being combative with your daughter, letting Valet or whatever his name is just paint a horrible picture.

[00:32:04] Yeah, you got him to say there was no evidence, but you also let him talk about how psychotic you were, basically. How your actions pointed at you. So it was just one of those things where it's like, I don't know if Eileen was actually sitting there like, oh, maybe she did do this. I think Eileen was just pissed because she was like, now I can't be proven right because you went and did this foolishness.

[00:32:28] I know the problem with Eileen too, because it's like, it's good for you that you love, you know, consuming true crime. Good for you that you took an interest in a case. Good for you going and watching the trial. Good for you forming a relationship and doing an investigation. But at the end of the day, you chose to dedicate your life to something that's not actually about you.

[00:32:49] So then when it's not going the way you want, I think it's really weird and narcissistic that she's then making this other person's actions about her and like just being so mad that it's not going the way that she wants it to. Because it's like, you're actually a third party with no interest in this. Like you never knew any of these people before it happened. And you, you got into this because you like true crime and your husband had like beef with the city.

[00:33:17] It was so weird. I think you're absolutely right. Keen says, I'm hurt after the decades of work. I'm hurt. You don't get to be hurt. Nobody promised you anything, Keen. So I think this is very, you know, like a real locus of what the documentary is talking about as well, about this attachment to issues, which on the good side is a crusading social justice for all people, not just for yourself.

[00:33:43] But on the other hand, Mari, narcissism is exactly the right word, I think. Let's just finish up by talking about two of the other victims that are not concentrated on so much, but I think we glean one of them being the daughter of Mike and Dana. Kristen, do you want to talk a little about Hayley and what our view of her is through the three parts of the documentary? I just, I spent the whole time just feeling bad for her, right?

[00:34:12] Because it's like she has lost one parent, the other is accused of a horrible, violent crime, and in the time up to that violent crime was seemingly having a mental health crisis for several months as well. She gets no real truth or justice throughout this whole process. And her mom was talking crazy to her in that third trial. Like, what happened with that?

[00:34:36] I mean, I think Hayley's done a lot of therapy because she sat there in that courtroom being interrogated by her mother and she said, Do you think this is the place for this? Go, Hayley. And then her mother says, Yes, it is the place for it. She goes, Well, all right. Mari, what did you, I mean, this was just sad. Whatever the guilt or innocence, she's lost her father to murder and her mother's been in the carceral system for her adult life.

[00:35:06] Yeah. And she believes that her mother is behind her father's death. But I think there was always a strain there because, again, they didn't focus on it a lot. But we do know that Dana had a very bad past, a very bad battle with addiction, which was one of the reasons why Mike left her.

[00:35:24] One of the things that this documentary didn't focus on as much as, say, the 48 hours or some other stuff is that Dana actually was stalking Mike and Karen, like really intensely. I think, I feel like in this documentary, they kind of brush over that aspect to kind of give it a little bit of will they, won't they? You know, like, is she guilty? Is she not? But she was, she was actually very bad. It's calling them in the middle of the night, popping up at their house.

[00:35:53] They said, not popping up at Karen's house, from what I understand from my side Googling. But at Karen's workplace. Yeah. And I think Mike's old house. So she was, she was a stalker for them. Now, I don't know if Sarah's going to ask us the million dollar question. I am going to ask you the million dollar question. But I do think this documentary does not go into the darker parts of Dana. Dana.

[00:36:20] And the only kind of glimpses we get into it is Haley's recollection of it. Because she, Haley was 15, 16 when they divorced. And Dana was deep in addiction. So it's, it's not, I'm not surprised that she might harbor some ill feelings towards her mother. And she was with her dad, obviously, majority of the time because of her mom's struggles and her mom's mental health problems. And I, obviously, I wasn't there. I wasn't in the home. I don't know these people.

[00:36:49] This is just pure conjecture on my part. But I do also often feel when there is kind of a contentious divorce or there's more going on. A lot of times, a daughter will, you know, take the cues from their father about the mom being crazy and kind of join in on villainizing the woman in the situation to then get the approval from their dad. You know? Right. And obviously, we have no evidence that that is what happened in this case.

[00:37:19] I'm not saying that that's the truth of the matter. But that could be a factor that adds into her being so convinced that her mom did it because she probably was hearing from her dad and her stepmom how crazy her mom was acting. And that's going to leave a mark, especially when you're 15. Yeah. All right. Just before we get to our ratings, let's have the million dollar question. Kirsten Dana Chandler, murderer or just unpleasant person?

[00:37:45] Just don't feel that I have the information required to make a definitive call on either side. And so to me, that means innocent in the eyes of the law and should not go to jail because there is reasonable doubt. But that, again, doesn't mean she didn't do it. Just means that they don't have sufficient evidence. And she could have hired someone to do it. I feel like they didn't even explore that as a possibility. Mari, million dollar question. Murderer or suffering woman?

[00:38:14] I agree with Kirsten. I feel like the way that, again, they briefly described the shots and all of that, it doesn't seem like the gun. They said the gun was like a specialty rifle. Yeah, but then when I was Googling it, they were like, well, but the shells were just nine millimeter, which doesn't necessarily mean that it was a specialty rifle. Because it was like an Uzi sub, I believe. Nine millimeter Uzi sub. I don't know.

[00:38:42] As far as I thought that they said that it's not a gun, you don't see those on the street that often. Right. And maybe it's just, you know, Eileen and Keene getting into my head being like, you know, who has a lot of different guns? Jeff Sutton. You know, you know who's left handed? Jeff Sutton. And, you know, and they said the shots were pretty good, pretty expert. No spin shells. Every shot hit a mark.

[00:39:09] And they could not explain that Dana had any type of like gun relationship, relationship to guns, ever bought a gun, anything like that. Her driving and the two gas cans. I agree. That's weird. Not knowing where she went. Like Sarah said, at this point it's 20 years plus. I was in some national park. I don't know where I was. You know, that could be it. That couldn't be it.

[00:39:34] But I just feel like if she did do it, if she was behind it, she was not the trigger person. I just still don't see how she could have been in that house, not left any evidence. That seems very like on a professional type level type thing. So I don't know. But worse come to worse, I agree with both Kirsten and Sarah. And we'll hear what Sarah says in a second. But just not enough evidence.

[00:40:02] Just not a sufficient amount of evidence to reasonably say that she committed these crimes in my eyes. Sarah, what about you? Well, I'm taking my cue more from Joe than Keen and Eileen. Joe, who is an investigative reporter, his credits and bona fides on crime reporting are absolutely stellar. Amazing, yeah. He met with, spoke to Dana over the period during which this documentary was being made.

[00:40:30] And at the end, he says, I know who did it. I just don't know how they did it. However, the filmmaker gives us a shot of Dana looking to the side and then looking straight down the barrel of the camera during that. Obviously indicating that that's who Joe thinks it is. I cannot see how you can convict her. I'm going to be fancy-fencet on whether I think she did it or not. I think she probably did. Or got someone else to do it. As Joe says, I don't know how they did it.

[00:40:59] But I am absolutely 100% convinced that at none of the three trials was there the preponderance of evidence to overturn a reasonable doubt. She should not be in prison. Can I propose a crackpot theory? Please. Please. What if she worked with the son-in-law to do the murder? To do the murder. And he got off. And that's why he had that weird-ass smile when they asked him in the interview if he did it. And he was like, no.

[00:41:28] What if he was involved? What if it's everyone? I was, right. Good old death on the Nile. I was thinking that too. I was like, what if she drove down there to drive the hitman to the house? But then what is the point of hiring a hitman if you're going to be right there next to them? Well, maybe you don't know how to shoot nose to toes. Because, yeah, yes. I was going to say it's unlikely that we'll ever know. Truth comes out. Deathbed confessions. Who knows?

[00:41:56] But I think whatever the case of who killed her, I think we're all saying she just should never have been convicted. Kirsten, how many magnifying glasses are you going to rate a killer story out of a possible five? Okay, I thought that the documentary was very engaging. It flew by watching all the episodes. As you said, there was no kind of extraneous footage that we didn't need included.

[00:42:21] But at the same time, I think that it is kind of a failure of the documentary that they did not actually go over the real evidence that did exist. That they really made it seem like there was nothing. When I do think there has to be something for so many people to be convinced she did it. So I wish that we had a better overview of the actual evidence of the case. I'm going to give it a four out of five, though, because it was very enjoyable to watch. But it was not perfect. Yeah. Kirsten asking for more episodes.

[00:42:50] Well, but I think one episode that actually really laid out, like, this is the state's case. I think doing that in 30 minutes wouldn't have felt like too overdone. Like, I'm not saying it should be 10 episodes or anything. But like a fourth 30 minute episode, I think really could have rounded it out. And Mari, how about you? How many magnifying glasses will you give this docuseries? I completely agree with Kirsten. I thought it was great. I really, like I said, I really love the production aspect of it.

[00:43:19] I love the presentation of it. The talking heads were all perfect. Like Sarah said, we got the neighbor. Her interview was so interesting. She was like, if I would have known I was wrong, then I wouldn't have testified. But it also felt it was like, if they had told you you were wrong, I feel like you probably would have just moved them times back, lady. Like, you know, she was mad suspect. And it was really funny that they were able to get her on on. And she was just in and out. Like, tell us what you thought.

[00:43:49] She told us what we thought. Didn't come back to her. Perfect. Perfect. So I agree not centering the victims or the case or the prosecution side, not giving as well a balanced view of the case itself for this for the sake of ambiguity. But I'm not going to take a full point off for that because I really I actually really enjoyed this docuseries. I was actually pleasantly surprised. I'm gonna give it a 4.5. Sarah, how about you?

[00:44:18] How many magnifying glasses are you going to give a killer story out of the possible five? Well, I want to give it five just for the fact it's not a killer story. Colon, the Dana Chandler story. No colon. Well done. Finger claps. I'm going to give it 4.5. I liked it very much once I decided it wasn't a mystery about who killed these two people, but rather a sort of sociological study, I suppose, with Joe Sexton, himself also a subject of the documentary.

[00:44:47] But he drives the documentary. We meet Eileen. We meet Keane. We don't meet Dana, but we have plenty of film with her. And we also have her phone conversations with Joe. I think all the characters were, they're real people, but all the people were very well drawn, whether they were just there for a moment, like the neighbor, or whether we see them much more substantially. So viewed through that lens, I think it's excellent. It flies by. And I'm going to give it 4.5.

[00:45:15] So what do you have to recommend to our listeners today? So what I'm recommending is not new. It's been around for a very long time, but I have been in my spare time binge watching the CW classic Supernatural for the past month or so. And it is so much fun. And so, I mean, there's lots of, it's kind of true, it's not true crime, but there's kind of crime in there too. It's just demon crime.

[00:45:41] So I think a lot of people, like go back and binge watch a comfort show. And if you don't know which one to do, choose Supernatural. Mademoiselle Caroline would absolutely agree with you. Mari, what about you? What have you got to recommend? I want this to be an anti-recommendation, but it is actually like a recommendation. It's just, it's a train wreck that you can't stop watching.

[00:46:05] I actually have been watching Wonka on Netflix, the new competition reality series based on Willy Wonka. I think one of my blooms accurately described it as Squid Games disguised as Wonka. They made Willy Wonka a sadist, just torturing people in his factory. On top of that, it features the AI voice of Gene Wilder as the host.

[00:46:34] Yeah, it's disembodied, disembodied voice AI Gene Wilder. It is absolutely horrendous, but it is so fascinating in a horrible way that I absolutely could not stop watching it. They have, they have 12, 12 duos of people enter the factory. They have to do these factory competitions and then they have these little half challenges.

[00:47:01] It is, it is essentially, it is like Mr. Beast, like a Mr. Beast or like a Squid Games because it's like they're doing little games. For most factory, they call it the factory test. They're doing games where then certain people are up for risk of being terminated, their tour being terminated. Yeah. And so then they have to do a mini game and whoever loses the mini game loses. But kill them. It's no, they kill them. There's no real, there's no real structure.

[00:47:30] So that's why it's so fascinating because one episode, one person might go home. In another episode, five people might end up going home. It's just, it's that kind of like, again, that randomness of the Beast Games. And then it's also social strategy because sometimes it relies on the people you form bonds with. They have to pick teams for stuff. Sometimes it's team stuff.

[00:47:53] Sometimes it's like you have been elected for termination, but you get to elect somebody else for termination. Then everybody gets to vote. And they've done several kind of safety chain style events. It is so crazy and wacky and you never know what's going to happen. And half of the people are despicable, to be quite honest. The, yeah, the other half are like gamers. There is a, like a dragging situation.

[00:48:23] Like one person got out and they're like, well, you got to take somebody with you. And it was like, geez Louise. Like it is a train wreck of reality TV garbage, but I just cannot look away from it. I truly cannot look away from it. The first seven episodes came out on Netflix this week. I think, I think there might be three more or something like that. Or I don't know if it's three more or five more coming, but like the rest, I think the rest will be out coming out next week. It's so interesting.

[00:48:53] It's so interesting. Very much ups and downs. I don't know. Again, I don't know if the ups are ups. It's like, it's so reality TV. It's so reality TV. It's, it's, it's, it's like devil's plan too. It's just all of those weird games, but they try and play. Plaster like family friendly Willy Wonka while also making him a horrible person. So yeah, really good. I also want to recommend another book, Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston.

[00:49:23] I'm pretty sure I recommended First Lie Wins a couple of years ago at this point on this podcast. This is another one of her books. Ashley Elston is a really good mystery thriller writer. And Anatomy of an Alibi is an amazing book that I just finished. So if you like twists and turns, I would say get it. It basically follow.

[00:49:49] It's about two women who are trying to discover the secrets of one of the women's husbands. They do it by one woman posing as the other woman for an alibi for as her alibi. While that woman, the wife tries to find the dirt on the husband. Meanwhile, while they're doing that, their plan goes awry. And it, it, it goes back and forth between the present time, different point of views and the past.

[00:50:19] And it all collides at the end. It's so good. So again, that's Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston. I highly recommend that book. Sarah, how about you? What do you have to recommend to our listeners? Nothing. I have something for the no watch list. Do not watch it. It's bad, but it's not bad so that you can watch it. It's terrible. Do not watch it under any circumstances. There you go. I hope I've made myself clear. The property is called Apocalypse.

[00:50:47] I know when they were casting it, it was called Escape the City. Both are pretty poor titles. Do better writers. It's filmed in Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, which is in Indiana. Normally used by military and police to train for urban warfare. Rightio. It's competitors, shall we call them? Half Australian, half British. It's on Binge in Australia. I don't know if it's anywhere in England, but I was looking on Reddit just to think, is anybody watching this?

[00:51:14] And there were several people referring to the fact that it's a different, it's edited differently for Australia and for Britain, which is like, why? So you have seven people and they're stranded in the city and there's no water and there's no shelter and they have to go and run around. But it's not Naked and Afraid where these people have bushcraft and are intriguing procedurally in what they do. They've obviously been cast for drama.

[00:51:42] There's a big farmer from Australia and everything has to be his way and he keeps talking about burning things down. If they don't agree with me, I'll burn the school down. We have the psychologist who's a little waif of a blonde girl who's afraid of bugs and afraid of sweat and afraid of dirt and just has to eat or she's going to afford her. Please. We have the gay guy who keeps talking about how attractive the farmer is and the farmer takes his shirt off and he says he's attractive. It's like, yeah, we get it. You're gay. That cannot be the only thing about you.

[00:52:13] Now, in 2026, it cannot be your character. So we follow them. I watched the entire episode. They find a school. They set up how they're going to sleep. They break into a supermarket, which I fully expected not to have things in it. It did have some things in it. Then, hallelujah, day six, they find some chickens. They get some eggs. They go back on day seven to get the chickens and take them to the school.

[00:52:43] We don't know why they didn't do that on the first day they found them. The chickens are gone. Dun, dun, dun. And what do you know? There's another group of people playing the game. No, duh. We have watched reality TV before. Do not watch it. It's absolutely terrible. And if anybody has happened to watch it, let me know what you think. This is on the no watch list official crime scene. Don't watch. You kind of made me want to watch it. I know. I don't want.

[00:53:12] That's what I worry about. Mari's one is like terrible, but watch it. And Lock Up, which locked up with both Mari and I watched is terrible, but watch it. This is just, there is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing redeemable. It's narrated by Jonathan Napalia. So that's nice to hear his voice, but he's not there. He's not hosting. He's not interacting. He's just. So it's, it's British people and Australian people, but they're in Indiana. You got it sister.

[00:53:39] Because, because America is the only place that's training actively to kill their citizen. Hey, I think there's a few other places that are doing this. True. If you like these takes and you've liked listening to us, subscribe and follow us everywhere at Crime Scene Pod. That's S-E-E-N. Welcome to Astones 69. Nice. Who subscribed on our website, CrimeScenePod.com.

[00:54:04] You can support us at BuyMeACoffee.com slash CrimeScenePod, sling us a couple of bucks or join our monthly membership. Members receive episodes early and ad free as well as other exclusive bonus content. The recording of our live episode from RehapCon in Milwaukee is up. We also covered celebrity crime scene Princess Diana there at RehapCon. And that is available to all members whenever you join. You can also support us by buying our merch. Yes.

[00:54:34] We have Crime Scene Tumblers available at Mari's shop. Go to MariCraftsTooMuch.BigCartel.com. That's two like the number two. While you're there, you can look at her other book-themed tumblers. If you don't find your favorite book, let her know. She makes something just for you. Link to the store is in the show notes. Yes. You can also support us for free. Free. Rate and review Crime Scenes so that others can find us. Five stars only. Five stars. Your support makes a huge difference.

[00:55:03] Kirsten, what have you got going on and where can the people find you? Yes. You can follow me everywhere at Kirsten Said What. I'm on pretty much everything except Twitter, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, TikTok, Twitch, all of it. And you can listen to myself and Sasha, who is also a frequent guest of Crime Scene over on Mess Magnets, where we are talking about pop culture, celebrity gossip, trending topics, all kinds of fun stuff.

[00:55:31] And we have our patron as well. And leave Crime Scene a five-star rating and review. And if you haven't already, borrow someone's phone. Use the iPad at your doctor's office. Yes. There are ways to do it again. Thank you, Kirsten. You're smart people. Figure it out. Mess Magnets, we refer to as our sister podcast. We love both of the hosts and the episodes are fab. I'm going to put those in our recommendations. You must go. What have you got going on, Mari?

[00:56:01] Where can the people find you? Because I know they want to. Yes, you can find me on Blue Sky at Mari Talks Too Much. That's too likely to number two. You can also catch me over on Recap Kickback where me and Chappelle, oh my God, we're so busy and we're having so much fun. We are currently podcasting weekly about The Drop, a snowfall saga. We're back in the snowfall universe.

[00:56:23] This time, instead of talking about the crap epidemic of the 80s, we are talking about the rise of gangster rap in the 90s in LA. It is so fun. The show is so good. You can watch the show on FX on Tuesday or you can watch it the next day on Hulu in America. It is so freaking good. You don't have to have watched Snowfall to watch The Drop.

[00:56:48] But if you haven't watched Snowfall, go back and watch binge six seasons of Snowfall. Amazing prestige television. Me and Chappelle hate saying it, but it is basically the black version of Breaking Bad. Like it's like Breaking Bad and The Wire put together. So yeah, definitely check that out. So you can find Snowfall on Disney Plus here in America, Canada and Australia.

[00:57:12] Me and Chappelle are also so happy to be covering A Different World, the new reboot on Netflix. We dropped the premiere episode where we talked about episode one and two of A Different World. And we will be back to cover the rest of the season. When I say hopefully, because we had just planned to do maybe two, you know, two podcasts about it.

[00:57:34] But me and Chappelle spent so much time in the first on the first episodes one and two talking about our own HBCU experiments that I told him, I do not know how we're going to get through eight more episodes and also talking about us. So if you want to learn basically more about me and Chappelle, you can go check that out. It's coverage of A Different World. Again, the episode one and two coverage, we talk a lot about both of our times at HBCUs.

[00:58:02] We're both HBCU grads and a lot of the stuff that we saw in those episodes we saw in real life. So definitely go check that out. You can go to RecapKickback.com in order to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or you can go to YouTube even better. See our lovely faces. Chappelle brings up awesome images. Go to YouTube.com slash at Recap Kickback to subscribe. Subscribe, like the videos, hype us up. Even if you don't watch them, please, please, please. That's what you can do for us for free.

[00:58:31] Sarah, what do you got going on and where can the people find you? Other people can find me everywhere at Sarah Carradine. I'm mostly on Blue Sky. You can hear me discuss the book Stasi Land by Anna Funda on Toby Ball's Deep Dive Book Club. And that's at Crime Writers On. Coming up in October, Katie from A Date with Dateline and I will be doing an episode by episode coverage of Ludwig Season 2.

[00:58:54] That's a scripted show from the BBC starring David Mitchell as a renowned puzzle setter who must impersonate his twin brother, a police detective. Season 1 is on Binge, Britbox and BBC iPlayer if you want to catch up. Season 2 starts on 14th of October. And our episodes will be available for Buy Me A Coffee members from the 8th of October because we will be doing a recap of the whole of Season 1. Join us, won't you? Mari, what are we watching next week?

[00:59:23] Next time on Crime Scene, we're covering The Swan, colon, Behind the Mirror with Asia Welch. Watch it on Disney Plus and send us your comments and questions. Thanks to Kirsten McInnes for joining us, Will from America for the Theme Music and all the Seekers of Social Justice. Just keep going but don't make it about yourselves, you're narcissists. Until next time. Case closed.

[01:00:29] Case closed. Case closed.