Woman tried twice for 2002 Kansas double murder released from jail
A Kansas woman whose double murder conviction was overturned in 2018 is no longer incarcerated, after more than a decade behind bars.
Dana Chandler is now free on $350,000 bond while she awaits a third trial in the 2002 murders of her ex-husband Mike Sisco, and his fiancée, Karen Harkness. Her second trial ended Sept. 1 in a hung jury. She had been incarcerated since her arrest in 2011.
Shawnee County Judge Cheryl Rios agreed Sept. 29 to allow Chandler to live with her nephew about 50 miles away, in Olathe, Kansas, if she posted bond. Chandler will be subject to GPS monitoring and is barred from contacting or discussing the case with potential witnesses.
She was released Wednesday from Shawnee County Jail, where she has been held since the Kansas Supreme Court overturned her first conviction in 2018.
Rios also granted a change of venue for Chandler's third trial, citing "the excessive amount of media coverage" of the case.
The new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Feb. 6, will be held about an hour northwest of Topeka in Pottawatomie County.
Chandler's release is the latest development in a 20-year legal saga that began when Sisco and Harkness were gunned down in Harkness' Topeka home.
For the next seven years the case received publicity as investigators sought information from the public. "48 Hours" broadcast the show "Haunted" in October 2009, which looked at the cold case, including a 2007 report commissioned by law enforcement that concluded that Chandler was, in the view of law enforcement, the "primary suspect."
Chandler was arrested and entered not guilty pleas to two counts of first-degree murder in 2011. In 2012, a Shawnee County jury convicted her on both counts. She was sentenced to life in prison.
"48 Hours" broadcast a second show, "My Dad's Killer," in September 2012, reporting on the case and Chandler's trial and conviction.
Six years later, Chandler's conviction was overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court, which ruled that evidence presented by prosecutor Jacqie Spradling was, in at least one instance, "made-up" and "misleading."
Spradling was disbarred in May for what the court called "intolerable acts of deception."
Chandler went on trial for a second time in August. That trial ended with a deadlocked jury.