June 26, 2010 10:18 PM
48 Hours Mystery: Haunted
It was July 7, 2002, and Harold and Betty Worswick were going to meet their daughter, Karen Harkness, and her boyfriend, Mike Sisco, for a Sunday afternoon fish fry.
"Well, the day started off like any other day for my wife and I. It was a happy day and it was a Sunday," Harold recalled.
When they arrived at their daughter's house, the door was locked.
"And I rang the doorbell and knocked on the glass and couldn't raise anybody," Harold said. "I thought, 'This is strange.'"
Mike's mom, Carol Sisco, was also invited that day.
"The front door was locked, which was unusual," she told "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Harold Dow. "And so we went around to the back, and the back door was open just a little bit. And so, we walked in - couldn't find anyone."
The house was quiet and Mike and Karen were nowhere to be found.
"So, anyway, Harold went downstairs, which was Karen's bedroom," Carol explained.
"As I got down there, just as I got to the foot of the stairs, I could see Karen," Harold said. "She was layin' face down on the bed, head kinda off the right side of the bed and her arm was off there… And I said, 'Oh, Christ.' I knew she was dead. I reached over and touched her, but she was cold. And then I found Mike on the outside of the bed. And - I could see that he'd been shot a number of times and had lost a lot of blood."
"Well, it didn't seem real, you know. It just seemed like a dream," Carol continued. "But, Harold wouldn't let Betty or I go downstairs, and I'm very glad he didn't. I've got my own horrible scenes of it anyway. And then, immediately, we called 911."
It was eight years ago when Topeka Detective Richard Volle got the case that would haunt him to this day.
"I got a radio call just after two o'clock on July 7, 2002. It was a report of two dead bodies in a basement," he explained. "Well, the first thought is, you gotta consider a robbery."
Mike and Karen had been dating for about four years. On the night of the murders, they had gone to a casino north of Topeka and had won big.
"The electronics were all there, there was no forced entry. There was just nothing to suggest a robbery," Det. Volle explained of Karen's home. "In fact, we ended up finding a fairly substantial amount of cash in the pockets of the victim."
With robbery ruled out, Det. Volle focused on the victims.
"They were such a sweet couple," Carol said. "He really loved Karen. And I know Karen loved Mike. She took up fishing and they went on camping trips."
It's a mystery - who would want to kill Karen and her boyfriend?
Det. Volle retraced the couple's evening, starting at the casino.
"Looked like they were having a good time. Didn't have any issues with anyone. And in a - you know - casinos have cameras everywhere. And we didn't see any indication that they'd had a struggle with anybody, any kind of altercation." And, he said, no one suspicious was following them out.
Karen Harkness, 53, was divorced with two grown children; Chad and Erin.
"I remember telling her on several occasions that if I could be half the mom that she was to me, then I would be the best mom in the world," said Erin Sutton.
"It was a surprise to everybody that this would happen to somebody like her," said Chad Harkness.
Detective Volle was unsentimental in his investigation and looked at Karen's son, Chad, and Karen's ex-husband as possible suspects.
"I was asked to come down to the police station… I was hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked if I had murdered my mother or in any way participated in the murder of my mother," Chad explained to Dow. "They looked at my father as well."
Both Chad and his father were eliminated as suspects. But if Karen wasn't the intended target, then maybe it was Mike. His son, Dustin, couldn't believe anyone would want to kill his father.
"I mean everyone that I saw that knew him, you know, would, you know, shake his hand and give him a big smile," Dustin said.
Mike Sisco, 47, sold welding equipment in Topeka. The divorced father had custody of his two teenage children.
"He was a wonderful son, and he was a very good father," said Carol.
But Mike was having real problems with his daughter, Hailey.
"I wasn't happy with my dad. I wasn't happy with my mom. I wasn't happy at my school," Hailey Sisco said.
In the months before the murder, the 17-year-old was angry at everything, but it was her father who she really turned against.
"I hated my dad," Hailey said. "I flat-out hated him."
Things only got worse when Hailey spent more and more time with her boyfriend, Chris Seel.
"My dad hated him," she told Dow. "Chris was the bad - you know, bad boy - definitely didn't follow the straight and narrow.
"You ultimately moved out of the house?" Dow asked.
"My dad gave me an ultimatum: 'Either you follow my rules or you move out.' And I moved in with Chris. And then my dad was killed and…"
Because of that tension with her father, Hailey and her boyfriend attracted police attention. Hailey said "they searched Chris's house completely."
Mike's sister, Cathy Boots, and her husband, Mark, thought maybe the young man and Hailey could be involved in the murders.
"She was acting so irrationally, no one knew what was going on," said Cathy.
So at the same time Hailey had to deal with the murder of her father, she also had to defend herself and her boyfriend from police suspicions.
"Me and Chris were interviewed, I mean, they came and talked to us. I'm sure we were on their list of who, you know, of people who did this," she said.
"All the checking that we've done on Hailey and her boyfriend, there was nothing there that - that suggested that she could be responsible for this," Volle said.
All the leads in Topeka went nowhere.
"If money's a motive, that's easy to track. If revenge is a motive, that's a little bit easier to track. But there was nothing that was in Mike and Karen's lives that would lead to revenge," Volle said. "I mean, they didn't do anything to anybody. We just don't have any ideas."
But Mike Sisco knew who might want him dead. And he told his brother-in-law, Mark Boots, a week before the murders.
"He said, 'Mark - you're gonna wake up some morning and you're gonna find out I'm dead. And you're gonna know who did it.'" Eight years after the shocking murders of Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness there have been no arrests. The case is still a mystery.
Private Investigators Paul Ciolino and Joe Moura are on the job. They have come to Topeka, Kansas for "48 Hours Mystery" to examine the case, talk to the families and try to move the investigation forward.
"This is a cold case, you know what I mean. I mean, really it has to almost start from, from anew, ya know, to look at it with fresh eyes," Moura said emphatically.
Their first stop was the crime scene.
It's been a long time. The house has been sold and the room changed, but the detectives still think walking these rooms can reveal things about the killer.
"I don't think this was done by a cold-blooded killer, professional assassin here," said Moura.
"It was done by somebody who gave it a lot of thought, though," said Ciolino.
"The people that got killed here knew the assailant. This was somebody who had a terrific hatred for these two people," said Moura.
Next, the detectives talked to the families.
"You were with Mike right before he got killed, weren't you?" Ciolino asked Mark Boots.
"I was," he responded.
Mark Boots, Mike's brother-in-law, had been fishing with Mike just before the murders.
"While we were on that trip in the Ozarks, the week before the murder, I was sitting with Mike out back, actually, smoking a cigar with him. He shared with me that - that he and Karen were gonna get married."
Mark said he was overjoyed for his brother-in-law, but Mike believed the announcement of the marriage wasn't going to be good news for everyone. "[Mike] said, 'I'm afraid to tell Dana that Karen and I are gonna get married. I'm afraid what she's gonna do. How she's gonna react to this.'"
Dana is Dana Chandler, Mike's ex-wife. They were married in 1982 and lived in Colorado. They had two children together; Hailey in 1985, and Dustin nearly two years later.
"We had a pretty normal family growin' up," said Dustin. "I mean, well, I thought we did. You know, we'd eat dinner together. We went to church."
"I thought everybody was pretty happy. And you know, things were really goin' well," added Hailey.
But it didn't last. Mike moved the family to Kansas, his home state. Dana was miserable there. She was drinking heavily and the marriage started falling apart...
"She did have a really bad drinking problem," said Dustin. "Whenever she drinks, she - her actions are just way out of control. I mean, it's like she has no mind."
"They would yell and scream and fight, and just yell and scream. And like it would just go on and on. And I couldn't sleep," Hailey explained. "I'm just layin' up there goin', (sighs), 'This isn't good.'"
It was a bitter divorce that took years to settle.
"It was a very rough divorce," Hailey sighed. "We were torn in the middle with our mom bringin' us in and makin' us choose - pawnin' us against our dad sayin' he's a horrible person. She wanted us to hate him."
The court found that Mike was the more stable parent and awarded him full custody of Hailey and Dustin. Dana was ordered to pay child support.
"Was your mom upset about that?" asked Harold Dow.
"Yeah. She was real upset actually," Dustin replied. "Yeah, really upset her."
"Well, I mean, how often do you read a file like this and everything favors the father? You know what I mean?" Moura said to Ciolino. "It's extremely rare. So obviously, there were issues there. It was well-documented that things turned in favor of the father. And I think that's one of the reasons why she was just irate to no end."
The marriage finally ended in 1998, but that wasn't the end of Mike's nightmare.
"She told the kids she was gonna destroy him some way or another," Mike's sister, Cathy Boots, said of Dana.
After the divorce, Dana left Kansas and moved around. But that didn't stop her from harassing her ex-husband.
"She'd walk the alleys behind the house," Cathy said.
"So there was a history of her surveilling, watching, stalking?" asked Ciolino.
"Multiple times we'd be together and all of a sudden we'd go, 'Whoop. There went Dana.' Now at this point, she was living out of the town or out of the state and just show up and drive by," Mike's brother, Tim Sisco, explained.
"She was willing to travel great distances to show up back in his life," said Mark.
"It was ugly," Cathy said. "She must have spent every waking minute planning the next thing she was gonna pull."
In his own hand, Mike kept careful records in his day planner of the bizarre stalking habits of his ex-wife:
June 23, 1998:: Dana called police, accused me of drinking when picked up Dustin.
July 28, 1998:: Dana stalking neighborhood at 8:30, caught her, she left.
Nov. 12, 1998: Dana came in house while I was at Karen's from 7 to 11, went through stuff, caught her walking out back door when I came in, called police.
Dana didn't hide her bizarre behavior from her children.
"She actually brought me and Hailey along," Dustin explained. "She was definitely watching him and seeing what he was doing. And I mean, it - she was definitely spying on him. And just the fact that she could bring her kids to do that, you know, just, just crazy."
Dana also harassed Karen, so much so that Karen actually told her daughter, Erin, that she had considered breaking up with Mike.
"And my mom would speak of her often. She would leave messages on my mom's phone. She would call her - pretty regularly. And, you know, my mom quit answering the phone. And Dana would then leave messages on her voice mail," Erin told Moura and Ciolino.
When asked what kind of messages, Erin replied. "Horrible. I don't know that they really made a lot of sense. Just very psychotic babble."
Cathy Boots was staying with her brother, Mike, when she said Dana pulled one of her more bizarre acts of harassment. "About three in the morning, I heard a noise outside. It was like springs… a strange noise," she said.
Mike was awakened by the noise, as well. At the window, Cathy said she saw "...Dana on the kid's trampoline… laughing hysterically." Mike Sisco's family believes that Mike told Dana of his wedding plans when they last spoke, just two days before the murders.
"I think Dana was not going to allow Mike to have this new life with Karen," said Mark Boots, Mike's brother-in-law.
"She just never got on with her life, ever," Cathy Boots said of her brother's ex-wife. "It was an obsession. It was her job to stalk them."
It was that obsession that convinced family members that Dana Chandler was somehow involved in the murders of Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness.
"I don't want it to be her. I don't want it to be her," Cathy insisted. "It's her."
But the families believe evidence that might have implicated Dana was lost by a failed police investigation.
"They're not used to dealing with double homicides like this in Topeka, Kansas," said Mark.
Karen's father, Harold Worswick, thought there were so many cops in and out of the house that first day that they compromised the crime scene.
"The Fire Department was here first," he said. "I thought, 'Well, if there's any good evidence down here, they're walkin' on it. If there was any evidence there, they had destroyed it.'"
"They didn't preserve the crime scene," said Paul Ciolino. "They didn't collect evidence as they should've. They destroyed evidence that could've helped them get a conviction in this case.
But it wasn't just what might have been destroyed; it was what was left behind.
"They didn't even collect cigarette butts," said Cathy.
Why would that matter? Even though Mike and Karen were smokers, so is Dana Chandler.
"I told 'em that I knew that she was a heavy, heavy smoker - three, four packs a day. And I know that first week, I said, 'I would certainly look at cigarette butts.' I said there was no way that she can go very long without smoking," said Mark.
Mike Worswick, Karen's brother, packed up Karen's house before it was sold.
"I was surprised to see a wine bottle sitting out in the room," he said. "And then as I kind of searched the other room, I looked in the closet and there was another wine bottle here on the floor, again almost empty."
He told Moura that he found the empty wine bottles in a spare bedroom just days after the police had finished their forensic work. "And I just thought, 'Gosh, this seems weird.' My sister is so neat and orderly that this just seemed, ya know, like the aftermath of a party or something."
Family members now suspect Dana Chandler drank the wine while waiting for Mike and Karen to come home.
Mike Worswick continued, "And it was only three or four days later, unfortunately, after I'd thrown the bottles away that I begin to say to myself, 'Ya know, this was wrong.'"
"Do you think any mistakes were made in this case?" Harold Dow asked Detective Richard Volle.
"I know there were," Volle replied. "'Cause I made some of 'em."
Mistakes or not, the families convinced Det. Volle to focus on Dana Chandler shortly after the murders.
"They pointed us towards Mike's ex-wife and told us that she lived in Denver," Volle explained.
"Everybody kept saying, "Dana Chandler?" asked Dow.
"Yes. Yes."
"Did that surprise you?"
"Yeah, based on the distance, essentially. For somebody in Denver to drive 500 miles to Topeka seems like quite a stretch."
After Det. Volle took a closer look at Dana Chandler, she became a serious suspect. But there were problems. The murder weapon was never found and Dana said she had an alibi. Volle couldn't find any evidence to put her in Kansas the weekend of the murders.
"It's frustrating," Volle admitted. "It - you know that there's something there or there should be something there. And in this case, we just haven't been able to find it."
Nonetheless, police strongly suspected Dana Chandler was involved in the murders. But Dana was never arrested or charged.
"We've got some folks that are hurtin' and they're gonna be hurtin' until somebody's in jail for this" said Volle.
The families hope that Ciolino and Moura, with fresh eyes, can bring new life to the case. The private investigators decide to break down Dana's alibi that she was in Colorado the weekend of the murders.
Just a few days after the murders, Dana gave police a detailed alibi. Moura and Ciolino say it's full of holes.
"Well, back in - July 6th and July 7th of 2002, Dana Chandler lived in this apartment complex," said Moura. She claims that on July 6th, which was a Saturday of 2002, that she ran some errands around town."
Dana said she bought cigarettes at a grocery store, then a replacement cigarette lighter at AutoZone, at Target, a thermos and snacks. Her last stop was an Amoco station to fill up her car.
"We know that she went to get some items. The type of items one would buy if they're gonna do a long road trip in a car," said Moura.
Dana said she spent Saturday night at home, but a watchful neighbor never saw her car that evening.
"He knew everything about the car. And he said he always saw it here," Moura explained. "But on that particular weekend, there was no sight of the vehicle."
And phone records show that she did not answer calls made to her when she said she was home.
Dana's alibi continues through Sunday. Her story: she was hiking in the Mountains the day the bodies were discovered.
"She wasn't in the mountains," Moura said. "I've been in those mountains. I've been in the route that she said she took. [It] doesn't fit."
Dana said she was on a trail about two miles outside of Granby, Colo.
"[Are] there any hiking trails that would be within two miles of Granby?" Moura asked a park ranger.
"As far as National Forest Service land, no," the ranger replied.
"So that would be private in that two-mile area?"
"Within the two-mile area, yes."
Dana, according to Moura, had indicated that after hiking in Granby, she had headed north.
If she drove north, as she told police, she would have entered Rocky Mountain National Park - an entrance that records the license plate of every car on surveillance video.
"The Topeka Police Department and their detectives came here, reviewed the video footage, and for the date of July 7 of 2002, there was no documentation of her bein' here. So that puts a big hole in her alibi," explained Moura.
"I bought a pack of cigarettes down the street and the security tape picked me up. That's an alibi," said Ciolino. "Dana just says, 'I'm in my apartment. I'm alone. I don't talk to anyone. I don't get on my computer.' It's really not an alibi because nobody saw her. There is nothing - nothing that puts Dana in the state of Colorado for a 27-hour period."
During the original investigation, police searched Dana Chandler's apartment and found perhaps the most intriguing clue of all: a gas can - one of two she bought just before the murders, but neglected to mention in her detailed alibi to police.
"She told the police all the things she bought at different places, but she never talked about the gas cans," Moura said. "Why would you need two 5-gallon cans of gasoline?"
"The only logical reason is, Dana doesn't wanna have to stop for gas when she's hot footing it outta Kansas after committing a double homicide," said Ciolino. For the past seven years, Hailey and Dustin Sisco have tried to come to terms with the painful possibility that their mother may have murdered their father.
"I want answers. I want to know why. I want to know everything," said Hailey Sisco.
"Once I kind of thought about it, I mean, I was absolutely positive that, you know, Dana did it. And I was just in shock," Dustin said.
"You don't wanna believe your own mother, who, you know, has been in your life your whole life and claims to love you… and at some point loved your dad enough to be married for 15 years and then kill him? Whoa. That's that's hard to swallow," said Hailey. "That's - that's too much."
Dana Chandler has refused to talk to police since she gave them her one and only statement four days after the murder.
"I asked her if she killed my dad. I told her to tell me she killed my dad," Hailey said. "I already know you killed my dad. Just come - be straight up with me. She's just said, 'I can't talk about it. My lawyers advise me not to talk about it.'"
For years, Hailey has been talking about it with her mother and secretly recording the conversations:
HAILEY: I think that the only way I can really move on with a relationship with you is if you can just tell me yourself that you did it.
DANA: I was in Denver that weekend.
HAILEY: You may have been in Denver on Saturday morning and early afternoon. But then you had plenty [of] time to get - to Co - to Kansas by Saturday night at midnight.
DANA: Hailey, I was not in Kansas on Saturday night at midnight (laughter). I was not in Kansas at all that weekend.
HAILEY: Mom, until you wanna talk about it I - I can't have a relationship with you.
Private detectives Ciolino and Moura believe Dana Chandler could do more to clear her name if she's really innocent.
"If she's truly innocent," said Moura, "she would do everything that is feasible to prove her innocence to her two children."
In June, Moura sent Dana Chandler an e-mail asking her to meet and discuss the case.
The e-mail read, in part: "I think it is imperative as investigators that we have the opportunity to interview you. In reference to anything you could add that would clear you as a suspect in this case."
Dana wrote back that same day. "Dear Joseph, Thank you for your efforts to investigate to find out what happened to my children's dad. I realize that I am a suspect in this case; however, I can assure you that I had nothing to do with it. Thank you again for your efforts. Best regards, Dana.
Joe wrote back, pressing Dana to meet. This time, Dana didn't reply to Joe. Instead, she wrote to Hailey explaining why she would not agree to a meeting with the detectives.
She wrote, "…it seems as though they simply want to interrogate me…Hopefully, sooner rather than later, this will be solved … I hope that you will realize the truth, and know that I am innocent. Mom."
"She will never know - never know what she's put me through," Hailey said in tears. "And my brother is the same way. She's hurt us so bad and doesn't even realize it. She wants to go skiing next weekend. It's pathetic."
In an effort to revitalize the case, the Topeka Police, in 2007, commissioned an independent analysis of the evidence. "48 Hours Mystery" obtained a copy of the report by Retired New York Lt. Commander Vernon Geberth and asked Moura and Ciolino to examine it.
"Topeka Police Department, they hire an expert in homicide. And frankly, he writes a magnificent report layin' this thing out," according to Ciolino.
The report concluded: "Dana Chandler is the one and only person who had the motive, means and opportunity to commit these murders."
"I've heard complaints that the D.A. is not really prosecuting and moving forward with this case because it's a circumstantial case?" Harold Dow asked.
"And that's probably true," Mark Boots replied. "But a lot of cases are won on circumstantial, particularly as strong as this one."
Robert Hecht, Topeka's District Attorney from 2001 to early 2009, never prosecuted the case and says he never saw that report.
Of the report, Ciolino said, "It's not admissible in any court. But it's really the blueprint to this - to an indictment for this homicide. And it's well-done. But, you know, we could use it for toilet paper 'cause nobody's reading it."
With the help of the report, Ciolino laid out a possible scenario for the crime.
"Sometime on July 6 in Denver, Dana's here at home, and she gets in her car and drives across Colorado into Kansas and she gets to Topeka approximately 8 hours after she leaves there. She sets up in Mike and Karen's house…"
Mike and Karen left the casino at 1:30 a.m., arriving home around 2 a.m.
"Dana sees them coming down the street," Ciolino continued. "She walks down the stairs, goes into the utility room, quietly closes the door shut and sits there with a loaded gun in her hand waiting for them to come in. They get a little comfortable, they get in bed. Dana comes out of the room silently and shoots them both five times a piece."
No one heard a thing.
"She shoots them, gets in her car. She goes straight north so she's out of the state fast and the minute she crosses a body of water, my guess is that the gun went right into it.
"Here comes the 5-gallon gasoline cans," said Ciolino. "Dana has got to get some mileage and time between her and this murder scene, because if she gets picked up at a traffic stop, if she goes through a toll booth with a camera, if she has to stop for gas, someone is going to document it. So Dana is going to pull over to the side of the road and drop 10 gallons of gasoline she's pre-purchased in Colorado into the tank of her car so she can ride home without having to make a stop."
At 6:01 p.m. on Sunday, Dana Chandler goes back on the grid. Receipts show her in Colorado buying gas and washing her car.
"I think Dana gave it a lot of thought," said Ciolino. "She [probably] wrote it out somewhere. She [probably] had a checklist. She had a plan."
Despite the stalled investigation, Dana's children feel to the core that their mother killed their father.
"She's so unpredictable," Dustin Sisco said. "I really don't know why she did it."
"If you could say something to your mom right now, and you talk, and she can hear you, what would you say to her?" Dow asked Hailey Sisco.
"Why did you do this to me? Why are you doing this to my brother? Do you care about us? Because all of your actions say you don't," she replied.
For Hailey, the pain is excruciating because of the time she missed with her father when they were fighting before his death - time that she can never get back.
"I was completely robbed of that last part of the time we had," Hailey said. "It's the biggest regret I ever, will ever have." Hailey Sisco, 25, remains extremely close to her 23-year-old brother, Dustin. She now lives in Colorado, and her mother, Dana Chandler, haunts her.
"And you really believe in your heart that the killer was your mom?" asked Harold Dow.
"After talking to her numerous times since it's happened… it's written on the wall. It is written on her forehead. No question. No question," Hailey replied.
When asked if he ever wants to see his mother again, Dustin told Dow, "I don't really see any reason to. Not really."
For years, Hailey and Dustin have been estranged from their mother. Then, out of the blue, almost two years ago, Dana made a new effort to re-establish her relationship with Hailey.
"She wants to have a relationship with me and my brother," Hailey said. "She wants me to live with her, go to school, not have to worry about workin' - and just have a normal mother/daughter relationship."
Hailey is a little afraid of her mother. For years, she refused to even tell her mother where she lived. But that didn't stop Dana from tracking her daughter down in 2008.
"When I open the door expecting a salesman and see her standing there, it completely throws me out of whack. I mean, I physically shake," Hailey said. "I know that she's very capable of comin' in my house, lookin' through my things, jumpin' my fence."
In April 2009, Hailey again secretly recorded a phone conversation where she discussed with her mother key pieces of evidence:
HAILEY: Well, I appreciate you - you know, hearing me out and… I really want to believe that you want to get through this and help me get through this too. I hope that you know that it just kills me.
DANA: I know Hailey.I know it's been a horrible, horrible situation.
Listen to excerpts of Hailey and Dana's phone conversation
Remember the gas cans Dana purchased just hours before the murders? Her story now is that she bought them for a friend.
HAILEY: OK. What was her name? Can we get a hold of her? I mean, if she could say that, that would just be awesome.
DANA: Hailey, I have no idea.
And what about those missed calls that went unanswered when Dana said she was supposed to be home that weekend?
HAILEY: I mean, why wasn't your phone answered that whole weekend? I mean, there's no incoming or outgoing calls at all. What's going on with the cell phone? I mean…
DANA: Hailey, as far as my cell phones goes, I didn't - was not able to pick up a signal in the mountains.
HAILEY: OK, so you were - so you went up to the mountains? Did you spend the night in the mountains, then? Like, that weekend?
DANA: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Right there, Dana radically changes her story by saying she spent the night of the murders in the mountains, not in her apartment as she told police.
"Nothing seems to add up with what Dana is saying in reference to her alibi," said Joe Moura. "And she put herself on the record with that alibi. These are Dana's own words with an attorney present that she said she did on that Saturday and Sunday."
"48 Hours Mystery" wanted to talk to Dana Chandler about the case, but she has refused repeated requests to sit down and talk.
Harold Dow was able to track her down one morning in Denver.
"Hi Dana. Harold Dow, CBS News. Your children would like for you to talk."
"You have got to be kidding," she answered.
"Pardon?" replied Dow.
"Jesus."
"Can't you just talk to us for a moment?"
"No. I can't."
"Did you know anything about the death of Michael and Karen?"
"I have no idea what happened to Mike and Karen."
"There's some people out there who think you had something to do with it."
"I know that."
When Dow asked, "Would you like to say something to those people?" Dana closed the car door and drove off.
Dana Chandler, now 50, was hoping to become a certified public accountant. The families of Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness say she has gotten away with murder.
"She needs to account for her, account for her actions. There's still time," said Mark Boots. Cathy agrees, "I just want her to give the kids their lives back. Her own children. Let them know what happened. Just admit to it. Something. Don't leave 'em just hanging like she's done all these years."
In January 2009, Topeka got a new district attorney. Chad Taylor said the Harkness-Sisco case is now a priority.
"I hope that through a thorough review of all of the evidence, getting a fresh set of eyes looking at it, I hope we're able to bring justice for those families," Taylor told Dow. "There is some additional evidence that is going to be submitted for testing."
In 2002, police collected some chewing gum found at the crime scene. They are hoping for a DNA match to the killer.
"Do you think the families will ever get justice in this case?" Dow asked.
"For their sake and for the sake of this community, I pray they do," Taylor replied.
According to Moura and Ciolino, Dana Chandler could still face criminal prosecution for the murders.
"I think that if he looks at the case, allows a little cooperation with his office and the Topeka Police Department, that they can actually take this case, they can still salvage this case, and they can bring Dana to trial," Moura said. "That will take one tough, smart District Attorney, and I'm hoping that this young guy has got the guts to go for it."
Dow asked Hailey, "How do you wake up from this bad dream?"
She answered back, "You get justice,"
When he asked what she thinks should happen to her mom if she did in fact kill Karen and her father, Hailey responded, quickly. "Go to jail forever, if not death penalty."
Dana Chandler proclaims her innocence to this day, especially to her daughter.
"I just wish that you would, in your heart, know that I had nothing to do with it, because that is the truth. I wish that you could just realize that was the truth," Dana told Hailey during a phone call.
"I think losing my dad and Karen was hard and horrible, but accepting that my mom, who loves me and who would be there for me, is not that person… That hurts more," she said weeping. "That hurts much - that hurts more than my dad's death."
Hailey Sisco has been granted a permanent restraining order against her mother.
DNA testing turned up no new usable evidence.
The investigation remains active. Anyone with information about the murders of Karen Harkness and Mike Sisco are asked to call the Topeka Police Department at (785) 368-0995.
Produced by Sara Ely Hulse and Douglas Longhini
"Well, the day started off like any other day for my wife and I. It was a happy day and it was a Sunday," Harold recalled.
When they arrived at their daughter's house, the door was locked.
"And I rang the doorbell and knocked on the glass and couldn't raise anybody," Harold said. "I thought, 'This is strange.'"
Mike's mom, Carol Sisco, was also invited that day.
"The front door was locked, which was unusual," she told "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Harold Dow. "And so we went around to the back, and the back door was open just a little bit. And so, we walked in - couldn't find anyone."
The house was quiet and Mike and Karen were nowhere to be found.
"So, anyway, Harold went downstairs, which was Karen's bedroom," Carol explained.
"As I got down there, just as I got to the foot of the stairs, I could see Karen," Harold said. "She was layin' face down on the bed, head kinda off the right side of the bed and her arm was off there… And I said, 'Oh, Christ.' I knew she was dead. I reached over and touched her, but she was cold. And then I found Mike on the outside of the bed. And - I could see that he'd been shot a number of times and had lost a lot of blood."
"Well, it didn't seem real, you know. It just seemed like a dream," Carol continued. "But, Harold wouldn't let Betty or I go downstairs, and I'm very glad he didn't. I've got my own horrible scenes of it anyway. And then, immediately, we called 911."
It was eight years ago when Topeka Detective Richard Volle got the case that would haunt him to this day.
"I got a radio call just after two o'clock on July 7, 2002. It was a report of two dead bodies in a basement," he explained. "Well, the first thought is, you gotta consider a robbery."
Mike and Karen had been dating for about four years. On the night of the murders, they had gone to a casino north of Topeka and had won big.
"The electronics were all there, there was no forced entry. There was just nothing to suggest a robbery," Det. Volle explained of Karen's home. "In fact, we ended up finding a fairly substantial amount of cash in the pockets of the victim."
With robbery ruled out, Det. Volle focused on the victims.
"They were such a sweet couple," Carol said. "He really loved Karen. And I know Karen loved Mike. She took up fishing and they went on camping trips."
It's a mystery - who would want to kill Karen and her boyfriend?
Det. Volle retraced the couple's evening, starting at the casino.
"Looked like they were having a good time. Didn't have any issues with anyone. And in a - you know - casinos have cameras everywhere. And we didn't see any indication that they'd had a struggle with anybody, any kind of altercation." And, he said, no one suspicious was following them out.
Karen Harkness, 53, was divorced with two grown children; Chad and Erin.
"I remember telling her on several occasions that if I could be half the mom that she was to me, then I would be the best mom in the world," said Erin Sutton.
"It was a surprise to everybody that this would happen to somebody like her," said Chad Harkness.
Detective Volle was unsentimental in his investigation and looked at Karen's son, Chad, and Karen's ex-husband as possible suspects.
"I was asked to come down to the police station… I was hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked if I had murdered my mother or in any way participated in the murder of my mother," Chad explained to Dow. "They looked at my father as well."
Both Chad and his father were eliminated as suspects. But if Karen wasn't the intended target, then maybe it was Mike. His son, Dustin, couldn't believe anyone would want to kill his father.
"I mean everyone that I saw that knew him, you know, would, you know, shake his hand and give him a big smile," Dustin said.
Mike Sisco, 47, sold welding equipment in Topeka. The divorced father had custody of his two teenage children.
"He was a wonderful son, and he was a very good father," said Carol.
But Mike was having real problems with his daughter, Hailey.
"I wasn't happy with my dad. I wasn't happy with my mom. I wasn't happy at my school," Hailey Sisco said.
In the months before the murder, the 17-year-old was angry at everything, but it was her father who she really turned against.
"I hated my dad," Hailey said. "I flat-out hated him."
Things only got worse when Hailey spent more and more time with her boyfriend, Chris Seel.
"My dad hated him," she told Dow. "Chris was the bad - you know, bad boy - definitely didn't follow the straight and narrow.
"You ultimately moved out of the house?" Dow asked.
"My dad gave me an ultimatum: 'Either you follow my rules or you move out.' And I moved in with Chris. And then my dad was killed and…"
Because of that tension with her father, Hailey and her boyfriend attracted police attention. Hailey said "they searched Chris's house completely."
Mike's sister, Cathy Boots, and her husband, Mark, thought maybe the young man and Hailey could be involved in the murders.
"She was acting so irrationally, no one knew what was going on," said Cathy.
So at the same time Hailey had to deal with the murder of her father, she also had to defend herself and her boyfriend from police suspicions.
"Me and Chris were interviewed, I mean, they came and talked to us. I'm sure we were on their list of who, you know, of people who did this," she said.
"All the checking that we've done on Hailey and her boyfriend, there was nothing there that - that suggested that she could be responsible for this," Volle said.
All the leads in Topeka went nowhere.
"If money's a motive, that's easy to track. If revenge is a motive, that's a little bit easier to track. But there was nothing that was in Mike and Karen's lives that would lead to revenge," Volle said. "I mean, they didn't do anything to anybody. We just don't have any ideas."
But Mike Sisco knew who might want him dead. And he told his brother-in-law, Mark Boots, a week before the murders.
"He said, 'Mark - you're gonna wake up some morning and you're gonna find out I'm dead. And you're gonna know who did it.'" Eight years after the shocking murders of Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness there have been no arrests. The case is still a mystery.
Private Investigators Paul Ciolino and Joe Moura are on the job. They have come to Topeka, Kansas for "48 Hours Mystery" to examine the case, talk to the families and try to move the investigation forward.
"This is a cold case, you know what I mean. I mean, really it has to almost start from, from anew, ya know, to look at it with fresh eyes," Moura said emphatically.
Their first stop was the crime scene.
It's been a long time. The house has been sold and the room changed, but the detectives still think walking these rooms can reveal things about the killer.
"I don't think this was done by a cold-blooded killer, professional assassin here," said Moura.
"It was done by somebody who gave it a lot of thought, though," said Ciolino.
"The people that got killed here knew the assailant. This was somebody who had a terrific hatred for these two people," said Moura.
Next, the detectives talked to the families.
"You were with Mike right before he got killed, weren't you?" Ciolino asked Mark Boots.
"I was," he responded.
Mark Boots, Mike's brother-in-law, had been fishing with Mike just before the murders.
"While we were on that trip in the Ozarks, the week before the murder, I was sitting with Mike out back, actually, smoking a cigar with him. He shared with me that - that he and Karen were gonna get married."
Mark said he was overjoyed for his brother-in-law, but Mike believed the announcement of the marriage wasn't going to be good news for everyone. "[Mike] said, 'I'm afraid to tell Dana that Karen and I are gonna get married. I'm afraid what she's gonna do. How she's gonna react to this.'"
Dana is Dana Chandler, Mike's ex-wife. They were married in 1982 and lived in Colorado. They had two children together; Hailey in 1985, and Dustin nearly two years later.
"We had a pretty normal family growin' up," said Dustin. "I mean, well, I thought we did. You know, we'd eat dinner together. We went to church."
"I thought everybody was pretty happy. And you know, things were really goin' well," added Hailey.
But it didn't last. Mike moved the family to Kansas, his home state. Dana was miserable there. She was drinking heavily and the marriage started falling apart...
"She did have a really bad drinking problem," said Dustin. "Whenever she drinks, she - her actions are just way out of control. I mean, it's like she has no mind."
"They would yell and scream and fight, and just yell and scream. And like it would just go on and on. And I couldn't sleep," Hailey explained. "I'm just layin' up there goin', (sighs), 'This isn't good.'"
It was a bitter divorce that took years to settle.
"It was a very rough divorce," Hailey sighed. "We were torn in the middle with our mom bringin' us in and makin' us choose - pawnin' us against our dad sayin' he's a horrible person. She wanted us to hate him."
The court found that Mike was the more stable parent and awarded him full custody of Hailey and Dustin. Dana was ordered to pay child support.
"Was your mom upset about that?" asked Harold Dow.
"Yeah. She was real upset actually," Dustin replied. "Yeah, really upset her."
"Well, I mean, how often do you read a file like this and everything favors the father? You know what I mean?" Moura said to Ciolino. "It's extremely rare. So obviously, there were issues there. It was well-documented that things turned in favor of the father. And I think that's one of the reasons why she was just irate to no end."
The marriage finally ended in 1998, but that wasn't the end of Mike's nightmare.
"She told the kids she was gonna destroy him some way or another," Mike's sister, Cathy Boots, said of Dana.
After the divorce, Dana left Kansas and moved around. But that didn't stop her from harassing her ex-husband.
"She'd walk the alleys behind the house," Cathy said.
"So there was a history of her surveilling, watching, stalking?" asked Ciolino.
"Multiple times we'd be together and all of a sudden we'd go, 'Whoop. There went Dana.' Now at this point, she was living out of the town or out of the state and just show up and drive by," Mike's brother, Tim Sisco, explained.
"She was willing to travel great distances to show up back in his life," said Mark.
"It was ugly," Cathy said. "She must have spent every waking minute planning the next thing she was gonna pull."
In his own hand, Mike kept careful records in his day planner of the bizarre stalking habits of his ex-wife:
June 23, 1998:: Dana called police, accused me of drinking when picked up Dustin.
July 28, 1998:: Dana stalking neighborhood at 8:30, caught her, she left.
Nov. 12, 1998: Dana came in house while I was at Karen's from 7 to 11, went through stuff, caught her walking out back door when I came in, called police.
Dana didn't hide her bizarre behavior from her children.
"She actually brought me and Hailey along," Dustin explained. "She was definitely watching him and seeing what he was doing. And I mean, it - she was definitely spying on him. And just the fact that she could bring her kids to do that, you know, just, just crazy."
Dana also harassed Karen, so much so that Karen actually told her daughter, Erin, that she had considered breaking up with Mike.
"And my mom would speak of her often. She would leave messages on my mom's phone. She would call her - pretty regularly. And, you know, my mom quit answering the phone. And Dana would then leave messages on her voice mail," Erin told Moura and Ciolino.
When asked what kind of messages, Erin replied. "Horrible. I don't know that they really made a lot of sense. Just very psychotic babble."
Cathy Boots was staying with her brother, Mike, when she said Dana pulled one of her more bizarre acts of harassment. "About three in the morning, I heard a noise outside. It was like springs… a strange noise," she said.
Mike was awakened by the noise, as well. At the window, Cathy said she saw "...Dana on the kid's trampoline… laughing hysterically." Mike Sisco's family believes that Mike told Dana of his wedding plans when they last spoke, just two days before the murders.
"I think Dana was not going to allow Mike to have this new life with Karen," said Mark Boots, Mike's brother-in-law.
"She just never got on with her life, ever," Cathy Boots said of her brother's ex-wife. "It was an obsession. It was her job to stalk them."
It was that obsession that convinced family members that Dana Chandler was somehow involved in the murders of Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness.
"I don't want it to be her. I don't want it to be her," Cathy insisted. "It's her."
But the families believe evidence that might have implicated Dana was lost by a failed police investigation.
"They're not used to dealing with double homicides like this in Topeka, Kansas," said Mark.
Karen's father, Harold Worswick, thought there were so many cops in and out of the house that first day that they compromised the crime scene.
"The Fire Department was here first," he said. "I thought, 'Well, if there's any good evidence down here, they're walkin' on it. If there was any evidence there, they had destroyed it.'"
"They didn't preserve the crime scene," said Paul Ciolino. "They didn't collect evidence as they should've. They destroyed evidence that could've helped them get a conviction in this case.
But it wasn't just what might have been destroyed; it was what was left behind.
"They didn't even collect cigarette butts," said Cathy.
Why would that matter? Even though Mike and Karen were smokers, so is Dana Chandler.
"I told 'em that I knew that she was a heavy, heavy smoker - three, four packs a day. And I know that first week, I said, 'I would certainly look at cigarette butts.' I said there was no way that she can go very long without smoking," said Mark.
Mike Worswick, Karen's brother, packed up Karen's house before it was sold.
"I was surprised to see a wine bottle sitting out in the room," he said. "And then as I kind of searched the other room, I looked in the closet and there was another wine bottle here on the floor, again almost empty."
He told Moura that he found the empty wine bottles in a spare bedroom just days after the police had finished their forensic work. "And I just thought, 'Gosh, this seems weird.' My sister is so neat and orderly that this just seemed, ya know, like the aftermath of a party or something."
Family members now suspect Dana Chandler drank the wine while waiting for Mike and Karen to come home.
Mike Worswick continued, "And it was only three or four days later, unfortunately, after I'd thrown the bottles away that I begin to say to myself, 'Ya know, this was wrong.'"
"Do you think any mistakes were made in this case?" Harold Dow asked Detective Richard Volle.
"I know there were," Volle replied. "'Cause I made some of 'em."
Mistakes or not, the families convinced Det. Volle to focus on Dana Chandler shortly after the murders.
"They pointed us towards Mike's ex-wife and told us that she lived in Denver," Volle explained.
"Everybody kept saying, "Dana Chandler?" asked Dow.
"Yes. Yes."
"Did that surprise you?"
"Yeah, based on the distance, essentially. For somebody in Denver to drive 500 miles to Topeka seems like quite a stretch."
After Det. Volle took a closer look at Dana Chandler, she became a serious suspect. But there were problems. The murder weapon was never found and Dana said she had an alibi. Volle couldn't find any evidence to put her in Kansas the weekend of the murders.
"It's frustrating," Volle admitted. "It - you know that there's something there or there should be something there. And in this case, we just haven't been able to find it."
Nonetheless, police strongly suspected Dana Chandler was involved in the murders. But Dana was never arrested or charged.
"We've got some folks that are hurtin' and they're gonna be hurtin' until somebody's in jail for this" said Volle.
The families hope that Ciolino and Moura, with fresh eyes, can bring new life to the case. The private investigators decide to break down Dana's alibi that she was in Colorado the weekend of the murders.
Just a few days after the murders, Dana gave police a detailed alibi. Moura and Ciolino say it's full of holes.
"Well, back in - July 6th and July 7th of 2002, Dana Chandler lived in this apartment complex," said Moura. She claims that on July 6th, which was a Saturday of 2002, that she ran some errands around town."
Dana said she bought cigarettes at a grocery store, then a replacement cigarette lighter at AutoZone, at Target, a thermos and snacks. Her last stop was an Amoco station to fill up her car.
"We know that she went to get some items. The type of items one would buy if they're gonna do a long road trip in a car," said Moura.
Dana said she spent Saturday night at home, but a watchful neighbor never saw her car that evening.
"He knew everything about the car. And he said he always saw it here," Moura explained. "But on that particular weekend, there was no sight of the vehicle."
And phone records show that she did not answer calls made to her when she said she was home.
Dana's alibi continues through Sunday. Her story: she was hiking in the Mountains the day the bodies were discovered.
"She wasn't in the mountains," Moura said. "I've been in those mountains. I've been in the route that she said she took. [It] doesn't fit."
Dana said she was on a trail about two miles outside of Granby, Colo.
"[Are] there any hiking trails that would be within two miles of Granby?" Moura asked a park ranger.
"As far as National Forest Service land, no," the ranger replied.
"So that would be private in that two-mile area?"
"Within the two-mile area, yes."
Dana, according to Moura, had indicated that after hiking in Granby, she had headed north.
If she drove north, as she told police, she would have entered Rocky Mountain National Park - an entrance that records the license plate of every car on surveillance video.
"The Topeka Police Department and their detectives came here, reviewed the video footage, and for the date of July 7 of 2002, there was no documentation of her bein' here. So that puts a big hole in her alibi," explained Moura.
"I bought a pack of cigarettes down the street and the security tape picked me up. That's an alibi," said Ciolino. "Dana just says, 'I'm in my apartment. I'm alone. I don't talk to anyone. I don't get on my computer.' It's really not an alibi because nobody saw her. There is nothing - nothing that puts Dana in the state of Colorado for a 27-hour period."
During the original investigation, police searched Dana Chandler's apartment and found perhaps the most intriguing clue of all: a gas can - one of two she bought just before the murders, but neglected to mention in her detailed alibi to police.
"She told the police all the things she bought at different places, but she never talked about the gas cans," Moura said. "Why would you need two 5-gallon cans of gasoline?"
"The only logical reason is, Dana doesn't wanna have to stop for gas when she's hot footing it outta Kansas after committing a double homicide," said Ciolino. For the past seven years, Hailey and Dustin Sisco have tried to come to terms with the painful possibility that their mother may have murdered their father.
"I want answers. I want to know why. I want to know everything," said Hailey Sisco.
"Once I kind of thought about it, I mean, I was absolutely positive that, you know, Dana did it. And I was just in shock," Dustin said.
"You don't wanna believe your own mother, who, you know, has been in your life your whole life and claims to love you… and at some point loved your dad enough to be married for 15 years and then kill him? Whoa. That's that's hard to swallow," said Hailey. "That's - that's too much."
Dana Chandler has refused to talk to police since she gave them her one and only statement four days after the murder.
"I asked her if she killed my dad. I told her to tell me she killed my dad," Hailey said. "I already know you killed my dad. Just come - be straight up with me. She's just said, 'I can't talk about it. My lawyers advise me not to talk about it.'"
For years, Hailey has been talking about it with her mother and secretly recording the conversations:
HAILEY: I think that the only way I can really move on with a relationship with you is if you can just tell me yourself that you did it.
DANA: I was in Denver that weekend.
HAILEY: You may have been in Denver on Saturday morning and early afternoon. But then you had plenty [of] time to get - to Co - to Kansas by Saturday night at midnight.
DANA: Hailey, I was not in Kansas on Saturday night at midnight (laughter). I was not in Kansas at all that weekend.
HAILEY: Mom, until you wanna talk about it I - I can't have a relationship with you.
Private detectives Ciolino and Moura believe Dana Chandler could do more to clear her name if she's really innocent.
"If she's truly innocent," said Moura, "she would do everything that is feasible to prove her innocence to her two children."
In June, Moura sent Dana Chandler an e-mail asking her to meet and discuss the case.
The e-mail read, in part: "I think it is imperative as investigators that we have the opportunity to interview you. In reference to anything you could add that would clear you as a suspect in this case."
Dana wrote back that same day. "Dear Joseph, Thank you for your efforts to investigate to find out what happened to my children's dad. I realize that I am a suspect in this case; however, I can assure you that I had nothing to do with it. Thank you again for your efforts. Best regards, Dana.
Joe wrote back, pressing Dana to meet. This time, Dana didn't reply to Joe. Instead, she wrote to Hailey explaining why she would not agree to a meeting with the detectives.
She wrote, "…it seems as though they simply want to interrogate me…Hopefully, sooner rather than later, this will be solved … I hope that you will realize the truth, and know that I am innocent. Mom."
"She will never know - never know what she's put me through," Hailey said in tears. "And my brother is the same way. She's hurt us so bad and doesn't even realize it. She wants to go skiing next weekend. It's pathetic."
In an effort to revitalize the case, the Topeka Police, in 2007, commissioned an independent analysis of the evidence. "48 Hours Mystery" obtained a copy of the report by Retired New York Lt. Commander Vernon Geberth and asked Moura and Ciolino to examine it.
"Topeka Police Department, they hire an expert in homicide. And frankly, he writes a magnificent report layin' this thing out," according to Ciolino.
The report concluded: "Dana Chandler is the one and only person who had the motive, means and opportunity to commit these murders."
"I've heard complaints that the D.A. is not really prosecuting and moving forward with this case because it's a circumstantial case?" Harold Dow asked.
"And that's probably true," Mark Boots replied. "But a lot of cases are won on circumstantial, particularly as strong as this one."
Robert Hecht, Topeka's District Attorney from 2001 to early 2009, never prosecuted the case and says he never saw that report.
Of the report, Ciolino said, "It's not admissible in any court. But it's really the blueprint to this - to an indictment for this homicide. And it's well-done. But, you know, we could use it for toilet paper 'cause nobody's reading it."
With the help of the report, Ciolino laid out a possible scenario for the crime.
"Sometime on July 6 in Denver, Dana's here at home, and she gets in her car and drives across Colorado into Kansas and she gets to Topeka approximately 8 hours after she leaves there. She sets up in Mike and Karen's house…"
Mike and Karen left the casino at 1:30 a.m., arriving home around 2 a.m.
"Dana sees them coming down the street," Ciolino continued. "She walks down the stairs, goes into the utility room, quietly closes the door shut and sits there with a loaded gun in her hand waiting for them to come in. They get a little comfortable, they get in bed. Dana comes out of the room silently and shoots them both five times a piece."
No one heard a thing.
"She shoots them, gets in her car. She goes straight north so she's out of the state fast and the minute she crosses a body of water, my guess is that the gun went right into it.
"Here comes the 5-gallon gasoline cans," said Ciolino. "Dana has got to get some mileage and time between her and this murder scene, because if she gets picked up at a traffic stop, if she goes through a toll booth with a camera, if she has to stop for gas, someone is going to document it. So Dana is going to pull over to the side of the road and drop 10 gallons of gasoline she's pre-purchased in Colorado into the tank of her car so she can ride home without having to make a stop."
At 6:01 p.m. on Sunday, Dana Chandler goes back on the grid. Receipts show her in Colorado buying gas and washing her car.
"I think Dana gave it a lot of thought," said Ciolino. "She [probably] wrote it out somewhere. She [probably] had a checklist. She had a plan."
Despite the stalled investigation, Dana's children feel to the core that their mother killed their father.
"She's so unpredictable," Dustin Sisco said. "I really don't know why she did it."
"If you could say something to your mom right now, and you talk, and she can hear you, what would you say to her?" Dow asked Hailey Sisco.
"Why did you do this to me? Why are you doing this to my brother? Do you care about us? Because all of your actions say you don't," she replied.
For Hailey, the pain is excruciating because of the time she missed with her father when they were fighting before his death - time that she can never get back.
"I was completely robbed of that last part of the time we had," Hailey said. "It's the biggest regret I ever, will ever have." Hailey Sisco, 25, remains extremely close to her 23-year-old brother, Dustin. She now lives in Colorado, and her mother, Dana Chandler, haunts her.
"And you really believe in your heart that the killer was your mom?" asked Harold Dow.
"After talking to her numerous times since it's happened… it's written on the wall. It is written on her forehead. No question. No question," Hailey replied.
When asked if he ever wants to see his mother again, Dustin told Dow, "I don't really see any reason to. Not really."
For years, Hailey and Dustin have been estranged from their mother. Then, out of the blue, almost two years ago, Dana made a new effort to re-establish her relationship with Hailey.
"She wants to have a relationship with me and my brother," Hailey said. "She wants me to live with her, go to school, not have to worry about workin' - and just have a normal mother/daughter relationship."
Hailey is a little afraid of her mother. For years, she refused to even tell her mother where she lived. But that didn't stop Dana from tracking her daughter down in 2008.
"When I open the door expecting a salesman and see her standing there, it completely throws me out of whack. I mean, I physically shake," Hailey said. "I know that she's very capable of comin' in my house, lookin' through my things, jumpin' my fence."
In April 2009, Hailey again secretly recorded a phone conversation where she discussed with her mother key pieces of evidence:
HAILEY: Well, I appreciate you - you know, hearing me out and… I really want to believe that you want to get through this and help me get through this too. I hope that you know that it just kills me.
DANA: I know Hailey.I know it's been a horrible, horrible situation.
Listen to excerpts of Hailey and Dana's phone conversation
Remember the gas cans Dana purchased just hours before the murders? Her story now is that she bought them for a friend.
HAILEY: OK. What was her name? Can we get a hold of her? I mean, if she could say that, that would just be awesome.
DANA: Hailey, I have no idea.
And what about those missed calls that went unanswered when Dana said she was supposed to be home that weekend?
HAILEY: I mean, why wasn't your phone answered that whole weekend? I mean, there's no incoming or outgoing calls at all. What's going on with the cell phone? I mean…
DANA: Hailey, as far as my cell phones goes, I didn't - was not able to pick up a signal in the mountains.
HAILEY: OK, so you were - so you went up to the mountains? Did you spend the night in the mountains, then? Like, that weekend?
DANA: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Right there, Dana radically changes her story by saying she spent the night of the murders in the mountains, not in her apartment as she told police.
"Nothing seems to add up with what Dana is saying in reference to her alibi," said Joe Moura. "And she put herself on the record with that alibi. These are Dana's own words with an attorney present that she said she did on that Saturday and Sunday."
"48 Hours Mystery" wanted to talk to Dana Chandler about the case, but she has refused repeated requests to sit down and talk.
Harold Dow was able to track her down one morning in Denver.
"Hi Dana. Harold Dow, CBS News. Your children would like for you to talk."
"You have got to be kidding," she answered.
"Pardon?" replied Dow.
"Jesus."
"Can't you just talk to us for a moment?"
"No. I can't."
"Did you know anything about the death of Michael and Karen?"
"I have no idea what happened to Mike and Karen."
"There's some people out there who think you had something to do with it."
"I know that."
When Dow asked, "Would you like to say something to those people?" Dana closed the car door and drove off.
Dana Chandler, now 50, was hoping to become a certified public accountant. The families of Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness say she has gotten away with murder.
"She needs to account for her, account for her actions. There's still time," said Mark Boots. Cathy agrees, "I just want her to give the kids their lives back. Her own children. Let them know what happened. Just admit to it. Something. Don't leave 'em just hanging like she's done all these years."
In January 2009, Topeka got a new district attorney. Chad Taylor said the Harkness-Sisco case is now a priority.
"I hope that through a thorough review of all of the evidence, getting a fresh set of eyes looking at it, I hope we're able to bring justice for those families," Taylor told Dow. "There is some additional evidence that is going to be submitted for testing."
In 2002, police collected some chewing gum found at the crime scene. They are hoping for a DNA match to the killer.
"Do you think the families will ever get justice in this case?" Dow asked.
"For their sake and for the sake of this community, I pray they do," Taylor replied.
According to Moura and Ciolino, Dana Chandler could still face criminal prosecution for the murders.
"I think that if he looks at the case, allows a little cooperation with his office and the Topeka Police Department, that they can actually take this case, they can still salvage this case, and they can bring Dana to trial," Moura said. "That will take one tough, smart District Attorney, and I'm hoping that this young guy has got the guts to go for it."
Dow asked Hailey, "How do you wake up from this bad dream?"
She answered back, "You get justice,"
When he asked what she thinks should happen to her mom if she did in fact kill Karen and her father, Hailey responded, quickly. "Go to jail forever, if not death penalty."
Dana Chandler proclaims her innocence to this day, especially to her daughter.
"I just wish that you would, in your heart, know that I had nothing to do with it, because that is the truth. I wish that you could just realize that was the truth," Dana told Hailey during a phone call.
"I think losing my dad and Karen was hard and horrible, but accepting that my mom, who loves me and who would be there for me, is not that person… That hurts more," she said weeping. "That hurts much - that hurts more than my dad's death."
Hailey Sisco has been granted a permanent restraining order against her mother.
DNA testing turned up no new usable evidence.
The investigation remains active. Anyone with information about the murders of Karen Harkness and Mike Sisco are asked to call the Topeka Police Department at (785) 368-0995.
Produced by Sara Ely Hulse and Douglas Longhini
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved.
