Chandler murder trial delayed until February

Six years after Dana Lynn Chandler was first tried in the shooting deaths of her former husband and his fiancee, she will face a Shawnee County District Court jury on charges of two counts of first-degree murder in January.

Chandler's retrial had been scheduled to start on Oct. 1, but 10 days before the trial, Chandler filed a motion seeking to continue her trial for 60 days, saying many motions remained to be dealt with before the trial could begin.

On Wednesday, Shawnee County District Court Judge Nancy Parrish gave Chandler the 60 days and then some.

Instead of Chandler's trial starting on Oct. 1, the trial will start either on Jan. 28 or 29.

Jury selection will require about a week, then the three-week trial then will start on Feb. 4 with a jury of 12 people and six alternate jurors hearing the testimony.

Chandler is charged with fatally shooting her former husband, Michael Sisco, and his fiancee, Karen Harkness, on July 7, 2002. Each victim was shot at least five times as the two slept in their west Topeka home.

On April 6, the Kansas Supreme Court overturned Chandler’s 2012 murder convictions, saying an earlier Shawnee County prosecutor falsely told jurors that a protection-from-abuse order was filed by Sisco against Chandler in her divorce case.

Chandler, who is acting as her own attorney, told Parrish she wanted to individually question each prospective juror.

"I'm facing some very serious charges," Chandler said.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Daniel Dunbar objected to choosing the jury that way. Dunbar and Chief of Staff Charles Kitt are prosecuting the case.

The judge said individually questioning each prospective juror would require two hours apiece. Fifty-four prospective jurors would have to be passed for cause before the two sides whittle down that number to 12 jurors and six alternates. Each side eliminates 18 jurors from the jury pool.

Just questioning each prospective juror individually would require two weeks, the judge said.

Two weeks of jury selection would not be a "good use" of court time, the judge said. Prospective jurors will be individually questioned for two days, then questioned as a group before the jurors and alternates are picked.

On Wednesday, the judge scheduled motion hearings to be conducted on Oct. 22 and Oct. 30.

In another point on Wednesday, Chandler's standby attorney, KiAnn Caprice, a Basehor attorney, said Chandler would file a motion seeking to suppress any statement Chandler made to law enforcement officers. Grounds for the suppression motions weren't specified. According to records, Chandler was interviewed five times, Caprice said.

A standby counsel is a lawyer appointed to assist a client, who is acting as her own attorney. Alma attorney Keen Umbehr also is assisting Chandler.

Chandler also told the judge she wanted an investigator to conduct a forensic investigation inside the district attorney's office to determine what happened to scores of computer discs that Chandler contends she didn't receive as discovery from the district attorney's office.

"I am very concerned I have not received full discovery from the state," Chandler said. It's the prosecutors' "responsibility" to provide information, she said.

She also wants whatever analysis Kraig Clark, a computer specialist, provided to prosecutors. Clark was subpoenaed as a witness by prosecutors during Chandler's 2012 jury trial, but he wasn't called to testify, the Chandler defense and court records say.

The judge noted the Chandler defense could subpoena Clark and Clark's computer analysis. Prosecutors over and over have said Chandler has received all the discovery the prosecution has.

As for Chandler's request for an investigation by a forensics expert in the district attorney's office, that's not a request that can be granted, the judge said.

The judge granted a prosecution request to allow the earlier testimony into the trial of Harold Worswick, father of Karen Harkness, and Toby Stone, a casino employee who established the basis for the video showing the victims leaving a casino before they were killed.

During the trial, Worswick testified about finding the victims' bodies in the Harkness home in west Topeka after they were shot to death. Worswick and Stone died following Chandler's first trial.

The judge instructed prosecutors to file a motion seeking admission of evidence from Gordon Rock Jr., a lawyer involved in the divorce of Sisco and Chandler. Rock also has died.

Parrish granted permission to prosecutors to call Randy Bodenschatz, who testified in the first trial about buying firearms, as a witness.

Among the evidence Chandler has sought is 1,200 pages of cell phone tower data. Law enforcement investigators can determine the latitude and longitude of a person on a specific date by tracking signals emitted by her cell phone.

During Chandler’s first trial in 2012, the Chandler defense contended she was in Colorado at the time of the slayings.

During Chandler’s first trial, a Denver businessman testified Chandler told him she was driving and hiking in the Colorado mountains when the victims were killed.