Executive Overview
For veteran investigative journalist Joe Sexton, cold calls and unsolicited case files are an occupational hazard. With a career spanning over three decades—marked by editorial leadership on multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning teams at The New York Times and the independent newsroom ProPublica—Sexton is well-versed in the deluge of citizen tips that flood newsrooms daily. Yet, when an relentless email campaign began arriving in his inbox in 2017 from a Kansas true-crime fanatic named Eileen Umbehr, it set off a chain reaction that would culminate in a six-year documentary production.
The result is HBO’s gripping, three-part docuseries, A Killer Story. Directed by Matthew Galkin (One Night In Idaho: The College Murders) and produced in collaboration with Story Syndicate, the series unpacks one of Topeka, Kansas’s most notorious double-homicides and the ongoing saga of Dana Chandler, a woman serving time for a crime she adamantly insists she did not commit.
More than a conventional true-crime procedural, A Killer Story examines the mechanics of justice, the corrosive nature of confirmation bias, and the dangerous intersection where modern entertainment media bleeds into the courtroom. Through the lens of Sexton—who serves as a narrative surrogate for the audience—the series scrutinizes a judicial system pushed to its limits by prosecutorial misconduct, amateur sleuths willing to sacrifice their life savings, and a town gripped by unshakeable certainty.
Detailed Chronology: The Murders, The Trials, and The Turning Tides
The Crime and Initial Investigation
On July 7, 2002, the quiet city of Topeka, Kansas, was shaken by the discovery of a brutal double-homicide. Karen Harkness and her romantic partner, Mike Sisco, were found shot to death inside Harkness’s Topeka residence.
From the outset, the crime scene presented a baffling riddle for investigators from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI). There were no signs of forced entry, no significant physical evidence or DNA left behind by the perpetrators, and zero eyewitnesses. According to KBI investigator Ray Lundin, authorities quickly concluded that the attack was not a random act of violence, but rather a targeted execution driven by intense emotion.
When detectives cast their net for suspects, every person interviewed pointed toward a single individual: Mike Sisco’s ex-wife, Dana Chandler.
A Contentious Divorce and a Cold Case
Sisco and Chandler had shared a 15-year marriage that devolved into a deeply contentious divorce in 1998. Following the separation, Sisco was granted primary custody of their two children, Hailey and Dustin, while Chandler relocated to Denver, Colorado, underwent a career change, and achieved sobriety.
When questioned by law enforcement regarding her whereabouts on the day of the murders, Chandler maintained that she was in Colorado. She provided accounts of buying gas, purchasing groceries, and heading out on a solo camping trip. Although she was never placed in Kansas on the day of the killings and denied any involvement, local public opinion had already convicted her.
For years, the case languished as a cold file. However, in 2009, national media attention intervened. When the CBS news magazine 48 Hours visited Topeka to spotlight the unsolved murders, the renewed public spotlight—rather than any breakthrough in forensic evidence—prompted local authorities to act. In 2012, a Kansas jury convicted Chandler on two counts of first-degree murder, relying heavily on the narrative of a volatile post-divorce relationship.
The Overturned Conviction and Judicial Fallout
Chandler’s imprisonment seemed absolute until the legal landscape shifted dramatically in 2018. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned her conviction, revealing a shocking breach of ethics: prosecutorial misconduct.
During the 2012 trial, prosecutor Jacqie Spradling had centered her case around a purported "Protection from Abuse" order, arguing to the jury that Sisco lived in terror of Chandler. The fatal flaw in the state’s case? No such protective order had ever existed.
The fallout was historic. In 2022, the Kansas Supreme Court officially disbarred Spradling, citing a "serious pattern of grossly unethical misconduct" that included intentionally fabricating arguments lacking evidentiary support, misleading the appellate court during briefs and oral arguments, and making false statements during subsequent disciplinary proceedings. With the conviction nullified, Topeka prosecutors were forced to retry the case, setting the stage for ongoing legal battles and deep-seated community division.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Anatomy of a Six-Year Production
The realization of A Killer Story was an endurance test for its creators. Spanning six years of filming, the production team made repeated expeditions to Kansas to interview key stakeholders, including reluctant prosecutors, entrenched local residents, and Jeff Sutton—Harkness’s son-in-law, whom civilian investigators long suspected of harboring hidden knowledge about the murders.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| PRODUCTION TIMELINE & METRICS |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2017 | Eileen Umbehr initiates email campaign to Joe Sexton. |
| 2019 | Sexton meets the Umbehrs; partners with Story Syndicate. |
| 2022 | Prosecutor Jacqie Spradling officially disbarred. |
| 2024 (Sep) | HBO premieres 'A Killer Story' (Parts 1, 2, and Finale). |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+Producer Josh Levine notes that the project intentionally avoided becoming a standard whodunit. "It was never about the case for us. It was a story about a story," Levine explains. "We were trying to lean into the interesting characters but balance the true crime with layers of journalism. We were trying to avoid the traps of the genre and our own desires to solve the case."
The true narrative engines of the series are Keen and Eileen Umbehr, an amateur sleuthing duo whose obsession with the case altered the trajectory of their lives. Before becoming a lawyer, Keen Umbehr was a sharp-tongued local political muckraker known for targeting local government figures—frequently zeroing in on Jeff Sutton, a former county attorney and Harkness’s son-in-law.
When the Umbehrs read about Harkness’s murder, their initial investigative drive was fueled by their pre-existing animosity toward Sutton. However, that hostility rapidly evolved into an absolute crusade to prove Dana Chandler’s innocence. The couple:
- Financed Chandler’s access to legal resources and prison law libraries.
- Assembled independent evidence dossiers for defense attorneys.
- Took the extraordinary step of selling land that had remained in Keen’s family for generations to self-fund their investigative expenses.
Before this case crossed their desks, neither Keen nor Eileen had ever heard Dana Chandler’s name. "Keen and Eileen thought the system was both broken and that a woman had been put away for something she very well might not have done," Sexton observes. "They came to fully believe Dana Chandler was both innocent and had been effectively railroaded, not only by the criminal justice system, but by true crime TV."
Official Statements & Industry Perspectives
The creative leadership behind A Killer Story credit its unique structure to Joe Sexton’s authoritative voice and disarming charisma, which serve as an emotional and intellectual anchor for viewers navigating the labyrinthine case.
Matthew Galkin, reflecting on his initial meeting with Sexton, shares: "The second I met Joe, it [was] like ‘Holy shit! This guy is one in a million.’ He’s an incredible reporter, but he’s also a really charismatic person, and his frame on the Dana case, and his frame on both Keen and Eileen, created our entry point into the story. It became clear that we could build this whole thing through Joe’s voice as a reporter as a sort of surrogate for the audience trying to piece together what the hell is going on here."
Instead of leaning into manufactured resolutions, the filmmakers deliberately embraced the ambiguity of human psychology. Galkin points out that the core theme of the series is the pervasive danger of confirmation bias: "Almost every faction in this story feels very passionately about their one theory of what happened here. We’re coming in and telling the story of the storytelling of this case. We were trying desperately to not be pulled in any direction so we could stay objective about how to portray each individual theory clearly."
Future Outlook: The Intersection of True Crime and Judicial Integrity
As true-crime entertainment continues to achieve unprecedented cultural saturation, A Killer Story forces audiences, journalists, and legal professionals alike to confront uncomfortable questions: When entertainment media actively investigates an ongoing legal battle, does it help uncover systemic injustice, or does it pollute the well of public discourse? Can a narrative remain purely objective when human freedom hangs in the balance?
For Sexton, reporting on institutional corruption eventually demands a moral reckoning that transcends detached observation. While traditional journalism prizes clinical, unyielding objectivity, Sexton argues that extreme circumstances call for a re-evaluation of the reporter’s role when the system itself turns predatory.
"The journalist is to be a wholly, fully objective person in covering news. There’s a lot of merit to that," Sexton reflects. "लेकिन [But] there are moments in the course of reporting [where] you see real misconduct. You see real unfairness. You see the possibility that somebody could pay with their freedom as a consequence of cynical and devious work by the authorities. Maybe it’s time to take a fucking side."
A Killer Story airs on HBO, with subsequent episodes rolling out through its dramatic series finale, leaving viewers to ponder whether the pursuit of truth can ever truly be separated from the human biases of those who chase it.
