HBO 'Killer Story' Probes True Crime Courtroom Impact — SkimNews
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- HBO's 'A Killer Story' premieres Part Two on Sept. 17 and its series finale on Sept. 24, chronicling six years of investigation into the Topeka, Kansas double-homicide case.
- Dana Chandler was convicted in 2012 of killing ex-husband Mike Sisco and his girlfriend Karen Harkness in 2002; the Kansas Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2018 after finding prosecutor Jacqie Spradling had fabricated a nonexistent protection-from-abuse order.
- Jacqie Spradling was disbarred in 2022, with the Kansas Supreme Court citing a 'serious pattern of grossly unethical misconduct,' including repeatedly arguing to the jury without evidentiary support and lying to the court.
- Keen and Eileen Umbehr, an amateur husband-and-wife investigative duo, sold family land to finance their work and emailed Sexton up to 25 times in a single day over two years until he agreed to look into the case.
- Joe Sexton, a former New York Times and ProPublica editor, partnered with director Matthew Galkin and producer Josh Levine at Story Syndicate, framing the documentary as 'a story about a story' rather than a whodunit.
- 48 Hours' 2009 visit to Topeka reignited public interest in the case and preceded Chandler's arrest with no new evidence, according to the article—a thread the documentary explicitly examines.
Why it matters: The Chandler case is now a test of whether Kansas prosecutors will retry a defendant whose original conviction rested on testimony the state's Supreme Court deemed fabricated, after the lead prosecutor was permanently disbarred for 'grossly unethical misconduct.'
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