Trial in Topeka

The defense is now presenting its side of the story in the Dana Chandler murder trial. It appears the defense is employing the "reasonable doubt" defense, which of course there is nothing wrong with it, by having police testify as to the burglaries in the area, the lack of picking up items like cigarette butts and wine bottles for DNA, etc.

The lack of physical evidence is the defense's strongest argument, but lots of killers have been convicted on much less than what has been leveled at Chandler.

The police DID screw up--big time--in not getting all of the evidence which would have resulted in a much-earlier arrest, but the defense has no other choice than to point to other possibilities.

I suspect the gas cans and the supposed impossibility of Chandler making the circular route from Denver to Topeka to Nebraska and back into Colorado on the available gas will be brought up. Of course, that circular route is ONLY a theory--there is NO proof at all she even bothered to go that way. I strongly suspect that Chandler merely drove to Topeka and back, filling the gas tank before the killings, knowing that if nobody had heard her kill Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness, the bodies wouldn't be found for many, many hours. She would have been long gone from Kansas and back in Colorado. She could have spent time in Colorado pulling off the side of a road and sleeping for a few hours and dumping the murder weapon. We know from the testimony of her son, Dustin Sisco, that Chandler had planned to be in Topeka the weekend of the murders, but he had told her he was going to be away with a youth group. Recall if you will Dustin said his mother was quite upset with this news. However, this gave her a huge opening to retaliate against the two people she hated the most. There would have been no way anyone would have found those bodies for many hours if no one had heard the shots or called the police immediately. Dustin was gone and his sister Hailey wasn't living with her dad anymore at the time of the killings.

It wasn't until 11 or 12 hours later that Karen's parents and Mike's mother found the bodies. That was plenty of time for Dana to be out of state.

Even if she did go the circular route, it isn't written in stone she had only two gas cans--only that she BOUGHT two of them right before the murders. And even if there were only two gas cans, the circular route would be possible on the gas used. If it is mathematically impossible, that doesn't preclude my theory of an out-and-back trip, which is the most logical as Dana drove that route many, many times.

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