Chandler: Block murder expert's evaluation
Posted: November 1, 2011 - 4:29pm By Steve Fry 
Dana Chandler was arrested and taken into custody on
July 25, 2010 charged with two counts of premeditated murder for killing
her ex-husband Mike Sisco and his girlfriend
Karen Harkness pictured above.
THE
CAPITAL-JOURNAL
Cold case murder defendant Dana Chandler is
seeking a court order blocking a consultant to law enforcement agencies from
testifying in her preliminary hearing and potentially in her trial.
Chandler is charged in Shawnee County
District Court with two counts of premeditated first-degree murder in the
slayings of Karen Harkness, 53, and Michael Sisco, 47, who were found shot to death July 7, 2002, in Harkness' southwest Topeka apartment.
Nine years later, on July 25, Chandler, 51,
of Duncan, Okla., was arrested in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in
Duncan. She is the ex-wife of Sisco.
Defense attorney Mark Bennett contends a
defense investigator has developed a "previously unknown suspect" in
the slayings.
In a
motion filed Friday, Bennett focuses on a nearly five-year-old report issued by
Vernon Geberth, an expert on homicide
investigation who Topeka police hired as a homicide and forensic consultant
to review and evaluate reports and materials developed during the Harkness-Sisco investigation.
Geberth issued a 14-page report to police after he
"reviewed and evaluated the entire investigation," Bennett wrote.
Geberth didn't conduct any new investigation in the case
but gave his opinion on the credibility of investigative methods and the
credibility of people interviewed by officers, Bennett wrote. The people
include Chandler and potential witnesses to be called by prosecutors and the
defense, Bennett said.
The Geberth report wasn't filed with the Bennett motion.
When he retired from the New York City Police Department, Geberth was
the commanding officer of the Bronx Homicide Task Force handling 400 slayings a
year.
Geberth is author of "Practical Homicide Investigation: Tactics,
Procedures and Forensic Techniques" and "Sex-Related Homicide and
Death Investigation: Practical and Clinical Perspectives," which are
textbooks.
A
story published in April in The New York Times said Geberth had analyzed more than 300 serial killings in the United
States. In the story about why three serial killers operated on Long Island in
22 years, Geberth blamed popular
culture, saying the "most reprehensible members of society" have been
given star status.
Bennett is asking Chief Judge Nancy Parrish
to issue orders:
·
Prohibiting
prosecutors from calling Geberth to testify in the preliminary
hearing and trial about his opinions expressed in his report.
·
Prohibiting
Geberth from conveying the opinions in his report to "any
individual, any news agency or any member of the media."
·
Prohibiting prosecutors and "all
law enforcement agencies" from disclosing the contents of the Geberth report.
Among other recent motions, Bennett is
seeking a court order blocking rebroadcast of a segment of "48 Hours
Mystery,” a documentary crime series, either by the CBS network or CBS stations
in Kansas or Kansas City, Mo. The Harkness-Sisco
slayings were featured on “48 Hours.”
On Dec. 12, a preliminary hearing of up to
two weeks will start for Chandler.