The Farmer's Wife

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Speaker 16 Tonight on date line.

Speaker 17 Oh my God.

Speaker 18 Karina, sit up.

Speaker 16 Karina.

Speaker 19 She said, I just drove by the Coopers and something's wrong. There's police and ambulances there.

Speaker 20 My mom said, I just got a phone call that Ryan is dead.

Speaker 4 I approach Ryan and I observe a bullet hole.

Speaker 8 He was shot twice.

Speaker 23 Somebody came into my house and killed my husband.

Speaker 24 When you get a case like this, you consider all possible suspects.

Speaker 21 Houston's known as a ladies man who had a particular affinity for older women.

Speaker 26 He was into the cougars?

Speaker 4 I would say so.

Speaker 28 Sometimes Karen could drift into bad Karen.

Speaker 29 Ah, yeah, when she had way too much to drink.

Speaker 25 Law enforcement recovers Snapchat messages.

Speaker 30 Snapchat messages don't actually go away.

Speaker 31 It was horrible language.

Speaker 3 Disgust.

Speaker 25 It's pretty clear evidence of what their plan was.

Speaker 33 The truth was coming out for everyone to know.

Speaker 37 That was a tough pill to swallow.

Speaker 38 A brutal murder on a family farm.

Speaker 16 A plot hatched on Snapchat.

Speaker 24 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 16 Here's Andrea Canning with the Farmer's Wife.

Speaker 39 It was June 18th, 2021.

Speaker 42 Night had settled over the cornfields in Trayer, Iowa.

Speaker 41 The air was still and quiet.

Speaker 44 Ryan Cooper, a fourth-generation farmer, was home with his wife Karina and their three kids in the comfort of their farmhouse.

Speaker 44 Ryan had fallen asleep on the living room recliner, not unusual after a long day working the land.

Speaker 46 His younger brother, Aaron, lived just a mile down the road.

Speaker 48 And your phone rings.

Speaker 6 About what time is it?

Speaker 49 4:30.

Speaker 50 It was Ryan's wife, Karina.

Speaker 51 She called and screaming that somebody was in her house.

Speaker 17 Does she give any more detail?

Speaker 51 No, I was just screaming and frantic, and couldn't really make out too much of what she was saying. Besides, somebody's in her house.

Speaker 21 I grabbed my gun and headed towards Ryan's house.

Speaker 52 Do you just haul it over there at top speed?

Speaker 32 Yep.

Speaker 53 On the way, he called 911.

Speaker 54 I just got a call for my sister-in-law.

Speaker 4 Somebody's in her house.

Speaker 55 Okay, someone's in her house.

Speaker 54 Yep.

Speaker 55 We have a female on 911, but can't understand her.

Speaker 56 Karina had also called emergency dispatch.

Speaker 6 When Aaron arrived at the house, he could hear Karina.

Speaker 51 I could hear her screaming still from inside the house in my pickup.

Speaker 57 So that's loud.

Speaker 51 Yeah, that was very loud.

Speaker 41 Aaron saw his 11-year-old nephew, Cade, at the window. He jumped out of the truck, still on the phone with 911.

Speaker 38 I am armed.

Speaker 54 Do you want me to proceed?

Speaker 38 Yeah?

Speaker 54 He's your kid just came out and told me to come out.

Speaker 58 Okay.

Speaker 59 She's still screwing.

Speaker 51 So I went in the house and

Speaker 51 walked in the living room and that's when I found my brother.

Speaker 58 What the f?

Speaker 58 What the f?

Speaker 58 My brother's dead.

Speaker 60 Aaron is a volunteer firefighter, so he'd seen death before, but never like this.

Speaker 43 This was his brother.

Speaker 58 What are you?

Speaker 63 A lot of blood all over both of them, big pool on the floor.

Speaker 42 And what's the first thing you do when you see that?

Speaker 65 And what do you say? What do you do?

Speaker 62 I don't really remember what I did.

Speaker 8 I checked for his pulse, and there was no pulse.

Speaker 55 Do you know if he's been shot?

Speaker 55 No, he has not, but there's blood coming out of his mouth.

Speaker 54 Singers and

Speaker 54 all over on the floor.

Speaker 24 It was horrible.

Speaker 51 Worst thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 41 Minutes later, a sheriff's deputy arrived and spoke with Aaron.

Speaker 24 What's going on?

Speaker 38 I would rather just death.

Speaker 42 Ryan was in his recliner chair, Karina sitting on top of him, still wailing.

Speaker 67 Ma'am, what happened?

Speaker 41 The deputy searched the darkened rooms with a flashlight, making sure an intruder wasn't inside.

Speaker 53 He called for backup.

Speaker 67 1079 is seven headed this way as well.

Speaker 45 They're almost to your location now.

Speaker 6 Tama County Deputy Travis Foster arrived next.

Speaker 18 As I walked towards the house, I could see two individuals, a male and a female. The male was identified as Aaron Cooper, and the female was found to be Karina Cooper.

Speaker 62 What happened?

Speaker 69 She said,

Speaker 18 I asked Aaron where the victim was, and he advised that the other deputy and his brother Ryan were inside the residence in the living room.

Speaker 18 Well, I walked in, and Ryan's leaning back in his chair, slumped over.

Speaker 49 She's hysterical. I'm assuming he's walking.
That's the wife.

Speaker 10 County seven.

Speaker 18 Get a hold of the Emmy's office.

Speaker 67 Also, advise 861.

Speaker 10 We have one deceased male.

Speaker 72 Soon, the house was swarming with police, paramedics, the medical examiner, everyone trying to figure out what happened.

Speaker 24 Does he have any problems with mental health problems or anything? Well, well, you find

Speaker 60 Aaron got the children out of the house and into his truck.

Speaker 41 He called his and Ryan's sister, Michelle Wilson.

Speaker 74 And he said, Ryan's dead.

Speaker 33 I'm like, what do you mean, dead?

Speaker 75 Like, how?

Speaker 70 I don't know.

Speaker 2 And I said, you know,

Speaker 33 can you tell what happened? He's like, no, I don't.

Speaker 71 I don't know.

Speaker 56 In my mind, I'm thinking, did he fall and hit his head?

Speaker 76 You know, something at the farm.

Speaker 41 Karina was still distraught when deputy foster brought her to his patrol car can you tell me what happened

Speaker 80 there was a loud noise i thought something fell did you see anybody else in the house

Speaker 18 so did he do that to himself no way

Speaker 18 no way okay she's just inconsolable

Speaker 18 And that's a typical response from losing a loved one or someone that's very close to you. You know, you kind of, you know, you just don't know what to do.

Speaker 17 I'm here for you.

Speaker 69 All right. I'm here for you.

Speaker 69 All right.

Speaker 4 We just got to figure out what happened first.

Speaker 62 Okay.

Speaker 62 You want to stand up? Yeah.

Speaker 69 Okay.

Speaker 69 Okay.

Speaker 4 Just take a seat, all right?

Speaker 52 In those early morning hours at the crime scene, Karina, now a widow, could barely speak.

Speaker 50 But as the mystery of what happened deepened, there would be plenty of talk around this tiny town.

Speaker 84 Us girls are very inquisitive.

Speaker 76 They're real housewives of Tama County.

Speaker 85 We took his phone and looked at all the messages.

Speaker 35 What did you think when you heard that?

Speaker 83 Just gossip.

Speaker 19 To think that everything could have just been a complete lie that whole time, it's hard to swallow.

Speaker 52 The sun was just beginning to rise over the cornfields when word spread.

Speaker 41 Something terrible had happened to Ryan Cooper.

Speaker 68 Karina's friend, Ashton Wilson.

Speaker 19 One of my good friends called me and said, I just drove by the Cooper's and something's wrong. There's a lot of police and ambulances there.
I think you need to check in with Karina.

Speaker 27 But before she could get there, her phone rang again.

Speaker 46 It was her mom.

Speaker 20 And

Speaker 19 she said, I don't know what happened, but I just got a phone call that Ryan is dead.

Speaker 24 Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 41 Ryan's close friend, Jamie Earhart, rushed over to the farm to try to find out what happened.

Speaker 26 What are you left to think in those early moments?

Speaker 73 No idea. I mean, did he have a...

Speaker 73 Have a heart attack? Did he have a whatever? I mean, you know, maybe it was a health-related deal.

Speaker 57 There was another thought that this could be a medical issue.

Speaker 51 One of the deputies, their ambulance crew, said could have been a medical thing, like a hemorrhage.

Speaker 35 In those first chaotic hours, anything was possible.

Speaker 41 But after taking a closer look, the medical examiner determined Ryan did not die from natural causes.

Speaker 89 When does that information start coming out about what really happened to him as far as his injuries?

Speaker 20 By the

Speaker 33 middle of the day. Maybe by the time we got to True, maybe

Speaker 88 I think we probably had heard that they were gunshots.

Speaker 41 Investigators wondered if Ryan had taken his own life.

Speaker 65 Was it suicide?

Speaker 33 Did he shoot himself?

Speaker 91 Yeah. How did that sit with you when you heard that?

Speaker 33 Oh, not well. You know, I'm like, there's no way.
You know, like, I can't imagine him doing that in the first place, and I can't imagine him doing that in his home.

Speaker 41 Hard to imagine, because at 42 years old, Ryan seemed to have it all.

Speaker 92 Was it clear that Ryan wanted to have a life on the farm when he grew up?

Speaker 38 For sure.

Speaker 34 Absolutely.

Speaker 33 There was never any question that he would be involved. That was his passion, coming home and helping dad and being there to help with harvest and planting.

Speaker 51 As soon as he was 18, he went and got his license and started trucking and loved it.

Speaker 91 The Cooper Farm went back four generations.

Speaker 41 Across the 2,000 acres of land, there were cattle to haul and fields of soybeans and corn to manage.

Speaker 60 Michelle, an accountant, did the bookkeeping while brothers Aaron and Ryan managed the crops and the animals.

Speaker 34 Mom would have been so proud to have seen all of us working together at the farm.

Speaker 41 The farm had always been a family affair, and Ryan wanted to keep it that way.

Speaker 49 Have some kids and live happily ever after.

Speaker 38 Farmer wants a wife. Yeah.

Speaker 42 Ryan was divorced with a young son when he started dating Karina Elpers.

Speaker 73 I've known Karina for a long time and I thought she was a pretty fun person and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 73 So, and she always had very terrible tastes in men and I told her that forever until she met Ryan.

Speaker 41 Where Ryan was quiet and reserved, Karina was outspoken.

Speaker 27 She was also a hairstylist.

Speaker 7 If you lived in town, chances were she cut your hair.

Speaker 19 All three of my kids got their first haircuts from Karina. She did my hair for a decade.

Speaker 76 I'm sure you two talked a lot.

Speaker 69 Yeah.

Speaker 19 Therapy sessions half the time. Yes.
Exactly. Very much so.

Speaker 41 Karina and Ryan married and quickly built a family.

Speaker 20 They had their first baby.

Speaker 89 And then another one followed.

Speaker 89 Another boy?

Speaker 75 Yes.

Speaker 94 And then they had one more?

Speaker 69 Yep. Little girl.
A girl. Little girl.

Speaker 7 Ryan and Karina were part of a tight circle of friends that included Jamie's wife, Carmen.

Speaker 25 She was, I mean, fun, outspoken.

Speaker 42 And Kirstie Shetta.

Speaker 95 You even had a name for your friend group that is dear to my heart.

Speaker 84 You did.

Speaker 85 Tama County Housewives.

Speaker 69 I mean,

Speaker 38 I love that.

Speaker 27 The housewives did girls' trips, fun runs, and plenty of bar hopping.

Speaker 35 Ryan and his friends preferred adventure.

Speaker 73 Outdoor stuff, freedom type things. We did snowmobile trips and motorcycle trips and vacations and all kinds of things like that.

Speaker 49 Boating and camping and...

Speaker 38 Fun times. Yeah, great times.

Speaker 73 but in recent months jamie thought ryan seemed down did you feel like ryan was acting a little differently yeah the only thing that really comes to mind is we always do a trip to northern wisconsin he always goes no matter what and he looks forward to it and made every excuse in the world not to go and then still went and then when he got there he just wasn't himself wasn't his normal self but suicide not ryan But he's not that kind of person.

Speaker 38 That's just not, that's not it.

Speaker 24 No. There's no way.

Speaker 19 He would never hurt himself and he would never ever do anything like that in his own home with his wife and kids there.

Speaker 45 That home on the farm Ryan loved so much was locked down.

Speaker 41 The scene of a growing investigation when Tama County detective Trevor Killian arrived a few hours after the first frantic call.

Speaker 22 I drive up the lane and the former sheriff is sitting there. So he walks me inside.
The sheriff tells me that he thinks that there's a single gunshot wound to the face.

Speaker 60 Thinking it was suicide, they'd been looking for a gun.

Speaker 22 And when they moved the body to the floor, that's when they realized that there was no firearm present. And then I crouched down and I'm just taking a look at him.

Speaker 22 And then I observed what appeared to be a second bullet hole. I looked at the sheriff and I'm like, he's been shot twice.

Speaker 97 Wow.

Speaker 26 So this is very likely not a suicide if he's been shot twice.

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 98 You have a murder on your hands.

Speaker 22 We do. This is 100% an active crime scene.
Nobody comes here.

Speaker 60 What in Ryan's life had led to this deadly ending?

Speaker 46 Do you know anyone that was having reason to hurt him?

Speaker 100 No, nobody. He doesn't hurt anybody.

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Speaker 41 Ryan and Karina Cooper's children had been taken from the crime scene to a relative's house. Ashton rushed over to be with them.

Speaker 84 They're so little.

Speaker 19 I mean, that was the first thing is how did we

Speaker 19 go on? Do they know what happened?

Speaker 41 The boys were 11 and 8.

Speaker 4 The little girl, only 4.

Speaker 19 Obviously, there was a lot of shock, crying.

Speaker 19 When I got there, both of the boys had blood on them. Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 69 So I knew that they obviously knew what had happened at that point.

Speaker 61 Friends Jamie and Carmen were there too.

Speaker 73 I just said I just got to be strong.

Speaker 49 I'll stop there.

Speaker 22 That they need to be strong and

Speaker 62 that mom was hurting really bad right now. Let me be there for her.

Speaker 39 Ryan and Karina's son, Cade, was feeling what seemed like a very adult emotion, guilt.

Speaker 33 Probably one of the most memorable comments was, you know, Cade just being terribly upset that he didn't sleep on the couch with dad that night.

Speaker 48 Oh, his mom wanted him to sleep in his room that night.

Speaker 33 She had just done another remodeling, repainting, you know, got his room all fixed up and moved around for him.

Speaker 60 The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation joined what was now a homicide investigation.

Speaker 26 Is that normal that in a case like this that DCI comes to help?

Speaker 22 We do ask the assistance of the DCI as we're not fully capable of handling a full-blown death investigation.

Speaker 41 That morning, DCI agents interviewed Karina at the sheriff's office.

Speaker 68 Hours had passed.

Speaker 56 Her voice was a little steadier as she recounted the moments before she discovered her husband dead in the living room.

Speaker 107 There was a sound like something crashed in the kitchen. It sounded like something falling.

Speaker 107 Scared me.

Speaker 107 Kind of laid there for a second.

Speaker 107 See, kids woke up, which they didn't.

Speaker 107 and i got up and i peeked in the living room and

Speaker 107 he was laying there and i went to the kitchen and turned the light on in the living room and then

Speaker 107 he's over

Speaker 107 okay

Speaker 107 it just looked like he was sleeping okay

Speaker 107 and then i walked up to him to touch his foot there's blood like everywhere

Speaker 22 she said that she just heard a loud bang um which she got up to investigate. And that's when she found her husband was covered in blood.

Speaker 107 I always scared the kids because Kate came from Michigan.

Speaker 107 And he called Aaron.

Speaker 107 Do you

Speaker 99 make any attempt at

Speaker 99 you? Do you touch him? Do you.

Speaker 107 I grew up on him. I was.

Speaker 107 I hit him. I think I was shaking him and screaming in his face to wake up.
Okay.

Speaker 108 You think you were hit him?

Speaker 107 I think I kept hitting him, trying to get him to wake up.

Speaker 108 Did you hear any other sounds or commotions or anything other than the one that woke you up? No.

Speaker 107 I think I mean.

Speaker 107 Like, cars go by all time of the night, but I didn't see it.

Speaker 107 I looked out the kitchen window. I didn't see anything.

Speaker 107 Okay.

Speaker 108 No sounds like the front door slamming shut or

Speaker 108 anyone running down your deck or down your steps or anything like that?

Speaker 107 No, nothing.

Speaker 22 Do you know anyone that would have any reason to hurt him?

Speaker 107 No.

Speaker 99 Has he had any issues with anybody?

Speaker 109 No, nobody. He doesn't hurt anyone.

Speaker 60 Of course, investigators had to ask some difficult questions.

Speaker 59 Not to be personal, okay? But again, these are things we need to ask.

Speaker 107 Has there been any marital issues between the two of you? No, we had a rough patch

Speaker 59 shortly after his mom passed away, where we just weren't,

Speaker 59 we weren't getting along. There wasn't any real issue.

Speaker 27 We were just both

Speaker 93 sad and didn't communicate.

Speaker 22 She said they had their arguments, but they fought and they made up and

Speaker 22 everything was just fine.

Speaker 98 So no trouble in paradise for the Coopers. Yep.

Speaker 22 According to her, there was no issues. No issues that nobody else has.

Speaker 48 He's been sleeping on the recliner?

Speaker 22 Yes. He works a lot of hours, and it's just sometimes easier to come home.
He just sleeps in the reclining chair.

Speaker 59 No fares of any kind?

Speaker 58 No. By him or by you.

Speaker 59 And the only reason I ask is if someone went in and did something to him. I'm just thinking about like

Speaker 59 the scorned lover type of thing or anything like that.

Speaker 109 No. Okay.

Speaker 107 So there's no

Speaker 58 anywhere.

Speaker 109 We don't do anything. He might go to the bar after work with his friend Riley, and he's never home past eight.

Speaker 107 That's how exciting we are.

Speaker 7 Investigators let Karina get back to her children.

Speaker 112 Mom brought her back to my mom's house.

Speaker 51 I met him there.

Speaker 52 This is Karina's brother, Kurt Alpers.

Speaker 112 If I remember right, Karina took a shower. She was obviously messy.
A bunch of her friends came to my mom's house and visited and gave their condolences.

Speaker 19 It was just a lot of crying, a lot of questions.

Speaker 61 Once Ryan's autopsy was complete, family and friends learned he had been murdered, shot twice in the face.

Speaker 35 What's going through your mind when this gets out?

Speaker 73 Nobody breaks into houses and shoots people in Dreyer, Iowa.

Speaker 4 So it's just not something that happens.

Speaker 44 Crime scene techs had swabbed the home for fingerprints, for DNA.

Speaker 83 They photographed the house room by room, taking careful note of the blood pool and spatter on the walls of the living room.

Speaker 41 Outside, they photographed a partial bloody shoe print.

Speaker 48 Did that give any credence to this intruder theory that maybe that was an intruder running from the house?

Speaker 22 It did line up with that somebody had come inside and

Speaker 22 was at least at the scene and stepped in the blood and then left.

Speaker 44 In the driveway, another clue.

Speaker 22 There was a purse that was thrown outside of a vehicle door. It was Karina's purse.

Speaker 56 Is that suggesting that it could be a robbery?

Speaker 22 Yeah, that's what it appeared to be with Karina saying that an intruder had came in and had robbed them and shot her husband.

Speaker 68 And while investigators hadn't yet found a gun, they found a shell casing on the living room floor.

Speaker 22 It appeared that he was shot with a.22.

Speaker 65 And does that tell you anything?

Speaker 89 A. .22 caliber.

Speaker 22 I mean, probably every farmer has one. They shoot coyotes, raccoons that are on their property.

Speaker 97 This could be anybody in the area.

Speaker 22 Yeah, and there's a major highway right there.

Speaker 48 Someone could easily jump on that highway and just be gone.

Speaker 22 Yeah, you got three different ways that you can go up the gravel, you can go east or west from the residence.

Speaker 43 East or west, the road out was open.

Speaker 83 But a tip would soon pull detectives right back to the farm.

Speaker 33 The only one that we've really had any business dealings with that have maybe gone awry would be Nolan.

Speaker 35 One thing that strikes you about this area is just how peaceful it is and it feels so safe.

Speaker 65 Yeah.

Speaker 35 I can only imagine how this area must have been like shattered by something like this, the fear.

Speaker 67 Yeah, without knowing what happened. It was sleepless nights for a while for sure, not knowing if we were in danger or not.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 19 I mean, it was terrifying to go home thinking that somebody murdered our friend a mile from our house. And,

Speaker 19 I mean, cameras went up on the farm all over. Locks were changed on the house within the week.

Speaker 52 Karina and the three kids stayed with her brother, Kurt.

Speaker 112 Karina said

Speaker 112 that she was always scared, fearful that whoever had done this is going to come for the family. Every night, I'd double-check the locks on the house.
You know, I bought a motion sensor, light.

Speaker 27 Kurt and his wife tried their best to distract the kids.

Speaker 112 We tried to keep them busy, keep their minds off things. I mean you can only forget for so long before it comes back.

Speaker 52 And everyone had their own theory about what happened.

Speaker 112 My first assumption was that somebody stopped on the highway for some reason and was looking to rob the house or something like that and then saw that Ryan was sitting in his recliner and freaked out.

Speaker 19 The town next to us was having their big celebration that weekend. Could it have been somebody that was here with the carnival?

Speaker 114 There was a lot of theories, a lot of speculation. It was really anything, anything that people could use to cope with what happened.

Speaker 56 Tama County Sheriff Casey Schmidt was a deputy at the time.

Speaker 114 I've met people in Tama County that will leave their doors unlocked and have for 60, 70 years.

Speaker 114 That just shows the type of community that we are it's almost more shocking when it happens in a smaller community because everybody's so close everybody wants to know why it happened what happened

Speaker 22 it was detective killian's job to find those answers and he didn't believe a random intruder was responsible it just made no sense that somebody would come to a farmhouse and walk in the door shoot someone in the face for no reason.

Speaker 115 You would think if it was an intruder or some type of robbery gone bad, that usually

Speaker 48 the robber is interrupted in some way.

Speaker 46 But you're assuming that Ryan was sleeping, right?

Speaker 26 Based on where he was found.

Speaker 22 Yeah, it did not appear that he had tried to get up. There was no defensive wounds.

Speaker 46 And while Karina's purse was in the driveway, there was cash on the kitchen counter, untouched.

Speaker 56 So if not a robbery, the detective thought it had to be personal.

Speaker 7 They talked to Karina again.

Speaker 47 Did Karina have any idea who may have wanted to do this to Ryan?

Speaker 22 The only name that she brought up was Nolan DeWaal.

Speaker 41 That was a name Ryan's sister knew well.

Speaker 33 The only one that we've really had any business dealings with that maybe gone awry would be Nolan.

Speaker 27 Nolan DeWaal had been a business partner in the Cooper Farms cattle operation, and he had some trouble with the law.

Speaker 60 A few years earlier, he was involved in a bank fraud scheme, writing bad checks totaling a quarter of a million dollars.

Speaker 33 He was good at like shifting things from here to there to try and cover. And some of those things kind of started happening in our business too, like sneaky stuff.

Speaker 43 Yeah.

Speaker 33 And so, you know, it just got to the point where I think, you know, we're going to have to terminate this relationship and get out.

Speaker 115 Would Ryan have been involved in that heap, the decision-making of we've, it's time for Nolan to go?

Speaker 70 Yeah.

Speaker 98 For sure. Yep.

Speaker 42 So Nolan and the Coopers cut ties.

Speaker 41 He lived in work to 30-minute drive from the farm, and that's where investigators found him.

Speaker 22 Did an interview with him and just kind of asked him about Ryan Cooper. And he has said that he had heard, because it was out, that he had been killed.

Speaker 87 Nolan denied having anything to do with Ryan's murder.

Speaker 60 And while he did own a.22-caliber pistol, He told police he didn't have it handy for them to look at because he kept it at his brother-in-law's house.

Speaker 41 Detectives wanted to get their hands on that gun for testing and check out Nolan's alibi.

Speaker 46 And he wasn't the only person they needed to talk to.

Speaker 89 You find out that there may have been an altercation at a bar with Ryan a few nights before the murder?

Speaker 22 Yes. So there was someone at the bar that night that had called us for a tip that says, hey,

Speaker 22 I think you should go talk to this person.

Speaker 43 He could be a suspect.

Speaker 22 So we get a hold of the bar owner. He did make the comment to us that there was this Ronald Banken and Ryan had gotten to a verbal altercation.

Speaker 39 The men knew each other through the farming business.

Speaker 22 I don't really think that he liked Ryan Cooper.

Speaker 83 What was the altercation about, or this verbal argument?

Speaker 20 What was it over?

Speaker 22 So nobody really told us what it was about. They just said that

Speaker 22 they were having an altercation together.

Speaker 41 Detectives went to the bar and asked to see security footage from that night.

Speaker 22 There was no audio associated with the video. It was just a picture.
It just looked like a couple people having a normal conversation. There was no finger pointing.

Speaker 22 There was nobody standing up, getting in anybody's face, and there was certainly not a fight as it was put to us.

Speaker 61 That lead went nowhere.

Speaker 17 Same with Nolan DeWaal.

Speaker 78 Investigators did find his.22 caliber pistol.

Speaker 35 It was at his brother-in-law's house, like he said.

Speaker 22 So that firearm was submitted and it did not match with the shell casing that was at the scene. And we were able to follow up with his alibi that he wasn't even in the area.

Speaker 22 They cleared him as a suspect.

Speaker 44 But investigators weren't out of names yet.

Speaker 41 Someone else had popped up on their radar, a young man with quite the reputation.

Speaker 32 He liked the older ladies. Oh, like cougars.
Yeah.

Speaker 60 Investigators trying to figure out who in this farm town might have hated Ryan Cooper enough to shoot him were crossing names off their list, including his former business partner and a man Ryan encountered at a bar.

Speaker 41 Detectives were also eyeing someone else, a farmhand whose reputation around Treyer preceded him.

Speaker 25 Houston Danker is a young man whose name just kind of popped up almost immediately.

Speaker 47 Assistant Tama County Attorney Geneva Williams joined the investigation at the beginning.

Speaker 25 He's known as a ladies' man.

Speaker 83 He was

Speaker 25 known as someone who had a particular affinity for older women.

Speaker 41 He was only 23 years old and friends with Kirstie's son.

Speaker 32 He liked the older ladies. He likes cougars.
Yeah.

Speaker 29 We would be working out at the gym in the mornings, and this is, he was still in high school at this time.

Speaker 87 And he would drive up to the front window window and like watch us through the window work out and houston wasn't just ogling there was one woman in particular that he wrecked their marriage is that this is best friend's yeah best friend's mom high school buddies mom too yeah okay that really is stacy's mom yeah so he had an affair with his best friend's mom and

Speaker 111 her marriage ended oh yeah

Speaker 78 Houston was a client of Karina's at the salon, and investigators learned that Ryan thought he was interested in more than a haircut.

Speaker 60 They heard Houston had been messaging with Karina on Snapchat, and Ryan wasn't happy about it.

Speaker 27 He is also brought in to talk to investigators.

Speaker 22 Yeah, Houston showed up at the Taman County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 118 Let's grab a seat where

Speaker 118 you can grab a seat here. It'd be great.
Salva.

Speaker 22 His demeanor was very relaxed.

Speaker 98 Cooperative.

Speaker 22 He was very cooperative.

Speaker 22 He was kind of joking with the DCI agent in the interview.

Speaker 118 Keep in mind, I don't know you. I've known you for what 10 minutes now.

Speaker 58 Yeah.

Speaker 118 But you kind of got a reputation where you're pretty successful with the ladies, right?

Speaker 58 I'm one.

Speaker 118 We're better luck than some

Speaker 118 or not as bad as others years ago.

Speaker 118 Yeah, I mean, it's bad to say, but I'm young with two kids. The rumor that's going around is Ryan

Speaker 118 or you and Karina were Snapchatting.

Speaker 118 Did that actually happen at some point?

Speaker 118 Yeah. It's not anything,

Speaker 118 you know, just your typical Snap, like I said, Snapchat random, you know. What I was told, and keep in mind, this is sometimes second and third hand through people,

Speaker 118 is that Ryan found out that you're Snapchatting. Did Ryan never know about you two, Seth Chin? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 41 But he said it was no big deal.

Speaker 42 They were just friends.

Speaker 118 There's no point in you kind of dance.

Speaker 118 If you were screwing around with her or whatever, it doesn't make you a killer. Everybody's got got weird going on in their lives.
Right. Okay.

Speaker 118 So I don't want you to get too nervous about it. Because if you had an affair with Karina, it doesn't make you guilty of anything other than you had an affair with her.
Right.

Speaker 118 Well, and that, I'll put it this way. I'll completely dumb it down.
So like, with me and Karina, I was literally sitting there like a, I would say, a gay best friend.

Speaker 22 I'm more like a gay best friend.

Speaker 119 Only

Speaker 48 he's not gay.

Speaker 20 That's correct.

Speaker 42 Karina was 20 years older than Houston.

Speaker 41 He said she gave him advice and even offered to help him out with his kids.

Speaker 118 Me and my baby mama split up.

Speaker 118 She loves kids, whatever. And

Speaker 118 she always told me, you know, if you're ever in a pinch, hey, you know, I don't have a problem watching your kids. And then the Snapchatting, did that kind of coincide with watching the kids?

Speaker 118 Yeah,

Speaker 118 that's where...

Speaker 118 That's where that picked up. You're the hopeless single dad that needs help every now.

Speaker 118 That's pretty well kind of the way. Yeah.

Speaker 41 Houston said he was home asleep when the murder happened.

Speaker 118 What time do you think you went to bed? Oh, probably

Speaker 118 11, 11.30.

Speaker 118 So after 11.

Speaker 118 Yeah, probably, yeah, I'd say 10.30, 11.

Speaker 41 Did the investigators believe him?

Speaker 22 Yeah, I mean, we would follow up with his alibi to see.

Speaker 118 So

Speaker 118 it's a long process for us. We had several rumors that we got to track down right now.
Yeah. So you're you're just one of them.
I get don't feel too spot.

Speaker 41 The interview ended with investigators concluding this lead was likely a dead end.

Speaker 34 Just another red herring.

Speaker 33 I think they kind of explained it as just a friendship that maybe somebody had misinterpreted it as being

Speaker 33 a relationship.

Speaker 41 But the idea that some kind of love triangle might be at the center of the murder was juicy gossip for a small town. Ashton was quick to dismiss it as an absurd rumor.

Speaker 19 It was almost laughable. You know, one of my good friends' husbands was just murdered and the rumor mill is just flying now.
There was a 20-year age gap.

Speaker 57 Investigators asked you about Houston.

Speaker 69 Yes.

Speaker 73 They asked if we thought maybe he was involved and I didn't think so. I didn't think that was his way of doing things.

Speaker 4 Just not his way of.

Speaker 57 He's more into cougars than killing.

Speaker 73 Yeah, I think he's more of a lover than a fighter.

Speaker 43 Months passed.

Speaker 52 The fall harvest arrived and still no arrest.

Speaker 26 Yeah, it was very frustrating.

Speaker 106 And we were in touch with law enforcement weekly and we knew they were working on things, but it just, everything takes time and we just had to be patient.

Speaker 106 And then, you know, as it became a cold case, then it was like, oh, you know.

Speaker 88 Did they actually call it a cold case?

Speaker 97 Yes.

Speaker 65 Law enforcement?

Speaker 106 Yep. About six, seven months in.
It's even so quick. It's only been seven months.

Speaker 27 It hasn't even been a year.

Speaker 27 And there's a killer over there.

Speaker 45 The trail to Ryan's killer had gone cold, but it was by no means frozen.

Speaker 56 The truth about someone in his inner circle could be the key to it all.

Speaker 77 Enter Karen.

Speaker 28 Sometimes Karen could drift into bad Karen.

Speaker 29 Ah, yeah, when she had way too much to drink.

Speaker 102 This Christmas, give the gift of fun.

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Speaker 60 In the months after Ryan Cooper's murder, Ashton Wilson saw her friend Karina doing her best to raise her three children without him.

Speaker 43 It wasn't easy.

Speaker 41 She gave up cutting hair and moved with the kids into a different house on the Cooper farm.

Speaker 52 And Karina's just feeling lonelier as the time goes on?

Speaker 35 Is that how you saw it?

Speaker 19 You know, I think so. I think, you know, not as many people were reaching out or checking on her.
She was just feeling, you know, lonely.

Speaker 46 Truth was, while Ashton had remained close with Karina, other friends like Kirsty and Carmen had drifted away.

Speaker 117 We did something together at least once a week, and we'd talk almost every day until our relationship really kind of...

Speaker 117 went south.

Speaker 6 The breakdown started before the murder because being a real housewife of Tama County alongside Karina meant real drama sometimes followed.

Speaker 36 Karina had a nickname when she was drinking.

Speaker 76 Yep, we called her Karen.

Speaker 73 Karen. Yeah, Karen, but it was Karen before there was all the Karens of the world.
So we should have copyrighted that, actually.

Speaker 123 It started off as a very fun,

Speaker 123 just general nickname for her.

Speaker 41 Turns out Karina's alter ego wasn't always so funny.

Speaker 28 Sometimes Karen could drift into bad Karen.

Speaker 29 Yeah, when she had way too much to drink, and she would use that as the excuse.

Speaker 41 Kirstie remembers one particular incident after a golf tournament.

Speaker 29 There were many drinks to be had, and she just kind of turned vile.

Speaker 85 She would go outside the clubhouse and scream, like people could hear her from everywhere.

Speaker 70 What is everyone thinking when this is happening?

Speaker 29 Everybody thought, what is going on? Like, everyone were like, Ryan, do you think it's time to take her home?

Speaker 58 And he's like,

Speaker 32 she ain't going to listen to me.

Speaker 41 Jamie and Carmen say those drunken outbursts were often directed at Ryan.

Speaker 117 It could be just the smallest thing that would just set her off.

Speaker 73 Like, why did you wear those boots? Why did you wear these other boots tonight?

Speaker 4 I mean, just something like that.

Speaker 95 How did Ryan take it?

Speaker 49 He just kind of water on a duck's back.

Speaker 41 The friends hadn't told police about Karina's belligerent side, but investigators had their own concerns about her behavior.

Speaker 41 Despite that cold case designation, detectives were still following up on leads, and they couldn't shake the idea that some of the things Karina did seemed off, starting the morning of the murder.

Speaker 48 Karina, instead of calling 911, calls Aaron, her brother-in-law.

Speaker 22 Yeah, that to me seems very odd in this case. You call 911 if someone's hurt, if you need the police.
You need the ambulance, you need to fire, you call 911.

Speaker 7 Assistant County Attorney Geneva Williams says investigators were also scrutinizing how Karina acted when the first responders did arrive.

Speaker 25 It seemed very unusual for her to be sitting on his body, not trying to render any kind of aid, not allowing others to come and render any aid. Everyone understands that

Speaker 97 People have different trauma responses, but it just seemed overboard.

Speaker 52 She also thought it was odd that Karina wasn't more attentive to her children in that moment.

Speaker 53 I'm always looking from the vantage point of a mother.

Speaker 25 And I just could not understand

Speaker 25 and I could not wrap my mind around why she wasn't initially running to protect her children. And she seemed to be too wrapped up in her own

Speaker 25 emotional display.

Speaker 41 And there were things about Karina's story that didn't add up.

Speaker 60 Like when she told one of the deputies she tried to get a gun to protect herself, but couldn't open her safe.

Speaker 69 I couldn't get my

Speaker 69 gun out of the safe.

Speaker 18 You couldn't get your gun out of his face?

Speaker 22 Because when the deputy tried to do it himself, he was able to open up the safe, which then he goes, well, this is really weird.

Speaker 22 She said she couldn't get her safe open, but I just walked over and opened it.

Speaker 41 Detective Killian also thought it was strange that Karina's 100-pound Rottweiler ransom had somehow slept through the attack.

Speaker 22 Even Karina told us that the dog patrols the house at night, goes and checks on the kids in their bedrooms, and makes sure that everybody's safe.

Speaker 97 But the dog was asleep at the foot of the bed?

Speaker 4 It was in her bedroom at the foot of the bed, never got up, never woke up.

Speaker 41 But for all the things about that first day that raised red flags, it was what Karina didn't do in the months that followed that really struck Detective Killian.

Speaker 22 So Karina Cooper never contacted us and asked where the investigation stood that would be something that you would think someone would be interested in you know who's taken your husband yeah you would think that she would want to know like

Speaker 22 she would be demanding like why is this taking so long and

Speaker 78 she never contacted us karina didn't call them and investigators had not talked to her since about a month after the murder Her brother Kurt said she had good reason to keep her distance.

Speaker 112 Karina would get upset when

Speaker 112 she was was asked questions.

Speaker 4 She felt like she was being accused.

Speaker 112 She felt like they thought she had something to do with it.

Speaker 27 Investigators certainly had their suspicions, and the people of Trayer, Iowa had some as well.

Speaker 28 That's a hot potato right there that you now have in the palm of your hand.

Speaker 29 I sat on that for

Speaker 29 quite some time.

Speaker 22 One of the DCI agents slides the Snapchat conversation forward up on the dash, and there's just this pause.

Speaker 32 There was another twist in all of this that you did not see coming.

Speaker 92 Right.

Speaker 121 We thought that the book was closed.

Speaker 94 And then they

Speaker 34 uncovered another chapter.

Speaker 41 Ryan Cooper's family was not surprised to learn investigators suspected Karina was involved in his murder.

Speaker 70 They wondered at themselves.

Speaker 60 Sister Michelle agreed that something about Karina's reaction seemed off from the start.

Speaker 33 You don't know how anyone's going to respond in those kinds of situations, but just something didn't seem to mesh with the events of the day.

Speaker 20 You want to stand up?

Speaker 69 Yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 69 Okay.

Speaker 97 Like she was very broken up and very

Speaker 33 emotional, but

Speaker 124 just

Speaker 123 not

Speaker 88 as genuine as you would think you felt like she was acting maybe maybe a little

Speaker 51 and as time went on they could see she wasn't hounding police for answers like she never had contact with law enforcement again she did talk to aaron about the investigation one morning she called and i think she saw they had found a shell casing and she wanted to know what that meant it seemed odd to me just because she i would think she would know what a shell casing is because we've shotguns.

Speaker 7 Aaron thought she was playing dumb.

Speaker 46 While neither sibling wanted to believe Karina was capable of killing their brother, they were growing more and more suspicious.

Speaker 33 She's not behaving in a way of someone who's innocent and wants their husband's murderer to be found.

Speaker 41 But authorities urged them to keep Karina and the kids in their lives.

Speaker 68 So they celebrated holidays together and invited them on family vacations.

Speaker 21 If you think that this woman killed your brother and then you have to be nice to her, I don't even know.

Speaker 26 Is the strategy just to keep her sort of, you know, off her guard?

Speaker 22 Yeah, so it was don't shun her out of out of the family and maybe something will come about that, that she'll let her guard down and let something slip.

Speaker 52 She never did.

Speaker 110 More months passed.

Speaker 41 Detectives kept working and collected digital evidence using an investigative tool called geofencing.

Speaker 41 They analyzed the cell phone and GPS data from traffic around the Cooper farmhouse in the hours before and after the murder.

Speaker 22 It's an imaginary fence that would go over the property. We were looking for devices to,

Speaker 22 did anybody come there and did anybody leave?

Speaker 60 The geofencing data led to a major discovery. What they didn't see.

Speaker 22 So we had no devices or anything coming and going from the residence.

Speaker 92 What was a possibility based on that?

Speaker 22 That potentially Karina. had murdered her husband.

Speaker 48 That the killer was inside the house.

Speaker 73 She was.

Speaker 46 That was the theory, anyway. They were eager to confront Karina with this new evidence.

Speaker 52 But it had been almost two years since she last spoke with investigators, and they were worried she wouldn't agree to a meeting.

Speaker 41 That's when the family keeping Karina close paid off. She'd always trusted Ryan's brother Aaron, and he asked her to sit down with detectives again.

Speaker 51 I'm like, all right, here's your time to talk to him and settle anything that they have to talk about.

Speaker 91 She said yes.

Speaker 23 And she said yeah.

Speaker 30 It was May 2023.

Speaker 56 A DCI special agent met Karina at the farm.

Speaker 59 This will be an interview with Karina Cooper.

Speaker 113 He asked her to take him back to that June morning when she found her husband Ryan shot in his recliner.

Speaker 38 I got up and kind of just to look and find that noise and find Ryan.

Speaker 126 Why, why didn't he wake up to that? Yeah.

Speaker 98 When I went in the living room, I said his name a couple of times because it looked like he was sleeping.

Speaker 46 She again described the chaotic scene when Aaron and first responders arrived and found her wailing on Ryan's lap.

Speaker 126 I remember Aaron over my shoulder took his pulse and he was on the phone with 911 because I remember saying, no, there's no pulse or something about it that I screamed and screamed.

Speaker 123 I know that.

Speaker 126 And I'm embarrassed that I did everything wrong.

Speaker 93 I just remember screaming.

Speaker 58 I thought somebody was here.

Speaker 56 The investigator drilled down on the details from that morning.

Speaker 127 And was Ransom in the bed or is he at least?

Speaker 58 He was at the foot of the bed.

Speaker 127 Because you said you almost tripped over him.

Speaker 37 I did trip over him.

Speaker 68 But Karina grew impatient with the interview.

Speaker 93 I need to be finishing up soon, so if there's something you have to do, yet.

Speaker 127 Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate your time.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 52 The investigator had one more thing to ask her about.

Speaker 128 So, Karina, I mean, at this point,

Speaker 22 the case fact shows that nobody did come into the house that night.

Speaker 37 Somebody did.

Speaker 98 Somebody obviously came in here.

Speaker 80 my husband's dead he is karina and we we both know at this point why that is karina we know that it wasn't someone coming inside the house you're leaving my property now somebody came into my house and killed my husband go figure out who killed my husband

Speaker 80 well we did we did no you obviously did

Speaker 30 Karina stormed outside.

Speaker 52 The investigator followed.

Speaker 58 Let's talk about it. No, get off my property.

Speaker 100 You want to talk?

Speaker 58 You You talk to my lawyer.

Speaker 128 Well, I don't want to talk to you. I just want to talk to you because you're the one that knows what happened to Ryan that night.

Speaker 100 No, I don't. If I knew what happened to my husband, I'd be in jail because the s would be dead.

Speaker 128 Karina.

Speaker 128 Get off my property.

Speaker 51 I talked to the investigator right after that. He said it didn't end well.
And he got kicked off their property. And she was not going to talk to them again.

Speaker 56 The sit-down didn't yield anything useful, except maybe a glimpse at Karina's famous temper.

Speaker 6 Detective Killian felt they had a strong enough case against her, but it was up to the Iowa Attorney General's office to file charges, and he says the assistant AG assigned to the case wasn't receptive.

Speaker 56 More months passed until a chance encounter with the AG herself allowed the detective to make his case.

Speaker 22 I had a conversation with her that I feel she's got this big momentum of really pursuing Iowa cold cases. This is a cold case.

Speaker 22 I felt like your office maybe wasn't giving the assistance that we needed. And she said that she was not aware of that.

Speaker 56 Soon after that meeting, a new prosecutor from the Attorney General's office was assigned to the case. But it wasn't just a fresh set of eyes that would finally break it open.

Speaker 56 There would also be a fresh set of revelations.

Speaker 85 We took his phone and looked at all the messages, and it was just tons of messages of I love you and messages of

Speaker 35 on his phone.

Speaker 20 Clearly, an affair.

Speaker 102 This Christmas, give the gift of fun.

Speaker 31 The most wonderful time of the year happens here at Academy Sports and Outdoors. Shop in-store or online at academy.com to save on gifts for everybody's list.

Speaker 104 Find everything from football jerseys and basketball hoops to fire pits and deer stands.

Speaker 104 Academy carries all the hottest gear from top brands, including Nike, Adidas, Carhartt, Carhartt, Yeti, and Pit Boss.

Speaker 31 Give the gift of fun this holiday season at Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Speaker 81 Think you know your breaking point?

Speaker 32 If you're a woman with weak bones due to osteoporosis after menopause, sadly, you may not.

Speaker 37 Women can lose up to 20% of their bone density within five to seven years after menopause, making bones weaker and more likely to break.

Speaker 122 And after the first fracture, we're five times more likely to break another bone within a year.

Speaker 37 It could happen from a simple slip or just bending to lift a bag of groceries.

Speaker 81 Don't wait for a breaking point.

Speaker 75 Visit bonebreakingpoint.com to learn about how osteoporosis medications can reduce the risk of fractures.

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Speaker 40 It was fall 2023.

Speaker 7 A new prosecutor was assigned to review the Ryan Cooper case, Assistant Attorney General Michael Ringel.

Speaker 25 It's one of those cases where I look at it and we're not at a standstill. We're not dead in the water.
There's things that we can do.

Speaker 41 Ringle spent three months with investigators and the local prosecutor looking at the case from every angle, reviewing witness statements, and eliminating all other possibilities before coming to the same conclusion as Detective Killian.

Speaker 25 We thought there was enough evidence to proceed.

Speaker 21 Mike comes in and says, I think we have enough for the arrest.

Speaker 41 On February 16th, 2024, Detective Killian rolled onto the Cooper Farm with a team of deputies. Karina walked outside to greet them.

Speaker 22 All right, we got some paperwork for you.

Speaker 69 Did you have music overhanging?

Speaker 4 Well, you're under arrest.

Speaker 69 What? Yep.

Speaker 22 So we're placing you under arrest. There's going to be some people at the sheriff's office that are going to be talking to you.

Speaker 69 Well, am I under arrest?

Speaker 52 If you'll let me.

Speaker 79 Mike Pildren, you guys, Mike Pildren. What is happening here?

Speaker 24 What is happening? Do you have a copy of your warrant, Lou?

Speaker 79 I don't understand.

Speaker 79 What?

Speaker 79 This is insane. Slide stands for Rena being still here.

Speaker 69 How is this

Speaker 51 I got a call from Trevor Killian in the morning and said, We just arrested Trina.

Speaker 51 Can you come over and get the kids?

Speaker 7 What's that like?

Speaker 51 It was a lot of emotion. Six to your stomach

Speaker 112 type of feeling.

Speaker 51 Not a it wasn't a good feeling.

Speaker 7 Ashton got a frantic phone call from one of karina's sons

Speaker 19 the cops are here arresting mom and so goes through your mind when you hear that unbelievable you know what is happening guys just did not believe it they're out of leads and this is their next one

Speaker 112 ashton was sure karina was innocent so was karina's brother kurt who visited her in jail soon after the arrest i do remember she saying to me you don't believe any of this do you then i told her absolutely not no he didn't do it

Speaker 73 they're mistaken.

Speaker 68 He found his sister, two defense attorneys, Erin Haubaker and Nicole Watt.

Speaker 48 And what were your first impressions?

Speaker 129 My first impression was that she was possibly a victim here of a wrongful prosecution.

Speaker 57 Why did you think that?

Speaker 129 Because it didn't sound like there was any evidence against her at all.

Speaker 88 They're looking at Karina as the sole killer in this, and yet you have this shoe print

Speaker 106 coming out of the house.

Speaker 69 Right.

Speaker 22 The physical evidence did not line up with her being responsible for this.

Speaker 17 Like the fact that no murder weapon had been found and another gaping hole, no proof of any motive.

Speaker 52 Investigators were working on that. And right after the arrest, they reached out to Karina's close circle of girlfriends, including Kirsty.

Speaker 116 And they called and said, I don't know if you know, but Karina's being arrested. And we would like you to come down and for us to talk to you.

Speaker 95 I mean, you must have been just shaking.

Speaker 76 I still like you're shaking now.

Speaker 111 I mean, I can only imagine in the moment.

Speaker 115 What are they hoping that you can offer?

Speaker 123 I think just what kind of

Speaker 123 person she was, if there was anything going on.

Speaker 42 It was the first time Kirstie spoke with investigators.

Speaker 52 They had questions about Houston Danker, the young womanizer who jokingly called himself Karina's gay best friend.

Speaker 68 Rumors of an affair between the two had not died down, and detectives wanted to see what Kirstie knew.

Speaker 110 Turned out, a

Speaker 29 I had heard some things that really

Speaker 29 started to kind of concern me.

Speaker 42 It was several months before the murder.

Speaker 41 Kirstie was hanging out with some other moms.

Speaker 32 Another friend came and said that she was with Houston Danker all day.

Speaker 29 There was just like hundreds of messages coming through between him and Karina.

Speaker 98 What kind of messages?

Speaker 62 And that's what we were like, what do you mean?

Speaker 84 He was only a couple years older than my son.

Speaker 45 Then Houston himself showed up at the house.

Speaker 84 Us girls are

Speaker 29 very inquisitive.

Speaker 98 So we took his phone.

Speaker 76 Female housewives of Tama County.

Speaker 29 We took his phone and

Speaker 29 looked at all the messages, and it was just tons of messages of I love you and messages.

Speaker 76 So it was like

Speaker 34 clearly an affair.

Speaker 76 I mean, here she is.

Speaker 98 She has this great husband, children, business, farm, friends, and then now she's with this guy, half rage.

Speaker 58 Oh, I just couldn't even wrap my head around and understand that.

Speaker 28 I mean, that's, that's a hot potato right there that you're, that you now have in the palm of your hand.

Speaker 29 I sat on that for

Speaker 84 quite some time,

Speaker 88 and I regret that probably to this day.

Speaker 41 But now she told investigators everything.

Speaker 35 Did that feel at all cathartic to you that you'd held this in for so long and then now it's finally

Speaker 89 out in the open?

Speaker 29 Yes and no.

Speaker 58 Like, I want to help

Speaker 123 bring justice to Ryan, but also, there's those

Speaker 29 years of friendship.

Speaker 7 Did you feel like you were, in a way, betraying Karina?

Speaker 123 Yeah.

Speaker 41 But Kirsty's story wasn't hard evidence.

Speaker 110 The messages she saw were on Snapchat and long gone.

Speaker 41 That's because Snapchat is designed to delete most communications 24 hours after they're seen.

Speaker 41 Authorities had been in possession of Karina's phone since the day of the murder and found no evidence of an affair with Houston. Now, the new prosecutor wanted a second look.

Speaker 72 Did you sort of feel like it was a bit of a Hail Mary since it had already been looked at?

Speaker 25 To some degree, yes.

Speaker 41 He reached out to a forensic investigator at the University of Iowa and asked her to try to extract additional evidence from the phone.

Speaker 27 She hit pay dirt.

Speaker 7 Turns out deleted Snapchats sometimes don't completely disappear.

Speaker 41 The expert was able to recover a trove of messages between Karina and Houston Danker.

Speaker 92 What exactly are you reading on these messages?

Speaker 25 The Snapchat messages made clear that Karina Cooper and Houston Danker were engaged in some sort of an affair.

Speaker 26 The gay best friend is having sex with his female

Speaker 69 best friend.

Speaker 52 It was all there on Karina's phone.

Speaker 41 Messages like this one from Houston.

Speaker 45 You got to see me in my underwear this morning, and I haven't gotten to see you.

Speaker 52 In another, Karina tells Houston, just fell even harder for you.

Speaker 83 They even discussed having a baby through IVF.

Speaker 25 There were discussions of essentially Houston Danker assuming Ryan Cooper's role in Karina's life. Conversations about having their own children together, essentially plans for the future.

Speaker 41 It was time to talk to Houston Danker again.

Speaker 52 What would the young man have to say now?

Speaker 22 Are you guys telling me that I'm the one that did it?

Speaker 60 Investigators wanted another interview with Houston Danker, the young man they just confirmed was having an affair with Karina when her husband was murdered.

Speaker 22 He ended up being in Cedar Rapids and agrees to meet the DCI agents in Menard's parking lot.

Speaker 16 Thanks for taking time out of your busy workday.

Speaker 22 Obviously, at this point, Karina's been arrested. You know,

Speaker 22 as things have moved along, there's still a few gaps in our knowledge.

Speaker 60 They told Houston they knew all about the affair, and now he readily admitted to it.

Speaker 22 You'd become romantically attracted to her.

Speaker 14 Yep.

Speaker 22 That right, and things had progressed. Yep.

Speaker 60 Houston told them Ryan had confronted him, and he lied his way out of it.

Speaker 22 Did he basically ask you if there was something going on between you and Karina? Pretty much. You just straight up said no.

Speaker 22 Yeah, when he got a hold of me about that, I mean, that made me feel pretty low as a person.

Speaker 82 I mean, it

Speaker 22 took all spade to spade. It felt bad for kind of pissing in his cheerio.
Okay. Did you guys ever talk about a plan to

Speaker 22 relocate together or live together at some point in the future? No. No.

Speaker 22 One of the DCI agents slides

Speaker 22 the Snapchat conversation forward up on the dash, And

Speaker 22 there's just this pause.

Speaker 60 And they up the pressure even more.

Speaker 41 It wasn't true, but they told Houston that Karina was cooperating from jail and was pointing the finger at him.

Speaker 15 Karina

Speaker 73 has a way of explaining this.

Speaker 22 And it's Houston who is the love-crazed

Speaker 22 person who just hated Ryan.

Speaker 22 And that will be the story that gets told. And that's not true.
No, it's not true. Tell me about that night.
So, I mean, just to be honest with you,

Speaker 22 Krano wanted me to go over there and do it.

Speaker 69 Yeah.

Speaker 22 Let's start over and talk about these early morning hours, right?

Speaker 22 I guess what I'm going to ask you guys right now. Are you guys telling me that I'm the one that did it?

Speaker 83 Then it all came spilling out his version of events anyway.

Speaker 22 Who first put the idea forward to end his life?

Speaker 58 Krayta.

Speaker 22 What would be the next thing then that would happen in the plan?

Speaker 22 Was to, I guess, be together and live life together.

Speaker 22 Which that would ever happen.

Speaker 22 Was this 50-50?

Speaker 22 Would you say?

Speaker 22 I would feel like I was forced into a lot of that stuff.

Speaker 56 Houston said the plan was for him to be the shooter, but then he changed his mind.

Speaker 22 How did she receive that? When you're like, I don't want to do this. Now very good.
Um,

Speaker 3 call me a

Speaker 22 you know, thought you were going to take care of us, uh, things like that.

Speaker 56 Houston said he did agree to help.

Speaker 41 He lent Karina his gun. Okay.

Speaker 22 Brian got shot with a 22 that I own.

Speaker 61 Who shot it?

Speaker 61 Karina.

Speaker 22 Where were you at?

Speaker 56 At home.

Speaker 52 He said that after Karina killed Ryan, he drove to the farm to retrieve the weapon.

Speaker 46 He was careful to leave his phone at home.

Speaker 22 Where was it at when you picked it up? In the driveway. What vehicle did you drive over there to pick the gun up?

Speaker 22 A four-wheeler. Kind of beyond the radar, I suppose.

Speaker 26 Houston Danker is denying...

Speaker 56 having anything to do with the shooting.

Speaker 4 Correct.

Speaker 65 But he's

Speaker 48 implicating himself.

Speaker 22 He thinks that he did nothing wrong.

Speaker 41 He said it was all Karina,

Speaker 68 an older woman who manipulated him.

Speaker 22 She's a pretty dominant person. It was so forced upon me with, and like I said, once again, should have just been a bigger person that said, Karina, you, this is stupid.

Speaker 20 This is dumb.

Speaker 14 What are we doing?

Speaker 52 Investigators didn't believe all of Houston's story.

Speaker 41 They suspected he was in the house when Ryan was killed. That bloody shoe print found at the crime scene turned out to be from a van sneaker, which matched his shoes.

Speaker 22 Are you guys arresting me? Just be honest with me. At this point,

Speaker 22 based on what you just shared with me, we didn't need to place you on your arrest.

Speaker 17 Like Karina, Houston Danker was charged with first-degree murder.

Speaker 51 That was a big shock because we were told early on that they talked to him several times and he wasn't a suspect anymore, that he had an alibi and there's nothing they had on him.

Speaker 84 So, turns out that was not the case.

Speaker 62 Yeah, that was not the case.

Speaker 41 Ashton at first thought Houston's arrest meant Karina was innocent.

Speaker 19 I felt relief because I thought, I told you guys, I told you she didn't do this. I knew she couldn't do this.
And then it took about five minutes for it to kind of hit me that they did this together.

Speaker 98 That's a tough pill to swallow.

Speaker 69 Yeah.

Speaker 52 But was that the whole story? A jury was about to hear two very different versions of events.

Speaker 25 She tells Houston Danker, go, now's the time.

Speaker 129 She's wrapped up in something, doesn't think this is actually going to happen.

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Speaker 41 Karina Cooper and her much younger lover, Houston Danker, were each facing life behind bars for killing Karina's husband, Ryan.

Speaker 41 There would be two separate trials.

Speaker 52 Karina's would come first.

Speaker 91 The prosecutor knew there were challenges.

Speaker 48 I mean, this is a farmer's wife.

Speaker 70 Her children are in the house.

Speaker 57 She's a hairdresser.

Speaker 48 She's, you know, a member of this tight-knit community.

Speaker 97 Did you worry that jurors would have a hard time seeing her as a cold-blooded killer?

Speaker 25 Yes. I think it's something that's really hard for people to understand.
We had a concern that jurors maybe wouldn't allow themselves to believe it.

Speaker 41 The prosecution team was a trio. Joining Michael Ringle and Geneva Williams was Assistant Attorney General Israel Kodiaga.

Speaker 103 The evidence will show that she is a murderer. Evidence in this case

Speaker 56 will prove beyond a reasonable doubt

Speaker 56 that she is guilty.

Speaker 41 They told the jury that Karina and Houston planned the murder together, executing Ryan while he slept.

Speaker 56 And the state said the two had a a plan for financing their future together.

Speaker 34 There was also a lot of money involved in this, as far as life insurance that Karina was set to collect.

Speaker 25 Correct. We were able to find out that there was an insurance policy in the amount of $500,000, of which Karina was the beneficiary.

Speaker 52 Prosecutors showed jurors footage of the chaotic scene at the farmhouse.

Speaker 56 Including Karina sitting on her husband's bloody body.

Speaker 52 They said she did that for a reason.

Speaker 23 She jumps on Ryan.

Speaker 71 She puts her face, forehead,

Speaker 58 hair

Speaker 25 into the blood coming from Ryan's face.

Speaker 25 Why is her face on the left side where the bullet holes are?

Speaker 25 Because she's concealing evidence.

Speaker 25 I believe that she pulled the trigger and that caused backspatter or blood to spray onto her face, which explains why she was sitting on Ryan Cooper when law enforcement arrives, rubbing her face essentially on the wound, covering her own face in blood.

Speaker 41 That's what Ryan's brother Aaron walked into that morning.

Speaker 87 Aaron has first responder training and testified that he noticed something odd about the blood.

Speaker 51 At that point, it looked like it was darkening. It wasn't bright red.

Speaker 25 What did that mean to you?

Speaker 63 That it wasn't immediately fresh.

Speaker 44 Prosecutors argued that meant Ryan had been shot earlier than Karina claimed, and they said her phone backed that up.

Speaker 20 You extracted some health data from Karina's phone that showed something suspicious to you about her movements.

Speaker 25 Yes, it showed that she was up and was moving around the house during a period of time that she said she was asleep.

Speaker 39 A full 10 minutes before she called for help.

Speaker 30 The phone shows that she was walking

Speaker 131 between 4:23

Speaker 131 and 4:33, 170 steps.

Speaker 52 The state called the Cooper's eldest son, Cade, to the stand.

Speaker 41 With cameras barred for his testimony, the now 15-year-old told the jury that on the night of the murder, his mother instructed him to sleep in his own bed instead of his usual spot on the couch near his dad.

Speaker 25 It was a critical piece of information.

Speaker 25 That shows the level of planning and calculation on her part.

Speaker 95 Is it possible that she's just a mom, you know, saying, hey, you're not getting a good night's sleep.

Speaker 48 I want you to start sleeping in your own bed.

Speaker 25 It's absolutely possible in isolation. But when you look at the full constellation of evidence, every piece together,

Speaker 25 is it probable or likely that this was an innocent act?

Speaker 82 It's not.

Speaker 52 The state also called friends, including Carmen Earhart, who told the jury about fights she saw between Ryan and Karina.

Speaker 132 She was arguing with Ryan. Another friend tried to step in and kind of like desolve the situation.
She even grabbed that person by the hair and ripped them back out of the argument. So

Speaker 103 you could physically tell that she was very upset.

Speaker 46 Another friend, Teresa McBride, testified she heard this threat directed at Ryan.

Speaker 119 Well, the one that stands out in my mind is the night that she yelled at him and

Speaker 119 said that she

Speaker 119 hated him and would shoot him in the face.

Speaker 56 But the state's strongest evidence appeared to be Karina and Houston's own words.

Speaker 91 Those Snapchat messages recovered by the prosecution's expert.

Speaker 41 And those messages revealed a lot more than just pillow talk.

Speaker 60 In one, she belittled Ryan as just her sperm donor.

Speaker 56 In another, she seemed to wish he was dead.

Speaker 34 You found one of her Snapchat messages to Houston Danker said, I'm wishing for a rogue semi-accident, no survivors.

Speaker 50 And Ryan.

Speaker 111 drove a truck. He did.

Speaker 25 He drove a semi with some regularity for his farm duties. And yes, she sent that message to Houston Danker, which clearly indicates, from the state's perspective, malice.

Speaker 41 But the most damning were messages about the murder itself.

Speaker 25 They certainly think they've done a good job of deleting the most incriminating snaps. And a lot of what they did is pretty stupid.

Speaker 97 Pretty easily discovered.

Speaker 60 Roughly an hour before the 911 call, Houston messaged Karina.

Speaker 78 Okay, babe, seriously putting the phone down.

Speaker 83 Have to get this expletive done.

Speaker 82 I love you.

Speaker 44 Karina replied, go.

Speaker 25 She tells Houston to anchor, go, which was the sign that the coast was clear for him to come into the house and for the two of them to commit this murder.

Speaker 41 And the state said if there was any doubt about what they were discussing, look at what else Houston said. Remember those casings.

Speaker 52 Karina's reply?

Speaker 91 Absolutely.

Speaker 78 100%.

Speaker 25 They shoot Ryan.

Speaker 25 The plan is for Houston to get out of there as fast as possible out that door, which is exactly what happened. Karina's job is to find shell casings.

Speaker 25 She uses her cell phone flashlight to search around. She finds one.

Speaker 25 She doesn't find the other.

Speaker 91 Karina's brother Kurt had stood by her side since her arrest.

Speaker 87 Now, as he sat in court, the full weight of the evidence sunk in.

Speaker 49 I was disgusted.

Speaker 112 It was disgusting. Coming home from the trial, that my mom muttered something like,

Speaker 38 Where did I go wrong?

Speaker 112 I mean,

Speaker 112 it's not something she did, obviously.

Speaker 83 How could Karina possibly recover from this?

Speaker 41 She was about to try by telling her story directly to the jury.

Speaker 97 I was disgusted

Speaker 58 and scared of losing my husband.

Speaker 41 Over and over, Karina Cooper told friends and family she did not kill her husband, Ryan. Now, her defense was about to explain what really happened.

Speaker 133 Houston Danker killed Ryan Cooper.

Speaker 130 Houston Danker shot Ryan Cooper in the face.

Speaker 115 The strategy was point the finger at Houston Danker that he's your guy, that you want to be focusing on here.

Speaker 129 He is, and that it's like she's wrapped up in something, doesn't think this is actually going to happen, and then it does.

Speaker 52 Karina's story was the opposite of what Houston told police.

Speaker 17 In her version, the younger man coerced her into taking part in the murder.

Speaker 133 Houston Danker solicited Karina.

Speaker 40 Houston Danker manipulated Karina.

Speaker 130 Karina Cooper was in a dream world and then it became real.

Speaker 56 And then she was in too deep.

Speaker 45 And no one could explain that better than Karina.

Speaker 63 You swear or affirm that the testimony you'll be giving in these proceedings will be the truth.

Speaker 35 I do, Your Honor. You decided to put Karina on the stand.

Speaker 20 Yes, and why?

Speaker 26 Because it's, you know, that's something that we don't see very often.

Speaker 129 Because the jury needed to hear that she's a regular person, a good mother, somebody who loves her children, and who would not do this.

Speaker 129 And so she had to take the stand so the jury could see more than just her sitting next to us at the table silently.

Speaker 41 From the witness chair, Karina described how, as a married mother of three, she ended up in a relationship with a man 20 years younger.

Speaker 130 How did you meet him?

Speaker 93 I knew of him for years, but I started cutting his hair is how I met him. And I was being showered with attention by him, being told I was beautiful and funny.

Speaker 90 Why can't I find a woman like that?

Speaker 93 And it became very flattering to me.

Speaker 41 Karina testified that the romance was mostly a fantasy that played out on Snapchat.

Speaker 93 It's odd because when I would cut his hair, we would talk about the same things that I would talk about with any other customers. It wasn't lewd.

Speaker 97 It wasn't flirtatious.

Speaker 93 That was when we Snapchatted at night that it was like we were shy in person, but

Speaker 90 became

Speaker 93 other people when we were texting each other.

Speaker 129 At one point, did it become physical?

Speaker 93 There was one physical encounter. Yes.
The last time I cut his hair before he killed Ryan, it would have been in February. I cut his hair and we had

Speaker 93 sex.

Speaker 56 After that, she told Houston to stop coming to the salon.

Speaker 34 Why did you stop cutting his hair?

Speaker 93 Because I didn't want that chance of that happening ever again.

Speaker 93 It was an online fantasy thing, and when it became a physical in-person thing, I was disgusted

Speaker 58 and scared of losing my husband.

Speaker 46 But Karina said Houston refused to back off.

Speaker 93 Houston acted like he was my husband and Ryan was my

Speaker 93 boyfriend.

Speaker 41 Karina told the court that Houston was the one who wanted Ryan dead.

Speaker 35 Did Houston talk about killing Ryan?

Speaker 93 Several times.

Speaker 26 Did you ever take him seriously?

Speaker 93 No, I thought he was full of crap.

Speaker 93 He's got quite a reputation around town with women and telling tall tales.

Speaker 52 She insisted she had no idea what Houston was planning to do until the worst had already happened.

Speaker 129 You get to the living room, you turn on the lamp, what happens?

Speaker 93 I see Ryan, and then I see a large pool of blood.

Speaker 93 I shook his foot.

Speaker 93 Okay.

Speaker 93 And then I just started screeping.

Speaker 130 Can you tell us why you called Aaron instead of 911 first?

Speaker 29 Aaron lives less than a mile from us.

Speaker 93 Aaron is a first responder. Aaron is is the person closest to us that I would trust in a time of emergency.
I called him because I was panicking.

Speaker 129 Ryan was killed with your three children home.

Speaker 130 Would you ever orchestrate the murder of your husband with your three kids home?

Speaker 58 Never.

Speaker 57 One of the points that you wanted to make for the jury was that what kind of mother

Speaker 26 would kill her husband in this small farmhouse with the children home.

Speaker 129 That was one of the reasons I believe that she was innocent because,

Speaker 129 for all intents and purposes, she seemed like a very good mother.

Speaker 30 Karina said, although she never saw Houston in the house, she knew no one else could have killed Ryan.

Speaker 32 Then, when the police get there, why didn't you tell them Houston shot my husband?

Speaker 93 I was so scared. I instantly thought I was being set up in some one of his plots that he laid out all the time through Snapchat.

Speaker 58 I panicked.

Speaker 130 And then did you continue to lie to law enforcement for years?

Speaker 125 I did.

Speaker 22 Once she committed to a path which wasn't coming clean about her relationship with Houston Danker, it was too late.

Speaker 22 You know, if she would have come forward and said, this is what was going on, this might have been a different result.

Speaker 41 From the beginning, the defense understood the importance of addressing some of the most damaging evidence.

Speaker 89 The elephant in the room, which is the

Speaker 32 Snapchat.

Speaker 129 There's a message about a rogue semi-accident that we saw on the Snapchat.

Speaker 130 Did you want your husband dead? No.

Speaker 7 Why would you say that?

Speaker 93 Because I have a really sick sense of humor sometimes, inappropriate humor, and

Speaker 93 I was probably angry. Like people have said, especially when I drink, I can say, I have a sharp tongue sometimes and can say nasty things.

Speaker 91 And what about that message she sent just before Ryan was killed?

Speaker 41 The one prosecutor said simply read, go.

Speaker 78 She testified there was more to it.

Speaker 93 I know I said more. I sent three messages in a row.

Speaker 133 What did they say?

Speaker 125 Go to sleep.

Speaker 93 Three messages, like putting periods in between the words to emphasize go to sleep.

Speaker 60 In other words, she was telling Houston, good night, not come over and help me kill my husband.

Speaker 91 The defense said the prosecution's expert had essentially hacked into Karina's phone and didn't recover everything.

Speaker 129 Well, she claims she said, go to sleep, that there were three messages and the data didn't retrieve completely. And we fought a lot about data loss from phone information and phone dumps.

Speaker 6 It's essentially a hack.

Speaker 129 The software is them kind of getting through the back door and being able to expose some information, but they can't answer.

Speaker 133 They can't figure everything out.

Speaker 41 But one thing was clear in those digital conversations, according to the defense, once Ryan was killed, communication between the lovers abruptly ended.

Speaker 56 Nobody testified to any indication of a continued relationship between Karina and Houston.

Speaker 129 So why does it end?

Speaker 60 It ends because it became real and he actually killed her husband.

Speaker 129 Houston Danker on this evening went rogue.

Speaker 35 And he actually did it.

Speaker 52 Among those listening in court was Ashton,

Speaker 41 still struggling to make sense of it all.

Speaker 89 You watched her up there.

Speaker 87 How did that feel?

Speaker 20 I mean,

Speaker 19 there was parts of her story that became believable. Maybe she was manipulated into this.

Speaker 83 Would the jury feel the same way?

Speaker 63 Testimony you'll be giving in these proceedings will be.

Speaker 17 Karina Cooper had just told the jury she was manipulated by Houston Danker, and he was the one who shot her husband.

Speaker 56 You state you loved Ryan Cooper?

Speaker 93 Yes.

Speaker 135 You loved him?

Speaker 93 Yes.

Speaker 135 Very much?

Speaker 93 Yes.

Speaker 41 Now, prosecutor Israel Kodiaga made it his mission to poke holes in her story.

Speaker 135 You had a lover.

Speaker 93 That's what you call him. Yes.

Speaker 135 What do you call him?

Speaker 93 I called him an online, inappropriate relationship.

Speaker 25 We felt confident that even if people did have sympathy for her, we could remind them of the evidence that they'd seen.

Speaker 56 The person you just referred to as a spam donor, that's your husband, Ryan Cooper, who you tell this jury you loved so dearly.

Speaker 93 I think we all call the people that we love names at times.

Speaker 41 He then asked Karina to read her own loving words to Houston.

Speaker 93 I swear, hard emoji.

Speaker 123 It just felt even harder for you, which I don't think I could have been any more crazy over you than I already was.

Speaker 41 And the exchanges got more explicit. The prosecutor wanted the jury to hear it all.

Speaker 93 Good morning, baby. You would have woke up to your horny wife's hand wrapped around your this morning.

Speaker 41 He asked about suggestive photos the pair swapped.

Speaker 93 He wrote, you got to see me in my underwear this morning, and I haven't gotten to see you.

Speaker 135 You got to see him

Speaker 131 in his underwear that morning.

Speaker 93 He's in a Snapchat, but yes.

Speaker 39 The prosecution also wanted to know this.

Speaker 27 If Karina was so innocent, how could she possibly explain that text exchange about picking up the shell casings?

Speaker 131 Then he says, Remember those casings.

Speaker 131 Remember those.

Speaker 131 No ifs, ands, or buts.

Speaker 117 That's what he said.

Speaker 25 You say,

Speaker 133 absolutely.

Speaker 62 100%.

Speaker 93 That was the Snapchat I sent. Yes.

Speaker 27 You watched Karina testify. Yep.

Speaker 115 Your thoughts on what you were seeing and hearing.

Speaker 73 Lies.

Speaker 96 All lies.

Speaker 73 It actually made me go back and think about everything, every conversation I'd ever had with her. How much I thought she probably lied during all of those also.

Speaker 41 Even her own attorneys had to admit, Karina's cross-examination did not go well.

Speaker 129 Cross-examination was pretty brutal, but it was more just a shock effect of embarrassing her. And that's that's what the state did.

Speaker 35 They succeeded.

Speaker 41 After that, the case went to the jury.

Speaker 42 It was not a long wait.

Speaker 134 Three and a half hours later, has the jury in fact reached a verdict?

Speaker 134 We, the jury, find the defendant, Karina Cooper, guilty of the offense of murder in the first degree.

Speaker 51 I felt a lot different than I thought I would feel.

Speaker 51 It wasn't relief. It wasn't.

Speaker 51 happiness. It was just, I want to say it was sad how it went down.
And

Speaker 51 I mean, we lost another family member.

Speaker 48 And it doesn't bring back Ryan.

Speaker 123 And it doesn't bring Ryan back.

Speaker 41 The women who once considered Karina a close friend felt the same sense of emptiness.

Speaker 85 Nobody in their wildest dreams would ever think that you would have a friend that could do this and gives you a lot of trust issues with people from now on.

Speaker 41 But a few felt as wounded as Karina's own brother.

Speaker 112 This is hard for me to say. I don't, I think as Karina aged, she wasn't mentally stable, I guess.
I think she believed she was smarter than she actually was.

Speaker 112 Now, don't get me wrong, she was a smart woman, but I believe she thought she could actually get away with this.

Speaker 50 As excruciating as it was to sit through the trial, Ryan's family prepared to go through it all again with Houston Danker set to go on trial a month later.

Speaker 52 After his last interview with police, prosecutors expected Danker to blame Karina for the murder scheme.

Speaker 60 But by now, they'd also done a deep dive into his electronics.

Speaker 30 And it turned out he wasn't the most clever criminal when it came to searching the web.

Speaker 35 Talk about some of the things he was searching for.

Speaker 25 Considering different potential poisons, the best gun to use to kill someone.

Speaker 87 The questions included, how do people get caught for shooting?

Speaker 83 And the best way to kill somebody with no evidence.

Speaker 87 Maybe that's why he changed his mind as the trial was beginning.

Speaker 62 That morning of jury selection, I got called from Mike Ringle, the prosecutor, and

Speaker 51 today about five minutes ago, he pled guilty.

Speaker 35 Everything came to a screeching halt.

Speaker 35 And

Speaker 51 that was a good feeling. Just not having to go through that again

Speaker 51 was good.

Speaker 42 Both Karina and Houston Danker were automatically sentenced to life behind bars.

Speaker 45 Ryan's children now live with their uncle Aaron and his wife.

Speaker 41 And their uncle Kurt has found a way to stay in their lives, despite the horrible things his sister did.

Speaker 4 I wouldn't say it's awkward anymore.

Speaker 112 It was in the beginning, you know, but it's just not anymore because they're so great. They're another good family.

Speaker 83 Life on the family farm churns on.

Speaker 83 Through seasons of planting and harvests, Aaron built a new, bigger house on the land where the kids can grow up with their cousins, who are really like siblings now.

Speaker 92 What's life like on the farm now that you've doubled your children three to six?

Speaker 20 Yeah, it's busy.

Speaker 51 There's usually something going on at all times, so it's somewhat out-of-control chaos.

Speaker 49 It's a ride.

Speaker 53 A ride, just like Ryan, a man who loved farm and family, would have wanted.

Speaker 16 That's all for this edition of Dateline.

Speaker 16 And don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast, which will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 16 We'll see you again next Friday at 9:8 Central. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.
Good night.

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