WESTMORELAND — The lead investigator into a 2002 double homicide in Topeka said Thursday he delayed taking the case against Dana Chandler to the district attorney because he wanted to get more evidence.

Chandler, representing herself, spent all day Thursday examining former Topeka Police Department detective Richard Volle, who headed the investigation into the murders of Chandler’s ex-husband, Michael Sisco, and his fiancee, Karen Harkness. Chandler is in her third trial for the killings, this time in Pottawatomie County with local jurors after a Shawnee County District Court judge granted a change of venue because of concerns about media attention. Chandler was convicted of the crime in 2012, but an appeals court overturned it in 2018, and her second trial ended in a hung jury in 2022.

During Volle’s testimony, Chandler asked why he didn’t go to Shawnee County’s then-district attorney Robert Hecht in 2003, when he thought the case was strong enough to arrest her, and he said he “was always hopeful that I could get more information, more conclusive information.”

Also on Thursday, jurors watched Volle’s initial interview with Chandler’s and Sisco’s daughter, Hailey Seel, in the days after the murder. In the video, Seel said she’d last spoken with her father on July 4, 2002, two days before the murders. She also told Volle that Chandler hated Sisco and didn’t like Harkness, though to Seel’s knowledge there had been no physical violence between them.

Volle said he originally thought it was “a stretch” for Chandler to drive from Denver, where she lived at the time, to Topeka, where Sisco and Harkness lived, to commit the murders, but he later began to suspect her.

When Chandler asked what evidence convinced Volle of her guilt, he said he thought it was unusual that Chandler hadn’t asked how the murder happened or if her children were all right when Volle told her of Sisco’s death. He also said Chandler’s past conflict with Sisco and Harkness as well as emails to Seel — in which Chandler described Sisco as a “monster” and Harkness as a “whore” — displayed a “type of hatred that contributed to my belief of the evidence.”

He said Chandler’s unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation also led him to suspect her. When giving Volle her alibi in 2002, Chandler reportedly said the day of the murders she had run specific errands in Denver and gone home. However, when Volle later spoke with Jeff Bailey, an acquaintance of Chandler’s, Bailey said she’d told him she had been in the mountains at the time of the murders, that she had not told the police the truth and that she didn’t want to change her story.

Volle referred a recorded phone call between Seel and Chandler in which Chandler mentioned she’d thought about killing Sisco. Volle said further investigation in 2009 turned up Chandler’s phone records showing a 27-hour period with no phone activity from 3 p.m. July 6 to 7 p.m. July 7, 2002. The murders occurred overnight between July 6 and 7. Multiple witnesses previously described Chandler’s phone usage as regular, and at times, she harassed Sisco and Harkness before their deaths.

Volle said he’d received pressure from victims’ families to progress in the case with a special interest in Chandler. He clarified to jurors that this wasn’t unusual, as family members often want assurances investigators were doing everything possible.

After the jury was dismissed Thursday, Chandler made another request for assistant counsel to help her lay the foundation for a specific article of evidence she wants to admit and believes is important to the case.

Chandler dismissed her defense attorneys, Tom Bath and Tricia Bath, and decided to represent herself before opening statements began Feb. 7. Shawnee County District Court Judge Cheryl Rios reminded Chandler she’d been warned of her duty to uphold the rules of the court when choosing to defend herself.

Rios also said it will be incredibly difficult to find a Shawnee County attorney Chandler hadn’t already dismissed previously and that she doesn’t know of anyone willing to travel from Topeka for the specific purpose Chandler wants to pursue. The Pottawatomie County representative who had been assisting Tom Bath and Tricia Bath withdrew from the case after their dismissal.