A Staged Scene

Lisa Dahm Carlson, 27, lived with her husband, Daniel, and their three-year-old twin sons in a trailer home in rural Kapowsin, Washington. Daniel’s parents lived about 150 yards away through the woods, and his mother, Carol, kept a journal tracking Lisa’s movements. Lisa was planning to leave the marriage and move to Arizona with her boyfriend, Shawn McKillop.

On July 18, 1998, Lisa was shot twice in the head and once in the chest on the living room couch, and the scene was arranged to look like a robbery and to humiliate her. Daniel had left for his afternoon shift at a rehabilitation center, and that night he called 911 saying he had come home and found her. Investigators came to believe the timeline had been manipulated: the FBI found that a message from Lisa’s mother had been erased from the answering machine tape and Carol’s messages recorded over it.

In April 2003 a Pierce County jury convicted Daniel and Carol of first-degree murder. In 2006 the Washington Court of Appeals reversed both convictions, finding that improperly obtained evidence and inadmissible hearsay had been used. In January 2008, Daniel pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received 23 years. Carol pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and violating human remains and was released for time served.