Dateline: The Farmer’s Wife - Where are Karina Cooper and Huston Danker now? Details revealed

NBC’s Dateline presented a recent episode titled The Farmer’s Wife on December 12, 2025, which investigated the murder of the farmer from Iowa, Ryan Cooper.

The episode, which was presented by Andrea Canning, explored a case that stunned the tiny agricultural town of Traer, Iowa, where a seemingly charming family life turned into an evil plot of conspiracy, love affairs, and murder.

So, where are Karina Cooper and Huston Danker, the people behind all of this, now? That’s the question everyone is asking after seeing the Dateline episode.

Back on June 18, 2021, Ryan Cooper was shot in his own house. At first, maybe it looked like an accident. But cops start digging, and there’s a secret affair, explicit digital communications, and life insurance money on the line. Fast forward almost four years, and both Karina and Huston are locked up for life without a chance of parole.

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Dateline: The Farmer’s Wife - Where is Karina Cooper?

Dateline Tonight reports that the case dragged on for almost three years while investigators slowly pieced everything together. Then, on February 29, 2024, police arrested Karina Cooper and charged her with first-degree murder. She was held on a $5 million bond. Karina kept insisting she was innocent. She said Danker acted alone and forced her into it with threats.

Because the story was all over the local news, the court moved Karina’s trial to the Linn County District Court in Cedar Rapids to give her a fair shot. Court TV covered the trial when it kicked off in June 2025. Prosecutors spent two weeks laying out the affair, sharing incriminating messages, and digging into forensic details.

The prosecution gave the jury two main options. Assistant Iowa Attorney General Mike Ringle told them either Karina pulled the trigger herself or she helped Danker do it. Whichever way you looked at it, both led straight to first-degree murder.

Forensic experts took the stand and said the blood spatter and bullet paths showed Karina was kneeling when the shots were fired. Prosecutors also claimed she smeared Ryan’s blood on her own face, trying to look devastated, trying to throw everyone off her trail.

The Dateline episode showed that Karina took the stand in her own defense, telling the jury her marriage to Ryan was “good” and “normal.” She said Ryan handled their finances and admitted she often overdrafted her account, blaming it on being lazy or just forgetting. She ran a barbershop out of her home and sometimes kept cash around, but didn’t always get to the bank to deposit it.

Karina told the jury how her relationship with Danker started with haircuts and turned into exchanging Snapchat messages. She admitted Danker gave her the kind of praise and attention she wasn’t getting from Ryan. She said they had s*x once, in February 2021, but after that, she stopped seeing him in person because she felt disgusted and scared of ruining her marriage, as per Dateline.

On the night Ryan died, Karina said she spent June 17, 2021, with her family at a local sports complex, then picked up pizza and headed home. Her lawyers insisted she never meant to kill anyone and argued that Danker manipulated her. They leaned hard on her emotional testimony, telling the jury, “being wrong doesn’t make her guilty.”

The defense went after the state’s case, calling out what they saw as holes in the tech data and forensic evidence, and pointed out there was no proof Karina shot Ryan or planned the murder. Her attorney summed it up by saying:

“She may be an idiot in her relationship…but she didn’t murder her husband.”

But on July 11, 2025, the jury didn’t buy it. They took less than a day to find Karina Cooper guilty of first-degree murder. According to Dateline, she got life in prison without parole, the mandatory sentence in Iowa.

At sentencing, Chief Judge Lars Anderson shot down her request for a new trial. He said the evidence clearly backed up the jury’s decision. He called the killing “senseless” as per The Gazette and told Karina:

“Your actions, whether you were the one who shot Mr. Cooper or whether … aiding and abetting Huston Danker resulted in his death, you deprived your children of not only a father, but of a mother given this life sentence.”

Dateline said Karina was emotional at sentencing but didn’t speak to the court. She has to pay $150,000 in restitution to Ryan’s estate, plus court costs and victim compensation fees.

By December 2025, Karina, now 48, was serving her life sentence in an Iowa prison. Dateline reported she can still appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, but so far, there has been no word on any appeal.

Meanwhile, The Gazette said Ryan’s family is trying to stop her from getting any insurance money, using Iowa’s slayer law, which blocks anyone who kills from cashing in on it.

Where is Huston William Danker?

Police arrested Huston William Danker on April 29, 2024, about two months after Karina Cooper went to jail. He was 27, and the North Tama Telegraph reported he faced a first-degree murder charge for working with Karina to kill Ryan Cooper. They set his bond at a hefty $1 million.

Right away, Danker pleaded not guilty. In court that May, he said he had an alibi: he claimed he was at his parents’ house at 2798 Highway 8 in Traer when the murder happened. During police interviews, he even denied dating Karina and called their relationship more of a “gay best friend” thing, at least according to Court TV.

But things changed. Investigators found piles of Snapchat messages and forensic evidence tying Danker to the crime. Faced with all that, his defense took a sharp turn.

Just as his trial was about to start, minutes before jury selection on August 12, 2025, Danker surprised everyone. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Johnson County District Court. He admitted he helped Karina Cooper kill her husband. There was no plea deal. According to Dateline, his lawyer, Leon F. Spies, told reporters Danker wanted to own up to what he had done and spare both families, plus the whole community, the pain of a trial.

CBS2 Iowa got a look at the criminal complaint, which quoted Danker telling police he had helped Karina with the murder. Prosecutors said the two lovers planned it together, and Danker’s confession proved their case.

Danker’s sentencing took place on October 3, 2025, in Tama County District Court, the same courtroom where Karina got her sentence just two weeks earlier. Judge Lars Anderson read the verdict: guilty of first-degree murder. The sentence is life in prison, no parole.

That day, Ryan Cooper’s family spoke in court. His sister, Michelle Wilson, gave a gut-wrenching statement. The Gazette shared her words:

“Preparing and presenting a second victim impact statement for the murder of a loved one is unjust. Not only did one of these psychopaths have a demented, vile, and evil mind, but they both contributed to the planning and execution of my brother's murder.”

Wilson spoke directly to Danker. She asked what his dream was and asked if he wanted Ryan’s life and wanted to take his place. She said Ryan was sentenced to death by the murderer. She said the people left behind were sentenced to a life without Ryan. Wilson ended by calling Danker a psychopath, like his accomplice.

Danker’s lawyer, Leon Spies, spoke for him. He said the case was a tragedy, especially in a small town where everyone knows each other. Spies said Danker was emotionally and morally lost. He said this led Danker to help Karina Cooper murder her husband. Spies also said Danker promised to use his time in prison to work on himself.

Judge Anderson said Danker deserved “some credit” for pleading guilty, but made it clear that it didn’t make up for what he had done. The judge told Danker he would have plenty of time to think about the damage he caused.

Besides life in prison, the Times Republican reported that Danker has to pay $150,000 in restitution to Cooper’s estate, plus court costs and victim compensation fees.

As of December 2025, Danker, now 28, is locked up in an Iowa state prison, serving life with no parole, according to Dateline. The Tama-Toledo News Chronicle said he was told about his right to appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court within 30 days, and he could get a court-appointed lawyer if he couldn’t afford one. So far, there is no word on any appeal.