Karina Cooper murder trial postponed to February 2025 | News, Sports, Jobs

TOLEDO – Karina Sue Cooper’s trial for first-degree murder has been postponed until February 2025.

On July 30, Assistant Attorney General Michael H. Ringle filed a motion to adjourn the 10-day jury trial that was scheduled to begin on October 1 of this year. The state requested the postponement because both Ringle and Assistant Attorney General Israel Kodiaga were scheduled to stand trial on other cases. Karina Cooper's defense attorney, Nichole Watt of the Waterloo Public Defender's Office, did not oppose the motion.

Although both the state and the defense asked that the trial be postponed until next January, on August 13, Presiding Judge Lars G. Anderson rescheduled the trial for February 25, 2025. The trial will take place in Linn County as previously ordered.

Karina Cooper, a longtime rural Traer resident and mother, was arrested last February after both the Tama County Sheriff's Office and the Iowa State Police spent more than two and a half years investigating the death of her husband, Ryan Cooper, 42. Cooper was found dead in their shared home in the early hours of June 18, 2021, following a 911 call from the apartment.

According to the criminal complaint in that case, an officer found Ryan Cooper lying in a recliner with an apparent gunshot wound to his face while Karina Cooper was allegedly sitting on top of him.

In a written arraignment filed March 14, Karina Cooper, now 47, pleaded not guilty to the single count of premeditated murder, a Class A felony.

At the end of April this year, former Traer resident Huston William Danker, 26, was also arrested and charged with first-degree murder for “in collusion with Karina Cooper to kill Ryan Cooper.” Danker pleaded not guilty to the single Class A felony charge. His trial is currently scheduled to begin on December 17, 2024 in Johnson County.

Both Karina Cooper and Danker are being held in the Tama County Jail on $1 million bail.

A conviction for premeditated murder in Iowa carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.