One day, a woman named Karen is at the gym when she meets another woman. Karen thinks this woman is attractive and immediately falls in love with her. Here’s the problem: Karen is already married to a man named James Craig, and they have three kids together. Leaving him would be very difficult.
Instead of leaving James, Karen starts going to the gym more often to see this other woman. The other woman’s name is Sunny, and she is a personal trainer at the gym. Eventually, Karen decides to become a personal trainer as well, so she can spend more time with Sunny. They become more intimate and ultimately begin a romantic relationship.
However, Karen is an honest person and can’t keep secrets from her husband. She tells James about her fling with Sunny. James Craig is very controlling; he has many rules for Karen. He gives her a curfew, limits her spending money, insists they have sex every night at 8:00 PM sharp, and makes her go to bed by 9:00 PM. It’s a strange situation.
Surprisingly, when Karen tells James about her affair with Sunny, he is supportive. He says it won’t affect their marriage and even tries to get involved by sending Sunny flowers and nice texts. He suggests a threesome, but both women refuse his involvement. As Karen and Sunny’s relationship deepens, James realizes he’s losing control of his wife and decides he cannot let this happen.
To regain control, he accepts a new job out of state and moves Karen and their family far away from Sunny, from Texas to Missouri. Although Karen moves with her family, she refuses to end her relationship with Sunny. They continue their fling long-distance through emails and phone calls, sometimes visiting each other.
One night, Karen and James return to Texas for a friend’s New Year’s Eve party. At the party, Sunny shows up, and things get wild. Everyone’s a little drunk, and Karen and Sunny start openly flirting and making physical contact in front of everyone.
Eventually, they wander off together, and some party guests catch them kissing.
When James finds out about this, he is furious and humiliated. A huge fight breaks out between him and Karen that escalates into a shoving match while their friends awkwardly watch. Feeling desperate, James gives Karen an ultimatum: it’s either Sunny or him.
A few weeks later, Karen files for divorce. This drives James Craig into a downward spiral; his behavior becomes erratic. At one point, he commits battery against Karen and gets arrested. Frustrated with the situation, Karen takes the kids and moves out.
James becomes obsessed with her; he starts stalking her and spying on her. At one point, he lets the air out of her tires and installs spyware on her home computer. His obsession grows so intense that he begins looking at old family photo albums during work hours, which leads to his firing.
With no job or family at 46 years old, he embarrassingly moves back to Kansas to live with his parents. Then Thanksgiving rolls around. That evening, Karen and the kids are at their grandmother’s house in Kansas—about an hour away from where James lives with his parents.
Suddenly, James bursts through the back door carrying a rifle while Karen is in the kitchen with their 10-year-old son Sean. They are terrified. James aims the rifle at Karen and shoots her twice; she falls to the floor while Sean ducks down and runs out the back door.
James continues through the house; he goes to the living room where he shoots Karen’s 89-year-old mother before shooting his own 18-year-old daughter. Finally, he goes upstairs and shoots his other daughter who is 16 years old.
Meanwhile, 10-year-old Sean runs to a neighbor’s house and has them call the police. The next morning, police find James Craig and arrest him; here’s his mug shot.
He goes to trial for capital murder and is found guilty—not sentenced to life but to death row. To this day, he remains alive on death row in Missouri.
