TOLEDO – Karina Sue Cooper’s first degree murder trial has been reset to February of 2025.

On July 30, Assistant Attorney General Michael H. Ringle filed a motion for a continuance of the 10-day jury trial which had been set to begin Oct. 1 of this year. The State asked for the date change due to both Ringle and Assistant Attorney General Israel Kodiaga scheduled to be in trial on other matters. Karina Cooper’s defense attorney, Nichole Watt with the Waterloo Public Defender’s Office, did not resist the request.

While both the State and defense asked for the trial be reset to next January, on Aug. 13, Chief Judge Lars G. Anderson reset the trial to February 25, 2025. The trial will remain in Linn County as previously ordered.

Karina Cooper, a longtime rural Traer resident and mother, was arrested last February following a more than two-and-a-half year investigation by both the Tama County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation into the death of her husband Ryan Cooper, 42, who was found deceased in their shared home in the early morning hours of June 18, 2021, following a 911 call from the residence.

According to the criminal complaint in the case, a deputy found Ryan Cooper lying in a recliner with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the front of his face, while Karina Cooper was allegedly observed to be sitting on top of him.

In a written arraignment filed on March 14, Karina Cooper, now 47, entered a plea of not guilty to the single charge of first degree murder, a Class A felony.

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

Both Karina Cooper and Danker remain behind bars in the Tama County Jail on $1 million bonds.

A conviction of first degree murder in Iowa carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility for parole or probation.