On March 10, 2014, Tiffany Workman woke up to a loud bang in the middle of the night. When she walked downstairs to check on her boyfriend, Daniel Raven, who had fallen asleep on the couch, she found blood and glass everywhere, and a hole in his arm.
“I’m not a hunter, I didn’t know the smell of gunpowder in your house,” Workman recalled on Oxygen’s Snapped. “That’s a smell I will never forget.”
What Happened That Night
Emergency responders arrived at their home in rural Wisconsin and found that Raven had died from a gunshot wound. However, the shocking part was that the shot was fired from outside the house.
Former Barron County Sheriff’s Detective David Kuffel explained, “There was a perfect angle from the front porch that you could see down to the couch in the basement. Somebody walked up to the door, didn’t try to make entry, and fired two rounds through the door, making perfect shots at a defenseless victim.”
A Suspicious Background
When police asked Tiffany who might want Daniel dead, she immediately mentioned Trista Hrabak, Daniel’s ex-wife.
Daniel and Trista were high school sweethearts who got married in 2005. They had two children and ran a family-owned restaurant. However, their marriage became strained due to financial issues, and they divorced in 2013. Loved ones said Daniel had been drinking heavily and was depressed before meeting Tiffany.
Daniel suspected that Trista had lied about her finances to get more child support. According to Tiffany, Daniel even said, “If anything ever happens, it’s her, it’s Trista.”
The Involvement of Ian Skjerly
While investigating the murder, police received a tip about Ian Skjerly, Trista’s boyfriend. Skjerly made an offhand comment during an interview, suggesting that the easiest way to end the conflict with Daniel was to kill him.
Police began tracking Trista and Ian’s phone records. They later found Skjerly and Trista at a restaurant. Skjerly claimed he and Trista were home during the murder and showed them his home security footage. Trista denied any conflict with her ex-husband and expressed her desire for whoever killed him to receive the death penalty.
The Chilling Text Messages
However, the text messages between Skjerly and Trista revealed a different story. Detective David Kuffel called their messages “chilling.” They revealed that Skjerly had backed out of several attempts to kill Daniel, which frustrated Trista. One message from Skjerly read, “I’m promising you, he will not make it Monday morning,” to which Trista replied, “Don’t make me promises you can’t keep.”
The texts also revealed a third person involved in the plot: Robert McBain, a friend who had been paid to drive the getaway car.
The Confessions
When police spoke to McBain, he confessed that he and Skjerly had made at least six trips to the farm to kill Daniel. He was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide. In September 2014, McBain pleaded guilty.
Later, Skjerly admitted to killing Daniel but claimed that Trista had been the mastermind behind the murder. He confessed that after the murder, he returned home through a door not covered by security cameras.
Skjerly was arrested and pleaded guilty to first-degree intentional homicide as well.
Trista Hrabak’s Denial
Despite the evidence, Trista continued to deny her involvement. “Why am I being arrested? I didn’t do anything,” she said. She believed that because she didn’t physically pull the trigger, she wasn’t responsible for Daniel’s death.
Sentencing
Skjerly and McBain were sentenced to 20 years and 15 years in prison, respectively. Trista accepted a plea deal and in February 2015, she was sentenced to 15 years of initial confinement and 10 years of extended supervision.
