Tiffany Workman awoke to a loud bang at midnight on March 10, 2014.
Workman got out of bed and walked downstairs to the couch where her boyfriend Daniel Raven had fallen asleep. There, she found glass and blood everywhere—and a hole in Daniel’s arm.
“I’m not a hunter, I didn’t know the smell of gunpowder in your house,” Workman said on the April 5 episode of Oxygen’s Snapped. “That’s a smell I will never forget.”
When emergency responders arrived at their rural Wisconsin home, they determined that Raven died from a gunshot wound. However, the more 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 revelation? The shot was fired outside.
“There was a perfect angle from the front porch that you could see down to the couch in the basement,” former Barron County Sheriff’s Detective David Kuffel told Snapped. “Somebody walked up to the outside of the door, did not attempt to make entry, fired two rounds through the door, making what would be perfect shots at a victim lying defenseless.”
Trista Hrabak was sentenced for the murder of her ex-husband Daniel Raven in 2014.
Photo: Oxygen
Two empty shell casings were found outside and there were tracks leading from the road to around the house leading detectives to one clear answer.
“It wasn’t random,” said Kuffel. “It truly was as much of a hit as I have ever seen.”
When police asked Workman who wanted Raven dead, she was quick to offer a name: His ex-wife Trista Hrabak.
Inside Daniel Raven and Trista Hrabak’s Marriage—and Messy Divorce
Raven and Hrabak were high school sweethearts who married in 2005. A few years later, the couple—parents to a daughter and a son—opened the Bullwhip Cafe in Barron.
Running a family business while raising kids, however, strained their marriage and they divorced in 2013. Loved ones said Raven was depressed and drank heavily—until he fell in love with coworker Workman.
Meanwhile, Raven and Hrabak’s divorce grew volatile, namely over financial issues. A few months before his death, Raven suspected Hrabak of misrepresenting her finances to receive more child support. Though he planned to alert the court, according to Workman, he worried she would retaliate.
As Workman admitted, “He had told me, ‘You know, Tiff, if anything ever happens, it’s her, it’s Trista.’”
Who Is Ian Skjerly?
Amid the murder investigation, police received a tip from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services notifying them about Hrabak’s boyfriend Ian Skjerly. A caseworker had been asked to interview him and Hrabak at the request of his ex-Karen Hanson, who claimed the couple mistreated her and Skjerly’s daughters.
During the interview, “Skjerly made an off-hand comment,” former Barron County Sheriff’s Detective Jeffrey Nelson told Snapped, “that the quickest and easiest way to end this conflict is to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 Dan Raven.”
Trista Hrabak was sentenced to prison for the 2014 murder of her ex-husband Daniel Raven.
Photo: Oxygen
Police set their sights on Hrabak and Skjerly, pulling their phone records and tracking them down at a restaurant.
Skjerly told police that he and Hrabak were home at the time of Raven’s murder, offering up his home security footage as evidence. Meanwhile, Hrabak dismissed any problems between her and Raven and told police whoever killed her ex should receive the death penalty.
Trista Hrabak and Ian Skjerly’s “Chilling” Phone Records Revealed
Their text messages told a different story, with Barron County Sheriff’s Detective Kuffell calling their correspondences “chilling.”
“The persuasion, threats, violence,” he recalled, “it was all spelled out.”
It was clear from the messages that Skjerly backed out of multiple attempts to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 Raven, which frustrated Hrabak.
“Ian was texting Trista saying, ‘I’m promising you, he will not make it Monday morning,’” Kuffel said. “Trista replied by saying, ‘Don’t make me promises you can’t keep.’”
The messages revealed a third suspect: Robert McBain, a friend they paid to drive the getaway car.
When police contacted McBain, he confessed that he and Skjerly made at least six trips to the farm to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 Raven.
McBain was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide; in Sept. 2014, he pleaded guilty.
Skjerly later admitted to police that he killed Raven, but insisted Hrabak was the mastermind.
He confessed that after murdering Raven he returned home, entering through a door obscured from his home security cameras.
Skjerly was arrested and pleaded guilty to first-degree intentional homicide.
Ian Skjerly (L) and Robert McBain (R) participated in the murder of Daniel Raven in March 2014.
Photo: Oxygen
Hrabak, however, held her ground.
“Trista’s initial response to officers was, ‘Why am I being arrested? I didn’t do anything,’” said Kuffel. “She believes because she didn’t pull the trigger, she’s not responsible.”
Skjerly and McBain were sentenced to 20 years and 15 years in prison, respectively.
Hrabak accepted a plea deal and in February 2015, she was sentenced to 15 years of initial confinement and 10 years on extended supervision.
