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[FDInLaw]

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
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Prosecutor denies file on Dirksmeyer murder

Cites “ongoing” investigation in denying FOIA request
By Scott Perkins/
Editor
One hundred and fifty-two days after Kevin Jones of Dover was acquitted of the first-degree murder of his longtime girlfriend, Nona Dirksmeyer, 5th Judicial Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons yet again declined to release the complete investigative file on Dirksmeyer’s murder citing “an ongoing investigation” when The Courier made a verbal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request Monday.
When asked what actions on the part of the law enforcement deemed the file to be active or ongoing, Gibbons said, “Well, there are some samples being taken, and that is all I’m going to say at this time.”
In July, Gibbons said he intended to personally review the file. On Monday, he said that personal review of the file is not complete.
“As soon as these samples are analyzed and when we get everything done, we’ll open it [file] up,” Gibbons said.
Denial of file timeline
Minutes after Jones’ acquittal July 19 in the Franklin County Courthouse in Ozark, Gibbons told The Courier he did not “see any evidence at all that would compel [him] to bring charges against anyone else,” according to a July 29 article by Mary Kincy Benefield.
“I’m going to keep the file open for a short period of time,” Gibbons told The Courier then, adding he intended to review it personally. At that time, he did not indicate whether he intended to request further action on the part of the Russellville Police Department (RPD) or any other law enforcement agency.
The Courier filed a formal FOIA request for the Dirksmeyer case file in July, and since then, all Courier FOIA requests written or verbal for the file have been denied.
Also in July, Gibbons indicated he would be releasing the files “within a short period of time,” although he declined to specify how long that period might be beyond saying he was “certainly not talking months.” . . .


http://www.couriernews.com/story.php?ID=17136

[FDInLaw]

RUSSELLVILLE - Defense attorneys for a man found not guilty of murdering Russellville beauty queen, Nona Dirksmeyer say they have evidence that points to the real killer.

Kevin Jones was found not guilty in July. In a statement Michael Robbins, one of Jones' attorneys says the defense team is continuing to pursue justice on behalf of their client and Dirksmeyer.

The key to this new evidence, a condom wrapper found in Dirksmeyer's apartment, just four feet away from her body.

During the trial, the lead investigator, Mark Frost said someone told him the testing of the condom wrapper could be done for fingerprints, or DNA, but not both. Iinvestigators now know that's not the case.

According to witnesses at the trial, the state never tested the wrapper for DNA.

The defense team says a DNA match has been made. "This DNA evidence points toward a viable suspect in the case," Robbins wrote.

His statement didn't narrow down on whose DNA it was, but the defense team says it turned over the evidence to prosecutors.

Since late January, Jack Mcquary has been working on the case. He was assigned as special prosecutor. He says he was aware of the information provided by Jones' attorneys and it's one of the things he's looking into.

He wouldn't talk specifically about what else he's focusing his efforts on, but said he's looking at other possibilities too.

In an interview with the prosecutor, David Gibbons, after the not guilty verdict was handed down in July, he said "I don't see evidence that points to anyone other than the one tried, but the case will stay open."

In a phone call with Gibbons he told 5News the case is still open and he didn't feel right about commenting about the findings of the defense team.

This weekend, ‘48 Hours' is examining the Nona Dirksmeyer murder. It's part of a special 48hours mystery called ‘Who killed the beauty queen?' That airs Saturday night at nine, right here on channel five.


http://www.kfsm.com/Global/story.asp?S=7833750

[FDInLaw]

And justice will be done

New DNA evidence reactivates Dirksmeyer murder case

Editor’s Note: The following press release was submitted to The Dover Times for publication Tuesday morning by Michael Robbins, Attorney for Kevin Jones

Kevin Jones was found not guilty by a jury of his peers in Ozark, AR in July of 2007. In the days leading up to his trial, Jones’ Defense Team launched a thorough investigation into Nona Dirksmeyer’s murder. Utilizing the expertise of forensic, pathologic and behavioral scientists and consultants, evidence from the crime scene that had been ignored or never tested for DNA was thoroughly examined. A condom wrapper was found four feet from the body by Russellville Police Detectives and when tested yielded a DNA profile that could be compared. This is just one of the pieces of evidence that indicated there was another perpetrator, not Kevin Jones.

Following Kevin’s trial and acquittal, the Jones Defense Team continued its efforts not only seeking justice for Kevin Jones, but also Justice for Nona Dirksmeyer, in part, by seeking to identify the DNA on the condom wrapper. The Defense Team was recently notified that a DNA match had been confirmed with that of the DNA on the condom found close to Nona Dirksmeyer’s body at the crime scene. This DNA evidence points to a viable suspect in the case. Upon reviewing this report of this DNA analysis and match, the Defense Team immediately provided the evidence to prosecutors and the investigation is ongoing.

Although members of the Jones Defense Team have volunteered countless hours of time and effort, during the course of our investigation the Jones family has found it necessary to sell their home and family business to help defray the substantial debt they have incurred. Nonetheless, the Jones family and the Jones Defense Team have doggedly pursued justice on behalf of Kevin Jones and Nona Dirksmeyer. The Jones family and members of the Jones Defense Team are cooperating with the State of Arkansas Prosecutor’s Office. The discovery and match of DNA on this vital piece of evidence will hopefully begin the final chapter in the search for Justice for Nona.



http://www.atkinschronicle.com/dovnews1.htm

[FDInLaw]

Who Killed The Beauty Queen?
An Arkansas Beauty Queen Falls Victim To An Ugly Crime

Feb. 7, 2008
(CBS) On Dec. 15, 2005, just days shy of her 20th birthday, college student and Miss Arkansas contestant Nona Dirksmeyer was found bludgeoned to death in her apartment. The gruesome scene rocked the all-American town of Russellville, Ark. and spelled the grisly end to an inspiring but troubled life.

As a young girl, Dirksmeyer was haunted by a childhood of sexual abuse. For years she internalized this struggle, but it was her introduction to beauty pageants and her relationship with high school boyfriend Kevin Jones that eventually helped her transform from a painfully shy and reserved girl into a confident, strong young woman. Dirksmeyer even made preventing child abuse her cause when she appeared in pageants.

Dirksmeyer and Jones attended Arkansas Tech University together and by all accounts the couple was happy, but, according to Dirksmeyer's mother, they began fighting after Jones transferred to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. And their seemingly happy life came under scrutiny on the night of Dirksmeyer's death when police arrived to find Jones covered in blood. Jones, who, accompanied by his mother and friend, discovered the body, claimed that his appearance was the result of an effort to revive Dirksmeyer, but police speculated that it was caused by an attempt to contaminate the crime scene.

Police say a condom wrapper found at the scene revealed Dirksmeyer may have had a relationship with someone other than Jones. Investigators theorize Jones went into a violent rage when he discovered the empty wrapper. It was this wrapper and Jones' bloody palm print on the light bulb of the lamp used to kill Dirksmeyer that would be at the center of his trial. But it was a single word during the trial that would change everything.

After the trial the case really heats up. As Jones' defense team continues their probe, will new evidence lead to a new investigation?

Correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports for 48 Hours Mystery, this Saturday, Feb. 9, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/07/48hours/main3802230.shtml

[FDInLaw]

A judge has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate new evidence in the unsolved murder case of Arkansas Tech University student Nona Dirksmeyer, attorneys confirmed Thursday.

Judge Dennis Sutterfield of the 5 th Judicial District appointed Jack McQuary, who works for the Little Rock-based Arkansas Office of Prosecutor Coordinator. McQuary said his appointment was made in the past month, but he couldn’t recall the exact date.

McQuary confirmed only that he was investigating the Dec. 15, 2005, slaying of Dirksmeyer, 19. He would not comment specifically on the investigation’s focus or what prompted it.

But Russellville lawyer Michael Robbins, who successfully helped defend Dirksmeyer’s boyfriend, Kevin Jones of Dover, now 22, said, however, that he believed “the primary reason” for McQuary’s appointment was new DNA evidence uncovered by Jones’ defense team. A jury acquitted Jones of first-degree murder in July.

“I’m glad to see he’s been appointed and that this is being taken seriously,” Robbins said.

Jones, his mother and a friend of his found Dirksmeyer’s nude body lying in a pool of blood on her Russellville apartment’s living-room floor.

Russellville Police Department detective Mark Frost said in an affidavit accompanying Jones’ arrest in April 2006 that police found Jones’ bloody fingerprint on a lamp used to bludgeon Dirksmeyer. The defense later countered that Jones could have touched the lamp after Dirksmeyer was dead.

David Gibbons, 5 th Judicial District prosecuting attorney, has said Dirksmeyer was choked and beaten, stabbed and slashed with a knife on her face, shoulders and throat. The base of the floor lamp fractured her skull.

On Wednesday, Robbins released a statement that the defense had learned that DNA on a condom wrapper found 4 feet from Dirksmeyer’s body in her apartment turned up DNA that matched, not Jones’, but that of “a viable suspect in the case.” Robbins said the defense immediately turned over the evidence to prosecutors.

During Jones’ trial, the defense faulted the prosecution for not analyzing DNA recovered from the condom wrapper. Frost testified that he was told by state Crime Laboratory technicians shortly after Dirksmeyer’s death that the wrapper could not be tested for DNA and fingerprints. The detective said he later learned that he had misunderstood. Authorities have said they never found a condom. Robbins, commenting Thursday on why it took so long to find a match for the DNA, said, “Because [the defense has ] had to do it. We don’t have the resources the state has. We can’t compel people to give us a DNA sample.... We had to track down people we felt were suspects in our mind.” Frost also wrote in the arrest affidavit that he believed the condom wrapper was placed on a kitchen counter in Dirksmeyer’s apartment “to make it appear as if rape was the motive for the attack.” Police have said there was no sign of sexual assault. Rather, Gibbons, speaking at the time of Jones’ arrest, described the killing as a crime of passion “and a loss of temper, rage.” Robbins refused to comment Thursday on why the person whose DNA proved a match was a “viable” suspect. Robbins also declined to say whether Dirksmeyer knew that person. No one is in custody in the case, McQuary said.

Contacted Thursday, Gibbons declined to confirm McQuary’s appointment. McQuary, however, confirmed that under the way the system works, the district’s prosecutor — Gibbons — would have had to request that a judge appoint a special prosecutor.

In a brief statement, Gibbons said, “That case is an open file. It’s being investigated. Work is currently being done. I have no other comment on the investigation.” After Jones’ acquittal, Gibbons was asked about a renewed search for Dirksmeyer’s killer. He said at the time that the case would remain open but added, “We have no evidence to suggest anyone other than who we tried.” Dirksmeyer’s mother and stepfather, Carol and Duane Dipert, did not return a call seeking comment early Thursday. . .



http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/216115/

[FDInLaw]

Jones’ attorneys elusive on DNA match

Story date: Feb. 10, 2008

Robbins, Johnson decline to specify type of DNA matched or to whom
By Mary Kincy Benefield
Reporter
Following their release of information suggesting experts may have found a match for DNA found on a condom wrapper at the scene of a 19-year-old college student’s violent death, attorneys for Kevin Jones — the man tried for, and acquitted of, Nona Dirksmeyer’s murder — are now leaving more questions than answers.
One attorney, Michael Robbins of Dover, who issued the release just four days before a program featuring the murder was to air on national television, declined in an interview Thursday to specify what type of DNA was used in making the match.
“I think it’ll be revealed soon enough,” Robbins said.
There are three types of DNA — nuclear, mitochondrial and Y-chromosome. The type of DNA is significant in that only nuclear DNA is unique to each individual. Conversely, mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA are linked maternally and paternally, respectively, and can therefore only be used to exclude — not include — a particular person, according to expert testimony given at Jones’ trial.
During the trial, the prosecution’s theory was the condom wrapper was not direct evidence in the case, but was rather “a trigger” that sent Jones into “a fit of passion” in which he killed his longtime girlfriend.
Another of Jones’ defense attorneys, Kenneth Johnson of Monticello, was equally cryptic when asked whether new DNA evidence on the wrapper would be significant in providing his client with what he called “the ultimate vindication,” given the theory.
“I don’t think [the trigger] theory’s going to make any difference when all this comes to light,” Johnson said, declining to further explain his statement.
Robbins also declined a request to name the person to whom the DNA was matched. He said there was an individual who voluntarily provided a sample during Jones’ trial in July — but then added the DNA profile obtained from the condom wrapper was not matched to that person.
Since the trial, Gibbons, who despite telling a reporter in the immediate aftermath of Jones’ acquittal he did not “see any evidence at all that would compel [him] to bring charges against anyone else,” has consistently classified the case “an ongoing investigation,” citing the ongoing investigation exemption to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act in denying The Courier’s requests for the complete investigative file on the murder. Most recently, on Dec. 17, 2007, when asked what specific work was being done on the case, he told an editor for The Courier, “Well, there are some samples being taken, and that is all I’m going to say at this time.”
It remains unclear whether those “samples” may be linked to the defense’s assertions of a DNA match.
Robbins said in the release that upon receiving a report of the match, the defense team “provided the evidence to prosecutors.”
As for what interest the attorneys — both of whom, along with Jones’ third attorney, Bill Bristow of Jonesboro, confirmed they still represent Jones — have in the case nearly seven months after their client’s acquittal, Robbins said in the release it came of a desire to seek both “Justice for Kevin Jones,” and Dirksmeyer herself.
“All of us became close to the family and believe in our client, and believe in justice and want to see it served,” Robbins, who indicated he is not receiving payment for his services in the case at this time, said in an interview.
“I’ve had to sit and look at crime scene photos for hours on end,” he added, “so I have a desire to see the person that did it pay for it.
“I know that Kevin Jones did not kill her, and I have an interest and letting the person that did it pay for it.”
Johnson expressed similar sentiments.
“I’ve become pretty close to the family, and I think all the attorneys have been pretty interested in continuing to gather evidence to find out who killed Nona Dirksmeyer,” Johnson said.
“I think this thing’s going to come to a satisfactory conclusion,” he added.
On Friday, Dennis C. Sutterfield, administrative judge for the 5th Judicial District, confirmed in a press release he “recently” appointed a special prosecutor, 6th Judicial District Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jack McQuary, to investigate Dirksmeyer’s death.
Sutterfield, who said he did so at Gibbons’ request, declined to answer further questions about the appointment, and ordered the record surrounding it sealed pending the completion of the investigation.

http://www.couriernews.com/story.php?ID=17630

[FDInLaw]

Gibbons: 'Misunderstanding' provides portion...

Story date: Feb. 10, 2008

Gibbons: ‘Misunderstanding’ provides portion
of unreleased Dirksmeyer case file to television show
The many twists and turns of the ongoing investigation into the murder of Dover High School graduate and Arkansas Tech University student Nona Dirksmeyer — now entering its third year — perhaps lend themselves, in their complexity, to misunderstanding and confusion.
Apparently, elements of those states may have spilled over into other arenas surrounding the case,
as police interview footage part of the case’s unreleased investigative file was seen on national television Saturday night due to a “misunderstanding.”
The footage in part depicts images captured at the Russellville Police Department on Dec. 15, 2006 — the night of Dirksmeyer’s murder. The footage is of Kevin Jones, Dirksmeyer’s boyfriend and the man ultimately charged with — and acquitted of — her murder, in a police interrogation room, and has, along with the rest of the investigative file, been repeatedly denied to The Courier in response to Arkansas Freedom of Information (FOI) Act requests.
Most recently, on Dec. 17, 2007, 5th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons declined a verbal FOI request for the file on the basis it was part of an ongoing investigation.
When asked last week how the footage — first shown to a television audience in a preview that aired Feb. 2 — was obtained, Gibbons said he did not release it, and was “checking” on the situation.
“I believe that it may have been released as part of an interview,” he said. “That was done through a misunderstanding.”
He said he had no knowledge of how the same program obtained crime scene photos depicting Dirksmeyer’s slain form.

http://www.couriernews.com/story.php?ID=17629

[FDInLaw]

Dirksmeyer file leak a mystery

Story date; Feb. 13, 2008

Like the murder itself, questions surrounding leak of confidential information from Dirksmeyer investigative file remain unanswered
By Mary Kincy Benefield
Reporter
First, it was the cell phone.
Now, a handful of months and an acquittal later, more evidence in the Nona Dirksmeyer murder investigation has found its way out of a case file classified by authorities as confidential due to the “ongoing” nature of the investigation into the murder. It’s a classification bulwarked by 5th Judicial District Circuit Judge Dennis C. Sutterfield’s confirmation last week he recently appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the case.
But unlike last time, when 5th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons admitted Russellville Police Department (RPD) Det. Mark Frost released the cell phone to Duane Dipert, Dirksmeyer’s stepfather, no one is talking about how the latest evidence to be released — including video recordings of police interrogations, crime scene photos, a 911 recording and what appeared to be autopsy photos — ended up on national television Saturday night.
Gibbons, who since the trial has declined multiple Arkansas Freedom of Information Act requests to release the file to The Courier, previously said although he personally did not release any information, he was aware a portion of the information was released during an interview due to a “misunderstanding.”
On Tuesday, Jeff Phillips, a deputy prosecutor for the 5th Judicial District, confirmed he released a portion of a video recording showing police interviewing Jones on the night of Dirksmeyer’s Dec. 15, 2005 murder to CBS.
“Like David [Gibbons] said, it was a miscommunication, because my position was it was entered into evidence and not anything that anyone else didn’t hear or see,” Phillips said of the tape, which was shown to jurors — and to anyone else in attendance at Jones’ trial — in July.
As for the other leaked information, both Phillips and Gibbons denied releasing it to CBS, the company that produces 48 Hours Mystery, while a public relations spokesperson for the program not only refused comment, but refused to be named in this story.
Local officials, including Pope County Coroner Leonard Krout, who had access to autopsy photos, and Joshua McMillian, RPD public information officer speaking for the department, also denied having released any information contained within the Dirksmeyer case file to 48 Hours.
“As far as we know, no one has released anything at all to CBS,” McMillian said, adding the RPD and its officers are without the authority to release information classified in the case file without prior authorization from Gibbons.
And former police chief Jamed Bacon, now police chief in Nixa, Mo., said he does not possess any of the information to release in the first place, and when asked if he knew how the information had been leaked he said he was “wondering that same thing.”
Kenneth Johnson of Monticello, one of Jones’ attorneys, said the leak did not originate with him, either, and said he was “concerned” about the release.
“Somehow, they got their hands on some stuff that I didn’t even have,” Johnson said.
“That information that was there with the face that was blurred would have been very interesting to the defense,” he explained, presumably referring to a police interrogation video in which an unidentified dark-haired man was shown discussing his relationship with Dirksmeyer with an officer.
Johnson also indicated he had recently spoken with Bill Bristow of Jonesboro, another of Jones’ attorneys, and said Bristow — who was out of town and could not be reached for comment for this story — said at the time of their conversation he had not released any information not in the public record.
Jones’ other attorney, Michael Robbins of Dover, was the only person The Courier contacted who declined to answer questions regarding the leak.
Instead, he said he did not “have any comment” to provide when asked whether he released any of the information seen on television that would be considered part of the investigative file in the case, and, when a reporter expressed concern that his lack of willingness to address the issue given others’ responses might erroneously implicate him, said he found it “amusing” The Courier would “be concerned” with that possibility.
In an e-mailed statement, Carol and Duane Dipert, Dirksmeyer’s mother and stepfather, said they, like The Courier, had been unable to determine who was responsible for the evidence’s release — which they indicated they believe may have included more than one media outlet.
“We don’t know the source of the crime scene photos,” the Dipert’s statement said. “[We] asked the producers of both 48 Hours and Dateline where they obtained them. Both said they couldn’t tell [us].”
A spokesperson for Dateline, a program produced by NBC which has also indicated it plans to feature the Dirksmeyer case in an upcoming episode, would not confirm whether the program’s producers possessed information classified as a part of the case file.


http://www.couriernews.com/story.php?ID=17653

[FDInLaw]

Leak expands mystery of murder

Story date: Feb. 14, 2008

Numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by The Courier for the complete Nona Dirksmeyer murder investigation file since Kevin Jones was acquitted of her murder have been denied by 5th Judicial Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons. He cited the exemption of an “ongoing investigation” every time we requested it.
So you can imagine our surprise when crime scene photos, what appeared to be autopsy photos, video recordings of police interrogations and a 911 recording were aired on “48 Hours Mystery” on Saturday night in a show titled “Who killed the beauty queen?”
We’re not sure how portions of that file made their way onto the national airwaves, but we’d sure like to know how such a protected and guarded file, to say the least, seemed to be made wide open for millions of viewers.
The Courier’s repeated requests were not seeded in our wishes to publish any of these photos or information. Our efforts were seeded in gaining the file to shine light on what has been a very cryptic case with little communication. We’re a family newspaper and wouldn’t have gone anywhere close to what was shown.
Mary Kincy Benefield authored a front-page article Wednesday in which she questioned possible sources of the leak, and to no surprise, not one claimed responsibility for the entirety of the leak; however, Jeff Phillips, deputy prosecutor, did clarify what he released. He said he did provide a tape of Jones being interviewed by police that was entered as evidence at the trial.
We were pleased with the cooperation in answering our questions from sources with the exception of the networks and one local source. Two-thirds of the defense team, officials with Russellville Police Department (former and present) and the prosecutors at least answered our questions.
We didn’t expect CBS to disclose their sources, but we were a little surprised when their representative assumed a defensive posture and refused to be named.
NBC’s “Dateline,” which is expected to air its own version of this story, did not confirm if they obtained the same information in question.
The local source who didn’t answer our questions was Michael Robbins of Dover, one of Jones’ attorneys. When The Courier explained to Robbins that all of our sources besides the networks gave comments — which we certainly didn’t have to do — and that we didn’t want his lack of communicating to erroneously implicate him in the leak, he offered a wise rebuttal about being “amused” at The Courier’s concern for him.
We certainly don’t find anything amusing about murder or about a leak in an ongoing investigation. Do you?
Keep in mind, this is the same source who released a press release about a match on DNA found on a condom wrapper only four days before the show was scheduled to air.
Why release it to the media? Why not, in the name of justice, provide it to the newly appointed special prosecutor without any fanfare?
We already knew Jones’ DNA was not on that condom wrapper.
One of the definitions of the word “leak” found in Webster’s New World Dictionary states, “a disclosure of secret or confidential information; specif., an ostensibly accidental disclosure by a government official to the news media, actually intended to produce an effect.”
We can only guess who released the information. No matter how it looks, we certainly can’t control people’s willingness or lack thereof to talk with us. We think it is very possible that more than one source released information for their possible desired effect.
Someone is lying, or at least bending the ethical code to the point of breaking it.
Another alarming comment came from Kenny Johnson, one of Jones’ attorneys, who said the network somehow had stuff he didn’t have during the trial.
That is alarming in and of itself.
So this epic story of a murder continues to be clouded by unknowns. The mystery of this story continues to expand, and now includes one more question: Who had an ethical lapse in judgment and released information that should not be broadcast for all to see in what is still deemed an ongoing investigation?
The people involved with this case — and they are people, not just characters in a play — deserve better.
E-mail your comments about the leak to editor@couriernews.com.
http://couriernews.com/editorial.php

[Pauli]

Death of a Beauty Queen
Posted: Friday, May 02, 2008 12:59 AM by Dateline Editor
Filed Under: Crime (http://insidedateline.msnbc.msn.com/archive/category/1033.aspx)

by Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Bylines/mugs/NBC%20News/nbc_morrison_keith.thumb.jpgIf the images of Nona Dirksmeyer's fresh open face convey a certain vulnerability, it shouldn't be too surprising; at 19 years old, though she sang beautifully, looked wonderful, and had been winning some local and entering state beauty pageants, she was still struggling with an awful secret.

Secrets, of course, do not survive murder investigations, and the details of Nona's troubles spilled out for all the world to pick over.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/080501/x_30_dtl_nonasstory_080501.vlarge.jpg
Certainly her mother was shocked and dismayed when Nona told her that her own father sexually abused her when she was a little girl, and that later on she began to cut herself. Imagine then, how horrifying for Nona's grieving mother when the whole town learned about not just that, but eventually, in open court, the extremely personal details of Nona's love life.

Repeatedly in recent years I have found myself in the company of parents who must struggle to make sense of the senseless death of a child, to go on after a murder. How Nona's mother Carol managed it, especially when her daughter's own secrets became such a significant part of the case, I do not know.

I left her understanding very well how important it was for her to find some form of justice... some answer.

So it was hard to fault her deep suspicion of Nona's boyfriend, Kevin. After all, the local police and prosecutors -- the only authorities she could trust -- were convinced that he must have killed her. And this was a boy she had long since begun to treat as a future son-in-law!

That, however, is where the whole terrible business -- including media coverage of the crime -- began to bog down in what amounted to family loyalties. Or, as a supportive out of town relative called it, "local politics."

And highly polarized politics, at that. Debates over the boyfriend's guilt or innocence actually stirred up regional resentments and rivalries that date right back to the civil war. As a result, covering the murder of Nona Dirksmeyer was a sometimes tricky business; local media outlets began to take a lot of flak for allegedly slanting the story in favor of one family or the other, and no matter how thorough our efforts to tell the story even-handedly, somebody was always assuming we had to be on one 'side' or the other. Obviously, we were not -- our mission is to follow each story as fairly and clearly as possible. And of course, in this case, as in all others, its the jury that decides.

Were truth and justice served in Nona's case? If you were to ask around in Russellville, Arkansas, the answer you'd likely hear as often as not is... no. Perhaps, after a review of the facts, you'll come to your own conclusion.

And just possibly, before too very long, Nona's mother Carol will finally have her answer. Along with some final justice for Nona Dirksmeyer.



http://insidedateline.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/05/02/970919.aspx

[Pauli]

TRANSCRIPT
By Keith Morrison
Correspondent
NBC News
updated 2 hours, 48 minutes ago
This report aired Dateline Friday, May 2, 2008


http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/i/msnbc/Test-Dev/donna/msnbc10/Launch%20images/byline_nbcnews.gif
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Bylines/mugs/NBC%20News/nbc_morrison_keith.thumb.jpgKeith Morrison
Correspondent
• Profile (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3949312/)


RUSSELVILLE, Ark. - Once upon a time, in a small town in Arkansas, in the hills that roll down from the Ozark mountains, there was a small sweet girl. She was tiny, and lovely, with the gift of a great golden voice.
Margie Huckaby: Opens her mouth and this song comes out of her that—you just don’t think can come out of this small little vessel of a person.
Carol Dirksmeyer, Nona's mother: She was a soprano. But, it was a voice that was very full.
Amazing, how that petite, innocent person produced such a sound. Her name was Nona Dirksmeyer. She was a beauty pageant queen and already bruised by the undertow of a difficult secret.
Kevin Jones: Real personal things.
Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: What’d she tell ya?
Kevin Jones: That her father had sexually molested her when she was young.
This is her boyfriend. Kevin Jones.
By now her much older father was dead, and she was left to struggle.
Kevin Jones: It was so hard for her to be happy.
She told him she felt ugly. She didn’t see what her friends saw when they suggested she enter beauty pageants.
Kevin Jones: She didn’t really care about the prestige of being Miss Arkansas or Miss something. She just wanted to find a way to enlighten other people about what happens to children who are sexually abused.
That’s what went into her speeches at the beauty pageants.
Kevin Jones: It was better than any feeling that I’ve ever had, you know just to make her happy.
A troubled Juliet, and her Romeo, riding the complications of teenage love.
They squabbled, broke up, dated others, kissed and made up... and now, though Kevin had gone away to college, they were talking marriage.
Kevin Jones: But we didn’t make it official because we were both poor.
It was, actually, not quite like Romeo and Juliet. Not yet, anyway.
For one thing, they lived in different towns. They had met in kindergarten in Little Dover, grew up there... Then she moved with her mother 20 miles away to larger Russellville.
Besides, before all this, their families seemed to like each other. Carol Dirksmeyer: I liked him. He seemed to be a really caring person.
Nona’s mother, Carol.
Carol Dirksmeyer: Kevin was really interested in helping Nona get through some of these hard times she was having.
Janice Jones: They just seemed very happy together.
Janice is Kevin’s mother, Hiram, his father.
Hiram Jones: Nona was part of the family. We had a Thanksgivin’ dinner, Nona was there. You know, we had Sunday cookout, and Nona was there. It was Kevin and Nona.
Nona and Kevin.
They hung around with Nona’s best friend Chelsea.
Margie Huckaby, Chelsea’s mother: I think Kevin was really there for her.
Margie was the first adult to hear about the abuse.
She’s the one who helped Nona tell her mother that poisonous secret—that Nona’s own biological father, now dead had sexually abused her.
And that Nona had taken to cutting herself.
Margie Huckaby: I think that’s hard to do. To tell your parent that. Because you know it’s gonna devastate them.
Carol Dirksmeyer: It was horrible. It’s such the end of my world. I just couldn’t believe something like that would happen. But, I knew enough to know that she was telling the truth.
Carol, by the way, had also been trying to put life back together. After Nona’s father died, Carol took up with Duane Dipert and married him.
Duane Dipert: My relationship with Nona, I think, if I were to describe was distant, yet cordial. It wasn’t my job to raise Nona.
Nona had been alone with Carol for years. When Duane came along she moved out, got her own apartment. Close by, but separate.
Duane admits his rules may have had something to do with that.
Duane Dipert: I’m a ‘90s type of guy. But, unfortunately, for the kids, I’m an 1890’s type of guy. You know? And the doors are locked are 10:00. So, they better be back at 9:00,
Morrison: That’s a strict rule?
Duane Dipert: Well, Yeah, nothing good happening after 10:00 at night as far as I’m concerned.
Yes, but as everybody knows, the day can be darkest in morning.
It was Christmas time, 2005.
Kevin, home from college, went directly to Nona’s apartment and spent an evening there.
He drove home, Russelville to Dover just after midnight.
Kevin Jones: I called her when I got home, because that was our routine. I’d call her and tell her that I got home safe.
Next morning, a Thursday, he slept in, woke up, turned on his phone.
Kevin Jones: She had sent me a text message like we usually did in the morning—back and forth.
The message was this: “good morning cuddle muffin. i love you and hope youhave a great day”
It wasn’t going to be, of course. But neither she nor he knew that yet.
Her plan, in fact, was to spend the evening with a little girl; she was a member of the Big Sisters’ organization. His plan was to take his mother to a teachers’ Christmas party. She was the school librarian.
Janice Jones: Made a joke about, “Is there an open bar? I’d like to see some of my former teachers, you know, a little tipsy.”
And then, during the day, something strange: Kevin says he couldn’t reach Nona on the phone.
Kevin Jones: It struck me as very odd that she was not answering or returning the calls, because in four and a half years, we had made a pattern.
Morrison: Yeah.
Kevin Jones: And that’s what we did every day.
He sent her a text message. "You alive?" He asked...
Early evening, as Kevin and his mother set out for their Christmas party, he was increasingly troubled.
Where was she? Why didn’t she answer?
From the car, Kevin called a friend, a pizza delivery man named Ryan. He asked Ryan to drive by Nona’s place and check on her.
Kevin Jones: You know, “Her upstairs light is on, but she’s not answering her door.” And I said, “Okay, well I’m gonna come over there.”
And now their fates whirled toward them, and they drove through their rising tide of panic to Nona’s apartment.
Kevin Jones: I realized I didn’t have my keys. And Ryan and I knocked and knocked and rang the doorbell, and nobody came. And we started to get a little frantic.
There was another door. A sliding glass door at the back. They ran for it.
Kevin Jones: But I didn’t think we’d be able to get in ‘cause she always kept a stick in it to hold it shut.
But the stick wasn’t there.
Kevin Jones: And so when I was grabbing the handle, Ryan touched me. And he said, “Do you not see her?”
On the floor inside, was Nona. Naked. Still.
Kevin Jones: I grabbed the door handle and I pulled it open. I had a lot of adrenaline.
He ran in there, he says, turned her over and picked her up.
Janice Jones: She just had her socks on, little white socks.
Kevin Jones: All I could think about was, “I need to get her to a hospital.” And everything that happened was just kind of a blur.
He tried CPR, he says.
Kevin Jones: There was blood on her face. And her eyes were closed. And there was a puddle of blood underneath her head
Morrison: Did you think she was alive?
Kevin Jones: I wouldn’t let it enter my head that she wasn’t, that there wasn’t some way to save her.
Janice was standing there beside them, in shock, calling 911.
Janice Jones: And he just lifted her in his arms and held her to him as if he were warming her.
And then the ambulance arrived. And the police.
Janice Jones: Then I heard him cry out. And he asked them if someone had done this to her. And they told him yes. And then he asked them if she was dead. And they affirmed that, yes, she was.
Before long, Nona’s mother Carol arrived.
Carol Dirksmeyer: It was just a big shock. Devestating. It was awful.
And then, the police drove Kevin down to the station.
Just a few questions, they said.
Just a few questions about Nona.




http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24433365/

[Pauli]

Carol Dirksmeyer: I told them I wanted to see my baby. It was awful. Of course they said ‘you can’t.’ They had the crime scene tape up.By the time Carol Dirksmeyer got to her daughter Nona’s apartment, the grim investigation had begun.
It was murder all right. Nona had been stripped naked, an empty condom wrapper was lying on a counter a few feet away. But there was no physical evidence she had been raped. Her head had been smashed - apparently with the heavy base of a lamp lying nearby. And whoever struck the fatal blow had first used his fist to hit her face so hard it left bruising on her brain, then, had stabbed her repeatedly, shallow cuts around her neck and shoulders. And then, before swinging the lamp base, had strangled her with such force he broke the hyoid bone in her neck.
But her mother Carol wasn’t allowed past police lines to see her, she didn’t know all that yet.
Kevin Jones: And I remember her saying that she wished she would have been the one to find her so she could hold her one last time.
But it is perhaps a cruel necessity that murder investigations take priority over family rituals.
And in the hours after he found Nona, Kevin went downtown to answer a routine slate of police questions.
Well, not, perhaps, entirely routine; the session was videotaped.
Question: What happened? How is it he found her body they asked? Where had he been all day? He was not a suspect, they told him.still, they had to ask. And ask. And ask.
Kevin Jones: They’d leave me there in the room.. They would ask me questions.
They kept him here for 3 hours.
Then that night he went to see Nona’s mother.
Kevin Jones: She wanted me to come and make funeral arrangements with them, which we did. And she wanted me to pick out the clothes that Nona would be wearing for the visitation.
It was six days after the murder when Kevin prepared himself to be with Nona’s family at the funeral home.
Kevin called police that morning to tell them about rumors that a man was seen leaving Nona’s place the day of the murder.
And, while he was on the line, the police asked if perhaps he could come downtown again. Some more questions, just a few, they told him. He’d be done before the visitation, they assured him of that…
Kevin Jones: And after about 20 minutes worth of questions, they asked me if I’d take a polygraph test to rule me out, ‘cause they wanted to start ruling people out. And they wanted me to be the first one.
Morrison: What’d you say?
Kevin Jones: I said, “Sure.”

And so they strapped him up and ran through the innocuous questions.. And then...?
Police: Did you cause the death of Nona Dirksmeyer?
Morrison: And then they went out analyzed it, came back, and said what?
Examiner: I never have seen anybody fail a test as bad as you did.
Kevin Jones: The man who gave it to me told me that he has not-- seen anybody fail a test worse in his 28 years of giving lie detector tests.
Examiner: Kevin, there’s no doubt in my mind that you killed her.
Failed? Shock would be too mild a word, said Kevin. They told him he had the right to a lawyer. He declined.
Morrison: Why didn’t you ask for one?
Kevin Jones: At that time it seemed to me that if you asked for a lawyer, it looks like you have something to hide.
Kevin says that instead, he tried to convince them he was innocent, it was all a big mistake. But..
Kevin Jones: At this point, it wasn’t really a questioning. It was more of them yelling at me telling me they knew that I did it.
By that time both families had arrived here at the funeral home for a visitation service for Nona and an hour went by, and two hours, four hours....six hours went by. Still no Kevin. Where was he? Why so long at the police station? And at that moment, said Nona’s stepfather Duane, for him at least, the penny dropped.
Duane Dipert: And all the sudden, it kinda—like a light bulb going off in my head. I said, “You know, wouldn’t it be funny if it’s the boyfriend?”
Kevin’s parents felt a change in the wind, too.
Morrison: I gather this is the first time you’re thinking oh, my God… They think it’s him.
Janice Jones: Yeah. This was another whole new reality.
And Nona’s mother Carol received some surprise visitors.
Carol Dirksmeyer: It was like 11:30. Between 11:30 and 12:00 at night. I didn’t think Kevin had anything to do with it until the police actually told me.
The boy she’d come to love...as a future son-in-law, said the police, had brutally murdered her only daughter Nona.






The murder of Nona Dirksmeyer was a dreadful shock to the town of Russellville, Arkansas.
A sweet, shy beauty queen, with a nightingale voice and a heart as big as the whole town wasn’t supposed to die. And certainly not this way.
And so the question of who had done this or why.
There was an assumed an immediate urgency as the assistant prosecutor, Jeff Phillips, said.
Jeff Phillips: I think whoever did was a monster and I think the defense would agree with me on that.
Dreadful though it was, the case was assigned to a detective who had never before conducted a murder investigation: Mark Frost.
And Frost was confronted by a few problems. For one thing, of course, Kevin Jones, Nona’s boyfriend - had seriously compromised the evidence by lying on, hugging and holding her body.
And it didn’t help matters when a slew of paramedics and cops descended on the scene, touching and moving potential evidence.
The condom wrapper found a few feet away from the body... is that where a killer put it? And Nona’s cell phone..the battery was missing, and somebody—a cop, maybe? Or a paramedic? -Had picked it up and put it on a table.
Still, over the course of a week, police believed, the crime and the criminal came fully into view.
It was Kevin. He’d created an elaborate cover-up by using his mother and friend to help find the body.
He’d left that condom wrapper as a ruse to make it look like a stranger raped and killed Nona.
When all along, it was him; a boyfriend’s rage.
Kevin, police told Carol, had discovered Nona’s betrayal. That she had been intimate with another man.
Carol Dirksmeyer: And I guess he just let his rage get away with him and he couldn’t control himself and it’s still hard to understand something like that..
Even through her shock about that news, she remembers what they told her about the boy who would have been her son-in-law.
Carol Dirksmeyer: The first thing that I was told was that he was a sociopath with a narcissistic personality.
And so, at the funeral, carol was watching Kevin with new eyes.
Carol Dirksmeyer: I knew he’d done it. I knew in my heart it was someone she knew. She would never let anyone in the apartment that she didn’t know.







The same day, then Police Chief James Bacon had a press conference. We have conclusively cleared all but one of these people.
The police did not name the suspect, but before long almost everyone in Russellville knew who it was.
Kevin, the boy from Dover, that town down the road.
There was suspicion, but no arrest.
Morrison: You’ve been a bear in defense of your family,
Duke Dirksmeyer: I will continue to be a bear in defense.
By that time, Duke Dirksmeyer, the patriarch of what had been Carol and Nona’s family, arrived from Texas to offer his support.
Duke Dirksmeyer: It’s my obligation.
And pretty soon, Duke saw something that seemed to him very wrong indeed.
When he drove past the most popular restaurant in Dover, the Bayou Bridge Care…
Duke Dirksmeyer: There’s a reader-board sign out. “Kevin, we support and we love you.” Well, Nona ate there. Nona went there. Why wasn’t it put on the reader-board, “Nona and Kevin, we love you, we support you?”
Then, when Kevin’s mother went to Russellville, she was startled by bumper stickers: ‘Justice for Nona.’
Janice Jones: The assumption that I formed and I think many people formed was that “Justice for Nona” meant—
Morrison: Convict Kevin.
Janice Jones: --convict Kevin.
And before long, gossip and speculation starting flying around on the Internet. Vicious stuff, a lot of it.
In the tiny community of Dover, where Kevin’s family was known and liked, stories in the local weekly newspaper seemed balanced, at least to Kevin’s family...
Nona’s stepfather Duane Dipert did not take the same view, at all.
Duane Dipert: The Dover Times is a rag. We use toilet paper here instead of the Dover Times.
And thus began a newspaper war in small town Arkansas, though it was really no contest..
The Courier didn’t name Kevin Jones as a suspect, but published an overwhelming number of stories on the investigation and in Russellville. It was quite clear who the prime suspect was.
Duke Dirksmeyer: The Russellville press has been phenomenal. Very straight, very forward. And unbiased and extremely fair.
Except, of course, in the eyes of a shrinking minority, led by Kevin’s parents who believed he was innocent of Nona’s murder.
Hiram Jones: They tried, convicted, and sentenced Kevin within 90 days of its happening. And if you was a stranger walkin’ in a coffee shop, visiting Russellville and you read that, what would you think?
This is what appeared in the Russellville Courier 3 months after Nona’s murder: ”Nona’s killer remains free.” And “Russellville police department has requested formal charges against one person.”
And everyone knew who that was.
On March 31, 2006, police finally did announce the arrest of Kevin Jones for the murder of Nona Dirksmeyer.
Whether or not Kevin was convicted in the press was now, apparently, irrelevant.
Because the evidence made public included what seemed to amount to a smoking gun: Kevin’s palm print in Nona’s blood was on the very lamp that was used to kill her. And as the family patriarch, Duke Dirksmeyer, watched it go to trial, he too felt satisfied that it was a good case.
Duke Dirksmeyer: I felt it was a slam dunk. We had a guilty verdict.

[Pauli]

Of all the topics that have stirred things up around Russellville and Dover, Arkansas, few touched so many as the case of the murdered beauty, Nona Dirksmeyer.Bill Bristow: This case probably had more statewide publicity than any criminal case in many, many years, perhaps ever in Arkansas.
So it was no big surprise when the defense claimed the Courier had poisoned local opinion. They asked for and won a change of venue and the trial was moved a county away, to a town better known for its scenic river views and its excellent barbecue.
And here they found a jury to try Kevin Jones for murder in the first degree.
And so the trial finally began, here in the solid old court house in the little town of Ozark. It was a good 20, 30 miles beyond the reach of the Russellville Courier and the wagging tongues of those two little towns. But when jurors arrived on the first day of trial, what should they see, sitting right here, but a newspaper box for the Russellville Courier. And every day there’d be some headline staring at observers as they came to watch the trial.
Not here now as you can see now, because, the day after the trial was over, as mysteriously and suddenly as it appeared, the newspaper box...vanished.
Jeff Phillips, assistant prosecutor: If you let it, it consumed you.
A case, as assistant prosecutor Jeff Phillips would tell the Ozark jury, of a jealous boyfriend’s rage.
Phillips: The morning of her death Kevin Jones came in unexpectedly.
It would have been easy for Kevin to arrive at Nona’s apartment unannounced, said the prosecutor. He had a key.
Phillips: While there, discovered either a text message from another person and or a used condom wrapped on a counter, and things escalated from there, escalated outta control.
As for the condom wrapper, police were unable to get any prints from it to determine whose it might have been.
But, having discovered a betrayal, said the state, Kevin flew into a homicidal rage.
Phillips: He beat her, he stabbed her, and he ultimately caused her death with the base of a lamp, the weighted base of a lamp. It was rage and passion.
In the heat of which, said the prosecution, Kevin left a perfectly identifiable palm print, in Nona’s blood, on the lamp which had been used to kill her. Not on the heavy base of the lamp, but up at the top, on the bulb.
Morrison: No question it was his?
Phillips: No question it was his. The defense didn’t even make an issue that it was his.
That new homicide investigator Mark Frost recovered the palm print from the light bulb, and determined it was left there at the time of the murder, and not later that evening when Kevin, his mother and a friend found Nona’s body.
Phillips: In my opinion, an intentional attempt to have someone else find her but him.



Lying on her body, holding her, said the prosecution, was an intentional effort to ruin the evidence at the crime scene. And in fact, police found precious little useful evidence.
But that night, when police questioned Kevin, they didn’t think they were getting straight answers. Especially about his alibi, which, said the investigator, seemed to come together late and a little too conveniently.
And he failed that polygraph. Not admissible in court, of course.. But the jury did see this tape, which, said the prosecutor, showed Kevin’s capacity for anger and violence.
Just the same, claimed the prosecutors, to give Kevin the benefit of the doubt, they looked at other possible perpetrators too.
Phillips: Somebody was asking me who all the suspects were.
And I asked them, “What were you doing the night that she died?” Because, everyone was a suspect with any type of connection.
But, he says, they all had alibis, every one of Nona’s other male friends..
Even Duane Dipert, Nona’s stepfather, testified that he just happened to be Christmas shopping that day...and had the receipts to prove it.
Duane Dipert: This time I was at this store, this time I was at this store. And that’s the time Nona was being murdered.
Besides, as Carol said about Duane...
Carol Dirksmeyer: And I told him that day, I said, “You called me like eight or ten times,” which was unusual at work. He hardly ever calls me at work.
And where was Kevin that day?
On the morning of the murder, said the prosecution, Kevin could have left his house in Dover around 10:30am, when a plumber last saw him there.
And then, for an hour and a half, cell phone silence.
Well, he wasn’t talking to Nona. In fact, his text message to her wasn’t sent until late afternoon, and it said: “you alive?”
Carol Dirksmeyer: He had been thinking about this all day.
The prosecution’s timeline:
10:30 -- Kevin leaves Dover for Nona’s place in Russellville.
10:55 -- He lets himself in the apartment, argues with Nona, kills her, leaves his palm print on the light bulb.
11:10 -- Stages the crime scene with that condom wrapper..
11:15 -- Drives away, back to Doverm, arriving back around noon.
Carol Dirksmeyer: I think the first time anyone saw him probably was when he went to the Bayou Bridge Café around 12:30 to 1:00.
There was one little wrinkle in the prosecution’s timeline, however, and it was this: Kevin’s grandmother came to court to testify that she saw him, plain as day, at the family gas station at 11:30 that morning. She gave him lunch money, she said.
And if that was true, Kevin would not have had time to drive to and from Nona’s apartment, let alone kill her.
Unless you believed, as the prosecution did, that:
Morrison: She lied.
Phillips: In my opinion, she did.
But sitting across the courtroom, as all this went on, were three accomplished defense attorneys.
And Duke Dirksmeyer began to worry, just a little, about the case against Kevin Jones.
Duke Dirksmeyer: I said, “a very good defense team could pull off an O.J. Simpson situation in this whole trial.”

Michael Robbins: When you’ve got something that was this—this serious, that is this bad—this—this girl was brutally murdered—Morrison: Somebody’s gotta pay.
Michael Robbins:Somebody has to pay.
Kevin Jones’s lawyers were well aware of what his father Hiram already knew all too well: most of Russellville had come to believe Kevin was guilty.
Kenny Johnson: It was just a nightmare.


So Hiram bet the farm – literally on a trio of well known and respected lawyers...
Hiram Jones: We put it up as collateral.
Kenny Johnson: First off I was impressed with ‘em.
With Kevin, that is, said Kenny Johnson:.
Defense: His open reaction to questions, his volunteering information. He volunteered his D.N.A., volunteered his blood.
And Mike Robbins and Bill Bristow.
But when Bristow and the others looked carefully at the case, they were intrigued. There was only one piece of evidence at all: The bloody palm print on the light bulb.

A bloody print left there in the late morning by a murderer? Why, no… as the defense would claim,
Bristow: It is a totally innocent situation. The blood got on the light bulb at the time the body was discovered when he’s trying to—

Morrison: --revive her or something?
Bristow: --yes, the EM—

Morrison: Touched the light bulb?

Bristow: Yeah. The EMT said the lamp was within a foot of the body.
As they poked around, said the lawyers, they kept finding odd things about the investigation conducted by that first time homicide detective, Mark Frost…


Bristow: The only area that was fingerprinted was the area around the body, there was—blood near the front door, there was blood on the Venetian blinds—an empty condom wrapper a short distance from the body. The police go upstairs to see if that’s been flushed, do not fingerprint the flush handle at the commode, don’t DNA that, don’t DNA anything up there. There was nothing done except just in the area around the body.

Nor was that bloody palm print the only evidence on the lamp whose heavy base was used to kill Nona. Turned out police had lifted some fingerprints from the base of that lamp, too...

Kenny Johnson: And the prints that were on the business end of the murder weapon, the rod and base, were not Kevin Jones’ prints.

Morrison: They were some unidentified person?
Defense: Some unidentified.
Might have been DNA. There, and other places, too....but..
Johnson: None of that was done. None of that was done. We did it. We tried. We found the DNA. We sent the prophylactic wrapper off to a lab and they found the DNA. It was like it didn’t matter. The DNA was some other male’s.

Then there was the strange business of Nona’s cell phone. It was at the scene of the murder, but the battery was missing.

The murderer must have taken the battery, must have handled the phone, said the defense, but it was never checked for prints or DNA.

Kenny Johnson: And so it’s a vital piece of evidence. Could have been tested for fingerprints, for DNA.

[Pauli]

The defense asked for months to get a look at the phone, perhaps check its electronic history to see who Nona had been texting, or talking to, but when they finally got the phone, and took it to a forensic expert t out the information, they discovered that its memory had been erased.

And that’s when the state admits that they had given the cell phone to Nona’s stepfather. Everything had been erased totally.The investigator had given the phone to Nona’s stepfather Duane, claiming there was no more information to be gained from it.

Michael Robbins: They did not do everything they could with the phone.
And why would Duane take Nona’s phone? Simple, he said. ...he needed a phone. He was frugal.

Duane Dipert: I had fought for several months how to get my old phone onto this other contract and be efficient about it.
Frugality? The defense, suspecting a darker reason, jumped all over that..

Michael Robbins: don’t believe that he got it because he’s—
Morrison: You think—
Robbins: --frugal.

Morrison: --he erased that intentionally.
Robbins: I think—yes, I do.
Duane, quite vigorously, denied that.
But losing the phone’s memory was a blow because, even though phone company experts were able to retrieve the messages sent to Nona, her responses, which might have identified a suspect, had been lost forever..
And then there were Kevin’s hands. A defense expert testified the killer would have sustained cuts and bruises in the attack on Nona, but
Kenny Johnson: The police took photographs of Kevin, front and back of his hands, took his shirt off. Kevin didn’t have a scratch, bruise, or an abrasion on him.

And what about that polygraph test. Remember what Kevin said the examiner told him?

Kevin Jones: He had not seen anybody fail a test worse in his 28 or some odd years of giving lie detector tests.

Well, the defense said it checked the polygrapher’s record.

Robbins: The person that was, that administered the test. He wasn’t a certified polygraph examiner.
Johnson: It was an attempt to get him to confess. That’s all it was.
Is that what was going on here? The prosecution had introduced this video of the interrogation...said it showed Kevin to be aggressive, possibly violent.
But...that prosecution tactic may have backfired. Because the defense had the jury look at all three hours of the tape... and they watched a young man who looked mostly lost, and confused and stricken with grief.
So, in the end, it all seemed to come down to Kevin’s grandmother. The woman who testified that she saw him at the family’s gas station at just about the time the prosecution claimed he was 20 miles away, killing his girlfriend.
The jury, composed of the good citizens of Ozark, knew that down the road in Russellville, these questions were hotly debated. And thus they retired... to contemplate the murder of Nona Dirksmeyer.



Kim, juror: I just could not turn my mind off, what am I missing? What am I going to do?
To say the jurors in the Kevin Jones murder trial were profoundly troubled by the death of Nona Dirksmeyer would be an understatement.


These five jurors: The Spanish teacher, the single mom, the horse rancher, the retired waitress, the nurse. All said they became quite passionate about the case.

Kim, juror: You could just feel everybody wanting to get it right.
In the courtroom, they knew, watching was a grieving mother...
Carol Dirksmeyer, motherseeing this trial, I’m 100 percent convinced that he did it.

And down the road, a town was watching too which was largely convinced of Kevin’s guilt.
But was he...guilty?
The jury looked very carefully, they said, at every scrap of evidence they were offered. Even used their own bodies to recreate the murder scene in Nona’s living room which helped, they said to figure out what happened.


Kim, juror: And I played the part.
Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: Whoever killed her—almost tortured her first.
Juror: Yes, he did.

Juror: Kind of like he played with her. He tried to install fear
Who else but Kevin could it have been?
Kim, juror: Blood all over him in the pictures.
Elaine, juror: The palm print in her blood.
But in spite of that ...the state’s evidence began to trouble them.

Elaine, juror: I was disturbed because they did not gather all the evidence.

What happened, they wondered, in that investigation?
Elaine, juror: The glass door, for example, where the perpetrator went out was not fingerprinted inside or out. The kitchen floor would have been excellent for footprints. He obviously walked across there, no—no prints were taken. The—water faucets—where they would turn them on to—wash up, none of that was fingerprinted, the kitchen table, nothing. Basically all they fingerprinted was the murder weapon.
Instead, said the jurors, the police focused on Kevin almost right away.

Juror: --and just—a little bit of tunnel vision.

Elaine, juror: How can they expect you to convict someone when someone else’s fingerprints that they do not identify are on the murder weapon.
Why, they wondered, didn’t police look more carefully at other possible suspects?


Morrison: The police claimed that they had checked the alibis of all these potential suspects.

Kevin, juror: As well as they gathered evidence?

What about the grandmother? Did she lie - as the prosecution claimed, create an alibi - to protect Kevin? How credible was she?

Carol, juror: Very.

Kevin, juror: Very believable.
But it was the tape. The prosecution’s introduction of that interrogation tape - in its effort to convict Kevin -that truly did backfire.

Carol, juror: That was the most horrific tape I ever saw in my life.

Kevin, juror: He couldn’t even wipe his eyes because he had—

Carol, juror: And he still had the blood all over him.Kim, juror: I felt bad inside that I was watching him in this little cubicle of a room.

Still, the jurors said, it was the evidence... Or rather, the lack of evidence against Kevin Jones, which convinced them.

Elaine, juror: And it simply said he didn’t do it.

And so, after 8 hours of deliberation, they walked back into the courtroom…

Kevin, juror: I stared at Kevin Jones right in the eyes.

Female juror: I did too.
And pronounced him not guilty.

And right there in the courtroom, an emotional dam burst.
Officials separated the two families as they left the courtroom.


Duke Dirksmeyer: And I would like to ask the jury, would you allow your daughter to date Kevin Jones?

Well, actually, said jurors, based on what they saw in the trial...they liked Kevin. Though they still found themselves explaining their decision to a skeptical public.

Russellville may still be unconvinced. The Courier ran a new series of articles, incuding one with this headline: “A verdict without justice.”

Duane Dipert: I'd like to tell Kevin, I said, you know it would really help Carol’s closure if he really man up and tell us what really happened.

Carol Dirksmeyer: If you think somebody else did it, why aren’t you out there trying to find ‘em?
Well, in fact, Kevin’s lawyers say they are conducting their own search for the killer.
And Kevin? Seems to know... that some people will never be persuaded.


Kevin Jones: I know exactly what it feels like to have people think you did something that you didn’t do, and I wouldn’t ever wish that on anyone else. I still sometimes have dreams with her in it... and it's like she’s right there.


But for now, the question hangs, here in the green rolling hills of Arkansas: will there ever be justice for Nona?



A special prosecutor has now been appointed to the case. And, recently, Kevin Jones' defense team gave prosecutors what it says is new evidence. The defense says it is optimistic about the outcome.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24433365/

[FDInLaw]

An Arkansas student with a controversal past has been denied admission to a state university.

Kevin Jones was found not guilty of murdering his beauty queen girlfriend, who attended the school that he is now trying to enter.

It's been a year since Kevin Jones was found not guilty in the 2005 murder of Nona Dirksmeyer.

The 22-year-old says he's trying to move forward with his life. He finished the spring semester at U of A at Fort Smith, but when he tried to transfer to Arkansas Tech, in his hometown of Russellville, his admission was denied.

(Jones) "He just said there's been a decision made, I think he actually said "blanket decision" made, that my admission had been denied."

Jones believes it's because he was tried for murder.

(Jones) "That's how it feels. That's how it feels. It feels like if this didn't happen to me, they would have let me in."

The university sent Jones a one-sentence denial letter in April. Jones says he didn't receive it, and that he didn't realize he wasn't accepted until he tried to enroll in fall classes.

Jones and his attorney asked for specific reasons and got a second letter from the school last week, saying Jones failed to submit official transcripts, that they have safety concerns about Jones being on campus, and that his presence would undermine the orderly operations of Arkansas Tech University. A university spokesperson would only comment to say that administrators make the decision.

(Attorney Michael Robbins) "I know of no policy Tech has that permits them to do so. It's a state-funded school, and if you look at their website, they discuss unconditional enrollment."

Attorney Michael Robbins says the lacking transcript was from the spring semester, not available when Jones applied in April.

( Robbins) "In my mind, it's absolutely, solely because of his arrest and charge with the Nona Dirksmeyer's death. I think it's unfair, I think it's unjust, and I think it's nonsense."

Jones, who made the dean's list last semester, says he wants to be a lawyer and willl keep pushing toward his goal.

(Jones) "After seeing what my lawyers did for me, even though it's hard work and a lot of stress, If I could do for one person what they did for me, it would totally be worth it."

Jones has appealed the university's decision.




http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0808/545456.html

[FDInLaw]

"A $1 million bond is keeping the man accused of killing Arkansas Tech student Nona Dirksmeyer in jail right now. A Pope County judge held a bond hearing for Gary Dunn, 28, on a capital murder charge this morning. Dunn didn't say much in court but his family did. . .


"I know in my heart my son didn't do this and I stand behind him 100%," his mother Martha Dunn says.

The hearing was short, just to determine whether Dunn should be let out of jail on bond.

"Whether or not you are innocent or guilty will be decided once you get to circuit court," Pope County District Judge Don Bourne said. "Anything else you want to say or add before I set your bond Mr. Dunn?"

Dunn said nothing. The judge set his bond at $1,000,000.

Special Prosecutor Jack McQuary is believed to have DNA evidence linking Dunn to the crime scene where Dirksmeyer was killed. An arrest affidavit says a condom wrapper found near Dirksmeyer’s body had DNA from both her and Dunn. And it has been revealed nearly three years after the killing that Dunn lived in the same apartment complex as Dirksmeyer at the time of the killing.

None of those facts that seem to implicate his stepson change the feelings of Preston Chenoweth.

"It doesn't worry me because in my opinion if they had it they would have used it before,” Chenoweth says.

Chenoweth says his stepson is a quiet man and a good worker who assisted him on construction projects around the area. He says the last time he spoke to him was a few days before his arrest. Chenoweth says Dunn was optomistic about finding more consistent work, but explained few employers would hire him with a felony on his record.

Dunn has that felony conviction from a 2003 second degree battery assault on a female jogger at a Russellville park. He was sentenced to six years in prison and served two. He was on parole at the time Dirksmeyer was killed in 2005.

"I've never in the 53 years that I've been alive seen my son lay a hand on any woman," Dunn says.

She says now Russellville Police and the special prosecutor in the case are victimizing another family in their search for Nona's killer.

"I feel sorry for Kevin (Jones) for what he had to go through and I feel sorry for Nona's parents for what they are still going through,” Dunn says. “They need closure, they need answers. But my son didn't do this."

And his family says if it goes to trial they want it moved out of Pope County. The next court appearance for Gary Dunn is September 22nd at 9am. His family says most likely a public defender will handle his case unless a defense attorney wants to take it pro bono. "

http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d9d71739-5322-494e-9129-600f9025db35&rss=315

(See link for complete article)

[FDInLaw]

RUSSELLVILLE — The special prosecutor investigating the 2005 slaying of Nona Dirksmeyer said Monday that he believes the victim’s boyfriend, who was acquitted of the murder last summer, is indeed innocent. Kevin Jones, 22, of Dover said of the comments by special prosecutor Jack McQuary: “An authority figure with as much access to the information as he has will surely change people’s minds.” Before, skeptics would say, “It’s just the family” professing Jones’ innocence, he said.

“A lot of people... have said derogatory things and have looked at me in a derogatory ways.” On Friday, Mc-Quary charged Gary William Dunn, 29, of Dover, with capital murder in the case. Dunn was on parole and lived in the same Russellville apartment complex as Dirksmeyer at the time of the Dec. 15, 2005, killing.

“I would not have filed charges against Gary Dunn if I thought that Kevin Jones was guilty of the homicide of Nona Dirksmeyer,” McQuary said Monday, hours after Pope County District Judge Don Bourne set Dunn’s bond at $ 1 million.

In July 2007, a circuit-court jury acquitted Jones of firstdegree murder in the death of Dirksmeyer, 19. Even after the trial, Jones’ defense attorneys continued to work to prove his innocence and later turned over to authorities new DNA evidence they helped uncover on a condom wrapper found in Dirksmeyer’s apartment after the killing.

Previously, authorities have said there was no sign of a sexual assault on the Arkansas Tech University student, found lying in a pool of blood on her living-room floor. However, court documents showed Monday that authorities now believe Dirksmeyer may have been sexually assaulted.

In an affidavit filed with the Pope County circuit clerk’s office, Arkansas State Police Special Agent Stacie D. Rhoads wrote that police found an open condom wrapper 3 to 4 feet from Dirksmeyer’s body, nude except for a pair of socks.

“An analysis of the condom wrapper revealed the presence of DNA,” Rhoads wrote. Authorities determined that DNA on it was “a mixture of at least two individuals” — Dirksmeyer and Dunn. “Other evidence at the scene indicated a possible sexual assault.” Authorities have said the avid beauty pageant contestant was choked and beaten, and stabbed and slashed with a knife on her face, shoulders and throat.

During Jones’ trial, Ed Volman, a forensic serologist with the state Crime Laboratory, testified that he found no evidence of sexual activity based upon an exam of Dirksmeyer’s body and clothes.

McQuary said Monday that it’s difficult to prove sexual assault.

Dunn did not have an attorney at his hearing Monday. But in the affidavit, Rhoads wrote that Dunn has “denied knowing Nona and denied ever being inside her apartment.” She continued: “Dunn has provided different accounts of his actions on the day Nona was murdered. Dunn also puts himself at the apartment complex during the time Nona was murdered. Information initially provided by Dunn as to his whereabouts [has ] been determined to be untrue.” Dunn’s mother, Martha Dunn of Dover, said police told her in 2005 that her son had passed a lie-detector test. “I know in my heart my son did not do this,” she said.

Also Monday, one of Jones ’ defense attorneys, Michael Robbins of Russellville, said the Russellville Police Department owes Jones an apology.

“Do I think they’re big enough to do it ? I don’t know. I hope they are.... I think they need to admit they made a mistake,” Robbins said.

Russellville Police Chief Tom McMillen did not return calls seeking comment, nor did James Bacon, who was chief at the time of the killing and has since become chief in Nixa, Mo.

Jones said, “I think [police ] just need to learn from their experience... and do the right thing next time.” Robbins did not criticize 5 th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons, who handled the case against Jones in court.

McQuary stressed that Gibbons “was not given information that we have been able to uncover. But if I had only had the information that David Gibbons had... Kevin Jones would have been a suspect in my opinion, as well.” Gibbons declined comment.

Dirksmeyer’s stepfather, Duane Dipert of Russellville, said he and her mother, Carol Dipert, have decided not to talk with reporters.

Jones said he has not heard from Dirksmeyer’s mother since Dunn’s arrest but would be happy if they could renew their friendship.

“I never once blamed Carol,” he said. “If the police told me someone did this to my daughter... it was just a terrible situation.” Jones said the experience has helped him mature.

“I look at the world in a different way now,” he said. Before, he would read about someone being charged with a crime and presume he was guilty.

“I’ve learned to question that,” he said.

“Before this, I was carefree. I didn’t have a problem.... I was just kind of bumping along, not doing what I should be doing, not really making very good grades in college.... I’m going to try to find some sort of silver lining for this experience.

“ What happened to me was bad,” Jones said, adding, “I don’t want people to dwell on what happened to me because what happened to Nona was exponentially worse.” Jones, attending college in Fort Smith, plans to become a lawyer.

“If I could do for one person what [my attorneys have done ] for me... it would be worth” his efforts, he said.

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/235428/

[FDInLaw]

Story date: Dec. 31, 2008

2008 brings new arrest in connection with crime that rocked the River Valley

Editor’s note — Through Jan. 1, The Courier will profile — and, when possible, update — the top local news stories of 2008, as voted by our readers. Today, we look back to Aug. 23, when prosecutors announced Gary W. Dunn, 29, had been arrested in connection with the 2005 murder of Nona Dirksmeyer. He has since pleaded not guilty, and remains incarcerated awaiting an April trial.
Attorneys for both the defense and prosecution agreed to a gag order Sept. 17 barring involved parties from making public comment regarding the case.

By Mary Kincy Benefield/
Managing Editor
Arkansas State Police arrested a suspect Aug. 22 in the 2005 death of Arkansas Tech University student Nona Dirksmeyer, little more than a year after her boyfriend, Kevin Jones, was acquitted of the murder.
Special prosecutor Jack McQuary said in a release Gary W. Dunn of Dover was charged with capital murder in the homicide. He declined to provide further details, citing limitations imposed by ethics rules.
Multiple law enforcement sources said Dunn, 29, lived in the same South Inglewood Avenue apartment complex where Dirksmeyer lived at the time of her death. Robert White of Bigelow, who identified himself to The Associated Press as Dunn’s uncle, confirmed Dunn lived at the complex, but said he did not know if the pair lived there at the same time.
Dirksmeyer, 19, was found dead in her apartment Dec. 15, 2005, by Jones; Jones’ mother, Janice Jones; and Ryan Whiteside. Jones later told police he asked Whiteside, a pizza deliveryman, to check on Dirksmeyer after he was unable to reach her and became concerned about her welfare.
Dunn was convicted of second-degree battery in 2003 and sentenced to six years in prison after he assaulted a 24-year-old woman at a park in Russellville in 2002. State sentencing guidelines allowed for his release as early as 2004 or 2005, including time off for meritorious good behavior.
According to an April 22, 2003, Courier article by Sean Ingram, the victim told investigators Dunn attacked her after she jogged past a bench upon which he was sitting at Bona Dea Trails, striking her repeatedly in the head with a stick.
State medical examiner Charles Kokes testified in July 2007 at Jones’ trial Dirksmeyer died as a result of a depressed skull fracture on the back of her head investigators determined was inflicted when she was struck with the base of a floor lamp found inside her apartment the night of her death.
He described the amount of force needed to cause an injury of that severity to the lower back of the skull — the thickest, most resilient part of the head — as “tremendous.”
Kokes told the jury he found no evidence of forcible rape.
Bill Bristow of Jonesboro, one of three attorneys who represented Jones, declined comment when asked whether he believed Dunn’s arrest was related to DNA the defense team announced in February it matched to DNA discovered on a condom wrapper found in Dirksmeyer’s apartment the night of her death.
“I’ve just taken the position ever since the special prosecutor was appointed that any comments needed to come through the special prosecutor,” Bristow said.
But Michael Robbins of Dover, another of Jones’ attorneys, told the AP the defense team was aware of Dunn’s connection to Dirksmeyer, but only recently obtained a DNA sample from Dunn.
Robbins declined to specify how the defense team obtained Dunn’s DNA, but acknowledged investigators gathered some samples from uncooperative suspects without their knowledge, the AP reported.
McQuary did not immediately return an after-hours call to his office following the arrest.
Dirksmeyer’s brother, Duke Dirksmeyer, said when contacted the family would wait to comment on the arrest until further details were released, but praised the continued efforts of investigators in the case.
Background
Dirksmeyer, a 2004 graduate of Dover High School, was the reigning Miss Petit Jean Valley at the time of her death. Jones was arrested in connection with the murder in March 2006, and was found not guilty by a Franklin County jury July 19, 2007.
Following McQuary’s appointment, Pope County Circuit Judge Dennis C. Sutterfield ordered the record surrounding the matter sealed “subject to further order of [the] court following completion of [the] investigation,” citing the possibility “the premature release of sensitive information surrounding [the] investigation” might jeopardize both McQuary’s and law enforcement’s ability to effectively proceed with the investigation, according to his release.
McQuary was appointed at the request of 5th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons, Sutterfield’s release confirmed.
Shortly before Dunn’s arrest, The Associated Press reported Jones told Little Rock television station KATV that Arkansas Tech University denied him admission for the fall semester. He said the university rejected his application because he didn’t send proper transcripts and because there were safety concerns about having him on campus.
A university spokesman declined comment, saying only that administrators make admissions decisions.http://www.couriernews.com/story.php?ID=20268

[Pandabear]

http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Dirksmeyer-murder-hearing/aVctyQVbZEO2lC4z02wYzg.cspx

Dirksmeyer murder hearing

Last Update: 3/16

The murder of a Russellville beauty queen is one step closer to going to trial again. A judge in the Nona Dirksmeyer case ruled Monday afternoon that DNA expert testimony will be allowed in.

Gary Dunn, 29, is one step closer to his capitol murder trial. He didn’t answer outside of the court when asked if he killed Nona Dirksmeyer. Inside a Pope County court house Monday afternoon he remained quite during a two hour hearing over expert DNA testimony.

The state expert says DNA found on a condom wrapper inside Nona Dirksmeyer’s apartment places Dunn at the scene of her 2005 murder. And at the odds it’s someone else is close to one in 120 million.

Dunn’s defense attorneys countered with Laurence Mueller, a population genetics expert out of California who believes the number is much lower, closer to one in 400 and that the state’s DNA math is wrong. Defense attorneys want to keep those numbers away from potential jurors, but the judge said no.

“I disagree that the other presentation is accurate or reliable. So, when I come back I'll probably make the same strong case,” Mueller said.

Whatever jurors end up hearing, it will not happen at the Pope county court house in Russellville. The trial has been moved to Clarksville. Jury selection is slated for April.

Video of hearing and pictures at the link.