http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ibyRxQgkSgzPuENtnxRbf5jnvnmAD92PSBJ00

New suspect scrutinized in beauty queen's slaying

By JON GAMBRELL – 1 hour ago

RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. (AP) — Police found the Arkansas beauty queen dead in her off-campus apartment in December 2005, her head bludgeoned by a floor lamp, her neck slit by a knife.

Authorities matched a bloody palm print on the lamp's light bulb to Nona Dirksmeyer's 19-year-old boyfriend. Prosecutors suggested Kevin N. Jones flew into a jealous rage after learning she had cheated on him.

But a jury acquitted Jones last year after defense lawyers argued police botched the investigation and the bloody print had been left when Jones discovered the body.

Now, a new prosecutor has charged a new suspect in the slaying of Miss Petit Jean Valley.

A district court judge set a $1 million cash-only bond Monday for Gary William Dunn, who could face the death penalty for the Arkansas Tech student's death. But prosecutors remain silent on why investigators crossed the convicted felon living in Dirksmeyer's apartment complex off as a suspect in their initial investigation.

Dunn, who turns 29 on Tuesday, already had felony convictions for hiding a man wanted by police inside his home, selling a stolen trumpet and breaking into a construction company's storage trailer to steal power tools with others.

He was out on parole at the time of Dirksmeyer's death after serving only two years of a six-year sentence for randomly attacking and threatening to kill a jogger in 2002.

In a court affidavit, Arkansas State Police Special Agent Stacie Rhoads said investigators found an open condom wrapper near Dirksmeyer's nude body when they arrived at her apartment Dec. 15, 2005. A DNA analysis of the wrapper determined the material came from both Dunn and Dirksmeyer, Rhoads said.

Dunn later told investigators he was at the apartment complex at the time of Dirksmeyer's death, though he had given false information to police in the past, Rhoads said. Dunn denied knowing Dirksmeyer and it remains unclear how a beauty pageant contestant who once sang the Italian operatic pop song "Con Te Partiro" crossed paths with a convicted felon.

Other evidence pointed to Dirksmeyer being sexually assaulted — something prosecutors denied when they filed charges against Jones in March 2006. At the time, prosecutors claimed Jones lay on top of her body and rubbed his hands in her blood to contaminate the crime scene.

At Jones' trial, a match to DNA evidence from the condom wrapper was not presented. However, a witness from the state Crime Laboratory said a detective using superglue on the wrapper to obtain fingerprints likely contaminated the evidence.

A jury acquitted Jones of a first-degree murder charge after a July 2007 trial.

Michael Robbins, a lawyer for Jones, said defense investigators obtained a DNA sample from Dunn and found a match to a substance on the condom wrapper. Robbins said defense lawyers gave the material to prosecutors, who immediately asked for a special prosecutor to take over the case this February.

Special Prosecutor Jack McQuary has said he will not discuss the case with reporters. A spokesman for the Russellville Police Department declined to comment Monday.

Dunn, dressed in orange prison clothes and yellow sandals, offered only "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" to questions during a 15-minute hearing Monday, looking at a wall or down at the jailhouse courtroom's floor.

Afterward, Dunn's mother said she told investigators her son only occasionally offered white lies and was a good man.

"I have never seen him raise his hand" to woman, Martha Dunn told reporters.

Preston Chenoweth, Dunn's stepfather, said Dunn didn't have many employment opportunities, as "everybody is down on felons." The stepfather also said Dunn previously passed a polygraph test given by police.

"We're going to stand behind him," Chenoweth said. Dunn faces a Sept. 22 court appearance, at which he will be appointed a public defender.

When asked if his stepson could get impartial justice, Chenoweth offered his own question: "Did Kevin?"

New prosecutor says boyfriend rightly cleared

BY DEBRA HALE-SHELTON

Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2008

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

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.