s m. andrea canning: and if keith was listening, then what would you say to keith? that i know he's in a great place. and keith would tell us to forgive becky. not to say that she doesn't have to be held accountable and that she doesn't have to suffer consequences, because that-- that's a given, and that's the right thing. but keith would actually want us to forgive becky. and i know that. and i would just tell keith, well done. your time on earth here was well done. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. [music playing] hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." we both expected to spend the rest of our lives together. craig melvin (voiceover): but when she was murdered, sympathy turned to suspicion.

his palm print was on the murder weapon. no question it was his. craig melvin (voiceover): but the mystery was just beginning because-- the dna was some other male. craig melvin (voiceover): as the town chose sides and families fought for justice, more startling developments in a horrific murder. when you've got something that was this bad-- somebody has got to pay. somebody has to pay. [theme music] hello, and welcome to "dateline." nona dirksmeyer and kevin jones were a couple with a bright future. she was a self-confident 19-year-old known for her beautiful voice. he was her devoted boyfriend with big ambitions. then a brutal attack shattered their dreams. it was a crime that would shake a small southern town to its core and pit a family against the community

they called home. here's keith morrison with "what happened to the beauty queen?" keith morrison (voiceover): look at her. look at the young woman at the heart of our story. you can see how lovely she is, the young beauty queen. can you see her vulnerability? by now, your first impression is probably locked in. it's very unlikely to change. and certainly, that's how it was in russellville, arkansas, a town where a first impression hardened like a patch of cement. about her and also, for better or worse, about the young man accused of killing her. the boyfriend who found the body. the boyfriend who found the body. keith morrison (voiceover): first impressions die hard, including first impressions of murder. and years later in this small, southern town we had to ask, can they ever change? of course, that question is quite obvious

now to kevin jones. but years ago, he didn't give a thing whom he impressed or didn't. all he knew was this-- he was going places. he was from a good family, lived near a wonderful city called russellville, and was well liked. oh, and was adored by one girl in particular-- his high school sweetheart, nona dirksmeyer. so she was kind of like a soul mate, i suppose? yeah, she--i was closer to her than anybody else. keith morrison (voiceover): he was going to marry her someday. she was, after all, about the prettiest girl in town. local beauty pageant judges were wowed by her looks and poise. had already crowned her as such. but here's another truth her boyfriend came to realize-- beauty really isn't everything. nona was a sometimes troubled girl, given to bouts of emotional turmoil. her mother, carol, was grateful to kevin for making her daughter happy. kevin was really interested in helping

nona get through some of these hard times she was having. he seemed to be a really caring person. keith morrison (voiceover): he even brought nona into his own family. his mom, janice, dad, hiram, treated her as one of their own. she was not a girlfriend and-- she was our family. keith morrison (voiceover): when it was time for kevin to go off to college, he and nona stayed in touch, and in love, through a wireless world of late night cell chats, and texts, and emoticons. when he didn't respond promptly, she'd wag her finger at him. and she would send me text messages that said, you know, are you still alive? sarcastically trying to get my attention. keith morrison (voiceover): which is why he was so taken aback that day a little more than a week before christmas in 2005. it was december 15th. nona uncharacteristically hadn't reached out to him or answered him since morning.

at one point, he turned her old taunt back on her, texting, you alive? even then, she didn't respond. this was not like nona. 4 and 1/2 years, we had made a pattern and that's what we did every day. and if that pattern is broken, it just kind of raises a red flag in my head. why is she not responding? were you worried? i was concerned. keith morrison (voiceover): who knows why things work out the way they do. on that particular night, kevin was supposed to drive his mom janice to a christmas party. she remembers being in the car with him. and i said, well, you know, there's lots of reasons why she might not be answering her phone. you know, maybe her plans changed. keith morrison (voiceover): but by now, kevin could think of nothing else. he called his buddy ryan, who delivered pizza near nona's apartment and asked him to check on her. and ryan called back with something eerie-- nona's car was in the lot. her house lights were on, but she wasn't answering the door.

and i said, ok, well, i'm going to come over there. keith morrison (voiceover): they pulled up to nona's front door. ryan was still there. kevin joined him. ryan and i knocked and knocked and rang the doorbell and nobody came, and we started to get a little frantic. keith morrison (voiceover): so the two men ran around the condo to nona's back door. kevin says he rushed up to the sliding glass door without taking a moment to look inside. so when i was grabbing the handle, ryan touched me and he said, you don't see her? and i looked at him and he said, dude, there she is. and she was laying on-- in her front room. keith morrison (voiceover): nona wasn't moving. kevin threw open the unlocked door and rushed inside. ryan, at one point, let my mom in the front door. they called 911 pretty soon after that. i straddled her midsection.

my knees were on the ground above her midsection. keith morrison (voiceover): he tried cpr, but she wasn't breathing. and her eyes, usually so luminous, there was no light, there was nothing at all. and i talked to her and i just prayed that everything was going to be ok and-- until the ems got there. [sirens] keith morrison (voiceover): soon, her little apartment was overwhelmed by paramedics and police. it wasn't long before an officer took kevin aside. janis listened as her son's voice suddenly rose above the chaos. then i heard him cry out. what, a howl? yes. that's what it was. and then he asked them if she was dead, and they affirmed, yes, she was. keith morrison (voiceover): nona was gone. nothing kevin could do about it. and as he tried to absorb the enormity of what had happened, he heard a policeman ask, could he come downtown, please?

they had a few questions about what happened to nona. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up, did kevin know what happened? police seem to think so. craig melvin (voiceover): and watch what happened when police were not asking questions. craig melvin (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ stay ahead of your child's moderate-to-severe eczema. and they can show off clearer skin and less itch with dupixent, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, that helps heal your child's skin from within. serious allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. tell your doctor about new or worsening eye problems such as eye pain or vision changes including blurred vision, joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines without talking to your doctor. ask your child's eczema specialist about dupixent. billy: one second, grandma.

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keith morrison (voiceover): in pictures, make it arexvy. nona dirksmeyer forever radiates promise and beauty. but there is something ugly that lives on, too-- her death and the way she was so brutally taken. nona's mother, carol, knew it was bad the moment she arrived that night to see police at nona's apartment. i told them i wanted to see my baby, and of course they said you can't. so-- they had the crime scene tape up and everything. keith morrison (voiceover): the police told carol it was horribly obvious-- nona had been murdered. but they were on the case, they told her. in fact, they were already trying to break down nona's last moments on earth. keith morrison (voiceover): questioning the man who may have known her best. keith morrison (voiceover): and kevin jones seemed eager to help the police figure out

who killed his girlfriend. he readily agreed to go to the station that night to answer a few routine questions. keith morrison (voiceover): but as kevin careened from what looked like disbelief-- keith morrison (voiceover): to grief-- keith morrison (voiceover): --to anger and again-- keith morrison (voiceover): a few questions turned into many. keith morrison (voiceover): and were pointed. they would leave me alone in the room. they would ask me questions. keith morrison (voiceover): after a while, the police told kevin-- keith morrison (voiceover): --he go home.

they had other people to talk to, young men nona had been seeing while kevin was away at college. but it wasn't long before the detectives determined the alibis for those other men checked out. and six days later, as he prepared to say goodbye to nona at the funeral home, police asked him to come back to the police station. after about 20 minutes worth of questions, they asked me if i'd take a polygraph test. what did you say? i said sure. keith morrison (voiceover): so they strapped him up and ran through the innocuous questions. and then-- and then they went out, analyzed it, came back and said what? the man who gave it to me told me that he had not seen anybody fail the test worse in his 28 or some odd years of giving lie detector tests. keith morrison (voiceover): the murder of the beauty queen was very big news in russellville. and given the nature of the crime and the victim--

so young and pretty and vulnerable-- the pressure to solve it from the public and the press was quite intense. so imagine how it was for the lead detective, mark frost, given that this was his very first homicide case. keith morrison (voiceover): though as he talked to kevin, frost sounded like a veteran who'd seen it all and was disgusted. at this point, it wasn't really questioning. it was more of them yelling at me, telling me they knew that i did it. keith morrison (voiceover): yet the police didn't arrest kevin that night. here's what they did instead. they told nona's mother that the young man she thought would be her son-in-law one day was, in fact, her daughter's killer. the first thing that i was told was that he was a sociopath with a narcissistic personality.

keith morrison (voiceover): nona had been stabbed repeatedly around the neck and chest and bashed on the head. the medical examiner said that was what killed nona. the police told carol that this had to have been a very personal attack, not something a stranger would have done. but kevin could have. so now, carol had two shocks to absorb. i knew he did it. i knew in my heart it was someone that she knew. she would never let anyone in the apartment that she didn't know. keith morrison (voiceover): so now, kevin's horrifying discovery was subjected to a dark and troubling spin. detective mark frost said that, to him, the crime scene up there looked staged. and a week later, there was a press conference at which the police told the russellville public, don't worry. we know who committed this crime. keith morrison (voiceover): police didn't mention the suspect's name just then, but it wasn't long before everybody in russellville knew perfectly well that it was kevin jones. this is what appeared in the russellville "courier" three months after nona's murder.

nona's killer remains free, and russellville police department has requested formal charges against one suspect. hiram jones is kevin's father. they tried, convicted, and sentenced kevin within 90 days of it happening. if you was a stranger walking in a coffee shop based in russellville and you read that, what would you think? keith morrison (voiceover): it bothered kevin's mother janice something awful when bumper stickers, justice for nona, started cropping up. after all, she loved nona, too. the assumption that i formed and i think many people formed was that justice for nona meant-- convict kevin. convict kevin. topping our news, police make an arrest in the murder of a 19-year-old arkansas beauty queen. keith morrison (voiceover): on march 31, 2006, not long after that courier article, police finally did announce the arrest of kevin jones for the murder of nona dirksmeyer. whether or not kevin was convicted

in the court of public opinion was now apparently irrelevant. he was about to stand trial and quite possibly be convicted where it really mattered-- a court of law. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up, a footprint in blood on the lamp used to kill known. guess who's? keith morrison: no question it was his. no question it was his. craig melvin (voiceover): but on another key piece of evidence? the dna was some other male. craig melvin (voiceover): when "dateline" continues.

[music playing] keith morrison (voiceover): a small southern city, a local beauty queen murdered, her boyfriend accused of the crime. it was hard to be in russellville in 2007 and not be steeped in the story of nona dirksmeyer and kevin jones. this case probably had more statewide publicity than any criminal case in many, many years, perhaps ever, in arkansas. keith morrison (voiceover): yet of course, kevin had a right to a fair trial, an impartial jury. his lawyers argued that would be impossible in a place like russellville, so the venue was changed to the nearby city of ozark. the media spotlight is on the small northwest arkansas town of ozark as jury selection begins in a highly-- keith morrison (voiceover): to the prosecutor, the trial's location mattered little. what did matter was the evidence, and he believed there was enough of that to put kevin jones away for years.

jeff phillips was the deputy prosecutor. we believed, and i believe that the morning of her death, kevin jones came in unexpectedly. keith morrison (voiceover): when the trial opened in 2007, the prosecutor told the jury the reason for this crime was as old as the bible itself-- jealous rage. kevin jones had walked into his lover's apartment that day in december of 2005 and found within it a cheating heart. while there, discovered either a text message from another person and/or a used condom wrapper on a counter, and things escalated from there, escalated out of control. keith morrison (voiceover): and ended, the prosecutor said, with jones repeatedly stabbing nona, then crushing her skull with a lamp base. left his palm print on the lamp's bulb. no question it was his? no question it was his. the defense didn't even make an issue that it was his. keith morrison (voiceover): but it's what kevin did next, said the prosecutor, that showed how calculating he could be.

kevin left nona's apartment, he said, with her dead on the floor, then waited through the afternoon until hours later, when he could come back with his mother and friend to find nona's body. in my opinion, an intentional attempt to be-- to have someone else find her but him. keith morrison (voiceover): trying to make himself look innocent. if that wasn't telling enough, the prosecutor said, then surely this was. kevin jones' police interview. right there, the prosecutor told the jury, was kevin's capacity for violence in full view. sitting and listening to this. kevin's father worried how easy it might be for jurors to convict his son. it was just a nightmare. keith morrison (voiceover): yet kevin's parents never wavered in their belief that their son was just as innocent as he told the police he was. they even bet the family farm on it. we put it up as collateral.

keith morrison (voiceover): and used the money to buy their son the best defense they could, and he needed it. kevin's lawyers knew their client had become the local poster boy for evil. when you've got something that was this-- this serious, that is this bad. this-- this girl was brutally murdered. somebody has got to pay. somebody has to pay. keith morrison (voiceover): somebody, but not kevin, said attorney michael robbins. they sent the read out of that polygraph to an independent expert who reported that the questions seemed designed to make sure kevin failed. and the rest of the state's evidence, said the defense, didn't wash either. that bloody palm print on the light bulb of the lamp, the murder weapon? attorney bill bristow agreed it was kevin's print and no wonder it was. kevin was frantically trying to save his girlfriend's life, so of course he could have touched the light bulb. 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 revive her somehow. yes, the em-- hence, light bulb. yes, the emt said the lamp was within a foot of the body. keith morrison (voiceover): more disturbing, the evidence not collected by the police, said the defense. first time homicide detective mark frost and the other officers in the department mucked up the case royally. the only area that was fingerprinted was the area around the body. that 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. keith morrison (voiceover): in fact, the defense did its own dna testing on that condom wrapper. by the prosecution's account, it was a key piece

of evidence, the thing that likely set kevin off on his murderous rage. but think about it, said lead attorney kenny johnson. if kevin actually saw the condom wrapper, he would have picked it up, would have left his own dna on it. but-- we sent the prophylactic wrapper off to the lab and they found the dna. the dna was some other male. keith morrison (voiceover): someone else's dna, not kevin. and probably, said the defense, that condom was used by the killer. but who? neither defense nor prosecution had an answer for that. the dna didn't match anybody in the database, and kevin's lawyers did have this-- an alibi for their client. kevin's grandmother told the court he couldn't have killed mona because he was with her, miles away in the town of dover around the time the state said nona died. she is a genuine, down to earth, very level headed person.

she was an incredible witness on the stand. keith morrison (voiceover): but there was one compelling piece of evidence in the prosecution's case, said the defense, and they just wanted jurors to see more of it. that police video of kevin. keith morrison (voiceover): the defense had jurors watch all of it. it was betting this image would convince jurors they should change what may have been that first impression, and decide kevin wasn't the killer the prosecutors had painted, but a grief-stricken young man who was innocent. so what to believe? in the courthouse, the jury wrestled with its verdict. 50 miles down the road in russellville, the town cried for justice. if that meant conviction, well, so be it. would jurors convict kevin jones of murder? and whose dna was on that key piece of evidence?

coming up-- i said, it matches dunn then. he said, well, it matches gary dunn. craig melvin (voiceover): who was gary dunn? and what, if anything, did he have to do with nona's murder? when "dateline" continues. [music playing] ♪♪ when you have moderate to severe eczema, it's okay to show off. with dupixent, show off your clearer skin and less itch. because you have plenty of reasons to show off your skin. with dupixent, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, you can stay ahead of your eczema. it helps block a key source of inflammation inside the body that can cause eczema to help heal your skin from within. many adults saw 90% clearer skin, some even achieved long-lasting clearer skin and fast itch relief after first dose. serious allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. tell your doctor about new or worsening eye problems such as eye pain or vision changes

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hi, i'm richard lee with an update. vice president kamala harris visiting north carolina saturday. pledging ongoing federal support in the aftermath of hurricane helene. at least 223 people died and hundreds are unaccounted for since the storm made landfall in florida, september 26th. israel lost more missiles on beirut. as they clash with has blood. they reported seeing 20 flashes, the largest they have seen during nighttime strikes. these plumes of black smoke were seen rising from the area where the apparent strike hit.

for now, back to dateline. prosecutors painted kevin as a jealous boyfriend, whose bloody palm print found at the scene was evidence he committed the crime. the defense countered that kevin left the print while trying to save nona's life. it was time for the jury to decide the young man fate. here again is keith morrison with what happened to the beauty queen? keith morrison (voiceover): kevin jones sat in the courtroom, watched the fight for his life swirl around him, and felt in that uncomfortable chair the withering stares of the jury. they can all look at you. and if you do one thing wrong, that they deem is wrong, that might sway them the opposite way. one facial expression. one click of a pen, one bite off of your fingernail. you never know how people are going to take things that you do.

keith morrison (voiceover): he had every reason to worry. later, the jurors would recall how the images of this crime haunted them. blood all over him in the pictures. the palm print in her blood. keith morrison (voiceover): but to the jurors, the evidence-- or the lack of it-- looked bad for police, too. 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. keith morrison (voiceover): they said that kind of sloppiness made them wonder, what else did the police miss? what other suspects? the police claimed that they had checked the alibis of all these potential suspects. as well as they'd gathered evidence? [laughs] keith morrison (voiceover): but what really stuck with them was kevin, sitting in the police interrogation room looking, to them, genuinely distraught. i felt bad inside that i was watching him in

this little cubicle of a room. keith morrison (voiceover): on balance, they agreed, the evidence pointed more to innocence than guilt. after eight hours, they had their verdict-- not guilty. kevin was freed, enormously relieved, of course, but also furious at detective mark frost and the russellville police. it frustrates me. it angers me that the police didn't care enough to do their jobs the right way. it frustrates me that they didn't find the person who did this. keith morrison (voiceover): but nona's mother carol believed her daughter's old boyfriend had quite possibly just gotten away with murder. if you think somebody else did it, why aren't you out there trying to find him? now, who could begrudge a grieving mother's bitter challenge? certainly not the jones family. on the day kevin was acquitted, they stood here on the steps of the courthouse and they vowed they would do whatever it took to find nona's killer. kevin's father hiram, financially wiped out

by the cost of all this, asked his son's legal team for one more favor. i said, this is what i've got. i don't know how much i need. i don't know how i can pay you, but i need this. keith morrison (voiceover): the lawyers agreed to help. they asked an investigator, this man, to keep working the case. his name is todd steffy. he's a part-time policeman in kevin's hometown of dover, just outside russellville, a part time detective and full time preacher. what an odd combination, that. oh, i used to say it's the ultimate good guy. and right away, steffy knew there was a key piece of evidence that demanded a closer look. that condom wrapper found at nona's apartment. it held somebody's dna, but whose? steffy wondered if police cleared those male friends and neighbors of nona too quickly in the early days of the investigation. do they have a valid alibi? because either i'm missing something or, you know. and so i begin to feel like that some of those people

maybe needed to have their dna compared. keith morrison (voiceover): so kevin's legal team rolled up its sleeves and slacks and went diving through trash belonging to those young men, and they got some dna samples but none matched the dna on the condom wrapper. steffy, the policeman-preacher, needed a lead. you could say he needed a miracle. and wouldn't you know, he got it. it came in the most mundane way. two months after kevin's acquittal and more than a year after nona's death, steffy's police chief told him to question a suspect in a recent burglary, a man by the name of gary dunn. steffy's eyes widened at that. my chief looked at me and said, do you know who he is? and i said, yes. he was one of the neighbors to nona dirksmeyer. keith morrison (voiceover): gary dunn, a neighbor of nona's. he was among that handful of men who'd been questioned

and cleared by police. steffy knew that dunn certainly would have had the opportunity to kill. his bedroom window looked directly across a small parking lot at nona's bedroom window. now steffy had to get that man's dna. how'd you do that? i asked him for it. and he said yes? basically. i just asked him if he would be willing to give me his fingerprints and a dna sample. if i can rule them out, then we're done. keith morrison (voiceover): but there was a problem. to get that sample tested, steffy he needed the cash-strapped jones family to pay for it. at first, kevin's mother hesitated. the tests would cost about $600. but the investigator insisted. what did she say? eventually she just kind of said something like, oh, shucks, it's just money. keith morrison (voiceover): so she paid for it, and what a good investment that turned out to be because weeks later, steffy got a call

from one of kevin's lawyers. the dna tests were back and wouldn't you know? i said it matches, doesn't it? he said, well, it matches gary dunn. keith morrison (voiceover): the results strongly suggested the dna on that condom wrapper was left by nona's neighbor, gary dunn. now steffy needed to check out dunn's alibi for the day nona was killed. dunn had told police he was out shopping with his mother around the time of the murder, december 15. that was his alibi. so steffy went looking for copies of receipts from those stores to back up the alibi. so this is the store where supposedly gary dunn came to do some shopping. this was one of the places we had to check out his alibi and the store had boxes and boxes of records, of receipts. it was the old fashioned sign the slip kind of receipt. keith morrison (voiceover): he's not kidding. boxes going back years. steffy routed through piles of forgotten paper. how many boxes did you go through?

i have no idea. i don't remember. hours and hours? i think i have tried to forget that. and just when steffy thought it was all a wasted effort, he pulled out this scrap. did you find it? i found it. i found it. keith morrison (voiceover): there it was. a receipt that showed gary and his mom were out shopping all right-- on december 13, not the 15th when they said they were, when nona was murdered. it wasn't the same day at all. no. keith morrison (voiceover): in fact, none of the receipts from the stores where dunn and his mother said they were shopping gave him an alibi for the time nona was killed. police and the prosecutor didn't mention that at kevin's trial. but now a new prosecutor was on the case and he found the dna results and faulty alibi compelling. and one year after kevin's acquittal, gary dunn was charged with murder. many people in russellville struggled to know what to think.

their first impression was that kevin jones murdered nona dirksmeyer. did they believe this latest arrestee was the real killer? could the state of arkansas prove it? craig melvin (voiceover): coming up, gary dunn was the one on trial. so why did it seem as if kevin jones was, as well? the first thing you get hit with is your son is on trial again. even though he's not on trial, he is. craig melvin (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. [music playing] ♪ ♪ have you always had trouble losing weight and keeping it off? same. discover the power of wegovy®. ♪ ♪ with wegovy®, i lost 35 pounds. and some lost over 46 pounds. ♪ ♪ and i'm keeping the weight off. wegovy® helps you lose weight and keep it off. i'm reducing my risk. wegovy® is the only fda-approved weight-management medicine that's proven to reduce risk of major cardiovascular events

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had won and lost. they'd won freedom for their son kevin, but had lost a young woman they considered a daughter. they wanted justice so badly for nona, they spent their last dime to find her killer and they believed their sacrifice finally paid off when police arrested her neighbor, gary dunn, for her murder. hiram jones: i believe he committed this crime. but that's my belief based upon what i saw in these trials. keith morrison (voiceover): dunn's trial opened in april, 2010. hiram jones listened as the state, which had already tried his son, now argued that dunn was a sexually violent man who had been stalking the young beauty queen whose bedroom window he could see across the parking lot. his own wife testified he was violent in bed with her, and that weeks before nona's death, she caught him hanging around nona's front door in the middle of the night. so, said the prosecutor, the jury could be sure dunn killed nona after entering her apartment

with the intent of forcing a sexual encounter, and the condom wrapper proved it. this condom wrapper that was found, that had the dna on it, that did not have kevin's dna on it, that had his dna on it. keith morrison (voiceover): so dna evidence, a disturbing background, an alibi that turned out to be no alibi at all. in short, it was hard to see how dunn's public defenders, bill james and jeff rosenzweig, could argue against their client's lies and dna. but that's exactly what they did, and with gusto. what you're saying is the state was simply wrong? the state was simply wrong. keith morrison (voiceover): what's more, they told jurors, they could prove it. for starters, they said the state wasn't being honest about the dna on that condom wrapper. it was only a mixed, partial match to gary dunn, they said, which meant-- any thousands, millions, billions of people are also not excluded. let me ask you then, is what you're saying,

gary dunn didn't touch that condom wrapper? that's what we're saying, that gary dunn-- never was anywhere near that condom wrapper? well, he was across the parking lot in his apartment. keith morrison (voiceover): minding his own business when nona was murdered. it's true, the defense said, dunn was not out shopping as he first claimed to police. he had simply gotten his days mixed up. it was, after all, two weeks after the crime when detectives asked for a detailed alibi. they asked him for receipts. they found receipts. they gave it to the police department. except it wasn't for that day. well, he cooperated in full. he gave them what they asked him to do. keith morrison (voiceover): the defense told jurors it wasn't gary dunn's alibi they should question anyway. if anything, the lawyer said, they should take a look at someone else for nona's as murder-- her old boyfriend. and at that moment, hiram jones realized with dread just where this trial was heading.

first thing you get hit with is-- is your son is on trial again. even though he's not on trial, he is. that's a part of the defense that they used. keith morrison (voiceover): how right he was. dunn's attorneys tried to persuade the jury that kevin jones, the first suspect in the case, had one shaky story after another. the 911 call where kevin's mother is crying? keith morrison (voiceover): the defense said janice jones and kevin's friend gave police conflicting details of how they came upon nona's body and what they were doing to save her. it is a lie. they are lying. they're all three lying. the pizza boy's lying, kevin's lying, his mother's lying. absolutely lying. absolutely, without any question. keith morrison (voiceover): in fact, the defense attorneys tried to claim, you couldn't keep up with the joneses in all their lies. even kevin's grandmother who said she was with kevin in another town the morning of nona's death couldn't be trusted. kevin's grandmother knows that kevin murdered nona.

i mean, i don't know if they know what they know. but i know they're covering for him. keith morrison (voiceover): but the lawyer said kevin jones couldn't explain one thing away-- that bloody palm print at nona's apartment. it was his and not gary dunn's. did it work? yes, it did. after three days of deliberations, the jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked. the judge declared a mistrial. but the prosecutor wasn't giving up. he promptly refiled murder charges, and gary dunn's second trial began in 2011. now gary dunn being tried a second time after his first trial ended in a hung jury. keith morrison (voiceover): this time, the judge allowed the prosecutor to reveal a very dark fact about gary dunn. he was a convicted felon before nona was murdered. jurors heard from a woman named kelly jo fitzharris, who happened to have the grave misfortune of jogging past gary dunn on the wrong day

in the wrong place in 2002. it's a popular trail with runners, but very isolated. kelly jo came running by herself from that direction. she saw a man sitting here on this bench. as she ran up the trail this way, she heard footsteps behind her, turned around, and the man had a huge stick he hit her over the head with and he knocked her down. he hit her repeatedly. and as he beat her, she realized the only way for her to escape was to wriggle free. and so she ran up the trail that way as quickly as she possibly could, calling for help, pretending there was someone nearby. the police came a little later. they found gary dunn hiding in the water. they arrested him. he spent 18 months in jail. keith morrison (voiceover): and then, newly out on parole, he moved into nona's apartment complex, set up house directly across the parking lot months before nona's death. dunn's lawyers admitted it was a blow to their defense. so we had to deal with it and make it-- you know,

not make it any worse. do no harm. keith morrison (voiceover): or was it already done? this time, jurors knew the man sitting in the defendant's chair wasn't just a man prone to violence. he was a convicted criminal. so would the town's first impression that kevin jones murdered the beauty queen finally be done? the 12 people who will decide gary dunn's fate weigh the evidence. coming up, the verdict. he don't have no alibi, you know? and that looks really bad. it does look bad. it looks really bad. craig melvin (voiceover): will there be justice for nona and her family? i knew that they were waiting to see if there would be closure. craig melvin (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. [music playing] feeling ughh from a backed up gut? ughh. miralax works naturally with the water in your body to help you go. free your gut and your mood will follow. for 8 grams of fiber, try mirafiber gummies.

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welcome back. did gary dunn murder nona dirksmeyer? the first jury was deadlocked over that question. but at dunn's second trial, jurors learned he was a convicted felon and heard gripping testimony from the victim he attacked. the defense countered that the real killer was still on the loose. nona's loved ones had waged a five year battle for justice. was their fight finally coming to an end? here's keith morrison with the conclusion of "what happened to the beauty queen?" keith morrison (voiceover): this was the third time the state of arkansas had tried someone for the murder of nona dirksmeyer, and the second time gary dunn stood accused. but when they started to deliberate,

his jurors weren't thinking about second or third. they were thinking the first, kevin jones, the first suspect in this case. were you-- any of you suspicious that maybe it was actually kevin who did this? i believe the whole jury thought in the beginning that it was a high amount of probability that it was kevin because the defense did a really good job of getting us to believe it could be kevin. keith morrison (voiceover): once again, dunn's defense had retried kevin jones for the murder of nona dirksmeyer. but the jurors eventually came to a sort of peace with that. this is gary's trial, and we need to look at the evidence that's against or for him. keith morrison (voiceover): and once they did, they were troubled. on the witness stand, that jogger described just how brutally dunn attacked her, just as nona had been attacked. that was really a big factor in my thinking about whether he was guilty-- guilty or innocent, and tied into everything else. because that's what happened to nona, all those things.

keith morrison (voiceover): it showed dunn was a brutal man who was also a convicted felon when nona died. he even lied about where he'd been that day. he don't have no alibi, you know? and then that looks really bad. it does look bad. it looks really bad. keith morrison (voiceover): they also talked about the dna on the condom wrapper found at nona's apartment. some believe the dna probably did belong to gary dunn, but that made them wonder, too. this guy was supposedly so careful to not leave no other dna or no other fingerprints in this whole crime scene, then you think he would've been smart enough to take the condom wrapper with him. keith morrison (voiceover): so there it was. dna evidence against dunn, interesting, if perhaps not proof. circumstantial evidence, which was compelling. they took a poll-- guilty or not. several polls, actually. and then on the last go round, they knew they were finished. they went back to the courtroom and looked at nona's family.

coming up and being in front of her parents was the hardest thing for me. i was very sad. it made me very sad because i knew that they were waiting to see if there would be closure. and we couldn't do it. we couldn't give them closure. keith morrison (voiceover): once again, the case of arkansas versus gary dunn ended in a hung jury. the more powerful reason for that-- that first impression among many here in russellville that it was kevin jones who killed nona dirksmeyer. keith morrison (voiceover): in the aftermath of the trial, kevin headed back to court, not for anything he did, but for the damage he said was done to him by police. they just looked at me and said, he's the one that did it. keith morrison (voiceover): kevin jones always believed the police zeroed in on him as the suspect in nona's death, and never seriously considered anyone else.

kevin sued mark frost, the detective who built the case against him and others, too, for withholding evidence. a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit because the statute of limitations passed. through his lawyer, frost denied making mistakes and withholding evidence, and neither the russellville police department or the prosecutor would narrator: --the prosecutor would comment on the investigation. meanwhile, kevin has moved on. for reasons you may understand, he became a criminal defense attorney and-- get this-- decided to practice law in, of all places, russellville. the last time we spoke, kevin told us he had made peace with the one person whose opinion really does matter to him, known as mother. she no longer believes kevin killed her daughter. in fact, she says she loves kevin. as for the others who are more cynical, he tries not to dwell on what they think or whisper about him and the girl he once loved.

nona dirksmeyer-- the songbird, the beauty queen, the girl for whom justice is denied. in 2018, gary dunn found himself in handcuffs again after two incidents that occurred on the same night both unrelated to nona dirksmeyer. dunn pleaded no contest to attempted kidnapping and indecent exposure. he was sentenced to 15 years. barring new evidence, the state does not plan to file charges against him for a third time in the nona dirksmeyer killing. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline."ens . it doesn't happen to your family, to your brother. but it does.