Death and the Beauty Queen

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.”

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