Dateline Originals - Murder in Apartment 12 - Ep. 4: Ozark

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

A jury holds the fate of Nona’s boyfriend in its hands.This episode was originally published on October 5, 2023. 

Many of us tend to think that truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Easier to embrace when it falls in line with what the beholder already believes. Start telling the truth. Plain and simple. Start telling the truth. But minds can be awfully hard to change once an idea takes root. And this is a little town in Arkansas. They wanted a neck. They wanted somebody to hit him. But what if they were wrong? What the polygraph was registering wasn't connecting with the truth.

What if they were presented with a new truth? Facts not previously known. 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. For most of us, a refusal to accept new facts or admit error might be considered an intellectual failing, a personal flaw. Some people are so hard-headed that they don't try to find out the truth. But for cops and prosecutors, authorities armed with the awesome power of the state,

such stubbornness can be dangerous, not just for the people they pursue, but for the institutions they serve. We're supposed to pursue the truth. And regardless of where that leads, even if I'm wrong, even if I discover that the truth means I'm wrong, I should be willing to go down that road and say, this is the truth. In July 2007, 21-year-old Kevin Jones went on trial in Ozark, Arkansas, for the murder of his girlfriend, Nona Dirksmeyer. This is the story of that trial, its aftermath, and the ongoing search for the truth of what happened that December day in 2005. I believed all along that the truth would prevail, that truth would come out.

In this episode, you'll hear from those who were convinced of Kevin's guilt. I'm 100% convinced that he did it. There's nobody else. You'll hear from those who were convinced of his innocence. I've always thought he was innocent. I couldn't have convicted him on what was presented. And you'll hear from jurors who had to decide what was the truth and what was not. We took pride in the fact that we were here, we were chosen for a reason, this was meant to be, and we all did this to the best of our abilities. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Murder in Apartment 12, a podcast from Dateline, Episode 4, Ozark. It was on a hot July afternoon that six men stood in the historic old second floor courtroom at the Franklin County Courthouse to discuss the way the next few weeks would unfold. They were five lawyers and a judge in the room, all well versed in the tactics of courtroom warfare.

There's always a limited amount of evidence that the jury's not going to get for whatever reason. That's assistant prosecutor Jeff Phillips. We wanted to call a witness of someone that he had had sex with a week before. You know, that's a moral judgment there. For prosecutors, any evidence that cast doubt on Kevin's character was fair game. After all, hadn't he told police that he and Nona were an exclusive couple? Didn't a casual college dalliance prove that he was a liar? When the first thing you tell the police was that you were exclusive, very, very exclusive with the person that has died,

then you're not starting the interview off in a really open way. The judge ruled that Kevin's sexual history was inadmissible. The defense didn't want the jury to see any portions of the police interview where Kevin talked about smoking pot. The only evidence of any drug use was recreational use of marijuana. That's defense attorney Michael Robbins. I don't really see how that had any impact on whether or not Kevin murdered Nona Darksmire. The judge agreed with the defense. Kevin's pot smoking was irrelevant and would not be admissible in court.

With that business completed, the stage was finally set for the Kevin Jones murder trial to begin the next day. Prosecutor David Gibbons opened his case by talking about the brutal nature of Nona Dirksmeyer's murder. Nona had been beaten and choked, cut and clubbed with a floor lamp, he said. The strongest piece of physical evidence for prosecution? The bloody palm print on the floor lamp's light bulb. A print that matched Kevin Jones. No question it was his. The defense didn't even make. No question it was his. The defense didn't even make an issue that it was his.

That's Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Phillips again. He handled that, well, part of the murder weapon. Definitely. With blood on his hands. Yeah. What did that say to you? It said that he left the blood on the bulb as he killed Nona, before or after he did that. That's like pretty amazing evidence to find. In my opinion, it is.

According to prosecutors, it all started shortly before 11 a.m. on the morning of December 15, 2005. That, they said, is when Kevin Jones dropped by Nona's apartment unexpectedly and saw an open condom wrapper on her kitchen counter. That led to an argument. I think he discovered it. That caused his rage. After he did what he did, he set that out. He knew it didn't belong to him, and therefore whoever it did belong to would be a perfect suspect. It was a tidy story, a moment of unbridled rage, followed by a cleverly considered cover-up.

And once Nona was dead, they said, Kevin staged the crime scene to look like an attempted rape, cleaned up, and then drove 20 minutes back to Dover to have lunch. It all happened in less time than it takes to watch an episode of Law & Order. So, he would somehow wash himself up, he would present himself for lunch with his friend and act like nothing happened. Right. Cool as a cucumber. Right. Cool as a cucumber. Right. And you're comfortable in saying this guy is the type of person who could kill his girlfriend of five years and then be

absolutely cool as a cucumber as if he had done nothing wrong at all? Well. He's the kind of guy who could do that? I think he's a very intelligent guy. That, in short, was the prosecution's case. The defense's case was similarly concise. The investigation, the attorneys argued, was fundamentally flawed. So tunnel vision meant an innocent man was on trial while the real killer was still out there prowling the streets. Other than suspicion, which I suppose is natural, that a beautiful girl dies, the initial thought is, well, let's look at our boyfriend.

That's Bill Bristow, one of Kevin's lawyers. The only piece of evidence was the issue of the bloody palm print on the light bulb. And the chief of police of Russellville admitted that nobody had performed any testing to see how long it takes blood on a light bulb to become dry or tacky. The defense had done the test. They knew the answer. About 45 minutes at 60 degrees, which was the temperature inside Nona's apartment that night. At issue was Chief Bacon's description of the print. In his written report, he said the print looked tacky, meaning not quite dry.

So the defense asked, how could that bloody palm print still be tacky six or seven hours after it was purportedly left on that bulb by the killer? The chief's response? Well, he didn't really mean what he wrote. He did state, and he never wavered from that, that the blood appeared somewhat tacky, had the appearance of tacky, the appearance of tacky. Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Phillips again. So it could well have been dry.

It was dry. Well, if he said it had the appearance of tacky, how do you know it was dry? He was trying to be as accurate as possible. So you're saying the defense intentionally created misunderstanding about his initial report? No, I think that the— The appearance of tact. They, in a very good job, showed inconsistency or the appearance of inconsistency. When Detective Frost took the stand to describe his handling of the investigation,

the defense hammered him on all the things he did not do, which was quite a long list. For starters, no prints were taken from the sliding glass door, which is where the killer must have gotten in and then out again, or the Venetian blinds, which had a bloody smudge on them. No prints taken from the wall around a light switch, which also had bloody smudges. No prints were taken from the kitchen counter area where the condom wrapper was found, and no prints were taken from the thermostat that had been turned down to 60 degrees.

What possible excuse would be offered for not doing fingerprint checks? Don't know. They didn't tell you? Gosh, we didn't, and I didn't think about it, or there were too many people around? I mean, did they say anything? They didn't. Well, what they testified to is they just didn't do it, and they should have.

Though investigators removed the apartment's toilets in a futile search for a used condom, they did not dust for prints on the flush handles or on the sink or on the faucets where a killer might have cleaned up. Well, just about name it.

Why weren't fingerprints taken from the base of the lamp that was used to strike her head? They did attempt to take fingerprints. Did they find any?

Well... Did they find any? Well... Did they find any belonging to Kevin? No. They found smudged marks. But we know it wasn't Kevin. We know it wasn't Kevin. As for the collection of items that might have had DNA on them,

Detective Frost said he and Chief Bacon elected not to test the condom wrapper for DNA because the crime lab told them they had to choose between testing for fingerprints or for DNA. And they chose fingerprints. And as it turned

out, there weren't any. But when the defense of the same condom wrapper tested for DNA, an out-of-state lab found male DNA on it. DNA that excluded Kevin Jones. Whose DNA was it? Well, Detective Frost didn't know.

He did not collect DNA samples from any of the other potential suspects. Oh, and remember that cell phone? The one that was found lying on the kitchen floor with its battery removed? That was sent to the state crime lab for data retrieval, but no one checked it for DNA or prints. I can second guess everything that you do or anyone else does. And what you hope happens is that the jury looks at the facts presented and sees the story in the facts that were presented. Sure. But if there was one thing that might have caused eyes in the jury box to roll, it was this.

A month before Kevin was arrested, Detective Frost took Nona's cell phone out of the evidence lockup and turned it over to her stepdad, Dwayne Dipert. Why? Well, it seemed Dwayne Dipert was a frugal guy. His phone was old and not a plan he didn't like, so rather than buy a new phone with a new plan, Duane figured Nona's old flip phone would be an upgrade. We went up to the police station, and we started asking the police if we could get some of Nona's belongings back if they didn't need it. That's Duane Dyford.

And we asked about the cell phone. Can we get the cell phone back? Well, the police says, sure, you can come by and pick it up. Dwayne promptly deleted Nona's contacts, replaced them with his own. Now, remember, at this point, Kevin hadn't been arrested yet. Of course, once he was, his attorneys asked for Nona's phone so they could do their own tests. It was then they learned that a vital piece of evidence had been handed over to Dwayne Dipert. The defense made a big issue of that, and in my opinion, that was a bunch of nothing. That's Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Phillips again. Why would evidence be given back to the family? Because, well, I'm not condoning it, but I'm also letting you know that giving that evidence back was blown way out of proportion. Look, the cell phone was given to the state crime lab.

They did every test they could to it. And then it's time to give it to the defense attorneys, right? Well, correct. They could have seen some things that they didn't get a chance to see, and they're convinced that they're there. They were there, but they got erased. Either recorded over or intentionally erased. The material on the SIM card. Oh, sure, it's all a conspiracy theory.

It's a huge, big conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory or something else? Frost indicated that he made the decision to give it back to dwayne without consulting the chief without consulting the prosecuting attorney that's michael robbins one of kevin's attorneys they did not do everything they could with the phone in fact the software that the state of arkansas used would not retrieve outbox text messages. And we were provided copies of inbox text messages, messages that were sent to Nona, but we weren't able to look at her responses.

What story might those responses have told? Well, one of the incoming texts was from a young man who wrote, Why did you lead me on? There were other texts from other men, one who drove several hours to visit Nona in the middle of the night. Another young man sent more than a hundred text messages to Nona in the weeks before her death, all of which begged the question, had the detective been right in thinking Nona's killer was a boyfriend, but wrong in assuming the boyfriend in question was Kevin?

By the time the defense was provided the phone, Mr. Diaper had used it, had activated it, had entered a lot of his data, which overwrote anything that was on it or he had erased it. By the time the nine-day trial came to a close, two things seemed clear. The jury had paid close attention to the evidence and it looked as though a few had already made up their minds. I know that I saw more animation in the jury box than I've ever seen in about 100 jury trials.

Animation? Animation. Meaning what? Rolling of eyes, raising of hands, huffing, leaning back in chairs. Rolling eyes in the jury box, huffing and leaning back? What on earth was a prosecuting attorney to make up that?

For nine days, jurors in the Kevin Jones murder trial had listened to testimony and kept their thoughts to themselves. But once they had the case, once they were free to discuss all they'd heard, they immediately took a test vote. We felt like taking a vote right off the bat would let us all know where we all stood. That's the voice of Elaine, one of five jurors who spoke with me after the trial. I panicked. We did not know.

I didn't want to take a vote. I wanted to talk. And that's Kim, the jury foreperson. Was it a public vote? Yes. We agree. How did it turn out? Six, four, and two. Six not guilty, four undecided, and two. Six, not guilty. Four, undecided.

And two, guilty. Kim, the foreperson, said that even though she thought Kevin Jones was innocent, she voted guilty in that first poll because she thought that might help her win over a few hearts and minds. I knew that there was a jury member that wasn't going to change their mind from not guilty. I felt it.

And I knew we needed to deliberate. So you wanted a thorough discussion. This was a strategic guilty vote. You bet. And so they went over it all again. The timeline. Kevin's alibi. The long police interrogation.

The cell phone. The DNA and the quality of the Russellville police investigation. I was disturbed because they did not gather all the evidence. You know, they didn't cross their T's and dot their I's. And when you're a professional and you have a job to do and you've been trained, you use that training. I don't think you would have to be trained very much to know. I would know not to give anybody a cell phone if it was in evidence. That's the voice of Carol, one of the other jurors. Carol told me there was just something about the way the police treated Kevin Jones

in that interrogation room. Didn't sit right with her. That was the most horrific tape I ever saw in my life. You lose a loved one, and they have you sitting there in a cold room, and he's just a kid. And he didn't, it was just sad. As for that bloody palm print, the jurors studied the crime scene photos

and they recreated the scene in the jury room. For them, it seemed clear that Kevin had touched the bulb after finding Nona's body and not six to seven hours earlier, as the prosecutors argued. I laid down. And you played the part of the victim. And I played the part. And you played the part of the victim.

And I played the part. And somebody played the part of Kevin. When he got off the body, there was no doubt in our minds at that point, the way the palm print was on the bulb, the way the bulb was laying in the picture, that that palm print went on that bulb at that time. The reason he didn't answer, I felt, that he had touched that bulb. He just found his girlfriend murdered. He didn't answer, I felt, that he had touched that bulb, he just found his girlfriend murdered. He didn't remember touching that bulb. After eight hours of deliberation, the one juror who had initially seemed a solid guilty vote changed his mind.

The jurors notified the judge they'd reached a verdict, not guilty. When we came out here and the verdict was read, I looked straight at Judge Patterson. I couldn't look at anyone else in the courtroom. I stared at Kevin Jones right in the eyes. I looked at him right in the eyes. We made eye contact. That's Kevin, another juror who agreed to talk to us after the jury delivered its not guilty verdict. I just looked at him the whole time the jury was read, and there was relief.

There wasn't a, I got away with it. All he had was released anxiety, you know, just like a weight had been lifted off his shoulder. And it was a peace in my heart. Once court was adjourned, Gavin Jones and his attorney slapped each other on the back, and he allowed himself a weary smile. He looked like he'd aged 10 years over the

past 18 months. Gone was the mop top hair and college kid wardrobe. As he embraced his brother and father with moistened eyes, one thing was abundantly clear. Kevin Jones wasn't a kid anymore. It was like a huge burden had, just huge amounts of pressure had been lifted off of my entire body. That's Kevin Jones. Well, I am relieved that the legal part of this ordeal is over with. I mean, 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. Frustration? Oh yes, there was plenty of that. And justice had not come cheap for Hiram and Janice Jones.

They'd spent every dime they had and some they didn't to defend their son. Their life savings were gone. We lived on a farm. My dad worked hard, paid for it. That's Kevin's father, Hiram. My mom let us borrow all the money the bank would have around the farm. We sold our house and land. It cost a lot, but we can call Kevin up on the phone, talk to him. It was all worth it.

Of course, there were quite a few people in the courtroom that day who thought Kevin Jones had just gotten away with murder. And they said so. Get away with it, Kevin. Hey, Kevin, you got away with it. That's the voice of Dwayne, known as Stepdad. Right after the

not guilty verdict was read, I stood up and said, hey, you got away with it, Kevin. You got away with it. And of course, Carol and relatives were pulling me back. Outside on the courthouse steps, defense attorney Bill Bristow stood before the cameras with Kevin Jones and his parents beside him and thanked the judge for giving Kevin a fair trial and the jury for carefully weighing the evidence. And then he said this.

Today, justice was done for Kevin Jones and his family. I feel like the justice needs to be done for Nona Dirksmeyer and her family. And I call upon the Pope County Sheriff's Office or the state police to take over this investigation, do it fair and impartial, without tunnel vision, and let's get the real killer of Nona Dirksmeyer. Thank you very much. What is it like? Well, we feel that a tremendous weight has been lifted. Shortly after the verdict, Prosecutor David Gibbons indicated he would keep the Dirksmeyer

file open for the time being. We will keep the file open for a short period of time. At this point, we don't have any evidence to indicate that anyone other than the person that was charged will be charged. Neither the Pope County Sheriff's Department nor the state police showed much interest in taking over the Dirksmeyer investigation. As far as Nona's parents were concerned, Nona's killer had already been arrested and tried In their view, the jury had set a guilty man free If it was somebody else, who is it? And they're still walking around here somewhere

But there is no chance that it's anybody else When I sat down with Carol and Duane, known as mom and stepdad, they told me the country's judicial system had failed them. How could any reasonable bunch of people look at this clown and call him not guilty? You know, it just amazes me. I think he's a sociopath and more concerned with himself than anyone else, including his family. I think the whole justice system in America now is broke beyond repair. It takes forever to go to trial.

They're innocent until proven guilty. I mean, this whole system is so broke. What about the judge? I think he's a liberal judge. I think that we need some judges who are tougher on crime. I think he's a liberal judge. I think that we need some judges who are tougher on crime. I think he's a little too liberal. To lose bias? I think so, yeah. And I don't think Ozark is known for their brainpower, and I think this jury is probably pretty representative of that lack of brainpower. We've watched a lot of these crime shows on TV with a

lot, lot, lot less evidence than they had against Kevin, and they get guilty verdicts. Of course, real-life trials don't play out like the ones on TV. The jurors who acquitted Kevin Jones told me they got an earful from friends and neighbors when they got home. You know, people would come to me and say, he was guilty. And I would say, do you know the facts? We wanted a guilty verdict. We wanted to find the killer. We wanted to find the killer.

Still do. That baby deserved to have the killer found. But they didn't bring him to court. Everybody has an opinion. But that doesn't convict in our courts. No, it takes evidence to do that. But shortly after Kevin Jones was acquitted, a critical piece of evidence turned up. One that would send the Dirksmeyer murder investigation in an entirely new direction. Kevin Jones may have been found not guilty of killing his girlfriend, Nona Dirksmeyer,

but he certainly wasn't free of suspicion. No. Hard looks and whispers seemed to follow him wherever he went in Russellville. There are people out there who think that I did it. Even after all this has come out. Because there's not really anything I can do about that. And I don't know how you would change their minds. Kevin's parents feared his name might never be cleared.

At least, not as long as Nona's murder remained unsolved. Kevin's attorneys weren't equipped to find a killer. And the family certainly couldn't afford to hire a private eye. But Kenny Johnson, Kevin's lead lawyer, had an idea. What if Todd Steffi, the preacher and part-time policeman who'd consulted with the defense team during the trial, stayed on the case? Informally, of course, as a kind of personal favor. When Kenny asked me if I would keep looking into it, I didn't really know what else to do.

I said, Kenny, I don't know what I can do, but if there's something that comes up that I can do, then I think it's the right thing to do. It was about two months later that the something Todd Steffi had been waiting for came up. Todd was pulling his regular shift to the Dover City Marshal's office. My chief called me in one day to assign a case to me to investigate. He said, we have a burglary theft case, you know, and need you to look into it. And so he hands me the case file. I said, does the victim have any idea who could have done this?

And he said, yes. And I said, who is it? He said, Gary Dunn, his stepson. Steffi's eyes open wide and round like a doll's. Dunn was a name he knew. My chief looked at me and I said, do you know who he is? And he said, yes. He was one of the neighbors to Nona Dirksmeyer.

And a person of interest. And a person of interest. Gary Dunn had done time for assaulting a woman jogger a few years earlier. And he lived right across the parking lot from Nona Dirksmeyer at the time of the murder. But according to the police reports Steffi had read, Dunn had been out shopping with his mom at the time Nona was killed. Claimed he had receipts. Steffi remembered wanting to know more about Dunn's alibi and the alibis of the other suspects back when he was working

with the Kevin Jones defense team. I did not see clearly where or how the alibis were substantiated or verified. And an alibi is only good if it's verified. Sure. That said, that didn't mean that they had not been verified. I just wasn't seeing it in the material.

So, that burglary case and the request from the chief? Well, manna from heaven to a preacher and part-time detective like Todd Steffi. Divine providence. And so, from my perspective, I felt like I needed to get a DNA sample from him to compare. Oh yes, the DNA. There'd been enough DNA on the condom wrapper to exclude Kevin Jones. Todd Steffi wanted to know if that DNA might match Gary Dunn. So the night before he was to interview Gary Dunn on the burglary case, Todd Steffi called Dover City attorney Michael Robbins to ask for advice. You'll remember, Robbins had been one of the lawyers on Kevin's defense team. I said, Michael, if I can get a DNA sample, can you see to it that it gets compared

with the DNA evidence in the Dirksmeyer case? And he said yes. The next day, Steffi sat down with Gary Dunn. They must have looked like a study in contrast, sitting knee to knee in the patrol room of the Dover City Marshal's office, talking about Todd Steffi's burglary investigation. After all, Steffi was a middle-aged preacher who looked like he knew his way around a church potluck supper table. Gary Dunn, on the other hand, was a solidly built 28-year-old construction worker, broad-shouldered with stomach as flat as a shingle. By the time Dunn walked out of the Dover police station that day, Todd Steffi had Dunn's DNA. How'd you do that? I asked him for it.

And he said yes? I told him, I'm not trying to pin anything on anybody. My goal as an investigator is to try to rule somebody out. If I can rule them out, then we're done. We're finished. And I asked him if he would help me do that, and he volunteered to give a sample. That was in September 2007. Steffi turned the sample over to Michael Robbins, the city attorney, for shipment to a lab for testing.

He expected to hear something about the results in a week or two. But when a month passed with no word, Steffi asked Robbins about it. He said, you know, what's the holdup on this? And he said, well, honestly, you know, what's the holdup on this? And he said, well, honestly, you know, money. Miss Jones is paying for these and Kevin's mother. Isn't it the responsibility of the state to do this sort of testing? Typically, the investigators would do that, but... They chose not to.

Well, it seemed like nobody was as interested in finding out whose DNA that was as I was. The cost of a DNA test was 600 bucks. Steffi knew the Jones were strapped for cash, but he had a feeling that the Gary Dunn sample was important. He needed to get it tested. When he told me that it was Janice Jones' decision and, you know, it's a money thing, I actually went out to sit on a visit with Ms. Jones. What did she say?

It was, as I recall, a fairly long conversation. And eventually she just kind of said something like, oh, shucks, it's just money. That might have been the best $600 Janice Jones ever spent. Because a few weeks later, Todd Steffi got a call from the Dover City Attorney's Office. It was Michael Robbins. He said, I need you to come to my office. I said, what's up? He said, we got some DNA results back.

Next on Murder in Apartment 12. What did you think when you saw that? Well, we felt like we were headed in the right direction. Did you call the death of Melvin Dirk's wife on December 15th? No. He's got the section vindicated. The big problem at the heart of that investigation was that alibi. They asked for receipts.

He did what they asked him to do. Murder in Apartment 12 is a production of Dateline on NBC News. Tim Beecham is the producer. Brian Drew, Deb Brown and Bruce Berger are audio editors. Keone Reed is associate producer. Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer. Liz Cole is executive producer. And David Corvo as senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio,

Bryson Barnes as technical director, sound mixing by Bob Mallory. The End