Dardanelle man gets court date in kidnapping case.

He’s suspect in kidnapping

A Dardanelle man whose capital-murder case ended in two mistrials will be back in court in April in an unrelated kidnapping.

Gary Dunn, 39, of Dardanelle has pleaded innocent to charges of kidnapping, attempted kidnapping and indecent exposure. His trial is set for April 16-17 in Pope County Circuit Court in Russellville. If convicted of the Dec. 4 kidnapping, Dunn could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The abduction involved a 40-year-old woman who told police that a man approached her in a church parking lot and tried to force her into a vehicle. She said she broke free and he left in a vehicle. Police already were investigating a similar incident that took place earlier at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. In that case, a woman reported that a man approached her and asked her to step out of her vehicle. She called 911, and the man left.

Police said descriptions of the assailant and the vehicle in both cases were similar.

Dunn was tried twice in the 2005 bludgeoning death of Arkansas Tech student and beauty queen Nona Dirksmeyer, 19. The capital-murder charge against Dunn, one of her neighbors, went to trial twice, but the jury deadlocked each time.

Dunn’s case followed the 2007 acquittal of Dirksmeyer’s boyfriend, Kevin Jones, of a first-degree murder charge.

On Aug. 25, 2008, days after charging Dunn in the slaying, the special prosecutor handling that case, Jack McQuary, said he believed Jones was, in fact, innocent. Jones has since become an attorney.

Dunn’s public defender in the kidnapping case, James Dunham, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Thursday.

Dunn was released from prison on parole on Aug. 27, 2018, according to Solomon Graves, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction. Dunn had begun serving a 10-year sentence in 2017 on a firearm offense.

Dunn is now back in prison. The Correction Department’s online site says Dunn’s scars, marks and tattoos include skulls, swastikas, SS bolts, a bird and a sword. According to the Anti Defamation League, “SS Bolts are a common white supremacist/neo-Nazi symbol derived from Schutzstaffel (SS) of Nazi Germany.”

McQuary said Thursday that it would be up to either the Pope County prosecuting attorney or the state Office of the Prosecutor Coordinator, where he works, to decide when and if to recharge Dunn in Dirksmeyer’s death. A judge would have to decide whether such a charge could proceed at this point, McQuary said.

Jeff Rosenzweig, one of Dunn’s defense attorneys in the murder case, said the issue would be whether the case against Dunn was “nolle prossed” in 2011 for “good cause.” At that time, Circuit Judge William Pearson granted the prosecution’s request dropping — but not dismissing — the case against Dunn. The reason for the prosecutor’s request was sealed, and not even the defense was allowed to see it, Rosenzweig said.

Should a prosecutor decide to retry Dunn in that case, though, Rosenzweig said, the defense then could see the document and a court would determine whether” the intervening time has counted against a speedy trial.

“The law is that speedy trial does not run if there was a nolle prosse for a good cause,” Rosenzweig said. The defense did not get a chance to argue against the merits of that cause in Dunn’s case.

Rosenzweig said Pearson denied a defense motion to dismiss the case.

Jack Phillips, now the prosecuting attorney in Pope County, said Thursday that he thought any decision on whether to pursue the murder charge against Dunn again would be up to the special prosecutor. Phillips assisted in the case against Jones.

Asked about the Dunn case Thursday, Jones declined comment.