Who Killed The Beauty Queen?

A Beauty Queen Falls Victim To An Ugly Crime

(CBS)  Bacon says he was referring to a blood stain on another part of the bulb away from Kevin’s palm print, but he says the jury never understood that. Prosecutors also have that condom wrapper. Police say Kevin found it at Nona's, and it sent him into a rage. They considered checking it for DNA, but chose instead to check for fingerprints. That might identify who touched it more accurately.

"The crime lab told us you had a choice, because if we do fingerprints, we are going to potentially destroy DNA. If we do DNA we're gonna potentially destroy fingerprints," Bacon explains.

No fingerprints were found. But it turned out there was some DNA left on the wrapper. And Kevin's legal team found it: the DNA was male, but not belonging to Kevin.

Police believe that supports their theory that Kevin’s motive was jealousy. But the defense charged the police work was sloppy. They also zeroed in on Nona's cell phone. Who had she been in touch with the day she died? Kevin's lawyers asked to examine that phone, to the great embarrassment of the lead detective.

"And he finally said, 'Look, I'm embarrassed to tell you this. But the investigator gave the cell phone to the stepfather,'" Johnson says.

It seemed strange, but lead investigator Mark Frost gave Nona's phone to Duane Dipert in the middle of the investigation.

"Tell me why you wanted her cell phone back?" Schlesinger asks Duane Dipert.

"First of all I'm a cheapskate. You talk to anybody…," he explains. "And I could use it at that time, 'cause everything was activated. So I start puttin' my numbers in, and takin' her numbers off."

"Do you know how strange that sounds that you would take this cell phone because by your own admission you’re a cheapskate?" Schlesinger asks.

"Well, yeah," Dipert admits.

"It’s a perception and reality thing again," prosecutor Phillips says. "The reality is that everything the state could've obtained from the phone was obtained. And that you should never give evidence back on a pending case, period. And that was done."

Those closest to Nona were convinced: even if the police made some mistakes, they did get the right man. "They had overwhelming evidence against him which you can’t refute," Carol says.

For months, Kevin's life had hung in the balance. Now he waited for the jury's verdict.

When jurors began deliberating the case, the opinions in the jury room were split down the middle. Once they calmed down, they started combing through the evidence, piece by piece.

"We laid out a timeline. We looked at the cell phone. We looked at evidence from the testimony. We looked at the tape of him being interrogated. Everything. We looked, we pored over," juror Kim Willhite recalls.

They went home the first day without reaching a verdict. But then, midway through the second day, they reached a decision: not guilty.

"I felt like 10,000 pounds had been lifted off my shoulders," Kevin remembers.

"I was sittin' there with my mouth hangin' open, not guilty. And so I stood up and says, 'You got away with it, Kevin. You got away with it,'" Nona's stepfather Duane recalls.

"I was in a state of shock for a few seconds. I couldn't do anything. And it's just like everything was in slow motion," Nona's mother Carol adds.

"I'm not a criminologist. I'm not a blood expert. But I looked at everything they gave us in the jury room. There just wasn't enough to convict. There wasn't anything that pointed to Kevin as the killer," explains Willhite.

For 18 months, Kevin had lived as an accused murderer, and now, it was over.

"It was a horrible thing that happened and a horrible situation. But at that point, I was just happy that I was a free man and that people would stop saying the things about me they'd said. And people would stop judging my family and me," Kevin says.

It was a tough loss for prosecutor Jeff Phillips. "There was still just a sick feeling of letting Nona's mom down a little bit. Still have that today," he says.

"Is Kevin innocent or is he not guilty, if you know what I mean?" Schlesinger asks.

"Kevin was not proven guilty. There was not evidence to prove him guilty," Finley says.

Even former Police Chief James Bacon told 48 Hours Kevin has the right to live as an innocent man. Janice knows her son is not guilty in the eyes of the law, but she also knows in the eyes of some of her neighbors Kevin is guilty.

So she is determined to clear her son's name. "I made a promise to Kevin when he was in jail and sitting at the cemetery with my hand on Nona's gravestone, I have promised both of those kids that I would keep looking and searching until we found the person who did this."

And Janice may get her wish. Remember that DNA they found on the condom wrapper? After the trial, Kevin’s defense team continued looking for a match to another suspect and on Feb. 6, 2008, Attorney Michael Robbins announced that they had finally found a match.

A special prosecutor was appointed and a new investigation began.

And just last month, police arrested 28-year-old Gary Dunn, charging him with capital murder. Dunn was a neighbor of Nona's. His arrest comes more than a year after Kevin Jones' acquittal for Nona's murder.

"Before the trial, during the trial, and after the trail we worked very feverishly to try to find a match and it took us a considerable amount of time but we were finally able to match that DNA on that condom wrapper to Gary Dunn," Robbins says.

Nona's mother and stepfather didn't want to talk to 48 Hours about the arrest.

Dunn’s mother, Martha, said that her son did not actually know Nona, even though they lived in the same apartment complex. "I know in my heart my son didn't do this and I stand behind him 100 percent. I just feel sorry for Nona's parents, what they are still going through. They need closure, they need answers, but my son didn’t do this," she says.

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Gary Dunn goes back to court Monday, Sept. 22, 2008, to enter his plea. His trial could begin in 2009.

After Kevin Jones was acquitted, he applied to go back to Arkansas Tech but was denied admission for "safety concerns."

Jones returned to the University of Arkansas. He wants to become a lawyer.