RUSSELLVILLE, Ark.—Police found the Arkansas beauty queen dead in her off-campus apartment in December 2005, her head bludgeoned by a floor lamp, her neck slit by a knife.

Nona Dirksmeyer’s death shocked residents in the Arkansas River Valley city, as television stations repeatedly played footage of her competing in a beauty contest in a black evening gown. Months later, prosecutors charged boyfriend Kevin N. Jones with the killing of the reigning Miss Petit Jean Valley, but a jury later acquitted him over questions about what defense lawyers described as a botched police investigation.

Now, it’s happening all over again.

A district court judge set a $1 million cash-only bond Monday for new suspect Gary William Dunn, who could face the death penalty for the Arkansas Tech student’s death. However, prosecutors remain silent on how they obtained new DNA evidence linking Dunn to the slaying, as well as why investigators crossed the convicted felon living in Dirksmeyer’s apartment complex off as a suspect in their initial investigation.

“If they would have had it, they would have used it before,” said Preston Chenoweth, Dunn’s stepfather.

Dunn, who turns 29 Tuesday, already had felony convictions in Pope County, ranging from hiding a man wanted by police inside his home, selling a stolen French Besson Trumpet and breaking into a construction company’s storage trailer to steal power tools with others. However, Dunn was out on parole at the time of Dirksmeyer’s death after serving only two years of a six-year sentence for randomly attacking and threatening to kill a Russellville jogger in 2002.

In a court affidavit, Arkansas State Police Special Agent Stacie Rhoads said investigators found a condom wrapper near Dirksmeyer’s nude body when they arrived at her apartment Dec. 15, 2005. A DNA analysis of the wrapper determined the material came from both Dunn and Dirksmeyer, Rhoads said.

Dunn later told investigators he was at the apartment complex at the time of Dirksmeyer’s death, though he had given false information to police in the past, Rhoads said. Dunn denied knowing Dirksmeyer and it remains unclear how a beauty pageant contestant who once sang the Italian operatic pop song “Con Te Partiro” crossed paths with a convicted felon.

Other evidence pointed to Dirksmeyer being sexually assaulted — something prosecutors denied when they filed charges against Jones in March 2006. Jones, along with his mother and a friend, discovered his girlfriend’s body.

Police found a bloody handprint matching Jones on the lightbulb in the floor lamp used to kill Dirksmeyer. At the time of his 2006 arrest, prosecutors claimed Jones lay on her top of her body and rubbed his hands in her blood to contaminate the crime scene.

At Jones’ trial, a match to DNA evidence from the condom wrapper was not presented. However, a witness from the state Crime Laboratory said a detective using superglue on the wrapper to obtain fingerprints likely contaminated the evidence.

A jury acquitted Jones of a first-degree murder charge after a July 2007 trial.

Michael Robbins, a lawyer for Jones, said defense investigators obtained a DNA sample from Dunn and found a match to substance on the condom wrapper. Robbins said defense lawyers gave the material to prosecutors, who immediately asked for a special prosecutor to take over the case this February.

Special Prosecutor Jack McQuary has said he will not discuss the case with reporters. A spokesman for the Russellville Police Department declined to comment Monday.

Monday, Rhoads told Pope County District Court Judge Don Bourne that Dunn didn’t have a full-time job or live where he told his parole officers he’d be.

“He has the propensity to lie and he doesn’t work,” Rhoads said.

Dunn, dressed in orange prison clothes and yellow sandals, offered only “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” to questions during the 15-minute hearing, looking at wall or down at the jailhouse courtroom’s floor.

Afterward, Dunn’s mother said she told investigators her son only occasionally offered white lies and was a good man.

“I have never seen him raise his hand” to woman, Martha Dunn told reporters.

Chenoweth said Dunn didn’t have many employment opportunities, as “everybody is down on felons.” The stepfather also said Dunn previously passed a polygraph test given by police.

“We’re going to stand behind him,” Chenoweth said. However, he said the family likely would rely on a public defender to represent their son as costs to retain a lawyer remain high. Dunn faces a Sept. 22 court appearance, at which he will be appointed a public defender.

When asked if his stepson could get impartial justice, Chenoweth offered his own question: “Did Kevin?”