Dateline NBC: BONUS: Murder in Apartment 12

Hello, I'm Keith Morrison from Dateline NBC with a special preview of our new podcast,

Murder in Apartment 12. It should have been a season of joy,

choirs and twinkling lights and bright paper packages. And it certainly started out that way

in a little place called Dover, Arkansas, population about 1300, where middle school

teacher Janice Jones was in a Christmas frame of mind. Of course she was. Her younger son,

Kevin, was home from college and had agreed to be Janice's date to her school's holiday party.

I'd laughingly offered him the opportunity to take me on a date,

Thursday night to our staff Christmas party. Sure. And he accepted as long as there was a big steak

and made a joke about, is there an open bar? I'd like to see some of my former teachers,

you know, a little tipsy. They thought that would be very humorous.

What fun it should have been. But no. On this night, December 15th, 2005, the season of light

suddenly turned very dark indeed with a call to 911.

Hmm. It was the night of the awful discovery.

The night of all the panic and the confusion and the sudden grief that tore through them like a knife.

This is the story of what happened on that December night and all that came after.

It's a story of a beautiful young woman named Nona Derksmeyer, a local beauty queen who'd been

keeping secrets. This case probably had more statewide publicity

than any criminal case in many, many years, perhaps ever in Arkansas.

We'd probably ask any police officer in town here that who did it, and they'll tell you who did it.

Everybody has an opinion, but that doesn't convict in our courts.

It's the story of three sensational trials. It's a story about police power and the people who wielded it.

I'm telling you what I see. I'm telling you what I know. And I'm telling you right now.

You did this. It's about gossip, about public opinion.

I realized as the time went on that these were lives. It wasn't TV. This was reality.

You learn not to read, to believe anything you read. It was a case that divided this town

and it got pretty hot in Arkansas for a while. Too hot for some.

Yes, and it's about pride and prejudice and a tortured search for a killer.

There is a cold, blooded killer out there. He knows who he is. What are we going to do?

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.