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Hello, I'm Keith Morrison from Dateline NBC

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with a special preview of our new podcast,

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Murder in Apartment 12.

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It should have been a season of joy,

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choirs and twinkling

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lights and bright paper packages.

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And it certainly started out that way in

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a little place called Dover, Arkansas,

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population about 1300, where

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middle school teacher Janice Jones

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was in a Christmas frame of mind. Of

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course she was. Her youngest son,

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Kevin, was home from college

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and had agreed to be Janice's date to her school's

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holiday party.

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I laughingly offered

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him the opportunity to take me on a date Thursday

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night to our staff Christmas party. And

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he accepted, as long

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as there was a big stake.

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Made a joke about, is

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there an open bar? I'd like to see some of my former

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

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very humorous.

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What fun it

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should have been.

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But no. On this night,

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December 15th, 2005, the season

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of light suddenly turned

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very dark indeed with

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a call to 911. I'm

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going to skip 911, OK? OK. It

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was the night of the awful discovery.

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Is she breathing at all? No, no,

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she's cold. She's not breathing. She

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doesn't have a pulse. I don't think she's dead. The night

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of all the panic and the confusion and

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the sudden grief that tore through them like

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a knife. You need to name a dead

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person.

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This

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is the story of what happened on that

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December night and all that came after.

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It's a story of a beautiful young woman

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named Nona Dirksmeyer, a

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local beauty queen who'd

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been keeping secrets. This

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case probably had...

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more statewide publicity

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than any criminal case in

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many, many years, perhaps ever in Arkansas.

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I'd probably ask any police officer in town

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here who did it, and they'll

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tell you who did it.

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Everybody has an opinion, but

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that doesn't convict in our courts. It's

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the story of three sensational trials.

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It's a story about police power and

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the people who wield it.

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I'm telling you what I see. I'm

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telling you what I know. And

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I'm telling you right now, you

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did this. It's about gossip,

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about public opinion. I

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realized as the time went on that

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these were lives. It wasn't TV. This

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was reality. You learn not to read,

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believe anything you read. It was a

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case that divided this town,

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and it got pretty hot in Arkansas

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for a while, too hot for some.

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It tells me

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that you don't know. You don't know what you did. You don't have a

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clue what you did. You don't have a clue what you did. You don't have a clue what

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you did. I'm not playing any **** with you. Yes, and it's

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about pride and prejudice and a

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tortured search for a killer.

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There

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is a cold-blooded killer out there. He

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knows who he is. What do we all

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do? Thank you for listening. Search

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for Murder in Apartment 12. To hear

3:24

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and can listen to all Dateline Podcasts ad-free.

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