Probation extended for person of interest

MALVERN — A Hot Spring County judge extended the probation of a man authorities have called a person of interest in the December slaying of a Hot Springs Village police dispatcher.

Kevin Duck, the dispatcher’s boyfriend, will serve two more years of probation after Circuit Judge Chris Williams found Tuesday that he violated the terms of his probation, which was to end in October.

Duck will remain on probation until October 2014, Williams ruled.

“They won’t have any problems out of me,” Duck told the judge.

The Garland County sheriff’s office has called Duck a person of interest in the killing of Dawna Natzke, 46.

Natzke disappeared after leaving a Christmas party Dec. 21. Authorities have said Duck told police that his girlfriend had stayed up to watch television when he went to bed and that when he awoke in the morning, Natzke and her car were gone.

Authorities found Natzke’s burned car a day later in the Ouachita National Forest off Arkansas 298. Her body was found Dec. 31 in a submerged pond about four miles from her car.

Authorities have not said how Natzke died.

Duck’s attorney, Sky Tapp, argued unsuccessfully that the Department of Community Correction was more stringent in applying the terms of his client’s probation only after Duck had been identified as a person of interest in Natzke’s death.

But Williams found that Duck had violated his agreement because he failed to report contact with law enforcement after he was cited for failure to appear in court related to child support. Williams also found that Duck failed a chemical test that detects enzymes the blood produces after a person consumes alcohol and that he missed multiple appointments with his probation officer.

Duck was originally put on probation over an aggravated assault charge in October 2009, probation officer Courtney Thomas said.

The Calcasieu Parish sheriff’s office arrested Duck in Lake Charles, La., in February after checking his license plate during a traffic stop and discovering an Arkansas warrant.

Probation officers had given Duck periodic authorization to travel out of state to work on offshore oil rigs in Louisiana, Thomas said, but he did not have such an authorization in February.

Williams said Duck’s recent out-of-state travel was not a “willful violation” because probation officers had been “fast and loose” with providing travel permits in the past, giving him reason to believe such travel was allowed.