A Hot Spring County judge on Tuesday sentenced a man charged last year in the 2011 killing of a Hot Springs Village police dispatcher to six years in prison for violating the terms of his probation, a prosecutor said.
Kevin Duck, 30, violated three terms of his probation on an unrelated aggravated-assault conviction, Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Shirron said. Duck originally received three years of probation for that 2009 conviction, but it was extended by two years at his first revocation hearing in 2012.
Circuit Judge Chris Williams on Tuesday handed down the maximum prison sentence for a probation revocation on that aggravated-assault charge, Shirron said.
County probation officials had recommended the second revocation hearing after Duck was picked up in Colorado on a murder warrant linking him to the 2011 death of his girlfriend, Hot Springs Village dispatcher Dawna Natzke, 46.
Williams found that Duck violated three terms of his probation in 2013: breaking laws that led to being charged Nov. 25 with first-degree murder in Garland County, changing his residence and failing to report it to his probation officer, and not attaining permission for travel out of state.
Duck got a Louisiana identification card on July 1 and a driver’s license there a week later, according to the probation-violation report. He had been out of Arkansas since Sept. 3 and didn’t get a travel pass or clear the visits with probation officers, the report states.
Probation officers learned Nov. 25 that Duck had moved to Louisiana.
Defense attorney Clay Janske said if it weren’t for the Garland County murder charge, Duck might not have gotten the maximum prison sentence.
Duck’s residence was “real vague,” but he took up homes in both Hot Springs and Louisiana because he worked on pipelines, Janske said. Each time Duck went back and forth for work, he needed to get permission, Janske said.
Duck had received 14 work permits in the past year and a half. “They’ve always been approved,” Janske said.
Duck, who did not take the stand Tuesday, acquired a Louisiana driver’s license because he “was [there] most of the time,” Janske said.
He hadn’t received permission to travel out of state in 2012 - one of the five violations he committed at that time that led to his first probation revocation. The other violations included failure to report to his probation officer, an arrest on a failure-to-appear warrant, drinking at a bar and being unreachable. Williams in 2012 extended Duck’s probation by two years, and it was set to end this October.
He had been out on bond since an Arkansas hearing after Colorado authorities arrested him in November on the murder warrant in Natzke’s killing.
Natzke was last seen alive at a Christmas party in Hot Springs Village on Dec. 21, 2011, authorities have said. The next day, Duck reported her missing, and volunteer searchers found her body 10 days later.
A Jan. 3, 2012, autopsy determined Natzke died of blunt-force trauma and drowning within three to four hours after leaving the party.
The murder charge is still pending in Garland County Circuit Court. A four-day jury trial is scheduled for July 22.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 02/26/2014