LITTLE ROCK — A warning order for Gary Dunn, who formerly was charged in the death of Nona Dirksmeyer, to respond to a lawsuit naming him and two others as defendants will be published in two Arkansas newspapers, an attorney said Monday.
Charles Sidney Gibson, the attorney for Kevin Jones, has not been able to serve notice of the lawsuit or a summons on Dunn, who lived in Dover near Russellville at the time of his arrest in August 2008.
A copy of the complaint and a summons mailed to Dunn’s last-known address in Dover was returned unclaimed, Gibson said in a motion seeking the warning order.
Gibson said a process server and a private investigator also have been unable to find Dunn, 32.
Jones, who was acquitted of murdering Dirksmeyer in 2007, has sued Dunn, former Russellville Police Chief James Bacon and Russellville police detective Mark Frost in U.S. District Court in Little Rock.
Jones, who was Dirksmeyer’s boyfriend, contends the three conspired to withhold and falsify evidence in an effort to prosecute Jones, rather than Dunn.
Dunn was released in April 2011 when special prosecutors dropped murder charges against him after two mistrials in which jurors could not reach a verdict.
Gibson said Monday that publication of the warning order is a legal procedure attorneys can use when “somebody is dodging you, they won’t accept their mail, or you can’t get them personally served.”
Such orders are published repeatedly in publications with circulation including the person’s last known address, Gibson said. In this case, the order will be placed in The Courier, a Russellville newspaper, and in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, he said.
“If he [Dunn] doesn’t respond, we could get a [monetary] judgment against him,” Gibson said.
Gibson said he had heard Dunn was in Florida but more recently heard he was back in the Russellville area.
Dirksmeyer, 19, was found bludgeoned to death in her Russellville apartment Dec. 15, 2005. She was an Arkansas Tech University student majoring in music.