The suspect in a 26-year-old murder case will stand trial beginning July 20 in Pulaski County, a judge ruled.
Donald R. Nash, 66, is charged in the March 10, 1982, murder of July Spencer, a Houston High School graduate, in rural Dent County. Nash’s trial is set to run July 20 – 24 at Waynesville.
He was arrested March 28 at his home in Beaufort. The case is being heard in Crawford County on a change of venue from Dent County. The judge in the case, Douglas E. Long Jr., is from Pulaski County.
Law enforcement officials say they used DNA evidence to link Nash to the crime. Nash’s DNA was found underneath Spencer’s fingernails. Spencer, 21, was strangled with a shoestring then shot in the neck, and her body dumped in an area near the old Bethlehem School on Highway 32 West.