FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — A judge has ruled Nickey Stane will go on trial for a dozen counts tied to the murder of Debbie Dorian in 1996 and a string of sexual assaults in Tulare County years later.
Weeks worth of testimony from accusers, investigators, witnesses, and DNA experts came to an end on Monday as the judge made her ruling.
Stane will be arraigned on a dozen felony counts in connection to the murder of 22-year-old Debbie Dorian and eight sexual assaults over the course of three years.
Those charges include murder, rape, sodomy, and kidnapping.
In 1996, Dorian’s father found her dead in her apartment, bound and gagged. For years, her case sat cold.
Three years after her death, a string of sexual assaults rocked Visalia in neighboring Tulare County.
DNA from one of those assaults was matched to a sample collected in Dorian’s apartment years prior, but it would take almost another two decades before investigators found a name.
Investigators from Fresno and Visalia teamed up in their investigation, eventually leading them to Stane in 2019.
As two DNA experts from the case testified Monday morning, the District Attorney had one explanation for how DNA evidence led to a wrongful arrest in 1996 but said that doesn’t necessarily invalidate the matches with Stane’s DNA.
“Does that mean the testing originally was a mistake or wrong?” asked the district attorney.
“Of course not,” replied Laura Ellen Bailey-Van Houten with the California Department of Justice Fresno Lab.
“What does it mean?” the district attorney asked.
“Just means that that technology was not able to tell people apart, particular people apart,” explained Bailey-Van Houten.
The defense raised issues of potential contamination of DNA evidence when it was revealed another DNA profile was found on one of the swabs along with Dorian and Stane’s DNA.
“That is correct, yeah. The contamination source, the amount of it in the sample would make it increasingly difficult to interpret or eventually could make it become not interpretable,” said Johnny Upshaw, a senior criminalist.
In prior hearings, Stane admitted to having sex with Dorian while another man was present in 1996. He did not admit to either rape or murder.
His defense argued consent could not be determined in the Dorian case, so Stane should not be tried on special circumstances that include sexual misconduct.
The judge disagreed, ultimately ruling Stane would be charged on all previous charges plus an additional kidnapping charge in regards to a 1999 Visalia sexual assault case.
Stane will be arraigned on January 4th, 2024.
Before then, Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp will determine if they will seek the death penalty in this case.
Stane will continue to be held without bail.
