FRESNO, Calif. (KMJ/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.
The decision was made in court Monday morning at the end of a preliminary hearing that began in late November.
The judge found there is enough evidence to send Stane to trial for the 11 charges he was facing, along with an additional kidnapping charge.
Dorian’s father found her bound and gagged in her apartment in northeast Fresno back in 1996.
Then from 1999 to 2002, a string of eight sexual assaults rocked the Visalia area.
Investigators matched DNA from one of the assaults to a sample collected from Dorian’s apartment years earlier, which connected those cases to Stane. He was arrested in the fall of 2019.
In a recorded police interview played in court, Stane admitted he had sex with Dorian, but he did not admit to murdering and raping her.
Stane will remain in custody without the possibility of posting bail until his next court date on January 4.
Listen to the report by KMJ’s Liz Kern.
