Investigators say Nash killed Judy Spencer, his ex-girlfriend, in 1982. Spencer's body turned up in rural Dent County. Medical examiners said she was shot and strangled.

Nash was charged last year with capital murder, the name for the most severe murder charge in Missouri in 1982. The attorney general's office, which served as a special prosecutor, did not seek a death penalty, so the judge sentenced Nash to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Investigators say they opened the cold case nearly a year ago, retesting DNA found under Spencer's fingernails. Forensic experts say the DNA could not have been transferred during casual contact, but instead came from a physical struggle of some kind.

A judge moved the trial from Dent County to Crawford County to try to ensure a fair outcome. The trial was in the Phelps County Courthouse because it has more room than the Crawford County Courthouse in Steelville. Senior Judge Douglas Long, a retired circuit judge from Waynesville, presided at the trial on a special appointment from the Supreme Court.