Man charged in 1980 killing of nursing student

GREAT BEND, Kan. (AP) – Authorities have arrested a Kansas man in the 1980 shooting death of a 23-year-old neighbor after investigators who reexamined her death turned up new evidence.

Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir said at a news conference Friday that officers arrested 68-year-old Steven Hanks, of Burden, on Thursday on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of Mary Robin Walter, who was a wife, mother and nursing school student when she was killed.

He says Detective Sgt. Adam Hales decided in April to reopen the investigation into the killing, which happened at a trailer park near the airport in Great Bend, in central Kansas.

He says Hanks was investigated as a suspect immediately after the shooting, “but the case went cold.”