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Larry Gene Hicks

UPDATED: Franklin man arrested in 1984 Missouri homicide case

A 78-year-old Franklin man has been arrested in a 36-year-old homicide case in Missouri.

Larry Gene Hicks, 78, Franklin, was arrested at 2:36 p.m. Monday on a Camden County, Missouri, warrant for the charge of second-degree murder, St. Mary Sheriff Blaise Smith said.
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Last week, detectives with the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office assisted investigators with the 26th Judicial Circuit Court in Camden County on a cold case. It was the killing of a woman in Missouri. Hicks was interviewed by Camden County investigators and made admissions that implicated him in the murder, the Sheriff's Office said.
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Hicks turned himself in on the active warrant and was booked at the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center.

Charges against Hicks were filed Friday, according to the office of Camden County Prosecuting Attorney J. Caleb Cunningham. He became the county's chief prosecutor April 26, when his predecessor was appointed to the circuit court bench. In a phone interview, Cunningham said the Lukosius case was never closed, but he assigned investigators to the case after his temporary appointment by Gov. Mike Parson in February.

Media reports say Camden County investigators executed a search warrant and a warrant for a DNA sample from Hicks. Cunningham wouldn't say what role DNA might have played in the decision to charge Hicks or what led investigators back to Hicks earlier this year, except that the case was never forgotten.

"It's the most famous case in my county," Cunningham said. "It comes up all the time."

Hicks was wanted in the killing of Diana Lukosius, who was found beaten near her vehicle in Camden County in December 1984. Evidence suggested that she was moved at least twice before she was discovered, Cunningham said. Lukosius died two days after she was found.

A probable cause petition in the case said the investigation indicated Lukosius' vehicle was forced off a highway and that she was outside the vehicle when she was attacked.

Hicks had been questioned at least as far back as 1990, when he had already moved to Franklin. Portions of the probable cause document said Hicks' wife told investigators that he came home drunk soon after the time established for the attack on Lukosius. In the days that followed, the wife said, Hicks began drinking heavily and seemed to lose interest in fishing and his other accustomed activities, according to the document.

The document says that last week, an investigator bluntly told Hicks that the evidence pointed to him as Lukosius' attacker. Hicks' reply, the document said, was, "I can't argue that because it's a possibility."

In a televised press conference posted by Springfield, Missouri, station KY3, Cunningham called Lukosius' killing "the most infamous in Camden County. ...

"It almost destroyed this community. It struck fear in the hearts of the citizens. It turned neighbor against neighbor and left us all diminished for the death of the victim."

Camden County is in south central Missouri and borders on the Lake of the Ozarks.

Cunningham thanked the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office for its assistance.

"They were a model of what interagency cooperation should look like," Cunningham said.

ST. MARY NOW

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