Chilling comments caught on tape seem to surprise Nickey Stane's defense team

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Jailhouse comments caught on tape seemed to surprise accused murderer and rapist Nickey Stane's defense team in court on Thursday.

"He said that he had been struggling with demons all his life, and he said, 'I can't say I don't deserve what's coming to me because I do,'" Fresno Police Department Sergeant Melanie Mayo said during testimony.

She was speaking about Stane, the 56-year-old Visalia man, who has pleaded not guilty to 11 felonies ranging from murder to rape, sodomy, and kidnapping.

"He said 20 years ago, he had done some bad things and hurt some people," Mayo said. "And he needed to pay for what he did."

Prosecutors say Stane is behind the 1996 murder of then-recent Fresno State grad Debbie Dorian and eight sexual assaults that happened years later.

According to Mayo's testimony, Stane seemed to admit guilt during a phone call with his mom.

"She said, 'Are you innocent of any of these crimes?'" Mayo said. "And he said, 'No, Mom. I'm, like, involved in all of them.'"

The calls were recorded at the Tulare County Jail in the weeks following Stane's arrest in the fall of 2019 and could be key evidence if the case proceeds to trial.

Action News Legal Analyst Tony Capozzi says prosecutors could play the audio recordings for jurors.

The comments came more than two decades after Dorian's murder, as a breakthrough in DNA technology allowed investigators to link Stane to the crimes.

Some of the DNA evidence police had was from Dorian's Northeast Fresno apartment, where she was found bound and gagged on the floor.

More evidence came from a string of eight sexual assaults that followed over the next four years between 1999 and 2002.

Court documents show that in several of the reported sexual assaults, victims told police their assaulter used a black handgun.

On Thursday, Sergeant Mayo told the judge about the evidence found in Stane's master bedroom.

"One of them was a Smith and Wesson M&P 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun. And the other was an unknown make or model revolver."

Prosecutors are still deciding whether they'll pursue the death penalty.

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