‘He will pay.’ Killer of Fresno’s Debbie Dorian sentenced in 30-year-old murder
The killer of Debbie Dorian, a Fresno State student brutally raped and murdered three decades ago, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on Thursday.
Nickey Duane Stane, 58, pleaded guilty in May to all 12 counts he was facing, including the rape and murder counts in the 1996 Fresno crime and multiple sexual assaults in Visalia.
A guilty plea spares him from the death penalty, which he would face if he had gone to the trial set for January.
Dorian’s mother, Sara Loven, spoke in the courtroom before his sentencing, noting she has spent 29 Christmases and birthdays without her beloved daughter. Dorian’s next birthday was eight days away, she said.
“I lived in a world of hard work, love and kindness. I believed that if you worked hard and did all the right things that evil wouldn’t come into your life,” she said. “I was naive. I was wrong. Evil is closer than we realize, and enters our lives when we least expect it.”
The break in the cold case came in 2019 when Stane’s DNA was found in a series of four sexual assaults in Visalia and then matched to Dorian’s case.
“He truly extinguished my daughter’s life and brought heartbreak to me and my family, though he took my precious Deb, he did not take my soul,” Loven said. “He has the rest of his life to pay for what he did, and he will pay for his evil actions.”
A victim from Visalia identified as Jane Doe 1 also spoke in court about the trauma she endured and the post-traumatic stress disorder that she continues to live with.
She was assaulted at age 19 as she made her way home from her job at a Visalia ice cream parlor on July 30, 1999.
“I wish he did kill me. It would have been a lot better than having these thoughts in my head and flashbacks of the night playing over and over again in my head,” she said. “I wish I did more to bite him or kick him in the balls. I wish I could show him how much pain he caused me.”
Stane’s full sentence was 32 years and four months followed by 46 years to life followed by life without parole for sentences in all 12 counts.
Stane was arrested in 2019 after DNA evidence tied him to sexual assaults in Visalia from 1999 to 2002, and the 1996 rape and murder of Dorian.
The 22-year-old Dorian was found inside her second-floor apartment in Fresno with her mouth, nose, ankles and wrists bound with heavy duty tape. She died by asphyxiation, according to a medical examiner.
She was supposed to be going on a trip with her father, who discovered her body when he went to the apartment looking for her.
The assaults between 1999 and 2002 in Visalia involved young women accosted in the street by a man covered by a hood who forced them into a secluded area at gunpoint before forcibly sexually assaulting them.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Deborah Miller said detectives in Fresno and Visalia never gave up on the cases, and were crucial in the capture of Stane.
“He will never walk free again. He will never again have the chance to harm any other woman in this county or anyone else,” she said.
This story was originally published June 12, 2025 at 4:59 PM.
