By RYAN CHRISTNER

rchristner@dailynews.net

The murder of Portis resident Jeffery Scott Noel in March left a significant impression on the communities within Osborne County.

The truth is, this sort of thing just doesn't happen very often, residents said after the tragic event.

The mood of the community then -- when many residents were taking security precautions, like locking their doors, that they scarcely did before -- is much different than now, Osborne County Sheriff Curtis Miner said.

He said county residents are ready for closure, eager to move on with their lives.

"That's the big thing," Miner said, "get this behind us."

As authorities have a suspect in custody and the case is set to proceed to trial, some of that healing can finally begin.

"They (residents) are just as glad as we were that there's a suspect now," Miner said.

Although 45-year-old Salina man Kenneth Eugene Wilson has been formally charged with Noel's murder, as well as the burglaries of the Noel residence and another home in Downs and criminal possession of a firearm, five months separated Noel's death and Wilson's arrest, and little information on the crimes or possible suspects seemed available.

And then came sudden news of Wilson's arrest in August.

At the time, Wilson had been serving time in the Ellsworth Correctional Facility following a parole revocation in July, and something about his arrest acted as a catalyst for the case.

Throughout the course of his preliminary hearing earlier this month in Osborne, pieces of the case against Wilson began to come together.

On the first day of the hearing, a forensic analyst from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation testified that DNA taken from Wilson at the time of his parole violation matched that from cigarettes found outside a house in Nebraska that had been burglarized the day before Noel's murder.

The owner of that house, another Nebraska burglary victim and the Downs woman whose home Wilson is charged with burglarizing also testified during the hearing and identified several missing items that had been located within Wilson's home in Salina.

Wilson's wife, Sharon, testified the second day that her husband left for a trip on March 25, the day Noel was found dead in his home, and had previously told her he would be visiting western Kansas while he was gone.

That evidence was found to be strong enough by District Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Thornton to warrant all of the charges brought against Wilson, who was bound over on all four counts and arraigned immediately after the preliminary hearing, where his attorney, Paul Oller of Hays, entered pleas of not guilty.

Wilson could face life in prison if convicted of the first-degree murder charge. The two burglary charges each carry sentences of 31 to 136 months and a firearm possession conviction could add another seven to 23 months in prison.

Pretrial motion dates have been set in February, March and April, leading up to Wilson's trial, which has been scheduled for May 11 to 22.

With no changes occurring over the past two weeks, the most Osborne County residents can do is wait. Not that they'll be forgetting anytime soon.

"The county will never get over this," Miner said.