Opening statements are expected Thursday morning in the retrial of a man suspected of raping and killing a Durango woman nine years ago at a Durango motel.

Harold Nakai, 43, formerly of Shiprock, was convicted in 2008 of criminally negligent homicide and sexual assault for the death of Nicole Leigh Redhorse, 34. He is serving a 48-year prison sentence, but was granted a new trial last year after an appeals court ruled some of his statements to police were involuntary and should have been suppressed at his trial in 2008.

The case received significant attention in 2007 and 2008.

Prosecutors will argue that Nakai, along with two co-defendants – Derrick Nelson Begaye and Carlton Lee Yazzie – took a drunken Redhorse to the Spanish Trials Inn & Suites where they continued to give her alcohol while having sex with her. They will argue she was too intoxicated to consent to sex, and at some point, a blunt object, perhaps a broken hammer handle, was used to assault her vaginally. The injuries led to her bleeding to death.

Defense lawyers are expected to argue that Nakai didn’t cause Redhorse’s injuries and wasn’t aware of her injuries. Based on court filings, they also will suggest that a fourth man who was seen with Redhorse the night she died may have played a role.

All three men were convicted in separate trials of negligent homicide and sexual assault, and all three were sentenced to 48 years in prison. Nakai is the only defendant to receive a new trial.

Redhorse was born in Farmington and attended Niowot (Colorado) High School before graduating from University High in Tucson, Arizona. She earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in economics from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 1995.

The trial is expected to last 2½ weeks. Fourteen people are serving on the jury, including two alternates.

shane@durangoherald.com