LINCOLN, NEB. ? The state of Nebraska made — and then abruptly took back — a job offer to a man convicted of murdering Dian Fossey, the American wildlife researcher whose work in Africa was the subject of the movie “Gorillas in the Mist.”

The Health and Human Services System announced Monday that Wayne Richard McGuire had been hired as program director of a mental health office.

The offer was withdrawn, however, after The Associated Press reported McGuire was found guilty in absentia in Rwanda in the 1985 slaying of Fossey, 53, who was hacked to death at a camp in Rwanda.

McGuire, who has denied any involvement in Fossey’s killing and currently works for a mental health agency in Oklahoma, told the AP his conviction did not come up during the interview process. He did not immediately return a phone message left after the state withdrew its job offer.

HHS spokeswoman Kathie Osterman said HHS higher-ups rescinded the offer because McGuire did not disclose his conviction on his application form or during his job interview.

McGuire, a doctoral candidate from the University of Oklahoma, was the only other foreigner at Fossey’s Karisoke Research Center. A native tracker fired months earlier by Fossey also was charged in her death. He died in a Rwandan jail.

A three-judge panel in Rwanda said that McGuire, who returned to the United States before the investigation into Fossey’s murder was completed, killed her to gain access to her research on mountain gorillas.