LAWRENCE, Kan. (KPR) — Lawrence police say DNA discovered on a single cigarette butt helped crack a 25-year-old case involving child sex crimes. Fifty-eight-year-old David James Zimbrick was arrested Monday in Raytown, Missouri, for allegedly raping a child in a Lawrence park two decades ago. Police Chief Rich Lockhart says it took a cigarette butt collected at the crime scene and the use of “genetic genealogy” technology to identify the suspect.
“It’s been 9,257 days since David James Zimbrick sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl in Naismith Park and when the United States Marshall Service arrested him yesterday,” Lockhart said. “He is in a place where he will not ever be able to hurt another child.”
Zimbrick is facing three counts involving sex crimes against two children in cases that date back to 2000 and 2003. He’s currently being held on $1 million bond in Jackson County, Missouri, where he awaits extradition to Douglas County.
The genetic genealogy technology used in this case is the same tool used to locate and arrest a suspect in the California case known as the “Golden State Killer.”
Lockhart credited the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, a genetics testing laboratory and two Lawrence police detectives, Meghan Bardwell and Amy Price, for helping to crack the case.
“These kids were doing something we all did as kids — riding their bikes in a park — something they should have been able to do without being violently sexually assaulted,” Lockhart said. “It took us more than two decades to finally find him and put him in a place where he can’t hurt other children.”
Authorities say Zimbrick may have victimized other children.
