The unrelenting pursuit of justice by a Kansas police department has led to the arrest of a suspected child sexual predator, decades after two heinous attacks in a Lawrence park. The breakthrough came thanks to an unexpected source: discarded cigarette butts.

At a press conference held on December 30, Douglas County District Attorney Dakota Loomis revealed the arrest of 58-year-old David James Zimbrick. Loomis highlighted the painstaking dedication involved in solving this long-standing case, stating, “It’s been literally 25 years since the first incident occurred here in Lawrence, Kansas. Thousands of hours have gone into locating this defendant and bringing him before the court.”

Zimbrick now faces serious charges, including rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, and aggravated indecent liberties with a child, linked to incidents from the years 2000 and 2003.

The investigation traces back to August 25, 2000, when Lawrence Police Chief Rich Lockhart recounted how officers responded to a report of a child sexual assault at Naismith Valley Park. This initial call set off a years-long investigation that finally culminated in the arrest of the suspect.

Allegations Against David James Zimbrick

According to Lawrence Police Chief Rich Lockhart, the case began on Aug. 25, 2000 when officers were called to the Naismith Valley Park after getting a report of a child sexual assault. 

Three children had been riding their bikes on a path in the park when they were approached by a male who offered them $20 to help him find something. Although one of the children rode off to alert his father, the suspect sexually assaulted one of the other children, a 7-year-old girl. 

“The father immediately ran down the path yelling for his daughter,” Lockhart said. “He located her in a wooded area and she told him that she’d been sexually assaulted.”

The young victim provided a physical description and told police that her attacker had been smoking a cigarette. Detectives recovered several cigarette butts at the scene, one of which Lockhart noted was “still smoldering.”

“Unknown to the officers at the time,” he added, “these cigarette butts would become key pieces of evidence.”

Authorities were able to obtain a DNA profile from the cigarette butts, which they entered into the national CODIS database; however, there were no matches at the time to link the profile to a suspect. 

Then, three years later, on May 23, 2003 there was another attack at the same park. This time a male suspect approached two 10-year-old boys. Once again, he offered to pay $20 for their help. 

Lockhart explained, “The man sent the boys in different directions and when he had one of the boys out of the sight of the other, he sexually assaulted him.”

Sexual evidence was collected and submitted to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI), but it wasn’t until January of 2016 that the samples from both cases were matched to the same suspect. 

Genetic Genealogy Leads to Arrest of David Zimbrick

Two years later, Lawrence Police Detective Amy Price took note when California used genetic genealogy to identify Joseph DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer. Price began to wonder, according to a department press release, whether the same process could work in their cold case and reached out to Parabon Nanolabs, a forensic DNA company who agreed to offer their assistance.

Through the use of genetic genealogy, the detectives were given possible names of the suspect’s parents and grandparents in 2020.

“Through their investigation,” Lockhart said, “they learned that one of the members of the family had a child when she was 14 or 15 and that child was put up for adoption.”

After speaking with the birth mom and issuing a search warrant for the adoption records, detectives were ultimately able to identify the child she’d given up for adoption as Zimbrick.