Nearly seven years after the death of a prominent Des Moines architect, police have arrested a suspect.
Police spokesman Sgt. Paul Parizek said investigators discovered enough evidence to charge Zachary Allen Gaskill Wednesday with second-degree murder in the January 2016 death of Kirk Blunck. The 62-year-old man was found critically injured in the stairwell of a building that he had renovated where he had an office. He later died.
The Polk County Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death to be blunt force trauma due to a fall from a height.
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Parizek did not say what evidence led to the arrest, but said Gaskill was identified as one of the people in surveillance photos taken near where Blunk had died.
But in 2018, a judge ordered Gaskill to pay Blunck’s family $6.25 million after they alleged in a wrongful-death lawsuit that Gaskill attacked Blunck and caused his death.
Iowa police have arrested Zachary Allen Gaskill in connection with the death of an architect.
Online court records do not list an attorney for Gaskill, who is being held without bond in the Polk County Jail.
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Blunck family attorney Grant Woodard praised the investigators’ “determination and efforts.”
“The Blunck family is very pleased that the justice process for Kirk is continuing,” Woodard said.
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In his career, Blunck specialized in the renovation of historic buildings and led efforts to revitalize the East Village and Sherman Hill neighborhoods in Des Moines.
