DES MOINES, Iowa — A Polk County jury found Zachary Allen Gaskill guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2016 death of 62-year-old Kirk Blunck, a local architect who was found severely injured over eight years ago.
The Des Moines man was originally charged with second-degree murder for Blunck's death.
Police arrested Gaskill in December 2022, more than six years after Blunck was found with serious internal and external injuries in a stairwell of the Teachout Building.
Blunck, known for his architectural work in downtown Des Moines, died shortly after he was discovered on Jan. 24, 2016. The Polk County Medical Examiner later identified his cause of death as blunt force trauma due to a fall from height.
For more than half a decade, the case was cold — until Des Moines police used surveillance photos from near the scene to identify Gaskill in 2022.
Throughout the four day trial, prosecution and defense attorneys laid out several different versions of what happened that night.
Two ex-girlfriends of Gaskill testified, sharing several different versions of the story he'd shared with them. One said Gaskill claimed he accidentally went to Blunck's apartment and acted in self-defense when met with a knife, while another said Gaskill was confronting Blunck after the architect allegedly touched a woman inappropriately in the downstairs bar.
Multiple character witnesses said that, despite Blunck's BAC of .176 the night of his death, there was no indication he would act inappropriately or violently when drunk.
"My dad called him 'Easy Eddy' because he was always pretty lowkey, mellow, soft spoken," his wife, Doreen Blunck, said Tuesday. "He was never violent, he was not a loud person, he hated loud noises."
According to court documents, Blunck had texted his wife "911" prior to his death.
On the third day of trial, the court heard audio of an incriminating call made after Gaskill's arrest.
"In a non-mean way Mom, this has to do with the whole me-killing-a-guy thing. I should not be in jail for this right now," Gaskill said in the call. "Mom, I won't lie, it was pretty intimidating being in a room with a family when you killed their dad. They looked like they wanted to kill me, which I understood that, it sucked. I won't lie, I almost cried. My anxiety was so high, it sucked being in there like, I killed your dad."