An arrest has been made in the high-profile 2016 killing of an
18-year-old Cotati man whose body was found buried in a shallow grave on the
Sonoma State University Campus, officials announced Monday.
On Feb. 28, Daniel Carrillo, 20, of Rohnert Park, was booked into
Sonoma County Jail in connection with the stabbing death of Kirk Kimberly.
Carrillo was transported from a youth facility in Stockton on unrelated
charges, Sonoma County Sheriff’s officials said.
Sergeant Juan Valencia said in a statement that Violent Crimes
detectives had been conducting investigations over the past three years.
Kimberly was last seen by his family on Oct. 17, 2016. When he did
not return home the following morning, his parents began searching the area,
his mother, Jennifer Kimberly, told the Sonoma State Star in 2019. On Oct. 19, 2016, his father filed a missing persons
report.
In the following weeks, Kimberly’s body was found in a wooded area
behind the Green Music Center on campus.
As the years passed without an arrest, Jennifer Kimberly never
gave up hope.
“[The case is] not cold. I can tell
you it’s not cold,” she told the Star last year. “As the months have peeled
off, there have been glimmers of hope.”
In September 2018 forensic investigator Johnny Kerns released a
book on the Kirk Kimberly case, naming Carrillo as the suspect. Kerns said
he used cell phone GPS data and information provided by sources close to the
case to make this determination, but he doesn’t believe Carrillo acted
alone.
“The burial aspect gives me
significant foundation for that belief,” Kerns told the Star. “If this were
just a 16 or 17-year-old kid who killed Kirk, that kid probably would not have
been able to dig that grave, undiscovered, and bury Kirk…”
Authorities have not announced any
other suspects in the case.
Source: NBC Bay Area
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