Texas man linked to cold case child sexual assaults through DNA 40 years later, gets 2 life sentences

After nearly 40 years, a man who committed sex crimes against two young girls in Texas and Arizona is finally behind bars for good.

David Roy Mundt, 62, of Longview, Texas, was sentenced to life in prison last week after a Rusk County Grand Jury found him guilty of crimes that were initially committed in 1992 and 1986.

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It all started in October 1992, when a man broke into a home in Rusk County, Texas, and kidnapped a 7-year-old girl from her bed. The girl was assaulted in the backyard before the man fled. DNA evidence from the scene was submitted to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which is a national database used to connect suspects to unsolved cases.

Despite ongoing efforts by the Henderson Police Department, the case went cold, and no suspect was ever identified.

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Fast forward to December 2022, when the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Crime Laboratory in Garland flagged a potential DNA match between the 1992 case and an eerily similar case from Phoenix, Arizona. The Arizona case involved the kidnapping and sexual assault of a young girl in 1986, and the DNA evidence suggested that the same person could be behind both crimes.

Texas Rangers teamed up with the Phoenix Police Department, diving deep into the evidence. Using advanced DNA testing and genealogy research, they were able to track down two possible suspects: brothers.

One was quickly ruled out because his DNA had already been tested and didn’t match. But the other brother, David Roy Mundt, was a different story.

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Through the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) program, a federal initiative funded by the Department of Justice and aimed at solving cold cases, investigators obtained a DNA sample from Mundt. The results were undeniable. The DNA matched, and on August 7, 2024, Mundt was arrested at his home in Gregg County, Texas.

Mundt was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child in connection with the 1992 Texas case. On April 25, 2025, he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in prison.