PRESCOTT, Arizona — A man has been arrested in connection to a 28-year-old cold case in northern Arizona.
On the morning of Oct. 18, 1995, a 36-year-old Prescott woman reported that she was sexually assaulted by a man in the parking lot of the Pinion Pines bar off Highway 89A in Prescott.
According to a release by authorities, the woman was with her girlfriends at the bar and left her vehicle in the parking lot when the group walked to a nearby hotel. When she went back to the parking lot around midnight, she was reportedly attacked.
She was only able to give a vague description of the suspect. She said he was was dark haired, thin, tall and wearing a dark coat that looked like a flight jacket. YCSO detectives were able to retrieve a DNA sample and latent fingerprints but were never able to identify a suspect.
No new information was uncovered about the case until November 2022.
YCSO cold case detectives took over the case and found the fingerprints were no longer valuable but the DNA was processed during the time of the assault. Additional investigation found that the sample was not put into the national DNA database, CODIS.
Detectives now on the case pushed Arizona State Police to put the DNA profile in CODIS in July 2023 is hopes to find a “hit.” CODIS came back identifying the profile as belonging to Gerald Todd Tubbs, 52, of Prescott Valley.
With this new information, YCSO detectives were able to obtain an indictment for Tubbs and arrest him for sexual assault.
"The follow through of the volunteer YCSO Cold Case detectives has once again helped with closure for a woman who has been waiting close to 30 years”, said Sheriff David Rhodes. “I cannot overstate how valuable these volunteers are to our agency and I thank them for their hard work bringing justice to this victim.”
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