Wichita man already in prison over upskirt filming gets more time for girl’s sexual assault
A 33-year-old Wichita man already serving a prison sentence for secretly filming upskirt videos of women and girls around Wichita, including on a local university campus and in a mall parking lot, has been ordered to serve even more time for sexually assaulting a young girl in an earlier, random incident that was linked to him using DNA.
Authorities conclusively tied James D. Dayvault to the 7-year-old girl’s November 2015 assault years later, in 2020, after the Wichita Police Department received results of her sexual assault exam from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and reopened the case. DNA on a swab taken from around the girl’s mouth matched that of Dayvault, whose genetic material was collected after he was sent to prison to serve a nearly five-year sentence for breach of privacy crimes, child pornography and lewd and lascivious behavior connected to the upskirt-filming case, according to an affidavit released by the court. He was 26 at the time of the girl’s assault.
The girl told police in 2015 that a stranger pulled up in a car, got out and grabbed her then stuck his hand in her pants while she was playing with a chip bag in a vacant lot by her home after church. She told police the man put his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams, but she broke free and alerted her mother, who called 911, the affidavit says.
When police asked Dayvault about the assault in 2020, he said he didn’t recall it and didn’t know how his DNA ended up on the girl, the affidavit says.
Dayvault was charged in 2021 with one count of aggravated indecent liberties, to which he pleaded not guilty. Despite Dayvault’s efforts to cast suspicious elsewhere at trial, a jury found him guilty on Nov. 16, court records show.
He was sentenced Wednesday to 54 years, five months in prison and will be subject to lifetime parole after he’s released from prison, according to Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.
The sentence, handed down by Sedgwick County District Judge Kevin O’Connor, must be served consecutive to the 57-month prison term Dayvault received for the breach of privacy, child pornography and lewd and lascivious behavior incidents. In that case, filed in 2017, Dayvault was accused of taking more than a dozen upskirt videos of women at Wichita State University while he was a student there, as well as filming unsuspecting teens at a Wichita church, a woman in the Towne East Square parking lot and at least two young girls playing outside. He was also accused of looking at child pornography and of exposing his genitals in public as children played nearby.
