Three Colorado teens accused of throwing rock that killed Alexa Bartell
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Alexa Bartell was on a call with a friend as she drove along a Colorado highway in her yellow Chevrolet Spark last Wednesday night when the line suddenly went silent. Worried, the friend checked the location of Bartell’s iPhone and saw it was in a field, authorities said. She drove to the location and found Bartell, 20, of Arvada, Colo., inside her car, not moving, according to new arrest affidavits.
A rock had smashed through her windshield, leaving Bartell fatally injured. Her car was one of seven vehicles across two Colorado counties hit with large landscaping rocks on April 19, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Two other drivers were injured, officials said.
After nearly a week of searching and seeking help from the public, the sheriff’s office arrested Joseph Koenig, Nicholas Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak. The 18-year-old high school seniors, all from Arvada, were charged with first-degree murder with extreme indifference, officials said.
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The three appeared in court Thursday morning but have not yet entered pleas, according to Colorado Judicial Department spokesperson Rob McCallum. He said one of them is being represented by the Colorado Public Defender’s Office, which does not comment on cases. Online court records do not list any attorneys by name.
The Washington Post was unable to immediately reach family members of Koenig, Karol-Chik and Kwak.
Additional charges are expected, according to the sheriff’s office, which said the district attorney’s office will decide the final charges.
The case garnered intense attention in Colorado and across the country. Bartell’s story “touched a lot of people deeply,” said Jacki Kelley, a sheriff’s office spokesperson.
“This was a beautiful young woman with her whole life in front of her who was simply driving home,” Kelley told reporters on Wednesday morning.
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Investigators believe Koenig, Kwak and Karol-Chik were driving a black Chevrolet Silverado on April 19, according to the arrest affidavits.
One of Koenig’s former co-workers was with them starting around 6:30 p.m. as they drove around for a couple of hours before entering a Walmart parking lot, the affidavits state. Koenig’s co-worker told investigators that Koenig “frequently participates in destructive behavior” because he “likes causing ‘chaos,’” the affidavits state.
While the group walked around Walmart, the co-worker went to the restroom, he told investigators. When he got back outside, he saw Koenig, Kwak and Karol-Chik picking up landscaping rocks from the parking lot and putting them in the truck, the affidavits allege.
The co-worker then asked to be taken home because “he knew something bad was going to happen,” according to the documents.
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The first rock went through the windshield of a car in Westminster, Colo., just after 10 p.m., according to the sheriff’s office. Over about the next 45 minutes, six other cars were hit in Boulder and Jefferson counties.
Nathan Tipton, a ride-hail driver, was on a Colorado highway after 10 p.m. after dropping off passengers at a concert when something shattered a window in his minivan.
“It sounded like a shotgun blast — it scared the heck out of me,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
His was one of four vehicles, including Bartell’s, that were hit by rocks between 10:26 p.m. and 10:45 p.m., according to the sheriff’s office. Tipton was not injured, he said.
Around 10:45 p.m., Bartell was on the call with her friend when she stopped talking, the sheriff’s office said.
Karol-Chik later told investigators that after they threw the rock at Bartell’s car, they drove back toward it and Kwak took a photo of it, according to the affidavits. Kwak allegedly said that he took the photo because he thought one of the other two teenagers would “want it as a memento.”
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Bartell’s friend who’d tracked her phone after 11 p.m. called 911 when she found her unresponsive in her vehicle. An officer who responded couldn’t find a pulse, and Bartell’s skin was cold to the touch, the affidavits say.
A photo released by the sheriff’s office shows a large hole in the driver’s side of the windshield of the Chevy Spark she had been driving.
Over the next week, investigators said they gathered information about the suspects and the vehicle they were driving. They asked the public to share security or dash-camera footage and received more than 300 tips, Kelley said.
That information, along with cellphone records, led to the arrests, Kelley added.
The arrest affidavits state that phone data revealed only one number that had hit all the towers along the route investigators constructed at the same time frames of the incidents. That phone also passed through the area where Bartell died at the same time she’d stopped talking during the phone call, according to the documents.
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The number was linked to Koenig, according to the documents.
Koenig declined an interview, the affidavits state. Karol-Chik allegedly told investigators that all three teens had thrown rocks at moving cars on April 19. Karol-Chik also told investigators that he and Koenig had previously thrown objects on at least 10 different days starting in February, the affidavits state.
After throwing the rocks on April 19, Kwak said Koenig and Karol-Chik were talking about the three of them being “blood brothers” and that “they could never speak” of the incident, the affidavits state. He also told investigators that he and Koenig met the following day to “get their stories straight” about what had happened — “specifically denying involvement,” the affidavits say.
The three teenagers, who attended different high schools in Jefferson County Public Schools, were arrested at their homes late Tuesday and early Wednesday.
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Officials called Bartell’s family “in the middle of the night” Wednesday to tell them about the arrests, Kelley said.
“They’re still suffering from the greatest loss possible,” she said.
Bartell had a “very big personality,” and was someone who made those around her smile, her friend Samantha Motisi told KMGH. The pair grew up playing basketball together. While on the same team, Motisi said Bartell taught her “how to be a better athlete.”
“All we have are her memories,” Motisi said. “And I will cherish those to the day I pass.”
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Source: The Washington Post
