Teen accused of fatal assault-rock throwing took picture of victim's car 'as a memento,' affidavits say

[Otto Niebergall]

They need to fuck these idiots up with clubs.

One of three teens accused of killing a 20-year-old Colorado woman after
hurling a large rock through the windshield of her car snapped a photo “as
a memento” of the crime, according to arrest affidavits released Thursday.

Alexa Bartell was killed April 19 after her vehicle and several others
were struck by rocks, said Jacki Kelley, spokesperson for the Jefferson
County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities believe at least seven vehicles were
hit by large landscaping rocks.

The 18-year-old suspects – Joseph Koenig, Nicholas Karol-Chik and Zachary
Kwak – were arrested Tuesday on charges of first-degree murder and extreme
indifference, according to the sheriff’s office. They are being held
without bail.

CNN has reached out to the public defender’s office to see if the three
suspects have attorneys assigned to them.

After taking the photo of Bartell’s car, Koenig and Karol-Chik talked
about being “blood brothers” and that “they could never speak of this
incident again,” according to the affidavits, which were released
Thursday, the same day the teens made their initial court appearance.

The suspects appeared via Zoom before First Judicial District Judge Mark
M. Randall in Jefferson County Court. They did not enter pleas and will be
in court on May 3, according to the court docket.

Karol-Chik allegedly told investigators that he felt “a hint of guilt”
after seeing the victim’s car.

Karol-Chik also told police that, after striking Bartell’s car, Kwak – who
allegedly threw the rock that killed the woman – said, “We have to go back
and see that,” according to the affidavits.

After circling back, Karol-Chik told investigators Koenig slowed down so
that Kwak could take a picture of the car. When police asked why, Kwak
replied that he thought “Joseph or Mitch would want it as a memento,”
according to the affidavit.

The court documents said Karol-Chik told investigators the suspects felt
“excited” when the rocks hit cars.

The day after Bartell was killed, Koenig and Kwak met and “tried to get
their stories straight about (what) happened, specifically denying
involvement,” the affidavits said.

The night she was killed, Bartell was on the phone with a friend when the
conversation ended abruptly, according to arrest affidavits.

Bartell’s friend used the Find My iPhone app to locate Bartell and found
her phone in a field south of State Highway 128 in Golden, Colorado, the
affidavits said.

The friend found Bartell motionless and with a significant head injury in
the driver’s seat of a Chevrolet Spark, according to the documents.

The friend called Bartell’s mother before dialing 911. Police found “blood
all over” the inside of the driver’s side door as well as the victim, and
“a pool of blood in her lap,” the affidavits said. She was pronounced dead
at the scene.

The court documents said cellphone tower data and a friend of one of the
suspects helped identify the teens. The friend told investigators that
Koenig participated in “destructive behavior” and liked “causing ‘chaos,’”
the affidavits said.

The three suspects got together the night of April 19 to “hang out” and
began “picking up landscaping rock from the edge of a parking lot” and put
them in a truck’s cab, according to the the affidavits.

Karol-Chik told investigators he and Kwak “both collected rocks, and that
all three of them threw rocks at moving cars,” the affidavits said.

Karol-Chik allegedly said he and Koenig “have been involved in throwing
objects since at least February on ten separate days.”

<https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/us/colorado-teens-rock-death-
charges/index.html>

[Otto Niebergall]

They need to castrate these assholes.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — We are learning more about what led to
the arrest of three high school seniors suspected of a rock-throwing crime
spree that killed a 20-year-old woman.

FOX31 received the arrest documents from the Jefferson County court on
Thursday morning.

Father of rock-throwing suspect also arrested during investigation
Timeline of investigation
The documents outlined what led to the arrest of Joseph Koenig, Nicholas
‘Mitch’ Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak.

According to the documents, investigators located a camera near one of the
incidents that showed three vehicles. One of the vehicles was driven by a
victim and another was driven by a witness. The only other vehicle on the
road was tracked between multiple cameras and moving at a high speed, the
affidavit showed.

Investigators said they sent photos of the taillights to an employee with
Chevrolet. The vehicle was identified as a 2014-2016 Chevy Silverado
pickup.

Rock-throwing suspect ‘had stupid ideas,’ says teen who knows him
On April 25, a person called police to explain that he and a co-worker
were talking about the rock-throwing incident. The co-worker said that on
April 19 he was with three people who were loading rocks into their
vehicle at a Walmart parking lot near West 72nd Avenue and Sheridan
Boulevard.

The co-worker then said he asked to be taken home because he didn’t want
to have anything to do with what they were up to, documents showed.

Where did the rocks come from?
According to investigative documents, police interviewed the co-worker as
a witness and he told them that he watched people named Joe, Mitch and
Zach take landscaping rocks from the edge of the Walmart parking lot at
72nd and Sheridan Boulevard on April 19.

He also said they put the rocks in the back seat of a Chevy Silverado 1500
pickup truck, possibly around a 2019-2020 model, court documents showed.

Memorial placed at site of Alexa Bartell’s death
When investigators asked how many rocks they took, the witness said, “as
much as they could carry.”

The witness told investigators he “knew something bad was going to
happen,” so he insisted they take him home, which they did, the court
documents showed.

When they left, Joe was driving, Mitch was in the front passenger’s seat,
and Zach was behind Mitch, according to the witness.

Other rock-throwing incidents
When Mitch, identified as Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, was arrested on
April 25, he agreed to speak with investigators.

According to police documents, Karol-Chik told investigators that all
three were involved in throwing rocks at moving cars and that he and
Zachary Kwak collected the rocks.

Karol-Chik also allegedly told investigators that he and Joe Koenig were
involved in throwing objects, including a statue and other rocks, at
vehicles since at least February and at least on 10 separate days.

Karol-Chik also allegedly told investigators that Koenig threw the rock
that hit Alexa Bartell‘s vehicle.

Investigators said that when Koenig was arrested, he declined to be
interviewed.

‘She really left a mark’: Friend mourns woman killed in rock attack
When Kwak was arrested, he agreed to be interviewed. According to court
documents, he told investigators he was with Koenig and Karol-Chik and
they went to a Walmart near Denver and then went driving around.

Kwak allegedly said he remembered stopping to collect rocks and then
throwing them at passing cars. He said he believed Koenig was driving.

He also explained that Koenig threw the final rock, which was the one that
hit Bartell’s car. Kwak said he saw the car leave the road and shortly
after, Koenig turned around and went back to where it happened. When they
got there, Kwak said he took a picture of the vehicle because he thought
Koenig or Karol-Chik would want it as a memento, documents showed.

After that, Kwak allegedly told investigators they left, and Koenig took
him home. During the drive to Kwak’s house, he said that Koenig and Karol-
Chik were talking about them now being “blood brothers” and they could
never speak of the incident.

According to investigators, Kwak said Koenig met with him the next day to
get their stories straight about what happened and tried to deny
involvement.

What charges are they facing?
All three suspects are facing charges of first-degree murder with extreme
indifference. Additional charges are expected to be filed at a later date.

They are being held without bond.

<https://kdvr.com/news/local/documents-show-rock-throwing-suspect-said-
they-were-blood-brothers-after-spree/>

[Otto Niebergall]

They need to fuck these morons up.

The teen suspects accused of hurling a large rock that killed a Colorado
motorist took a photo of the deadly mayhem, then pledged a "blood
brothers" oath to keep quiet about the crime, investigators alleged
Thursday.

Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, Joseph Koenig and Zachary Kwak, all 18, have
all been booked on suspicion of murder. Arrest warrant affidavits painted
a grisly picture of 20-year-old motorist's Alexa Bartell's death on a
lonely stretch of Indiana Street in Jefferson County, between Denver and
Boulder.

Bartell was on the phone with a friend, Jenna Griggs, at about 10:45 p.m.
April 19 when the driver suddenly stopped speaking, Jefferson County
sheriff’s investigator Daniel Manka wrote in an affidavit.

Griggs used the Find My iPhone feature to find Bartell's car with her
friend inside, who had “sustained a significant injury to her head and was
not moving,” according to the affidavit.

Griggs called Bartell’s mother and 911 before a Broomfield police officer
arrived to find no pulse on the victim, whose arm was “cold to the touch,”
the affidavit said.

Investigators found “biological matter” throughout the car and a large
“‘river rock’ landscaping rock” on the side of the road, stained with
blood, the affidavit said.

Several other motorists that night reported stones were hurled at their
cars around the same time in the area where Bartell was fatally struck.

Sheriff’s investigators secured cellphone data pinging off four nearby
towers and found one that had “passed in the area of the death of the
victim at the same time that the victim, Alexa, stopped talking,”
documents said.

The phone was linked to Koenig and his mother, Lara Koenig, investigators
said.

The probe's other major break came when detectives found a friend of
Koenig’s, Joseph Bopp, 20, who said he was with the three suspects at a
Walmart on April 19.

Bopp said that’s when he saw the three 18-year-olds “picking up
landscaping rocks from the edge of the parking and putting them in the
back seat of” Karol-Chik’s truck, the affidavit said.

“Joseph states that he knew something bad was going to happen, so he
insisted they take him home, which they did,” according to court
documents.

Karol-Chik told detectives that Kwak threw the stone that struck Bartell
before Koenig turned the truck around to get a closer look at the damage.

Karol-Chik quoted Kwak saying, "We have to go back and see that (with
emphasis on the word 'have')," the affidavit said.

“Joe slowed the vehicle so that Zach could take a photo of it. Mitch noted
that he felt ‘a hint of guilt,’" the court document said.

Kwak initially told detectives he couldn’t remember events of that night
but then "revised his statement" once he was confronted by Karol-Chik’s
account to investigators, according to the affidavit.

Kwak said that the impact on Bartell’s car sounded like a “rail gun” and
that he snapped a picture of the devastation because “he thought Joseph or
Mitch would want it as a memento,” the affidavit said.

Kwak also told detectives that “Joseph and Mitch were talking about them
now being ‘blood brothers’ and they could never speak of this incident,”
court documents said.

“In addition, Zachary said that Joseph met with him the next day and tried
to get their stories straight” so they could deny involvement, according
to the affidavit.

A judge ordered all three to be held without bail.

The court documents and sheriff's deputies haven't said what might have
motivated the deadly rock throw at Bartell.

Bopp told investigators that "Koenig frequently participates in
destructive behavior" and "that he likes causing 'chaos.'"

Attorneys for all three defendants couldn't immediately be reached for
comment Thursday.

CORRECTION (April 27, 2023, 10:25 p.m. ET): A previous version of this
article and a headline misspelled the first name of the victim of the
attack. She is Alexa Bartell, not Alex.

<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teen-suspects-fatal-colorado-rock-
throwing-took-photo-scene-became-blo-rcna81843>

[Otto Niebergall]

They need to force a bat up their asses.

Technology helped pinpoint rock-throwing suspects
Former district attorney and FOX31 legal analyst George Brauchler gave
insight into how investigators may have pinpointed the suspects through
their mobile phones.

“Who was where, when,” Brauchler said, “and match that up with the reports
of cars getting hit with rocks.”

Brauchler said one factor likely helped investigators.

“(It’s) incredibly helpful that it happened repeatedly over a short period
of time,” Brauchler said.

That period of time was a window, Brauchler said, for investigators to
cross-examine cell tower data and geo-point them to the suspects.

“I just spoke with the chief of police for Aurora about a case handled
back in Florida some years ago,” Brauchler said. “It took them a year to
close. This moved very, very quickly, and I think technology’s to thank
for it.”

Time is a very important factor in this case, according to Brauchler, even
the time we live in.

“These are things that might not have been around 20, 25 years ago, not
the way they are today,” Brauchler said.

FOX31 did a background check on all three suspects in this case, finding
no criminal record for Kwak and Joseph Keonig. Nicholas Karol-Chik has one
count on his record for speeding.

<https://kdvr.com/news/local/rock-throwing-suspect-had-stupid-ideas-says-
teen-who-knows-him/>