Prosecutors in Colorado announced on Wednesday that they have charged three people with first-degree murder in the death of a 20-year-old woman last month on a highway. The lady was killed when a huge rock was thrown at her car and crashed through the windshield.
According to a press release from the Colorado First Judicial District Attorney’s Office, on the evening of April 19, Nicholas Karol-Chik, Joseph Koenig, and Zachary Kwak are accused of killing Alexa Bartell, whose body was discovered in her car, and injuring three others when they threw rocks at moving vehicles, killing Bartell and injuring them.
All of the suspects were 18 years old at the time of their arrest, and they have been charged with murder, as well as six counts of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of second-degree assault, and three instances of attempted second-degree assault.
No pleas have been submitted by the defendants. CNN has contacted their lawyers for a response. According to her arrest complaint, Bartell was traveling in northern Jefferson County, not far from Denver, when one of the defendants threw a huge landscape rock at her Chevrolet Spark, sending it careening into a field.
Kwak, who is accused of throwing the rock that killed the woman, allegedly said, “We have to go back and see that” after the incident. Authorities claim that Kwak photographed the collision after it occurred.
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According to the affidavit, when officers asked Kwak why, he stated that he believed Karol-Chik or Koenig “would want it as a memento.” Apparently, Koenig and Kwak met the day after Bartell’s murder and “tried to get their stories straight about (what) happened, specifically denying involvement,” as stated in the affidavits.
According to investigators, Bartell and his friend were having a phone discussion when it abruptly ceased. A friend of Bartell’s located her and the iPhone using the Find My iPhone app in a field south of State Highway 128, according to sworn statements.
According to the paperwork, the companion discovered Bartell unresponsive and with a severe head injury in the driver’s seat. According to the papers, the suspects have been linked to other events involving the throwing of pebbles at moving vehicles.
They “have been involved in throwing objects since at least February on ten separate days,” Karol-Chik is reported to have stated of his and Koenig’s altercations. In the Jefferson County Jail, the suspects are being held without bond.
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