One of three teenagers accused of killing a 20-year-old Colorado woman when he hurled a rock through the windshield of her car snapped a photo of the dead woman’s vehicle “as a memento” of the crime, according to arrest records.
Alexa Bartell was killed April 19 after her vehicle and several others were struck by landscaping rocks, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Bartell’s car crashed in a field and she died on the scene, The Associated Press reported.
Bartell was killed when she was hit with the rock and not in the crash, the sheriff’s office said.
Three 18-year-old suspects — Joseph Koenig, Nicholas Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak — were arrested Tuesday at their Arvada, Colorado, homes, on charges of first-degree murder and extreme indifference. The three, all high school seniors, are being held without bail according to KDVR.
According to affidavits released Thursday, as the teens drove home after taking the photo, Koenig and Karol-Chik talked about how the three were now “blood brothers” and could never speak of what happened, Kwak told investigators.
The next day, Kwak and Koenig met to “get their stories straight,” the affidavit read.
Karol-Chik allegedly told investigators that he felt “a hint of guilt” after seeing the victim’s car. He told investigators that Koenig was the one who allegedly threw the rock that killed Bartell, CNN reported.
According to court papers, a witness told investigators that the landscaping rocks were taken from the edge of a Walmart parking lot and loaded in the backseat of a Chevy Silverado 1500 pickup truck.
Investigators said they believe the attack is linked to several other similar incidents in which rocks between 4 and 6 inches in diameter and weighing 3 to 5 pounds were thrown at other cars the same night Bartell was killed, according to the AP.
The witness, who was not with the three when the incident happened, according to the affidavit, said he felt like “something bad was going to happen,” so he asked them to take him home.
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