The three teens who allegedly threw a rock through a car windshield, killing the 20-year-old driver, have formally been charged with murder and other crimes.
Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, Joseph Koenig and Zachary Kwak — all 18 — were each formally charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, second-degree assault and attempted second-degree assault in the death of Alexis Bartell, in addition to alleged attacks on six other cars in suburban Denver, said First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King on Wednesday.
The fatal attack came on April 19, as the trio threw large landscaping rocks — and even a statue — at six passing cars as a prank. Two motorists suffered minor injuries, investigators said. But one rock smashed through the windshield of the car Bartell was driving, hitting her and sending the car careening into a field. She died at the scene.
Her body was discovered soon after by a friend who she’d been chatting with on the phone when the accident happened. The friend traced Bartell’s location and came upon the crash site.
Immediately after hurling the rock, the three teens made a “blood brothers” pact not to talk about what had happened. Kwak snapped a photo of the scene as a “memento,” he told investigators.
Karol-Chik and Kwak’s accounts of who threw the rock differed, and Koenig did not speak to investigators, according to an affidavit.
The three were arrested last Wednesday, and charges were finalized this week. Karol-Chik’s lawyer, Holly Gummerson, declined to comment, while a message left for Kwak’s lawyer, Emily Boehne, was not immediately returned because she was in court.
Koenig is represented by a lawyer from the public defender’s office, which declines media comment on its cases.
With News Wire Services
