Authorities say they caught three people who they say threw big garden rocks at least seven cars on Colorado roads last week. Alexa Bartell, a 20-year-old driver, died in the seventh and last accident.
The suspects, all 18-year-old high school seniors, were arrested overnight at their parents’ homes in Arvada. They are all charged with first-degree murder with extreme indifference, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday morning. Authorities say that more charges are likely.
Authorities don’t know if Joseph Koenig, Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, or Zachary Kwak, who have all been named as suspects, were driving during the spree, but all three are accused of throwing rocks. Authorities say it looks like they threw the rocks while they were driving.
The sheriff’s office said that Bartell was driving on April 19 at 10:45 p.m. when someone threw a big rock through her window, hitting her and killing her.
The sheriff’s office says that rocks were thrown at six other cars in the area in the hour before Bartell was killed. In two of these situations, the drivers got hurt, but not too badly.
One of the four people who were not hurt was a Lyft and Uber driver named Nathan Tipton.
“I felt bad for Alexa and her family when I found out that this chain of events really did kill a young woman. It kind of surprised me. “It was really hard on my wife,” he told reporters Tuesday.
“No one’s child should be taken away for no reason…. “It breaks my heart,” said Tipton, who has three kids.
Phone forensics and tips from the public, according to the sheriff’s office, helped lead to the charges.
Sheriff’s officials said that the suspects are likely to go to court for the first time on Thursday.
