Jefferson County jurors on Friday discovered Joseph Koenig responsible of first-degree homicide within the killing of Alexa Bartell after he and two different youngsters hurled a 9-pound rock by her windshield throughout a spree of comparable assaults two years in the past.
Koenig, 20, was additionally convicted of six counts of tried homicide, three counts of assault, six counts of tried assault, two counts of tried reckless manslaughter and reckless endangerment.
He shall be sentenced to life in jail on June 3.
Koenig threw the massive rock into the windshield of an oncoming automobile on April 19, 2023, killing the driving force, 20-year-old Bartell. The deadly assault on Indiana Road close to the Rocky Flats Nationwide Wildlife Refuge was one in all a number of instances Koenig and two different youngsters threw rocks at vehicles that evening. All three males had been 18 on the time.
“This has been, clearly, the toughest two years ever, and we received justice in the present day,” Kelly Bartell, Alexa’s mom, said after the verdict. “And I don’t know easy methods to really feel about it. I’m completely happy. It doesn’t carry Alexa again, and that’s horrible. However we don’t ever need this to occur once more to anyone else. And that has been our essential aim, to verify justice is served.”
Koenig’s attorneys offered his actions throughout the 2023 rock-throwing spree as thoughtless teenage behavior, slightly than first-degree homicide. They admitted he was accountable for Bartell’s loss of life, however argued he needs to be discovered responsible of the lesser cost of manslaughter.
“What I’m asking you to do, of us, is to return and speak about all of the proof we heard, all of the proof we noticed and return verdicts of responsible of manslaughter and tried manslaughter — as a result of that’s what Joe Koenig did,” protection legal professional Martin Stuart informed jurors throughout closing arguments Thursday.
Protection legal professional Tom Ward declined to remark after Friday’s verdict.
Prosecutors centered on how usually the youngsters threw rocks at vehicles throughout the spree and the way they inspired one another by cheering when the rocks hit vehicles. The driving force of the truck sped up before the attacks, witnesses testified, and Koenig whooped with excitement after Bartell was killed and her automobile drifted off the street.
“He did this time and again and time and again and time and again and time and again and over, till Alexa Bartell’s life was over,” prosecutor Katharine Decker informed jurors throughout closing arguments.
The protection offered proof about how youngsters are developmentally completely different from adults and proof that Koenig had been recognized with mental conditions that impaired his decision-making on the time of the assaults. The three youngsters didn’t suppose by their actions, Stuart stated.
“One factor they had been constant about, from begin to end, is that it by no means entered their minds that they had been going to harm, not to mention kill, anyone,” Stuart stated.
Koenig was joined within the truck throughout the 2023 spree by two others, Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak. Each of these males pleaded responsible and agreed to testify in opposition to Koenig throughout his jury trial.
Koenig’s protection attorneys argued that he didn’t throw the deadly rock, and that Kwak really threw it. Prosecutors maintained that Koenig threw the rock that killed Bartell. Each side acknowledged that, legally, all the teenagers could possibly be convicted in Bartell’s killing no matter who threw the rock.
“We don’t must show he threw this rock that killed Alexa Bartell,” Decker stated. “…The defendant was a minimum of complicit in all the crimes.”
After the decision, First Judicial District Lawyer Alexis King thanked investigators for his or her work.
“No matter this verdict, it doesn’t carry Alexa again,” King stated. “Regardless of a conviction of homicide within the first diploma – excessive indifference, none of this ever needed to occur.”
Karol-Chik pleaded responsible to second-degree murder and tried first-degree homicide in 2024 and faces between 35 and 72 years in jail. Kwak pleaded guilty to assault and tried assault and faces between 20 and 32 years in jail.
Their offers had been contingent on their testimony, so neither Karol-Chik nor Kwak has been sentenced. They are going to be sentenced in early Might.
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