JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — A co-defendant who previously pleaded guilty testified against a man currently on trial for allegedly throwing a rock at a young driver's car, smashing her windshield and killing her in Jefferson County in 2023.
The trial for Joseph Edwin Koenig, 20, began on Friday with jury selection, and opening statements started on Monday morning.
This case has three defendants and all were 18 years old at the time of the crime. They were all charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, second-degree assault and attempted second-degree assault in connection with the 2023 death of Alexa Bartell. She died on April 19, 2023 after a large landscaping rock crashed through her windshield as she was driving northbound on Indiana Street, just south of State Highway 128, in Jefferson County. About a week afterward, the three suspects were arrested. They were also accused of throwing rocks at multiple other cars.
Koenig's two co-defendants are Zachary Kwak, 20, and Nicholas Karol-Chik, 20. Both Kwak and Karol-Chik have pleaded guilty and their plea deals required them to testify against Koenig. Koenig pleaded not guilty to the charges in April 2024.
Co-defendant: "There was concern in the car, but I couldn’t tell you if it was mostly for self or for her"
On Thursday afternoon, Kwak entered the courtroom in handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit to testify against Koenig. With his plea deal, he faces 20 to 32 years in prison.
Kwak said he had met Karol-Chik and Koenig — the two were lifelong friends — a few weeks before Bartell's death.
As the prosecution asked him questions, he described what had happened on April 19, 2023.
Sometime after dinner hour, when it was dark out, Karol-Chik and Koenig came to pick him up. Karol-Chik was driving, and Kwak got into the seat behind the front passenger. The trio initially went to a friend's house to pick him up, and then went to Walmart. In the parking lot, Kwak said he picked up landscaping rocks from the median area, and Karol-Chik began picking them up too. At the same time, Koenig was adjusting the car's driver's seat so he could take over driving, Kwak testified.
Karol-Chik and Kwak began putting the rocks into the car. When prosecutors asked what he wanted to do at that point, he responded, “Go home. I didn’t want to be a part of what was about to happen… I’m not sure on exact wording, but I did say that I’d like to go home.”
At that point, they dropped off the fourth friend, went to a gas station and then Karol-Chik and Koenig began throwing rocks at stationary cars, Kwak said. Kwak said he remembered passing the rocks stored in the footwells in the backseat up to the two teens in the front. He would hear their cheers and whooping when they threw the rocks, and remembers hearing shattered glass, though he couldn't see the damage to the cars. He said Karol-Chik was throwing with his right hand from the passenger seat and Koenig was throwing with his left hand "shot put style" out his own window.
The prosecutor asked about Kwak's reaction.
“In hindsight I should have reacted differently, but I think I just kind of ducked my head," he said, adding that he was playing a game on his phone. "Like, put the top of my head on the rear of the passenger.”
Kwak told the courtroom he didn't throw any rocks that night because "it didn't seem correct to me," and he didn't find it difficult to resist the mild peer pressure from his friends.
After stopping at another gas station, they grabbed more rocks from a recreation center.
“Things escalated a bit. It started with slower-moving vehicles," Kwak said, indicating the teens were no longer targeting non-moving cars and instead were starting to throw the rocks at oncoming traffic.
He recalled a half dozen instances. Sometime during that, they went to a Kum and Go gas station, where they picked up more rocks and then got back on the road.
“I remember hearing (somebody say) 'Last one,'" Kwak said. "Somebody said ‘Last one,’ indicating to me that this was the last one for the night. I remember hearing ‘Faster, faster.’ I remember hearing the noise that the window makes on the highway. I remember being very cold and I remember a real loud noise.”
He also recalled Koenig speeding up and said he could see the digital speedometer read 103 mph.
“It all began with that noise," Kwak testified. "The bass noise when the windows are down on the highway. I couldn’t hear anything. It was very cold. I remember seeing headlights coming up and… kind of a blur. And I remember looking down and hearing a noise — a very, very loud noise.... I remember hearing the noise and immediately shooting my head back, like looking back. And all I could see was black road and bright red tail lights… I saw the rock get pushed out of the window.”
"By whom?" the prosecutor asked.
"Joseph Koenig," he replied. “It sounded like what they describe artillery sounds to be like in the world wars.”
Kwak said Koenig seemed to be experiencing a mix of panic and excitement right afterward. Kwak said he saw the damaged car "gently turn off the road." He recalled "a lot of confusion" right afterward, like "something seemed off."
The group then turned around to drive by the car. They could see it had stopped, but could not see anybody inside. Kwak said he took a picture to see if it could capture any of the damage, but it was "just a big red blob" and he couldn't see anything. Kwak testified that he showed the picture to the others and then deleted it.
He said they didn't stop to check on the driver out of a "childish fear of getting in trouble."
Koenig said that he saw glass in the road with blood on it, Kwak said. On the way back to dropping Kwak off at his home, Koenig said something about this incident making them "blood brothers" and that they would take the secret to the grave, Kwak testified.
“There was concern in the car, but I couldn’t tell you if it was mostly for self or for her," Kwak said.
The next day, Koenig and Kwak agreed to meet after school to talk about what had happened. Kwak said he had seen the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office social media post about the crash, with a photo of Bartell.
Kwak said his meeting with Koenig was brief, and Koenig reiterated to not talk to police about what had happened.
When asked why he did not report what had happened to police, Kwak said he was scared.
In the cross-examination, Koenig's defense attorneys also walked through the events of that evening of Bartell's death.
The defense confirmed that there was no plan that night, but Kwak knew they were going to do something with the collected rocks, though he said he did not think they would try to hurt people with them. However, he knew about the possibility the teens would want to throw the rocks at cars.
The defense then asked about the specific rock that killed Bartell. Kwak had picked it up at their third stop, but Karol-Chik had told him it was too big and he threw it out of the truck, the defense said. Kwak had replied, “If you won’t throw it, I will," the defense said, adding that Kwak put it back in the truck.
Kwak said he did not remember this.
When asked if he considers himself more of a leader than a follower, Kwak said yes. He has pulled people out of the snow and likes to help people, the defense said.
The defense said that the rocks being thrown from the car were collected, put in the truck and handed to the people in the front of the car by Kwak. Never in the night did he tell them to stop, the defense said.
“And while all of this is going on with this rock and 103 miles an hour, you, who believe yourself to be a leader, you didn't say, 'Don't throw that?'" the defense asked.
"I have to live with that every day," Kwak said in response.
The defense also confirmed through Kwak that both he and Koenig had thought it would be OK — meaning it would not jeopardize their involvement — to go check on the driver, but Karol-Chik had "vetoed" it, so they did not go.
“And on April 20, you realized that Alexa Bartell had gotten not only hurt but killed by activity that you were involved in," the defense said. "But that didn’t upset you or affect you deeply?”
It did, Kwak argued. The defense then brought up photos of him at a school prom three days later and snowboarding after that.
“Did you have a good time?” the defense asked.
"No," Kwak replied.
Kwak was arrested on April 26, 2023 and agreed to talk with police. For about an hour, he pretended like he did not know what had happened. He acknowledged this in court. The detective at one point said he had information that pointed to Kwak being the person who threw the rock that killed Bartell "and in response to that, you said, ‘I didn’t throw the rocks.' So, you finally remembered the rocks." This came less than 60 seconds after the detective said Kwak had been implicated in the crime, the defense said.
At the end of the defense's cross-examination, they reviewed Kwak's plea agreement. He faces a total of 20 to 32 years, which is significantly less than the original charges filed against him. The district attorney's office gets to decide if he's truthful in his testimony and they can back out of the agreement if they feel that way, reinstating the original charges against Kwak.
During a redirect with the prosecution, Kwak recalled telling the detective in that initial meeting with police that he did not kill Bartell.
"I really felt as though I needed him to understand that," he said.
The prosecution asked why he had been dishonest earlier in that interview, and he attributed it to stress from the situation and not responding well to authority.
Kwak said he knows that Karol-Chik has accused him of throwing the rock that killed Bartell, but reiterated that it was Koenig.
Prosecutors then asked about his mental state at the time, and if he had the ability to think logically. Kwak responded yes, but that he did not always act that way.
“If a landscaping rock can crash through the hard safety glass of a windshield, would you have then been able to logically understand that it could also hurt a human being?” prosecutors asked.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied.
Other witnesses recall small statue, rock thrown at cars
Earlier on Thursday morning, Christopher Bryan testified that his car was struck by a small statue while he was driving with his wife and their 13-year-old daughter on the evening of April 1, 2023. It hit the front left corner of the car, he told the court, and caused about $12,000 worth of damage.
“At first I thought maybe something fell out of a pickup, but the momentum — would have thrown something out of the pickup going in the other direction," he explained. "And hit the front of the car. That’s pretty much what happened. The other vehicle didn’t stop. Didn’t do anything at all.”
He remembered pulling over, looking at the damage, and then seeing a statue of Zeus, estimated at 3 feet tall, cracked in half in a grassy area between the road and a neighborhood.
Another witness, Kevin Vandyke, said he heard that crash as his home backed up to the road. He said he helped Bryan's family call 911. Several weeks afterward, he learned that Bartell had died in a similar type of crash, and his wife called to report what they had experienced.
Officer Calise Conley with the Arvada Police Department testified that on April 22, 2023, she met with a manager of a gas station in the area of the crash that killed Bartell, and was shown surveillance from April 1, 2023. The footage showed two males holding what appeared to be a statue or some sort of large object, she said.
Det. Julie Glynn, also with the police department, said she had investigated incidents in Arvada that the department believed were connected with Bartell's death, going back as early as February 2023. She had met with a man who said a rock was thrown at his car then, and the rock was still visible from the road. Glynn met with him on April 20, 2023 to go pick up the rock. Body camera footage of this was played in court. However, when asked by the defense, she explained she does not have any evidence that the round rock was involved in any crash, as it did not have any scrapes or paint on it.
Glynn also went to the scene of Bryan's April 1 crash after learning pieces of the statue's head may still be in the area on April 26, 2023, she said. She found what she believed were statue head pieces on the side of the road, which were presented to the court in a bag.
During a cross-examination, Glynn said the officers who responded to Bryan's crash on April 1 did not take a report, and she was not sure why, except that Bryan was instructed to fill out an online report. It was initially reported that there were fiberglass pieces in the road, per the incident report, she confirmed, adding that the pieces of the statue head pieces found at the scene did not appear to be fiberglass.
The last witness to testify before Kwak was Tyler Evans, a deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. He assisted in transporting Koenig to jail in April 2023 and was wearing a body-worn camera at the time. The footage captured video of Koenig signing the booking paperwork with his left hand.
Court will resume at 8:45 a.m. Friday.
