JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — A second co-defendant testified that his close friend, who is on trial for throwing a rock through a woman's windshield and killing her in Jefferson County in 2023, convinced him for some time immediately after the crash to blame her death on their other friend.
This began changing in early 2024, when the second co-defendant told his lawyers that he wanted to speak with prosecutors, as he wanted to change his story to what he said was the truth, and confirm that he knew Koenig had thrown the rock.
The trial for Joseph Edwin Koenig, 20, began on Friday with jury selection, and opening statements started on Monday morning.
The first co-defendant, Zachary Kwak, 20, was on the stand for much of Thursday afternoon. The second co-defendant, Nicholas Karol-Chik, 20, testified on Friday.
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.
All three defendants 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.
Kwak testified on Thursday, saying that after an evening of throwing rocks at stationary and moving cars, Koenig, who was driving, began speeding just beyond 100 mph and hurled a rock at Bartell's incoming headlights. Kwak recalled an odd feeling in the car after they left the scene, saying while the three teens were concerned, he admitted he was not sure if they were more worried about the driver or getting caught.
He said he did not throw any rocks at vehicles that evening, which is something that Karol-Chik disputed in his testimony Friday morning. Karol-Chik added in Friday's testimony that Kwak had joined them to throw rocks at cars before April 19, 2023.
Hear more from Zachary Kwak's Thursday testimony in the video below, or read our in-depth coverage here.
Karol-Chik: "Joe said we won't have to worry about it because we’ll just say that Zach did it"
Friday morning began with Koenig's second co-defendant, Nicholas Karol-Chik, testifying against him. Karol-Chik walked into the courtroom in a green jumpsuit with his hands handcuffed in the front.
Prosecutors' questioning began a few minutes before 9 a.m.
“Who threw the rock that killed Alexa Bartell?” she started.
“Joseph Koenig," Karol-Chik answered.
When asked about Koenig, Karol-Chik said he was his best friend. They shared a similar interest in cars and fixing them up, he testified.
He said that the two of them began throwing rocks at cars beginning in February 2023. It started with parked cars but late that month transitioned to oncoming traffic. He said he is right-handed and it was easier for him to throw out the passenger side of the car, while Koenig could throw "shot put style" with his left hand while driving. Prosecutors previously established that Koenig had signed jail paperwork with his left hand.
In court, the prosecutor asked Karol-Chik about several instances where he and Koenig went out after dark to collect rocks and throw them at cars. On April 1, 2023, he testified that they also had a statue head with them, which was part of a pile of junk left in a car that Koenig had purchased. They took pictures with the statue, he said.
At a stoplight that evening, Koenig jumped into the bed of the truck while Karol-Chik, who was driving, sped up. Koenig threw the statue head at a small sedan, Karol-Chik said.
“I got a quick look in the mirror and saw this statue head that we had, I guess, for lack of a better word, explode into a lot of pieces," Karol-Chik said. "And that’s all that I saw before we were forced to turn.”
They circled back and saw the damaged car and when they came back a second time, it was gone. The teens parked, got out of their truck car and picked up pieces of the statue, knowing that they had taken pictures with it around town and were likely spotted on surveillance cameras with it, he said.
The prosecutor then moved onto April 19, 2023, the evening that Bartell was killed.
Karol-Chik testified that Koenig contacted him around 5 or 6 p.m. that evening via Snapchat and he met up with him, and later Kwak. Kwak was a newer friend and they had only started hanging out in the week prior, Karol-Chik said.
The trio, with a fourth friend, went to a Walmart. Karol-Chik said he and Koenig had collected rocks from there before, and his friend had instructed him to do so again, which he did. Kwak helped, he said. Koenig adjusted the front seat so he could take over driving responsibilities.
At that point, their fourth friend asked to go home and they dropped him off. On their way out of that neighborhood, they started throwing rocks at parked cars, Karol-Chik said. Everybody would celebrate if they hit one, he recalled. When the prosecution asked why they were throwing rocks, he replied, "I can't give you a good reason." She asked if there is ever a good reason, and he said, "Never."
The teens then went to the Apex Center to gather more rocks.
Back on the road, they began throwing rocks at cars. Karol-Chik said Kwak participated in throwing the rocks at moving cars, which Kwak disputed in his testimony the prior day in court. It's not clear which is correct.
They gathered more rocks near a medical center.
Karol-Chik said they were all disappointed when they missed a car and cheered when they hit one.
“Do you feel your cheering contributed to the continued rock-throwing at oncoming cars?" the prosecution asked.
“Yes, because us cheering made the others want to continue doing it," he answered.
After throwing rocks at three cars on Highway 93, they turned on Indiana Street, where Bartell was killed. Karol-Chik said the road is hilly and not well lit.
“While we were at the top of one of those hills, we saw headlights that had just came past the top of another hill that was right in front of us," he testified. "... We said this was going to be the final one and then we were just going home after it.”
In a shaky voice, he recalled Koenig speeding up and rolling down the window. He said he could see Koenig was going 80 mph. Kwak had testified the day prior that they were going just over 100 mph. It's not clear which is correct.
Karol-Chik said he put a rock on the center console, as he had all night, so Koenig could grab it with his left hand while keeping his right hand on the steering wheel.
“Like he had been doing all night, with his left hand, he threw it out of the driver’s side window into the path of the car that was oncoming," Karol-Chik testified, crying. "When we had passed the car, Zach (Kwak) looked out the rear windshield and he said, 'I think they went down into a ditch.’”
Koenig pulled a U-turn and pulled over on the shoulder, where Karol-Chik and Kwak threw the remaining rocks out of the car, he testified.
“We just wanted to get rid of everything," he said.
As they continued in that direction, they passed Bartell's car, which had gone down a ditch. They turned around again and went by it slowly. Kwak took a photo, which he sent to their group text on Snapchat, Karol-Chik said. He did not know why Kwak took the photo, he said.
When the prosecution asked, Karol-Chik said it was hard to tell how Koenig was feeling, but he seemed excited.
"He kept turning from his seat in the driver’s seat to look at me and look at Zach in the backseat…" Karol-Chik told the court. "He would just be smiling. He would just look at us with this big smile on his face.”
Karol-Chik said he thought the driver was seriously hurt based on how far the car had gone off the road, but they did not stop to check on her, call 911 or help her in any way.
“We wanted to distance ourselves as much as possible," he said.
After this, they dropped Kwak off at home and Koenig returned Karol-Chik to his truck.
He estimated that the three of them threw a total of 30 rocks that night — roughly 10 each. The trio had only thought of damaging cars, and never thought about who may be driving them, he said.
As he left the neighborhood, Karol-Chik said he turned in the opposite direction of home to go toward Highway 93, where he saw multiple vehicles, as well as emergency vehicles, pulled over on the side of the road. They had been hit prior to Bartell's crash. He recalled sending a video of the scene to his two friends saying, "We f***ed up."
He then continued to where Bartell's car had stopped.
“So, it was while I was driving on the road that my headlights showed something glimmering on the road," he said. "And I knew that it was glass. And it was after I passed that point that I looked at my rear view mirror, and I saw that the car was still off on the side of the road.”
The following days, Karol-Chik did not see Kwak, but texted with the two teens multiple times. He did meet up with Koenig, who seemed nervous as they reviewed what had happened.
“Joe said we won't have to worry about it because we’ll just say that Zach did it," Karol-Chik testified.
He said he did exactly that when police initially contacted him, because Koenig was like a brother to him and he wanted to protect him.
When asked by prosecutors, Karol-Chik acknowledged that any of the rocks they threw that night — or prior — could have killed somebody.
The defense began their cross-examination of Karol-Chik at 11:26 a.m.
“You lied and lied and lied for over an hour to (law enforcement)," the defense said, starting with his first interview with police in April 2023. "You pretty much blamed everything on Zach… You blamed him for things he did do and for things he didn’t do.”
Fast forward to December 2023 and Karol-Chik's lawyers sent an email to the prosecution saying he wanted to come in and change his story to say Koenig had actually thrown the rock that killed Bartell, the defense said. The reasoning for this was that he had seen Kwak's interview at the time of his arrest, and began to second-guess himself, the defense said.
A proffer meeting was set up for Jan. 4, 2024. This type of meeting — which both prosecutors and investigators attend — can end in a signed agreement where a defendant can decide to provide information to the prosecution. While it's not promised, signing a proffer agreement can end in some sort of benefit to the defendant, like a plea deal.
After throwing a rock that hit a minivan, the group — which was in Karol-Chik's pickup truck — drove back around to pass the damaged car. Karol-Chik testified that Koenig asked if they should stop and see if the driver needed help, but Karol-Chik had said no, since they were the ones who caused it. He added that Kwak asked if the trio should hit the minivan again.
The defense asked about the third location where the teens collected more rocks, which was near a medical center. Karol-Chik said Kwak had put a larger rock in the car, but he took it out, stating it was too big to throw. He testified that Kwak said something along the lines of, "If you won't, I will." Kwak was asked about this on Thursday and said he did not recall it.
The defense then brought the courtroom to the moment when Bartell was killed. The attorney told Karol-Chik that Kwak had previously testified their truck was traveling 103 mph, but Karol-Chik had said it was going about 80 mph. Karol-Chik said he did not believe his truck could reach 103 mph.
The attorneys then began to compare Karol-Chik's earlier interviews with the last one in April 2024.
During the proffer meeting, Karol-Chik had stated that Kwak was sitting behind the driver's seat, with his window open, and that there were no rocks on the center console for Koenig to grab and throw, the defense attorney said. He pushed to ask if the prosecutors were unhappy with Karol-Chik's response at that point in the meeting, and Karol-Chik said he could not tell. At the end of the meeting, investigators asked why they should believe him and Karol-Chik replied they have no reason to, but that he did not care about either of the other two suspects and just wanted to do what was best for himself, the defense said.
The defense then asked if Karol-Chik was offered a plea deal that day. He said no.
Karol-Chik spoke with another investigator on Jan. 16, 2024, saying he was 100% sure that Kwak had thrown the rock. Karol-Chik said in court Friday that it was obvious to himself that he was not being completely truthful.
A fourth interview happened on April 4, 2024. By that point, “I realized that I had continued to be deceptive, even after I said that I would not," Karol-Chik said. When the investigator asked who threw the rock, he had responded, "I can't give you an answer" and eventually said, "I think it was Joe."
The defense attorney asked if the investigator seemed to encourage him when he gave this response and if he would say "Let's go over that again" to Karol-Chik's responses he did not like. Karol-Chick replied, "if you say so" to this. That investigator had asked why he thought Koenig had actually thrown the rock — and not Kwak — and Karol-Chik had replied that "it just seemed more likely" because of Koenig's "previous behavior." The investigator questioned if Karol-Chik was in denial because he had handed the rock to Koenig, and he had responded that it was possible, the defense told the court.
In his final question, the defense attorney said the investigator in that meeting asked Karol-Chik who threw the rock that killed Bartell. Karol-Chik answered, "Joe," and the investigator replied, "There you go. You could have told me this earlier, right?"
Karol-Chik confirmed this was accurate.
In a redirect, the prosecution asked, “Is it your testimony today that Joseph Koenig threw the rock that killed Alexa Bartell?”
Karol-Chik said yes.
The email the district attorney's office had received from Karol-Chik's attorney in December 2023 had read, “Karol-Chik has been very clear with us from the beginning that Koenig threw the rock that killed Alexa Bartell," the prosecution said, adding that Karol-Chik had indeed seen some of the discovery the day before the planned January 2024 proffer meeting.
But in that meeting the next day, he still said it was Kwak who threw the rocks, the prosecutor said, and asked if that was because Karol-Chik still "had allegiance to Joe Koenig." Karol-Chick said yes, as his other good friend had just left for the military and he had started to get very close with Koenig, eventually feeling like he was a brother. He said he still felt this a bit on Jan. 4, 2024 — the day of the proffer.
The prosecutor asked if Karol-Chik had a similar relationship to Kwak, and he said no, as they barely knew each other. She confirmed that despite what he told prosecutors in early January 2024, he knew Koenig had thrown the rock.
“Did you know that then, did you know that when Alexa Bartell was killed and do you know that today?” she asked.
I do, Karol-Chick responded.
The prosecutor asked if he had put the rock on the center console for Koenig, and if Koenig's window was the only one in the car that was down as they approached Bartell's vehicle. Karol-Chik confirmed that was true.
“Is a reason to lie to protect yourself?” the prosecutor said, and asked if he had been trying to protect himself and his friend at the time.
Yes, Karol-Chik replied.
Lastly, the prosecutor asked if her office ever made Karol-Chik any promises about a plea deal, or if they ever represented that they would make one to him, and he said no. There was no indication he would receive a deal by sharing his story, he confirmed.
Other witnesses on Friday
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