A district court judge Tuesday sentenced the man who was convicted of killing a 20-year-old Jefferson County woman by hurling a rock through her windshield to life in prison.
Joseph Koenig, 20, was sentenced nearly two years after he was charged with first-degree murder in Alexa Bartell’s death and several other crimes in the rock-throwing spree. In Colorado, first-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
“The community, state, nation and maybe others got to hear about how Alexa Bartell lived her life, loved her community, stood for her family and even blessed those who cursed her and prayed for those who mistreated her,” First Judicial District Court Judge Christopher Zenisek said.
“Maybe we’re all a little better for having known her, even a little bit, even if it’s been because of this tremendously difficult court case,” he said.
Alexa Bartell of Arvada. (Handout)Zenisek said he made his sentencing decision by considering the jury’s verdict that Koenig threw the rock that killed Bartell.
“The court would note that there is something more vicious, deliberate, intentional in the throwing of the rock that killed Alexa Bartell,” he said.
Koenig was the third and final man to be sentenced in the case. His two co-defendants, Zachary Kwak and Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, who collected landscaping rocks with Koenig before throwing them at oncoming traffic, testified during Koenig’s trial and pleaded guilty to lesser crimes. Bartell’s car was the last struck on April 19, 2023.
“I have no excuse and I have no explanation for what Mitch, Zach and I did that night, but I hope you believe me when I tell you that we didn’t intend to hurt Alexa, or hurt anybody,” Koenig said Tuesday in court, wearing a gray sweater and dress pants. “Looking back on it now, it seems obvious that someone was going to get hurt or killed.”
Kwak was sentenced to 32 years in prison. Karol-Chik was sentenced to 45 years behind bars. All three men were 18 at the time of the crimes.
Tuesday’s hearing marked the end of a painful two-year criminal case, with countless hearings that forced Bartell’s family to relive every detail of her death inside the courtroom.
A map released by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office shows the location of seven spots where vehicles were allegedly hit by a rock. The spot marked “7” is the location where 20-year-old Alexa Bartell was killed. (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office image)Bartell was killed when a 9.3-pound rock went through her windshield and struck her in the head around 10:45 p.m. as she drove on Indiana Street near the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Investigators say the three men didn’t call for help after they saw Bartell’s car crash into a nearby field and instead, drove back and took photos of her car.
“That night was every parent’s worst nightmare and it didn’t just change my life. It changed who I am,” Kelly Bartell, Alexa’s mother, said in court. “Losing my daughter didn’t just break my heart, it broke me. It shattered my soul, everything I see and live is different now.”
Bartell’s family remembered her as someone who prayed for strangers and made others feel important and for her charismatic personality.
“This world desperately needed more people like Alexa and instead we have one less. And that’s the real tragedy. Not just that our family lost someone precious, but that the world lost a force for good that can never be replaced,” said Chelsea Bartell, Alexa’s cousin.
Jefferson County Chief Deputy District Attorney Katharine Decker told the court that Bartell’s loss has brought “immeasurable loss” to her family and asked for consecutive sentences for each felony conviction.
“She was just a random target of the defendant’s cruelty and because of that, the defendant not only took away her life, he took away her loved one’s ability to just grieve. Instead they also have to deal with deep and intense anger at the defendant for so selfishly needlessly and brutally killing her,” Decker said.
“What’s more cruel than that?”
Defense attorneys asked the judge to give concurrent sentences, as he did for Koenig’s co-defendants, arguing that Koenig’s actions were “identical” to theirs when they threw rocks at other cars, injuring nine other people.
Zenisek also sentenced Koenig to 60 years in prison, to run consecutively to the life sentence, for the several other felonies he faced.
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