Colorado teen pleads guilty in death of driver who was hit in the head by a rock

Release time：2024-05-16 19:25:33 Source：Stellar Spectrum news portal

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — A second teen pleaded guilty on Wednesday in the death of a 20-year-old driver who was hit in the head by a rock that crashed through her windshield in suburban Denver last year.

Under a plea deal with prosecutors, Nicholas Karol-Chik, 19, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and commiting a crime of violence, saying that he passed a rock to another teen, Joseph Koenig, who then threw it at Alexis Bartell’s car, killing her, on April 19, 2023. Karol-Chik also pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder for throwing rocks at a total of nine people that night with Koenig and Zachary Kwak, who pleaded guilty last week and earlier in the year.

Prosecutors have previously said they did not know which of the three 19-year-olds threw the rock that killed Bartell, noting that the only DNA found on it belonged to her. So they may need to rely on Karol-Chik’s testimony when Koenig, the only defendant still being prosecuted for first-degree murder in Bartell’s death, goes on trial in July.

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