Defense in deadly rock-throwing case wants confession thrown out

In a day-long motions hearing Thursday, one of three defendants on trial for Alexa Bartell’s April 2023 rock-throwing murder fought to have a four-hour confession he gave the night he was arrested thrown out of his upcoming trial.

Attorneys for Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik claimed that he did not fully understand what he was doing when he waived his Miranda rights because he had cognitive disorders from the time he was three-years-old which prevented him from understanding what he was getting himself into.

Investigators read Karol-Chik his Miranda rights, asked him if he understood them, told him to take his time and gave him a Miranda rights form, which he signed and initialed line by line, according Jefferson County investigator Cormac McHugh's testimony in court Thursday.

It's common, especially in a murder case, for defense attorneys to have their clients assessed by experts on a number of mental health/cognitive functioning issues.

The night of his initial interview, Karol-Chik admitted to McHugh that he and defendant Joseph Koenig threw rocks at vehicles 10 times leading up the fatal April 19 incident. He also confessed that he was involved in the night of rock-throwing but did not throw the rock that killed Bartell. 

Karol-Chik did not comprehend his right to an attorney before he signed off on the detailed confession April 25-26, 2023, a forensic speech language pathologist testified Thursday. 

Dr. Shameka Stewart, a speech-language pathologist, gave Karol-Chik two Miranda sub-tests, watched his video interview and determined that the defendant had memory recall impairments and communication breakdowns during the interrogation.

Defense Attorney Holly Gummerson asked Stewart which words of the five-rights Miranda advisement Karol-Chik did not comprehend. She said those words included "attorney," "advise," "interrogation" and "perform." She added that Karol-Chik told her he thought that Miranda right #3 "You have the right talk to an attorney" meant that he could not have representation. 

He told investigators that he couldn't afford one and wanted a state attorney.

"That indicates that he could understand he could have an attorney," said Deputy District Attorney Katharine Decker. 

Karol-Chik, Zachary Kwak and Joseph Koenig were 18 the night of their arrest. Arrest affidavits show that they drove around in Karol-Chik's car throwing large landscape rocks at oncoming cars for fun. At times they pretending they were Marines hitting targets in a combat zone, according to a Jefferson County Sheriff Office's arrest affidavit.

Bartell, 20, was killed instantly when someone in the truck heaved a rock through her windshield from Karol-Chik's vehicle going at least 60 miles-per-hour.

At least six other cars were hit that night in a 45-minute span, according to the arrest affidavit, injuring some victims and leaving others befuddled about what happened — even wondering if a wind storm had come through the area.

Six days later, Karol-Chik was arrested at his Arvada home by four Jefferson County Sheriff Office deputies, handcuffed and brought to headquarters, where a his formal interview started at 12:37 a.m., according to Cormac McHugh, with JeffCo Sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit.

Stewart pored over Karol-Chik's pediatric records and hospital evaluations for her assessment and testified that he had developmental delays in "early life" and ear infections, which affected his ability to retain information and his language skills. 

Karol-Chik went to Jefferson County Public Schools and graduated from Jefferson County Virtual Academy. 

Chief Deputy District Attorney Katharine Decker countered that the defense's expert psychologist found that though Karol-Chik had slow speech patterns, they did not cause interference and that he did not have autism and that his employer at a lawnmower sales and repair shop said that he was a good employee.

The three defendants will be tried separately. 

All three of them face charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, second-degree assault and attempted second-degree assault. Karol-Chik and Koenig face two additional charges of attempted first-degree murder and attempted second-degree assault for a separate Arvada incident in which they allegedly threw a statue head at a moving van on April 1, 2022.

Koenig is accused of two other rock-throwing incidents that happened Feb. 25, 2023. From those he faces four additional counts of attempted murder and second-degree assault. Those charges were made public for the first time in court on April 1 and are unrelated to the rock-throwing the night of April 19. 

Karol-Chik will be the first to stand trial starting with jury selection scheduled to start June 7. Kwak’s trial is scheduled to begin June 24^th and will stagger to fit the July 4 holiday. Koenig will be the final of the three to be tried. His trial scheduled to begin July 19, a Friday, and end around August 1.

First Judicial District Judge Christopher Zenisek is not expected to immediately rule on whether Karol-Chik's interview will be admissible.