First Degree Murder for Throwing Rocks at Passing Cars | Crime Alert 10AM 04.28.25

A jury in Colorado finds a young man guilty of first-degree murder for killing a driver by throwing a rock through her windshield during a 2023 spree of attacks. A man in Florida is set to die by lethal injection on May 1 for the 1998 shotgun murders of his girlfriend and her three children. Drew Nelson reports.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Alert hourly update, breaking crime news. Now.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm Drew Nelson. A jury in Colorado finds a young
man guilty of first degree murder for killing a driver
by throwing a rock through her windshield during a spree
of attacks in twenty twenty three.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Will you the jury find the defendant, Joseph Edwin Kanig,
guilty of murder in the first degree? Signed by the
four persons.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Joseph Konig, now twenty, sat through a nearly twenty minute
long reading of the verdict. He was convicted after jurors
her testimony that he hurled a nine pound landscaping rock
from the driver's side of a speeding truck, smashing into
the windshield of Alexa Bartel's car. The impacts killed the
twenty year old instantly as she drove on Indiana Street
near the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge. The trial showed that

(00:43):
Koenig and his two friends, Nicholas Carol Chick and Zachary Quak,
cheered each other on as they threw rocks at cars
on April nineteenth of twenty twenty three. Witnesses said the
trio was whooping after hearing impacts after Alexa's car veered
off the road, They circled back, took a foe d
of the crash as a memento, but never called for help.
Koenig faced nineteen charges. The jury found him guilty on

(01:06):
all counts, including six counts of attempted first degree murder
and multiple assault charges. During trial, Koenig's defense argued he
did not intend to kill anyone and pushed for a
manslaughter conviction. They said he has borderline personality disorder and
impaired judgment. One defense lawyer told jurors, quote, what Joe
Koenig and those other two kids did were crimes. We

(01:27):
are asking you to find him guilty of what he did.
Prosecutors focused on the number of attacks, the deliberate targeting
of the vehicle's driver's side, and Koenig's excitement after the crash.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Catherine Decker told the jury, quote,
he did this over and over and over and over
until Alexa Bartel's life was over. Both Korolchik and Quak

(01:47):
testified against Koenig. After accepting plea deals, Kolchik pleaded guilty
to second degree murder and attempted first degree murder. He
faces thirty five to seventy two years in prison. Will
be sentenced on May first. Pleaded guilty to first degree
assault and other charges, facing twenty to thirty two years,
He'll be sentenced on May second. Alexa's mother, Kelly Bartel,

(02:08):
spoke outside court.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
This has been obviously hardest two years ever and we
got justice today and I don't know how to feel
about it. I'm happy it doesn't bring Alexa back, and
that's horrible, but we don't ever want this to happen
again to anybody else.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Joseph Koenig will be sentenced on June third. He faces
life in prison without parole. More crime and Justice news
after this. A man in Florida is set to die
by lethal injection on May first for the nineteen ninety
eight shotgun murders of his girlfriend her three children. Jeffrey

(02:50):
Glenn Hutchinson, now sixty two, has lost his final appeals
after the Florida Supreme Court rejected arguments that brain damage
from the Gulf War made him unfit for execution. Last Monday,
the court dismissed Hutchinson's latest claims, finding that Gulf War
syndrome and cognitive problems had been known by the court
during his original trial. Governor n De Santis signed Hutchinson's

(03:12):
death warrant on March thirty first. Last ditch appeals filed
afterward were denied by Okaloosa County Judge Lacy Powell Clark
and again by the state's highest court. Court records show
that Hutchinson called nine one one on the night of
September eleventh of nineteen ninety eight and said, quote, I
just shot my family. Police found thirty two year old
Renee Flaherty and her children, Jeffrey, Amanda, and Logan, ages nine, seven,

(03:36):
and four, all shot to death in their Crestview home.
Hutchinson sat in the garage with the phone still in
his hand when officers arrived. Investigator said Hutchinson had gunshot
residue on his hands. A Mossburg twelve gage was found
on the kitchen counter. During his trial, Hutchinson claimed he
was framed, heavily intoxicated, and that masked men killed the victims.

(03:56):
He was convicted in two thousand and one of four
counts of first degree murder. The judge sentencing him to
death for the three children's murders. Over the years, Hutchinson
filed multiple appeals at both the state and federal level,
all of which were turned down. In twenty twenty two,
the Florida Supreme Court also turned down claims of newly
discovered evidence. If the execution is carried out, it will

(04:17):
be the fourth this year in Florida by lethal injection.
A young woman in Arizona vanishes after being seen getting
into a stranger's car, and her case remains unsolved twenty
eight years later. Maria Antonio Mauricio, nineteen years old, last
seen January twentieth of ninety seven at a restaurant near
Seventeenth Avenue and Van Buren Street in Phoenix. Her grandmother

(04:39):
watched as Maria got into a small, white two door
vehicle driven by an unknown white man. She was about
three months pregnant at the time. Maria was Hispanic, brown hair,
brown eyes, somewhere between five three and five five, one
hundred and thirty to one hundred forty pounds. She had
several tattoos, including three tear drops near her right eye,
Mauricio across her back, casper on her upper right arm,

(05:01):
and benavetas down her left calf. She also had tattoos
on her right hand and left fingers, possibly surgical scars
from a past facial injury. Phoenix Police continue to investigate.
Her Nicknames included Little Munchkin and Chola, the latter name
indicating she may have been a gang member. She sometimes
used the last name Valenzuela. Police suspect Feul play in

(05:22):
her case. Anyone with information called Phoenix Police at six
h two two six one eighty forty two for the
latest crime and justice news. Follow Crime Alert hourly update
on your favorite podcast app with this crime alert. I'm
Drean Nelson.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
How could a beautiful, young first grade teacher be stabbed
twenty times, including in the back, allegedly die of suicide? Yes,
that was a medical examiner's official ruling after a closed
door meeting. He first named it a side Why what
Happened to Ellen Greenberg? A huge American miscarriage of justice.

(06:08):
For an in depth look at the facts, see What
Happened to Ellen on Amazon. All proceeds to the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children.