September 1, 2025 • 37 mins
When Oakey “Al” Kite is brutally murdered in his own home in the spring of 2004, investigators rushed to find his killer. But when they finally identified a suspect, he seemed to vanish without a trace.
Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.
Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
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- If you know any information about the murder if Oakey “Al” Kite please contact Detective McDonald at the Aurora Police Department at 303-739-6013.
- Metro Denver Crime Stoppers is also offering a reward of up to $2,000 for tips. You can call them at 720-913-7867 or visit their website at Metro Denver Crime Stoppers to leave an anonymous tip.
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Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.
- Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawat
- Twitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawat
- TikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkie
- Facebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF
Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Speaker 5 (01:26):
High crime Junkies. Britt and I are off this week,
but I am not going to leave you hanging. I
wanted to bring you a case that is easily in
my top five for keeping me up at night. I mean,
not since we talked about Israel Keys has a predator
unnerved me so much and this guy still isn't caught,
(01:47):
at least not yet. I did two episodes on this
case for the Deck, and when I covered it, I
know there was some DNA stuff happening, and that might
mean that a solve is to come in the near future.
If and when that happens, all anyone's gonna be talking
about is this case. So I want to make sure
you're in the know asap. And more importantly, I want
(02:08):
this story to get as far and wide as possible
because a crime junkie out there might have the one
tiny piece of information that law enforcement is waiting for.
So check out this episode of The Deck and reminder
I put out new episodes of The Deck every Wednesday
wherever you listen to podcasts, and The Deck is now
(02:28):
included in the Crime Junkie Fan Club app, where you
can listen to all of our episodes ad free. And
by the way, the Deck isn't even the only show
we've added. If you haven't been there in a while,
you can now find multiple shows from our network like
Dark Down, East, Counterclock and more. Now, there is so
much to today's case that I actually had to separate
it into two parts, like I was saying, So what
(02:49):
I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you the first
part right here, and then you can listen to part
two right now by searching The Deck in any podcast player,
or you can listen ad free to part two in
the Crime Junkie Fan Club. I'm gonna have a link
to that in our show notes. But this is the
story of Okie al Kite. Our card this week is
(03:15):
Okie al Kite, the Nine of Hearts from Colorado. There
are certain cases that I obsess over, the ones that
dig their way under my skin and keep me up
at night or just pop into my head in the
middle of the day, unannounced, banging on my conscious demanding answers,
and the two thousand and four case of al Kaite
(03:35):
is one of those. This case is the definition of
a mystery, and for over eighteen years, investigators have looked
at this case from every angle, trying to track down
an elusive killer, but they have been stumped at every turn. However,
technology is changing, and investigators hope that that means their
(03:57):
luck is changing too. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is
the deck. It was mid morning on Monday May twenty fourth,
(04:39):
two thousand and four, when a man named Philip was
just realizing that one of his employees, Al, hadn't come
into work. They both worked in the office of a
construction company in Aurora, Colorado, and Al was never late.
He'd been in accounting for years and took a lot
of pride in his job, so his absence stuck out
like a sore thumb, even to his other coworkers. So
(05:00):
after a few hours started to worry too. At some
point that morning, they decided to go ahead and call
his landline just to check on him and make sure
that he was okay, but no one picked up. They
tried his cell phone next, and this time someone did answer,
but it wasn't Al. The man on the other end
said that his name was Joe and he had the
(05:20):
phone because he found it on top of a payphone
in the neighboring city of Denver the night before. It
was at that point that Philip was convinced that something
was wrong with Al. The guy on the other end
of the phone, Joe, offered to meet up with Philip
and give him the phone if he wanted, so Philip
and another one of his employees went to meet this
guy at a Safeway grocery store in Denver. When they
(05:41):
got there, they learned Joe was experiencing homelessness and wanted
to sell the phone back to them. Ten bucks. Got
the deal done, and once they went their separate ways,
Philip and the other employee immediately started going through the phone.
I'm not sure exactly what they were looking for. I'm
not sure if they even knew what they were looking for,
And eventually they found Al's contacts and came across his sister, Barbara,
(06:04):
so they called her to try and get some answers
about where Al was, but she didn't know what was
going on either. She hadn't seen or spoken to Al recently,
and she actually lived in Virginia, so it's not like
she could just meet up with them and help figure
things out. But she did think that they were right
to be concerned, so she suggested that they call the
police to do a welfare check. Both Philip and Barbara
(06:26):
called the Aurora Police Department, and by four PM two
officers arrived at Al's town home to poke around. Al
lived in this area called Chambers Ridge. It's middle class
and kind of the residential center of Aurora at the time.
It was also a really low crime neighborhood, so at
least outside, they weren't surprised to see that everything was normal.
(06:47):
Al's front door was locked and the windows were secure,
same with the garage door out back. They went back
to the front door and knocked, but there was no answer.
They knocked again, still nothing. By then, I'm not sure
what they were thinking, maybe that Al had a medical
emergency and needed help, or maybe there would be something
inside that could clue them in as to his whereabouts.
(07:09):
But basically, they called Barbara back and asked for her
permission to enter his house, to which she said yes,
they had to pick the lock. But once they got
the door open, they stepped inside and again everything looked
totally normal. Al was a rather organized person, so all
of his stuff in the small living room space, bedroom
and bathroom was neatly put away and looked untouched. But
(07:32):
when the officers got to the kitchen they noticed something
a little strange. All of the knives from a butcher
block on the counter and a set of keys were
soaking in the sink, and the liquid that they were
soaking in smelled a lot like bleach. Unsure yet what
they were dealing with, officers didn't touch the knives, and
(07:52):
they continued through the house, making their way towards the basement.
Down there they found a finished space like this little
living room. There was a bathroom, a storage closet, and
then another room. But what was once probably a bedroom
didn't look like a bedroom anymore. It looked like a
scene from a horror movie. There was blood everywhere. It
(08:16):
was splattered on the walls, and it was pulled on
the carpet floor, and it was even spotted across the ceiling.
And there in the middle of all of it was Al.
He was fully clothed, lying face down on the floor
with his feet slightly under a bed frame in the
corner of the room. His head and upper torso were
(08:37):
covered by a small blue bath mat, but one look
at him among the carnage told the officers that he
was already deceased. They removed the mat and it was
immediately clear that the majority of the damage on Al's
body had been done to his head and upper torso.
What they could see of his face was bruised and
covered in bloody injuries that continued down to his neck
(08:59):
and shoulders. He had one huge laceration on the back
of his head, and based on pieces of dry walls
scattered around his body, they believed that at some point
the killer had swung a knife so hard at Al
that they had hit the wall on the follow through,
which caused it to chip off. His throat had also
been cut so deep that it looked like he was
almost decapitated. Upon closer inspection of his body, they found
(09:24):
what looked like ligature marks on his arms and legs,
and as they scanned the room, there wasn't any sign
of whatever had restrained him, but they did notice a
mattress leaned up against the wall covering the only window
in the room, with two pillows tucked between it and
the window to make sure that nobody could see in.
Once they confirmed Al was deceased and that there was
(09:45):
no one else in the house, officers exited the town
home and called their supervisor, and it was around this
time that agent Tom Sobieski with the Aurora Police Department
was a signed to the case with two other detectives.
Once all three of them arrived to the scene, though
they quickly realized that none of them had ever handled
a case like this before.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
We actually called the Rappo County Corner to the scene
because this was something that we had never seen before.
So he walked in there, and I walked in there.
We walked down the stairs directly to the victim, and
we had CSI person with this and we took video
and photographed it them. We removed the victim from the
(10:26):
scene without processing everything else, and he went to the
corner's office.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Once Al had been removed, they were able to do
a more thorough search of his home, starting with the
basement bedroom, and that was when agent Sobieski found about
a quarter inch of rope on the carpet near where
Al's body had been. Considering where it was found, Agent
Sobieski believed that the killer had likely used rope to
restrain Al, and maybe he just missed that little bit
(10:51):
when they were cleaning up. Other than all the blood,
and there was a lot of blood, there wasn't much
more in the way physical evidence there in the basement bedroom.
They searched what remained of the lower level and didn't
find a scrap of evidence in any of the other rooms,
so they decided to go back upstairs. But just as
(11:11):
they were heading up the stairs to the first level
of the town home, something caught their eye. It was
what looked like a blood transfer spot on the very
bottom step, and it stuck out to them because it
was the only visible trace of blood outside of the bedroom,
so they collected a sample of that too before they
headed upstairs. Next, they took a close look at all
(11:35):
those knives in the sink and confirmed that they were
in fact soaking in a mixture of water and bleach,
which immediately dashed any hope of getting evidence.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Off of them.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
But they weren't left without any clues in the kitchen.
When they checked the keys in the sink, they discovered
that they unlocked Al's front door. Now they weren't sure
yet if those were Al's main set of keys or
maybe a spare or what, but at least they knew
what they went to. So then they moved on to
the trash, and in there they found a signed rental
(12:05):
agreement for that basement living space where Al was just found.
It seems like Al was going to be renting it
out and a man named Robert Cooper had signed a
lease for it. The document was dated almost a week
before May eighteenth, and even though there weren't any personal
items in the basement to suggest that someone had already
moved in, officers started to wonder if they should be
(12:26):
looking for a roommate. In the trash, they also found
one of Al's bank statements. It was kind of torn up,
but that's okay because the statement itself wasn't what was important.
They were interested in a note that Al had scribbled
near the top of the paper. It was a phone
number along with the name Robert. They figured it had
to be the same Robert from the rental agreement, so
(12:47):
they assigned someone to go track this guy down. While
all of this was solid evidence to have it was
really the things that they didn't find that stood out
to them the most. For instance, Al's wallet and via
were both missing, and they couldn't find a container where
the bleach in the sink came from. Some of the
towels in the bathroom were missing, which made them think
(13:09):
that the killer had taken a shower or maybe cleaned
up before they left. Police also didn't find evidence that
Al owned rope or any other items that could have
been used to restrain him or caused his injuries besides
the knives, so they began to suspect that the killer
might have brought a sort of murder kick with him,
and chillingly, they noticed some clothes missing as well.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Okie was very I mean everything was in his place,
from his office to his closet, and there was one
pair of pants missing, one shirt missing from his closet,
and we couldn't find just empty hangars.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
This indicated that the killer had likely changed out of
whatever they were wearing and left Al's house wearing the
clothes of the man that they had just murdered. Now,
I also want to point out that a lot of
the online buzz about this case says that the killer
slept at Owl's but Agent Sobieski said that wasn't true. Obviously,
(14:08):
he spent a lot of time in the home during
and after the murder, but they didn't find a trace
of evidence that indicates the killer slept there at any point.
With their initial search completed, Agent Sobieski told us that
their next step was to canvass the neighborhood, but just
as they were getting ready to head out, a neighbor
actually came right to them with a tip they knew
(14:30):
where Owl's car was.
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Speaker 5 (15:30):
The neighbor told Agent Sobieski and the other officers at
the scene that they were just driving home for the
day when they noticed Al's GMC pickup truck parked about
a block and a half down the road from his place.
They said that they didn't think much of it initially,
but then when they pulled around the corner and saw
all the cops at his home, they decided to pull
up and say something. So Agent Sobieski sent a team
(15:52):
of officers to find the truck, and sure enough, it
was right there where the neighbor said it was.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
And then a canvas was done where ELL's truck was found.
Because it's parked right in front of a whole rule
of town homes and apartments, and nobody saw anything there
that was substantial.
Speaker 8 (16:08):
They thought had been there a couple days.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
When the officers got into the vehicle, they didn't find
anything significant right off the bat. Again, Al was an
organized guy and that extended to his truck. But as
they looked closer, they noticed one thing that stood out.
There were a few strands of medium toned brown hair. Now,
Al did have darker hair, but the fifty three year
old had developed a lot of grays too, kind of
(16:33):
a salt and pepper look. So whoever's hair this was,
it likely wasn't Al's, and since they weren't aware of
anyone else having access to his truck, agent Sobieski suspected
that this could be the killer's hair, so they took
samples to test later. The rest of the evening, investigators
talked to as many people as they could to learn
more about Al and the people he associated with. Neighbors
(16:55):
told officers that they hadn't heard or seen anything suspicious
the entire weekend, and friends and family were able to
give them names of his best friend, as well as
a former roommate who had just moved out a month prior,
although no one was aware if Al had ever had
issues with either of them, and when it came to
Al himself, everyone had the same things to say.
Speaker 8 (17:16):
Al was a very well liked man.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
We couldn't find anybody that would say a bad thing
about him. He was divorced, He joined some singles clubs.
He recently had a new girlfriend. He liked Nascar, He
liked hanging out and watching Nascar and Sundays. Other than that,
he was a hard worker when he traveled the world
(17:40):
pretty much as an accountant.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Al's loved ones told investigators that he loved to cook,
he was always a gentleman. He had great relationships with
all of his neighbors, and just like agent Sobieski said,
he had just started a new relationship with his girlfriend Linda.
Because Al was so well liked and well known, his
murder was a total shock to his community. Again, this
(18:05):
area was not used to even petty crimes, much less
such an intense act of violence, and while people were
devastated about Al, they were also unsettled by something else.
Whoever did this to him, They were still out there.
Detectives were thinking the same thing, so they were pulling
on whatever loose thread they could find to try and
(18:25):
unravel some answers, and their strongest lead so far was
still this mystery roommate Robert Cooper, and luckily, the people
that they interviewed were able to shed some light on
this guy. It turned out that Al had talked about
him quite a bit to his friends and family. Investigators
were told that Robert had responded to Al's Rental ad
(18:45):
for the basement space and agreed to be the new tenant.
Al told people that Robert was from the East Coast
and transferred to Aurora with Wells Fargo. One person was
even able to remember exactly which Wells Fargo Al had
mentioned was the one that was only about six minutes
from Al's town home. Yet another neighbor even claimed to
have seen who they believed to be Robert. They said
(19:08):
that several days before the murder, they noticed a man
with a cane walking into Al's home. He had dark hair,
he was well dressed, and he looked to be maybe
in his early fifties. Now, even if this Robert guy
had nothing to do with Al's murder, agent Sobieski still
had men on his team trying to track this guy
down because witness or suspect, either way, he could hold
(19:30):
valuable information. But as their search for him continued, Al's
autopsy results came back and uncovered the true horror of
what he had gone through. Now, before I even go
into the autopsy, I just want to say that what
Al endured is going to be hard to hear, but
I think it is important to include as much detail
as we can without getting too graphic in order to
(19:52):
show you what kind of monster the investigators are looking for.
And I personally think that this mo seems so specific
that maybe the key to catching this guy is in
the details. So that being said, the first thing that
stood out to the corner was the sheer amount of
ligature marks on Al's body. Once he removed his clothing
(20:14):
and analyzed the full extent of the marks, he determined
Al had been hog tied with rope, likely the same
kind of rope as that small piece found near his body.
Speaker 8 (20:25):
We actually had.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
We simulated how the markings were on from the bruising
of the ropes, arms behind his back, legs tied together,
his ankles tied to his wrists, and there were wraps
several times, and there was different cross patterns that would
take over forty foot of rope to do that.
Speaker 8 (20:47):
It was quite an elaborate pattern. It was all.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
Perfectly spaced out, and the crosses where the ropes crossed
were all perfect, So I'm sure that was part of the.
Speaker 8 (21:01):
The ritual or the thrill the suspect god.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
The position would have left Al's feet exposed, and the
coroner found that they were severely bruised from having been beaten.
Severe bruising of different sizes on the rest of his
body also indicated that he was beaten with several different
blunt objects. But that wasn't even the worst of it,
not by far. Al had a total of eleven stab
(21:25):
wounds on his body, in his ears, in his eyes,
on the tops of his shoulders, and his upper torso.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
The corner at the time thought that the torture went
on for several hours because it had time for his
eyes to bruise and actually closed shut, and with the
blood evidence in the room, if you're dead, your heart's
not beating, you're not throwing blood all over. So it
went on for several hours.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
The knife wounds were so deep the corner determined it
would have taken an immense amount of force to do
that kind of damage. But despite how disturbing it was,
Agent Sobieski was hopeful that this particular act of violence
might be the killers undoing.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
If you're cutting somebody and stabbing them with kitchen knives
and they get bloody, any investigator tell you that your
hand slips up to the blade of the knife and
you'll cut yourself, and with a number of cuts in
the stab wounds, and we felt that he had to
have done it, had to cut himself.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
There was also the gaping laceration on the back of
Al's head that the officers who first found him had seen,
but you see, none of those wounds ended up being fatal.
It was the cut to his throat that the coroner
believed finally ended his suffering and his life.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
So my theory is we had a witness who saw
Robert Cooper walking with a cane go into Okie Kite's
town home a few days prior, probably when the day
he rented the place. With the injuries, the lacerations to
the back of his head. I think Okie may have
(23:07):
been walking down the stairs in front of him and
he starts striking in with this cane, causing those large lacerations.
I think there was two or three of them to
the back of his head. I don't know if it
knocked him unconscious, but it might get him to submit,
you know, to being tied up.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
The coroner declared the manner of death as homicide, but
it was the time of death that was a little
trickier to figure out. They couldn't determine an exact time
but they knew that he had been dead for at
least a day, So combined that with the fact that
they knew he had been at work on Friday, well,
that narrowed it down to some point between Friday afternoon
(23:48):
and Monday morning. That is a lot of time to
try and cover, so if they couldn't narrow in on
a small window, they would narrow in on what the
autopsy told them about their killer.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
We wanted to get as many people that were in
his inner circle, coworker's friend's family. Because the amount of
torture that Al had. We knew the suspect would probably
have cuts to his hands from punching or from the knives,
so we wanted we checked everybody's hands, looked for injuries,
got alibis for everybody.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Agent Sobieski talked to his former roommate, but they didn't
have anything useful to add, and that person didn't have
any noticeable injuries. Tom also talked with Al's ex wife,
but the same thing, and she was quickly cleared too.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
They were on good terms and she no longer lived
in Colorado. We had no information that she had been
back or that there was any bad blow between them.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
At all, Agent Sobieski just kept going down his list,
and next was Al's best friend, and this guy actually
said that he had been with Al on Saturday. He
said that he was working with Al on a construction
project in Denver, but they wanted to go out that night,
so they decided to wrap things up at around three
and go home and get cleaned up. Just before they
(25:04):
went their separate ways, he said that Al told him
he was also meeting with his new roommate before they
went out, and of course, Agent Sobieski's ears perk up
at hearing this, but he still just doesn't know enough
about this robber guy, and he's even more interested when
Al's friend says that was the last time he saw Al,
because Al never showed up for their plans that night.
(25:26):
The next person that Agent Sobieski wants to go talk
to was Linda, Al's new girlfriend, and little did he
know that she would actually be the one that could
give him the most information yet on Robert Cooper.
Speaker 7 (25:44):
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so sign up at Kildare Village dot com and see
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Week at Kildare Village.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
My Name's Chad Powers, streaming on Disney Plus. Glenn Powell
is Chad Powers? Is that guy? He's doing a missus doubtfire.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
That was one hell of a performance, but with football,
I like Key Powers.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
If you are a puzzle a brand new original series.
Every choice, every mistake carry you to this spot.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
You were born for this moment.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Cry Chad Powers, a new original series exclusively on Disney
Plus eighteen plus subscription required. Decency's apply.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Linda told agent Sobieski that she had also last heard
from Al on Saturday, sometime between three point thirty and four.
She had had a flight out of town that morning,
and he had taken her to the airport. On their way,
they had decided to officially become boyfriend and girlfriend since
they'd been seeing each other for a couple of months.
So when Linda finished her travel and got to her
(26:59):
hotel Hell, she called just to check in with him.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Now.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
He picked up the phone, but she said that something
felt off. She couldn't really tell why at the time,
but when she learned what had happened to Al. She
believed that Al's killer was in the house as they
were speaking.
Speaker 8 (27:17):
She said he seemed different. They didn't seem like himself.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
I don't remember exact her exact wording, but she thought
there was something different about him when she talked to him.
Speaker 8 (27:25):
But in my opinion, it's just.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
My opinion, there is no way that a killer who
went to this elaborate of a scenario to set this
all up would ever let him talk on the phone
for any reason to anyone. Because he says two words
to her and you know, call nine one one or
help me or whatever. Suddenly he's got to leave, the
police are coming or whatever. So I don't see that
(27:50):
as a scenario at.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
All, regardless of whether the killer was in the house
by then or not, the call and Al's best friend's
interview were important because it let the coroner know that
Al was at least alive. At four pm on Saturday,
Agent Sobieski also asked Linda if she knew anything about
a guy named Robert, and just like so many other
(28:11):
people he'd spoken to, she was like, oh yeah, his
new roommate. Not only did she know about this guy,
but she also said she saw him too. Linda said
that on May eighth, she went over to Al's and
when she arrived, Al was giving Robert a tour of
the basement. She called out to Al to let him
know that she was there, and he called back that
Robert was there and he wanted them to meet.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Now.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
She needed to use the restroom first, and by the
time she got out, all she caught was just a
little glimpse of Robert going out the front door.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
As soon as he hears another witness, he's getting out
of there. I don't know what he told Al to
leave that quick, but from the time she went up
the stairs till she came out of the bathroom, he's
up and out going out the door.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
From the quick look that she got, Linda was able
to get a vague description of the man she saw.
She said he was white, had dark brown hair, He
was well dressed in a suit and tie, and notably,
he didn't have a cane. Now, she was also able
to confirm that Robert had gone back to Al's to
sign that rental agreement on the eighteenth, and when he
(29:19):
was there, he paid one thousand dollars for half a
month's rent and a deposit, and he took a key
to the house. When she describes the key that he took,
investigators are certain that it is part of the same
ones that they found in the sink. But what struck
her as odd was that after he left, he didn't
come back like he had had a key, he had paid.
(29:41):
He just never showed up again, at least not to
move in. Now, this is definitely weird. And when Al
talked to Linda about it, he said something about some
furniture that Robert had that wouldn't fit down the stairs,
so he was like waiting to figure it out. And
I know that's super vague, but Linda told agents sobis
Key that she couldn't rememb remember the exact details of
that conversation, so we'll never really know what Robert's excuse
(30:05):
was for the delay in moving in either way. At
this point, investigators were convinced that Robert had something to
do with Al's murder, so the first week of their
investigation was a mad dash to just track this guy down.
They obviously started with that rental agreement, which, besides his
full name, included Robert's address. He also had two references.
(30:28):
There was a Social Security number, a driver's license number,
but every single thing on there turned out to be bogus.
The address was an elementary school about twenty four minutes
from Al's. The references were made up names. The social
security number led them to an eighty one year old
woman named Veronica who was living in the Midwest, and
(30:49):
the driver's license number didn't even lead them to a
real person. It was just a jumble of numbers. The
name Robert Cooper was almost definitely faked, too, but for
the sake of clarity, I am going to continue using
it when referring to the suspect. So the only thing
about this document that seemed to be legit was the
(31:09):
date written at the top.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
The victim's handwriting wrote the date five eighteen oh four
up in the right top corner of that application is
I guess when he completed it. We did handwriting analysis
on it, and they could tell us based on We
gave them samples of Al's handwriting. Back then everything was handwritten,
(31:35):
and they can tell us what on that application forum
that the victim had filled out and then the rest
of it was filled out by Robert Cooper. They can't
tell me if he was right hand and left hand
or anything.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Now, if you are screaming at me right now, yelling
call the number on the bank statement, please already done
and looked into, and like everything else about Robert Cooper,
it's smoking mirrors. The phone wasn't in service anymore. And
when they got the records, they learned that it was
attached to an AT and T cell phone and was
registered at the same fake address that Robert put on
(32:11):
the rental agreement. Now the phone was prepaid for ninety
days of use. But this isn't a total bust because
along with getting the records on Robert's phone, they had
also requested Al's cell phone records and his landline records,
and those showed that both cell phones were used after
Al's murder. Detectives were so grateful for this data because
(32:35):
even though they had Al Sell in their possession, as
far as physical evidence went, it was kind of a bust.
Speaker 8 (32:41):
The screen was cracked, it had been damaged, and.
Speaker 6 (32:45):
The guy named Joe had handled it and two co
workers had touched everything trying to find phone numbers, so
forensically it was not worth doing anything too.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
So looking at Robert's data first, a lot of the
usage on the phone. After the murder were calls, a
lot of them to the same number, which they learned
belonged to a woman living in West Denver.
Speaker 6 (33:11):
We do a traffic stop on her. We confront her
with you know, who's this guy who's calling you?
Speaker 8 (33:19):
He could be a suspect and a murder.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
And she tells us that it's a homeless man that
she knows that lives at the Good Samaritan Homeless shelter
in downtown Denver. So we get a description of him.
He doesn't match the the Robert that we were looking for.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
They did track down the man just to be sure, though,
and they learned that his name was a Seed, Rio Rios.
He was Latino and much older than even the oldest
description of Robert. He had gotten the cell phone from
a local guy who was known in the area for
selling goods at low cost to people experiencing homelessness. But
when Agent Sobieski asked him for the phone, A Seed
(34:03):
said that he couldn't give it to them.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
He said, once the phone quit work and he threw
it in the Platte River, so we never did recover it.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
They tried to track down the guy A Seed said
sold him the phone, but after doing so, they determined
that he wasn't involved at all either. And Al's phone
usage after the murder was a dead end as well,
because investigators already knew that the activity that they were
seeing on the phone records was from that man named Joe,
who had sold the phone back to Al's boss after
he had found it.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
But the fact that both cell phones Okie Kites and
Robert Cooper's cell phones got into the hands of homeless
people threw us off for a week during the investigation,
because we had detectives writing court orders for phone numbers
for both phones, trying to figure out who our victim
was calling and who our suspect was calling. Well, it
(34:53):
was because if the homeless people had these phones and
they were letting other people use them, and it really
mess us up for a week. If we had known them,
we would we could have been doing a lot of
other things.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
But this doesn't mean that the phone was a dead
end by any means. Phone records from before the murder
show Robert had called Al ten times over several weeks,
but Al hadn't been the only one. Robert had made
dozens of calls, all to people who had spaces available
(35:23):
to rent agent, Sobieski took on the tedious task of
contacting every single number, which ended up being over one
hundred calls to people renting out their homes, and he
found some interesting connections between them. But I'm gonna have
to tell you about that in Part two, which you
can listen to right now. The Deck is an audio
(36:10):
Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn
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our usual exceptional Village prices. These offers are for members only,
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Speaker 5 (01:26):
High crime Junkies. Britt and I are off this week,
but I am not going to leave you hanging. I
wanted to bring you a case that is easily in
my top five for keeping me up at night. I mean,
not since we talked about Israel Keys has a predator
unnerved me so much and this guy still isn't caught,
(01:47):
at least not yet. I did two episodes on this
case for the Deck, and when I covered it, I
know there was some DNA stuff happening, and that might
mean that a solve is to come in the near future.
If and when that happens, all anyone's gonna be talking
about is this case. So I want to make sure
you're in the know asap. And more importantly, I want
(02:08):
this story to get as far and wide as possible
because a crime junkie out there might have the one
tiny piece of information that law enforcement is waiting for.
So check out this episode of The Deck and reminder
I put out new episodes of The Deck every Wednesday
wherever you listen to podcasts, and The Deck is now
(02:28):
included in the Crime Junkie Fan Club app, where you
can listen to all of our episodes ad free. And
by the way, the Deck isn't even the only show
we've added. If you haven't been there in a while,
you can now find multiple shows from our network like
Dark Down, East, Counterclock and more. Now, there is so
much to today's case that I actually had to separate
it into two parts, like I was saying, So what
(02:49):
I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you the first
part right here, and then you can listen to part
two right now by searching The Deck in any podcast player,
or you can listen ad free to part two in
the Crime Junkie Fan Club. I'm gonna have a link
to that in our show notes. But this is the
story of Okie al Kite. Our card this week is
(03:15):
Okie al Kite, the Nine of Hearts from Colorado. There
are certain cases that I obsess over, the ones that
dig their way under my skin and keep me up
at night or just pop into my head in the
middle of the day, unannounced, banging on my conscious demanding answers,
and the two thousand and four case of al Kaite
(03:35):
is one of those. This case is the definition of
a mystery, and for over eighteen years, investigators have looked
at this case from every angle, trying to track down
an elusive killer, but they have been stumped at every turn. However,
technology is changing, and investigators hope that that means their
(03:57):
luck is changing too. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is
the deck. It was mid morning on Monday May twenty fourth,
(04:39):
two thousand and four, when a man named Philip was
just realizing that one of his employees, Al, hadn't come
into work. They both worked in the office of a
construction company in Aurora, Colorado, and Al was never late.
He'd been in accounting for years and took a lot
of pride in his job, so his absence stuck out
like a sore thumb, even to his other coworkers. So
(05:00):
after a few hours started to worry too. At some
point that morning, they decided to go ahead and call
his landline just to check on him and make sure
that he was okay, but no one picked up. They
tried his cell phone next, and this time someone did answer,
but it wasn't Al. The man on the other end
said that his name was Joe and he had the
(05:20):
phone because he found it on top of a payphone
in the neighboring city of Denver the night before. It
was at that point that Philip was convinced that something
was wrong with Al. The guy on the other end
of the phone, Joe, offered to meet up with Philip
and give him the phone if he wanted, so Philip
and another one of his employees went to meet this
guy at a Safeway grocery store in Denver. When they
(05:41):
got there, they learned Joe was experiencing homelessness and wanted
to sell the phone back to them. Ten bucks. Got
the deal done, and once they went their separate ways,
Philip and the other employee immediately started going through the phone.
I'm not sure exactly what they were looking for. I'm
not sure if they even knew what they were looking for,
And eventually they found Al's contacts and came across his sister, Barbara,
(06:04):
so they called her to try and get some answers
about where Al was, but she didn't know what was
going on either. She hadn't seen or spoken to Al recently,
and she actually lived in Virginia, so it's not like
she could just meet up with them and help figure
things out. But she did think that they were right
to be concerned, so she suggested that they call the
police to do a welfare check. Both Philip and Barbara
(06:26):
called the Aurora Police Department, and by four PM two
officers arrived at Al's town home to poke around. Al
lived in this area called Chambers Ridge. It's middle class
and kind of the residential center of Aurora at the time.
It was also a really low crime neighborhood, so at
least outside, they weren't surprised to see that everything was normal.
(06:47):
Al's front door was locked and the windows were secure,
same with the garage door out back. They went back
to the front door and knocked, but there was no answer.
They knocked again, still nothing. By then, I'm not sure
what they were thinking, maybe that Al had a medical
emergency and needed help, or maybe there would be something
inside that could clue them in as to his whereabouts.
(07:09):
But basically, they called Barbara back and asked for her
permission to enter his house, to which she said yes,
they had to pick the lock. But once they got
the door open, they stepped inside and again everything looked
totally normal. Al was a rather organized person, so all
of his stuff in the small living room space, bedroom
and bathroom was neatly put away and looked untouched. But
(07:32):
when the officers got to the kitchen they noticed something
a little strange. All of the knives from a butcher
block on the counter and a set of keys were
soaking in the sink, and the liquid that they were
soaking in smelled a lot like bleach. Unsure yet what
they were dealing with, officers didn't touch the knives, and
(07:52):
they continued through the house, making their way towards the basement.
Down there they found a finished space like this little
living room. There was a bathroom, a storage closet, and
then another room. But what was once probably a bedroom
didn't look like a bedroom anymore. It looked like a
scene from a horror movie. There was blood everywhere. It
(08:16):
was splattered on the walls, and it was pulled on
the carpet floor, and it was even spotted across the ceiling.
And there in the middle of all of it was Al.
He was fully clothed, lying face down on the floor
with his feet slightly under a bed frame in the
corner of the room. His head and upper torso were
(08:37):
covered by a small blue bath mat, but one look
at him among the carnage told the officers that he
was already deceased. They removed the mat and it was
immediately clear that the majority of the damage on Al's
body had been done to his head and upper torso.
What they could see of his face was bruised and
covered in bloody injuries that continued down to his neck
(08:59):
and shoulders. He had one huge laceration on the back
of his head, and based on pieces of dry walls
scattered around his body, they believed that at some point
the killer had swung a knife so hard at Al
that they had hit the wall on the follow through,
which caused it to chip off. His throat had also
been cut so deep that it looked like he was
almost decapitated. Upon closer inspection of his body, they found
(09:24):
what looked like ligature marks on his arms and legs,
and as they scanned the room, there wasn't any sign
of whatever had restrained him, but they did notice a
mattress leaned up against the wall covering the only window
in the room, with two pillows tucked between it and
the window to make sure that nobody could see in.
Once they confirmed Al was deceased and that there was
(09:45):
no one else in the house, officers exited the town
home and called their supervisor, and it was around this
time that agent Tom Sobieski with the Aurora Police Department
was a signed to the case with two other detectives.
Once all three of them arrived to the scene, though
they quickly realized that none of them had ever handled
a case like this before.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
We actually called the Rappo County Corner to the scene
because this was something that we had never seen before.
So he walked in there, and I walked in there.
We walked down the stairs directly to the victim, and
we had CSI person with this and we took video
and photographed it them. We removed the victim from the
(10:26):
scene without processing everything else, and he went to the
corner's office.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Once Al had been removed, they were able to do
a more thorough search of his home, starting with the
basement bedroom, and that was when agent Sobieski found about
a quarter inch of rope on the carpet near where
Al's body had been. Considering where it was found, Agent
Sobieski believed that the killer had likely used rope to
restrain Al, and maybe he just missed that little bit
(10:51):
when they were cleaning up. Other than all the blood,
and there was a lot of blood, there wasn't much
more in the way physical evidence there in the basement bedroom.
They searched what remained of the lower level and didn't
find a scrap of evidence in any of the other rooms,
so they decided to go back upstairs. But just as
(11:11):
they were heading up the stairs to the first level
of the town home, something caught their eye. It was
what looked like a blood transfer spot on the very
bottom step, and it stuck out to them because it
was the only visible trace of blood outside of the bedroom,
so they collected a sample of that too before they
headed upstairs. Next, they took a close look at all
(11:35):
those knives in the sink and confirmed that they were
in fact soaking in a mixture of water and bleach,
which immediately dashed any hope of getting evidence.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Off of them.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
But they weren't left without any clues in the kitchen.
When they checked the keys in the sink, they discovered
that they unlocked Al's front door. Now they weren't sure
yet if those were Al's main set of keys or
maybe a spare or what, but at least they knew
what they went to. So then they moved on to
the trash, and in there they found a signed rental
(12:05):
agreement for that basement living space where Al was just found.
It seems like Al was going to be renting it
out and a man named Robert Cooper had signed a
lease for it. The document was dated almost a week
before May eighteenth, and even though there weren't any personal
items in the basement to suggest that someone had already
moved in, officers started to wonder if they should be
(12:26):
looking for a roommate. In the trash, they also found
one of Al's bank statements. It was kind of torn up,
but that's okay because the statement itself wasn't what was important.
They were interested in a note that Al had scribbled
near the top of the paper. It was a phone
number along with the name Robert. They figured it had
to be the same Robert from the rental agreement, so
(12:47):
they assigned someone to go track this guy down. While
all of this was solid evidence to have it was
really the things that they didn't find that stood out
to them the most. For instance, Al's wallet and via
were both missing, and they couldn't find a container where
the bleach in the sink came from. Some of the
towels in the bathroom were missing, which made them think
(13:09):
that the killer had taken a shower or maybe cleaned
up before they left. Police also didn't find evidence that
Al owned rope or any other items that could have
been used to restrain him or caused his injuries besides
the knives, so they began to suspect that the killer
might have brought a sort of murder kick with him,
and chillingly, they noticed some clothes missing as well.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Okie was very I mean everything was in his place,
from his office to his closet, and there was one
pair of pants missing, one shirt missing from his closet,
and we couldn't find just empty hangars.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
This indicated that the killer had likely changed out of
whatever they were wearing and left Al's house wearing the
clothes of the man that they had just murdered. Now,
I also want to point out that a lot of
the online buzz about this case says that the killer
slept at Owl's but Agent Sobieski said that wasn't true. Obviously,
(14:08):
he spent a lot of time in the home during
and after the murder, but they didn't find a trace
of evidence that indicates the killer slept there at any point.
With their initial search completed, Agent Sobieski told us that
their next step was to canvass the neighborhood, but just
as they were getting ready to head out, a neighbor
actually came right to them with a tip they knew
(14:30):
where Owl's car was.
Speaker 7 (14:36):
At. Kildare Village members get more like now during our
Private Sale, where members get up to twenty percent of
our usual exceptional village prices. These offers are for members only,
so sign up at Kildeer Village dot com and see
terms and conditions. The Private Sale is now on with
Village Stars coming Saturday only.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
My Name's Chad Powers streaming on Disney Plus. Glen Powell
is Chod Powers. Is that guy he's doing a missus doubtfire.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
That was one hell of a performance, But with football,
I like Key Powers.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
If you are a puzzle a brand new original series,
every choice, every mistake carry you to this fock. You
were born for this moment cry Shod Powers, a new
original series exclusively on Disney Plus eighteen plus subscription required
decency's apply.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
The neighbor told Agent Sobieski and the other officers at
the scene that they were just driving home for the
day when they noticed Al's GMC pickup truck parked about
a block and a half down the road from his place.
They said that they didn't think much of it initially,
but then when they pulled around the corner and saw
all the cops at his home, they decided to pull
up and say something. So Agent Sobieski sent a team
(15:52):
of officers to find the truck, and sure enough, it
was right there where the neighbor said it was.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
And then a canvas was done where ELL's truck was found.
Because it's parked right in front of a whole rule
of town homes and apartments, and nobody saw anything there
that was substantial.
Speaker 8 (16:08):
They thought had been there a couple days.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
When the officers got into the vehicle, they didn't find
anything significant right off the bat. Again, Al was an
organized guy and that extended to his truck. But as
they looked closer, they noticed one thing that stood out.
There were a few strands of medium toned brown hair. Now,
Al did have darker hair, but the fifty three year
old had developed a lot of grays too, kind of
(16:33):
a salt and pepper look. So whoever's hair this was,
it likely wasn't Al's, and since they weren't aware of
anyone else having access to his truck, agent Sobieski suspected
that this could be the killer's hair, so they took
samples to test later. The rest of the evening, investigators
talked to as many people as they could to learn
more about Al and the people he associated with. Neighbors
(16:55):
told officers that they hadn't heard or seen anything suspicious
the entire weekend, and friends and family were able to
give them names of his best friend, as well as
a former roommate who had just moved out a month prior,
although no one was aware if Al had ever had
issues with either of them, and when it came to
Al himself, everyone had the same things to say.
Speaker 8 (17:16):
Al was a very well liked man.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
We couldn't find anybody that would say a bad thing
about him. He was divorced, He joined some singles clubs.
He recently had a new girlfriend. He liked Nascar, He
liked hanging out and watching Nascar and Sundays. Other than that,
he was a hard worker when he traveled the world
(17:40):
pretty much as an accountant.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Al's loved ones told investigators that he loved to cook,
he was always a gentleman. He had great relationships with
all of his neighbors, and just like agent Sobieski said,
he had just started a new relationship with his girlfriend Linda.
Because Al was so well liked and well known, his
murder was a total shock to his community. Again, this
(18:05):
area was not used to even petty crimes, much less
such an intense act of violence, and while people were
devastated about Al, they were also unsettled by something else.
Whoever did this to him, They were still out there.
Detectives were thinking the same thing, so they were pulling
on whatever loose thread they could find to try and
(18:25):
unravel some answers, and their strongest lead so far was
still this mystery roommate Robert Cooper, and luckily, the people
that they interviewed were able to shed some light on
this guy. It turned out that Al had talked about
him quite a bit to his friends and family. Investigators
were told that Robert had responded to Al's Rental ad
(18:45):
for the basement space and agreed to be the new tenant.
Al told people that Robert was from the East Coast
and transferred to Aurora with Wells Fargo. One person was
even able to remember exactly which Wells Fargo Al had
mentioned was the one that was only about six minutes
from Al's town home. Yet another neighbor even claimed to
have seen who they believed to be Robert. They said
(19:08):
that several days before the murder, they noticed a man
with a cane walking into Al's home. He had dark hair,
he was well dressed, and he looked to be maybe
in his early fifties. Now, even if this Robert guy
had nothing to do with Al's murder, agent Sobieski still
had men on his team trying to track this guy
down because witness or suspect, either way, he could hold
(19:30):
valuable information. But as their search for him continued, Al's
autopsy results came back and uncovered the true horror of
what he had gone through. Now, before I even go
into the autopsy, I just want to say that what
Al endured is going to be hard to hear, but
I think it is important to include as much detail
as we can without getting too graphic in order to
(19:52):
show you what kind of monster the investigators are looking for.
And I personally think that this mo seems so specific
that maybe the key to catching this guy is in
the details. So that being said, the first thing that
stood out to the corner was the sheer amount of
ligature marks on Al's body. Once he removed his clothing
(20:14):
and analyzed the full extent of the marks, he determined
Al had been hog tied with rope, likely the same
kind of rope as that small piece found near his body.
Speaker 8 (20:25):
We actually had.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
We simulated how the markings were on from the bruising
of the ropes, arms behind his back, legs tied together,
his ankles tied to his wrists, and there were wraps
several times, and there was different cross patterns that would
take over forty foot of rope to do that.
Speaker 8 (20:47):
It was quite an elaborate pattern. It was all.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
Perfectly spaced out, and the crosses where the ropes crossed
were all perfect, So I'm sure that was part of the.
Speaker 8 (21:01):
The ritual or the thrill the suspect god.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
The position would have left Al's feet exposed, and the
coroner found that they were severely bruised from having been beaten.
Severe bruising of different sizes on the rest of his
body also indicated that he was beaten with several different
blunt objects. But that wasn't even the worst of it,
not by far. Al had a total of eleven stab
(21:25):
wounds on his body, in his ears, in his eyes,
on the tops of his shoulders, and his upper torso.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
The corner at the time thought that the torture went
on for several hours because it had time for his
eyes to bruise and actually closed shut, and with the
blood evidence in the room, if you're dead, your heart's
not beating, you're not throwing blood all over. So it
went on for several hours.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
The knife wounds were so deep the corner determined it
would have taken an immense amount of force to do
that kind of damage. But despite how disturbing it was,
Agent Sobieski was hopeful that this particular act of violence
might be the killers undoing.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
If you're cutting somebody and stabbing them with kitchen knives
and they get bloody, any investigator tell you that your
hand slips up to the blade of the knife and
you'll cut yourself, and with a number of cuts in
the stab wounds, and we felt that he had to
have done it, had to cut himself.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
There was also the gaping laceration on the back of
Al's head that the officers who first found him had seen,
but you see, none of those wounds ended up being fatal.
It was the cut to his throat that the coroner
believed finally ended his suffering and his life.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
So my theory is we had a witness who saw
Robert Cooper walking with a cane go into Okie Kite's
town home a few days prior, probably when the day
he rented the place. With the injuries, the lacerations to
the back of his head. I think Okie may have
(23:07):
been walking down the stairs in front of him and
he starts striking in with this cane, causing those large lacerations.
I think there was two or three of them to
the back of his head. I don't know if it
knocked him unconscious, but it might get him to submit,
you know, to being tied up.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
The coroner declared the manner of death as homicide, but
it was the time of death that was a little
trickier to figure out. They couldn't determine an exact time
but they knew that he had been dead for at
least a day, So combined that with the fact that
they knew he had been at work on Friday, well,
that narrowed it down to some point between Friday afternoon
(23:48):
and Monday morning. That is a lot of time to
try and cover, so if they couldn't narrow in on
a small window, they would narrow in on what the
autopsy told them about their killer.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
We wanted to get as many people that were in
his inner circle, coworker's friend's family. Because the amount of
torture that Al had. We knew the suspect would probably
have cuts to his hands from punching or from the knives,
so we wanted we checked everybody's hands, looked for injuries,
got alibis for everybody.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Agent Sobieski talked to his former roommate, but they didn't
have anything useful to add, and that person didn't have
any noticeable injuries. Tom also talked with Al's ex wife,
but the same thing, and she was quickly cleared too.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
They were on good terms and she no longer lived
in Colorado. We had no information that she had been
back or that there was any bad blow between them.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
At all, Agent Sobieski just kept going down his list,
and next was Al's best friend, and this guy actually
said that he had been with Al on Saturday. He
said that he was working with Al on a construction
project in Denver, but they wanted to go out that night,
so they decided to wrap things up at around three
and go home and get cleaned up. Just before they
(25:04):
went their separate ways, he said that Al told him
he was also meeting with his new roommate before they
went out, and of course, Agent Sobieski's ears perk up
at hearing this, but he still just doesn't know enough
about this robber guy, and he's even more interested when
Al's friend says that was the last time he saw Al,
because Al never showed up for their plans that night.
(25:26):
The next person that Agent Sobieski wants to go talk
to was Linda, Al's new girlfriend, and little did he
know that she would actually be the one that could
give him the most information yet on Robert Cooper.
Speaker 7 (25:44):
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Speaker 3 (26:05):
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is Chad Powers? Is that guy? He's doing a missus doubtfire.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
That was one hell of a performance, but with football,
I like Key Powers.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
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Plus eighteen plus subscription required. Decency's apply.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Linda told agent Sobieski that she had also last heard
from Al on Saturday, sometime between three point thirty and four.
She had had a flight out of town that morning,
and he had taken her to the airport. On their way,
they had decided to officially become boyfriend and girlfriend since
they'd been seeing each other for a couple of months.
So when Linda finished her travel and got to her
(26:59):
hotel Hell, she called just to check in with him.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Now.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
He picked up the phone, but she said that something
felt off. She couldn't really tell why at the time,
but when she learned what had happened to Al. She
believed that Al's killer was in the house as they
were speaking.
Speaker 8 (27:17):
She said he seemed different. They didn't seem like himself.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
I don't remember exact her exact wording, but she thought
there was something different about him when she talked to him.
Speaker 8 (27:25):
But in my opinion, it's just.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
My opinion, there is no way that a killer who
went to this elaborate of a scenario to set this
all up would ever let him talk on the phone
for any reason to anyone. Because he says two words
to her and you know, call nine one one or
help me or whatever. Suddenly he's got to leave, the
police are coming or whatever. So I don't see that
(27:50):
as a scenario at.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
All, regardless of whether the killer was in the house
by then or not, the call and Al's best friend's
interview were important because it let the coroner know that
Al was at least alive. At four pm on Saturday,
Agent Sobieski also asked Linda if she knew anything about
a guy named Robert, and just like so many other
(28:11):
people he'd spoken to, she was like, oh yeah, his
new roommate. Not only did she know about this guy,
but she also said she saw him too. Linda said
that on May eighth, she went over to Al's and
when she arrived, Al was giving Robert a tour of
the basement. She called out to Al to let him
know that she was there, and he called back that
Robert was there and he wanted them to meet.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Now.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
She needed to use the restroom first, and by the
time she got out, all she caught was just a
little glimpse of Robert going out the front door.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
As soon as he hears another witness, he's getting out
of there. I don't know what he told Al to
leave that quick, but from the time she went up
the stairs till she came out of the bathroom, he's
up and out going out the door.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
From the quick look that she got, Linda was able
to get a vague description of the man she saw.
She said he was white, had dark brown hair, He
was well dressed in a suit and tie, and notably,
he didn't have a cane. Now, she was also able
to confirm that Robert had gone back to Al's to
sign that rental agreement on the eighteenth, and when he
(29:19):
was there, he paid one thousand dollars for half a
month's rent and a deposit, and he took a key
to the house. When she describes the key that he took,
investigators are certain that it is part of the same
ones that they found in the sink. But what struck
her as odd was that after he left, he didn't
come back like he had had a key, he had paid.
(29:41):
He just never showed up again, at least not to
move in. Now, this is definitely weird. And when Al
talked to Linda about it, he said something about some
furniture that Robert had that wouldn't fit down the stairs,
so he was like waiting to figure it out. And
I know that's super vague, but Linda told agents sobis
Key that she couldn't rememb remember the exact details of
that conversation, so we'll never really know what Robert's excuse
(30:05):
was for the delay in moving in either way. At
this point, investigators were convinced that Robert had something to
do with Al's murder, so the first week of their
investigation was a mad dash to just track this guy down.
They obviously started with that rental agreement, which, besides his
full name, included Robert's address. He also had two references.
(30:28):
There was a Social Security number, a driver's license number,
but every single thing on there turned out to be bogus.
The address was an elementary school about twenty four minutes
from Al's. The references were made up names. The social
security number led them to an eighty one year old
woman named Veronica who was living in the Midwest, and
(30:49):
the driver's license number didn't even lead them to a
real person. It was just a jumble of numbers. The
name Robert Cooper was almost definitely faked, too, but for
the sake of clarity, I am going to continue using
it when referring to the suspect. So the only thing
about this document that seemed to be legit was the
(31:09):
date written at the top.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
The victim's handwriting wrote the date five eighteen oh four
up in the right top corner of that application is
I guess when he completed it. We did handwriting analysis
on it, and they could tell us based on We
gave them samples of Al's handwriting. Back then everything was handwritten,
(31:35):
and they can tell us what on that application forum
that the victim had filled out and then the rest
of it was filled out by Robert Cooper. They can't
tell me if he was right hand and left hand
or anything.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Now, if you are screaming at me right now, yelling
call the number on the bank statement, please already done
and looked into, and like everything else about Robert Cooper,
it's smoking mirrors. The phone wasn't in service anymore. And
when they got the records, they learned that it was
attached to an AT and T cell phone and was
registered at the same fake address that Robert put on
(32:11):
the rental agreement. Now the phone was prepaid for ninety
days of use. But this isn't a total bust because
along with getting the records on Robert's phone, they had
also requested Al's cell phone records and his landline records,
and those showed that both cell phones were used after
Al's murder. Detectives were so grateful for this data because
(32:35):
even though they had Al Sell in their possession, as
far as physical evidence went, it was kind of a bust.
Speaker 8 (32:41):
The screen was cracked, it had been damaged, and.
Speaker 6 (32:45):
The guy named Joe had handled it and two co
workers had touched everything trying to find phone numbers, so
forensically it was not worth doing anything too.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
So looking at Robert's data first, a lot of the
usage on the phone. After the murder were calls, a
lot of them to the same number, which they learned
belonged to a woman living in West Denver.
Speaker 6 (33:11):
We do a traffic stop on her. We confront her
with you know, who's this guy who's calling you?
Speaker 8 (33:19):
He could be a suspect and a murder.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
And she tells us that it's a homeless man that
she knows that lives at the Good Samaritan Homeless shelter
in downtown Denver. So we get a description of him.
He doesn't match the the Robert that we were looking for.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
They did track down the man just to be sure, though,
and they learned that his name was a Seed, Rio Rios.
He was Latino and much older than even the oldest
description of Robert. He had gotten the cell phone from
a local guy who was known in the area for
selling goods at low cost to people experiencing homelessness. But
when Agent Sobieski asked him for the phone, A Seed
(34:03):
said that he couldn't give it to them.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
He said, once the phone quit work and he threw
it in the Platte River, so we never did recover it.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
They tried to track down the guy A Seed said
sold him the phone, but after doing so, they determined
that he wasn't involved at all either. And Al's phone
usage after the murder was a dead end as well,
because investigators already knew that the activity that they were
seeing on the phone records was from that man named Joe,
who had sold the phone back to Al's boss after
he had found it.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
But the fact that both cell phones Okie Kites and
Robert Cooper's cell phones got into the hands of homeless
people threw us off for a week during the investigation,
because we had detectives writing court orders for phone numbers
for both phones, trying to figure out who our victim
was calling and who our suspect was calling. Well, it
(34:53):
was because if the homeless people had these phones and
they were letting other people use them, and it really
mess us up for a week. If we had known them,
we would we could have been doing a lot of
other things.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
But this doesn't mean that the phone was a dead
end by any means. Phone records from before the murder
show Robert had called Al ten times over several weeks,
but Al hadn't been the only one. Robert had made
dozens of calls, all to people who had spaces available
(35:23):
to rent agent, Sobieski took on the tedious task of
contacting every single number, which ended up being over one
hundred calls to people renting out their homes, and he
found some interesting connections between them. But I'm gonna have
to tell you about that in Part two, which you
can listen to right now. The Deck is an audio
(36:10):
Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn
more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedekpodcast
dot com. I think Chuck would approve.
Speaker 7 (36:25):
At Kildare Village, members get more like now during our
Private Sale, where members get up to twenty percent of
our usual exceptional Village prices. These offers are for members only,
so sign up at Kildeer Village dot com and see
terms and conditions. The Private sale is now on with
Village Stars coming Saturday only.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
My Name's Chad Powers streaming on Disney Plus. Glen Powell
is Chadpowers? Is that guy He's doing a Missus doubtfire.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
That was one hell of a performance. But with football,
I like you Powers.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Your puzzle a brand new original series.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Every choice, every mistake carry you to the spot you
were born for. This moment pre cry.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Shod Powers a new original series exclusively on Disney Plus
eighteen plus subscription required. Decency's apply
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