Going West: True Crime - Oakey "Al" Kite // 219

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

In 2004, a well-liked man went missing from Aurora, Colorado after dropping his girlfriend off at the airport. When police conducted a wellness check at his home 2 days later, they found him brutally and methodically murdered in his own basement, with no apparent motive and no suspect in sight. But he had recently rented his basement apartment to a stranger…so was this mystery roommate to blame for his gruesome death? This is the story of Oakey “Al” Kite. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Unidentified: https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Robert_Cooper 2. Unresolved: https://unresolved.me/oakey-al-kite 3. The DNA of Murder: https://www.amazon.com/Hotel-Homicide/dp/B07YT166ND/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1B9EIKUUVUQ6N&keywords=the+dna+of+murder&qid=1657316196&sprefix=the+dna+of+murde%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-1 4. https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/vicap/homicides-and-sexual-assaults/victim-oakey-al-kite-jr 5. Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/25163639/oakey-albert-kite 6. Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/e6abxg/new_information_on_the_murder_of_oakey_albert/ 7. NBC: https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/murder-of-aurora-man-remains-unsolved-15-years-later-but-police-still-believe-renter-killed-him 8. Encyclopedia: encyclopedia.com/politics/legal-and-political-magazines/turkish-hezbollah 9. Unsolved: ttps://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Mike_Emert 10. Crime Zone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJnheMYEXxo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Teeve. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for yet another episode of Going West, and also thank you to Mary Jane for recommending today's case. This is a case that I had heard about before very briefly, but diving in and realizing just how baffling it really is, just wow. So thank you to Mary Jane for putting this one back on our radar. Yes, thank you so much Mary Jane. Also, I just wanted to let you guys know that we do have extra episodes of Going West over on our Patreon, so if you're interested in that, head on over to patreon.com slash Going West podcast.

And again, thank you everybody for being here, and thank you everybody for leaving us nice reviews, commenting, and sharing the show. Indeed. Ciao guys, yeah. I mean, I'm not looking forward to talking about this case because it really is one of those ones that you're just like, oh my god, it's a horrible story. And this man was nothing but nice to everybody around him.

It seemed so. I'm just really looking forward to hearing what you guys think about it. Yeah, absolutely. All right, guys, this is episode 219 of Going West. So let's get into it. Yeah, absolutely. Alright guys, this is episode 219 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 2004, a well-liked man went missing from Aurora, Colorado, after dropping his girlfriend off at the airport. When police conducted a wellness check at his home two days later, they found him brutally and methodically murdered in his own basement, with no apparent motive and no suspect in sight.

But he had recently rented his basement apartment to a stranger. So was this mystery roommate to blame for his gruesome death? story of Oki Al-Kite. Oki Al-Burt Kite, Jr. was born on May, 1951, in Rocky Mount Township, North Carolina, to his mother Edith Davis Kite, and his father Oki Albert Kite Sr. And he also had an older sister named Barbara Kite. Now to differentiate himself from his dad, Oki Albert Jr. started going by Al, so he took his middle name, shortened it, made it his name. So although we think Okie is such a cool name, definitely a very cool name.

Yeah, we're going to refer to him as what he preferred to go by, which was Al. And Rocky Mount, again where Al grew up, is a moderately sized city in Nash County about an hour's drive east from the capital city of Raleigh, sitting smack dab in between the capital and the coast. Al's father Oki was a respected dog trainer in the area and he owned a company called Oki and Hunter Grove Dog Training. At some point in Al's childhood and his sister, Barbara's, the family moved north to Welden, North Carolina, which is in Halifax County, almost to the border of North Carolina and Virginia, and Weldon is only about 50 minutes north of Rocky

Mount. So, not terribly far, but it's definitely in a different area of the state. Now tragically, the family lost Edith, Al's mother when he was just 18 years old, and her obituary didn't state how she passed but she was only 48. Prior to this, Al attended Weldon High School and then went on to receive a bachelor's degree in business administration from Atlantic Christian College, which is now called Barton College. And his school was just about an hour south from where he lived in Weldon, so again, didn't go very far here. No one ever had anything bad to say about Al. In every single publication an hour south from where he lived in Weldon.

No one ever had anything bad to say about Owl. In every single publication about his life and death, one thing was unanimous, that he was such a nice guy, and was described by everyone who knew him and loved him as being genuine, down to earth, and always fighting for the right thing. In 1976, when Al was 25, he married a young lady he'd gone to high school with named Gail Kay. Gail brought with her a daughter named Julie from a previous relationship, and the years between graduating high school and rekindling with Al, and Al never wound up having any children on his own, but considered Julie to be his daughter, and the two maintained a very close relationship.

Al had taken a job as a timekeeper for a company called Stone and Webster, which is an engineering services company based in Massachusetts, which is about 6 states north of North Carolina and about a 12 hour drive, so this was a pretty big move for his small family. Now, Stone & Webster has over a dozen subsidiaries and locations all over the world, and Al was tasked with keeping projects running smoothly and on their deadlines, and soon, he worked his way up to the head of the department as a project accountant. With this position, he went on to live and work in Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia, New York, Nevada, Wyoming, Tennessee, and even overseas in Algeria.

In 1988, perhaps due to the stress put on the couple by all of Al's moving around, he and his wife divorced after a decade of marriage. However, Al remained in touch with his step-daughter Julie since they have a close relationship. Al then relocated to California to work in San Francisco on a few large-scale projects including the San Francisco International Airport and the Bay Area Rapid Transport System, which is also known as the BART. But in 1998, Al was offered a position in Aurora, Colorado. Fawn of the outdoors, he jumped at this opportunity

and was excited to spend more time golfing and camping. Al purchased a two-story townhome in Aurora which is a city just 20 minutes south east of Denver. Deciding that it was too much space for just himself, he converted his basement into an apartment and he was planning on renting that out. Which is an important detail in this case. In 2002, after 31 years with the company, Al was let go from Stone and Webster. We read online that he was laid off. Some people said laid off, some people said let go,

but we're not sure why. Though after this happened, he went on to find work at a consulting firm called Carter Douglas. Two years later, at 53 years old, and after many years alone, Al found love again. So Al had started running into a woman named Linda Angelopoulos, very frequently at Christmas parties, community picnics, and just general group gatherings.

Linda was also divorced, but from the father of her children, and she was convinced that she wouldn't find love again. But one night at a party, Linda and Al were seated at the same table, and as Linda put it, they chatted the night away. She described him as an all-around nice guy and a total gentleman. They had frequent date nights, and she would often come over to his house so that he could make dinner for her, and she remembered Al being a fantastic cook. Linda also said that she believes Al was the love of her life.

Linda also said that she believes Al was the love of her life. In 2004, kind of like right before the spring, Linda and Al had discussed the idea of Al getting a new roommate. So he had been renting out the basement apartment to the same tenant for quite a while, but this person was set to move out in the spring of 2004, and Al was pretty eager to make a bit more passive income. So he started posting ads in the local newspaper and in the library of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, which was located near his house. A few people did express interest and came by to see Al's place, but one applicant in particular was very interested, a man named Robert Cooper.

So Robert told Al that he was from the East Coast, so just like Al, though he didn't specifically say where on the East Coast, and that he had moved to the Denver area for work. He also didn't specify what he did for a living, but said that he worked at Wells Fargo, and that he'd been staying at a sister's house until he could find a place of his own, which seemed to explain why he was so eager to move into Al's basement apartment. Then about three weeks before Al's death, he wanted to introduce Linda to his potential new roommate. But when she came downstairs to greet Robert, he walked right out the door without saying a single word. So that's pretty strange.

Yeah so it doesn't seem like a very friendly guy. Linda found the exchange very unsettling and found him to be cold and rude. While she says that she didn't get a great look at his face and that she probably couldn't pick him out of a lineup, she remembers that Robert was very well dressed and walked with a cane and a limp on his right leg. He had curly black hair and an average build, about 5-8 and 180 pounds. Linda thought that he looked like he was in his late 30s or early 40s. And despite this interaction, Al agreed to let Robert move in. And on May 18, 2004, Robert came by to give him a deposit of $500 and a set of keys on a red key ring. So I wonder if Al didn't think Robert seemed that odd and who's more focused on just getting the place rented and that Robert maybe seemed like good enough because I don't think Al would have purposefully rented the basement apartment to someone he thought was off, but it's also not like he would be sharing a living space with him

since this was, after all, a separate basement apartment. Yeah, and I can definitely understand the urgency to get that place rented out, especially if that's part of your own income, you know, and you have this person moving out, you just need to get somebody place rented out, especially if that's part of your own income, you know, and you have this person moving out, you just need to get somebody in there. And Robert was the most eager. So he was like, I want to move in for sure. Like, I'll pay the deposit. I'll move in right when you need me to.

So maybe the other applicant weren't as eager. And this guy was just the one that was the most willing. So he was like, I'm just going to go this dude, cause I need to make the money. Yeah, and it's possible. Yeah, exactly. And it's possible that Al just didn't really care about the personality. He's just like, well, you're gonna be fine.

Yeah, you seem fine. You have the deposits. Everything's good here. Right. So on Saturday, May 22nd, 2004, the last day Linda would ever see Al. He was taking her to the airport in the morning so she could fly home to Virginia Beach to visit family because she too was not from Colorado but from the East Coast.

In the car on the way there, they made their relationship official, finally referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. So it seems like even if Linda did have any bad feelings about his new roommate, Robert, they hadn't been in this long-term relationship where she likely would have been more comfortable expressing that kind of thing to him. Yeah, exactly. They just kind of started dating. Yeah.

But again, I think Robert will be looking even more strange with what's coming up and it's also could be like a hindsight's 2020 situation. But anyway, and regarding their relationship, it seems like Linda and Al were both very excited about this next phase because she remembers calling him at her layover to say, Hi, boyfriend, how are you? To which he replied, I'm good girlfriend, how are you? And they chatted for a while before she caught her next flight to Virginia Beach again, and Al told her that he planned on helping Robert move in that day, including helping him get a recliner down the stairs.

But when Linda reached her destination in Virginia and called again to check in, his tone had changed. She says Al was unusually quiet and sill in a way that he had never been with her before. She remembers ending the call by agreeing that they would talk sometime soon, but that something just fell to off. And she now feels that she had called just as Al was about to be murdered. Now before we go further into that thought, for reference, a non-stop flight from Denver to Virginia Beach is just over three and a half hours, so although she did have a layover from the time they

spoke during her layover to the time she would have finished out her flight, wouldn't be more than a couple hours or so, so things quickly took a weird turn. Two days after this phone call on the morning of Monday, May 24, Al failed to show up for work at Carter Douglas, and his co-workers knowing his work ethic and reliability were concerned and called his emergency contact, which was his sister Barbara, who was now married and living in Virginia. Concerned and unable to do anything from out of the state, Barbara contacted police to do a welfare check on her brother.

Now when police arrived that day, the house was dead quiet, and no one appeared to be home, but when police checked the basement, they found a gruesome scene. Al had been tied up and severely mutilated in the small spare bedroom of his own home. His neck had been slashed so many times that he was nearly decapitated. Even for homicide detectives, the discovery of Al's body was a shocking sight. And although police didn't know a roommate existed at this point in the investigation, Robert Cooper was not home. Let's unpack this for a second.

So we know that Al was helping Robert move in that day, or so he thought he was doing. And then this discovery is made two days later. So this really just makes you wonder why he sounded so quiet and sullen when he was on the phone with Linda on Saturday after she landed in Virginia. And not to get ahead of ourselves, but with what we know up to this point, if Robert is behind what happened,

does that mean maybe he was like holding Al when Al answered the phone, you know what I mean by that? Like, yeah, it's possible that, you know, Al was being held hostage in that situation. Yeah. Robert may have been saying, hey, if you say anything, I'll fucking kill you. Right, and that's,

but you have to answer this call, so she doesn't suspect anything. Yes. Exactly. Because that would make sense, because I don't know why else he would be sounding so sullen. Especially if he was never like that before. Yeah, and it just, it doesn't make a lot of sense,

especially because this was the time that Robert would have gotten to the house. And yeah, I don't know, it's just very, very eerie. Detective Tom Sobiesky from the Aurora Police Department, who became the lead investigator on the case and who we are going to talk about throughout this story today, is convinced that Robert attacked Al by surprise while he was walking down the stairs, perhaps as he was helping Robert move his belongings in.

Which would mean that Robert was planning such a thing before he moved in, but why, which we will get into. But this would also connect to why he didn't want Linda to see him, because then she could identify him later, right? So when he ran out of the house, when she came down to meet him, probably purpose purposeful. Yeah, he was like, I don't want anybody else to see me here. So the markings on Al's arms and legs indicated that Al had been hog tied, you know, as in his arms were tied behind his back and linked at the wrist, and then his ankles

were tied and his bent knees were then connected to his wrist. So all tied behind his back and linked at the wrist, and then his ankles were tied, and his bent knees were then connected to his wrist, so all tied behind his back. But detectives noticed something very unique about the method of tying and the knots that were used. The string used to tie him also bound his thighs and his upper arms, which is a configuration not normally used in binding a victim.

It kind of looked like an X flanked by two parallel lines and was found alongside severe bruising at his elbows. A very tight, professional grade knot tied behind his back ensured that he was completely unable to move. But the string was removed and discarded before Al's body was left behind. With this information, detectives wondered if the perpetrator must have had like military ties or perhaps been a sailor because of the knots that were used, it just made sense.

Al sustained more than 20 stabs with knives from the knife block in Al's own kitchen, and the knives were of varying sizes. Now these next two details are very gruesome, so feel free to skip about 10 seconds if you would like. But again, his neck was slashed so deep that his head was almost no longer attached, and on top of this, knives had been inserted into Ow Al's ear canal and above his eyes. So this was incredibly brutal.

I mean, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone doing anything like this in a murder, especially considering if Robert is involved, they didn't even know each other. Yet it seemed very personal. Yeah, it almost seemed like a crime of passion, but how could it be they just met each other? Yeah, I mean, just those details are just so harsh and Regarding Al's actual cause of death he did eventually succumb to blood loss, but horrifyingly The coroner concluded that the torture had gone on for hours Every knife from the knife block in Al's kitchen was left clean and soaking in a sink full of

bleach. So his killer appeared very diligent. Also in the sink were two metal rods, a pen, a cup, and the set of keys that Al had just given Robert a few days prior. Al had no enemies, and there was no sign of any kind of intruder, so investigators immediately set their sights on the new roommate. But he had left virtually no trace that he had ever stepped foot in that house. But even more strange, all of the information Robert had given Al was proven to be false.

And we're sure that his name was too, but we have to call him Robert Cooper because that's pretty much all we've got. Robert had used the Social Security number of an 80-year-old woman who lived in Indiana. The address that he had listed on his application was an elementary school in Denver, and the phone number for a woman named Julie, who was supposed to be his character reference, turned out to be a retirement village in Aurora. The phone number that he had listed and used to contact Al with was found to be a burner phone that he had purchased at 7-11. Now at that time, 7-11 held onto their surveillance camera footage for 30 days. And Robert waited exactly 30 days before activating it.

So this guy is smart and more than likely experienced. Just to know that, how would you know how long they held onto their surveillance footage for? Right. And to wait 30 days is so smart because it's like, then you know for sure by the time you actually use the phone, and way before the time that police would even look at that footage, or look for the footage,

it would be long gone. Yeah, to me, it almost feels like a contracted hit because it's premeditated. It just has that feeling. Even though it may not be, it just has that feeling to me, like somebody really planned this out. Yeah, I agree. And we'll get into the theories later because because there is a lot a lot of thought and speculation on who this guy is.

So Al's number had been the only phone number Robert had dialed on that phone. So by the time he used it he knew who his victim was. Right. And he had looked at ads for various rental properties and even tore to few. One renter described him walking without a limp or a cane, so even that detail seems to be fake. Detectives also tracked down a woman who listed her own town home and had given Robert a tour, and she said that he made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It was just this bizarre feeling that she got from him.

This woman also happened to teach Romanian at Denver University, and remembered that she had detected a slight Romanian accent. She and Linda were the only eyewitnesses who could give details about his mannerisms and description. As neighbors reported that he would avoid anyone but Al in the short time in which he stayed there. And of course, Robert Cooper wasn't even his real name. Detective Sobiaski didn't think that Robert ever had any intention

of actually renting, and as far as motive goes, thinks that he was just looking for someone to kill. A nice guy who would put up little resistance, a guy like Al-Kite. So now we know that nothing this man told Al was true. If he wasn't Robert Cooper though, who was he and where did he come from and where had he fled to? After Al's torture and murder, investigators pieced together a timeline and found that Robert had washed and submerged everything he used in bleach and then stolen Al's car and his wallet. He drove Al's pickup truck to a nearby branch of Wells Fargo Banks, which was ironically

where he said he worked, and withdrew about $1,000 with Al's debit card. He then ate and slept in Al's bed, discarded the car and house keys in the sink with the knives, not the car, but he discarded the house keys in the sink, and then separately discarded the car, and then he left. And Al's cell phone was later found in some phone booth. And it's so eerie to think about all of this happening, like him eating and sleeping upstairs in Al's own bed, knowing that Al's body was under him in the basement.

I mean, this guy is so sick. And another very eerie detail of this case is the surveillance footage of Robert Cooper going through the drive-through ATM in Al's car wearing a ski mask. But only three stills were captured and it's hard to tell what he really looks like, but still, it was better than nothing with so few eyewitness accounts to work off of. And I mean, at the very least, you can tell that he's white and likely a thinner man, and even though the quality isn't very good and it's black and white,

I think if you did have a photo of a potential suspect, you could probably rule them in or out based on these photos, because you can see like the top of his nose and his eyes, just not very well. Yeah, and I'm assuming this was probably him going through this ATM drive through like after hours, because I can't imagine that like a no, sitting there like seeing a guy in a ski mask like withdrawing money. No, no, no, what's going on here?

It was that night and this is when he took the money and then he slept in Al's bed and then he left but before he left he made sure that he properly disposed of everything. And of course as always, these photos will be posted on our socials for you guys to take a look. Also some composite sketches were drawn and we will post those as well. Now as far as Robert like covering his tracks, the only real mistake he made was leaving a tiny drop of his own blood on the carpeted stairs. I really have to hand it to investigators to be able to detect that one specific drop found was not ours, you know, like being able to make sure they really did their due diligence and tested all this stuff

and they found one single drop. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. So from this drop of blood, investigators were able to build a full DNA profile from a single source unknown male. Cha-ching. And this is now their strongest piece of evidence. So given the brutal nature of this crime, the FBI got involved and began to build a profile of who they believed

Robert to be. His profile is now in the FBI's CODIS database or combined DNA index system. Unfortunately, no matches have come in yet, meaning that this guy has never entered his DNA into the system, aka he's probably never been arrested for a crime since Al's murder. But if Robert were to commit another crime and get caught, his DNA would be entered into the system, and they would be able to link the two cases to the same perpetrator. In 2019, Al's murder was the subject of an episode

of the DNA of Murder with Paul Holes, a cold case investigator who worked on the Golden State Killer's case, and someone that probably all of you guys know. The episode sparked renewed interest in the case, as well as brought in experts who came up with their own theories. Now Sharon Hagen, a retired California Department of Justice profiler, explained that this was a ritual fantasy killing for this murderer. This would be a lifelong behavioral pattern for this

Robert Cooper. But a lot of the times, unfortunately, a lot of these types of like sadistic offenders don't undergo psychiatric treatment until it's too late and they're already in police custody for involvement in a crime. Now, Sharon Hagen believes that he is a psychopath, meaning someone who is a manipulative person but can seem charming and who can lead some semblance of a normal life, as opposed to a sociopath who typically tends to be unpredictable and prone to angry albors. Most defenders are unable to delay satisfaction, but Robert proved that he can and allowed himself to shop and screen for his victim, taking over a month to lay the groundwork for this crime.

Sharon explained that an offender like Robert would likely be a narcissist and an emotionally detached loner who doesn't maintain close or intimate relationships with anyone. And so why he takes all this time to plan murdering someone? Yeah, he's got no life. Now unfortunately she believes Robert's type to be the most difficult to catch. He's vengeful and extremely dangerous, and his type of violence is rare and therefore difficult to track.

Sharon even said, quote, I believe he will watch this show. So that's very scary and I just feel like this can't be his first time killing someone because he seemed very meticulous without he left things at Al's house as if he had some sort of experience, which it just makes you wonder. Yeah, but also the thing that's boggling my mind is that he was also kind of careless in ways too, like sleeping in the victim's bed. But he didn't leave any DNA in the bed. Right, I know, but it's like, what? But that's a thing is it's like, it's almost kind of like a, ha, I'm smarter than you. Yes. I'm going to get away with this. Right. So the DNA testing done on his drop of blood placed his ethnic background in the Balkans, which are a geographic region of Southeast Europe,

including Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. grow and North Macedonia. Partially included within the region are Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Turkey, and Italy. Obviously that is a massive region, and it wouldn't necessarily narrow down their search, but investigators do hope that as more DNA profiles and genealogical tests kind of circulate, they will eventually be able to link this to a family member or someone who knows Robert. And remember, one of the women who had toured her home to Robert before Al's murder sent some sort of Romanian accent, so this does click.

The manner in which Al was killed is seen by some as methodical and ritualistic enough to have been carried out by a terrorist or militant organization. One in particular that were considered to have been involved in this crime were the Kurdish Hasbola. Kurdish people or Kurds are the people indigenous to the Mesopotamian plains, or what are now parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia, and Hasbola means party of God. The original Hasbola military group and political party that emerged during Lebanon's civil war was formed as a way to push back against the invasion of Israeli troops into southern

Lebanon in 1982. But as it evolved, the group became known to be linked to attacks, kidnappings, and car bombings. The Kurdish-Hezbola is a separate faction of Hezbollah with the objection of establishing a separate extremist territory in southeastern Turkey, the region of Turkey where curds are native to. One method of torture synonymous with the Kurdish Hasbola group is Falaka or Falanga also called Bastinato.

This was a method of torture used solely to inflict pain over a long period of time, rather than to cause actual sustained injury. Al was found with the bottoms of his feet facing upward at the ceiling. And the lacerations and bruising were consistent with having been struck by a rod, which is what would have been traditionally used in a method of torture such as this. Along with the knives, keys and a pen, two honing rods, generally used to sharpen knives, were found in the sink. This, along with Robert's accent, led some on the case to believe Al's torture was part of a much more sophisticated crime operation.

While cases like this are rare and therefore difficult to connect to others, solved or unsolved. Al's murder has drawn many comparisons to that of Mike Emmert from Seattle, Washington. Mike and his wife Mary were real estate agents in Seattle, and on January 4, 2001, so about three years before Al's murder and multiple states away, Mike met up with a man named Stephen, who was interested in one of Mike's properties. Now oddly enough, Stephen was described as a middle-aged man who walked with a cane and a limb.

That January day, Mike and Stephen met at a local mall and headed over to the house together. It was a secluded property within its neighborhood far from the other houses, and likely why Steven selected this particular listing. The pair headed to the house at 11.30 a.m., then the person who was living in the home at the time returned from work at 12.30 p.m., so an hour later, to find the front door ajar,

and the sound of water running upstairs. A trail of blood led her to the bathroom, where she found Mike, stabbed 19 times and placed in the bathtub with the shower running. No motive has ever been identified, and while there were persons of interest, no one was ever convicted of Mike's heinous murder. It's probably unlikely that the two are related, but the similarities are an odd coincidence. They really are. For those wondering, as townhouse was not secluded, obviously with it being a townhouse, it

was connected to other townhouses in a row, and even had others right across the street. So definitely not secluded at all. It's very close to a lot of other houses on the same street and on the cross street. There's a ton of homes. So definitely an odd choice, but clearly Robert got away with it for now. Now detective Tom Sobieski, although he's now retired, has made it his mission to solve Al's case, and he worked with Paul Holes on the episode of The DNA of Murder. He says he still thinks of Al almost daily, and that it haunts him that such a nice guy who tried to do everything right in life was taken in such a traumatic way.

Tom stated, quote, we don't often have such a traumatic way. Tom stated, quote, we don't often have such a true victim. Written evidence for Al's case has a mass more than 8,000 pages so far, and Tom keeps a picture of Al in his case book to this day. Al is still miss by all who knew him, especially his sister, her husband, and Al's two nieces, as well as Julie, who was still named in his obituary as his stepdaughter. Linda is still devastated by the loss, having finally found the love of her life just in time to lose him.

She said 15 years after his murder in 2019 quote, I love him more today. It seems as time goes on. I love him more and more. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. I really wonder what would have happened that day had Linda not been out of town because they didn't live together yet, but I wonder if she had been over there to kind of help and if maybe she would have fallen victim as well or if Robert would have waited to do this to Al while he was alone?

Like, I don't know how Robert would have known that she was going to be out of town that day. Again, they didn't live together, but still. This was someone very close to Owl. Well, we do know that it's, you know, possible that Robert was, you know, keeping tabs on Owl and may have known or somehow figured out that she wasn't going to be there. Yeah. And that, you know, I'll be alone. I mean, I could have mentioned it for sure. He could have been like, oh, I'm taking my girlfriend to the airport that day, and then I'm free, you know.

Sure. Absolutely. Then he knew that he would be alone. Yeah. But it's just, then we, I go back to that phone call with Linda, just knowing that this happened. I really, truly do believe that at the time that Linda called him, he was more than likely, I don't know, tied up or something by Robert at that time. Yeah, I mean, the hope is that genealogy testing

could possibly help solve this case because they may be able to find a trace to a family member and then connect it to this supposed Robert Cooper. Right, which would be so amazing. So make sure you share this case everybody and go look at our socials for photos again of the surveillance footage from the Wells Fargo Bank, ATM Drive-Thru, and then also of his composite sketches.

And then you can see wonderful smiling owl as well. All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you