The Deck - Oakey "Al" Kite (9 of Hearts, Colorado) Part 1

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

Our card this week is Oakey “Al” Kite, the 9 of Hearts from Colorado.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.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, and you can call them at 720-913-7867or go online to Metro Denver Crime Stoppers to leave an anonymous tip. To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org Follow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Hey listeners, before I get into today's story, I just want to give a massive thank you to all of you, because today marks the one-year anniversary of the deck. Thank you for your support of this podcast as we dive every week into a new cold case. And what I love most is that you all don't just listen to these cases. You are taking action, like with that letter writing campaign we did, for O'Watchiki Asiola, that got the Oklahoma AG's office to re-examine her case, or the tips that you've called into several of these investigating agencies, or even the cases that you've recommended for us to cover.

So thank you. I appreciate all of you, and I can't believe that we've been doing this for a whole year. Honestly, it seems like just yesterday that I was dreaming up this podcast where we at AudioChuck could do our own original reporting and shed light on the coldest of cold cases. And here we are. 52 cases later. It is unbelievable. So I can't say it enough. Thank you. And without further ado, let's get into today's case. Our card this week is Oki Al-Kite, the 9 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 2004 case of Al Qaeda is one of those. This case is the definition of a mystery. And for over 18 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 luck is changing too. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. It was mid-morning on Monday, May 24, 2004, 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 co-workers who 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 out. The man on the other end said that his name was Joe, and he had the phone because he found it on top of a pay phone 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 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. But eventually, they found Al's contacts and came across his sister, Barbara. 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 called the Aurora Police Department, and by 4pm, two officers arrived at Al's townhome 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. Al's front door was locked and the windows were secure, same with the garage door out back.

They went back to 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, 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. Owl 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 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 they continued through the house officers didn't touch the knives, and 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 was splattered on the walls. It was pooled on the carpet floor, and it was even spotted across the ceiling. And there, in the middle of all of it, was owl. 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 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 and shoulders. He had one huge elaceration on the back of his head, and based on pieces of drywall 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 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, 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 no one else in the house, officers exited the townhome and called their supervisor. And it was around this time that agent Tom Sobiesky

with the Aurora Police Department was assigned 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. We actually called the Rappock County Corner into 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 a CSI person with us and we took a video and photographed and then we removed the victim from the scene without processing everything else and he went to the corner's office. 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 Sobiesky found about a quarter-inch of rope on the carpet near where Al's body had been. Considering where it was found, Agent Sobiesky believed that the killer had likely used rope to restrain Al, and maybe he just missed that little bit 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 of 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 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 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 off of them. 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 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 18. 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 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 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 vehicle 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 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 kit with him. And, chillingly, they noticed some clothes missing as well.

Oki was very, I mean everything was in his place from his office to his closet. There was one pair of pants missing, one shirt missing from his closet. We couldn't find it, just empty hangers. 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 Al's, but Agent Sobieski said that wasn't true. Obviously 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, Agents Obieschi told us that their next step was to canvas the neighborhood. But just as they were getting ready to head out, a neighbor actually came right to them with a tip. They knew where Al's car was. The neighbor told Agent Sobiaski 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 of the cops at his home, they decided to pull up and say something. So Agent Sobiesky sent a team of officers to find the truck and churn off. It was right there where the neighbor said it was. And then that canvas was done of where else truck was found, because it's parked right in front of a whole row

of townhomes and apartments. and nobody saw anything there that was substantially thud had been there a couple days. 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, Owl did have darker hair, but the 53 year old had developed a lot of grays, too, kind of a salt and pepper look. So whoever's hair this was, it likely wasn't Owls. And since they weren't aware of anyone else having access to his truck, Agent Sobiesky 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 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. Al was a very well-liked man.

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 on Sundays. But other than that, he was a hard worker. He traveled the world pretty much as an accountant.

Owl'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 Sobyeski said, he had just started a new relationship with his girlfriend Linda. Because Owl was so well-liked and so well-known, his murder was a total shock to his community. Again, this 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 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 the sky. 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 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. It was the one that was only about six minutes from Al's townhome.

Yet another neighbor even claimed to have seen who they believed to be Robert. They said 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 50s. Now, even if this Robert guy had nothing to do

with Al's murder, Agent Sobiaski still had men on his team trying to track the sky down, because witness or suspect either way he could hold 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 wanna say that what Al endured is gonna 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 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 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. We actually had, 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 they were wrapped several times and there was different cross patterns. It would take over 40 foot a rope to do that. It was quite a elaborate pattern. It was all perfectly spaced out and like crosses with the ropes crossed were

all perfect. So I'm sure that was part of the ritual or the thrill of the suspect. 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 11 stab wounds on his body, in his ears, in his eyes, on the tops of his shoulders, and his upper torso. 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 close, 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. The knife wounds were so deep, the coroner determined it would have taken an immense amount of force to do that kind of damage. But despite how disturbing it was, Agent Sobiéski was hopeful that this particular act of violence might be the killers undoing. and with a number of cuts and the stab wounds, and we felt that he had to have cut himself. 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. So, my theory is we had a witness who saw Robert Cooper walking with a cane, go into Oki Kite's townhome a few days prior, probably with the day he ran into the place. With the injuries, the lacerations to the back of his head,

I think Oki may have been walking down the stairs in front of him, and he starts striking him 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.

The corner 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 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.

We want to give as many people that were in his inner circle, co-workers, friends, 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 knife. So we want to, we checked everybody's hands, look for injuries, got alibi as for everybody. Agent Sobiaski 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. They were on good terms, and she no longer lived in Colorado. We had no information that she would have been back, or that there was any bad blood between them at all. Agents Sobiaski 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 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 Robert 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. 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. The next person that Agent Sobiesky 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. Linda told Agents Sobiesky that she had also last heard from Al on Saturday, sometime between 3.30 and 4. 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 hotel, she called just to check in with him. Now, 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. She said he seemed different. They didn't seem like himself. I don't remember exactly her exact wording, but she thought there was something different about him when she talked to him. But in my opinion, and it's just my opinion, there's no way that a killer who went to this elaborate, 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 911 or help me or whatever, and suddenly he's got to leave, the police are coming or whatever, so I don't see that as a scenario at 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 4pm on Saturday. Agent Sobieski also asked Linda if she knew anything about a guy named Robert, and just like so many other 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 8th, 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. Now 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. 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 to tell us she came out of the bathroom, he's up and out going out the door. From the quick look that she got, Linda was able to give 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 18th. And when he was there he paid $1,000 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, 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 Obiesci that she couldn't remember the exact details of that conversation. So we'll never really know what Robert's excuse 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.

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 in elementary school about 24 minutes from Al's. The references were made up names. The Social Security number led them to an 81-year-old woman named Veronica who was living in the Midwest. And 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 fake 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 date written at the top. The victim's handwriting wrote the date 518-04 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 Alice handwriting back then and everything was handwritten and they can tell us what on that application form that the victim

had filled out and then the rest of us filled out by Robert Cooper. They can't tell me if he was right handed, left hand, or anything. 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 attacked to an AT&T cell phone and was registered at the same fake address that Robert put on the rental agreement. Now, the phone was prepaid for 90 days of use, but this isn't a total bust because along with getting the records on Robert's phone, they had also requested ALS cell phone records and his landline records.

And those showed that both cell phones were used after ALS murder. Detectives were so grateful for this data, because even though they had Al's cell in their possession, as far as physical evidence went, it was kind of a bust. The screen was cracked, it had been damaged, and the guy named Joe had handled it, two co-workers had touched everything, trying to find phone numbers. So, forensically, it was not worth doing anything to. 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 belong to a woman living in West Denver. We do a traffic stop on her. We confront her with, you know, who's this guy who's calling you? He could be a suspect and a murder. 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. They did track down the man just to be sure though, and they learn 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 agents Silbi Eski asked him for the phone, a seed said that he couldn't give

it to them. He said once the phone quit working he threw it in the flat river so we never did recover. 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. But the fact that both cell phones, Oki Kites and Robert Cooper cell phones got into the hands of homeless people through us offer a week during the investigation. Because we had detectives writing court orders for phone members for both phones trying to figure out

who our victim was calling and who our suspect was calling. Well, it was because the homeless people had these phones and they were letting other people use them and it really messes up for a week. If we didn't know now, we would have, we could have been doing a lot of the things. 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 10 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 to rent. Agent Sobieski took on the tedious task of contacting every single number, which ended up being over 100 calls to people renting out their homes. And he found some interesting connections between them. But I'm going to have to tell you about that in part two, which you can listen to right now. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis to learn more about

the Deck and our advocacy work visit thedeafpodcast.com. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?