Who knew that a discarded rental application and a burner phone could hold the key to a gruesome murder investigation? Join Elaine, Amber and I as we pull back the curtain on the chilling case of Oakey "Al" Kite's murder in 2004. A riveting tale of a man's life and work, a move to Aurora, Colorado, and a gruesome murder that would leave even seasoned crime buffs restless. The details we reveal are not for the faint-hearted, as we recount the horrifying discovery of Al, who was tortured in the most unimaginable way.
Who brutally killed Al Kite, a kind man who had no known enemies, in his own home? Could this horrific crime, steeped in premeditation and precision, hint at the work of a serial killer? We'll take a look at the clues in this case and try to make sense of its most obvious question: Why?
Check us out on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@143mysteries
For sources and episode information: http://143mysteries.com
For photos: https://www.instagram.com/143mysteries/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/143PODCAST
One Minute and Forty-Three Seconds is dedicated to my number one fan. Thank you, Dad. I love you, and I miss you.
Who knew that a discarded rental application and a burner phone could hold the key to a gruesome murder investigation? Join Elaine, Amber and I as we pull back the curtain on the chilling case of Oakey "Al" Kite's murder in 2004. A riveting tale of a man's life and work, a move to Aurora, Colorado, and a gruesome murder that would leave even seasoned crime buffs restless. The details we reveal are not for the faint-hearted, as we recount the horrifying discovery of Al, who was tortured in the most unimaginable way.
Who brutally killed Al Kite, a kind man who had no known enemies, in his own home? Could this horrific crime, steeped in premeditation and precision, hint at the work of a serial killer? We'll take a look at the clues in this case and try to make sense of its most obvious question: Why?
Check us out on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@143mysteries
For sources and episode information: http://143mysteries.com
For photos: https://www.instagram.com/143mysteries/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/143PODCAST
One Minute and Forty-Three Seconds is dedicated to my number one fan. Thank you, Dad. I love you, and I miss you.
ك hardly is All right.
Speaker 2:Well, amber, elaine, it's been a while Shake it off, elaine, shake it off.
Speaker 3:You mean it's been a while since you logged in and were waiting to start?
Speaker 2:No, I meant it's been a while since I had you on the show. I'm trying to start the goddamn thing.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry With my welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be back. Elaine always says that Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you for being here, amber. Thank you for being here, elaine. Should we dive into this case?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, a fair warning tonight this is not pleasant and it's not lighthearted at all. It's very bad and creepy and sinister, and gruesome, and sad and wild, all wrapped into one ball of mystery, wow. So, viewer, no dummy, listener, discretion is advised. But today we're going to be talking about the murder of Oki Al-Kite. Okay, and Amber already shared that she has not heard of this case. Have you Elaine? Nope, I'm not familiar.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, let me go ahead and show you our victim. So you have an image of your mind, in your mind, of him. This is Oki Al-Kite. So this is Al. He went by Al.
Speaker 2:Before we get into the events of the case, I just want to give you a quick background about Al. Okay. So, oki Albert Al-Kite, he went by Al, was 53 years old. He was born on May 7th 1951 in Nash County, north Carolina, to his father, oki Albert Kite Sr and his mother, edith Davis, and he had one sister named Barbara, and I'm not clear if it was an older or younger sister, but so he had one sister. Al's father was a like a well-known dog trainer. Where they were from, I wasn't sure exactly what his mother, edith, did, but set 1970, at the young age of 48. So this would make Al about 18 years old at the time that his mother passed away, which, yeah, losing a parent horrible, never easy. Can't imagine it at 18 years old, because I feel like 18, you're just starting to figure out the world, yeah, anyway, so you know, despite this hardship, he would go on To be a, you know, pretty good guy.
Speaker 2:He graduated high school, weldon High School, and then he went on to attend Atlantic Christian College where he majored in business administration. He would go on to get a job for a company called Stone and Webster, which is an engineering services company, and he would work at this company for over 31 years, and this would take him actually everywhere, like all over the United States, on various projects that he had to work on. And also he went around the world too. He actually had a project that was in Algeria, so he spent some time there, wow. On a personal note, al married his longtime high school friend or I mean a friend that he met in high school by the name of Gail Kay. Yeah, they got married in 1976. And Gail had a daughter from a previous relationship named Julie, and Al would go on to be her stepfather. Now, sadly, gail and Al divorced in 1988. So after 12 years of marriage. But by all accounts this was an amicable separation and Al remained close with Julie, his stepdaughter.
Speaker 3:So and they did not have any children.
Speaker 2:They did not Not that I've found. I don't believe so. So Al spent most of the 90s working on the West Coast, where it was handling finances for several different projects, and in 1998, he moved to Aurora, colorado, to accept a job, which is something he was really excited about because he loved being outdoors. He loved golfing, hiking, skiing, biking, anything basically outdoors, and Aurora, colorado was a great place for that. So Al had a townhouse, which was two, and this was located at 2002 South Helena Street in Aurora, and I looked it up on Google Maps. It looks like a really quaint little area, nice tree-lined street.
Speaker 2:So a couple of things were going through Al's mind. He thought maybe the two stories were starting to get to be too much space for him because he was a single guy and he loved the outdoors so much he was either working or spending time outdoors. So what did he need all this space for, right? So he ended up finishing up his basement so it would be a standalone apartment that he could rent out. Oh yeah, exactly. It was a good thing that he did this because in 2002, the company that he worked for, they decided to downsize and sadly, after 31 years, he was let go. Really I know it sucks, because everything I've read about him is that he was super reliable, like a great colleague, great employee. So you know, it happens sometimes, right, I mean it's so good that's crappy, though, like how far could he have been from retirement?
Speaker 3:They could have offered him an early package or something.
Speaker 2:Right, I know, I know, but those are the details. I know it actually wasn't too long after this happened that Al found a new job, and this was at Carter Douglas, which is an engineering consulting firm. So right now we're in 2004,. Okay, which brings us to when everything happens here with Al. Okay, a couple of things happen.
Speaker 2:Firstly, he started dating a woman named Linda Angelopoulos. This is someone. Apparently they had known each other for a couple of years. I'm not sure exactly how, but the way that Linda described it when she was later interviewed was that they were, you know, they would be at the same functions or like picnics or Christmas parties, so they must have had some sort of mutual acquaintance or friend. But anyway, they started dating. They got along really well. Things were a little bit casual, but that would change. But I'll get to that in a second. So that's the first thing in 2004 that changes for Al. The second thing is that Al had a tenant that was renting out his basement unit, right, and he decides that he's going to move out. Okay, so now Al is stuck with a task of finding a new tenant, since this person wasn't going to renew their lease, right. So it's May of 2004 and Al posts some advertisements in the local paper that he has this unit for rent and he's in the process of getting that taken care of.
Speaker 2:But I want to fast forward a little bit to Saturday, may 22nd. Okay, I want to fast forward to that day and then we're going to go back and cover some other things. But let's go to May 22nd, which is a Saturday. So Linda, who is Al's new girlfriend, he drives her to the airport because she has a week-long trip that she's going on and I'm not sure if this was for work or for whatever, but she had a trip and he drives her to the airport and it's actually really, really sad, or it's really cute and sad. I actually want to play you a clip of her talking about the last day, the day that he drives her to the airport, if that's okay.
Speaker 3:Okay. How do you and Al meet?
Speaker 4:I had known Al for a couple of years prior to him and I starting to date. I'd see him at functions every now and then. What kind of functions? Christmas parties, picnics, things like that. He was another party that we had gone to. He and I ended up sitting at the table together and jatted the night away. He was a gentleman. Al just seemed to enjoy life, enjoy the people he was around. He always seemed to be laughing and smiling. He was just an all-around nice guy.
Speaker 5:You start up like a regular dating relationship with Al.
Speaker 4:Yes, and he'd invite me over to his house. He would make dinner. He was a fantastic cook. I had been married before and had been divorced quite a few years from my kids' dad. I was hoping that I could have that special person in my life and I thought he would be perfect. Al would be perfect. I believe he was the love of my life and I never got that chance.
Speaker 3:When was the last time you spoke with Al?
Speaker 4:The day he took me to the airport, which is the day that everything happened. He had picked me up to take me to the airport. I called him at one of my stops because he and I, in the car, decided to become boyfriend, girlfriend, and so I called him from one of the stops, like well, hey, boyfriend, how are you? He goes. Oh, I'm fine, hi, girlfriend, how are you? And we had a nice little conversation. Then I got to Virginia Beach, which is like 3.30, denver time, and I called him and he was very quiet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to cut it off there, but I have a reason for cutting it off there. What I really wanted to just show you guys from that was just to give you a little sense of their relationship and where things were for them at the time, and that really almost made me start to cry because that was so sad. Like she seems like such a sweet lady and Al I obviously didn't know him but or hear him speak, but by seeing his photo he just looks like a kind man and that's what everybody said who knew him. So go ahead and react.
Speaker 3:It just seemed very, very genuine from her perspective and it is very heartbreaking.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Like. I don't know any details of what happened to him yet, but she certainly was not involved. There's a lot of love and heartbreak from her end.
Speaker 2:Heads up. Things are going to get bad here. Okay, okay, fast forward. We talked about Saturday, may 22. Now, let's, let's fast forward to Monday May 24.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is a normal day, except for Al doesn't show up for work at Carter Douglas. This is really unlike him. He never would miss a day of work and if he was going to be late he would always call or let someone know. So his work, his boss. They call his cell, they call his home phone and they get no response. And after trying this several times, they decided to call Barbara, who is Al's sister, because Al has her as his emergency contact.
Speaker 2:Al's sister, barbara, actually lives in Virginia, so she's thousands of miles away. Oh wow, but she's chill. She tries calling her brother as well and gets no response. So only thing she could think to do was call the police and do a welfare check on Al. So the police go over there, they knock and they knock over and over. They don't get any response. They break into the home. Everything looks normal, until they go down to the basement and it's there that they find a really gruesome scene. They find Al. He's laying down, al had been hogtied and he had been tortured for hours before he was ultimately killed. Oh my God, he definitely suffered. It was not an easy, easy death. Yeah, like I said, he was bound, he'd been hogtied, he was tortured for hours. Whoever did this to him used sharp instruments to torture him and ultimately, what killed him was him being stabbed 22 times. Oh my.
Speaker 3:God oh my God.
Speaker 2:So this is. They theorize that this murder occurred on the same day that Al took Linda to the airport. So that's Saturday and they find him on Monday. Wow yeah, so this all leads back to I'm going to go back now to a prospective tenant that Al had been speaking with in the lead up to his death or to his murder Okay, so I mentioned earlier that Al put an ad in the local paper and like to just to get the word out right that he was.
Speaker 2:You know he had this apartment for rent. Okay, so that brings us to this guide by the name of Rocker Robert Cooper. So it was May 19, 2004. This is three days before Al is murdered.
Speaker 2:This guy named Robert Cooper responded to Al's ad expressing interest in his apartment and he wanted to move in almost immediately. He said that he was from the East Coast and he was currently staying with his sister in the area but was about to start a job or something at Wells Fargo Bank and so he needed a place to live as soon as possible. Okay, and he was even willing to give Al a security deposit and the first month's rent just to get this thing moving. So Al told Linda about this guy and she relayed these details about him being from the East Coast and all this stuff, right, there was a day that he came over. This guy, robert Cooper, came over to look at the unit and actually Linda was coming over around the same time. Okay, now Linda, when she got to Al's house, she had to use the bathroom really badly, so she runs in, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Goes to the restroom. By the time she comes out, this guy is walking away and doesn't say anything to her or acknowledge her. So she barely got a look at him and Linda describes it as like this guy did not want her to see him, but still she was able to describe him and said that you know, he was kind of average looking, he was wearing a suit at the time and he had brown hair. But again, she didn't get a good look at him at all. Here's what we're going to do. All right, we'll talk about the aftermath of the murder, okay, okay. So not only did this killer brutally torture and murder Al, he did some crazy stuff afterwards too. All right, creepily, he ate food from Al's kitchen he took a shower in Al's master bathroom.
Speaker 2:Okay, he slept in Al's bed and even wore some of his clothing. Weird, he killed Al with his own kitchen knives, with Al's kitchen knives, and investigators found these knives in the sink soaking in bleach. And he also whoever did this apparently cleaned the place up as to not leave any evidence behind. Right? Okay, the drain had also been plugged.
Speaker 2:There were sick between six and 12 knives, also in the sink where Al's car keys. We'll get back to the car. And he was in the car. He was in the car, he was in the car, he was in the car and, yeah, it was just soaking in bleach, okay, okay. Investigators didn't really know what to do with all this information because it seemed like it was personal. Yeah, given the endless torture right, but who would want to do this to him?
Speaker 3:right? Or just a psychopath who, like I'm wondering were there any other deaths in the area that could imply a serial killer? So I could see a serial killer just randomly doing something like that. Yeah, we're too soon for theories.
Speaker 2:No, that's okay, We'll get there. But moving on to later in the day, right when he's found, his car is missing at this time. Okay, so they eventually find his car, which was a blue and gray GMC pickup truck, and it had been abandoned a little over a block and a half away from Al's residence. Weird Now, when investigators searched the car, they found receipts from an ATM. So they go back to this bank it was a Wells Fargo and they pull surveillance footage and they find some of this mysterious man using Al's ATM card at the bank. Oh, but sadly the footage is rendered useless because the person at the ATM was wearing surgical gloves and a ski mask. Oh.
Speaker 2:So this person went to elaborate lengths to conceal their identity and their crime, so the footage ended up in the news list. What's more interesting is that this person only withdrew $1,000 from Al's bank account.
Speaker 4:Huh.
Speaker 2:And it said that Al had way more money than that in his account. So police actually ruled out robbery as a motive for this because they figured, wouldn't you steal more? Yeah, if you had that opportunity? I mean, this guy is like laying in his bed and eating food in his kitchen, so like, if you got all this time, you have time to make multiple withdrawals, right. But yeah, so there's more details. Would you like to hear more details?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it just makes everything more creepy. So, anyway, investigators continue to find clues and they find in the garbage can in Al's kitchen a discarded rental application. This rental application appeared to be handwritten and it had the name Robert Cooper. Hmm, in addition to Robert Cooper, it had the stranger's mailing address, the social security number and a phone number. Now, obviously or maybe not obviously, robert Cooper is not a real person. This is a fake name. So when they do some digging into this, they find that the address provided on the application, which was supposed to be this dude's sister's house because he said he was staying with his sister, it ends up being a building on the University of Colorado's medical school campus. So it is not a residence. Yeah, the phone number was an active number. Oh, like, let's get, let's hang on. Before I talk about the phone number, the social security number belongs to an elderly lady that has no connection. So obviously he just used this random social security number.
Speaker 2:Okay, and finally, which? This one just boggles my mind. Okay, the phone was an active phone, but it was a burner phone. Hmm, so check this out, police, they do a trace of this phone and Al's phone, because I forgot to mention that Al's phone.
Speaker 2:Al's phone was also missing from the scene along with his car. Now they did find his car, like I said. So they traced these phones and find they're still moving around. They're following these phones moving around Denver so they think they've got a lead, right? Oh, no, weird. Yeah, they think they got a lead, so the burner phone and Al's phone they're moving around the Denver area, both phones. When they look into this further, they determined that 30 days prior to Al's murder is when the phone the burner phone was purchased, and it was purchased at a 7-11 within Denver. It was not activated for 30 days, but that's when this guy activated it and they theorize that this person must have known that the 7-11 would have surveillance, but by that time it would be long gone, meaning they purchased the phone and then waited to activate it until there could be no trace of the person who purchased it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, If you follow my drift it was very calculated and very preplanned.
Speaker 2:We'll check this out though this is the part that really gets me. So the phones are moving around the Denver area right After Al is murdered. They're not with the killer. What this guy did? He abandoned the phones in a part of Denver that was known for its transient and homeless population. Oh so when they found and tracked down these phones, they were in the hands of people that were homeless and just happened to find the phones. Yeah, so this guy thought the hell out of this.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, and I just got chills, okay. So what do you guys even think? Think of this so far. I'm going to pause just right now.
Speaker 6:I don't even know this person. Even like you said before, it had to be something personal. I mean, if they're buying a phone 30 days before they activate it and going around, you know, wearing his clothes and sleeping in his bed, and that's not just like random rage. Like you denied me this apartment Now I'm going to, but he didn't even deny it.
Speaker 2:He was going to move in, right, that's the thing, yeah.
Speaker 3:I still feel like this sounds like psychopath, serial killer behavior, like I haven't fully wrapped my mind around it. It developed a theory, but like if someone wanted to just brutally kill someone because they had that desire, I feel like this would be the way to do it, because now they have an empty apartment to do it in and they would they would do some pre-planning to try to cover their tracks. Like serial killer is a little bit. They don't just randomly kill because they want to be able to keep killing, so they have to cover their tracks. No, you're right.
Speaker 2:So there's a few more details. I do want to get to that. Get to that, I mean, elaine, what you're saying about your theory. I want to get to that. Okay, but there I just want to talk about a few more things that happened before the murder, which may you guys may find interesting.
Speaker 2:So Al was not the only person that this Robert Cooper fella was like. He was looking at other people. He was looking at other people. He was looking at other people. He was looking at other people. He was looking at other apartments. Okay, so we know that Linda Saw him very briefly that day.
Speaker 2:She came over and used the bathroom, but then by the time she got out, he was like walking away. Yeah, there was a local professor who happened to be from the University of Colorado. She was renting out a property and a man that was matching the same description met with her to discuss this property. Now, I think when Linda saw him. So when Linda originally talked to Al about this guy, some other information Al gave her was like he's like in his 40s, he had brown hair, he was like five, eight, five, 10. And Al said that he walked with a limb and he carried a cane. Interesting Now this other woman, this professor, the description, the physical description matches, but she said the guy didn't have a limp and he didn't carry a cane and she thought that he was speaking also with a Romanian or Eastern European accent. Oh, and apparently this professor was very familiar with the different dialects of Romanian. So there's that and we'll get to that. We'll cover that a little bit later.
Speaker 2:But the same guy approached several renters in the weeks that led up to him responding to Al's, and at least three of them said that they were interacting with him and they all described him having different characteristics. So one person said he spoke with a Romanian accent. Another person said essentially it's like this guy was putting on different. I can't even think. You know, to me it's almost like this guy was trying to pull off the perfect murder and he did a damn good job. Yeah, if you're going so far as to he thought of everything he's thinking. If somebody interacts with me, well, let me change up certain things so nobody can quite tell. Yeah, because one person said he spoke very quietly and had a typical American sounding voice. Other people said he had accents.
Speaker 3:I think he was trying to make it harder to connect him with all of those people, which was a smart move if he wanted to not be caught.
Speaker 2:One thing that's very interesting, which would be the second connection to the University of Colorado Medical School. I think is one of the renters that Al not Al, excuse me, one of the renters that this Robert Cooper guy visited right. Apparently this renter had only advertised their property in the library of the University. Oh, they did not put it in the newspaper or anywhere else except for the library. So that's kind of a big clue. Yeah, that maybe this person was affiliated with the University in some way.
Speaker 2:Maybe. Oh, I should mention that another person, a renter, that he visited the woman said this guy made her incredibly uncomfortable, that she just got a horrible feeling from him, that he barely said anything, that he seemed to be like examining the windows and she just got a bad vibe from him oh creepy.
Speaker 3:So all of these other renters that he visited, were they all on their own personal properties where they were living like above it or below it?
Speaker 2:You know what? That's a good question. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I just wonder because then that would go with my theory of like this is a really good strategy of having a victim nearby and then you having a place to kill them.
Speaker 2:Or maybe that's why he targeted Al, because he knew he ended up figuring out that Al lived upstairs, yeah, and maybe the others didn't. I don't know. It doesn't mention where these other ones lived. It's just their properties that they were renting out.
Speaker 6:Does it say if those other renters, if they like, lived by themselves too or no?
Speaker 2:It doesn't have any information about, and maybe that's something I could find if I dug a little deeper, but it doesn't say particularly you know the lifestyle or things like that of these other people.
Speaker 3:It is interesting because serial killers tend to target women. I believe that's true.
Speaker 2:I guess sexual aspect sexual aspect of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they're easier to to dominate Because they're just. I mean, if this is a male killer, which it's probably this Robert Cooper guy I forgot what I was going to say about that. No, it's okay.
Speaker 2:I'll ask my friend, I get what you're saying. Where do we go next from here? Okay, let me tell you guys about another case that may or may not be connected, but it is something that's brought up, okay. Okay, there's a guy named Lee Hall. He's an employee of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Lawrence Livermore National Lab is on the West Coast in California. Okay, so this guy was an incredibly private guy. He'd been married and divorced twice and he had a son, right, but nobody at his job knew about anything about his life. He seriously only focused on work when he was at work, and they knew nothing about his personal life. The only thing that they really knew was that he liked to hang out at this golf course or whatever. Anyway, another thing that's wild. They did some research into this guy, lee Hall, and they found he had no phone, outgoing phone calls, personal or personal emails for years.
Speaker 3:That's a little weird.
Speaker 2:I know Dude didn't order food or anything. What's more, his son, michael, who was a real estate developer that lived in Oregon, he was like ignoring calls from his son. Huh, I don't know why, but anyway. So in 1998, lee Hall and this is, by the way, from the Unresolved podcast, this information just shouting out my source here so this guy, lee Hall, who's part of a team at the lab, and they discovered a flaw with the project that they were working on, and this was like a very large scale project. The purpose was to achieve nuclear fusion. It had to do with a laser alignment or something, but anyway, this equipment they were dealing with was really, really expensive. So any fixes that were required, any mistakes, could potentially cost a lot of money, like, I'm talking, millions of dollars. The project was over budget. There was a lot of pressure coming down on them to get results from the project. So, basically, this guy Lee Hall's concerns, they fell on deaf ears. But eventually, in 1999, the fix for this, whatever error that Lee Hall was recommending, ended up being approved, and the fix was going to cost around $1 million Around. This time also, he received a pay raise. Oh good, ok. So about a month later though, which is not good.
Speaker 2:On October 20, 1999, lee fails to show up for work, and so some of his coworkers. Long story short, some of his coworkers show up at his house. They find that the gate to his house had been left wide open and the door was unlocked, and apparently this Lee guy was incredibly diligent about keeping things in order till they thought that was weird. They eventually find Lee's body lying face down on his bedroom floor. Oh, at a very first glance it looks like he's just had fallen or something, but basically they discovered that he had been brutally beaten and stabbed. Oh, but the house showed no sign of struggle, other than the fact, like the gate and all that was left open, nothing was disturbed. So they theorize, maybe that this guy or that Lee knew whoever it was. Yeah, ok, why is this related to Al Kite? Well, al Kite actually worked at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory at the same time as Lee Hall. Oh, and similarly, lee's vehicle was found a block away from his home, just like Al's would be found five years later.
Speaker 3:That is weird. And why were their cars found so close to the home? I find that kind of strange. Why would the killer drive it a block or a block and a half away and leave it there? Well for Al, you mean For either one of them? Well for.
Speaker 2:Al. So the guy drove to the ATM in Al's vehicle. Oh and then left it near the ATM. No Well he drove it back Because what happened was he took the keys back to Al's house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but why didn't he just leave the car at the house, like, why did he abandon it just a block away?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I mean maybe to throw investigators off even more. I don't know. Well that's a good question.
Speaker 3:Or maybe it's easier to be sneaky if you're walking instead of driving a car into a driveway.
Speaker 6:Maybe that's where they parked their car.
Speaker 3:Oh, maybe, oh, and then they did something. Yeah, they would have had to get away somehow.
Speaker 6:They would have owned back to the house.
Speaker 3:That's a good point. That might be.
Speaker 2:You know what else this reminds me of? Has anyone heard of the case of Lindsay Booziak? No, I know you might have Amber.
Speaker 6:Didn't we? Maybe we didn't do a podcast about it, but that's what she's the real estate agent, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Lindsay Booziak, she was a real estate agent, just real briefly. I think we have talked about it, but I don't think we've actually done the podcast on it.
Speaker 2:So she was killed in 2008. And just a very quick summary of what happened. She was fairly new to the real estate world and she got a call from somebody using an accent that wanted to see a particular home that was worth a million dollars. And they called her on her personal cell phone, which she thought was a little odd. But the person said oh, I was referred to you by so and so and this ended up being a friend of hers, right, ok, so she calls this friend, but this friend is like out of the country or something on on some trip and so she can't get ahold of her. But anyway, she sees the million dollars in the commission she's going to get from this sale and she takes it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, long story short, she goes to the viewing, she meets the people it's a couple and she's brutally killed. They stab her like the house At the house Wow, yes, yes. And then they flee. There were witnesses that saw them Like arrive and leave. Oh, but then they anyway. They determine that the phone that was used to call her to set up this appointment was a burner phone that was purchased like a month or so before. So that gives this, is this gives me those kind of vibes.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So before we we talk about like our summaries or our final thoughts, ok, so later in the month of May in 2004. Al Kites remains were sent to his hometown of Halifax, north Carolina. A funeral was held for him on June 2, 2004. Obviously, this was huge for his, his loved ones. They had a really, really difficult time wrapping their heads around this, but he was buried in the church cemetery in his hometown when he still is resting. Oh no, there was one more thing that I need to tell you, and then I'm done. So there was DNA left at the scene. Oh, and, interestingly enough, they were able to create a DNA profile Of what this person could have looked like or where their ancestry could could be, and they did determine that his heritage could be of Eastern European descent. Oh Also and I just found out about this recently, because there was a, there was A show about this, and I think it was David Holes or something Paul Holes- what is a Paul Holes?
Speaker 6:It looked like Paul Holes on that clip.
Speaker 2:That was Paul Holes. God, you're so good.
Speaker 3:Amber.
Speaker 2:Paul Holes, and Paul Holes is someone. He's a cold case investigator or he's a former cold case investigator. Anyway, he did he a show on this case Apparently. The way that and I have a hard time understanding this, but the way that he was hogtied Apparently was very unique and was similar to the way that people in the Turkish Hezbollah Would hogtie people and apparently like a Kurdish Islamic extremist organization that rose to power in Turkey. So I don't know if that has anything to do with it.
Speaker 2:I don't know why this person would target Al. I mean, don't terrorists usually want to like Bragg about their their stuff? Or maybe they thought I'm going to leave enough clues when you guys can tell this was done, but you're never going to catch me, type thing. Anyway, that's the last thing I wanted to say. But they're really hopeful that this DNA profile could lead to something based on ancestry or like they're hoping one day that they'll get a link and they'll be able to find out who did this. But this was 2004. So we're coming up on almost 20 years now, yeah, so anyway, I'll leave that there. I'm having a hard time personally Trying to figure out. It seems like a lot of work For this not to be a personal targeted attack, but then again he was like he was meeting with other renters. So it does land. This guy wanted to kill someone. Yeah, wasn't specifically Al, but he definitely wanted to kill someone.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think it was specifically Al, because I don't. You didn't talk about any potential enemies that he had, but it sounds like, by all accounts, he was a very kind guy. He didn't have any. He's not the type of guy that someone and like to put someone through that level of torture. He'd have to be a pretty terrible guy in some regard Very similar. So I don't think it was personal. I think this guy is just a psychopath who had fantasies about hog tying a man and torturing him. It's just he was seeking out a situation where he could go through with it, and I think this one, like it would be easy enough to lure this guy down into this apartment to do it. He had a girlfriend, but they only decided they were boyfriend, girlfriend on the phone, like the day he was murdered, right.
Speaker 2:Well, it was actually, yeah, in the car on the way to the airport, but then when they? Were talking to each other later it was like oh hi, girlfriend, yeah.
Speaker 3:So the guy who did They've been casually seeing each other. Okay, the guy who did it knew he didn't have an official significant other or wife of any kind, no children, like how old was he? How old would he have been in 2004? Like in his fifties?
Speaker 2:You talking about Al? Yeah, he was 53 years old in 2004.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I wonder if his parents were no, he lost one parent when he was young.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm not sure when he lost his father, or I mean, I think I would assume that I haven't read when his father passed away, or if his father passed away, like he's not mentioned, and his emergency contact was his sister, right? So yes, but, she lived very far away.
Speaker 3:So, like all of this points to, he doesn't have a lot of people in the immediate vicinity he's very close to, so he's someone you know people aren't going to be looking for him immediately.
Speaker 2:Can I show you guys one more clip and then we can be done. I'm just curious.
Speaker 3:I just want to show you this and then also, are you going to show us the rest of that clip you started, yeah.
Speaker 6:That's what I was just going to ask, because no, if something happened, because she started to say like when she talked to him later he was quiet.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm an idiot. That's another detail. That's another detail I left out. Idiot.
Speaker 3:You're really good at editing. We can talk about it now.
Speaker 2:It's fine. So what she was saying basically was she gets cut off. I'm not going to play that clip because it's weird, it like gets cut off at a weird place. But basically what she says is that she called him once when she was on her layover right, yeah, because it wasn't a direct flight, I guess and that's when he sounded like really upbeat and cheery and he was all like you know, hey, girlfriend, or whatever. But she called him again when she landed at her final destination and she said he seemed quiet and not really himself, not like upset, but just quiet. And she says that you know, she didn't want to pry, she didn't know him super well. I mean, she knew him, but like she's like, oh, if there's something wrong, you know he would have said something. So she just kind of dismissed it. But now after the fact she wonders if that guy wasn't there.
Speaker 6:Oh sure.
Speaker 2:And so they're like I read something, a comment somebody put on the video, and they were saying like it may seem extreme, but my husband and I have a like a code word, oh, and she's like, I know it's extreme, but you know, like this is this happened.
Speaker 3:So they have a code. Yeah, probably would never need to use it.
Speaker 6:But yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so. So basically the code is you, you have something with your loved ones where they no questions asked, call the police immediately if you use this phrase. So maybe you guys should do that with your loved ones.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'm kind of thinking it sounds absurd. Yeah, because I mean you probably will never need to use it. Hopefully not, but you never know.
Speaker 2:Anyway, that speculation though, that speculation, whether but can you imagine he's being tortured and you know he picks up this call or whatever, and I don't know. All right, watch this clip, okay.
Speaker 4:A cold-blooded killer poses as a renter. Police say he had no intention of ever living in the home. He killed the homeowner Not for the money. They believe he did it for the thrill.
Speaker 5:It's been 15 years since Al Kite was tortured and brutally murdered, and tonight Liz Jalardi shows us how new technology is bringing new hope to this case. He was just selected by this killer.
Speaker 7:Targeted and then tortured.
Speaker 5:His hands were elaborate, tied to his ankles.
Speaker 7:Stabbed 22 times.
Speaker 5:Kind of stroked almost every time.
Speaker 7:Stories about a crime scene that are just as vivid as the day. Detective Tom Sobieski responded.
Speaker 5:A lot of trauma. The coroner fell dead one after hours.
Speaker 7:Police found Oakley Al Kite Jr in the basement of his Aurora town home on May 22, 2004. He never showed up for work. His girlfriend couldn't believe it when she heard the word murder.
Speaker 4:The first thing I thought of was the roommate.
Speaker 7:It's the first thing investigators thought of too.
Speaker 5:So we knew it was the renter who was probably our suspect and he probably killed him with his own kitchen knives.
Speaker 7:Detectives found those knives in his sink, sitting in bleach, along with a key that Al gave to the renter. Yes, girlfriend Linda Angelopoulos remembers Al taking out an ad in the paper listing his basement for rent and she remembers something odd about a man who looked at the place.
Speaker 4:The night the guy came over, I also came over.
Speaker 7:Al walked in, went to the bathroom and he was gone. Looking back now, she doesn't think the man wanted her to see him.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, I think that's what happened. I mean, he's walking out the door getting him to turn around to say hi, bye or anything. And how long does it take to go to the bathroom and wash your hands?
Speaker 7:That's not all. Investigators found out the renter used the name Robert Cooper, and they found out something else that might make your skin crawl.
Speaker 5:We don't know what selection criteria he used to pick his victim, but we knew he met with Al and he met with some other people. He met with older women. You know different locations, some were houses.
Speaker 7:A hand-picked victim, a brutal killing. They believe it was all planned out. Police say the man showered at the home after the murder, then used Al's car to drive to a nearby ATM where he took out $1,000.
Speaker 4:I'm sure a lot of people think about the way that he died and what he had to go through. For what? For what you know, for the thrill of it. I don't think it was for the $1,000 he took. I think it was for the thrill of it.
Speaker 7:Surveillance video from the ATM was useless. The suspect was wearing a ski mask and surgical gloves.
Speaker 5:We don't think robbery was a motive. We think that the suspect was looking for someone to kill.
Speaker 7:actually, Along the way. The suspect led police astray as they chased cell phone records for a burner phone purchased at 9th and Colorado, a phone that was ultimately left on coal fax, then ended up in the hands of homeless people. But 15 years later, detectives still have hope that DNA found at the murder scene could lead to the suspect, thanks to new technology.
Speaker 5:We have a sketch of where or what we think the suspect may look like from his DNA profile and most recently I've been working with the FBI to have an investigative genealogy unit.
Speaker 7:Through genetic genealogy, they can analyze the suspect's DNA in an attempt to trace his family tree and ultimately find him. It's how investigators in California found the Golden State Killer.
Speaker 5:They're scientists and experts with the FBI can narrow that search down.
Speaker 7:Detective Sobiaski says until that happens, this case is always on his mind.
Speaker 5:I think it's because Al was such a true victim. Everybody said he was a really nice guy.
Speaker 7:A future stolen by a renter turned killer. We're going to find him.
Speaker 4:They're going to find him, I just know it.
Speaker 7:Liz Gilardi Denver, 7.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's horrifying, but I hope that they find him. It does sound promising having DNA of the guy.
Speaker 6:That's what I think too, especially with all of the genealogy used lately.
Speaker 2:I feel like it could be solved oh yeah, I agree, and I hope it is, because, whoever this is, they need to pay for this, because this is just one of the most horrifying things. Just to be tortured and be such a nice human being, that's the end that you come to. I can't even imagine being his girlfriend or his sister or any of his friends. What was the purpose behind this?
Speaker 6:It does sound very much like that is a murder by numbers or whatever that movie where they just wanted to kill somebody just to see if they could get away with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, but when you look at all the effort that was put into this, it's just wild to me and that makes me wonder if there's more cases that are at all similar, because it's been 20 years. I don't think this guy is just sitting around not murdering If he had it in him to go to that extent and torture him that much, and I just don't feel like that type of person is going to be satiated by just one. Well, and maybe there was the other one you said that happened, that was somewhat similar, that was five years prior, okay. But yeah, I just wonder if they have compared to other cases, if there are ones that are in any way similar.
Speaker 2:That's a great point, and if any people listening have any cases that come to mind, I'd be interested to hear about them. But right now nothing comes to mind. I don't think the Lindsey Booziac case is the same sort of thing. I mean, there's something else going on there, that's a whole other thing we could do.
Speaker 3:Because that was a couple. You said it was two people that killed her.
Speaker 2:There were two people. Yeah, that showed up, wow, yeah, and the caller said that they were looking for a place, her and her husband.
Speaker 3:So, Because, except for the fact that there were two of them, it was somewhat similar, somewhat.
Speaker 2:But I have other thoughts on that case. Okay, but that's for another time. We should do that one another time that one's interesting, we can do that one it is. That's another complex one, but I have, I have thoughts about it. So it's similar but different in my opinion.
Speaker 3:Okay, but yeah, this one is so upsetting because I feel like there's just a terrible senseless killer out there who has been free now for 20 plus years.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 3:It's true, and that's terrible.
Speaker 2:But yeah, whoever did this was really smart and really just thought of everything.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if only this person could have used those skills for good. Right, yeah, but sorry to ruin your night, but that's the case of Oki al-Qaith. May he rest in peace.
Speaker 6:Yeah, any final words, it's just confusing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting that he used you mentioned that he used a certain kind of not hog tie style not that's used by a terrorist organization.
Speaker 2:That just happens to be in Eastern Europe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you're right, I don't think this was an act of terrorism, because he would have filmed himself or something Like. Typically, they don't just do this in private.
Speaker 6:All right, Shaka was just like fascinated by that.
Speaker 3:And that was, yeah, maybe it was just very interested in it.
Speaker 2:Okay, check this out. Oxygencom headline was Colorado murder victim linked killed by man linked to Turkish Hezbollah. On May 24th 2004, police in Aurora, colorado, were called to the home of beloved project manager Oki al-Qaith. Kite, a 53 year old divorcee, lived alone just a few miles outside of Denver and was reported missing by coworkers. After you didn't show up to the office that morning, when police centered Kite's townhouse, nothing appeared blah, blah, blah, out of place. Details I've already given you guys.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Quote the bottoms of his feet were up in the air with bindings and they were bruised. The coroner felt the torture went on for several hours. Aurora police detective Tom Sveski told investigator Paul Holes some of the injuries were things I'd never seen before. Sveski continued like a knife into above the eye, into the ears and down through the shoulders. Just a crazy amount of torture. Okay, we talked about the knives and the bleach and the sink. We talked about them stealing money. Blah, blah, blah His alias, background information. I'm just trying to get to the point where they talk about this Hezbollah thing.
Speaker 3:And if he's intrigued by that kind of thing, he's probably seen videos from terrorist organizations and has watched them and is probably trying to copy them because he thinks it's cool or whatever.
Speaker 2:Okay, this isn't funny, but I just this isn't funny but I find this interesting. Holes also consulted with binding expert, like that's a title binding expert. Anyway, I didn't know that was a thing. Lindsay Philpot, an intelligence analyst, julie Quinn, for insight into the binding and torture elements of the case. Because of the way Kite was hogtied, philpot theorized the killer quote could be a sailor of some sort, somebody from the Coast Guard, somebody who's had some experience in wrapping things tightly. Kite was bound around the upper arm, above the elbow and twice above the knee, which seemed unusual to Philpot, since when someone is hogtied the bindings normally quote only go from the wrist to the ankles. As Sebastcky mentioned, the binding method exposed the bottoms of Kite's feet, which were covered in wounds and bruises, to his attacker, While holes had never seen this type of torture in any previous cases.
Speaker 2:Quinn explains there is a form of foot beating called falaka that is common in Turkey quote. It's a way to extract information and also it's basically a beating to maintain compliance. Quinn said Falaka is typically performed with a cane or switch, and in the bleach filled sink at Kite's house the offender also placed a honing rod which is made of steel and used to realign the blades of knives. The honing rod would be very comparable to the instruments they used when they carried out the falaka, quinn told holes. Quinn noted that the way Kite was tied is very specifically linked to a group called the Turkish Hezbollah, adding that hogtying was the organization's quote signature and that its members were known for their torture tactics. The Turkish Hezbollah disbanded in the early 2000s and many of the members were able to flee the region to avoid capture, according to Quinn. And so they linked this guy's the killer's ancestral information to the Balkan region. And then you have the whole thing where somebody said that he had maybe a Romanian accent.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's all very interesting, yeah, yeah. In conclusion, what the hell?
Speaker 3:The guy who said that it sounded like a Romanian accent. Did you say he was very familiar with accents? Yes, so he probably was not faking a Romanian accent, or that guy would have been able to pick up on it.
Speaker 2:Based on the blood test results, meaning his DNA, right the bindings, the torture and the possible Romanian accent, excuse me, whole speculates that Cooper could have been a member of the Turkish Hezbollah who carried out torture on behalf of the group before immigrating to the US. Quote when he moves away from the Turkish Hezbollah, he's now not getting that gratification of torturing somebody and so now he becomes that predator. Al just happened to be the person that he chose, he holds, theorized, and so basically, right now, the police department, they submitted his DNA for genealogy and they've given the results to the FBI and they're trying to work on building a family tree in hopes that they could identify Robert Cooper and I think, like you guys were saying before, that's very possible. Yeah, so that's all I've really got.
Speaker 3:That was a crazy story. It was crazy the events, yeah.
Speaker 6:You said it was going to be crazy, and you did not lie.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I'll just close it out by saying anyone with information about the murder of Al Kite should reach out to Detective Thomas Sveski of the Aurora Police Department, and he can be reached at 303-739-6710. One minute and 43 seconds is dedicated to my number one fan. Thanks, dad, I love you, I miss you. This podcast has been approved by Skipper the Cat, right Skippy.