One Desire From Murder

 We’re smack dab in the Midwest with this episode, visiting the agriculture rich state of Iowa. I read that Iowa has the most pigs in the US and is the top pork producer. However, pigs have nothing to do with this episode. No humans being fed to oinkers like they have been in some previous episodes. We’re specifically in the town of Coralville, Iowa in November of 2014. Andrea Farrington, a 20 year old young woman has just started working at the Coral Ridge Mall as a play-ologist for the Kid’s Museum there. She loves working and playing with the kids and is perfect for the job. She’s bubbly and friendly, she easily laughs which is infectious. The museum she works for also owns and runs the guest welcome center located near the center of the mall right by the food court. That’s where people go for information about the mall or even the town. Andrea often worked that desk frequently, and actually, more so than she did at the kid’s museum. A typical day for her looked like renting out wheelchairs, giving directions and checking in with mall security when issues would crop up. Just about 9 months prior to starting her job at the mall, Andrea had undergone a pretty major surgery. It was a dream surgery for a girl who had suffered a childhood of ridicule and bullying. Andrea had an overbite and an elongated jaw that was pretty extreme and wasn’t something she could hide in any way. The torment she endured from rude comments wasn’t just from kids. Adults were terrible about it as well. When she was in high school, she worked at a convenience store. A man had come in and asked her, “why’d your face like that?” So when Andrea is able to get this operation done in February of 2014, it was truly life-changing. Her appearance was changed dramatically and now, no one would notice that she was different than anyone else. She became confident and felt like she could be her true self without judgement and people were so much nicer to her. The change was shocking for her. Now, while working at the mall, she’s noticed not for being different, but for being so beautiful. She had no shortage of male attention now. At this point, Andrea was living with her boyfriend, but after her surgery, their relationship began to change. Her boyfriend, Connor (he was referred to as Rob in a tv show I watched, but Connor in news articles), had gone to the same high school as her, but I don’t think they dated while in high school. After Andrea’s surgery, it was hard to miss all the dudes checking her out and Connor was becoming more and more jealous and insecure about himself. One such admirer was a security guard who worked the mall named Alex Kozak. He’d stop by the information desk to chat and flirt with Andrea. When she started, he asked if they could swap cell numbers which he said is common for mall workers so that if she needs to get a hold of him quickly for security purposes, that’s the best method. Alex takes advantage of getting the cute young woman’s number for himself and begins sending her many flirty texts, telling her how beautiful she is. The compliments are very flattering for Andrea who had never been treated like this by men in the past. Andrea flirts back some, but with reservation, not reciprocating the pet names he’d been easily casting her way. The two text and chat in a pretty innocent way. Then kinda like a low-key mention in a text, Alex says something about his wife. This caught Andrea off guard of course. He never mentioned being married, but she had told him about her boyfriend. Andrea was a little pissed that he hadn’t said anything before, and she and her friend decide to dig into him a little more to see if he was actually married, or was just making that up for some reason. On social media, they quickly find him and are taken aback by what they see. Indeed, he’s married, with lots of photos of his very recent wedding. But, more shocking to the young women are the many photos of Alex posing with guns and weapons. There were more photos of guns and that kind of thing than family or friends on his facebook. The friend was quick to tell Andrea to get away from this guy, that he’s throwing out some biggie-sized red flags. Alex continues to text Andrea, in his usual flirty way, not seeming to realize that his marriage is a no-go for other relationships. The more Andrea learns about him, the less she wants his attention. She tries to avoid him, but it’s almost impossible to avoid a security guard at the mall when you work there. He soon tracks her down when she’s at the information desk and can’t leave. He tries to reason with Andrea, telling her, I’ve only been married for like, 4 months and it wasn’t really working out, but that’s just as well because he’d rather pursue something with Andrea. Andrea is really sweet and hates confrontation, but she does say that they’re both in relationships and that she would like to be friends instead of pursuing anything at this point. She hopes that gets the point across and she can focus on work. But… on February 14 of 2015, Andrea gets a delivery while working at the museum. Alex has sent her Valentine’s flowers. Andrea is annoyed and tells her mom about it. Her mom tells her, listen, don’t take them home because then Connor will see them and think something is going on. Plus, it might give Alex the confidence to continue to pursue things if he thinks she likes them. But, Andrea is scared to throw them away at work, sure that Alex would see that and be offended. So, she does take them home and as her mom thought, Connor sees them and understandably gets pissed when he finds out they’re from another guy. Andrea assures Connor that she’s not interested in Alex, but this just wore down their already strained relationship. Andrea’s sister comes to visit Andrea at the mall and sees that Andrea is very stressed about the Alex situation. So, she has lunch with Andrea at the mall and convinces her to go down to the salon there and see if she can get in for a makeover to try to help her feel better. While Andrea goes into the salon to ask about an appointment, her sister, Cassie, sits in a massage chair outside of the salon to wait. But when Andrea walks out, Cassie is gone. Andrea is freaked out when she gets a text from Alex saying something like, “I met your sister. She was the one wearing the grey sweater, right?” She gets panicked, thinking that Alex lured Cassie away or something, but just then, Cassie shows up. Now Andrea is worried that Alex is following her around. Andrea is getting more and more creeped out by Alex. She wants to back things up and texts him less, even asking him to back off. Alex just shrugs it off and continues his pursuit of her. She’s frustrated enough at this point, that she goes to Alex’s supervisor for help, telling him that Alex is scaring her and won’t back off. The supervisor tells both Andrea and Alex that they are to stop talking to one another because it is affecting their work. In fact, Alex gets spoken to about it more than once. Andrea’s relieved. She thinks that having a supervisor step in will be the thing that will get through Alex’s brain. Then one day, Alex stops by the welcome center to talk to Andrea like nothing had happened. Alex makes some small talk with her, then asks Andrea if she has any nudes on her phone, trying to grab at it and telling her to send them to him. She says she doesn’t have any as she keeps her phone away from him. He gives her a cold look and tells her, well, if you don’t have nudes, take some and send them to me. Andrea gets pissed and tells him he’s sick as in “gross, leave me the fuck alone.” Alex doesn’t take her reply well. In a joking tone, he tells her to show him the nudes or he’d blow up a car. Though he tried to make it seem like he’s teasing, Andrea has a feeling he’s dead serious. BREAK Andrea is fed up with feeling powerless at work AND at home, so she decides she’s going to make some changes. Her first step is to end her soured relationship with Connor. Andrea was tired of Connor holding her back in a way. Her friends would invite them to parties and get togethers, but Connor would always turn them down. She was fed up with him not wanting to take part in her interests or hang out with her friends. Connor moves out and she makes a goal of being around friends more and enjoying her newfound confidence and independence. For example, Jason Aldean was coming to the area and she and her best friend badly wanted to go. But, when they’re at the mall, researching the tickets, they saw the price of the tickets, neither one could afford them. They’re both bummed, but life goes on. One evening, right after that, Andrea finished up her shift and was heading out to her car in the dark night. She finds an envelope on her windshield. When she opens the envelope, she finds 2 tickets to the Jason Aldean concert along with a note from Alex saying that he’s taking her to the concert. If Andrea wasn’t totally freaked before, this is when she’s terrified. 1 – how did he know they had been talking about going to that concert and 2 – how does he know which car is hers? He must have somehow been hiding nearby them while at the mall, listening in and he must have been following her out to her car at some point. Andrea calls the friend, Sierra, who she’d had concert tickets discussion with and asks her to come to her apartment right away. Sierra is surprised when Andrea has the door locked as she always left it unlocked before. When Andrea let her in, she was frantic and showed Sierra the note and tickets. She was sure he was probably following her home as well. Now Sierra is scared too and decides to stay the night at Andrea’s. Luckily, nothing happens that night. I’m guessing she gave the tickets back to Alex, though she probably should have just gone with Sierra and ignored freaky Alex. I don’t think that would have ended well though. Now, it’s June 12 of 2015 in the early afternoon. Andrea is at work and showing a co-worker and friend named Carla how to run the information desk. Carla knows all about the Alex situation and Andrea is talking with her about it and how concerning it was. While there, Alex comes by, doing his usual attempts at flirting and calling Andrea, “babe.” Andrea snaps at him, telling him not to talk to her again and that she’s interested in someone else. Andrea carries on with her work with Carla and the two are excited to hang out some after work. This is a Friday and the two friends are looking forward to a fun Friday night. It’s now getting closer to evening time and the crowds are picking up as they often do at this popular mall. The young women are still at the information counter working and talking when a loud pop goes off. Carla watches in slow motion as Andrea falls to the ground in front of her and the whole mall erupts in a frenzy. People are running everywhere, not sure where the shot came from, but Carla had tunnel vision, seeing Alex running off after Andrea collapsed. Carla ran for her own life, not sure if Andrea was alive or not, just knowing she needed to get out. Police rushed into the mall, but the shooter couldn’t be located. But, just an hour later, Alex is pulled over in his car. Witnesses had seen him fleeing in a blue Kia and had the Texas plate number. When asked if he knew why he was pulled over, Alex replied, “because I shot someone at the mall.” They asked who he shot and he said, “Andrea Jean Farrington.” At 8:05 that night, Andrea was declared dead. Alex told police he had driven home, got his gun and shot Andrea because she was back-stabbing, blood-sucking and that he was done being strung along. He said that after the shooting, he didn’t feel anything. He didn’t feel remorse, didn’t feel good, just felt nothing. When police asked if he had the chance to say one more thing to Andrea, what would he say; Alex responded that she was right to be afraid of him. After a trial that was just a week and a half, jurors came back after 90 minutes of deliberation, to find Alex Kozak guilty of first degree murder at the age of 23. It carries a sentence of life in prison without parole. One interesting tidbit is that Alex had changed his name from Alexander Winn to Alexander Kozak, taking his wife Kellie’s name when he married her. Sources: Thegazette.com, who13.com, press-citizen.com, thecinemaholic.com, dailymail.co.uk, the killer beside me: never predicted, kcci.com, cbs2iowa.com