"This Was The Worst Crime Scene That I've Ever Seen"

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There is usually something in a victim's past that will shed light into why they became a victim. But in Al Kite's case, cops couldn't find one.

They aren't the words of a rookie officer. When 20-year veteran detective Tom Sobieski arrived on the scene of this homicide on May 24, 2004, he knew he had his hands full. The victim, 53-year-old Al Kite, had been tortured and ultimately stabbed to death. Cops found Kite's body in the basement of his townhouse in Aurora, Colo.

Kite seemed like an unlikely victim of this type of murder. 

"What we initially thought was this person who committed this crime was extremely angry with the victim," Det. Sobieski recalled. 

Kite had no drug problem, no serious debts, and no one seemed to want him dead.  So why did he end up the victim of a brutal killing?

Everyone close to Al Kite, except for one mysterious character, checked out. In the week's leading up to the murder, Kite had been looking for a roommate to help pay his mortgage. Just days before the murder, he'd apparently found a taker, and now, that new tenant was gone. The investigation had an early focus.

Clues Or Red Herring?

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Detective Tom Sobieski is tasked with solving the perfect murder.

Det. Sobieski began tracking down the mysterious roommate.  Early on, Sobieski found a renter's information sheet that showed the roommate was named Robert Cooper.  It gave addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers.  It seemed like all the clues were to going to quickly lead to this killer.

But the more Sobieski learned, the less he knew.  All the information on the sheet was deliberately false.  That told Sobieski two things: first, it told him he was not nearly as far along in the investigation as he originally thought.  But worse, this killer had planned this whole thing out.  He knew cops would be on to him, so he decided to make it as hard as possible to figure out who he was.

The deception continued. Sobieski learned that the killer used Kite's ATM card shortly after the murder. But when he pulled the surveillance stills, all he saw as a man with a mask.  The stills barely showed anything.

The next trail came from cell records. At the crime scene, cops found a handwritten note which said "Robert" and gave a phone number.

It was the killer's phone, and it was still being used. Cops tracked the phone's activity all over Denver. But once again, the killer was one step ahead. Apparently after the murder, the killer left the phone in an area where homeless people hung out.  He did this on purpose so that a homeless person would use the phone, forcing cops to track the wrong person, yet again.

Different To Every Witness

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This is what Robert Cooper looked like to Al Kite's next-door neighbor. She saw this man walk into Kite's home days before the murder.

The paper trail was going nowhere, so Detective Sobieski turned to the few people who'd seen Robert Cooper. One was Al Kite's girlfriend. Though she never saw his face, she did note the man dressed nicely, and more notably, walked with a limp and used a cane.

When Sobieski talked to another woman who'd met Cooper, he was told a different story. This Robert Cooper did not limp but did speak with a Romanian accent.  So now, the question is: which of these clues provide insight into the killer and which were planted by the killer to help him get away with murder?