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Alonzo Brooks and several friends decided, on April 3rd, 2004, to drive close to an hour away to attend a party at a farmhouse in LaCygne, Kansas. All of the close to one hundred party-goers made it home the next day… except for one— Alonzo Brooks. Someone took Alonzo’s life that night. But who? And why?

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Transcript

Introduction & Alonzo Brooks' Disappearance

00:00:00
Speaker
There were many reasons why memories may have been foggy the evening of April 3rd, 2004 at the party being held in the small town of Laceyne, Kansas. First, there was a lot of drinking. And second, with the switch from April 3rd to April 4th, 2004, we had daylight savings. So nailing down exactly what happened in the first place and when it happened in the second were quite hard to determine.
00:00:31
Speaker
Despite those two issues, however, nearly everyone associated with our case this week is convinced that someone out there, if not multiple people, can answer both of those questions, especially since one party goer went missing that night, only to be discovered several weeks later in a creek bed not far from the house where the party had been held. How did he get there? How had he died? And why?
00:01:00
Speaker
Those were questions that got added to the list as ones for which his family now desperately need answers. This is the case of Alonzo Brooks.

Podcast Mission Introduction

00:01:44
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:02:03
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.

Who Was Alonzo Brooks?

00:02:21
Speaker
Alonzo Brooks was born on May 19, 1980, to mother Maria Ramirez and father Billy Brooks Sr., and was of both Hispanic and African American descent. He was also the youngest of five children, having three sisters and one older brother.
00:02:38
Speaker
Though he was raised in Topeka, Kansas, a town of well over 100,000 people, as a young adult, his family had moved to Gardiner, Kansas. While Gardiner is a town of roughly 25,000, it is situated only about 35 minutes southwest of Kansas City, Kansas, a bustling metropolis of half a million.
00:02:57
Speaker
At the time of our case, in April 2004, Alonzo was 23 and was employed as a custodian for countryside maintenance. He was very much a family person, always teasing and having fun. Andrea Cavalier of NBC Dateline interviewed Alonzo's mother, Maria, who remembers of Alonzo, quote,
00:03:17
Speaker
He used to get behind me and just mess my hair up right after I had fixed it up. And I used to get so mad at him. But now when I feel like my hair is being moved by the wind, I figure it's him doing it." End quote.
00:03:32
Speaker
One of his sisters, Felicia Brooks, according to an article from August 28th, 2020 in the Kansas City Magazine, a lonzo called Zoe by his friends and family, was also a neat freak, always making his bed and even ironing his money and his boxers. His mother said to reporter Brian McCauley for Republic Online that he always kept his room clean and he loved both people and animals, which is what had made him a bit of a homebody.
00:04:02
Speaker
But I think the best story about Alonso has to be one told by Angela Ramirez Cox, who runs the Justice for Alonso Facebook group, in that same article. Here's the article, quote, through fits of laughter, they recount how Alonso confidently decided to get a tattoo one afternoon in his mother's house, only to freak out the minute the needle touched his chest.
00:04:26
Speaker
Before he got it, he was like, I'm a man. I got this. I got this. Felicia Brooks says. So the guy comes over, touches him with a needle and Alonzo jumps up and goes, I'm good. The incident left Alonzo with a singular dot on his chest, which he proudly showed off as his tattoo. End quote. I love that story because to me it shows that Alonzo didn't take himself too seriously.
00:04:55
Speaker
So even though Alonso often chose to stay home and spend time with family over going out to parties with friends, the party his friend group were talking about going to on April 3, 2004, must have sounded at least intriguing, because despite the fact that the party wasn't in Gardner, but in the very rural town of Lacey in Kansas,
00:05:16
Speaker
About an hour's drive away, Alonzo hitched a ride with a friend, Justin, and two other friends, Daniel and Tyler, who rode together, made the drive to the party that they'd heard about through someone they knew. It was a going away party for someone who had just recently joined the military and was being held at a house in the country that was being rented by several young men.
00:05:38
Speaker
The town of Lacyne has had a population hovering around 1,000 since the late 1800s. It was just over 1,100 in 2004 and is a rural community with a population that was roughly 97% Caucasian. And I bring this up for a reason you'll hear about here in a few minutes. From my understanding, the home where the party was being held, a farmhouse, was rural.
00:06:03
Speaker
but all of Alonzo's friends and Alonzo himself were

Party Night Events

00:06:06
Speaker
ready to go. Justin remembered he's Alonzo's ride to the party, remembered an Unsolved Mysteries episode about Alonzo's case, watching Alonzo put on his two pair of socks, something he always did.
00:06:19
Speaker
putting on his beanie, and cinching up his boots extra tight. You see, Alonzo had hurt his ankle playing basketball about a week before, so I'm guessing the tight cinching was to keep that ankle more sturdy. Then he and Justin in one car, Daniel and Tyler in another, and from the sound of several sources, though I didn't get any accurate description, perhaps some other friends, drove the nearly 50 miles to the party they'd all heard about.
00:06:47
Speaker
And apparently they weren't the only ones to have heard about the party. According to the Unsolved Mysteries episode covering Alonzo's case, friend Daniel said that there were about six to eight other people from Gardner who had made the drive to the party and that there were roughly 50 people total. It seems that Daniel's estimate might even be a bit conservative. In nearly every source that I read in preparation for covering this case, they mentioned that there were around 100 people in attendance at this farmhouse party.
00:07:16
Speaker
that is a huge crowd given the fact that a hundred people between the ages of 16 and 23 was roughly a tenth of the size of the whole town of Lacyne. The crowd, according to friend Tyler, was more country than what those from Gardner were used to and he recalled seeing a rather large tight-knit hometown crowd at the party. When they first arrived everyone was having fun.
00:07:41
Speaker
It sounds like there were distinct groups of people at the party based upon how they preferred to spend their time other than drinking, which everyone was doing. Some were playing drinking games, others cards, and a few were dancing.
00:07:55
Speaker
During the night, at some point, Daniel recalled leaving Alonzo's side only to turn back around to see Alonzo face-to-face with someone not from the Gardner crowd. It was getting heated and seemed like it was about to get physical before Daniel stepped in between them. While he recalled racial slurs being made at Alonzo, remember that Lacyne was 97% Caucasian. In fact, Alonzo was one of only three people of color in attendance.
00:08:23
Speaker
Daniel felt that he was able to de-escalate the situation because of two-parted ways and he didn't note in my research any additional confrontations.
00:08:33
Speaker
However, with that being said, none of Alonzo's friends were with him the entire night. After only having been at the party for about an hour to an hour and a half, Daniel and Tyler had gotten a call about another party, and the two, saying goodbye to Justin and Alonzo and the others from Gardner, had left around, as Tyler says in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, 11 p.m.
00:08:56
Speaker
Justin, too, left Alonzo at the party. Justin recalled that he had stepped outside to smoke only to realize that he didn't have any more cigarettes. He then said that he went inside to bum one off of Alonzo, but that Alonzo didn't have any left either. He said that he told Alonzo he was going to go to a gas station to buy more and then would be back. However, Justin never returned to the party.
00:09:21
Speaker
As Justin has reported in several sources, he said he got lost on the way to the gas station. Remember that this party was in a rural area that was far from their home of Gardiner, Kansas. Justin stated that he should have turned left,

The Search Begins

00:09:36
Speaker
but had turned right instead. Then he says his car got stuck down a gravel road and that he, quote, ended up 30 minutes north of where I was supposed to be, end quote.
00:09:48
Speaker
Since he was such a distance away, rather than going back to the party to get Alonso and then leaving, Justin says he called another friend who was at the party named Adam and asked if he could drive Alonso home. You see Daniel and Tyler left thinking that Justin would drive Alonso home since Justin was the one who brought him to the party. Justin says he called Adam to drive Alonso home.
00:10:13
Speaker
since after his misdirection ordeal, he had decided not to go back. In the Unsolved Mysteries episode, Justin recalled how he could hear Alonzo in the background of his phone call with Adam, poking fun and giving him a hard time for getting lost. After the phone call, surveillance footage shows Justin and another passenger stop at a gas station and get $200 out of an ATM. They then went to a strip club
00:10:40
Speaker
We know this because they were subsequently kicked out of that strip club. Meanwhile, at the party in Lacyne, Adam left without Alonzo, meaning Alonzo was in a town an hour away from home with no ride. In the Unsolved Mysteries episode, Adam doesn't appear. Rather, we hear Justin say of Adam leaving that Adam, quote, believed he had already missed him, end quote, meaning Alonzo.
00:11:08
Speaker
or thought that Alonzo had already left. Justin concludes of that topic, quote, how they didn't get together, I'm not sure, end quote. I have to pause here to say that I'm not sure either. I didn't see a statement from Adam on the episode, nor in any of my research. On the surface, I wonder,
00:11:31
Speaker
If Justin called Adam and heard Alonzo in the background, then that means that Alonzo could hear the conversation between Adam and Justin. How else would Alonzo have known to pick at Justin for getting lost? But if that's the case, wouldn't he have also heard that Justin asked Adam to drive him home? And if Alonzo was close enough to be heard on the phone poking fun at Justin, wouldn't Adam have known that Alonzo was right there and not
00:12:00
Speaker
believe he had missed him. And knowing you're an hour away from home and that you've been asked to drive someone else home, wouldn't you make sure that you knew who had taken Alonzo, especially if you couldn't find him? But then I always try to play devil's advocate. They had been drinking a lot. What if Adam forgot?
00:12:23
Speaker
I don't know how much time had passed between the phone call, exchange between Adam and Justin, when Justin asked Adam to drive Alonso, and when Adam left the party. It may have been hours, and maybe by the time Adam went looking for Alonso, something may have already happened to him, and that's why Adam couldn't find him.
00:12:44
Speaker
He really may have been nowhere in sight and others at the party have said that someone else gave him a ride. I don't want to place blame because I don't know the circumstances. Regardless, the next morning, one of Alonzo's friends called Alonzo's mother to make sure that he had made it home safely.
00:13:04
Speaker
Alonzo hadn't come home at all the night before. The friends suggested that perhaps Alonzo had stayed the night with another friend. But Alonzo's mom knew right away that her homebody son would never have done that. She knew something was wrong.

Discovery of Belongings

00:13:20
Speaker
She immediately contacted the Lynn County Sheriff's Department, but sadly, and like so many cases we've covered, was told to wait 48 hours before filing a report and was reassured that he would likely return in that time. And he was probably just, quote, walking around, end quote.
00:13:39
Speaker
But Maria Ramirez knew her son better than that. So did his entire family. If he were physically able to do so, he would already be home. The family organized to go searching for Alonzo and called Alonzo's friends, both those who had gone to the party, the group from Gardner, and Alonzo's best friend from childhood, whom he had grown up with in Topeka, Rodney English.
00:14:04
Speaker
Since Rodney wasn't from Gardner, he hadn't met several of Alonzo's friends there until they began searching for Alonzo. And since Rodney wasn't at the party the night before, he also had to rely on Alonzo's friends to get him to the house and lay seen where the party had been held. Rodney rode with Justin. When they got to the location, they began looking around the area, both the drive to the house and along the main road where the driveway met it.
00:14:30
Speaker
It was on one side of the road that Rodney found one of Alonzo's boots and the beanie that he always wore. On the other side of the road, near a creek bank, Rodney said he found the other boot. He too now knew that something was terribly wrong. If Alonzo didn't have a ride and had begun walking, he certainly would not have taken off his boots. That meant that he wasn't just, quote, walking around.
00:15:02
Speaker
always had on as beanie. I do have to mention here a detail described in a handful of sources I researched as well. They gave an alternative account of how the boots were found. The alternate account states that Alonzo's beanie alone was on one side of the road, but that the boots were together, lined up, and pointing toward a creek. Either version, why Alonzo wasn't wearing them, created grave concern. Then there was the house itself.
00:15:24
Speaker
as law enforcement had suggested.
00:15:33
Speaker
When Alonzo's sister Cindy looked in the windows of the house where the party was held, she told the producers of Unsolved Mysteries it looked empty. Most definitely not like there had just been a party there. It was a rented house, so where were the renters? How had they cleaned everything up so quickly? And where had her brother gone? The only theory Rodney could come up with
00:15:58
Speaker
was that someone had thrown Alonzo's items out of a vehicle as it had turned onto the main road from the farmhouse. But that also meant they had purposefully thrown items from both sides of the car. And what had happened to Alonzo that someone else would have his belongings? It clearly wouldn't have been Alonzo himself who had thrown them out. As Rodney was contemplating these questions,
00:16:23
Speaker
Someone on a four-wheeler rode up to Alonzo's friends and told them that they had to leave and couldn't be on the property. Feeling unsafe themselves, they listened.
00:16:36
Speaker
Meanwhile, the police began their investigation. On April 4th, 2004, law enforcement made, quote, negative contact, end quote, in locating Alonzo, which basically just means that they didn't see nor hear any sign of him. By April 7th, the case was turned over to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, who took the search a step further, going over the property in question and the creek behind it, not only with a search party, but also with scent dogs.
00:17:06
Speaker
Three days later, on April 10th, the FBI joined in the search as well, and underwater rescue teams continued searching the creek on April 12th, spreading a group of investigators all along the three-foot deep creek and found no sign of Alonzo.
00:17:24
Speaker
From the moment the missing person report was filed, Alonzo's family asked to be able to join in the search for Alonzo, but they were not allowed to do so. Until finally, on May 1st, when Alonzo had been missing for nearly a month with no new clues, the family received a call that they could search the property if they would like.

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Finding Alonzo's Body

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00:19:49
Speaker
Though multiple searches of the property by law enforcement had yielded no results. Within an hour and a half of the family searching for Alonzo on the property, they found his remains tangled in some branches in the creek, about 600 feet from the house where the party had been. Billy Brook Senior, Alonzo's father, recalled to reporter Andrea Cavalier of that day, quote, my God, it was awful. Billy Brook Senior told Dateline to find my boy like that.
00:20:19
Speaker
Nothing can describe the pain. Billy said that during their search that day, the skies had been overcast and threatened rain. But when they found Alonzo's body, the skies cleared and the sun came out. It was like my boy was telling me everything was okay now, Billy said. At least we found him. It wasn't how we wanted to find him, but at least we did, end quote.
00:20:45
Speaker
Many wonder how the family found Alonzo so quickly when law enforcement couldn't. Alonzo's brother, Billy Jr., believes it was purposeful. He wondered aloud in the Unsolved Mysteries episode whether the sheriff had mentioned the search to someone. Anyone who, now knowing the family would be there, had moved Alonzo's body to the spot where it was found, just so the family would be the ones to find it.
00:21:12
Speaker
To Billy's credit, in an interview at the time, Sheriff Steich stated, quote, his body was absolutely not where it is now at the time of law enforcement was there, end quote. And even though the creek water levels had come down enough so that the family could see the bottom when they were out looking, the searchers from the underwater rescue team also said that if his body had been present during their search, they would have found him.
00:21:38
Speaker
So you can see why Alonzo's brother Billy believed strongly that Alonzo was placed in the creek after law enforcement's last search. When an autopsy was completed by Dr. Eric Mitchell, he surmised that Alonzo's body could have floated downstream when the creek had risen, which it had done at least three times in the course of the month in which Alonzo had been missing. But that was about all the coroner was willing to make a conjecture about.
00:22:06
Speaker
certainly not on a cause or manner of death, both of which, he marked as undetermined. Alonso had been missing his shoes and beanie, but otherwise had been fully clothed. He also still wore a ring and had on him his wallet with money in it. That showed robbery hadn't been a motive.
00:22:27
Speaker
Additionally, he had no, quote unquote, penetrating injuries, meaning no stab wounds and no gunshot wounds. He also didn't have any broken bones to indicate that he had been in a fight for his life. It also didn't appear as though he had stumbled out to the creek and drowned because there wasn't any water in his lungs.
00:22:47
Speaker
So what had happened to Alonso? Here's what the coroner said to Unsolved Mysteries, quote, could he have drowned? Yes, but there are no specific anatomic signs to make a determination of drowning.
00:23:01
Speaker
Could he be strangled? Certainly. The soft tissues of the neck are gone. They've been damaged by animals and insects, so there's nothing there that allows me to make a determination that he was or was not strangled." It was the coroner's belief that Alonzo had been in the water since the night in question, as he said the body was consistent with being in a creek for 30 days.

Investigation and Theories

00:23:25
Speaker
And the coroner isn't convinced of foul play because he added,
00:23:30
Speaker
moving a dead body is not convenient." For that reason, he believed it to be highly improbable that someone had moved the body. Alonzo's family couldn't disagree more. There were other reasons that his family don't believe that the coroner is correct and refuse to believe that Alonzo had been in the water for a whole month.
00:23:52
Speaker
First and foremost for them was the state of Alonzo's body. His brother Billy recalled in several sources that Alonzo's complexion looked normal and he was not bloated as one would imagine a body would be after having been submerged in water for that extended period of time. Most convincing to me, though, is something Alonzo's mom showed producers of unsolved mysteries, that the papers Alonzo had in his billfold, money and paperwork,
00:24:21
Speaker
were not only still intact, but could even still be unfolded and read. For those of us who have ever accidentally washed a piece of paper in the pocket of a jacket or pants, you know how unlikely it is that the papers would still be in such good condition had they been submerged in water for nearly 30 days.
00:24:41
Speaker
The family wondered if Alonzo's body had been kept somewhere else over the course of that month and in a condition that would have led to the preservation, something like a freezer or a meat locker. That was the only explanation that made any sense to them when overall there was so much in Alonzo's case that didn't make any sense.
00:25:02
Speaker
Despite those suspicious details, according to an article in the Kansas City Magazine published August 28, 2020, Alonzo's investigation was ruled a cold case after only a little over a month had passed. Alonzo's brother Billy said in that same report, quote, I went up to KBI headquarters in Ottawa and talked with an agent there. He said, we don't have any more information. The FBI has picked it up and they were basically off the case, end quote.
00:25:31
Speaker
Hearing that news was obviously a blow to the family and to any hope that they had of getting answers or of getting justice.
00:25:40
Speaker
Unfortunately, even though the police interviewed many people the next day and gave several polygraphs to those who didn't immediately hire a lawyer, years passed with no solid leads in terms of who may have been involved in Alonzo's death. An article by R. Luther Lee published on April 6th, 2021, reported that while there were around 100 people at the farmhouse party Alonzo had attended, quote, in later interviews with authorities, no one at the party appeared to know
00:26:09
Speaker
admit what happened to him." Within days of the party there had been rumors though of a racially motivated attack. There were people who said they saw Alonzo running or sprinting away from the farmhouse where the party had been held. Something that would have been extremely difficult and extremely painful for Alonzo to do with a sprained ankle.
00:26:32
Speaker
That rumor indicated that it was either a lie that people had seen him running or that Alonzo had been in extreme danger. There were also rumors of the involvement of a particular family in any suspected attack.
00:26:47
Speaker
Rumors of Alonzo flirting with a girl at the party and someone getting angry. Rumors of Alonzo swimming in the creek. Rumors of two young men who had been overheard saying they were going to attack Alonzo because of the color of his skin. And rumors that named one out of town party goer who was said to have been the one to pick a fight with Alonzo, who refused to talk to law enforcement. They were so
00:27:10
Speaker
many rumors. However, although there were plenty of rumors, those rumors couldn't be substantiated into anything concrete to follow up on. So in March 2019, Alonzo's family received a letter from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation that since they hadn't gained enough information that Alonzo was indeed the victim of a crime,
00:27:34
Speaker
They were closing the investigation into his death. His family was in shock again. There had been no water in his lungs to show his death was an accident. His shoes had ended up on the side of the road while his body had been found across a field and in a creek on the opposite side of the farmhouse. And what's more, not a single person from the party could recall any details that would indicate what had happened to Alonzo.
00:27:59
Speaker
No one and yet law enforcement seemed content to say that because no one was speaking that his death wasn't the result of foul play. It made many feel that law enforcement felt that Alonzo's case wasn't, quote unquote, worthy to continue investigating. After all, they had been told of a racially motivated altercation earlier in the evening.
00:28:25
Speaker
Do you really think something like that just happens and then everyone forgets about it? If anything, alcohol exacerbates problems. It doesn't fix them. So how could they say that they didn't have any information to indicate that Alonzo's death was indeed the result of a crime? Keeping Hope alive for future answers for the family, the FBI has since reopened the investigation in June 2020.
00:28:54
Speaker
and in July 2020, Alonzo's body was exhumed and a second autopsy was performed at Dover Air Force Base. This examiner concluded that Alonzo's death was homicide.
00:29:08
Speaker
According to the NBC News article titled New Autopsy Report Reveals 2004 Death of Alonzo Brooks was a homicide 17 years after his body was found in a creek in rural Kansas by Andrea Cavalier and published on April 5, 2021, quote, We knew
00:29:25
Speaker
that Alonzo Brooks died under very suspicious circumstances," said acting U.S. Attorney Dustin Slinkard. This new examination by a team of the world's best forensic pathologists and experts establishes it was no accident. Alonzo Brooks was killed. We are doing everything we can and will spare no resource to bring those responsible to justice.
00:29:48
Speaker
According to the release, the new autopsy focuses on injuries to parts of Alonzo's body that the examiner concluded are inconsistent with normal patterns of decomposition. Details of the examination are being withheld for investigative purposes." On July 1, 2020, right around the time that Alonzo's body was being exhumed,
00:30:11
Speaker
His case aired as an episode of Unsolved Mysteries called No Ride Home. Just after the airing, at least 20 tips that were deemed credible came in. By November, US Attorney Stephen McAllister gave an update on Alonzo's case to say that they had learned that there had been another party that night, less than two miles away from the farmhouse party Alonzo and his friends attended. There have been reports of a fight at the other party and in McAllister's words, quote,
00:30:41
Speaker
a lot of rather violent and aggressive partiers," end quote. After that fight ended, came to the party Alonzo attended. These tips, of course, supported many of the rumors and theories surrounding Alonzo's case. Among those theories were stories that Alonzo had been flirting with a girl at the party and that, according to an FBI release referenced in Brian McCauley's article for Republic Online, quote, some said drunken white men wanted to fight an African-American male
00:31:11
Speaker
And some said racist whites simply resented Alonzo's presence, according to the release, end quote. That theory does make sense given the fact that Alonzo's friend Daniel recalled the near altercation when racial slurs were hurled at Alonzo. Unfortunately, hate speech could only be circumstantial when talking about the crime of murder. It is this theory that the majority of his family believed to be true, though.
00:31:39
Speaker
and just pray that someone has the strength to come forward, to share information, to support what they already believe. Alonzo's mother told Dateline, quote, I'm Mexican and his father's black, so he's mixed.

FBI Reopens the Case

00:31:53
Speaker
They didn't just target one race or kill one race. They killed two. He was targeted because of the color of his skin, end quote. But there were other theories as well, including that brothers of a particular family attended the party
00:32:09
Speaker
were responsible for Alonzo's death since it was their sister who was said to have been the girl Alonzo was flirting with at the party. Again, these are unsubstantiated rumors that have been bolstered by other rumors that law enforcement didn't dig too deeply because of another family member being a city council member. Still others place blame on Alonzo's friend Justin Sprogs.
00:32:32
Speaker
Many, including Alonzo's mother and his childhood friend Rodney, have been publicly vocal about the fact that they feel Justin's story of that night has changed too many times for them to feel like they can completely trust his version of events. According to friend Rodney, when he and Justin drove to Lacyne to search for Alonzo the next day, quote,
00:32:53
Speaker
He didn't say anything about getting lost. He said his car had broken down and he had to fix it on the side of the road. It was something that you couldn't even fix like that by yourself in the dark, like a broken axle or something." In an article by Laura Collins published August 7, 2020, someone close to Justin responded to those comments, as well as the criticism leveled at Justin after the airing of the Unsolved Mysteries episode.
00:33:19
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arguing that due to time constraints of the episode, much of what Justin had said to Unsolved Mysteries producers was cut from the final version. Here's what the friend told Collins, quote, Justin doesn't know why Rodney is saying what he's saying, but memory is a strange thing. And he doesn't think Rodney's lying so much as that he just remembers bits of the story. His car breaking down has always been part of it as well as him getting lost.
00:33:48
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It's what he told the cops and the FBI repeatedly down through the years. It's on the original police report. The version on Netflix is very misleading, and he gets why people think it doesn't make much sense. The truth is, Justin wasn't even alone in the car that night when he left, and his story is backed up by surveillance cameras and phone records. According to the source, Sprog did leave the party to go and get cigarettes, but did so with another friend. He was 18 years old, drunk and high.
00:34:18
Speaker
They got lost, plowed their car into a ditch, and abandoned all plans of returning that night. Sprague had just enlisted and feared a DUI might end his army career before it began. DailyMail.com has been told that telephone records support Sprague's claim that he called Adam. And while internet rumors questioning the existence of this friend abound, he was one of the friends who hung out at Brooks' house earlier that day, end quote.
00:34:48
Speaker
to play devil's advocate to those who place blame on Justin. According to some reports, Justin and the other friends from Gardner had been drinking all day long before even going to the party and that when he was at the party in Lacyne, he was not only drunk, but as that last report indicated, high as well. Obviously those things will mess with anyone's memory. And when Justin was asked for comment by DailyMail.com, he responded with what seems to me to be true remorse.
00:35:18
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saying, quote, it's my fault. I left him. I don't have any right to be angry about anything his family feels about me. And regardless of how Netflix portrayed it and the truth not being shown 100%, that doesn't matter either. Regardless of the death threats and all the BS, the fact of the matter is that it gets this back out into the public eye, which will eventually get it solved. Nothing else matters besides getting Zoe and his family the justice they deserve.
00:35:48
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I don't know about useless hounds, but I personally would like to know what was said or recalled by the ones who were renting the house. Everyone else could have left, but they would have stayed. Who else stayed? What details did they witness? How soon afterward were they evicted? And for what reason? Regardless of what happened to Alonzo Brooks,
00:36:13
Speaker
There also seems to be, across much of the research, a belief that law enforcement in the initial investigation were not thorough. In fact, much of the time, tips concerning Alonzo's case were not given directly to law enforcement, became much more commonly through comments made on news reports, blog posts, and on the Unsolved Mysteries segment about Alonzo's case. Why? Well, Susan Schmidt, a blogger on Cold Case, Kansas,
00:36:41
Speaker
said on Reddit that after posting about the case in September 2010, she received many comments on her blog post from individuals who seemed to her to have intimate knowledge of what happened that night, but who wished to remain anonymous. She wrote, quote, for some reason they felt like the law enforcement around the town was holding back on the investigation, so they wanted to go to somebody else, end quote. Despite whether there's any truth to that statement,
00:37:10
Speaker
Perception does matter in these cases. Luckily for the Brooks family, with other agencies involved now, hopefully that perception is beginning to change. There have been many reports that the authorities now seem to have a new lead. Laura Collins' article for the Daily Mail makes note of such a report that was provided by a source involved in the original investigation, saying, quote, they are convinced that when all is said and done, the answer will come out of the north.
00:37:40
Speaker
They continued, it's not in lay scene. It's with someone who came from out of town that night. Someone out there is looking over their shoulder and they have been for a very long time." End quote. Is this comment related to the original rumor of the out of towner who had picked a fight with Alonzo and then had refused to cooperate with law enforcement? I have no doubt that there are those out there who can answer that question.
00:38:09
Speaker
U.S. Attorney for Kansas, Steve McAllister, told reporters for Fox 4 KC in the article, Mystery of Middle Creek, authorities on a mission to discover what happened to Alonzo Brooks, quote, something happened to him and somebody, my guess is plural, some buddies, know what happened, end quote. McAllister, who has joined with the FBI in the new look into Alonzo's case,
00:38:33
Speaker
has felt a personal connection, as he went on to mention in that same article, quote, I also have five children of my own that kind of bookend the age of the victim in this case. And I can only imagine the trauma and hurt for the family all these years not knowing what happened to their son or brother or nephew, end quote. The FBI's lead agent in the case, Lena Ramona, spoke of her optimism for finding answers despite so many years having passed
00:39:02
Speaker
when she was interviewed by Luke Martin of KCUR 89.3 saying, quote, the witnesses then have grown up, they've moved on, whether that's moved on from the situation or just grown up in life. That time and distance sometimes allows for people who may have been nervous or too young to know to come forward back then.
00:39:21
Speaker
opportunity to come to us now." Special Agent Romana wants anyone who has information concerning either of the parties that night to come forward now, even if you've already done so years ago. Romana told KCTV, quote, we want everybody who was there that night to come forward and let us know because we found after speaking to somebody who thinks that they don't have any information about their presence there that night that
00:39:48
Speaker
Either they provided information that's new or they corroborated things we already knew." Either way, you are important. Of her loss, Alonzo's mother, Maria Ramirez, told Dateline, quote, we missed out on his whole life. Someone took that away from us and someone or several people know what happened to him.
00:40:12
Speaker
We just want to know. He's my baby, and I can't protect him anymore, but I can do this. I can find out what happened. I can get justice for him." Anyone with information concerning Alonzo Brooks' case is asked to either submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov or to call the FBI at 816-512

Conclusion & Call to Action

00:40:41
Speaker
-816.
00:40:41
Speaker
or at 816-474-TIPS where you can leave a tip anonymously.
00:40:51
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
00:41:21
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.
00:41:45
Speaker
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