I am a somewhat recent transplant to Kansas City, MO, and I stumbled upon the Cold Case Kansas site recently. The first story I read was, for some reason, the entry about Alonzo Brooks. Alonzo disappeared from a party in rural La Cygne, Kansas. His body was found a month later in a spot searched heavily by police. The coroner seems to be very tight lipped about his COD. Local residents suspect that the police are protecting a suspect or suspects. I normally would take this with a grain of salt, but there are several credible-sounding commenters who claim they were at the party posting everything from names to where his body was stored for a month. It's shocking if there's even a hint of truth to what they're saying.
Go go here and read for yourselves:
Cold Case Kansas: The Mysterious Death of Alonzo Brooks
Then come back and let me know what we can do to get this case reopened. A young man should not die for the color of his skin in this day and age.
That comments section you linked is absolutely toxic. There are unsubstantiated and sometimes contradictory rumors flying all around there. The amount of names mentioned as “definitely guilty” on there is troubling, too. There are 3 or 4 names very commonly mentioned, so maybe there is some truth there. But other names were mentioned once here and there, and that’s where it really gets toxic. Rumor mills anywhere are notorious for slandering people. But small town rumor mills can often be among the very worst. That comments section reads like some sort of stereotypical scene from a movie... “my friend’s cousin’s babysitter was at that party, and she saw so and so outside taking to Alonzo, and when he came back in he was sweating and laughing, so he was definitely involved”. Good grief, it’s bad. The last part about all of those comments that is troubling is the threats being made by Alonzo’s friends/acquaintances/family members toward anyone who dares to speak up and say they were at the party that night. I get that they want vengeance for their loved one, and I would too if I were in their shoes. But threatening people and calling them names just because they swear they really don’t know what happened is inappropriate.
I have no doubt that Alonzo was murdered by an individual or a small group of individuals at that party that night. Racism very likely was the foundation for the crime. Alcohol and drugs were the matches that lit the fuse. And I’m sure that there is a decent amount of people who were at that party and who live in that town who have covered up what they know.
But there were reportedly close to 100 people at that party. Not everyone who was there saw something. Most of the witness accounts say that the early stages of the party were mostly harmless, as is usually the case. It’s likely that whatever altercation happened where Alonzo was killed didn’t happen until closer to end of the party in the early morning hours. By then, many people might have left.
After reading numerous news articles about the case, reading the more informed comments from locals, and watching the Unsolved Mysteries episode, here is what I think happened:
- Alonzo’s 3 friends take him to the party for a night of drinking, smoking, and having fun.
- They likely knew there was a chance it could get a bit wild/testy, especially for Alonzo, considering the reputation of the town of LaCygne. But being young adults and wanting to party, they likely dismissed any possible red flags in the name of having fun.
- By the accounts of his friends and some other partygoers, Alonzo was loud and boisterous from the get-go. He was just having fun and not trying to hurt a soul. But it probably got him noticed early on by some really bad individuals. Those individuals might have managed to ignore Alonzo at first, but as the night wore on, alcohol took its effect on both them and Alonzo, and they saw Alonzo having so much fun, they couldn’t contain their anger any longer. Smart-mouthed bigots then turned into violent racists.
- I saw where commenters were blaming the 3 friends who were interviewed in the episode for leaving Alonzo there, with some even suggesting they were involved in his murder. The director of the episode, Marcus A Clarke, even went so far as to call their interviews emotionally detached and even “disturbing” (which I thought was VERY irresponsible of him to say). The 3 friends DEFINITELY messed up when they essentially abandoned Alonzo at that party with rumored racists in attendance over an hour away from his home. But to me (and this is admittedly based just on my own experiences when I was their age), his friends came off to me as having been irresponsible but not culpable in any way. All 3 seemed genuinely upset in their interviews. People in their early 20’s don’t always act in the most responsible of ways, especially when alcohol and drugs are involved. From their interviews, it sounds like they drank a LOT (beers and shots) and smoked some weed as well. They would have been fairly intoxicated. If the first 2 friends got a call to come to another party, they probably would have done so thinking that their other friend would give Alonzo a ride home. And when the 3rd friend went to go buy cigarettes, he and Alonzo were likely both drunk at that point. The farthest he could probably process at that point was “get cigarettes then come right back”. And Alonzo probably thought the same thing - “I’ll stay and party more and he’ll be right back with some smokes”. Both were likely too intoxicated at that point to stop and think of what could go wrong in a hurry. They were having fun. When you’re clear-headed, you’re always thinking about the safety of everyone in your party. When you’re pretty toasted and partying, safety and responsibility go out the window. I’m not saying it excuses them for leaving their friend. But I don’t find what they did criminal or out of the ordinary, considering what was happening. My take was that all 3 came off as very remorseful and almost ashamed they weren’t more responsible that night in looking after their friend. I’m sure they live with that guilt daily.
- As for the murder itself, I’m thinking it was probably fairly straightforward. As the party disbanded or was winding down, the guilty party or parties had finally had too much of Alonzo having fun and maybe even hitting on a white girl (as the show suggested)... not to mention too much alcohol. The murderer(s) likely confronted Alonzo at that point with racial slurs and violence (maybe even jumped him). And Alonzo, having been drinking himself and not willing to put up with the racist bullying, perhaps jawed right back at them. And that was it for him, unfortunately. The killer (or killers) then likely beat Alonzo to death, possibly even strangling him. The murder might have been intentional, or it might have been a drunken brawl carried too far. Either way, they murdered him.
- From there, I do think a cover-up took place. How wide-scale it was, how high up in town it went (if at all), how many people took an active part in it, where Alonzo’s body was hidden or stored... I’m not sure. But I am sure that Alonzo’s murder was much more complex than just a beating and quick body dump with only 1 or 2 people involved.
There are multiple people out there, some in that town and some maybe even out of state, who know exactly what happened and who was involved. And some of those people likely even actively helped the killer or killers get away with it. Apparently some of those people commonly rumored to have been there involved are no longer alive, so maybe the exhumation of Alonzo’s body and the re-opening of the case by different authorities this time will finally help bring Alonzo’s poor family closure and put the guilty parties behind bars.
