The Tenant Who Never Exist: The Unsolved Murder "Al" Kite Jr.
He answered an advertisement for a room. He gave a name, an address, and an employer. Almost everything was a lie.
In May 2004, fifty-three-year-old Oakey "Al" Kite Jr. advertised the basement of his Aurora, Colorado, townhouse for rent. A prospective tenant introduced himself as Robert Cooper, claiming he had moved from the East Coast for a new job with Wells Fargo.
Days later, Al failed to arrive at work.
Police entered his home and discovered a carefully controlled crime scene. Al had been bound, tortured, and murdered in the basement he had intended to rent. His wallet, mobile phone, and pickup truck were missing. A masked man was later captured attempting to use Al's debit card while driving the stolen vehicle.
When investigators examined the tenant's application, the identity began to collapse. The employment history was false. The contact information led nowhere. The name Robert Cooper belonged to no traceable renter.
Yet the killer had not disappeared completely.
Witnesses remembered a dark-haired man with a possible limp, cane, and Eastern European accent. DNA survived the attempted cleanup, allowing investigators to create a forensic profile and a possible image of the man behind the alias.
The Tenant Who Never Existed examines the verified evidence, the false identity, the investigation, and the unanswered questions surrounding one of Colorado's most disturbing unsolved murders.
More than two decades later, the suspect still has no confirmed name.
But somewhere, the man who called himself Robert Cooper had a real life, a real history, and a real identity.
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