GREELEY, Colo. -- A woman who dated a Northern Colorado
backup punter accused of trying to kill the starter testified
Monday she lied to police at his request.
At first, Angela Vogel told police that Mitch Cozad was with her
at the time starter Rafael Mendoza was stabbed, but she said she
quickly regretted that lie and 15 minutes later told investigators
Cozad had left for part of the evening.
Cozad, of Wheatland, Wyo., is on trial on charges of attempted
first-degree murder and second-degree assault in the Mendoza
stabbing last Sept. 11. Police and prosecutors have alleged Cozad
attacked Mendoza in a bid to get the starter's job.
Vogel said Cozad led her to believe a player had been jumped by
a group of people, and she didn't learn Mendoza had been stabbed
until police interviewed her the next day.
"I didn't know what was going on," she said. "I was lying to
the cops."
Mendoza was attacked in the parking lot of his apartment complex
in Evans, a small town adjacent to Greeley. He was left with a deep
gash in his kicking leg but later returned to the team. He
testified he could not see who attacked him.
The trial entered its second week Monday. Prosecutors said they
plan to wrap up Tuesday, and the case is expected to go to the jury
later in the week.
Vogel said she and Cozad were together in the early part of the
evening of Sept. 11, but he got a phone call and said he had to
leave.
It wasn't clear when that call came, but at 10:06 p.m., Cozad
called and they met up again, later going out for tacos, she said.
Police have said Mendoza was stabbed at about 9:30 p.m.
When police interviewed her on campus on Sept. 12, Vogel said:
"I did what Mitch told me to, (told officers) that we were
together, and I didn't say we went out for tacos."
Later, she said: "I went back to my dorm room and broke down. I
was like, 'Oh my God, what did I just do?"
She said she sought out police on her own to change her story
and ran into detectives in the elevator on the way to meet them.
She said the decision to talk again was "kind of mutual.
"They were finding holes in my story, and I said 'I'm coming
clean," she said.
During cross-examination by defense attorney Joseph Gavaldon,
Vogel said she got scared when police accused her of being with
Cozad on a crosstown trip to Mendoza's apartment the night of the
stabbing.
"They started treating you as a suspect," Gavaldon said.
"Yes, they did," she replied.
Vogel also said that when she and Cozad went for tacos on the
night of Sept. 11, the subject of his serious relationship with a
girl in Wyoming came up. Cozad asked if they could still be friends
if he did not break up with the Wyoming girl, and Vogel said no,
she testified.
"I don't think you can be friends with someone you have such
strong feelings for," she said. "I cared for Mitch very, very
much."
Prosecutors showed a series of text messages they said Cozad
sent Vogel on Sept. 12 and 13. They included:
-- "We were not apart between 8 and 12."
-- "Please be strong for me did u say we got food?"
-- "U can stop all of this."
When the prosecutor asked Vogel if Cozad ever spoke to her about
stabbing someone, she said he once asked her, "What would you
think would hurt the most, getting hit by a car, getting beat by a
baseball bat or getting stabbed?"
"I thought it was very strange," she said.
She also talked about how a week before the stabbing, Cozad
arrived at her dorm room dressed in black -- crying, anxious and
frustrated.
"He talked about if his numbers kept increasing he could go
pro, (and) the coaches were taking that away from him," she said.
"He told me he got to be a ninja that night," Vogel added.
"'Oh my God, what I almost did tonight.' I thought he was
suicidal."
Evans Police Detective George Roosevelt testified earlier Monday
that he found a black hooded sweat shirt in Cozad's dorm room hours
after the stabbing. Roosevelt said he accompanied Cozad to his dorm
room and looked around with Cozad's permission. Former detective
Angela Quinn testified last week that another black hooded sweat
shirt with white stripes on the sleeves was found in a later search
of Cozad's room.
Mendoza has said his attacker was dressed in a black hooded
sweat shirt cinched up around the face so only the eyes were
visible.
In other testimony Monday, Leo Carrillo, who was Evans interim
police chief at the time, described finding a black-handled knife
with a 5-inch blade beside a road on Oct. 2. Carrillo has since
retired. And Scott Pratt, a fingerprint specialist for the Colorado
Bureau of Investigation, testified he could not find any usable
prints on it.
Before adjourning for the day, the prosecution played a
44-minute video of Cozad's interview with Roosevelt that took place
in the early morning hours of Sept. 12.
Roosevelt asked Cozad if he knew anybody who would do something
like that to Mendoza.
"No, sir," Cozad answered.
Roosevelt drummed his pen against the table and asked him,
"Pretty odd, huh?"
Cozad replied, "Yes, sir."
Cozad told police his mother had called him from Wyoming and
told him police were asking about his car, which Cozad that night
told police had been stolen.
Later in the interview, Roosevelt mentioned to Cozad that his
car was stolen on the same night a teammate got stabbed.
"As shady as it looks, that's (a) coincidence," Cozad said.
"It makes me sick to my stomach the way it looks like that."