LA CYGNE, Kan. (KCTV) – Esperanza Roberts is used to talking about her brother. In the 20 years since he was found dead, his story has been featured on Dateline and Unsolved Mysteries. Despite all the telling and retelling he is still suffocating.

“It’s been 20 years and it still hurts like it was yesterday,” Roberts said. “Alonzo missed a lot, you know? He missed the opportunity to live a life. We miss seeing that.”

His brother Alonzo Brooks was last seen at a large house party in La Cygne, Kansas, in April 2004. Alonzo was 23 years old. A series of strange developments followed.

The search carried out by the police forces came up empty. About a month later, his family found him dead in the same area. How can this happen? The cause of death was unknown for years. In 2020, 16 years after his death, his body was exhumed and a new autopsy classified his death as a homicide. The FBI is investigating the incident as a hate crime. Four years ago, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. remains unattended

A PLAYING AND HOT YOUNG MAN

Alonzo Brooks was the youngest of five children. His brother was the eldest. There were three girls in the middle. Roberts remembers him as a kid who always wanted to be around.

“(He) followed us wherever and whenever we went. As per our mother and father, we had to take him everywhere we went,” Roberts recalled with a laugh.

As he grew up, he became his children’s fun uncle and often helped babysit. Roberts occasionally chuckled and said he was a bad uncle who enforced rules like bedtime.

“(He was) a jokester, loved to joke,” Roberts described.

Alonzo grew up in Topeka and later moved to Gardner. He lived with his mother and worked as a watchman. He had a brother from his mother’s second marriage. The three people he met at the party were closer to his brother’s age. Roberts said Alonzo was playing football with them at the town park. He deliberately avoided calling them his friends because the person who took Alonzo to the party went without him.

“If you’re a friend, you don’t abandon your friend,” Roberts said. “There are a few different stories about what happened and why it was abandoned.”

He didn’t make it home that night. He never made it home. The party on April 3, 2004 was the last time anyone who spoke publicly admitted to seeing him alive.

‘EVERYONE KNOWS SOMETHING IS WRONG’

The day after the party, Roberts received a call from his mother.

“I remember that day very vividly. I was getting ready for my daughter’s birthday,” he said.

She was shopping in a store. It was late afternoon or early evening. He doesn’t remember the exact time, but he remembers what his mother said.

“He called me and said, ‘Your brother didn’t come home.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ I thought. “He said, ‘He went to a party and he’s not home yet.’”

Roberts had a bad feeling, but suggested her mother call her friends and check back in a few hours. The person who took him to the party told Alonzo’s mother where the party was. The farmhouse was just east of the La Cygne city limits. It’s a small town by most people’s standards. About 1000 people lived there at that time.

“My husband and Alonzo’s best friend went there and looked around and didn’t see anything,” she continued.

Roberts said her mother contacted local law enforcement to file a missing person report, but they told her they wouldn’t take a report until she was gone for 48 hours because she was an adult. A larger group of family and friends made the hour-long drive to La Cygne. They asked if anyone had seen or heard anything from Alonzo. They asked if they could hang a flyer.

“Of course they encountered some resistance,” Roberts said. “But there were a few people who helped.”

The Linn County Sheriff’s Office soon conducted a search of the area around the farmhouse and some areas near Middle Creek, according to reports at the time. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation was called to assist. The FBI was then called to assist. There were concerns that foul play had been committed and that Alonzo’s race may have played a role. His father was Black. His mother is of Spanish origin.

The police search was unsuccessful. His family found him less than a month after organizing their own search party.

When U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister ordered the case reopened years later, A newsletter telling what the family found.

“They went to the road near the farmhouse and walked up both branches of Middle Creek. In less than an hour they found Alonzo’s body partially on a pile of brush and branches in the creek.” publication read.

Roberts was there that day. He saw her body. He remembers his shock and disgust.

“I don’t think there’s any way they could have missed him if they had done a thorough search,” he said. “It was terrible to trust and believe law enforcement not to find him, but we were relieved that we did it and relieved that we were able to bring him home and bury him.

The subsequent autopsy stated that the cause of death could not be determined. The bullets dried up.

The investigation lay dormant until the U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas stepped in 15 years later. Stephen McAllister was appointed U.S. Attorney General in 2018 after being nominated by then-President Donald Trump. He previously taught law at the University of Kansas. He instructed the FBI to reopen the case and start over.

“I stood under the trees along Middle Creek where Alonzo’s body was found,” McAllister said in announcing the reopening of the case. “For anyone who knows its history, this is a quiet place of deep sadness, but there are no answers. But I believe there are people who know the answers, who have been keeping terrible secrets for all these years and carrying a terrible burden. “We want one or more of them to come forward now and lift this burden so we can relieve one family’s pain and serve the cause of justice.”

‘TWO PROBLEMS WERE NOT DISCUSSED’

When the FBI reopened the case in 2019, 15 years after his death, special agent Leena Ramana was assigned to the case. He reviewed past interviews and conducted new ones.

“Initial conversations involved some party-goers talking about racial slurs being used,” Ramana said.

He estimated there were 100 people at the party, possibly more. Alonzo was one of only three Black people at the party. As the night progresses he may be the only one there. In a town like La Cygne, the news spreads fast. Investigators heard numerous rumors that led them to believe they had a hate crime on their hands.

“Some said Brooks might have been flirting with a girl, some said drunk white men wanted to fight an African-American man, some said racist white men resented Brooks’ presence.” A 2020 news release from McCallister’s office To read. “After the party, two disturbing facts became indisputable: Alonzo could not be found; and no one who attended the party admitted to knowing what happened to him.”

THE BODY WAS REMOVED FROM THE GRAVE

In 2020, Alonzo’s body was exhumed from his grave in Topeka. It was sent to Dover Air Force Base for examination by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner assisted by forensic pathologists. A. 2021 FBI news release It cited “injuries to parts of Brooks’ body that the examiner concluded were inconsistent with normal patterns of decomposition.”

“My understanding is that the forensic anthropologist was able to not only examine the body that we brought to him and the coroner, but also to examine the photographs, the insects, and the landscape around Alonso’s body when it was found, and to use that for other purposes for his evaluation,” Ramana explained. “Based on that, they determined Alonzo’s death was a homicide.”

Ramana did not say how investigators believe he died or whether a manner of death has been determined. But before his family found his body, they had answers to the question of why he couldn’t be found by law enforcement.

He, too, was wondering how the family’s search was successful after law enforcement’s search was unsuccessful.

“One of the first things we looked at was the rainfall that was occurring in the area at that time, the increase in Middle Creek’s decline, and how that responded,” Ramana said. “It’s possible for the stream to rise and fall on a few different occasions with the rainfall that occurs, which can cause anything that’s been trapped under really large brush piles to dislodge and come to the surface.”

‘YOU ARE BIG NOW’

In 2020, the FBI announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest, trial and conviction of those responsible for Alonzo’s death. This is much higher than the bounties offered for murders in the area. Four years later, there is no indication that anyone has provided enough information to claim this.

The passage of time can be discouraging, but in a way it brings fresh hope. In 2004, most of the partygoers were minors. Our hope is that they will be more outspoken as adults.

Addressing people who are still hiding what they know, Roberts said, “You’re grown up now.” “Your parents can’t do anything to you. If you know anything, tell us what happened.”

Even something as small as the names of others who were there can help, Ramana said.

“They might think we already know this, but it’s a new name and another person we can talk to,” he said.

When the U.S. attorney reopened the case, Alonzo told KCTV5 he was hopeful. He has since died. But hope is still alive.

“I think there are still things we can do, people we can talk to, and advancements and technology that we don’t have right now that could be the key to solving all of this,” Ramana said.

According to Roberts, there is this and something more fundamental.

“We just have faith,” he said. “We believe that eventually we will find out what happened and get justice.”

$100,000 PRIZE

The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for Alonzo’s death. You can call the FBI at 816-512-8200 or the Greater KC Crimestoppers Hotline at 816-474-TIPS. You can also submit a tip online at: Tips.FBI.gov or through Crimestoppers online tip submission form.

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