UNSOLVED - Alonzo Brooks
He Mysteriously Died After Being the Target of Racial Slurs. Here is the story of Alonzo Brooks that still remains unsolved to this day...
On April 3, 2004 Alonzo and three friends (Justin Sprague, Daniel Fune, and Tyler Broughard) attended a going away party at a rural farmhouse in La Cygne.
There were about 100 people between the ages of 16 and 25 and Alonzo was one of only three Black people there that night.
During the party Alonzo was the target of racial slurs. His friend Daniel had to break up a fight between him and another person at one point.
Daniel and Tyler eventually left to go to another party. Justin was supposed to be Alonzo’s ride but when Justin left to get cigarettes, he took a wrong turn and got lost.
Justin called Adam, a friend at the party, and asked if he could take Alonzo home. When Adam was about to leave he couldn’t find Alonzo and assumed he had left with someone else.
In the morning Maria got a call from one of her son’s friends asking if Alonzo was home. She went to his room and realized he had not returned from the party.
The Searches
Rodney English who was a friend of Alonzo’s went to the farmhouse to look for him and found his boots and hat across the street.
In the meantime Alonzo’s family reported him missing to the local police.
Authorities conducted searches with the help of canines and a helicopter while rescue divers scoured Middle Creek a body of water adjacent to the property. There were no signs of Alonzo.
His family has been critical of the investigation from day one.
On May 1, the family searched the farmhouse’s property with a team of 50 volunteers. Within an hour his father Billy and a family friend found Alonzo’s body on top of a pile of tree branches at the bottom of an embankment along Middle Creek.
He was fully clothed and had his belongings, including a ring and his wallet, still with cash inside.
Alonzo had been missing for 24 days. Billy said his son’s body did not look as if it had been in the water for that long. There are rumors the perpetrators stored him in a freezer.
There were no signs of blunt force trauma on Alonzo’s body or indication of drowning. Due to the state of decomposition his cause of death could not be determined.
The initial investigation did not lead to any arrests and the case was cold until it was featured in a 2020 episode of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries.
Alonzo’s body was exhumed from a Topeka cemetery and transported to the Dover Air Force Base. A new autopsy by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner revealed the 23-year-old had suffered injuries that were not consistent with decomposition, and the case was reclassified as a homicide. The FBI is investigating the case as a possible hate crime.
During a press conference U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those involved in Alonzo’s murder.