Murder With My Husband - 72. Andrea Farrington - The Mall Tragedy

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

This week’s episode is about the story of Andrea Farrington and her obsessed co-worker, Alexander Kozak. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: The Killer Beside Me Season 1 Episode 5 https://www.thegazette.com/news/kozak-texted-woman-saying-he-was-going-to-kill-andrea-farrington-hours-before-shooting/ https://thecinemaholic.com/andrea-farringtons-murder-where-is-alexander-kozak-now/ Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband  Ads: Amazon: www.amazon.com/husband Prose: www.prose.com/mwmh  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This summer, PXU Energy is back with Ultimate Summer Pat, starting 50% off energy charges all summer. Everybody's on for automatic energy savings! Plus free energy on the hottest day. Don't you see it? Free days are now the coolest days. In this summer's hottest blood flow start guaranteeing to keep you cool. The savings for coming from inside the house! Ultimate Summer Pat, energy savings and results so cool.

Yes, you energy, energy for everything. Captain Banner now to our podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. We just want to say thank you for listening. If you are tuning in on YouTube, please turn notifications on so you can be notified every single time we upload and also give us a thumbs up and leave a comment down below and If you are listening on any podcast platform. Thank you for being here if possible Please leave a review. It seriously helps us out so much and if not we are just happy to have you guys here

We still can't even believe that we get to do this every single week with you. It's crazy. We're excited It's insane and we're so grateful for this community. All right, so, Gare, do you have your 10 seconds? Well, Peyton and I went and saw Jungle Cruise the other day. Oh, we did. That was actually a pretty good movie. It was cute. And then we watched, we finished outer banks.

Oh, yeah. If you haven't watched it, it's pretty good. Gare convinced me to watch it. He watched season one without me, and then I was was like, okay fine, I'll try it. And then I just got addicted and started watching it. And yeah. Also, I am sorry to everyone on YouTube. I am not the best at being in front of the camera. You probably have caught on to that by now, but just an FYI. All right, so this case was suggested by a listener named Natalie from iOS. So thank you Natalie for submitting this in.

And our case sources are an episode of the Killer Beside Me season one episode five, the Gazette.com, the cinema-olic.com, and then also a lot of YouTube links, which we will link because this whole trial was on YouTube. So that's kind of where I use, but there was a lot of different videos for it. So our episode begins in Coralville, Iowa in 2015. We are at the local Coral Ridge Mall on June 12th, a Friday night, and the place is alive. There's nothing like a mall on a Friday night. Everyone at the food court is enjoying their snacks and food. Teenagers are running through the mall, probably causing a ruckus. Couples are enthralled in their dates. We live in a time though, now, where innocent outings that are supposed to be fun and full of joy for a group of people have turned into opportunities for bad people to do bad things. Movies, malls, schools, and churches now have a shadow that lingers over them. A thought in the back of everyone's mind,

a worry that didn't use to exist, the worry of a public shooting. And at the Coral Ridge Mall in Iowa in 2015, that worry became a reality. But let's back up a year earlier in 2014. A 20-year-old named Andrea Farrington began working at a local museum in November of that year. She worked as a playologist, which at this museum just meant that she would walk around

and play with the kids in the different centers of the museum. So, you know, like when you go to the aquarium and then there's just like workers randomly being like, oh, and the penguins do this. And oh, you can touch that, you know what I mean? That's kind of what she was at the museum. Okay. But specifically for kids. Andrea was really kind. She did so well

with kids. She was given this exact job because of her nice personality. Kids are drawn to her light and it's safe to say that Andrea was a beacon of light. Andrea was bubbly and really wanted to go to college to major in psychology, which is so cool. Andrea also was really interested in dyeing her hair shade had like four different hair colors. She was really outgoing. Just a really fun person to be around. This specific museum was actually inside of the coral ridge mall and employees from the museum would also take shifts at the mall's guest welcome center, which was basically a place for mall attendees to ask questions about the mall or the area.

They would also rent out wheelchairs there, communicate with mall security, and anything else, basically, the guests needed. The guest welcome center was in the center of the mall near the food court, and Andrea Farington worked at the guest welcome center regularly. Actually, more than she worked at the museum. So back in February of 2014, the beginning of that year, Andrea had actually gotten jaw surgery. Cheryl, Andrea's mom, says that Andrea had been bowling all growing up for a pretty severe underbite. And before the surgery, she was working at a

convenience store when a man actually came in and asked her why her face looked the way it did. What? Literally. That's over here. Root. So, as 2014 rolled around, Andrea decided, you know what, that's it. I'm going to get Josh surgery and it really changed her perspective on herself. She had a newfound confidence.

She found it easy to love herself and be who she really is. And this really, Cheryl says it really turned Andrea's life around. Andrea was actually living with her boyfriend at the time, his name was Connor. And Connor and Andrea had met in high school and began dating rather quickly and then moved in together. Their relationship was good until Andrea got that jaw surgery. The new confidence and attention that Andrea was receiving was hard for Connor. He became jealous and the relationship was getting worse and worse. Did it. Was it a drastic change?

Yes, it was a pretty drastic change. So fast forward nine months, Andrea has found a new job doing what she loves at the mall at the museum and the guest welcome center. She's appreciated and cared for her job. She feels amazing. Andrea was working at the guest welcome center one day when she met 22-year-old Alexander Kozak. He went by Alex and he worked as a security officer at the mall. He basically stroled floors like Paul Blart type of employment. And because of this, he would stop by the guest welcome center and talk to Andrea whenever he was in the area. Good movie, Parola. Very good movie. Actually sad. It made me sad, but good movie.

Andrea told her family and friends at home about her new friend, Alex. She had made it work. And friends and family were happy for her and that she was doing so well at her new job finding friends to help her make it through the, you know, make it through the work day. But Alex and Andrea began texting outside of work as friends. And then the textiness friends became text full of babes and your beautifuls. And they really started to spring this new texting relationship. Okay. Andrea's family feels like Andrea continued texting Alex in this flirtatious nature because Alex made her feel good about herself right after this new jaw surgery.

The hearing how beautiful she was was reassuring after making such a big decision like that and they believe the text weren't meant to her anyone's feelings they were innocent. As time went on, Andrea was still living with her boyfriend Connor, but enjoying her new job and also the new attention she was getting from Alex. That was until Alex casually slid into conversation at the mall one time that he was actually married. Carly, Andrea's coworker, felt bad for her. Andrea didn't want to break up anyone's marriage.

This was devastating and it felt like the level of flirtation that their friendship had was essentially him leading her on considering that he was married. So did it get awkward between them? Both of them. It's extremely awkward. Alex told Andrea, you know, I just didn't know how to tell you. I'm unhappy with my marriage, but I'm happy with whatever's going on between us. Alex said, I've only been married a couple months.

I'm very unhappy. It was not working out with his wife and he wanted to leave his wife. That's what he tells Andrea. Okay. So Andrea goes home and together with her friend, Sierra, she stalked Alex's social media page for the first time ever. Remember, it's 2014. So social media wasn't as popular as it is now. And so it

wasn't like a common thing for her to have made this friend and then be like immediately go look him up on social media. So once he says he's married, she's like, I really don't know much about this guy. So she gets on to check it out. Alex's profile showed that he was in fact married, which was disappointing for Andrea, but despite the news, Andrea continued to see who Alex was online. It seemed like Alex was somewhat normal, but he had a lot of pictures with guns. He owned guns. He was proud of it. Like, he posted a lot about guns. She's still with her boyfriend at this point, too. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So Sierra, her friend, felt like Alex was bad news for Andrea.

And Andrea agreed. The longer that they stalked his profile, the more they learned. And every time they remembered that he was married, the more they felt like he was not someone that they should be around. Andrea was like, I don't think I should be talking to him. I just, I think that we should just like blow past this and pretend it never happened. And Andrea even felt like a friendship was too much. She didn't want to be friends or talk to Alex anymore,

not after he had lied to her about being married. When Alex and Andrea talked again, like back at work, she made it clear. She didn't want to hurt his marriage. And I mean, she had a boyfriend too. So she's like, we should just pretend this never happened. She told Alex, let's start over, move on. They agree to be friends even though Andrea is still on the edge about even being that.

But she's trying to be nice. So she's like, yes, we can still be friends. Like, we work at the same place, but we're not going to like continue this texting relationship that we've had. On February 14th, 2015, Andrea was sent flowers at work from someone. Guess who? Well, I'm going to assume it was Alex. It was Alex. Okay. And this made Andrea nervous. It's Valentine's Day. She called off everything so they were

just going to be friends. And now of the sudden, he sends her flowers on Valentine's Day. She was feeling like Alex was not respecting her wishes of moving on. And it was beginning to make her uncomfortable. She wanted him to back off. He wouldn't. Andrea tells her mom Cheryl and Cheryl tells her to throw the flowers away. Don't take them home for Connor to see if he did send you flowers. But Andrea was too uncomfortable to throw them away at work for fear of Alex seeing them.

And so she didn't. She was like, I'll just take them home and throw them away at home. So we're not all the way through the story. I mean, I assume there's a lot more. But did she ever fear for her life? Like, do you know if she scared of him? I don't know if she feared for her life, but he scared her.

Because I mean, I think I know where this is going, but we'll see. But I don't think she was ever like, oh, he's going to kill me. Yes, I think she just was like, he makes me uncomfortable. He's scaring me like, I just, I don't like where this is going. Got it. So when she goes home, Connor obviously finds the flowers at their like apartment and he's upset about it.

And it just put their relationship even more on the edge. They were already rocky to begin with and now that his girlfriend has received flowers from somebody that she doesn't even like, it still isn't good for the relationship. So with everything going on, Andrea's sister Cassie surprises her at work at the mall with a lunch break at the salon that's inside the mall. Andrea went into the salon and Cassie actually waited outside in the massage chairs. You know which ones I'm talking about, the massage chairs at the mall.

They always look so tempting. So Cassie was like, you go in there girl, and you do you, and I'm gonna sit out here and like take a minute on these massage chairs. So when Andrea gets out of the salon, she checks her phone and sees that she has missed text from Alex. Texts about him seeing her sister at the mall, what clothes she was wearing.

He had been watching her the whole time when she was there with Andrea, watching them together, his texts were specific. Oh my gosh. So he's basically stalking her. Yeah, Alex is like, I see that your sister is at the mall. She's wearing that gray shirt with this colored pants. Oh, you guys are going to the salon like in the world. He's just giving her a play by play of everything they did and At this point Andrea knew Alex was creepy. She wanted nothing to do with him anymore

But he didn't care no matter how many times she told him to stop. Hey Like we're just friends leave me alone stop texting me. He didn't listen This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads, unsure of which direction to take in life? We all face those moments of uncertainty where the right path seems elusive. But guess what, there's a solution that can help you find clarity and confidence. And that's therapy. As you guys know, I talk about therapy all the time. I go to therapy weekly. I definitely am a big supporter of it. It's helped me manage my stress and anxiety and really helped me work through difficult

times. Therapy is not just for major traumas. It's for anyone who wants to learn positive coping skills, set healthy boundaries and become the best version of themselves. It's about staying connected to what truly matters as you navigate life's challenges. Here's how it works. Simply fill out a brief questionnaire and better help will match you with a licensed therapist who meets your specific needs. And if you ever feel they need to switch therapists, you can do so at no additional charge. But therapy be your

map to a better life. Visit BetterHop.com slash husband today and get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelpHelp.com slash husband today and get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHopHelp.com slash husband. Okay, you guys, we are getting into an ad. I know you guys have both heard the story about how Garrett and I were both paying separately for peacock. Then we used rocket money and realized how dumb we are and are so happy rocket money helped us stop doing that. Rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions,

monitors your spending and helps you lower your bills all in one place. And like Payton said, I'm always on it, checking things out, seeing what's going on, seeing how many Amazon packages Payton are buying. Is that how you find out about my Amazon packages? No, I just get emails. Oh my email on your account.

Gosh. Over 3 million people have already used rocket money saving the average person of the 720 hours a year. Imagine what you could do with that extra cash and your pocket. Stop throwing your money away Cancel on one of the subscriptions and manager expenses the easy way by going to rocket money.com slash husband That's rocket money.com slash husband rocket money.com slash husband Jumping into an ad and it is native. I use their body wash, I use their shampoo, we use their sunscreen, everything.

They're deodorant. We are big native fans over here. And the funny thing is, is I caught myself wanting to buy native products at stores and then I was like, why am I doing that? Murder with my husband literally has a code. You can use promo code husband and get money off your native purchases, so go do it.

Native sunscreen offers a quickly absorbing ultra sheer and lightweight formula that hydrates your skin while providing broad spectrum SPF 30 protection from harmful UVA and UVB rays. And Native sunscreen offers three delightful scents, coconut and pineapple, rosé, and sweet peach in nectar. They're also for your face and body.

I use them every day. But if you prefer unscented, they've got you covered too. Give your skin the protection it deserves with natives and mineral sunscreens. Go to nativedo.com slash husband or use promo code husband at checkout to get 20% off your first order. That's native deo.com slash husband or use promo code Husband at checkout to get 20% off your first order. That's native.deo.com slash husband or use promo code Husband at checkout. native.deo.com slash husband and use promo code Husband. It's Jeep 4x4 season.

Make your next adventure epic with Jeep Wrangler 4xE. Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xE and the 3-row Grand Cherokee L. Hurrie and now for great deals. Now get 3,500 combined bonus cash and Texas residents get 2000 bonus cash plus owners were less seized if competitive vehicles get 500 bonus cash in the 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited and Grand Cherokee L limited. Competitive vehicles exclude all other FCA vehicles. Contact dealer for details. Take retail delivery by 531-23. Jeep is a registered trademark.

By May of 2015, Andrea reports Alex to his supervisor at work. Okay, I was going to ask that did you ever finally go to HR or someone at work? Exactly. She's like, this is over the line. He's married. I have a boyfriend. I've asked him to leave me alone. So she says he won't stop bothering me. He comes to the guest welcome center whenever I'm working. He walks up. He says, hey, babe, I say don't call me that. And he just every day keeps doing it. So Alex was pulled in and he was told to leave Andrea alone.

He said, don't talk to her at work. You have to stop this. But even this didn't stop him. He would still make his way over to the welcome center. And it was kind of at this point in the timeline that one time he walks over and says, Hey, you're going to need to send me some nudes. What? Yes. And she's just out of the blue. Yes. And she's like, what? No, like leave me alone. Go away. And he's like, well, if you don't, I'm going to blow up your car. What the fuck? Yeah. And she's like, what? He's crazy. He's crazy. and she's like what he's crazy he's crazy and she's like what

and then he begins laughing like hysterically laughing and she's just sitting there like okay and he's like I'm just joking jeez like why do you got a freak out stop acting crazy is gas like to her and she's like that's not funny like this is super manipulative and gross and so Andrea got scared at this point because she's like, that's not funny. Like this is super manipulative and gross. And so Andrea got scared at this point, because she's like, I've reported him. He obviously is upset, I reported him. So came over and said, said me, new, so I'm gonna blow up your car.

He wouldn't leave her alone. And now he was making threats because she turned him down. At this point, Andrea decides to end her relationship with her boyfriend Connor. That wasn't going well either. It wasn't healthy either. And she knew it was time for it to be over and just move on, focus on herself.

She wanted to rid her life of Alex, rid her life of Connor and be independent. So she was just trying to like, clean slate, basically? Yes, but breakups are still hard. So to try and recover, Andrea wanted to go to a Jason Aldean concert with her friends, but she couldn't afford a ticket. And like they were talking about it at the mall with her co-workers.

She's like, oh, we should go. And she was like, oh, I can't afford it maybe next year. But later that day after her shift, Andrea walks out to her car and finds a note on it. Oh, no. The note was from Alex offering to take her to the Jason Aldean concert. He had somehow heard that conversation earlier that day and she had no idea how. Okay. Andrea was terrified. He was watching her, listening to her conversations, going to her car.

Like, she didn't even know he knew what her car looked like and he left a note on it. Andrea feels at this point that Alex was full on stalking her. She reports him some more times to HR, but it's not doing anything. And so later that night, she texted her friend Sierra to come over after work so she wouldn't be alone. Keep in mind, she's no longer living with Connor. And so she's like, hey, can you come over? I'm uncomfortable. So Sierra says that that night, Andrea was paranoid. She kept looking out the window. She was like, he's following me. He's stalking me.

She was frightened. She was scared. Alex would not leave her alone. So on June 12, 2015. So this has been going on for a while. Yes, because we're mentioning the dates and it's been almost, I mean, it's been a year. Yeah, she started in 2014

and we're now in June of 2015. Okay. It was June 12th 2015 at 1.15 pm It was that Friday and Andrea and her coworker Carly had plans to hang out after Andrea got done with a date She was going to go on that night so Andrea was gonna go on a date with one of her and Carly's mutual friends and then hang out with Carly later that night and that day work, after months of unwanted attention from Alex, Andrea confronts him. She tells him, listen, I'm going to lay it down. If you ever talk to me again, I'm going to freak out.

Don't talk to me. I want nothing to do with you. She had tried to be nice, but obviously wasn't working. And so she put her foot down. It was very blunt with him said, I don't like you. I'm not interested in you. And you need to leave me alone. I'm surprised he wasn't fired from his job. So it comes out later, but Alex gets fired that day. Oh, like, I don't know if it was before after this conversation, but around this time, he gets fired. Okay.

She had already reported it multiple times. And so I'm sure them talking at work was not like boating well with his boss, you know what I mean. Around the end of their shifts, the mall was becoming crowded on a Friday night. Andrea and Carly are together in the welcome center just waiting for their shift to end so that they can she can go on her date. They are discussing the details about Andrea's date for tonight and she is super excited for it. It was in the middle of this conversation though, that Carly heard a bang and then Andrea fell to the floor.

A bang that would confirm everyone's worst fear, a shooting in the coral ridge mall. Carly looks up as Andrea falls and sees Alex running away. Chaos isn't suing. Everyone is running. Everyone is leaving. Everyone knows what's going on. Nowadays, you know what's going on. He wasn't there.

It sounds like to shoot other people. He went there straight for. Yeah. But no one else knows that. So everyone's like, oh crap. It's any of us, we have to get out of here. There is police body cam footage from this day. the like the police get there and we can kind of attach that to our YouTube video but police respond and begin the hunt for

Alex. The suspect who is still in the mall police are running through the mall looking for him but they still don't know where he is. There are probably hundreds and hundreds of people at this mall. Yeah. And he just took off after one hour after the shooting though, police end up pulling Alexander, Kozak over on the highway. They figured out that he had left them all. And so they started pursuing him on in through his car and they end up getting him on a highway.

They had finally got him. He immediately admits to shooting Andrea three times in her back. Oh my gosh. Andrea's family is frantically calling her phone after hearing about the shooting at the coral ridge mall where she's working. It's a parents-wise nightmare. They need to get a hold of her. They need to know she wasn't hit that she made it out safely.

Has anyone helping her at this point? Like are the paramedics around her? Yes, yes. But these calls to Andrea's phone go and answer it, obviously. And then Connor, her ex-boyfriend actually calls Andrea's mom and says, Hey, you need to get to the hospital. Andrea has been shot. She was shot at the shooting at the mall at 805 PM on June 12, 2015.

Andrea Jean Farrington was pronounced dead at the hospital. What? No. One of the bolts had hit her heart. She had been shot three times. 2015, Andrea Jean Farrington was pronounced dead at the hospital. No. One of the bolts had hit her heart. She had been shot three times. I thought for sure she was alive. I thought this was a survivor story. Oh my gosh.

Alex had killed her. Essentially Alex tells police that he doesn't feel bad about what he did. He didn't feel anything. He didn't feel good or bad. He was just tired of getting screwed over by her. He felt like she had been leading him on and he just knew he was going to snap. And so he did it. Oh, man, I wasn't like super mad at first because I thought this was for sure for survivor story. It comes out later that Alex had actually texted another woman that he

met through an app called Whisper that day. And he told her that he was on the verge of snapping and was going to drive home and get his glock. And I quote, shoot this beward. He is crazy. So he had planned it. He had thought about it. And then actually before he did it before he went through with it, he texted that same woman

and said, Hey, will you run away with me? And she texted back LOL. He's like, I don't care about you. You're crazy. This text was around 4 30 PM. And Alex shocked and killed Andrea around 7 30 PM that night. Okay. According to the cinema, Pollock Alex was fired earlier that day on the day he killed Andrea. Alex was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Good. Andrea's friends and family hurt. They still hurt. Yeah.

They remember Andrea every day. Her legacy of being so kind and bubbly. She was soft and good-hearted and we can remember her for that today. Right now, we can all think about Andrea. According to Trish with the Gazette, Andrea's parents filed a lawsuit against the mall and security company for not like taking care of this problem she had reported him, but the suit was dismissed with prejudice, which means it can't be refiled, so it's dropped. Okay.

If you are struggling with harassment, please report it to your local police. No matter how small, tell people, ask for help. Andrea did not deserve what happened to her all because she told a boy no. The way you were telling the story was there was so much information from Andrea that the whole time I think my mind was saying,

oh, I think she probably got shot, but she's okay. Yeah, so the reason we have that is because Andrea was very communicative with her friends and family about what was going on with him. They also recovered every single text and remember that a lot of this relationship happened over text. Yeah. And we got a lot of details from that.

And she told her friends. She told her friends. Oh, he did this today. Oh, she'd call. Oh, he just did this. And then Connor as well. And then Parker took it. Oh, it made me feel horrible.

I'm feeling like uncomfortable. I'm scared. So we had a lot of people who knew the situation and knew it was going on. And that just goes to show you that there's a lot of women out there who try to get help. They tell people they report, but I mean, at least do it because at least we knew all of these details. But that is the story of Andrea Farrington and it's a heartbreaking one. Gosh, he's so senseless. He's insane.

Like I just don't. Like he was married. I'll never comprehend it. And they only had like a text relationship. It wasn't like they had a physical. I forgot he was married. Yes. What did his wife say?

His wife said that he was, she testified at trial and said that he showed. I didn't know if she was supposed to be brought into this, but. No, we can talk about her. I just won't say her name, but she said that she had aggressive behavior. He showed at home. He would get mad.

He would freak out. She never felt like he was going to physically hurt her, but that he did show signs of like an anger issue. And also all of his family testified that he showed signs of anger issues as he developed and got older as well. Oh man, heartbreaker. Like it just was such a senseless

because she told someone I'm not interested in you. I, yeah. Which is the sucks. Yeah. But yeah, that is the story of Andrea. And like I said, let's just take a minute right now to think about her and to remember her for who she was, which was bubbly, kind, outgoing, good with kids,

just an all around good person. And that's what her family wants her remembered for. OK, you guys, thank you so much for listening to another episode. I do just want to remind everyone about Patreon. If you have any questions, feel free to message us. If you need help finding Patreon, there's a link in our description below in our YouTube videos and then also on our Instagram.

There's a link there and there's a button for Patreon. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring about these victims. We will see you guys next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.