[newscaster] Preparing for a big game isn't easy
when you're focused on bigger issues.
We were made aware at ESPN of a punter attack.
We don't hear stories like this.
It was just like a crazy story.
[siren blaring]
[Florence Mendoza] My daughter told me that we needed to go to Greeley.
Rafael got stabbed.
We started interviewing the entire 80-person football team.
The football community was really rocked by what had happened.
This case went in a direction that no-one was expecting.
[Scott Downing] I felt shock, astonishment.
"How could this ever happen?"
"Who would do this to Rafael?"
[theme music playing]
[Downing] September 11th started like any other Monday.
We would have a meeting
where we would talk about the week's schedule,
who we were playing that Saturday,
what we needed to get done.
We were getting ready to play Texas State
so, we knew it was a big game.
After practice, our football team,
we had a required Study Hall.
Study Table would usually end around 9:00, at night.
Rafael Mendoza was at Study Table.
Rafael was a punter.
He was our best punter.
[Meghan Gregory] I didn't have anything planned for that night,
just hang out with Rafael and maybe watch a movie or something.
He did call me that Monday
to let me know that he was
just getting ready to leave from Study Hall,
and would be home in about
ten minutes.
He told me, "I love you."
And that was the end of the call.
[Florence] Rafael called just to tell me that he was on his way home,
from study class.
That was just a standard conversation.
"How was your day?" "Fine."
"Anything exciting?" "No."
I always would just tell him that I would talk to him later,
for him to be careful.
Always be careful.
[siren blaring]
[Anjanette Salyers] At around 10:00 pm, on September 11th,
my partner and I were advised
of a stabbing that had occurred in Evans.
The victim was a UNC student on the football team.
Greeley is a smaller-town feel
of people very well connected to one another.
A stabbing victim in that area of town,
was pretty abnormal.
[Gregory] After just a short period of time,
Rafael called me on my phone.
I could tell he was in pain.
He told me that he had been stabbed.
I went running out of the apartment,
downstairs, to where he was in the parking lot.
[siren wailing]
By the time, I had gotten to the bottom of the stairs,
the ambulance was just showing up.
[Gregory] It was a very traumatic night.
I wasn't sure what to think, what was going on.
Not sure what...
What the outcome was gonna be.
[Downing] Zack Bigelow, one of our kickers,
burst into my office and told me,
"Rafael's going to the hospital."
Rafael had called Zack before the ambulance got there,
and told him to tell the football program that he had been stabbed.
There's only one hospital in Greeley,
and so I went out, and I...
got in my car and took off.
I felt shock,
astonishment.
"How could this ever happen?"
"Is this guy gonna be around in the morning?"
[Florence] I was getting ready for bed
and my daughter
told me that
we needed to go to Greeley.
And I... I said, "Why?"
And she says,
"Meghan called me. And she said that...
Rafael got stabbed."
I didn't know what to think,
because nobody knew how he was.
Not knowing, that was the worst part.
Rafael was pretty athletic since he was little.
He started with soccer and he got to be really good at kicking.
And once he saw that he had a really good distance in kicking,
that's what he wanted to do.
He said, "I'm gonna try out for football."
And when he was in high school,
he tried out for the field goal kicker.
Well, I met him the say I was introduced as the new head coach.
Rafael was not afraid to meet people. He was always friendly.
He was always smiling.
He was just a good guy to be around, you know.
He was a good teammate to everybody.
[Gregory] What stood out to me about Rafael
was just that he was...
funny and he was nice.
He was friendly with everyone.
And he enjoyed playing football.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Punter is Rafael Mendoza, sophomore at Thornton, Colorado.
[Gregory] Football games are a very big event at UNC.
On football game day,
there's a lot of tailgating,
and a lot of people trying to get all of their friends together
to go to the games.
It was really exciting to see Rafael play.
Especially because he had an important role.
[Downing] Rafael came out of high school as a kicker and a punter.
But his athleticism, the kind of athlete he was,
helped him be a really good punter.
[commentator] Mendoza will kick it again,
trying to win the fair catch back now.
[Downing] He had a tremendous leg.
His leg was just explosive.
And when I say explosive,
the ball would hit it and you could hear it go off.
I mean, he would regularly hit four or five
65-yard bombs as a punter,
that would turn over, perfect spiral.
Rafael had a lot of physical talent.
He could just hit a ball, and not pay attention,
and it would still go better than everybody else's.
He had a chance to be pretty special, he did.
[Florence] We tried to go to almost every football game.
It was exciting, seeing him out there,
and wanting to be out there, competing,
and there was a lot of fans screaming, and...
It was fun.
I was proud.
Rafael loved football.
And his goal was to play professional football.
[Florence] That night, my daughter was speeding to the hospital.
-[siren wailing] -We got stopped by a cop.
And she told him. She said, "I'm sorry.
"It's just that my brother, he's a football player
"and he just got stabbed."
And he said, "Yes, I think I just heard it come through the radio."
He drove in front of us.
And took us down to the hospital.
I didn't even wanna think the worst of it.
But too many things go through your head
when you just don't know.
I thought, was I gonna still see him alive?
[siren blaring]
It was very serious. I thought he was going to die.
I've never...
told the whole story to anybody.
My whole life...
was changed that day.
I was in a very dark place when I got stabbed.
Especially after I found out who it was.
[Rafael] The day started just like any other day.
After practice, I went to Study Hall.
Study Hall ended at nine o'clock.
I went straight to my apartment.
Like clockwork, I mean, I was very predictable.
When I got home, I parked pretty much in the same area
that I always parked.
Next thing I remember is the sound of somebody behind me,
with their feet kinda dragging on gravel.
And when I started to turn,
I got hit really hard on the back of the neck, right here.
That blow knocked me to the ground.
I was...
[sighs] Uh...
a little discombobulated.
You know, my ears are ringing.
And all of a sudden, it just clicked.
I was getting attacked.
When I turned over,
I saw the person attacking me.
But I couldn't see a face.
He was wearing all black.
Hoodie, black sweats.
The hoodie was tied tight,
so all you can see was, you know, just the face.
I didn't see any features that would describe who my attacker was.
That's when...
I saw the person pull a knife.
He lunged at my chest, and swiped.
And right when he was swiping, I pulled my knees to my chest,
and basically put myself in the fetal position, to protect myself.
And at that point, when he was swiping, he pulled back.
And then he lunged and just jabbed me in the leg.
[knife squelches]
I knew, immediately, I got stabbed.
I could feel it... I could feel it burning.
First thing that went through my mind was, "I'm gonna die."
At that exact moment,
a car was pulling into the parking lot.
The attacker saw that, turned, and started running away.
And so, I jumped up.
I don't know how but I just got to my feet.
I jumped in front of the car,
and I started waving my hands.
And I said, "Stop! Stop!
Stop that man, he just stabbed me."
And all you could see is just a silhouette
of the attacker running through all the cars.
And then he disappeared.
I reached down and I felt a hole in my leg.
And I pulled out my hand, and it was full of blood.
I reached for my phone, called 911.
Told them what happened.
[siren blaring]
Right away, the ambulance showed up.
[Salyers] When officers arrived on the initial scene,
they spoke to the witness who had driven in the parking lot.
The witness said he tried to track down the suspect vehicle and who was in it.
He had seen a suspect in a dark colored vehicle.
But he just lost 'em.
[Rafael] If he didn't pull into the parking lot,
at that exact same moment,
I wouldn't have been able to outrun
this person that was attacking me.
And...
I think of what could have happened.
[siren blaring]
The paramedics, when I was in the ambulance,
kept telling me that the stab wound was...
in a very dangerous place,
and we needed to get to the hospital right away.
I was scared.
I mean, I might lose my leg.
[Florence] I walked into the hospital
and the first person that met me
was the doctor, as soon as I walked in the room.
And he told me, "You are very lucky to still have a son."
He got stabbed
about an inch away from his main artery.
According to the doctor,
the stab wound was anywhere between six and eight inches deep.
Now, six to eight inches, you measure you leg, it's most of it
He told me that it was
within an inch of both,
my sciatic nerve and my femoral artery.
It was the depth of the stab wound
that made it close to both of them.
And so...
I started to cry.
Not so much because of the pain,
but because of what could potentially happen
because of the injury.
At the time, my life revolved around football.
I had dreams of playing in the NFL one day. Um...
Every little kid does.
But, you know, as I got better and better
at the kicking position,
I felt like I had a decent chance.
And so...
First thing that went through my mind
was, "My career's over. I'm not gonna play no more."
[sniffles]
[Downing] I got home maybe at 12 o'clock,
after being at the emergency room.
And I got a phone call from the Evans police.
And they were just wanting to inform me
that they were starting their investigation, right there and then.
I was concerned,
because "What could happen to somebody else around our campus,
"or somebody else on our team?"
[Wayne Drehs] We were made aware at ESPN of the new story of what happened.
Basically, it was like a... A punter attack.
And therefore...
when this came about,
it was a story that caught our attention,
like, "Hey' what's really happening here?"
When the word got out,
I had a constant stream of our players going through our office.
And now, you've got a lot of scuttlebutt going on.
There's talk everywhere, you know, "Who would do this?"
We knew our players,
they were really nervous about getting attacked.
'Cause they didn't know
why he was attacked or who attacked him
or who was the next victim.
We had to address the situation in meetings.
I remember telling our coaches,
"You need to talk to your position group about it,
this is important,
and it's important for their mental welfare."
[Salyers] When I met Rafael,
I could tell he was very traumatized,
and confused of what happened and why.
He just didn't understand why.
My mind was all over the place.
All I could see was this person attacking me.
And then I realized that my attacker was the same person
that I saw just few days before.
[Salyers] On September 7th, 2006,
four days before he was attacked,
he had seen that same suspect.
Dressed all in black.
In the same parking lot.
[Rafael] I didn't think anything of it, at the time.
The attacker was watching me,
and pre-meditated the entire thing.
He put serious thought and effort into this.
[whistles blows]
[newscaster] Preparing for a big game isn't easy
when you're focused on bigger issues.
I go immediately to concern for the members of our team.
[newscaster] The focus of that concern is on this guy,
junior punter, Rafael Mendoza.
There was a disbelief in the fact that
I had a player that was injured in this manner.
[Salyers] Because of the information we had obtained,
from Rafael Mendoza,
that he had seen the attacker, four days earlier,
it appeared that this was a pre-meditated crime.
At that point, the investigation became
identifying who was
possibly motivated to take down Rafael.
We started interviewing friends and acquaintances.
And the entire 80-person football team.
Northern Colorado is new to the big sky under Scot Downing.
This is his first Division One head coaching job.
Coach Downing had the challenge
of suddenly being thrust
into the middle of the American news cycle spotlight,
where it had to be an immense distraction to the football team.
You know, with interviews,
and the police having questions,
and all the things that you have to go through
while you're still trying to be
a Division One football player, at the same time.
That year, the team was a Division Two team
transitioning to a I-AA team.
As you go higher, there's more expectations.
It just gets to be a little bit more intense.
Before, the University of Colorado
made the move to go Division One,
they were very successful as a Division Two football team.
And Rafael was among the top 10 punters in school history.
He really made a lot of himself.
[Rafael] I came to UNC as a place kicker.
That season, the special teams coach
asked me if I'd be willing to punt.
[Downing] We talked about special teams.
Our most important special team was the punt team.
The kickers will kick the ball off the tee on a kick-off.
But everything's coming from stationery. Nothing's moving.
So it's a little bit less technically oriented
than a punt.
Because the punt is moving, the ball moves in the air,
a punter has to be a really good athlete,
because he's gotta be able to catch the ball
and also be able to walk and punt the ball
while everybody's rushing, trying to block the punt.
[Rafael] Coach Downing was
happy with my leg strength,
but he basically told me that he was bringing in
some competition for me, come fall.
[Drehs] The idea, according to Coach Downey,
was that the backup punters were gonna push Rafael,
and either take the job from him,
or push him to improve, to work harder,
to be all that he can be as a punter.
[Downing] Zack Bigelow was one of our kickers.
He was one of our specialists on our football team.
He was a freshman, a new guy.
Mitch Cozad was a walk-on at the University of Wyoming,
transferring to the University of Northern Colorado.
There was a lot of technical things that he needed to work on,
as did everybody.
Michael York is pretty competitive.
Always wanted to be the starter.
And he was... He was decent at punting.
So, the punters and kickers got along very well.
But they were competitive with each other.
The investigators asked me about my relationship
with the other punters, and the kickers.
I told them. I said, you know, "We had a good relationship."
There was no bad blood between any of us.
[Salyers] We determined that the kicker crew seemed very tight,
very close.
But, ultimately,
it did come out, with some of the players we interviewed
that between the kickers and punters,
there was a lot of jealousy.
Northern Colorado made the move from Division Two to Division One.
And a move like that can put pressure on players.
We live in this crazy, high pressure
at early age sports culture.
Many players don't know how to handle that.
Look at Tonya Harding and Nany Kerrigan.
The investigation was still in its very early stages.
And we started trying to piece together
if one of the backup kickers was involved in this incident.
Because Rafael was the starting Kicker.
[Rafael] I didn't think it could have been
anybody that I knew that would have stabbed me.
You don't ever think that a teammate is capable
of doing anything like this. And...
So, anytime somebody asked me, I shot it down.
[Ranous] During her interview with investigators,
on the evening of the stabbing,
Meghan reported she received a phone call
from the backup kicker, Michael York,
while Rafael was at the hospital
What was suspicious about that was
Michael York was calling to tell Rafael
that a team meeting the following day was cancelled.
Meghan told Michael that Rafael had been stabbed
and Michael York had no reaction.
I was surprised that he just wanted to relay his message
and then that was the end of conversation.
[Ranous] His behavior arose suspicion.
So, Michael York was brought in for questioning.
I was suspect of Michael York,
because he did not wanna answer questions.
He initially just denied any involvement.
He was irritated that we were talking to him.
He just wasn't very forthcoming.
After about 40 minutes, he became irate,
and said his time was being wasted.
And he became very belligerent
with the investigators,
saying he had to leave and get to football practice,
because he was gonna be the starting kicker in an upcoming game.
Michael York then called his father,
who came to the Evans Police Department,
and they ended up leaving without giving an interview, at that time.
But then, this case went in a direction that no one was expecting.
My partner and I were advised
that on the night of Rafael Mendoza's attack,
the employee at Knotty Pine Liquor Store
had requested police
because he noticed a Dodge Charger vehicle
pulled into the lot,
within a half an hour of the time of the stabbing.
Two males exited the driver's side
and the passenger side of the vehicle,
both wearing dark clothing, hoodies, and so much
that they could only see partial of their face.
The two males ran around the front and the back of the car
and removed tape that was placed on the license plates.
And when they removed the tape,
the employee noticed the personalized plate,
a Wyoming plate.
And it stated 8-KIKR, for Eight Kicker.
[Salyers] I was kinda wondering,
if another teammate stabbed Rafael Mendoza.
So, we were trying to find out who were the two men in black
seen in the liquor store parking lot.
Police agreed that the car was matching the suspect vehicle
that was seen after Rafael Mendoza had been stabbed.
We contacted the Wheatland Police Department, in Wyoming,
to see if they can get ahold of the registered owner.
She seemed confused of what was going on,
but did state that her son attended
UNC in Greeley, Colorado.
Mitchell Cozad.
I did tell Suzie Cozad
you know, that there was a stabbing,
and the other punter had been attacked.
She gasped and said, "Oh, my God!"
She wondered how her son may or may not be involved.
After that phone call with Suzie Cozad,
I knew I wanted to talk to her son, Mitch Cozad.
Mitch was taken in for what became a very lengthy interview.
[Salyers] He was very polite.
Very respectful, very cooperative.
I wanted to get his version of why his vehicle was seen
at the stabbing incident in Evans, Colorado,
and then, a few minutes later, at the Knotty Pine Liquor Store
just down the road.
Mitch told us that his second set of car keys had been stolen.
And when he went to the parking lot,
he felt that his vehicle had been moved.
He kept denying being involved in an attack.
At that time, he began giving a very detailed outline of where he was that evening,
that he was with his female acquaintance, at the time.
[Salyers] At that point, we were advised that his mother,
Suzie Cozad, had arrived on scene.
We invited her in, and she sat next to her son, Mitch Cozad.
Suzie Cozad said that they felt that, as a family, they needed an attorney.
And we ended the interview at that time, with Mitchell Cozad.
I met Mitch Cozad, really, when he and his mom
came down on an unofficial visit in the summer.
I remember his mom was more involved than maybe she should be.
She was at practices and watching him all the time,
and things like that.
We did learn in an interview with another UNC player
that Mitch was given a hard time
because his mother came to every practice at UNC.
His mother seemed to be very controlling over him for his age.
Rafael would tell me that Mitch's mom
would come to the practices from Wyoming, every day,
just to come and watch him.
I thought that was pretty odd.
I had heard from coaches and players
that Suzie Cozad was a demanding mom.
Very involved with her son's football career.
It appeared that she put a lot of pressure on Mitch.
She wanted her son just to, kinda, be the best.
There are crazy parents, and then there was Suzie.
That's not unusual in youth sports.
The crazy parent is an all-too-true cliche.
Suzie Cozad saw it as, "What is the end game?
"I spent all this time, I spent all this money,
why are you not a Division One punter?"
[Rafael] After I got stabbed,
on the way home from the hospital,
my mom says "I don't wanna think this way
but do you think it might have been the other punter?"
And I right away shut her down.
We were friendly. We got along.
[Gregory] I didn't believe that it could have been Mitch
just because the interactions that we had had with him
had all been positive.
[Salyers] Mitch Cozad's alibi was that he was with Angela all evening.
His girlfriend, at the time.
We were able to speak to Angela, on campus.
She was very forthcoming.
She stated that she was with Mitchell Cozad, all evening.
He hadn't left her sight. They just hung out in her room
and watched a movie together.
But as I started to ask more detailed questions,
I noticed she was very uncomfortable.
She seemed very uneasy about answering detailed information.
So, I felt like I needed to push her, a little bit more.
I explained the serious nature of the case,
and that his vehicle had been seen by witnesses
at two locations of the crime.
Her demeanor drastically became different.
And she stated, "I can't do this anymore."
Angela realized
she was in over her head.
And so, she showed me text messages
that Mitch Cozad had been sending her right then and there.
[Ranous] During her interview,
Mitch Cozad was texting her,
asking what she was telling the police.
One text said she was the one person that could stop all this.
And he also tried calling her, at one point, as well.
[Salyers] He would question, you know, "Ange, are you there?"
"I love you." Those type of things.
She became emotionally upset at that point
because she just felt like he was completely manipulating her,
to change her story to protect him.
She eventually told me that Mitch Cozad had asked her to say
that they were together all evening,
but he was out of her sight
approximately between 9:00 p.m. and 10:06 pm,
which matched the timing of when Rafael Mendoza was attacked.
[Ranous] From there, Mitch Cozad was identified as a possible suspect.
So, investigators then started
trying to piece together
who the second person was,
seen in the suspicious vehicle.
I was questioning if Michael York or Suzanne Cozad,
or another individual were involved
in some kind of coordinated effort
to take down Rafael.
[Salyers] A few days after Rafael Mendoza had been stabbed,
we were able to have the search warrant executed
on Mitchell Cozad's phone.
We noticed a definite pattern of him contacting a gentleman
by the name of Kevin Aussprung.
[Ranous] What investigators learned was Kevin Aussprung and Mitch Cozad
had constant communication
via text message and phone calls
in the days leading up to the stabbing event.
Kevin Aussprung, I'd met him once or twice,
because he was somebody that lived with Mitch, in the dorms.
I didn't really know him very well.
[Salyers] When we interviewed Kevin Aussprung,
he basically stated, he didn't know anything,
But then, when confronted on the fact
that we knew he had been having a pattern of
text messages and phone calls with Mitch,
he, kind, of, whispered under his breath, at one point,
like, "Damn."
Kevin stated he agreed to help Mitch for $100.
He was just asked by Mitch Cozad,
to watch his car while he "took care of business".
He said he didn't know what Mitch was going to do.
But Mitch had provided him all-black clothing to wear.
Told him when to meet. Told him how to act.
So it was important that we had his witness information
and therefore, a deal was eventually worked out with Kevin Aussprung
with our DA's office,
to testify against Mitch Cozad.
[Ranous] Michael York, one of the backup kickers did come back in for questioning
and gave a statement about where he was,
and investigators were ultimately able
to show that he was not involved.
[Salyers] It was very apparent,
Mitch Cozad had been planning this for a long time.
And we needed evidence.
After Suzie Cozad had requested that they get an attorney,
Mr. Cozad agreed to a cursory search of his dorm room.
We found a black hooded sweatshirt.
At that time, he was handcuffed and taken into custody.
He was charged with attempted murder
and second degree assault.
[Salyers] Ultimately, we determined that Suzie Cozad
was not part of the case.
I was in shock. I didn't wanna believe it.
Um...
I me... I mean...
For one teammate to do that to another teammate, I just...
I could never imagine that anything like that was possible.
I felt deflated. I'm like, "I can't believe this happens on a team."
To say it was a shock was a mild word.
[Drehs] We were made aware, at ESPN,
that the backup punter at Northern Colorado had attacked
the starting punter 'cause he had wanted his job.
And it was just this, like, crazy, crazy story.
We don't hear stories like this.
There's an unspoken agreement, a code, if you will,
that you don't sabotage a teammate of yours.
You don't go after someone who
you sweat and bleed with in practice.
[Rafael] I remember the first time I saw it on the news.
And that's when I realized how big the story was.
They compared it to Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.
But they weren't teammates.
You know, they were opponents.
It's different when it's your own teammate.
I still remember like it was yesterday.
That first practice at training camp.
The first time I stepped up to punt,
I was a little nervous, I was hesitant,
and I kinda pulled back when I went to go follow through,
and I shanked the ball.
And I turned around, and he had this smirk on his face.
[Salyers] The defense's argument was that Kevin Aussprung
stabbed Rafael Mendoza.
The prosecution's response was
that was impossible based on evidence,
witness statements, victim statements.
The trial was interesting. The mood, it was tense.
We were in that courtroom.
Mitch never changed his expression.
Just staring at Rafael.
I decided to look up and look at him,
and he had a big, old smirk on his face.
The same smirk from that first practice.
That smirk haunted me for a long time.
[jury foreman] We, the jury, find the defendant, Mitchel Cooper Cozad,
guilty of assault in the second degree.
Mitch Cozad was eventually convicted of second degree assault,
with a violent crime enhancer.
There was not enough testimonial evidence
to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt
that it was attempted murder.
[Rafael] From what the DA explained to me,
the fact that nobody was there,
to see him lunge at my torso, and my upper body,
to see him swipe with the knife,
there was no... No way of proving it.
That's why it was "not guilty" for the attempted murder.
After I got stabbed,
I wanted to be back on the field,
But I was forc... I was forcing myself through it
and dealing with the pain.
After college, I completely stopped punting.
To this day, Mitch has not...
apologized.
He has not...
owned up to what he did.
To show no remorse for something like that,
it just... It's shocking to me.
I believe that the reason why I'm still here,
is for my family.
I'm lucky enough to have one.
I was 21, at the time.
I never would have gotten married.
Never would have had kids.
[Gregory] Our children do know bits and pieces
about what happened to Rafael.
I always think about what if he wasn't around,
and how life could be a lot different.
[Rafael] My life is great.
You know, I came out a better man, afterwards.
I chose to take what happened to me
and build a life, despite of it.
The most important thing in my life are my kids.
I get to come home to them every day.
Announcer: The incomperable Marching 100!
There's a unique relationship
that HBCU band has with football.
We got a call from the band director
and he said Robert was no longer with us.
Everybody was trying to cover their butts right now.
There was a lot of deception because we were involved
in something that was illegal.