Warrants: Farrington broke off ‘relationship’ with Kozak day of deadly Coral Ridge Mall shooting

CORALVILLE - Former Coral Ridge Mall security guard Alexander Kozak told authorities that Andrea Farrington broke off a relationship with him before he went home to get a gun and return to the mall to shoot her to death, court documents reviewed Tuesday show.

However, the affidavits used to obtain warrants to search the cellphones of Kozak and Farrington do not expand on his assertion of a relationship, nor do the warrant returns provide additional details.

Coralville Police Lt. Shane Kron referred questions to Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness, who was not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

Kozak, 22, of North Liberty, is accused of fatally shooting Farrington, 20, on June 12 at the mall. Both were employed there - Kozak as a security guard and Farrington at the Iowa Children's Museum.

Authorities previously said Kozak targeted Farrington and that the two knew each other, but provided no other information. Search warrant affidavits filed in late June - and initially sealed by court order - offer the first possible explanation of a motive.

Farrington, a Montezuma High School graduate, was working the information desk near the mall's food court when Kozak entered the mall around 7:30 p.m. and shot her three times in the back, investigators said.

Kozak has been working that day but Universal Services of America, the company that provides security at the mall, said he resigned hours before the shooting. Lyness said earlier that Kozak did not remove his possessions or tell anyone he had quit.

After the shooting, Kozak fled in a blue Kia Optima. About 8:20 p.m., an Iowa State Patrol trooper spotted the Optima and, with assistance from a Scott County sheriff's deputy, pulled it over on Interstate 80 in Scott County.

Kozak was handcuffed, read his rights and transported to the Coralville Police Department in a vehicle belonging to Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations Special Agent Rick Rahn. During the drive, according to court records, Kozak told authorities he had left the mall at 5:20 p.m. to go to his North Liberty home.

'Kozak advised the victim had sent a text and broke off their relationship,” the warrant affidavit reads.

The court documents state Kozak said he and Farrington had been communicating on the phone via voice or text messages. The affidavit does not include details on such conversations, including their duration or what was discussed.

'Kozak advised that he snapped and went back to his residence in North Liberty to get his gun and packed a bag of clothes,” the documents state.

Kozak was married at the time of the shooting. Police went to his home in North Liberty after the shooting to conduct a welfare check on his wife, Kellie Kozak. At the time, she told police Kozak owned at least one gun and multiple swords.

Documents show investigators pulled text messages, call histories, Internet histories, emails and photos off Kozak and Farrington's Verizon phones. However, the warrants do not provide more details about what was found on the phones or if they corroborate Kozak's account to authorities. It is also unclear if he repeated his assertion of a relationship in subsequent interviews.

Kozak, who is being held on $10 million bail, is scheduled to go to trial April 12 in Story County on a first-degree murder charge. The case was moved out of Johnson County due to pretrial publicity. If convicted, he faces an automatic life sentence.