July 29, 2024 • 47 mins
Highlighting a must listen podcast: The Megyn Kelly Show
In this episode, Megyn Kelly is joined by bestselling author and journalist Howard Blum to discuss the Idaho student murders and his new book on the case. They cover suspect Bryan Kohberger, the case against him, the actions of the surviving roommates, Kohberger's background, and his disturbing writings.
Subscribe to The Megyn Kelly Show:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0awxEJH88Xur0GHXuteBLw?si=UYTJl1P6TQippmzAu3f69g&nd=1
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-megyn-kelly-show/id1532976305
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody, Nancy Grace here. Let me introduce you to
a podcast I think you will love, The Megan Kelly Show.
The Megan Kelly Show features open, honest, and sometimes provocative,
that's one way to put it, conversations with some of
the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures
(00:23):
of the day. Give it a listen and follow The
Megan Kelly Show wherever you get your podcast. You may
love the guest, you may hate the guest, but I'm
telling you the Megan Kelly Show is the must listen.
Here's Megan Kelly now.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, live on Serious XM
Channel one eleven, every weekday at the East.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Hey, everyone on Megan Kelly.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show. I'm very excited for
what we're about to bring you. It's now been five
hundred and ninety days since four University of Idaho students
were found savagely murdered. Five hundred and ninety days and
still no closure for the families of the young victims.
There's not even a trial date set at this point.
How can that be? Best Selling author and journalist Howard
(01:19):
Bloom has been reporting on this tragedy since day one
like no other. I mean, if you read nothing about
this case, read anything. Howard Bloom writes, he's been writing
for Airmail, which is Graydon Carter's new online publication.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
It's doing really well, thanks in large part to Howard.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
You may remember we featured Howard's reporting in our special
series on the murders back in December. You can go
back and listen to all five parts, episodes six eighty
eight through six ninety two. Howard has done more fantastic
reporting on this case for a new book just out today.
It's called When the Night Comes Falling, A Requiem for
(01:54):
the Idaho Student Murders.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Again.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's out today. You can get it right now. I've
read it, both read it covered and I listened to
the audio too, and it's already rising up the Amazon charts.
It's going to be number one, zeroed out in my mind,
and it'll be on the Time bestseller list too.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Welcome back to the show, Howard Bloom. This is a great,
great book. I'm so glad you wrote it.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Nobody's been reporting like you, so you put it.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
It's always easy to use it.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's not like it's not a doorstop book, so it's
like manageable. You can read this at the beach in
a day or two, and I recommend it because you
learn a ton about the case. Let's start with the title,
what do you mean a Requiem for the Idaho student murders?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
What was in mind when you were writing that?
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Well, something that's been lost in the whole coverage of
this case and trying to get to the bottom of
a perplexing mystery. It's the lives that were lost, these
four young kids, four young children. As a father of
three children, the art has to go out to them,
and I wanted to honor them.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I wanted to honor the lives that they lived.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Xana Carnudle, one of the young women who was killed
at her high school graduation, carried a mortar board with
her and it said on the underside, for the lives
I will change.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
For the lives I will change.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
And as that struck me all the time as I
was writing this book. I even had it on a
note above my desk. You know, these children will never
have the opportunity to have changed these lives, and that
affected me and I wanted to try to do their
memory justice.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Oh wow, that's awful. What do you think about it?
I know just the other day they celebrated. I guess
a better word is marked Kayla Goansolvus's what would have
been her twenty third birthday. I'll show you the tape.
There was a balloon release my friends and family of hers.
This young girl's been dead now going on two years.
(03:53):
She should be celebrating her post college you first career
and time with friends. And I was struck by what
the family said when they did the balloon release, talking
about what they think of when they think of Kayleie
Jade Day, which is what they're calling it, which is
how she liked to enjoy lunch with a friend or
family member. They hope people will do things like this,
(04:15):
planning vacations or holidays, trying out a new recipe, treating
oneself to mimosas and appetizers at a local restaurant, embarking
on a new hiking adventure, witnessing the sunrise, reconnecting with
distant friends or family, and spreading kindness at a favorite
drive through.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
That jive's completely howard.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
With what we know of this young woman, how joyful
she appeared in every picture, her tight best friendship with
another victim, Mattie Mogan, and just how these girls were
so young and had it all in front of them
when their lives were taken.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
And you mentioned the families, how they're trying to come
to terms with this, but there really are no survivors
in this story. This is a story about victims, and
as you pointed out here, production you know, there still
is no sense of closure for these families. The trial
dregs on and on and on. The delays are cool.
(05:11):
It's a cruelty to the families.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I don't understand hard to be so into this case
and still not even have a trial date. There's going
to be hearing on June twenty seventh where they're going
to try to get one again. But this defense attorney,
whose name is Ann Taylor, has been doing a very
good job of convincing the judge whose last name is Judge,
so he's judged judge to continue delaying. It's frustrating for
(05:36):
those of us who want to see justice take its course.
All right, let's get into let's get into the substance
of the book. Because you've I mean, will never be
able to scratch the surface here because there's a ton
of new stuff in here, and just for what it's
worth audience, the way Howard writes is absolutely it makes
you feel delirious with interest because he just chooses the
(05:57):
right adjective and he's very transparent about where he or
he's using his own opinion and where he's reporting facts,
but has a way of telling the story that is
very illuminating. And I think that's one of my thing
the favorite things I love about the book. When the
Night Comes Falling by Howard bloom Blum. One of the
big pieces that I learned in this Now I don't
(06:19):
know how you got it, and I won't ask how
you got it is you tell us about the conversation
the suspect who's under arrest, Brian Colberger now for committing
these four murders, had with his father, Michael, who had
flown from the Poconos, Pennsylvania, all the way across country
to Washington State to pick up his son some I
(06:41):
don't know a month. It was a month right after
the murders. The murders took place November thirteenth, twenty twenty two.
The dad flew out there about a month later to
get the sun and drive back cross country to the
Poconos with his kid, who was a teaching assistant at
Wash You and also was getting his PhD in criminology there,
and you walk us through their exchange. What was on
(07:05):
the dad's mind, what was on the son's mind? Who's
now in prison awaiting truck. So talk to us a
little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Well, here's this father who makes this trip.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
His father is sixty eight years old, and he decides
to go out to Washington State to then two days
later turn around completely and drive across country with his son.
He does this because he's nervous, he's anxious, he is
connecting the dots in his mind. He knows his son
(07:35):
is a disturbed young man. He knows his son has
had problems. He knows his son also lives about ten
miles away where four young women four three young women
and one young man were killed. And he knows his
son look has a white hondaei Alan trip and that
just happens to be the car, the model of the
(07:57):
car the police are looking for.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
So he goes out there.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
I'm not sure what he's going to find, and immediately
his son is in a mood and he's seen Brian's
moods before, and he knows to sort of go with
the flow. He doesn't want to anger him. But as
he spends time with Brian, he's very is if he's
(08:23):
following footsteps, and these footsteps suddenly become bloody footsteps, and
he realizes, oh my gosh, my son might very well
be involved in this. And yet he also refuses, refuses
to make this leap as any parent might. They can't
put this on his son. So in a way, Michael
(08:44):
Coburg or the father, is a victim too. He's one
of the characters in this story. And I pread my
structure of the book in many ways around this trip.
It's sort of, you know, like Homer's Odyssey, a long voice,
which is going to have a lot of traumatic events.
And here, as the fathers is coming, the fears are
(09:07):
coming closer and closer into focus in the father's mind.
The car is stopped once by a state police actually
a sheriff's deputy in Indiana, and then nine minutes later
by another deputy, a state trooper, and the father is
now realizing, perhaps this is it, Perhaps everything I was
(09:32):
thinking about is true, and it becomes clearer and clearer.
And then when the car is stopped, what's the first
thing that father blurts out to the law enforcement people
who are stopping the car. He talks about a shooting
in the Washington State University that happened earlier that day.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Is what's on his mind.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
All this violence out in the West is coming together,
and he feels something benevolent is happening. He begins to
fear as they makes this cross country journal journey, he
begins to fear with greater certainty that his son is
involved in it, and he doesn't quite know what to do.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
It's something to consider that the father too, of course,
now in retrospect and you think about it, the father
too was suspicious of his son. You know, we hear
that all these facts, knowing that Brian Colberger was later
arrested for these crimes, and then you hear that his
father had gotten him at college, was driving him back
(10:33):
home the cops, well not the cops, but the FBI.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
This is one of the points you make in the book.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Was already on to him, was aware was following, But
of course the father would have suspicions. Of course, the
father knew about the quadruple murder right, you know, ten
miles from where his son was a TA and getting
his PhD. He's got to know the son is weird,
to just put it very mildly, he's off, very off socially.
(10:59):
And we heard the detail prior to the book about
how Brian the son re routed the trip home. They
had something all set the shortest distance between two lines
is a straight one right and two points is a
straight line, and how Brian had changed it suddenly he
wanted it to go a much more circuitous route home.
But you really lay some details in there about how
(11:21):
angry he was about the dad pushing back on that
at all, and how the father had to handle him
so gingerly he knew he was dealing with the powder
keg of a man.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
It's also interesting that this was not the father his
first trip out with his son. He came out when
Brian registered at the beginning of the term. He made
the cross country trip with him. Now the father is
sixty eight years old, the famili has had financial problems,
They've been bankrupt twice and went to bankruptcy proceedings, and
(11:54):
yet he feels he still has to go with a
twenty eight year old young man to be with him
on this trip, even when he's registering. He doesn't want
his son to be alone at the crossroads. And what
does his father do when he's out there? He goes
to one of Brian's neighbors and says, you know, my
son has a hard time making friends.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Can you help him out?
Speaker 5 (12:15):
And this neighbor invites Brian to a pool party, which
I talked about in the book, And that's really Brian's
first trip to Moscow, Idaho.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
The conversation they have relating to and the revelations about
Brian Kohlberger's problems in his TA position are absolutely fascinating.
So it was far worse for Brian Colberger in the
weeks leading up to the murders of these four University
(12:47):
of Idaho students on November thirteenth, and also Brian's returned
to the Poconos in early December with his dad. Then
I knew until I read your book. He tell us
about the problems Brian was having in the THA role
and about the fact that he revealed a lot of
what he did know to the dad.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Would you have to begin with I think to understand
how traumatic this was for Brian is where he came
up from. He was an academic success story. He reinvented
his life. He came from being a heroin addict at
a junior college, gets into a graduate from Tassau, and
then he gets into a first great graduate program at
(13:31):
a Washington State university, and he's on his way to
be a doctorate.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
And then in the course of his first term as
a teaching.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Assistant, the students start to complain they don't like the
way he's treating them. They feel he's treating the women
in a chauvinistic way. He always has to have the
last say he's marking too strictly. And the professor who's
handling his course he's working for, Professor John Snyder, pulls
(13:59):
in in for a meeting, and what does Brian do.
He blows his top. He really doesn't want to discuss it,
but he exacerbates matters. And the professor, who was a
lawyer before coming to teach at Washington State, starts making
a paper trail, sending letters to the administration that we
(14:21):
might have a problem here whatever. Finally, on November second,
just eleven days before the murders, he's given sort of
an ultimatum by the authorities of Washington State. Get your
act together or you're going to lose your teaching assistant job. Now,
(14:42):
for Brian to lose this, it's not just a job.
It's the tuition that allows him to go to graduate school.
It's the opportunity to reinvent his life from the hard
scrabble life he was leading as a youth in the
Poconos to become Professor Brian cober to become a forensic psychologist.
(15:02):
And this was a shock. Who is already it's a
tentative system. I mean, Brian is always living every day
on tenderhooks, and now it becomes even worse. So how
he's while he's driving across country with his father, he
begins to reveal and this would related to me by
(15:26):
people who have spoken with Brian's father to Michael Koberger,
that he's in a bit of trouble. So he describes
it at the university. But Brian tells his father, I'm
going to have the last laugh. You know, they can't
just get rid of me. I'm going to be able
to have a disciplinary hearing and I will make my
case and I will be able to continue teaching, and
(15:48):
I believe until the moment he's arrested, he still believes
that he's going to get away with things and he's
going to be back teaching in the next semester at
Washington State University.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
He believes that he still is.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
The smartest person in the room and he can out
talk these professors because in his heart, he feels he's
done nothing wrong.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
He's always right.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
He's trying to spin it to his dad as if
these are weak need students who just don't like tough grading,
and you know, they're they're basically just snowflakes. And I'm
a tough grader and that's the problem. And meanwhile, he
was it looked like he was harassing a couple of
the young female students. He had zero tolerance for conflicting viewpoints.
(16:35):
He was disdainful of these students. I mean, all the
things that you would expect if this guy really is
a quadruple murderer. He wasn't perfectly normal in the classroom.
He was odd, to put it mildly, And these students
actually spoke up on Moss to the professor Snyder, saying
there's something wrong with this guy. And Snyder when he
(16:55):
started to kick the tires seems to have found You're right,
and that's.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Just Brian's behavior did not go unnoticed, and the students
that he was teaching picked up on it. There was
something really off, something really wrong, and he couldn't hide it.
And this is what he was living with. He wanted
to be something else, He wanted to fit in. He
(17:20):
wanted to he reinvented his life, and he wanted to
live this life he once had imagined. But he also
was intelligent enough to realize that this was an impossibility.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
To him, he could not make.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
This complete leap, and that was the tortured state that
he was living in.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So most of us, if we were if our tuition
were getting paid by this school there at the school
liking us. Was the difference between us being able to
get the PhD and not because they can can't cut
your scholarship at any time. Would shape up if we
were sat down by our professor, never mind the department
head and said and told shape up, we're going to
(18:01):
ship you out.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
He didn't do that.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Professor Snyder called him in, and you write about how
the Snyder he was astonished that Colberger started arguing with
him as opposed to just saying I'm sorry, I'll do better,
I'll resolve. The department head seems to have had a
similar experience with him, where instead of being apologetic or
falling on his sword, he was irascible. And then ultimately
(18:24):
when they reached sort of in a chord, Okay, he's
going to try to do better and keep this position.
You write about his self sabotage about how he couldn't
do it.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
He was just incapable of it at that point where
he thought maybe he's fooled them that he can stay on.
He then became more aggressive to some of the women
in the class, and at one point one of the
young women in his class say related to the college
authorities that he followed her to hit her car, and
(18:56):
he acted in she said, quote an aggressive unquote matter,
And that was just the destrawer that broke the administration back.
They said, we've got to get rid of this guy,
and they sent him a letter. The problem is when
the letter reached his home in Washington State University, he
was already on this car trip across America with his father,
(19:19):
and he was lecturing his father, or hectoring his father
how he was going to ultimately be able to go
back because he was smarter than they were, and he
would have a hearing, and he would argue his case
so successfully that they would have to bow to his
superior intelligence.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
In the midst of all of this, he allegedly committed
for murders. That's what's so fascinating about the book and
the story in general. Again, the books called When the
Night Comes Falling by Howard bloom Blum. He's going through
all of this, and you're getting a real profile of
who we believe is a killer and what he's going
(19:57):
through in his private and personal life. His slow downward
spiral in his ta position, his inability to control his
anger and defensiveness even to his own peril, like he
knows what's going to happen if he continues pissing off
his department chair and so on. They've made it very
clear he just can't stop himself. As you write, he
(20:20):
unleashed the full force of his considerable fury, and that
was ultimately with the women and so on. When the
department sent him that note, the department chair send him
an email, I'm reading from your book here requesting that
they meet, you write, this was most likely a summons
to the gallows, but before this execution could take place,
Brian quite effectively placed the noose around his own neck.
(20:41):
Several of his female students reported to the department that
Brian was making them feel uncomfortable. In fact, the CREEPYTA
had even followed one woman to her car. Now there
was nothing further to discuss. Brian's TA job was over.
Mister Kolberger, I am writing this letter to formally inform
you of the termination of your teaching assistant with the
Department of Criminal Justice in Criminology, effective December thirty first,
(21:04):
twenty twenty two. But this, as you point out, was
never received by him. He had already left the campus
and was driving back to Pennsylvania. But Howard, by the
time she sent this, if the prosecution is correct in
this case, he had gone from having troubles in his
TA job to murdering four students in cold Blood at
(21:25):
the neighboring university, to back in with his superintendent his
director on whether he could improve his behavior, and then
pieced out of there back to the Poconotes.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
I mean, you can imagine the chaos that was going
on in his internal structure, in his mind and he
was always trying to become something better, and yet every
time he succumbs to who he is. Even on the
nights of the murders, I believe that Coberger was still
(21:55):
not stalking the house, but he was trying to find
the will to cross over that threshold into making the
ideas in his mind become a reality, and he kept
on fighting against it. He would go up towards the
murder house, and then he would drive off up to
the murder house, and then he would drive off.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
It was a colossal battle of wills.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
And when he finally turns off the key in his
car and parts and makes up his mind, requires his
strength of hercules to do this, but he decided at
this point to give into the demons, and I believe
he grabs the knife, sheaths and parts on the top
of the hill above King Road and starts walking down
(22:36):
on the pole of cross the ground.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
And making his way towards the kitchen door back door
of the house.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So this is a new way of looking at the evidence.
I thought this was interesting too. We knew, according to
the police, that he had cased the house. That's kind
of how we saw it that this white houndai Landro
we believe was it still has to be proven, had
cased the joint three times or so before the actual
moment of the murders, which the cops are putting it.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Around four oh two a m.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And your theory, having studied this more than any outsider
you know outside of law enforcement that I know, is
that it wasn't a casing. That this was a man who,
other than his heroin addiction, had not led a life
of violating the law, and was in PhD studies to
(23:29):
you know, work against criminals and try to understand them
and help law enforcement figuring out whether he could cross
it in a profound and before and after way.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
If he were actually caseing it, he would have noticed
all the cars in the driveway, a house full of people.
He might have wondered if there were people who would
have a physical confrontation with that he couldn't overcome, And.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Also would have noticed the door dash driver coming here.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
At four am delivering food to Zena and would have
known that she was probably still awake. I don't think
any of these more reasonable thoughts entered his mind. I
think he was an internal dialogue between Brian and his demons,
and that one was driving him back and forth that
night until he crosses that threshold into complete mania.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The other theory that you reveal in here made a
lot of headlines is that you believe that this actually
was about one victim. This is something we've all wondered,
and I apologize to the audience. I should have just
offered a few details about the crime at the top
of the hour. I just assume familiarity because our viewers
have heard us cover this so often. But it was
(24:41):
a murder of four young students at the University of Idaho.
We believe by this TA slash PhD student at a
neighboring university, and the four students were two best friends,
Kaylee and Maddie, who are there on the left in
the Maddie's up on the shoulders of Kaylee. There in
this picture of all the roommates who lived there, Xaner Kernodle,
(25:02):
who's over there on Screenwright with her boyfriend Ethan's arm
around her.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Those two were killed. They were on the second floor.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
The two blondes, Kayleye and Maddie were up on the
third floor in a bed together. They were lifelong best friends.
And these two gals on the left and the right
were surviving roommates when they were surviving roommates, and the
one Dylan who's on the left would be an eyewitness
as well. So you believe, just for the viewing audience
who's watching this with us on YouTube, that Maddie, who
(25:29):
was on the top of that shoal of Kaylee's shoulders,
was the target of this attack.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
Why when Homberger went to the house, he had no idea.
I believe that Calle was there. He goes in on
the second because Kelly wasn't living in the house really
at that point. She was living up north from Courzalene.
She was just in for the weekend to show off
her new car. He goes in up to the second
(25:59):
floor kitchen sliding door.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
If he was intent on just killing, he.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Would have gone into any of the two bedrooms on
the second floor, but he is on a deliberate path.
He makes his way upward and he goes into Maddie's bedroom,
and he then finds that there are two young women there,
two young blond, pretty women, and his only target originally
was Maddie. Kayley tries to back away, she fights back,
(26:28):
and she becomes a grim, gruesome.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Way collateral damage.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
I believe according to the prosecution of the defense, they
both have stated categorically in the courtroom that there's no
evidence of Coburger having any interaction with any of the victims,
either in person or on social media, prior to the killings,
and that Coburger, who was a vegan, went to the
(26:55):
Mad Greek restaurant, which specialized in vegan food in Moscow
and weren't too many plays is to get it, and
he met Maddie, who was a waitress there. He didn't
even have to speak with her. He was a man
who lived by obsessions. Look at his decision to become
a heroin autic and to break it to become the
best criminologist. He did things with extremes, and he became,
(27:18):
for whatever reason, obsessed by her beauty, her luberance, of
her vivaciousness, and he focused on her, and I believe
he went by the house and sometimes saw her.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
I believe the house was a party house.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
We've all seen the videos of the police coming there
and the kids interacting with them, and there's something, you know,
full of poignancy in those videos, the kids being kids,
the cops being brough Town cops, sort of the dynamic,
the dialectic of how kids and cops interact on a
college campus. But Coburger is outside of this, and it
(27:57):
was a constant rebuke. He had done every thing possible, traveled,
you know, millions of miles in his own mental vision,
from this kid on the periphery of events in high school,
becoming a heroinautic to now being a teaching assistant at
a celebrated university and a celebrating department at that university,
(28:20):
and yet he still couldn't quite get into the thing
of the swing up things. He still was an outsider
and his outside this was a constant insult to him,
and that pushed him, I believe, into what is a
can only be described as a mania to want to
(28:44):
want to feel that he can't live in this world
if these constant redukes to him are going to be
living in it.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Too, that, I mean, it's a stunning theory, and it
actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it,
because you're right, Kaylee wasn't even supposed to be there
that night, Maddie. He did work at this mad Greek restaurant.
Xanna did too, Xanna Kernodle, who was another one of
the victims. She was there with her boyfriend, which you know,
I mean they's been inseparable, inseparable from what we heard.
(29:12):
And he walked past Zanna's bedroom. Did he not howard
to get to Maddie's room?
Speaker 4 (29:19):
He just goes right by.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
And I also believe that if Ethan and Xanna had
not come out, I mean Ethan after after the murders,
I hear the noise. Ethan goes out to confront Coburger
and before he can even say anything, Coburger slashes out
with his knife and gets Ethan across the neck. Ethan
(29:43):
is six ' four, an athlete, and he was a
wonderful young man, full of vitality, full of vivaciousness, a
sort of happy go lucky, uh life of the party person,
and Colberger snuffs him out.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Then Zena up speaks up.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Or starts crying, and Coburger, in one chilling moment, says
to her, don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you,
and of course he moves in and kills him. She
has a defensive wound on her hand that the knife
penetrates her palm.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
She's trying.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
It's shoved so strongly, so savagely at her, but she succumbs,
and then after killing those two, he walks.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Out towards the second floor.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
He's heading towards the sliding door, trying to leave, and
there is Dylan. Dylan sees him, and she can't speak.
She's locked in a I believe she describes it, and
the police Affidavid, I think, a shock state of fright.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
But at the same.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
Exactly, yes, Brian and is locked in his own sort
of armory of hate. And if she had spoken up,
she might have been, you know, penetrated, this protective barrier
that he had wrapped around himself, this narrow focused vision,
and I think she would have become a victim too.
(31:19):
I think her silence saved her life.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Oh wow, And I'm going to get back to the
room in a second.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
But the timeline for the murders is so compressed. You know,
we know that they didn't happen before four am, because,
as you point out, that the door dash driver was
there dropping off food to Xana, and so they believe
it started at four two, when Xana and Ethan presumably
would have been awake and in their room eating the
(31:48):
food delivery. And then I thought the timeline was to
four eighteen, which I think is when we see the
Hyundai landre leaving there. But it may be even more
compressed than that, down to like four ten, four oh eight.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
You go ahead, you take it.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
Yes, isn't it about four h two to four eight
to four twelve? They're not exactly sure, but it's whatever
it is. I mean, the point you're making is so accurate.
It was such a short amount of time. It was
such you know, when he wasn't a trained assassin, and
yet he was.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
One can only imagine if Coberger was selling filled.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
With so much rage that he was able to do
this work with so much manic energy, so much manic,
vicious viciousness.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
It's a horrific crime.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
You've got four victims potentially in the course of eight minutes,
and you write in the book that that would be
two minutes per person to commit these murders, to take
out these young, promising lives by a guy who as
far as we know, as far as we know, has
never killed before. You spend some time as potentially a
(33:04):
weakness of the prosecution's case on something we've talked about before,
and that is the difference in the corner's descriptions of
how at least three out of the four were killed.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
And I wondered if you wanted to say anything about that.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Here you say, okay, they talk about the corner writes
about how Kaylee and Maddie were killed and suffered visible
stab wounds, quoting here from the corner suffered visible stab wounds.
I think we all can understand what those are. Yet
on the floor below second floor, Xana succumb to quote
(33:41):
wounds caused by an edged weapon, which isn't the same
thing as a visible stab wound. It sounds to me
like they maybe slit her throat, I don't know, and
then just.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
To finish it off.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Ethan's wounds are described as quote caused by sharp focus injuries.
I don't know what that means, caused by injuries caused bay,
but walk us through that that those.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
I think you know you're you're making.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
I think the defense is one of the defense's best
case that the coroner's report was so inexact. There were
lots of screw ups in this case, and I think
the corners in exactitude was one of them.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
I don't you know he lays the corner she.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
Actually I think the corner is shes with former nurse
in town lays open the possibility for the defense to
raise that maybe there were other assassins involved, maybe other weapons.
But I don't think. I don't think that's the case.
I think it's just poor use of language. The point
that you're making about the difference is will be made
(34:47):
by the defense in court and they will try to
drive it at home to raise doubts in the jury's mind.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Right, like, how could how could one man have done
this one as far as we know, not trained assassin
who you know were for the CIA for years. It's
one twenty eight year year old man. And if he
did do it, where were the injuries on him? Because
there's evidence that at least two of the victims fought,
So where are the defensive wounds?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Well, where are the attack wounds on Brian Colberger?
Speaker 5 (35:19):
There are no scratches on Brian Colberger. What the prosecution
believes I've discovered is that prior to the murders, Coburger
had bought, they contend, a blue Dicky's work suit which
covers from your ankles more or less up to your neck,
and he wore that worksuit on the night of the murders.
(35:43):
After the killings, that worksuit was probably drenched in blood.
According to the prosecution and law enforcement theory, he took
off that worksuit, put in a plastic garbage bag, and
on his circuitous route back to his apartment in Washington,
somewhere along the way he dropped it off through it
in a river.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
But they've never found that, and they've never found the
murder weapon.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
I mean, the prosecution is going to have, I believe,
a difficult legal case to make, and I think the defense,
they've left defense lots of avenues to pursue, lots of
avenues not to raise facts, but to raise doubts.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Will you point out in the book that.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Kayley's dad, Steve Gonsalvez, has been working his own investigation
into this case, and he apparently, among others, got his
hands on a grand juror two of them, two of
the grand jurors, And this may be how we know
some of these facts, like the Dickey's uniform that Brian
Coldberger allegedly purchased and may have been wearing, and like
(36:55):
the fact that Brian Coldberger bought a k bar knife
just like the one used in these murders months before
the murders. And interestingly, though there are reportedly receipts for
both of those items in Brian's accounts, neither one has
been found, which, in some ways Howard is even more
suspicious than actually finding them.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
Right and you raised Steve Gum calls Kayley's dad. I mean,
he's a fascinating figure in this entire story. I mean,
my heart goes out to him. You know, as the
father of three children myself, how could you your heart
not break over what he's been through When after the
events first happened, he says, you send your daughter off
(37:40):
to college and she comes back to you and an earn.
That's one of the most poignant phrases I've ever heard.
And yet I admire him and respect him for the
fact that he refuses to give into events. He's not
going to just sit back passively and let anyone else
do it. This was his daughter, and he's determined as
best he can to get to the bottom of things.
(38:02):
And even now, well I think he believes the suspect
has been caught, He's still built with a desire not
just for justice, but also for retribution and vengeance.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
I mean, he and his family.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
Members support the Idaho law for a firing squad for
execution on a guilty verdict if the chemicals needed for
a chemical execution cannot be found again. He is Coberger's
father is These are all victims of this story. This
is a story where there are, as I keep on saying,
(38:43):
no survivors. Everyone has been victimized. An entire town has
been victimized.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
For the record, Brian Colberger denies having committed these crimes
and has asserted in court that he has some sort
of an alibi. Something we've discussed at length on the show.
It seems incredib flimsy. He doesn't really have an alibi,
his lawyers saying, as far as I can glean, he
just likes to drive around at night, and that's why
his car when he wasn't at his apartment at the
(39:10):
time the murders were taking place. We'll learn more if
we ever actually see a trial on this never ending
pre trial motions, if if they end in an actual trial.
Let's talk about Dylan, because she's the eyewitness the police
had in their back pocket, and eyewitness of sorts. She
didn't see him commit murders, but she described a man
who matches Colberger's description with the bushy eyebrows and a
(39:33):
COVID type mask in her apartment, in her house on
the night of the murders. We believe this was as
he was leaving post murders. And what I didn't fully understand.
I mean, this has been reported, but she and the
other roommate who was not an eyewitness but was also there,
was she also there. I don't know why I'm forgetting this,
(39:53):
but they were texting during the midst of the murders.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Howard.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Well, according to what I've heard, to what was given
to the grand jury, they were they were concerned about
the noise at the same time. You know you're asking,
I'm asking. The defense will ask all sorts of reasonable
rational questions. How could you not say anything?
Speaker 4 (40:19):
How could you not pick up the phone and call
nine one one?
Speaker 5 (40:22):
These are not rational moments, These are uh, I believe.
And I went into this with a great deal of
suspicion about what was going on. I believe, you know,
Dylan was, as she describes it, in a state of shock,
a frozen, frozen state of shock and fright, and she
(40:46):
just couldn't respond and her mind was not making sense.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Of events.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
It's incredible as she waited, you know, till the next
morning to make a call, and she doesn't even call
the police.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
Even at that point she's still.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
She calls friends one of the fraternities and they come
down and one of Ethan's friends makes the nine to
one one call.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
To the police. These are all incredible events.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
As one of the reasons why this entire story has
I think captivated and perplexed so many people, because it's
not nice and neat where you see things on a
television movie, for example, But there are a lot of
things that really don't make sense because a night like
that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4 (41:36):
And that's sort of why I called the book When
the Night Comes Falling.
Speaker 5 (41:40):
When the night came falling that night and that morning
on November twelfth and the thirteenth, chaos, madness in all.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Rain, silence about this only makes sense to me if
she did not know what was happening, if she didn't
think that anybody was in danger, if she thought this
was a guy, viz. One of the roommates, she's annoyed,
she's texting with the other roommate. They're so loud, they're annoying.
That would make sense to me. That's how young people behave,
like God, shut up, it's four in the morning, having
(42:11):
zero idea they're being killed. And that then when she
saw Brian leaving, she thought this was an invited guest
and not a killer.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
That would make perfect sense to me.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
It doesn't line up with what's in the police affidavit, however, No, I.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Think the scenario that you are saying makes sense. I
think her realization at the same time is.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Very much like Michael Coburger's in the sense that they
have intimations of what's going but they refuse to make
the leap because the leap is too horrific. It's too
horrific for her to make this leap that this guy
is not just a party reveler who's leaving the house
if they've been whatever pulling around upstairs. He actually is
(43:01):
a murderer, and that sensor trying to make that thought
process into a complete detachment. It's the same sort of
detachment that Michael Colberger does when he realizes in his
mind that, oh, my gosh, my.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Son might have been involved in these murders.
Speaker 5 (43:18):
So instead of taking a step forward, they both take
a step back.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Well, this leads me to one of the most interesting
things in this book, and it's Melissa. Melissa is Brian
Kohlberger's older sister, and much like Michael Kohlberger, who you
write in the book seems to have had suspicions about
his son from the start, long before the cops knew
the name Brian Colberger, Melissa too had reason to suspect
(43:49):
him and spoke to the dad Michael about it.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Tell us about her.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
Well, Melissa is a family psychologist, and she's like.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
We all were reading the papers.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
She knows her brother who's had problems, who is a
heroin addict, who has violent tempers, tantrums, and he's just
a little weird. Is out there. He lives ten miles
from the where the killings occurred, and he happens to
be driving a white Hondai a Lantra, and that just
(44:22):
happens to be the car the police are looking for.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
You know.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
She has her psychology degree, She's able to put the
pieces together. And when she finally comes back with the
Christmas holiday and she sees her brother meticulously cleaning is
Hondi seeing him at one point she sees him taking
his back garbage and keeping it separate from the families
put into plastic banks. And you know, two and two
(44:50):
make four. And she confronts the father, and the father
is now has his daughter articulating all the thoughts that
were simmering coming into realization is own mind. And there
suddenly he's given them. Someone is telling them that everything
you've been thinking is true is in fact true. And
(45:13):
the only thing he can do, when confronted with this
is do what Dylan does. He sort of walks back
into his room. He walks off, just the way she
walks back into the room. I don't want to deal
with this overpowering reality.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
It is how could process any of that that your
son may have committed this kind of heinous crime. You
write in the book as follows about Melissa, Then there
was okay. There he was in the kitchen lead at night,
sorting his day's personal detritus into plastic ziplock bags. And
though she had not set out to spy, and afterward
(45:48):
wished she had never seen it at all, there was
her brother sneaking out after midnight like a man on
a mission. He walked down the long drive in the
starlit chill to deposit the family's trash in a next
door neighbor's bins. When she put a name and purpose
to all she'd been witnessing, it left her shaking. At last,
(46:08):
though Melissa found the will to share her increasingly certain
deduction with her father. Michael listened, and yet he could
not respond. A long, agonized silence filled the room until
at last he turned his back and walked away. And
it would have had to have been within days of that, Howard,
(46:29):
that they were all woken up in the middle of
the night by the police, guns drawn, arresting Brian Colberger.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
Right, And there's an irony to that because it was
Michael's DNA that the police had that connected him to
the knife sheet.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
So the father, in effect his DNA caught his son.
Speaker 5 (46:51):
He was trying to escape from that, and yet it
was almost like a Greek tragedy.
Speaker 4 (46:56):
He couldn't.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
It was an excelebrit drawn to that that he was
going to be the one to condemn his son.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yes, because of genetic genealogy, which is another revelation in
the book about how the FBI knew it was Brian
Coldberger or suspected him thanks to genetic genealogy. There was
a touch DNA and the knife sheath. Thanks to genetic genealogy,
they traced it to someone related to Michael Colberger, which
led them to Brian, and they didn't share it with
the local cops. There's all sorts of interesting details on
(47:27):
why and theories as well that you're going to want
to read again. The book is called When the Night
Comes Falling, a Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders by
Howard Bloom. Please check it out as available now in
whatever form you want. As I said, I already consumed
it twice and recommend it to all.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Howard, thank you, thank you, pleasure talking with him.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Nay, my gosh, such a horrific crime. And again on
six twenty seven we'll find out, we think, whether they're
going to set a trial date anytime soon.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Fingers crossed
Hi, everybody, Nancy Grace here. Let me introduce you to
a podcast I think you will love, The Megan Kelly Show.
The Megan Kelly Show features open, honest, and sometimes provocative,
that's one way to put it, conversations with some of
the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures
(00:23):
of the day. Give it a listen and follow The
Megan Kelly Show wherever you get your podcast. You may
love the guest, you may hate the guest, but I'm
telling you the Megan Kelly Show is the must listen.
Here's Megan Kelly now.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, live on Serious XM
Channel one eleven, every weekday at the East.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Hey, everyone on Megan Kelly.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show. I'm very excited for
what we're about to bring you. It's now been five
hundred and ninety days since four University of Idaho students
were found savagely murdered. Five hundred and ninety days and
still no closure for the families of the young victims.
There's not even a trial date set at this point.
How can that be? Best Selling author and journalist Howard
(01:19):
Bloom has been reporting on this tragedy since day one
like no other. I mean, if you read nothing about
this case, read anything. Howard Bloom writes, he's been writing
for Airmail, which is Graydon Carter's new online publication.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
It's doing really well, thanks in large part to Howard.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
You may remember we featured Howard's reporting in our special
series on the murders back in December. You can go
back and listen to all five parts, episodes six eighty
eight through six ninety two. Howard has done more fantastic
reporting on this case for a new book just out today.
It's called When the Night Comes Falling, A Requiem for
(01:54):
the Idaho Student Murders.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Again.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's out today. You can get it right now. I've
read it, both read it covered and I listened to
the audio too, and it's already rising up the Amazon charts.
It's going to be number one, zeroed out in my mind,
and it'll be on the Time bestseller list too.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Welcome back to the show, Howard Bloom. This is a great,
great book. I'm so glad you wrote it.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Nobody's been reporting like you, so you put it.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
It's always easy to use it.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's not like it's not a doorstop book, so it's
like manageable. You can read this at the beach in
a day or two, and I recommend it because you
learn a ton about the case. Let's start with the title,
what do you mean a Requiem for the Idaho student murders?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
What was in mind when you were writing that?
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Well, something that's been lost in the whole coverage of
this case and trying to get to the bottom of
a perplexing mystery. It's the lives that were lost, these
four young kids, four young children. As a father of
three children, the art has to go out to them,
and I wanted to honor them.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I wanted to honor the lives that they lived.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Xana Carnudle, one of the young women who was killed
at her high school graduation, carried a mortar board with
her and it said on the underside, for the lives
I will change.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
For the lives I will change.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
And as that struck me all the time as I
was writing this book. I even had it on a
note above my desk. You know, these children will never
have the opportunity to have changed these lives, and that
affected me and I wanted to try to do their
memory justice.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Oh wow, that's awful. What do you think about it?
I know just the other day they celebrated. I guess
a better word is marked Kayla Goansolvus's what would have
been her twenty third birthday. I'll show you the tape.
There was a balloon release my friends and family of hers.
This young girl's been dead now going on two years.
(03:53):
She should be celebrating her post college you first career
and time with friends. And I was struck by what
the family said when they did the balloon release, talking
about what they think of when they think of Kayleie
Jade Day, which is what they're calling it, which is
how she liked to enjoy lunch with a friend or
family member. They hope people will do things like this,
(04:15):
planning vacations or holidays, trying out a new recipe, treating
oneself to mimosas and appetizers at a local restaurant, embarking
on a new hiking adventure, witnessing the sunrise, reconnecting with
distant friends or family, and spreading kindness at a favorite
drive through.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
That jive's completely howard.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
With what we know of this young woman, how joyful
she appeared in every picture, her tight best friendship with
another victim, Mattie Mogan, and just how these girls were
so young and had it all in front of them
when their lives were taken.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
And you mentioned the families, how they're trying to come
to terms with this, but there really are no survivors
in this story. This is a story about victims, and
as you pointed out here, production you know, there still
is no sense of closure for these families. The trial
dregs on and on and on. The delays are cool.
(05:11):
It's a cruelty to the families.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I don't understand hard to be so into this case
and still not even have a trial date. There's going
to be hearing on June twenty seventh where they're going
to try to get one again. But this defense attorney,
whose name is Ann Taylor, has been doing a very
good job of convincing the judge whose last name is Judge,
so he's judged judge to continue delaying. It's frustrating for
(05:36):
those of us who want to see justice take its course.
All right, let's get into let's get into the substance
of the book. Because you've I mean, will never be
able to scratch the surface here because there's a ton
of new stuff in here, and just for what it's
worth audience, the way Howard writes is absolutely it makes
you feel delirious with interest because he just chooses the
(05:57):
right adjective and he's very transparent about where he or
he's using his own opinion and where he's reporting facts,
but has a way of telling the story that is
very illuminating. And I think that's one of my thing
the favorite things I love about the book. When the
Night Comes Falling by Howard bloom Blum. One of the
big pieces that I learned in this Now I don't
(06:19):
know how you got it, and I won't ask how
you got it is you tell us about the conversation
the suspect who's under arrest, Brian Colberger now for committing
these four murders, had with his father, Michael, who had
flown from the Poconos, Pennsylvania, all the way across country
to Washington State to pick up his son some I
(06:41):
don't know a month. It was a month right after
the murders. The murders took place November thirteenth, twenty twenty two.
The dad flew out there about a month later to
get the sun and drive back cross country to the
Poconos with his kid, who was a teaching assistant at
Wash You and also was getting his PhD in criminology there,
and you walk us through their exchange. What was on
(07:05):
the dad's mind, what was on the son's mind? Who's
now in prison awaiting truck. So talk to us a
little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Well, here's this father who makes this trip.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
His father is sixty eight years old, and he decides
to go out to Washington State to then two days
later turn around completely and drive across country with his son.
He does this because he's nervous, he's anxious, he is
connecting the dots in his mind. He knows his son
(07:35):
is a disturbed young man. He knows his son has
had problems. He knows his son also lives about ten
miles away where four young women four three young women
and one young man were killed. And he knows his
son look has a white hondaei Alan trip and that
just happens to be the car, the model of the
(07:57):
car the police are looking for.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
So he goes out there.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
I'm not sure what he's going to find, and immediately
his son is in a mood and he's seen Brian's
moods before, and he knows to sort of go with
the flow. He doesn't want to anger him. But as
he spends time with Brian, he's very is if he's
(08:23):
following footsteps, and these footsteps suddenly become bloody footsteps, and
he realizes, oh my gosh, my son might very well
be involved in this. And yet he also refuses, refuses
to make this leap as any parent might. They can't
put this on his son. So in a way, Michael
(08:44):
Coburg or the father, is a victim too. He's one
of the characters in this story. And I pread my
structure of the book in many ways around this trip.
It's sort of, you know, like Homer's Odyssey, a long voice,
which is going to have a lot of traumatic events.
And here, as the fathers is coming, the fears are
(09:07):
coming closer and closer into focus in the father's mind.
The car is stopped once by a state police actually
a sheriff's deputy in Indiana, and then nine minutes later
by another deputy, a state trooper, and the father is
now realizing, perhaps this is it, Perhaps everything I was
(09:32):
thinking about is true, and it becomes clearer and clearer.
And then when the car is stopped, what's the first
thing that father blurts out to the law enforcement people
who are stopping the car. He talks about a shooting
in the Washington State University that happened earlier that day.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Is what's on his mind.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
All this violence out in the West is coming together,
and he feels something benevolent is happening. He begins to
fear as they makes this cross country journal journey, he
begins to fear with greater certainty that his son is
involved in it, and he doesn't quite know what to do.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
It's something to consider that the father too, of course,
now in retrospect and you think about it, the father
too was suspicious of his son. You know, we hear
that all these facts, knowing that Brian Colberger was later
arrested for these crimes, and then you hear that his
father had gotten him at college, was driving him back
(10:33):
home the cops, well not the cops, but the FBI.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
This is one of the points you make in the book.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Was already on to him, was aware was following, But
of course the father would have suspicions. Of course, the
father knew about the quadruple murder right, you know, ten
miles from where his son was a TA and getting
his PhD. He's got to know the son is weird,
to just put it very mildly, he's off, very off socially.
(10:59):
And we heard the detail prior to the book about
how Brian the son re routed the trip home. They
had something all set the shortest distance between two lines
is a straight one right and two points is a
straight line, and how Brian had changed it suddenly he
wanted it to go a much more circuitous route home.
But you really lay some details in there about how
(11:21):
angry he was about the dad pushing back on that
at all, and how the father had to handle him
so gingerly he knew he was dealing with the powder
keg of a man.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
It's also interesting that this was not the father his
first trip out with his son. He came out when
Brian registered at the beginning of the term. He made
the cross country trip with him. Now the father is
sixty eight years old, the famili has had financial problems,
They've been bankrupt twice and went to bankruptcy proceedings, and
(11:54):
yet he feels he still has to go with a
twenty eight year old young man to be with him
on this trip, even when he's registering. He doesn't want
his son to be alone at the crossroads. And what
does his father do when he's out there? He goes
to one of Brian's neighbors and says, you know, my
son has a hard time making friends.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Can you help him out?
Speaker 5 (12:15):
And this neighbor invites Brian to a pool party, which
I talked about in the book, And that's really Brian's
first trip to Moscow, Idaho.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
The conversation they have relating to and the revelations about
Brian Kohlberger's problems in his TA position are absolutely fascinating.
So it was far worse for Brian Colberger in the
weeks leading up to the murders of these four University
(12:47):
of Idaho students on November thirteenth, and also Brian's returned
to the Poconos in early December with his dad. Then
I knew until I read your book. He tell us
about the problems Brian was having in the THA role
and about the fact that he revealed a lot of
what he did know to the dad.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Would you have to begin with I think to understand
how traumatic this was for Brian is where he came
up from. He was an academic success story. He reinvented
his life. He came from being a heroin addict at
a junior college, gets into a graduate from Tassau, and
then he gets into a first great graduate program at
(13:31):
a Washington State university, and he's on his way to
be a doctorate.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
And then in the course of his first term as
a teaching.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Assistant, the students start to complain they don't like the
way he's treating them. They feel he's treating the women
in a chauvinistic way. He always has to have the
last say he's marking too strictly. And the professor who's
handling his course he's working for, Professor John Snyder, pulls
(13:59):
in in for a meeting, and what does Brian do.
He blows his top. He really doesn't want to discuss it,
but he exacerbates matters. And the professor, who was a
lawyer before coming to teach at Washington State, starts making
a paper trail, sending letters to the administration that we
(14:21):
might have a problem here whatever. Finally, on November second,
just eleven days before the murders, he's given sort of
an ultimatum by the authorities of Washington State. Get your
act together or you're going to lose your teaching assistant job. Now,
(14:42):
for Brian to lose this, it's not just a job.
It's the tuition that allows him to go to graduate school.
It's the opportunity to reinvent his life from the hard
scrabble life he was leading as a youth in the
Poconos to become Professor Brian cober to become a forensic psychologist.
(15:02):
And this was a shock. Who is already it's a
tentative system. I mean, Brian is always living every day
on tenderhooks, and now it becomes even worse. So how
he's while he's driving across country with his father, he
begins to reveal and this would related to me by
(15:26):
people who have spoken with Brian's father to Michael Koberger,
that he's in a bit of trouble. So he describes
it at the university. But Brian tells his father, I'm
going to have the last laugh. You know, they can't
just get rid of me. I'm going to be able
to have a disciplinary hearing and I will make my
case and I will be able to continue teaching, and
(15:48):
I believe until the moment he's arrested, he still believes
that he's going to get away with things and he's
going to be back teaching in the next semester at
Washington State University.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
He believes that he still is.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
The smartest person in the room and he can out
talk these professors because in his heart, he feels he's
done nothing wrong.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
He's always right.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
He's trying to spin it to his dad as if
these are weak need students who just don't like tough grading,
and you know, they're they're basically just snowflakes. And I'm
a tough grader and that's the problem. And meanwhile, he
was it looked like he was harassing a couple of
the young female students. He had zero tolerance for conflicting viewpoints.
(16:35):
He was disdainful of these students. I mean, all the
things that you would expect if this guy really is
a quadruple murderer. He wasn't perfectly normal in the classroom.
He was odd, to put it mildly, And these students
actually spoke up on Moss to the professor Snyder, saying
there's something wrong with this guy. And Snyder when he
(16:55):
started to kick the tires seems to have found You're right,
and that's.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Just Brian's behavior did not go unnoticed, and the students
that he was teaching picked up on it. There was
something really off, something really wrong, and he couldn't hide it.
And this is what he was living with. He wanted
to be something else, He wanted to fit in. He
(17:20):
wanted to he reinvented his life, and he wanted to
live this life he once had imagined. But he also
was intelligent enough to realize that this was an impossibility.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
To him, he could not make.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
This complete leap, and that was the tortured state that
he was living in.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So most of us, if we were if our tuition
were getting paid by this school there at the school
liking us. Was the difference between us being able to
get the PhD and not because they can can't cut
your scholarship at any time. Would shape up if we
were sat down by our professor, never mind the department
head and said and told shape up, we're going to
(18:01):
ship you out.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
He didn't do that.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Professor Snyder called him in, and you write about how
the Snyder he was astonished that Colberger started arguing with
him as opposed to just saying I'm sorry, I'll do better,
I'll resolve. The department head seems to have had a
similar experience with him, where instead of being apologetic or
falling on his sword, he was irascible. And then ultimately
(18:24):
when they reached sort of in a chord, Okay, he's
going to try to do better and keep this position.
You write about his self sabotage about how he couldn't
do it.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
He was just incapable of it at that point where
he thought maybe he's fooled them that he can stay on.
He then became more aggressive to some of the women
in the class, and at one point one of the
young women in his class say related to the college
authorities that he followed her to hit her car, and
(18:56):
he acted in she said, quote an aggressive unquote matter,
And that was just the destrawer that broke the administration back.
They said, we've got to get rid of this guy,
and they sent him a letter. The problem is when
the letter reached his home in Washington State University, he
was already on this car trip across America with his father,
(19:19):
and he was lecturing his father, or hectoring his father
how he was going to ultimately be able to go
back because he was smarter than they were, and he
would have a hearing, and he would argue his case
so successfully that they would have to bow to his
superior intelligence.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
In the midst of all of this, he allegedly committed
for murders. That's what's so fascinating about the book and
the story in general. Again, the books called When the
Night Comes Falling by Howard bloom Blum. He's going through
all of this, and you're getting a real profile of
who we believe is a killer and what he's going
(19:57):
through in his private and personal life. His slow downward
spiral in his ta position, his inability to control his
anger and defensiveness even to his own peril, like he
knows what's going to happen if he continues pissing off
his department chair and so on. They've made it very
clear he just can't stop himself. As you write, he
(20:20):
unleashed the full force of his considerable fury, and that
was ultimately with the women and so on. When the
department sent him that note, the department chair send him
an email, I'm reading from your book here requesting that
they meet, you write, this was most likely a summons
to the gallows, but before this execution could take place,
Brian quite effectively placed the noose around his own neck.
(20:41):
Several of his female students reported to the department that
Brian was making them feel uncomfortable. In fact, the CREEPYTA
had even followed one woman to her car. Now there
was nothing further to discuss. Brian's TA job was over.
Mister Kolberger, I am writing this letter to formally inform
you of the termination of your teaching assistant with the
Department of Criminal Justice in Criminology, effective December thirty first,
(21:04):
twenty twenty two. But this, as you point out, was
never received by him. He had already left the campus
and was driving back to Pennsylvania. But Howard, by the
time she sent this, if the prosecution is correct in
this case, he had gone from having troubles in his
TA job to murdering four students in cold Blood at
(21:25):
the neighboring university, to back in with his superintendent his
director on whether he could improve his behavior, and then
pieced out of there back to the Poconotes.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
I mean, you can imagine the chaos that was going
on in his internal structure, in his mind and he
was always trying to become something better, and yet every
time he succumbs to who he is. Even on the
nights of the murders, I believe that Coberger was still
(21:55):
not stalking the house, but he was trying to find
the will to cross over that threshold into making the
ideas in his mind become a reality, and he kept
on fighting against it. He would go up towards the
murder house, and then he would drive off up to
the murder house, and then he would drive off.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
It was a colossal battle of wills.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
And when he finally turns off the key in his
car and parts and makes up his mind, requires his
strength of hercules to do this, but he decided at
this point to give into the demons, and I believe
he grabs the knife, sheaths and parts on the top
of the hill above King Road and starts walking down
(22:36):
on the pole of cross the ground.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
And making his way towards the kitchen door back door
of the house.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So this is a new way of looking at the evidence.
I thought this was interesting too. We knew, according to
the police, that he had cased the house. That's kind
of how we saw it that this white houndai Landro
we believe was it still has to be proven, had
cased the joint three times or so before the actual
moment of the murders, which the cops are putting it.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Around four oh two a m.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And your theory, having studied this more than any outsider
you know outside of law enforcement that I know, is
that it wasn't a casing. That this was a man who,
other than his heroin addiction, had not led a life
of violating the law, and was in PhD studies to
(23:29):
you know, work against criminals and try to understand them
and help law enforcement figuring out whether he could cross
it in a profound and before and after way.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
If he were actually caseing it, he would have noticed
all the cars in the driveway, a house full of people.
He might have wondered if there were people who would
have a physical confrontation with that he couldn't overcome, And.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Also would have noticed the door dash driver coming here.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
At four am delivering food to Zena and would have
known that she was probably still awake. I don't think
any of these more reasonable thoughts entered his mind. I
think he was an internal dialogue between Brian and his demons,
and that one was driving him back and forth that
night until he crosses that threshold into complete mania.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The other theory that you reveal in here made a
lot of headlines is that you believe that this actually
was about one victim. This is something we've all wondered,
and I apologize to the audience. I should have just
offered a few details about the crime at the top
of the hour. I just assume familiarity because our viewers
have heard us cover this so often. But it was
(24:41):
a murder of four young students at the University of Idaho.
We believe by this TA slash PhD student at a
neighboring university, and the four students were two best friends,
Kaylee and Maddie, who are there on the left in
the Maddie's up on the shoulders of Kaylee. There in
this picture of all the roommates who lived there, Xaner Kernodle,
(25:02):
who's over there on Screenwright with her boyfriend Ethan's arm
around her.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Those two were killed. They were on the second floor.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
The two blondes, Kayleye and Maddie were up on the
third floor in a bed together. They were lifelong best friends.
And these two gals on the left and the right
were surviving roommates when they were surviving roommates, and the
one Dylan who's on the left would be an eyewitness
as well. So you believe, just for the viewing audience
who's watching this with us on YouTube, that Maddie, who
(25:29):
was on the top of that shoal of Kaylee's shoulders,
was the target of this attack.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
Why when Homberger went to the house, he had no idea.
I believe that Calle was there. He goes in on
the second because Kelly wasn't living in the house really
at that point. She was living up north from Courzalene.
She was just in for the weekend to show off
her new car. He goes in up to the second
(25:59):
floor kitchen sliding door.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
If he was intent on just killing, he.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Would have gone into any of the two bedrooms on
the second floor, but he is on a deliberate path.
He makes his way upward and he goes into Maddie's bedroom,
and he then finds that there are two young women there,
two young blond, pretty women, and his only target originally
was Maddie. Kayley tries to back away, she fights back,
(26:28):
and she becomes a grim, gruesome.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Way collateral damage.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
I believe according to the prosecution of the defense, they
both have stated categorically in the courtroom that there's no
evidence of Coburger having any interaction with any of the victims,
either in person or on social media, prior to the killings,
and that Coburger, who was a vegan, went to the
(26:55):
Mad Greek restaurant, which specialized in vegan food in Moscow
and weren't too many plays is to get it, and
he met Maddie, who was a waitress there. He didn't
even have to speak with her. He was a man
who lived by obsessions. Look at his decision to become
a heroin autic and to break it to become the
best criminologist. He did things with extremes, and he became,
(27:18):
for whatever reason, obsessed by her beauty, her luberance, of
her vivaciousness, and he focused on her, and I believe
he went by the house and sometimes saw her.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
I believe the house was a party house.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
We've all seen the videos of the police coming there
and the kids interacting with them, and there's something, you know,
full of poignancy in those videos, the kids being kids,
the cops being brough Town cops, sort of the dynamic,
the dialectic of how kids and cops interact on a
college campus. But Coburger is outside of this, and it
(27:57):
was a constant rebuke. He had done every thing possible, traveled,
you know, millions of miles in his own mental vision,
from this kid on the periphery of events in high school,
becoming a heroinautic to now being a teaching assistant at
a celebrated university and a celebrating department at that university,
(28:20):
and yet he still couldn't quite get into the thing
of the swing up things. He still was an outsider
and his outside this was a constant insult to him,
and that pushed him, I believe, into what is a
can only be described as a mania to want to
(28:44):
want to feel that he can't live in this world
if these constant redukes to him are going to be
living in it.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Too, that, I mean, it's a stunning theory, and it
actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it,
because you're right, Kaylee wasn't even supposed to be there
that night, Maddie. He did work at this mad Greek restaurant.
Xanna did too, Xanna Kernodle, who was another one of
the victims. She was there with her boyfriend, which you know,
I mean they's been inseparable, inseparable from what we heard.
(29:12):
And he walked past Zanna's bedroom. Did he not howard
to get to Maddie's room?
Speaker 4 (29:19):
He just goes right by.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
And I also believe that if Ethan and Xanna had
not come out, I mean Ethan after after the murders,
I hear the noise. Ethan goes out to confront Coburger
and before he can even say anything, Coburger slashes out
with his knife and gets Ethan across the neck. Ethan
(29:43):
is six ' four, an athlete, and he was a
wonderful young man, full of vitality, full of vivaciousness, a
sort of happy go lucky, uh life of the party person,
and Colberger snuffs him out.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Then Zena up speaks up.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Or starts crying, and Coburger, in one chilling moment, says
to her, don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you,
and of course he moves in and kills him. She
has a defensive wound on her hand that the knife
penetrates her palm.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
She's trying.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
It's shoved so strongly, so savagely at her, but she succumbs,
and then after killing those two, he walks.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Out towards the second floor.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
He's heading towards the sliding door, trying to leave, and
there is Dylan. Dylan sees him, and she can't speak.
She's locked in a I believe she describes it, and
the police Affidavid, I think, a shock state of fright.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
But at the same.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
Exactly, yes, Brian and is locked in his own sort
of armory of hate. And if she had spoken up,
she might have been, you know, penetrated, this protective barrier
that he had wrapped around himself, this narrow focused vision,
and I think she would have become a victim too.
(31:19):
I think her silence saved her life.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Oh wow, And I'm going to get back to the
room in a second.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
But the timeline for the murders is so compressed. You know,
we know that they didn't happen before four am, because,
as you point out, that the door dash driver was
there dropping off food to Xana, and so they believe
it started at four two, when Xana and Ethan presumably
would have been awake and in their room eating the
(31:48):
food delivery. And then I thought the timeline was to
four eighteen, which I think is when we see the
Hyundai landre leaving there. But it may be even more
compressed than that, down to like four ten, four oh eight.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
You go ahead, you take it.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
Yes, isn't it about four h two to four eight
to four twelve? They're not exactly sure, but it's whatever
it is. I mean, the point you're making is so accurate.
It was such a short amount of time. It was
such you know, when he wasn't a trained assassin, and
yet he was.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
One can only imagine if Coberger was selling filled.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
With so much rage that he was able to do
this work with so much manic energy, so much manic,
vicious viciousness.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
It's a horrific crime.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
You've got four victims potentially in the course of eight minutes,
and you write in the book that that would be
two minutes per person to commit these murders, to take
out these young, promising lives by a guy who as
far as we know, as far as we know, has
never killed before. You spend some time as potentially a
(33:04):
weakness of the prosecution's case on something we've talked about before,
and that is the difference in the corner's descriptions of
how at least three out of the four were killed.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
And I wondered if you wanted to say anything about that.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Here you say, okay, they talk about the corner writes
about how Kaylee and Maddie were killed and suffered visible
stab wounds, quoting here from the corner suffered visible stab wounds.
I think we all can understand what those are. Yet
on the floor below second floor, Xana succumb to quote
(33:41):
wounds caused by an edged weapon, which isn't the same
thing as a visible stab wound. It sounds to me
like they maybe slit her throat, I don't know, and
then just.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
To finish it off.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Ethan's wounds are described as quote caused by sharp focus injuries.
I don't know what that means, caused by injuries caused bay,
but walk us through that that those.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
I think you know you're you're making.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
I think the defense is one of the defense's best
case that the coroner's report was so inexact. There were
lots of screw ups in this case, and I think
the corners in exactitude was one of them.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
I don't you know he lays the corner she.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
Actually I think the corner is shes with former nurse
in town lays open the possibility for the defense to
raise that maybe there were other assassins involved, maybe other weapons.
But I don't think. I don't think that's the case.
I think it's just poor use of language. The point
that you're making about the difference is will be made
(34:47):
by the defense in court and they will try to
drive it at home to raise doubts in the jury's mind.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Right, like, how could how could one man have done
this one as far as we know, not trained assassin
who you know were for the CIA for years. It's
one twenty eight year year old man. And if he
did do it, where were the injuries on him? Because
there's evidence that at least two of the victims fought,
So where are the defensive wounds?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Well, where are the attack wounds on Brian Colberger?
Speaker 5 (35:19):
There are no scratches on Brian Colberger. What the prosecution
believes I've discovered is that prior to the murders, Coburger
had bought, they contend, a blue Dicky's work suit which
covers from your ankles more or less up to your neck,
and he wore that worksuit on the night of the murders.
(35:43):
After the killings, that worksuit was probably drenched in blood.
According to the prosecution and law enforcement theory, he took
off that worksuit, put in a plastic garbage bag, and
on his circuitous route back to his apartment in Washington,
somewhere along the way he dropped it off through it
in a river.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
But they've never found that, and they've never found the
murder weapon.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
I mean, the prosecution is going to have, I believe,
a difficult legal case to make, and I think the defense,
they've left defense lots of avenues to pursue, lots of
avenues not to raise facts, but to raise doubts.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Will you point out in the book that.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Kayley's dad, Steve Gonsalvez, has been working his own investigation
into this case, and he apparently, among others, got his
hands on a grand juror two of them, two of
the grand jurors, And this may be how we know
some of these facts, like the Dickey's uniform that Brian
Coldberger allegedly purchased and may have been wearing, and like
(36:55):
the fact that Brian Coldberger bought a k bar knife
just like the one used in these murders months before
the murders. And interestingly, though there are reportedly receipts for
both of those items in Brian's accounts, neither one has
been found, which, in some ways Howard is even more
suspicious than actually finding them.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
Right and you raised Steve Gum calls Kayley's dad. I mean,
he's a fascinating figure in this entire story. I mean,
my heart goes out to him. You know, as the
father of three children myself, how could you your heart
not break over what he's been through When after the
events first happened, he says, you send your daughter off
(37:40):
to college and she comes back to you and an earn.
That's one of the most poignant phrases I've ever heard.
And yet I admire him and respect him for the
fact that he refuses to give into events. He's not
going to just sit back passively and let anyone else
do it. This was his daughter, and he's determined as
best he can to get to the bottom of things.
(38:02):
And even now, well I think he believes the suspect
has been caught, He's still built with a desire not
just for justice, but also for retribution and vengeance.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
I mean, he and his family.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
Members support the Idaho law for a firing squad for
execution on a guilty verdict if the chemicals needed for
a chemical execution cannot be found again. He is Coberger's
father is These are all victims of this story. This
is a story where there are, as I keep on saying,
(38:43):
no survivors. Everyone has been victimized. An entire town has
been victimized.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
For the record, Brian Colberger denies having committed these crimes
and has asserted in court that he has some sort
of an alibi. Something we've discussed at length on the show.
It seems incredib flimsy. He doesn't really have an alibi,
his lawyers saying, as far as I can glean, he
just likes to drive around at night, and that's why
his car when he wasn't at his apartment at the
(39:10):
time the murders were taking place. We'll learn more if
we ever actually see a trial on this never ending
pre trial motions, if if they end in an actual trial.
Let's talk about Dylan, because she's the eyewitness the police
had in their back pocket, and eyewitness of sorts. She
didn't see him commit murders, but she described a man
who matches Colberger's description with the bushy eyebrows and a
(39:33):
COVID type mask in her apartment, in her house on
the night of the murders. We believe this was as
he was leaving post murders. And what I didn't fully understand.
I mean, this has been reported, but she and the
other roommate who was not an eyewitness but was also there,
was she also there. I don't know why I'm forgetting this,
(39:53):
but they were texting during the midst of the murders.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Howard.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Well, according to what I've heard, to what was given
to the grand jury, they were they were concerned about
the noise at the same time. You know you're asking,
I'm asking. The defense will ask all sorts of reasonable
rational questions. How could you not say anything?
Speaker 4 (40:19):
How could you not pick up the phone and call
nine one one?
Speaker 5 (40:22):
These are not rational moments, These are uh, I believe.
And I went into this with a great deal of
suspicion about what was going on. I believe, you know,
Dylan was, as she describes it, in a state of shock,
a frozen, frozen state of shock and fright, and she
(40:46):
just couldn't respond and her mind was not making sense.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Of events.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
It's incredible as she waited, you know, till the next
morning to make a call, and she doesn't even call
the police.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
Even at that point she's still.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
She calls friends one of the fraternities and they come
down and one of Ethan's friends makes the nine to
one one call.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
To the police. These are all incredible events.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
As one of the reasons why this entire story has
I think captivated and perplexed so many people, because it's
not nice and neat where you see things on a
television movie, for example, But there are a lot of
things that really don't make sense because a night like
that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4 (41:36):
And that's sort of why I called the book When
the Night Comes Falling.
Speaker 5 (41:40):
When the night came falling that night and that morning
on November twelfth and the thirteenth, chaos, madness in all.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Rain, silence about this only makes sense to me if
she did not know what was happening, if she didn't
think that anybody was in danger, if she thought this
was a guy, viz. One of the roommates, she's annoyed,
she's texting with the other roommate. They're so loud, they're annoying.
That would make sense to me. That's how young people behave,
like God, shut up, it's four in the morning, having
(42:11):
zero idea they're being killed. And that then when she
saw Brian leaving, she thought this was an invited guest
and not a killer.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
That would make perfect sense to me.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
It doesn't line up with what's in the police affidavit, however, No, I.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Think the scenario that you are saying makes sense. I
think her realization at the same time is.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Very much like Michael Coburger's in the sense that they
have intimations of what's going but they refuse to make
the leap because the leap is too horrific. It's too
horrific for her to make this leap that this guy
is not just a party reveler who's leaving the house
if they've been whatever pulling around upstairs. He actually is
(43:01):
a murderer, and that sensor trying to make that thought
process into a complete detachment. It's the same sort of
detachment that Michael Colberger does when he realizes in his
mind that, oh, my gosh, my.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Son might have been involved in these murders.
Speaker 5 (43:18):
So instead of taking a step forward, they both take
a step back.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Well, this leads me to one of the most interesting
things in this book, and it's Melissa. Melissa is Brian
Kohlberger's older sister, and much like Michael Kohlberger, who you
write in the book seems to have had suspicions about
his son from the start, long before the cops knew
the name Brian Colberger, Melissa too had reason to suspect
(43:49):
him and spoke to the dad Michael about it.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Tell us about her.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
Well, Melissa is a family psychologist, and she's like.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
We all were reading the papers.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
She knows her brother who's had problems, who is a
heroin addict, who has violent tempers, tantrums, and he's just
a little weird. Is out there. He lives ten miles
from the where the killings occurred, and he happens to
be driving a white Hondai a Lantra, and that just
(44:22):
happens to be the car the police are looking for.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
You know.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
She has her psychology degree, She's able to put the
pieces together. And when she finally comes back with the
Christmas holiday and she sees her brother meticulously cleaning is
Hondi seeing him at one point she sees him taking
his back garbage and keeping it separate from the families
put into plastic banks. And you know, two and two
(44:50):
make four. And she confronts the father, and the father
is now has his daughter articulating all the thoughts that
were simmering coming into realization is own mind. And there
suddenly he's given them. Someone is telling them that everything
you've been thinking is true is in fact true. And
(45:13):
the only thing he can do, when confronted with this
is do what Dylan does. He sort of walks back
into his room. He walks off, just the way she
walks back into the room. I don't want to deal
with this overpowering reality.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
It is how could process any of that that your
son may have committed this kind of heinous crime. You
write in the book as follows about Melissa, Then there
was okay. There he was in the kitchen lead at night,
sorting his day's personal detritus into plastic ziplock bags. And
though she had not set out to spy, and afterward
(45:48):
wished she had never seen it at all, there was
her brother sneaking out after midnight like a man on
a mission. He walked down the long drive in the
starlit chill to deposit the family's trash in a next
door neighbor's bins. When she put a name and purpose
to all she'd been witnessing, it left her shaking. At last,
(46:08):
though Melissa found the will to share her increasingly certain
deduction with her father. Michael listened, and yet he could
not respond. A long, agonized silence filled the room until
at last he turned his back and walked away. And
it would have had to have been within days of that, Howard,
(46:29):
that they were all woken up in the middle of
the night by the police, guns drawn, arresting Brian Colberger.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
Right, And there's an irony to that because it was
Michael's DNA that the police had that connected him to
the knife sheet.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
So the father, in effect his DNA caught his son.
Speaker 5 (46:51):
He was trying to escape from that, and yet it
was almost like a Greek tragedy.
Speaker 4 (46:56):
He couldn't.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
It was an excelebrit drawn to that that he was
going to be the one to condemn his son.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yes, because of genetic genealogy, which is another revelation in
the book about how the FBI knew it was Brian
Coldberger or suspected him thanks to genetic genealogy. There was
a touch DNA and the knife sheath. Thanks to genetic genealogy,
they traced it to someone related to Michael Colberger, which
led them to Brian, and they didn't share it with
the local cops. There's all sorts of interesting details on
(47:27):
why and theories as well that you're going to want
to read again. The book is called When the Night
Comes Falling, a Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders by
Howard Bloom. Please check it out as available now in
whatever form you want. As I said, I already consumed
it twice and recommend it to all.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Howard, thank you, thank you, pleasure talking with him.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Nay, my gosh, such a horrific crime. And again on
six twenty seven we'll find out, we think, whether they're
going to set a trial date anytime soon.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Fingers crossed
Host
Nancy Grace
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!