July 10, 2024 • 42 mins
An in-depth interview with bestselling author, Howard Blum who just released a book sharing his controversial perspective on the case.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's such a harrowing account and it's so well written.
In hearing you speak about it now, I can't imagine
the level of emotional regulation a human would have to
have to be in the car with your own parent,
knowing that the police are looking for you, the world
is looking for you, and your car has been identified.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And until the trial, I'd like to think that When
the Night Comes Falling is the best source of information
to what really happens.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
This is the Idaho Massacre, a production of KATI Studios
and iHeartRadio, Season two, episode five, When the Night Comes Falling,
a requiem for the Idaho student murders. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
a producer at KATI Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and Gabe Castillo.
(00:55):
With the gag order firmly in place, reporting in fact
finding has been difficult and often non traditional, But even
given those restraints, a pivotal new book is emerged, written
by Howard Bloom. The Kirkus review says it quote thoughtfully
probes into the motives of key players in this intriguing
(01:16):
yet profoundly unsettling story.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
The book shares the months leading up to the murders
of Xana Kernodle, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogan, and
Kaylee Gonzolvez.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Bone Chilling, Brian Coburger details and merged.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Did the accused killer of the four University of Idaho's
students have a deadly obsession with one of the victims.
Chilling revelations about the murders are detailed in When the
Night Comes Falling.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Stephanie and I sat down with Howard Bloom to discuss
his book, which just came out on June twenty fifth.
We started out by asking him to provide a bit
of context to his career.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
When I finished graduate school Stamford, I came out, worked
at the Village Voice for a little bit, and then
I was hired by the New York Times and I
was there for about twelve years, twelve and a half
years as an investigative reporter. Was nominated for two pullets
by the Times and a lot of awards, and then
(02:19):
I went on and I've done sixteen books, many bestsellers,
wrote for Vanity Fair for a couple of decades, and
wrote one magazine awards And so I've been doing this
knocking on doors, trying to put together stories trying to
get readers interested in what I hope are compelling, true narratives.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
How did you land on the title? It was an
intriguing title.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
Well, when the Night Comes Falling. I'm a big Bob
Dylan fan.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
When the Night Comes Falling from the sky is a
Bob Dylan song that always sort of plays.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
In my head, and shearing a dark night in Moscow.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I remember walking the streets of Moscow, walking right down
King Road, and I sort of struck by that song.
I could hear that song sort of playing in my head,
your letters burning in the fireplace, and when the night
comes falling from the sky, And I thought, well, falling
from the sky a little too much, so just when
the night comes falling. I remember being out in front
(03:14):
of the murder house not long after it happened, and
they just walled it up, put a plywood wall in
front of it. I was thinking to myself, what was
that to keep people from breaking in? Or was that
to keep the demons inside? To lock it up? And
then suddenly I'm caught in a cone of light from nowhere.
It startles me and I figured off with light when
(03:34):
the night comes falling, and the cone of light was
from a security car that been parked a caddy corner
was black and the night was dark to the murder house,
and they were just checking on me. An officer called out,
be careful, it's icy out there, and I said, thank you, officer,
and I went on my way. But that's sort of
being surprised out there. I could almost imagine what it's
(03:57):
like to be awoken in from your sleep in that
house someone say there's someone here, and then you feel
like the night comes falling from the sky.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Can you just describe how did you start to follow
this story and what was your reporting? Like I understand
there were trips to Idaho, Pennsylvania, hundreds of interviews.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I first really heard about the story any detail around
the Thanksgiving table up in Connecticut just days after the murder.
People started talking about it and I hadn't paid too
much attention to it, and the more they talked about it,
I was pretty interesting. It was a murder filled with perplexities,
nothing was known, and I thought this might be an
(04:40):
interesting story to investigate.
Speaker 6 (04:42):
I called up Graydon Carter or emailed him, who ran airmail,
and I.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Said, Grayden, do I've worked for for a while at
Vanity Fair and there's an old acquaintance and a wonderful editor.
I said, you know, I'd like to go out there.
What do you guys think? And he and Alexander Stanley,
who run airmail, said sure, going out there. And I said,
I don't know what I'll find, but go ahead, young,
knock on doors. I put on my reporters French go out,
(05:08):
knock on doors. And I was there for a couple
of days, and I figured I had no idea that
I was going to write a piece or even certainly
not a book, but I thought I solved the case.
This was when no one knew who the suspect was,
and I figured it out. The house is sort of
in this gully around it, and most of the fancier
houses in the nearby that area were members of this
(05:32):
local church group, the christ Church Kirkass Group, and they
had had some problems with the community. Their deacon had
gone to jail or pedophilia. Their members of young women
in the group had posted videos complaining about sexual harassment,
sex crimes, whatever, and so I thought, well, maybe someone
(05:53):
from this group was involved. Maybe it was a sexual nature.
So I tried to track down the men Doug Wilson
of the group, and he's not returning my call. So
intrepidly I go to the church parking lot and I
corner him and he's very gracious. He's a very charismatic,
a wonderfully articulate man. I disagree with everything he says,
(06:17):
but he's a very impressive figure, and he very graciously
invites me into his office and he's talking to me.
We're sitting almost Caddy corner in a room, and he's
telling me the problems that they're having in the town
with the local officials. He talks about a war with
the police because of COVID restrictions, etc.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
Et cetera. And I suddenly.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Realized, I'm trying to solve this case, and I'm in
a room with this man, as gracious as he is,
he hasn't been vaccinated. It's the height of the pandemic,
and there are no windows. And two days later I
didn't solve the case, but I was stuck in Moscow
with COVID.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
So that was my introduction to all this.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Then on my second trip, though, I began to investigate
more and trips to Pennsylvania and to Washington State, and
I realized there was a compelling story here, and I
started writing the pieces for Airmail. I eventually wrote seven pieces.
What I bought was, is there a book here? Is
there a larger story to tell there? You know, everyone
(07:18):
realizes there hasn't been a trial, But was there a
story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I
realized there was very much the identification, the hunting down,
the solving of the mystery towards the suspect. Coburger is
a fascinating story as well as the story of the
individuals involved. And I found a way I believed to
(07:39):
structure the narrative and the coherent and compelling, an engrossing
way along based around the road trip that Coberger takes
with his father, this trip across country, and my narrative inspiration,
you know, pretentiously was the Odyssey, you know, this long
tenure journey by Odysseus. Well, here I have just a
(08:03):
five day journey. But it was to me rather compelling
as Brian and his father make this cross country trip,
and hanging over the entire journey is the father coming
to terms in his mind with whether or not, oh
my gosh, could my son be actually involved in the murder?
Of these four young people. That to me was a
dramatic moment, and I use that to go back and
(08:25):
forth in time to.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Tell this tale.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
Structurally, I think it works beautifully. Thank you on that
five day drive. Can you talk us through it a
little bit. I had not realized that the FBI were
so uncoordinated with the ground officers. Can you just describe
the details of that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
What happens is around December eleventh, and this is one
of the revelations in this book. The FBI, working in
Quantico has deciphered the genetic genealogy to make Coburger a
person of interest, built out the family tree, and at
the end of the father's branch they've found Brian Cooberger.
(09:06):
They don't share this information with the local Moscow task force.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
Why do they not.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Do this well, the most generous explanation would be that
they're not sure investigative genetic genealogy is not allowed into courts.
They don't want to prejudice the case. They want to
make sure the task force connects all the dots. He's
just a person of interest. That's a generous explanation. A
more cynical explanation is that the FBI wanted to get
(09:34):
all the credit for solving the case. They didn't want
to share it with the local authorities. They wanted to
come off as the g men who solved this great
mystery which the whole nation is fixated on whatever reason.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
When the Coburgers leave, the FBI is.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Following them, but they want The FBI wants the Coburgers
to get out of town first before they get directly
on their tail. And they don't want the Moscow police,
you know, And they also don't want on the Coburgers
to know.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
Meanwhile, Brian Coburger picks a route.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And he's not going to the straightest the quickest distance
between two points is a straight line.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
He's not going that way. He's going down to Colorado.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
His dad had already marked it out, and so he's
taking this different route because arguably he's trying to evade
anyone following him. He's trying to take invasive actions. This
change of route from what the father had previously planned
and mapped out before he came out there leads to
tensions and Brian is extremely followed him, and his father
(10:33):
realizes he's caught his son in a bit of a
mood and seen Brian's moods before, so his usual reaction
is WHOA.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
He steps back.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
He doesn't want to get too close to this slimmering volcano.
So father is in this car, the FBI is.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Following, They have vehicles on the road.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
They have a cessna above like a hawk, waiting to
swoop down at the right moment when they put the
pieces together. And meanwhile the father is slowly, slowly putting
pieces together in his mind. Four people were murdered just
ten miles from where his son is living. His son
is in this highly agitated state. The father was concerned
(11:15):
enough about his son to make the trip out there
to accompany him, and they just happened to be sitting
shoulder to shoulder in a white Honde, a Lantra, which
is the precise car the authorities have announced they're looking
for in this murder. So the father is of course suspicious. Then,
as a drive across America, two things start to happen
(11:37):
quickly and by the second day of the trip. But first,
after the FBI loses them and then finds them again,
the first thing that happens is there's a shooting right
near Brian Coburger's university residence. A Army veteran has taken
two students hostage. He lets the students go, the swat
team moves in. They can't talk him out of it
(11:58):
or the swat team acts arguably precipitously, and they shoot
a veteran dead. And father and the son get an
alert from the university about this, and this triggers off
more thoughts in his father's mind about the benevolence of
the situation. His son is caught up in that there's
(12:19):
something wrong with being with the West, and his son
has been trapped in this Oh my gosh. And just
as these thoughts are taking shape in his mind, they
see flashing lights and there's a sheriff's deputy car in
Indiana asking them to pull over. And his father at
this point realizes, oh my gosh, everything I've been thinking
(12:39):
about is quite possibly true, and this is some situation
I'm in.
Speaker 6 (12:44):
And he doesn't know how to make this realization, but turns.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Out, both to the father's relief and to the FBI's relief,
who's also watching this, they don't understand what's happening. This
was just a traffic stop. They go off nine minutes later,
the same thing happens once again. There's a traffic stop,
this time by a state trooper. He pulls the car
over again. It's a traffic infraction. But the father now
(13:09):
can't help the feeling all his thoughts are becoming true.
Everything he feared, every thought he was trying to repress,
is becoming closer and closer to reality, as if he's
following footsteps in the snow and getting closer and closer
to his destination of where they're going to lead. And
he doesn't like where it's leading one bit. And as
(13:31):
this journey continues, and as they arrive in Pennsylvania, the
father is suddenly filled with a sort of dread that
he can't quite articulate, but at the same moment he
knows what is happening.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
It's such a harrowing account, and it's so well written.
In hearing you speak about it now, it's me so queasy.
I can't imagine the level of emotional regulation a human
would have to have to be in the car with
your own parent, knowing that the police are looking for you,
the world is looking for you. Your car has been identified,
and you're with somebody who who knows you well, how
(14:05):
do you keep that together? And we too have often
speculated about what that car ride must have been. Like,
you had an interesting point, and we had heard something
similar to about the early days of Brian moving into
his apartment when he had actually made the move, and
that Dad was sort of, you know, trying to how
we interpreted it, was trying to make him some friends
(14:29):
in and around the apartment complex. And just like you,
that always sort of stuck in my head because it
was two part Either that means, Look, my son's been
a little bit awkward his whole life and maybe has
a difficult problem with meeting new friends and social cues, etc.
So Dad's in the habit of trying to create comfort
(14:49):
for his son, knowing that it's hard for him to
kind of acclimate. That's sort of touching and it kind
of hurts to hear. Or does that also point to
I knew something was really seriously, dreadfully wrong with my son,
and we're hoping for the best here and he's off
to the races and I'm going to try my best,
(15:10):
but he's a grown man, you know. Where do you
put that?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, it's sort of a lttle of both. I mean,
you're right on. I agree with you very much. I mean,
the father sixty eight years old. Money is tight in
the family.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
He's a janitor.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
They've gone been bankrupt twice over the years. He still
makes his cross country trip in August with his son
to the university for the first time. Then he has
to turn around and go again. And why does he
do this Because he's worried about what's going to happen
to his son. How is his son going to fit in?
He knows Brian is a square peg in every roundhole
(15:46):
he's been in life, and he just doesn't know. And remember,
you know, this is not a father driving a young
kid off to college like maybe we did at one point.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
Brian is twenty eight years old.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
He's going to be teaching young kids, teaching assistant, he's
going for his doctorate. And still the father feels he
has to accompany him. And when he gets to Washington
State University, one of the first things the father takes
it upon himself to do.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
They saw a neighbor in the elevator.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I think it was Christopher Martine, so one of the guys,
and he says, you know, we watch out for my son.
Speaker 6 (16:21):
He's a hard time making friends. Anything you can do,
I appreciate it. And Martinez is a generous soul. And
two days later he invites.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Coburger to a pool party, and this is Coburger's first
entrance into the pool part takes place in Moscow at
a complex called I Think the Grove in Moscow, and
Brian goes to this school party and what happens at
the pool party. I interviewed many of the people at
the pool party. It's also sort of interesting, and this
(16:50):
is sort of news that hasn't been reported to such
a scene for part of who Brian is and why
a book like this can come out now before trial,
because I'd like to think I'm giving you the reader's
insight into the characters in this story.
Speaker 6 (17:05):
Brian goes to this party.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
He's sitting on the edge of the pool talking to
one of the guys, and he sees these two young women,
attractive women there in black two piece bathing suits, and
he goes up to one of them and just picks
himself up without saying a word to the guy he's
talking to, goes up and asks for her phone number,
and he gets it then without almost breaking stride, he
(17:28):
goes to her friend and asks her this is for
her phone number, and he gets it too, and the
guy who's watching him says, what, this guy's a player.
He's pretty cool, dude. And Brian comes back and just
leaves the party. I spoke with the two women involved.
He never calls them. However, after his arrest, they began
(17:48):
to rethink the events, and they realized they were getting
a lot of hang up calls in the weeks following
their giving their phone number to Brian at the party,
and they apothe size that perhaps this was Brian calling
them but not having the nerve to initiate the conversation.
And that's sort of the metaphor for the state he
(18:08):
was in. He had taken himself so far. He made
this journey from this kid from a heartscrabble Pennsylvania community,
from an overweight heroin addict to becoming a doctoral candidate
at a very prestigious university. And he had turned his
body into a fortress. He'd reached his hair, he was
(18:32):
looking good, he was in shape, hanging out at the pool,
and yet he couldn't go to the next step of
integrating his life to that of a normal twenty eight
year old, a normal guy who wanted to just meet
people and have friends and have a social life. It
was just an impossibility for him, almost.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
As though he mustered the courage and then couldn't follow through,
so it took everything he had potentially. I've always sort
of drawn a connection in my head, this is again
only in my head, between Brian and his sisters, and
just this relationship he has with women is interesting given
he grew up as the baby of women and was
(19:13):
raised by older sisters, and by all accounts we hear
they're lovely and all of the above, and I was
curious if you just had an opinion on that. I
know the dad is a primary focus.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
One of his sisters, who's a family psychologist, plays an
interesting role in all this. After they get back to
Pennsylvania so Christmas Holidays, the whole family is there, and
I describe as the sister the psychologist sees a couple
of things that give her pause. She sees Brian cleaning
out his car meticulously the same sort of white Hondai
(19:46):
a Lantra that the police just happened to be looking
for that was involved in a quadruple murder. Then she
sees Brian sorting in his garbage, his personal garbage into
plastic zimp lock bags, walking out of the house, going
down the hill, not to the family's garbage pails, but
to the neighbor's garbage pails and putting them in. And
(20:07):
you know, these set her mind wandering, and she realizes
there's something seriously wrong and what seems impossible might very
likely be true. My brother might be involved in these
four murders. And she goes to confront the father and
she says, God, I think we have to face up
(20:27):
to something. I think we might have a problem. And
the father, who's been having all these thoughts all the
way across America, when he hears this, what does he do?
He turns around and just leaves the room because it's
it's too impossible. It means thinking the unthinkable. And yet,
as I point out in my book, there's sort of
an irony that's as if the next scene comes from
(20:49):
a Greek drama. And yet when they identify the DNA
on the button of the knife sheath, they don't identify
it to Brian Coberger. They identify it Michael Kolberger. And
then they realized that his son's DNA the son of
Michael Koberger's dna is.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
On that night.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
She's so in many ways like a Greek drama. The
hero of the Greek drama or the victim of the
Greek drama, always tries to escape his fate, but he
can never can He's always pulled back in.
Speaker 6 (21:19):
So is Michael Kolberger. He's pulled back in.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
His fate is to no matter how much he tries
not to be his reason for his son's downfall.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I hadn't heard that account of his one sister and
then the other sister, the middle sister. She was an actress.
And as you know, much has been made about this
in a slasher movie back many many years ago. But
the plotline of that particular murder is that nine co
eds go out into the woods and only seven come back.
(21:49):
And again, is that a direct connection. No, of course not.
And I was just curious if you had heard any
rumblings about that.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
I've heard the rumblings.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Tried to connect the dots, and I couldn't take it far.
I tried to stick to what I could substantiate. I
didn't want to hypothesize more than was necessary about the
course of events. I think because of the gag order.
What this case needs is an injection of facts. You know,
(22:20):
there's such a vacuum of people being able to find
out what really happened, and I wanted to try to
fill that vacuum with not fatuous speculation or even vicious
character assassinations, but I've wanted to tell what happened. That
gag order is particularly pernicious because the trial keeps on
(22:41):
getting delayed and delayed and delayed. We have a town
that's sort of victimized by this. There's a lack of understanding,
there's a lack of ability to move on.
Speaker 6 (22:52):
They can, you know, bulldoze.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
The murder house, the university can take it down, but
that really is silly.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
You're not going to get rid.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Of what happened that way. What you need is a
sense of justice, a sense of a clear butt ending,
and that perhaps can only be resolved in a trial.
And until the trial, I'd like to think that when
the Night comes falling is the best source of information
to what really happened.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Stephanie and I continue our conversation with Howard Bloom,
author of When the night comes falling requiem for the
Idaho student murders. I asked him about Doug Wilson, the
(23:45):
head of the christ Church in town, who had been
feuding with local law enforcement and alleging for his own
reasons that people shouldn't believe the police. To me, it
seems like it would behoove the prosecution to also be
in favor of a change of venue.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I think the defense is shooting themselves in the foot
if they try to move the trial out of Moscow
because of Doug Wilson. I mean, I sat in a
room with him, and he told me, I will tell
my parishioners anytime a Moscow police officer guests on the stand,
you have every reason to be skeptical because he's lied
about us in the courtroom, so there's no reason to
(24:21):
believe that he won't lie about Brian Colberger. So you
have to realize who the jury pool is going to be.
A lot of people associated with the university will be
just eliminated. There are people who have too much knowledge
or preconceived notions about the case. And then that leaves
the members of Doug Wilson's church two thousand people, every
(24:43):
one of them will be skeptical about anything the prosecution says.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
So I think.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
It's really odd that the prosecution is fighting the move
from Leyta County of the case. And I think it's
even honor as the defense is trying to move it.
And the only reason I can think that the defense
is trying to go along with this is because it's
part of the strategy that's undermined everything they've done since
(25:09):
the beginning, and that strategy is one of delay, delay,
and more delay. You know, lawyers have a wisdom. They say,
when you have the facts, you pound the facts. When
you don't have the facts, you pound the table. And
there's sure has been a lot of table pounding by
the defense. There's been a rat tat tat of motion
(25:29):
after motion after motion, just really to buy time.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
I mean, look what they've come up.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
It's been nearly two years and they finally have released
their expanded alibi. The alibi was it turned out to be,
as the all no well, at four in the morning
on a freezing night, Brian Colbert, who was out by
himself in this wilderness park or there were no witnesses
of course, except the animals, no cell towers, and he
was staring on this frosty night at the stars in
(25:56):
the freezing cold just happened when the murders occurred, and
we had a way two years to hear that without
any substantiating information, a properative evidence, And yet this has
been dragging on and on. So I think this is
a sort of a specious argument the defense is giving.
Ann Taylor is a smart attorney. She's doing what she
(26:17):
has to do with the cards she's been dealt. But
I think it's a mistake to move out of Moscow,
and maybe she thinks she's just buying time again and
that moved the change of venue will never be improved.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
And then so breathe a sigh of relief.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
So what I was actually going to ask you about,
and this is going back to your saying, you know
how because of the gag order, there has been kind
of a dearth of facts where otherwise there would be,
and there has been so much conjecture. So in your
book was something that we have been just wondering about,
which is sort of placement in the house, and specifically
(26:56):
that the dog was in the other bedroom of Maddie
and Kaylee. Either I missed it or we couldn't find
it in the AFFI David, So I'm just curious, how
did those facts come to clarity if you can share.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
According to law enforcement, I think it's been pretty well
established that the dog Murphy, he was in Kaylee's bedroom
and Kelly was with Mattie and that's why they left
in there.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
And the dog is howling ferociously.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I mean, it's as if he can smell the blood,
and he's in a state. You can hear on some
of the surveillance tapes the dog just you know, barking wildly.
It's horrific to listen to. You know, all these moments
are extremely dramatic, and I try to do justice to
them without exploiting them in the book. And it's a
(27:47):
delicate balance because the scenes are so gripping and yet
so sad, and while there is a TV series going
to be made for my book, you don't want to
exploit it. You don't want to exploit the drama, but
you want to do it in a factual way that
conveys to people the horror of it. So it's a
(28:08):
thin line of a delicate balance and a challenge for
writer and a reporter.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I thought it was so well executed in that regard,
and to Courtney's point, always imagined for ourselves like what
was the order that night, and who was happening upon
whom and why? And you know, were they eating takeout?
And you know how dogs get around takeout, They get
kind of vorocious and they want food, so you put
them in the other room. Or was the dog in
the room, you know, Maddie Mogan working out the restaurants.
(28:37):
We had sort of always heard that and thought that
that was a potential connection. And obviously, as you know,
Zana worked there as well, at the Mad Greek, And
then we were never able to substantiate that. So is
that the connective tissue. That's a pretty big bombshell.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, as I've been able to put it together. Coburger
go to the Mad Greek, he saw Maddie there. There's
no evidence none, I want to emphasize it that he
ever even spoke a word to Maddie. But for whatever reason,
her beauty, her exuberance, or vitality, just her blonde good
looks somehow fixated. He fixated on that. And he was
(29:12):
a man, as I've said, who's prone to obsessions. He
measured out his life in obsessions, whether it was heroin
or kicking heroin, whether it was game, losing one hundred
and twenty five pounds, in building his body back up,
becoming from this mediocre student to becoming a graduate teaching
assistant at a great university.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
He had all these large arcs in his life.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
And for some reason, Maddie became his fixation, and just
like the girls of the pool party, he could fixate
on it, but he could not take the next step.
He could not involve himself in any realistic, communical.
Speaker 6 (29:50):
Way in her life.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
And then her presence became not something that was an
astonishment to him, but rather a rebuke. And this buke
gnawed and gnawed at him until he tried to felt
that the demons that were pursuing in the only way
he could live in this world. And here I'm hypothesizing
was to get rid of Maddie, to get rid of
(30:13):
what was causing him such distress.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
The pain was so hard, and yet he still tries
to fight it.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
As I said earlier, when he goes to the house
of three times, each one of those three trips is
an attempt first to go to the house and then
to get away, until he finally crosses the line that's
dividing the idea and the reality, and he comes to
the demons inside him, and he becomes to the monster.
I believe that he was fated to be.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
He could really feel that tension as it's described of
the Do I go there?
Speaker 6 (30:45):
Do I pull back?
Speaker 5 (30:47):
I had a follow up question on that, and do
we know that Coburger or you know, he's presumed innocent,
of course, as is anyone until they go to trial.
Do we know that Maddie and Kaylee's room was visited
first by the murderer.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Yes, that's what the authorities believe. And you know, he
doesn't go into the room with the dogs.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
He goes right into Maddie's room, and then he's surprised,
I believe, to find Kelly there too. And this is
also it's been said that's been reported that the wounds
that Kelly receives are much more ferocious. And I think
the reason for this is not just that she fights back.
He's surprised to see her and he sees his carefully
(31:32):
imagined plan is now going to ride, and he's slashing
out in anger at her, at himself, and his plan
falling apart, and in this state of intense mental and
physical activity. He just leaves the knife sheet behind and
it's carefully laid out. Plan is already undone in the
first moments. And I think, as I said after the
(31:55):
murder of Maddie, the three of the murders that follow
are grim with a collateral damage.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
You mentioned something that had escaped me, which was the
way the coroner described the different wounds on the different people.
It was interesting, Is there anything you wanted to say
about They're not discrepancies, they're different words, but they're very
different words that are used.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
There are very different words. And that that points out
two things.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I think the level of sophistication or lack of sophistication
of the coroner. She rather has now given ammunition that
will be used by the defense to raise doubts.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
I mean, all the defense has to do is raise
doubts with the jury. And the second, how hard it's
going to be. Two. While I believe Coberger is guilty,
how hard it will be to make the case. There's
the dialectics of a courtroom.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
It's basically every expert you bring in, you can bring
in a counter expert, so you can have someone say
touch DNA as the gold standard that never fails.
Speaker 6 (32:56):
You can find someone else will point out, well, that's
not so fast touch. DNA is really not that great.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I think case law after case law at the case
law we've had to impune it, and on and on
and on, and this Coeigner's report is going to raise
war questions. I think they're legitimate answers, but it's up
to a skilled attorney to praise the questions.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
In a way that they will resonate in the jurist mind.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And I think they've handed them when they can knock
out of the park Grohunds.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
You bring up the level of sophistication of the small town,
which it was really interesting how when you had laid
it out that Moscow Police, the entire department had thirty
seven members, and yet the quote backup of the FBI
were forty members.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And the FBI brought in their separate their own trailer,
they had their own sort of offices to keep them
separate from the Moscow cops in the parking lot of
the police headquarters building. Interestingly, about the police headquarters building,
it's not one hundred yards from where the Brian Berger
was at the pool party, it's right at the bottom
of that hill that you go up to get to
the grove. You know, when he drove by that first night,
(34:07):
he was literally driving by the police headquarters and chief
Prize window.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Just the way things intersect such as that, such as
the pool party. And I won't give away how you
bring in sort of the pool party in the end,
unless you want to speak about the potential other leads.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I don't want to give away too much of the book.
One of the things I tried to construct was a
pretty suspenseful, almost mystery story, and I don't want to
ruin the mystery for readers.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
I like to be able to sit down. It's not
a long book. It seemed to.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Take forever to write, and I think I'd like people
to get it quite up in the experience of reading
it and follow the mystery along with me as I
was writing it.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
a moment. Stephanie and I continue our conversation with Politzer
Prize nominated author Howard Bloom, whose in depth reporting prompted
him to write the book. When the Night Comes Falling,
(35:14):
a Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Not to put words in your mouth. But you know,
all of our hearts are with the friends and families,
obviously of the beautiful victims, and obviously the town is
kind of trying to heal. I would imagine was there
any takeaway just from being there and sort of being
in that beehive during this critical time.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yes, I think healing is impossible for the town until
there is a trial, until there is a verdict. And
I think the town will always be suspicious. I think
you can knock down, bulldoze all the murder houses that
you want, and yet the demons will still be unleashed.
And that also is a history of babbagery in that town.
(35:58):
I mean, I found that a book that was written
in nineteen forty five by a woman by Carol Ryan,
whose grandfather was a town doctor and he was just
shot in cold blood, and.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
She writes about the savage forces that are at bay
in this town. It's still a wild western place.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Every police officer now has an emblem, a shoulder patch
on his police uniform and it shows the clock tower
in town. The clock tower is set for one forty nine,
I think it is, And that was the hour of
the day where Lee Nubill, who was a police officer there,
was shot and killed by deranged gunman who also killed
(36:36):
a church deacon. There's been very many unexplained outbursts of
violence in the town. There is a task force have
been looking into child pornography in the town. There's large
drug use. It's a pretty place, there's a deceptive place,
and it's a town almost unverged, as one of the
(36:57):
lawyers in town told me, of a civil war, because
on one side you have this right wing church group
that wants to create what they called a theocracy where
Moscow is the capital of the American with doubt.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Redoubt is a conservative nation.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
And on the other side you have one of the
most liberal universities in the state, a party school, the
first ranked party school in oh of Idaho. So these
two cultures, these two values clash, and you can see
it when you walk down Main Street.
Speaker 6 (37:28):
On one side of Main Street are the old businesses
that are owned by the christ Church kirkers.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
On the other side of the free willing bars and
places where kids hang out. And there's also a really
good Italian restaurant. A specificatures, really.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
Good dichotomous nature really does come to life I have
a specific question. You mentioned that Kayley's father was going
through Kayley's phone in an effort to understandably get to
the bottom of what happened with his daughter. Why didn't
authorities have her phone?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Well, Cayley's father is an interesting character in this whole story.
I never interviewed him, but I spoke to a lot
of people who spoke with him. He's made lots of
public statements, and to my mind, he's in many ways
a hero.
Speaker 6 (38:17):
I mean, he's someone who.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Refuses, refuses to let his daughter's death become a cold case.
He refuses to accept things its face value, and he
wants to get to the bottom of things. And there's
something very valiant, very heroic. He's like a figure from
Shakespeare who just wants to keep ongoing and find out
(38:39):
what's happening. At the same time, while he's doing this,
he's also in many ways destroying his ability to get
over these events. He's caught up in it. He's now
I think angry that my book, I'm not quite sure why,
actually breaks my heart. The last person I would want
to do is insult him. How can you impugne any
(39:03):
action taken by a man who lost his daughter as
a father of three, you know, my heart goes out
to him. A man who has to say to the reporters,
you send your girl off to college and she comes
back to you and earn that kind of statement is heartbreaking.
And a man who stares into the camera when he's
being interviewed and says to the killer who's out there,
(39:26):
I am coming for you. He's making a promise to
the killer and a promise to himself. So in that way,
I think he's a hero and his actions are heroic,
and I'm just sorry he's not happy about the way
he's portrayed. I tried to, I think, to it respectfully
and with dignity. And I thought I treated his daughter
with dignity too, And that was if I didn't certainly
(39:49):
apologize for that. Because these kids were just wonderful young
people and to not have the chance to live out
their lives and to be what they were going to be, it's.
Speaker 6 (40:00):
Just unfair, you know. The heavens were just not fair
to them.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I've seen so much footage of mister Gonzalvez, and I
think I speak on behalf of anyone who's been following
this case. We are rallying for every parent and every
family member to get justice. And it's true when he
does speak into the camera, you feel it like a
dagger in your own heart. So yeah, you know, collectively,
(40:25):
I think we can all agree that for every parent
who's gone through a nightmare like this, and then to
them specifically, there's no words.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Really, I appreciate your giving the time and that I
hope people will read the book on two levels, One
as this suspense story that's a police drama, and secondly
as a character study of some ways two fathers who
(40:53):
become victims of this whole drama of Michael Hoberger Steve
don Clovis, both of them caught up events that are
just unimaginable, larger than live and are impossible to deal with,
and yet they have to deal with the impossible. There's
attention in this entire book, and even as I go
(41:14):
around talking about it, talking about things that don't make
sense and yet happened.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
More on that next time. For more information on the
case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Kat
Underscore Studios. The Idaho Masker is produced by Stephanie Leideger,
Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design
by Jeff Toois, music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masker
(41:46):
is a production of Kat Studios and iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
It's such a harrowing account and it's so well written.
In hearing you speak about it now, I can't imagine
the level of emotional regulation a human would have to
have to be in the car with your own parent,
knowing that the police are looking for you, the world
is looking for you, and your car has been identified.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And until the trial, I'd like to think that When
the Night Comes Falling is the best source of information
to what really happens.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
This is the Idaho Massacre, a production of KATI Studios
and iHeartRadio, Season two, episode five, When the Night Comes Falling,
a requiem for the Idaho student murders. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
a producer at KATI Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and Gabe Castillo.
(00:55):
With the gag order firmly in place, reporting in fact
finding has been difficult and often non traditional, But even
given those restraints, a pivotal new book is emerged, written
by Howard Bloom. The Kirkus review says it quote thoughtfully
probes into the motives of key players in this intriguing
(01:16):
yet profoundly unsettling story.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
The book shares the months leading up to the murders
of Xana Kernodle, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogan, and
Kaylee Gonzolvez.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Bone Chilling, Brian Coburger details and merged.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Did the accused killer of the four University of Idaho's
students have a deadly obsession with one of the victims.
Chilling revelations about the murders are detailed in When the
Night Comes Falling.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Stephanie and I sat down with Howard Bloom to discuss
his book, which just came out on June twenty fifth.
We started out by asking him to provide a bit
of context to his career.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
When I finished graduate school Stamford, I came out, worked
at the Village Voice for a little bit, and then
I was hired by the New York Times and I
was there for about twelve years, twelve and a half
years as an investigative reporter. Was nominated for two pullets
by the Times and a lot of awards, and then
(02:19):
I went on and I've done sixteen books, many bestsellers,
wrote for Vanity Fair for a couple of decades, and
wrote one magazine awards And so I've been doing this
knocking on doors, trying to put together stories trying to
get readers interested in what I hope are compelling, true narratives.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
How did you land on the title? It was an
intriguing title.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
Well, when the Night Comes Falling. I'm a big Bob
Dylan fan.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
When the Night Comes Falling from the sky is a
Bob Dylan song that always sort of plays.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
In my head, and shearing a dark night in Moscow.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I remember walking the streets of Moscow, walking right down
King Road, and I sort of struck by that song.
I could hear that song sort of playing in my head,
your letters burning in the fireplace, and when the night
comes falling from the sky, And I thought, well, falling
from the sky a little too much, so just when
the night comes falling. I remember being out in front
(03:14):
of the murder house not long after it happened, and
they just walled it up, put a plywood wall in
front of it. I was thinking to myself, what was
that to keep people from breaking in? Or was that
to keep the demons inside? To lock it up? And
then suddenly I'm caught in a cone of light from nowhere.
It startles me and I figured off with light when
(03:34):
the night comes falling, and the cone of light was
from a security car that been parked a caddy corner
was black and the night was dark to the murder house,
and they were just checking on me. An officer called out,
be careful, it's icy out there, and I said, thank you, officer,
and I went on my way. But that's sort of
being surprised out there. I could almost imagine what it's
(03:57):
like to be awoken in from your sleep in that
house someone say there's someone here, and then you feel
like the night comes falling from the sky.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Can you just describe how did you start to follow
this story and what was your reporting? Like I understand
there were trips to Idaho, Pennsylvania, hundreds of interviews.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I first really heard about the story any detail around
the Thanksgiving table up in Connecticut just days after the murder.
People started talking about it and I hadn't paid too
much attention to it, and the more they talked about it,
I was pretty interesting. It was a murder filled with perplexities,
nothing was known, and I thought this might be an
(04:40):
interesting story to investigate.
Speaker 6 (04:42):
I called up Graydon Carter or emailed him, who ran airmail,
and I.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Said, Grayden, do I've worked for for a while at
Vanity Fair and there's an old acquaintance and a wonderful editor.
I said, you know, I'd like to go out there.
What do you guys think? And he and Alexander Stanley,
who run airmail, said sure, going out there. And I said,
I don't know what I'll find, but go ahead, young,
knock on doors. I put on my reporters French go out,
(05:08):
knock on doors. And I was there for a couple
of days, and I figured I had no idea that
I was going to write a piece or even certainly
not a book, but I thought I solved the case.
This was when no one knew who the suspect was,
and I figured it out. The house is sort of
in this gully around it, and most of the fancier
houses in the nearby that area were members of this
(05:32):
local church group, the christ Church Kirkass Group, and they
had had some problems with the community. Their deacon had
gone to jail or pedophilia. Their members of young women
in the group had posted videos complaining about sexual harassment,
sex crimes, whatever, and so I thought, well, maybe someone
(05:53):
from this group was involved. Maybe it was a sexual nature.
So I tried to track down the men Doug Wilson
of the group, and he's not returning my call. So
intrepidly I go to the church parking lot and I
corner him and he's very gracious. He's a very charismatic,
a wonderfully articulate man. I disagree with everything he says,
(06:17):
but he's a very impressive figure, and he very graciously
invites me into his office and he's talking to me.
We're sitting almost Caddy corner in a room, and he's
telling me the problems that they're having in the town
with the local officials. He talks about a war with
the police because of COVID restrictions, etc.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
Et cetera. And I suddenly.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Realized, I'm trying to solve this case, and I'm in
a room with this man, as gracious as he is,
he hasn't been vaccinated. It's the height of the pandemic,
and there are no windows. And two days later I
didn't solve the case, but I was stuck in Moscow
with COVID.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
So that was my introduction to all this.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Then on my second trip, though, I began to investigate
more and trips to Pennsylvania and to Washington State, and
I realized there was a compelling story here, and I
started writing the pieces for Airmail. I eventually wrote seven pieces.
What I bought was, is there a book here? Is
there a larger story to tell there? You know, everyone
(07:18):
realizes there hasn't been a trial, But was there a
story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I
realized there was very much the identification, the hunting down,
the solving of the mystery towards the suspect. Coburger is
a fascinating story as well as the story of the
individuals involved. And I found a way I believed to
(07:39):
structure the narrative and the coherent and compelling, an engrossing
way along based around the road trip that Coberger takes
with his father, this trip across country, and my narrative inspiration,
you know, pretentiously was the Odyssey, you know, this long
tenure journey by Odysseus. Well, here I have just a
(08:03):
five day journey. But it was to me rather compelling
as Brian and his father make this cross country trip,
and hanging over the entire journey is the father coming
to terms in his mind with whether or not, oh
my gosh, could my son be actually involved in the murder?
Of these four young people. That to me was a
dramatic moment, and I use that to go back and
(08:25):
forth in time to.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Tell this tale.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
Structurally, I think it works beautifully. Thank you on that
five day drive. Can you talk us through it a
little bit. I had not realized that the FBI were
so uncoordinated with the ground officers. Can you just describe
the details of that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
What happens is around December eleventh, and this is one
of the revelations in this book. The FBI, working in
Quantico has deciphered the genetic genealogy to make Coburger a
person of interest, built out the family tree, and at
the end of the father's branch they've found Brian Cooberger.
(09:06):
They don't share this information with the local Moscow task force.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
Why do they not.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Do this well, the most generous explanation would be that
they're not sure investigative genetic genealogy is not allowed into courts.
They don't want to prejudice the case. They want to
make sure the task force connects all the dots. He's
just a person of interest. That's a generous explanation. A
more cynical explanation is that the FBI wanted to get
(09:34):
all the credit for solving the case. They didn't want
to share it with the local authorities. They wanted to
come off as the g men who solved this great
mystery which the whole nation is fixated on whatever reason.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
When the Coburgers leave, the FBI is.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Following them, but they want The FBI wants the Coburgers
to get out of town first before they get directly
on their tail. And they don't want the Moscow police,
you know, And they also don't want on the Coburgers
to know.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
Meanwhile, Brian Coburger picks a route.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And he's not going to the straightest the quickest distance
between two points is a straight line.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
He's not going that way. He's going down to Colorado.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
His dad had already marked it out, and so he's
taking this different route because arguably he's trying to evade
anyone following him. He's trying to take invasive actions. This
change of route from what the father had previously planned
and mapped out before he came out there leads to
tensions and Brian is extremely followed him, and his father
(10:33):
realizes he's caught his son in a bit of a
mood and seen Brian's moods before, so his usual reaction
is WHOA.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
He steps back.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
He doesn't want to get too close to this slimmering volcano.
So father is in this car, the FBI is.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Following, They have vehicles on the road.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
They have a cessna above like a hawk, waiting to
swoop down at the right moment when they put the
pieces together. And meanwhile the father is slowly, slowly putting
pieces together in his mind. Four people were murdered just
ten miles from where his son is living. His son
is in this highly agitated state. The father was concerned
(11:15):
enough about his son to make the trip out there
to accompany him, and they just happened to be sitting
shoulder to shoulder in a white Honde, a Lantra, which
is the precise car the authorities have announced they're looking
for in this murder. So the father is of course suspicious. Then,
as a drive across America, two things start to happen
(11:37):
quickly and by the second day of the trip. But first,
after the FBI loses them and then finds them again,
the first thing that happens is there's a shooting right
near Brian Coburger's university residence. A Army veteran has taken
two students hostage. He lets the students go, the swat
team moves in. They can't talk him out of it
(11:58):
or the swat team acts arguably precipitously, and they shoot
a veteran dead. And father and the son get an
alert from the university about this, and this triggers off
more thoughts in his father's mind about the benevolence of
the situation. His son is caught up in that there's
(12:19):
something wrong with being with the West, and his son
has been trapped in this Oh my gosh. And just
as these thoughts are taking shape in his mind, they
see flashing lights and there's a sheriff's deputy car in
Indiana asking them to pull over. And his father at
this point realizes, oh my gosh, everything I've been thinking
(12:39):
about is quite possibly true, and this is some situation
I'm in.
Speaker 6 (12:44):
And he doesn't know how to make this realization, but turns.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Out, both to the father's relief and to the FBI's relief,
who's also watching this, they don't understand what's happening. This
was just a traffic stop. They go off nine minutes later,
the same thing happens once again. There's a traffic stop,
this time by a state trooper. He pulls the car
over again. It's a traffic infraction. But the father now
(13:09):
can't help the feeling all his thoughts are becoming true.
Everything he feared, every thought he was trying to repress,
is becoming closer and closer to reality, as if he's
following footsteps in the snow and getting closer and closer
to his destination of where they're going to lead. And
he doesn't like where it's leading one bit. And as
(13:31):
this journey continues, and as they arrive in Pennsylvania, the
father is suddenly filled with a sort of dread that
he can't quite articulate, but at the same moment he
knows what is happening.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
It's such a harrowing account, and it's so well written.
In hearing you speak about it now, it's me so queasy.
I can't imagine the level of emotional regulation a human
would have to have to be in the car with
your own parent, knowing that the police are looking for you,
the world is looking for you. Your car has been identified,
and you're with somebody who who knows you well, how
(14:05):
do you keep that together? And we too have often
speculated about what that car ride must have been. Like,
you had an interesting point, and we had heard something
similar to about the early days of Brian moving into
his apartment when he had actually made the move, and
that Dad was sort of, you know, trying to how
we interpreted it, was trying to make him some friends
(14:29):
in and around the apartment complex. And just like you,
that always sort of stuck in my head because it
was two part Either that means, Look, my son's been
a little bit awkward his whole life and maybe has
a difficult problem with meeting new friends and social cues, etc.
So Dad's in the habit of trying to create comfort
(14:49):
for his son, knowing that it's hard for him to
kind of acclimate. That's sort of touching and it kind
of hurts to hear. Or does that also point to
I knew something was really seriously, dreadfully wrong with my son,
and we're hoping for the best here and he's off
to the races and I'm going to try my best,
(15:10):
but he's a grown man, you know. Where do you
put that?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, it's sort of a lttle of both. I mean,
you're right on. I agree with you very much. I mean,
the father sixty eight years old. Money is tight in
the family.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
He's a janitor.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
They've gone been bankrupt twice over the years. He still
makes his cross country trip in August with his son
to the university for the first time. Then he has
to turn around and go again. And why does he
do this Because he's worried about what's going to happen
to his son. How is his son going to fit in?
He knows Brian is a square peg in every roundhole
(15:46):
he's been in life, and he just doesn't know. And remember,
you know, this is not a father driving a young
kid off to college like maybe we did at one point.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
Brian is twenty eight years old.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
He's going to be teaching young kids, teaching assistant, he's
going for his doctorate. And still the father feels he
has to accompany him. And when he gets to Washington
State University, one of the first things the father takes
it upon himself to do.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
They saw a neighbor in the elevator.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I think it was Christopher Martine, so one of the guys,
and he says, you know, we watch out for my son.
Speaker 6 (16:21):
He's a hard time making friends. Anything you can do,
I appreciate it. And Martinez is a generous soul. And
two days later he invites.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Coburger to a pool party, and this is Coburger's first
entrance into the pool part takes place in Moscow at
a complex called I Think the Grove in Moscow, and
Brian goes to this school party and what happens at
the pool party. I interviewed many of the people at
the pool party. It's also sort of interesting, and this
(16:50):
is sort of news that hasn't been reported to such
a scene for part of who Brian is and why
a book like this can come out now before trial,
because I'd like to think I'm giving you the reader's
insight into the characters in this story.
Speaker 6 (17:05):
Brian goes to this party.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
He's sitting on the edge of the pool talking to
one of the guys, and he sees these two young women,
attractive women there in black two piece bathing suits, and
he goes up to one of them and just picks
himself up without saying a word to the guy he's
talking to, goes up and asks for her phone number,
and he gets it then without almost breaking stride, he
(17:28):
goes to her friend and asks her this is for
her phone number, and he gets it too, and the
guy who's watching him says, what, this guy's a player.
He's pretty cool, dude. And Brian comes back and just
leaves the party. I spoke with the two women involved.
He never calls them. However, after his arrest, they began
(17:48):
to rethink the events, and they realized they were getting
a lot of hang up calls in the weeks following
their giving their phone number to Brian at the party,
and they apothe size that perhaps this was Brian calling
them but not having the nerve to initiate the conversation.
And that's sort of the metaphor for the state he
(18:08):
was in. He had taken himself so far. He made
this journey from this kid from a heartscrabble Pennsylvania community,
from an overweight heroin addict to becoming a doctoral candidate
at a very prestigious university. And he had turned his
body into a fortress. He'd reached his hair, he was
(18:32):
looking good, he was in shape, hanging out at the pool,
and yet he couldn't go to the next step of
integrating his life to that of a normal twenty eight
year old, a normal guy who wanted to just meet
people and have friends and have a social life. It
was just an impossibility for him, almost.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
As though he mustered the courage and then couldn't follow through,
so it took everything he had potentially. I've always sort
of drawn a connection in my head, this is again
only in my head, between Brian and his sisters, and
just this relationship he has with women is interesting given
he grew up as the baby of women and was
(19:13):
raised by older sisters, and by all accounts we hear
they're lovely and all of the above, and I was
curious if you just had an opinion on that. I
know the dad is a primary focus.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
One of his sisters, who's a family psychologist, plays an
interesting role in all this. After they get back to
Pennsylvania so Christmas Holidays, the whole family is there, and
I describe as the sister the psychologist sees a couple
of things that give her pause. She sees Brian cleaning
out his car meticulously the same sort of white Hondai
(19:46):
a Lantra that the police just happened to be looking
for that was involved in a quadruple murder. Then she
sees Brian sorting in his garbage, his personal garbage into
plastic zimp lock bags, walking out of the house, going
down the hill, not to the family's garbage pails, but
to the neighbor's garbage pails and putting them in. And
(20:07):
you know, these set her mind wandering, and she realizes
there's something seriously wrong and what seems impossible might very
likely be true. My brother might be involved in these
four murders. And she goes to confront the father and
she says, God, I think we have to face up
(20:27):
to something. I think we might have a problem. And
the father, who's been having all these thoughts all the
way across America, when he hears this, what does he do?
He turns around and just leaves the room because it's
it's too impossible. It means thinking the unthinkable. And yet,
as I point out in my book, there's sort of
an irony that's as if the next scene comes from
(20:49):
a Greek drama. And yet when they identify the DNA
on the button of the knife sheath, they don't identify
it to Brian Coberger. They identify it Michael Kolberger. And
then they realized that his son's DNA the son of
Michael Koberger's dna is.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
On that night.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
She's so in many ways like a Greek drama. The
hero of the Greek drama or the victim of the
Greek drama, always tries to escape his fate, but he
can never can He's always pulled back in.
Speaker 6 (21:19):
So is Michael Kolberger. He's pulled back in.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
His fate is to no matter how much he tries
not to be his reason for his son's downfall.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I hadn't heard that account of his one sister and
then the other sister, the middle sister. She was an actress.
And as you know, much has been made about this
in a slasher movie back many many years ago. But
the plotline of that particular murder is that nine co
eds go out into the woods and only seven come back.
(21:49):
And again, is that a direct connection. No, of course not.
And I was just curious if you had heard any
rumblings about that.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
I've heard the rumblings.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Tried to connect the dots, and I couldn't take it far.
I tried to stick to what I could substantiate. I
didn't want to hypothesize more than was necessary about the
course of events. I think because of the gag order.
What this case needs is an injection of facts. You know,
(22:20):
there's such a vacuum of people being able to find
out what really happened, and I wanted to try to
fill that vacuum with not fatuous speculation or even vicious
character assassinations, but I've wanted to tell what happened. That
gag order is particularly pernicious because the trial keeps on
(22:41):
getting delayed and delayed and delayed. We have a town
that's sort of victimized by this. There's a lack of understanding,
there's a lack of ability to move on.
Speaker 6 (22:52):
They can, you know, bulldoze.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
The murder house, the university can take it down, but
that really is silly.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
You're not going to get rid.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Of what happened that way. What you need is a
sense of justice, a sense of a clear butt ending,
and that perhaps can only be resolved in a trial.
And until the trial, I'd like to think that when
the Night comes falling is the best source of information
to what really happened.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Stephanie and I continue our conversation with Howard Bloom,
author of When the night comes falling requiem for the
Idaho student murders. I asked him about Doug Wilson, the
(23:45):
head of the christ Church in town, who had been
feuding with local law enforcement and alleging for his own
reasons that people shouldn't believe the police. To me, it
seems like it would behoove the prosecution to also be
in favor of a change of venue.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I think the defense is shooting themselves in the foot
if they try to move the trial out of Moscow
because of Doug Wilson. I mean, I sat in a
room with him, and he told me, I will tell
my parishioners anytime a Moscow police officer guests on the stand,
you have every reason to be skeptical because he's lied
about us in the courtroom, so there's no reason to
(24:21):
believe that he won't lie about Brian Colberger. So you
have to realize who the jury pool is going to be.
A lot of people associated with the university will be
just eliminated. There are people who have too much knowledge
or preconceived notions about the case. And then that leaves
the members of Doug Wilson's church two thousand people, every
(24:43):
one of them will be skeptical about anything the prosecution says.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
So I think.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
It's really odd that the prosecution is fighting the move
from Leyta County of the case. And I think it's
even honor as the defense is trying to move it.
And the only reason I can think that the defense
is trying to go along with this is because it's
part of the strategy that's undermined everything they've done since
(25:09):
the beginning, and that strategy is one of delay, delay,
and more delay. You know, lawyers have a wisdom. They say,
when you have the facts, you pound the facts. When
you don't have the facts, you pound the table. And
there's sure has been a lot of table pounding by
the defense. There's been a rat tat tat of motion
(25:29):
after motion after motion, just really to buy time.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
I mean, look what they've come up.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
It's been nearly two years and they finally have released
their expanded alibi. The alibi was it turned out to be,
as the all no well, at four in the morning
on a freezing night, Brian Colbert, who was out by
himself in this wilderness park or there were no witnesses
of course, except the animals, no cell towers, and he
was staring on this frosty night at the stars in
(25:56):
the freezing cold just happened when the murders occurred, and
we had a way two years to hear that without
any substantiating information, a properative evidence, And yet this has
been dragging on and on. So I think this is
a sort of a specious argument the defense is giving.
Ann Taylor is a smart attorney. She's doing what she
(26:17):
has to do with the cards she's been dealt. But
I think it's a mistake to move out of Moscow,
and maybe she thinks she's just buying time again and
that moved the change of venue will never be improved.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
And then so breathe a sigh of relief.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
So what I was actually going to ask you about,
and this is going back to your saying, you know
how because of the gag order, there has been kind
of a dearth of facts where otherwise there would be,
and there has been so much conjecture. So in your
book was something that we have been just wondering about,
which is sort of placement in the house, and specifically
(26:56):
that the dog was in the other bedroom of Maddie
and Kaylee. Either I missed it or we couldn't find
it in the AFFI David, So I'm just curious, how
did those facts come to clarity if you can share.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
According to law enforcement, I think it's been pretty well
established that the dog Murphy, he was in Kaylee's bedroom
and Kelly was with Mattie and that's why they left
in there.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
And the dog is howling ferociously.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I mean, it's as if he can smell the blood,
and he's in a state. You can hear on some
of the surveillance tapes the dog just you know, barking wildly.
It's horrific to listen to. You know, all these moments
are extremely dramatic, and I try to do justice to
them without exploiting them in the book. And it's a
(27:47):
delicate balance because the scenes are so gripping and yet
so sad, and while there is a TV series going
to be made for my book, you don't want to
exploit it. You don't want to exploit the drama, but
you want to do it in a factual way that
conveys to people the horror of it. So it's a
(28:08):
thin line of a delicate balance and a challenge for
writer and a reporter.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I thought it was so well executed in that regard,
and to Courtney's point, always imagined for ourselves like what
was the order that night, and who was happening upon
whom and why? And you know, were they eating takeout?
And you know how dogs get around takeout, They get
kind of vorocious and they want food, so you put
them in the other room. Or was the dog in
the room, you know, Maddie Mogan working out the restaurants.
(28:37):
We had sort of always heard that and thought that
that was a potential connection. And obviously, as you know,
Zana worked there as well, at the Mad Greek, And
then we were never able to substantiate that. So is
that the connective tissue. That's a pretty big bombshell.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, as I've been able to put it together. Coburger
go to the Mad Greek, he saw Maddie there. There's
no evidence none, I want to emphasize it that he
ever even spoke a word to Maddie. But for whatever reason,
her beauty, her exuberance, or vitality, just her blonde good
looks somehow fixated. He fixated on that. And he was
(29:12):
a man, as I've said, who's prone to obsessions. He
measured out his life in obsessions, whether it was heroin
or kicking heroin, whether it was game, losing one hundred
and twenty five pounds, in building his body back up,
becoming from this mediocre student to becoming a graduate teaching
assistant at a great university.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
He had all these large arcs in his life.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
And for some reason, Maddie became his fixation, and just
like the girls of the pool party, he could fixate
on it, but he could not take the next step.
He could not involve himself in any realistic, communical.
Speaker 6 (29:50):
Way in her life.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
And then her presence became not something that was an
astonishment to him, but rather a rebuke. And this buke
gnawed and gnawed at him until he tried to felt
that the demons that were pursuing in the only way
he could live in this world. And here I'm hypothesizing
was to get rid of Maddie, to get rid of
(30:13):
what was causing him such distress.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
The pain was so hard, and yet he still tries
to fight it.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
As I said earlier, when he goes to the house
of three times, each one of those three trips is
an attempt first to go to the house and then
to get away, until he finally crosses the line that's
dividing the idea and the reality, and he comes to
the demons inside him, and he becomes to the monster.
I believe that he was fated to be.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
He could really feel that tension as it's described of
the Do I go there?
Speaker 6 (30:45):
Do I pull back?
Speaker 5 (30:47):
I had a follow up question on that, and do
we know that Coburger or you know, he's presumed innocent,
of course, as is anyone until they go to trial.
Do we know that Maddie and Kaylee's room was visited
first by the murderer.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Yes, that's what the authorities believe. And you know, he
doesn't go into the room with the dogs.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
He goes right into Maddie's room, and then he's surprised,
I believe, to find Kelly there too. And this is
also it's been said that's been reported that the wounds
that Kelly receives are much more ferocious. And I think
the reason for this is not just that she fights back.
He's surprised to see her and he sees his carefully
(31:32):
imagined plan is now going to ride, and he's slashing
out in anger at her, at himself, and his plan
falling apart, and in this state of intense mental and
physical activity. He just leaves the knife sheet behind and
it's carefully laid out. Plan is already undone in the
first moments. And I think, as I said after the
(31:55):
murder of Maddie, the three of the murders that follow
are grim with a collateral damage.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
You mentioned something that had escaped me, which was the
way the coroner described the different wounds on the different people.
It was interesting, Is there anything you wanted to say
about They're not discrepancies, they're different words, but they're very
different words that are used.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
There are very different words. And that that points out
two things.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I think the level of sophistication or lack of sophistication
of the coroner. She rather has now given ammunition that
will be used by the defense to raise doubts.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
I mean, all the defense has to do is raise
doubts with the jury. And the second, how hard it's
going to be. Two. While I believe Coberger is guilty,
how hard it will be to make the case. There's
the dialectics of a courtroom.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
It's basically every expert you bring in, you can bring
in a counter expert, so you can have someone say
touch DNA as the gold standard that never fails.
Speaker 6 (32:56):
You can find someone else will point out, well, that's
not so fast touch. DNA is really not that great.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I think case law after case law at the case
law we've had to impune it, and on and on
and on, and this Coeigner's report is going to raise
war questions. I think they're legitimate answers, but it's up
to a skilled attorney to praise the questions.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
In a way that they will resonate in the jurist mind.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And I think they've handed them when they can knock
out of the park Grohunds.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
You bring up the level of sophistication of the small town,
which it was really interesting how when you had laid
it out that Moscow Police, the entire department had thirty
seven members, and yet the quote backup of the FBI
were forty members.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And the FBI brought in their separate their own trailer,
they had their own sort of offices to keep them
separate from the Moscow cops in the parking lot of
the police headquarters building. Interestingly, about the police headquarters building,
it's not one hundred yards from where the Brian Berger
was at the pool party, it's right at the bottom
of that hill that you go up to get to
the grove. You know, when he drove by that first night,
(34:07):
he was literally driving by the police headquarters and chief
Prize window.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Just the way things intersect such as that, such as
the pool party. And I won't give away how you
bring in sort of the pool party in the end,
unless you want to speak about the potential other leads.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I don't want to give away too much of the book.
One of the things I tried to construct was a
pretty suspenseful, almost mystery story, and I don't want to
ruin the mystery for readers.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
I like to be able to sit down. It's not
a long book. It seemed to.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Take forever to write, and I think I'd like people
to get it quite up in the experience of reading
it and follow the mystery along with me as I
was writing it.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
a moment. Stephanie and I continue our conversation with Politzer
Prize nominated author Howard Bloom, whose in depth reporting prompted
him to write the book. When the Night Comes Falling,
(35:14):
a Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Not to put words in your mouth. But you know,
all of our hearts are with the friends and families,
obviously of the beautiful victims, and obviously the town is
kind of trying to heal. I would imagine was there
any takeaway just from being there and sort of being
in that beehive during this critical time.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yes, I think healing is impossible for the town until
there is a trial, until there is a verdict. And
I think the town will always be suspicious. I think
you can knock down, bulldoze all the murder houses that
you want, and yet the demons will still be unleashed.
And that also is a history of babbagery in that town.
(35:58):
I mean, I found that a book that was written
in nineteen forty five by a woman by Carol Ryan,
whose grandfather was a town doctor and he was just
shot in cold blood, and.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
She writes about the savage forces that are at bay
in this town. It's still a wild western place.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Every police officer now has an emblem, a shoulder patch
on his police uniform and it shows the clock tower
in town. The clock tower is set for one forty nine,
I think it is, And that was the hour of
the day where Lee Nubill, who was a police officer there,
was shot and killed by deranged gunman who also killed
(36:36):
a church deacon. There's been very many unexplained outbursts of
violence in the town. There is a task force have
been looking into child pornography in the town. There's large
drug use. It's a pretty place, there's a deceptive place,
and it's a town almost unverged, as one of the
(36:57):
lawyers in town told me, of a civil war, because
on one side you have this right wing church group
that wants to create what they called a theocracy where
Moscow is the capital of the American with doubt.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Redoubt is a conservative nation.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
And on the other side you have one of the
most liberal universities in the state, a party school, the
first ranked party school in oh of Idaho. So these
two cultures, these two values clash, and you can see
it when you walk down Main Street.
Speaker 6 (37:28):
On one side of Main Street are the old businesses
that are owned by the christ Church kirkers.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
On the other side of the free willing bars and
places where kids hang out. And there's also a really
good Italian restaurant. A specificatures, really.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
Good dichotomous nature really does come to life I have
a specific question. You mentioned that Kayley's father was going
through Kayley's phone in an effort to understandably get to
the bottom of what happened with his daughter. Why didn't
authorities have her phone?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Well, Cayley's father is an interesting character in this whole story.
I never interviewed him, but I spoke to a lot
of people who spoke with him. He's made lots of
public statements, and to my mind, he's in many ways
a hero.
Speaker 6 (38:17):
I mean, he's someone who.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Refuses, refuses to let his daughter's death become a cold case.
He refuses to accept things its face value, and he
wants to get to the bottom of things. And there's
something very valiant, very heroic. He's like a figure from
Shakespeare who just wants to keep ongoing and find out
(38:39):
what's happening. At the same time, while he's doing this,
he's also in many ways destroying his ability to get
over these events. He's caught up in it. He's now
I think angry that my book, I'm not quite sure why,
actually breaks my heart. The last person I would want
to do is insult him. How can you impugne any
(39:03):
action taken by a man who lost his daughter as
a father of three, you know, my heart goes out
to him. A man who has to say to the reporters,
you send your girl off to college and she comes
back to you and earn that kind of statement is heartbreaking.
And a man who stares into the camera when he's
being interviewed and says to the killer who's out there,
(39:26):
I am coming for you. He's making a promise to
the killer and a promise to himself. So in that way,
I think he's a hero and his actions are heroic,
and I'm just sorry he's not happy about the way
he's portrayed. I tried to, I think, to it respectfully
and with dignity. And I thought I treated his daughter
with dignity too, And that was if I didn't certainly
(39:49):
apologize for that. Because these kids were just wonderful young
people and to not have the chance to live out
their lives and to be what they were going to be, it's.
Speaker 6 (40:00):
Just unfair, you know. The heavens were just not fair
to them.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I've seen so much footage of mister Gonzalvez, and I
think I speak on behalf of anyone who's been following
this case. We are rallying for every parent and every
family member to get justice. And it's true when he
does speak into the camera, you feel it like a
dagger in your own heart. So yeah, you know, collectively,
(40:25):
I think we can all agree that for every parent
who's gone through a nightmare like this, and then to
them specifically, there's no words.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Really, I appreciate your giving the time and that I
hope people will read the book on two levels, One
as this suspense story that's a police drama, and secondly
as a character study of some ways two fathers who
(40:53):
become victims of this whole drama of Michael Hoberger Steve
don Clovis, both of them caught up events that are
just unimaginable, larger than live and are impossible to deal with,
and yet they have to deal with the impossible. There's
attention in this entire book, and even as I go
(41:14):
around talking about it, talking about things that don't make
sense and yet happened.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
More on that next time. For more information on the
case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Kat
Underscore Studios. The Idaho Masker is produced by Stephanie Leideger,
Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design
by Jeff Toois, music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masker
(41:46):
is a production of Kat Studios and iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
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