INFAMOUS: University of Idaho Murders

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 7 (00:51):
I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and I'm Britt and the
story I have for you today is one I know
you've heard of. It was a case that made every
new station nationally at some point, and post Karen Reid,
we were all gearing up for this trial to dominate
public attention all over again. But less than two weeks ago,
there was a shocking turn of events. Just a month

(01:12):
and a half out from trial, the defendant accepted a
plea deal, agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for the
death penalty being taken off the table. And it's a
move that has the public and more importantly, the victim's
families split. Some people are happy that he's accepting responsibility
without dragging everyone through a spectacle at the expense of taxpayers,

(01:33):
but others are frustrated because the trial was their chance
at possibly getting an answer to the one question that
has mystified a nation.

Speaker 6 (01:42):
Why.

Speaker 7 (01:43):
Now, there's a gag order still in place, but plenty
of clues have been dropped along the way, and we're
going to make our best attempt at breaking down this
complicated case for you to try and get at that answer.
Why did Brian Koberger kill four students at the University
of Idaho. It's around four am on November thirteenth, twenty

(02:34):
twenty two, when Dylan Mortensen wakes up to some noises
in her off campus home at one one two two
King Road. Now, she'd been out drinking the night before,
so she's still a bit buzzed, and her understanding of
what's going on is a little hazy, but it sounds
like maybe a different roommate who stays in the room
on the floor above her is like up playing with
her dog or something. But as she gets her bearings

(02:56):
a little bit, she thinks she hears that roommate, Kaylee
Gonzalez say there's someone here. So Dylan gets out of bed,
cracks her door to peek out, but she doesn't see anything,
and she tries to shake it off, close her door,
go back to bed, probably telling herself like the bumps
in the night or nothing, But she still hears noises
and then she hears crying, except it's not coming from

(03:18):
Kaylee's room upstairs. It sounds like it's coming from a
room on her floor. Her other roommates Xanna kernodles, and
then she hears what sounds like a voice, a man's voice,
saying it's okay, I'm going to help you now. She
tries looking out her door another time, only to see
the same empty, dark hallway. But she can't ignore whatever

(03:41):
sixth sense is tugging her to her door to check
just one more time. And I can almost imagine it
feeling like this amorphous energy getting closer and closer as
She opens her door once more, until all of a sudden,
that thing she was sensing has a form. Right in
front of her is a man dressed in all black,

(04:04):
with a mask covering his mouth and nose. I mean,
the only thing visible are his eyes beneath bushy eyebrows,
and they're looking directly at her. Now she knows this
guy has seen her, but he doesn't say a word,
and he doesn't move toward her. He just walks toward
the sliding glass door that leads out the homes back patio.

(04:25):
And I have no idea what could have been going
through Dylan's mind in that moment, What stories she was
trying to tell herself, the way she probably tried to discredit.

Speaker 6 (04:35):
Her own eyes and ears.

Speaker 7 (04:36):
She was probably confused, probably afraid, drunk on top of
it all, and human telling herself the things we all do.
Bad things happen to other people, not me. Nevertheless, in
the instant that this guy moves past her, she locks
herself inside her room and immediately starts trying to call
her roommates.

Speaker 8 (04:56):
Which there were what like five of them total living
in the house, then.

Speaker 6 (05:00):
Technically four girls who lived there.

Speaker 7 (05:03):
Dylan Xana then Bethany Funk, and Madison Mogan or Maddie
as they called her, but it wasn't uncommon for other
people to be there or like staying the night, like
Xana's boyfriend Ethan Chapin and Kaylee, who is always referred
to as a roommate because she was shortly before this,
but she had actually just moved out because she was

(05:23):
graduating early. She was only there visiting her best friend
Maddie that weekend, but they hadn't.

Speaker 6 (05:28):
Filled her room yet, so there still is a Kaylee's room.

Speaker 7 (05:31):
I guess I didn't realize that I know, so I
don't think Dylan knew exactly who was even in the
house that morning. So she starts calling her roommates one
by one, and I'm not sure why, but actually her
roommate Bethany had called Dylan a few minutes earlier. Maybe
she heard something in the house too and wanted to
check in with Dylan, but Dylan didn't answer that one.
She's like calling around one by one. The phone's ringing

(05:53):
and ringing and ringing. None of the roommates are answering,
So finally Dylan does call Bethany Backane picks up. She's
at home too, and I don't know what they talk
about for the forty one seconds that call is logged,
but when it ends, Dylan starts shooting off text to
Bethany starting at four twenty two am.

Speaker 8 (06:11):
And was Bethany's room on her same floor or a
different one?

Speaker 7 (06:15):
So this house has three floors, so the front door
to the home is technically in the basement. That's where
Bethany's room is, and then on the second level you
have Xanna and Dylan's rooms, and then on the third
were Maddie and Kaylee.

Speaker 8 (06:28):
Okay, I think I have it.

Speaker 7 (06:29):
Yeah, So she is firing off text after text to Bethany,
and she's telling her what she saw, what she heard
that no one else is answering. She's super confused, really
freaked out, and she probably has at least some wave
of relief the fact that, like she's getting a hold
of Bethany, Bethany is at least responding, and Bethany says,
come to my room. This is over text run Now
Dylan doesn't even know if that guy is still there

(06:51):
or if he's gone, but she bolts to the basement
and the pair locked themselves in Bethany's room, and they
keep trying other roommates unsuccessfully until they have then both
fall asleep.

Speaker 8 (07:01):
And I know so many people had just a field
day with this early on, Like they couldn't wrap their
heads around why neither of these girls would just call
the police.

Speaker 7 (07:10):
I know, and listen, I'll admit early on, I had
a hard time wrapping my brain around it too. But empathy,
I think, is something you have to train into yourself,
work at constantly. So before you go writing the comment
or like posting the thing, you gotta like sit back,
make sure you take in the facts, put yourself in
someone else's shoes too, man, Because like these are technically adults, right,
like in terms of being able to.

Speaker 6 (07:31):
Vote or get drafted for war.

Speaker 7 (07:33):
But Bethanie and Dylan were both twenty one, and I
thought I was invincible then, Like it was literally not
in my realm of possible thinking that I would ever
in a million bazillion years be at the center of
what would become one of the biggest true crime cases
in the nation, probably for a generation. Strange man, in
my house or not, you think of every other possible

(07:54):
scenario under the sun before the worst one. And I
mean it was a Saturday night in college. The university
had just had this big football game. Maybe someone could
have had a guest over.

Speaker 9 (08:05):
Well.

Speaker 8 (08:06):
And on top of that, they're young women. As women
were constantly being told like, we're overreacting. Don't make such
a big deal about things.

Speaker 7 (08:13):
Yeah, and your other roommate is okay. Whoever this was,
he walked right past you didn't even flinch, So maybe
everyone else is just sleeping. After all, It's almost four
thirty in the morning now. Dylan and Bethany wake up
the next morning, they start like getting on their phones.
Dylan is on social media a bit, but there is
still enough fear lingering that even in the daylight, they

(08:36):
don't want to just go roaming the house alone.

Speaker 5 (08:39):
I know.

Speaker 7 (08:39):
Dylan texts her dad more than once that morning. Bethany
calls her parents more than once, and I'm not exactly
sure why they called or if their parents picked up.
I'm thinking maybe they called to tell them that they
thought something was off about the night before. But eventually
Dylan calls her friend Emily, telling her that they think
something weird happened last night, and she asked her to
come over and help and bring her boyfriend. They want

(09:02):
to figure out why the housemates aren't responding, so Emily says, yeah, fine,
I'll come over. She brings her boyfriend Hunter and a
roommate Josie too, but honestly they're not taking it too
seriously because apparently Dylan was one to scare easily, and
she'd been freaked out before in the house, which when
I talk about sitting back and waiting for the.

Speaker 8 (09:23):
Facts, yeah I never knew that piece same.

Speaker 7 (09:26):
So she's been freaked out before, and before everything was fine.
This time was going to be different.

Speaker 10 (09:33):
Though.

Speaker 7 (09:33):
Dylan and Bethany are on the bottom floor waiting for
them when their friends arrive, and they all decide that
Hunter is going to lead the way. He's already in
Xana's room by the time Emily's reaching the second floor.
According to the Amazon docuseries One Night in Idaho, Emily
says that she just sees Hunter like turn around, come

(09:54):
toward her, and he's like pushing her out of the
house and he's like call nine one one, tell them
their as an unconscious person. And I give him a
ton of credit because even while trying to process what
it was he just walked into which was far more
than just an unconscious person. He was still thinking about
how to protect everyone else from what.

Speaker 6 (10:12):
He just saw.

Speaker 7 (10:13):
So it is eleven fifty five am when Dylan calls
nine one one.

Speaker 6 (10:18):
Here are parts of that call.

Speaker 9 (10:21):
And I don't a location of your emergency something he's talking.
You don't know what what is the address of the
emergency one? What is the rest of the address?

Speaker 6 (10:43):
Oh? King two Roads?

Speaker 9 (10:46):
Okay? And there's that a house or an apartment in
the house.

Speaker 8 (10:51):
I'll talk to you, guys.

Speaker 9 (10:52):
We're we live a delight, so we're next to them,
and tell me exactly what's going on.

Speaker 6 (10:59):
One of our one of the roommates has passed out
and she's drung class night and it's.

Speaker 8 (11:04):
Not like yep, okay, Oh, and they saw some man in.

Speaker 9 (11:08):
Their house house nice yright Are you with the patient?

Speaker 10 (11:14):
Okay?

Speaker 9 (11:14):
I need someone to piz the phone, stop passing it
around and I just tell you what happened pretty much?
What is going on currently? Is someone passed out right now?
I don't really know what pretty much? For you, m okay,
I need to know what's going on right now. If
someone has passed out, can you find that out, y'all?
I'll come come on, you guys, will check. Hello, Okay,

(11:37):
I need someone to stop passing the phone around because
I've talked to four different people.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Sorry, they just gave me the phone.

Speaker 9 (11:43):
Is she breathing?

Speaker 2 (11:44):
She will hello?

Speaker 9 (11:46):
Is she breathing?

Speaker 1 (11:49):
No?

Speaker 9 (11:49):
Okay? Well.

Speaker 7 (11:52):
The Moscow Police Department arrives on the scene pretty quickly,
and already there's a crowd gathering outside the house. They're Dylan, Bethany,
their friends who they called, and some more students who
know the crew. They're all standing by waiting to hear
that everything's okay. But as we know, police don't find
an unconscious woman.

Speaker 6 (12:10):
What they see. The scene that hunter saw is very bloody.

Speaker 7 (12:16):
According to a new book that we got access to,
the Idaho Four by James Patterson and Vicky Ward, which
had a ton of information about this case, Xana and
Ethan are found together in her room on the second floor,
and it looks like Xana was attacked right at the
door of her room, Like she is laying on the
ground at her door. Maybe she'd been like backing up

(12:38):
into the room when she was attacked. I don't know,
but she had stab wounds from some kind of what
they call an edged weapon, and she clearly tried to
protect herself from the attacker's weapon because her fingers are
nearly severed. The Idaho four book says that Ethan is
laying on the bed behind her and he's been stabbed
to but there have been rumors that I have seen

(13:00):
that his legs were also. Like the word that keeps
getting used is carved. And this isn't stated in the
affidavit that I've seen, but there is a portion of
that document where they're talking about finding Ethan, and it's
been redacted, and it is speculated that is where that
detail is discussed or.

Speaker 6 (13:18):
Where this comes from.

Speaker 7 (13:19):
But again, no one has gone on records stating that
as fact.

Speaker 8 (13:23):
Right, and we're both of them clothed.

Speaker 7 (13:26):
I think, so nothing in any of the records says
anything about them being undressed or anything like that.

Speaker 6 (13:31):
Okay, Now, on.

Speaker 7 (13:32):
The third floor of the house, police check Kaylee's room,
but only her dog is in there.

Speaker 6 (13:37):
He's unharmed.

Speaker 7 (13:38):
But it's in Maddie's room where they find the two
best friends laying together sharing a bed, which probably wasn't
uncommon since they'd been inseparable since childhood. Both have been
stabbed and in an interview with ABC News, Kaylee's mother, Christie,
says that Kaylee was found like sitting up and had
defensive wounds, and on the family's Facebook page, they also

(14:01):
say that she had been beaten in the face and head,
so she likely fought for her life.

Speaker 8 (14:06):
So then did he attack Maddie first, like while they
were still sleeping?

Speaker 6 (14:10):
I don't know that for sure.

Speaker 7 (14:11):
Like we only know about Kaylee's wounds because her family
has talked about them publicly. No one has ever spoken
about Maddie's wounds in details, So she might very well
have them too, maybe not.

Speaker 6 (14:21):
I can't say one way or another.

Speaker 7 (14:24):
All I know is that, according to a press release
from the Moscow Police quote, some but not all of
them have defensive wounds. And they did say that they
believed that they were all asleep when the killer entered
the home.

Speaker 8 (14:37):
And the two of them in this room, we're both
close too.

Speaker 7 (14:41):
There's nothing in any of the documents about them being
undressed and like same as before.

Speaker 6 (14:45):
Yeah, and it doesn't.

Speaker 7 (14:46):
Seem like the killer spent any time with them, So
right away, this is feeling more like a blitz attack
more than anything else. No one is bound, no one
has been sexually assaulted, nothing appears to have been staged
or taken, but something was left behind by the killer,
seemingly unintentionally, a tan leather knife sheath, and finding that

(15:11):
knife sheath marked the beginning of the end for the killer.

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Speaker 7 (16:08):
The knife itself, a seven inch blade, was never found
inside the house or outside either when they searched the
perimeter of the home and the trash out on the street,
but police and the pathologist would later become confident that some,
if not all, of the victim's wounds were caused by,
if not that specific knife, one a lot like it.

Speaker 8 (16:27):
And are these types of knives common, I.

Speaker 7 (16:30):
Mean ish like they're used by the military, They're used
by hunters, knife enthusiasts, like that sort of thing.

Speaker 8 (16:35):
They're coming among people who use knives.

Speaker 7 (16:38):
Yeah, but definitely not something that like any of these
kids in this house were known to have. So they
do think that the killer brought this with him, but
then actually took the knife itself back with him. Now,
investigators sent a good amount of evidence from the house
off to the lab, including fingernail clippings, hair, But the
major things they noted is that there was a shoeprint

(16:58):
outside of Dylan's door that like came from a van's
style shoe, and they found this.

Speaker 6 (17:04):
It was invisible to the.

Speaker 7 (17:05):
Naked eye, I think because they use this dye that
reacts to body fluid or blood to get this print,
So it wasn't like a ton of a blood or
fluid or whatever. But this print is right in alignment
with where Dylan said that she saw the masked man,
so they feel like this is his. They also find
a blood spot on the handrail between the first and
second floor, and then they find a black glove outside

(17:28):
the home. Now, police note that there is no sign
of fourth entry into the home, but that doesn't mean
that this masked man was let in because they learned
that he walked in through the second floor glass sliding door,
the very one that he was heading toward after he
passed Dylan. So it sounds like maybe that had been
left unlocked. And listen, Moscow is considered a rural college town,

(17:50):
one where, at least before November of twenty twenty two,
it wasn't a big deal to not lock your doors,
according to the One Night in Idaho docu series.

Speaker 8 (17:58):
But even then, you have to be thinking that the
killer knew one maybe all of them knew that the
door was sometimes left unlocked, or at the very minimum,
knew enough about the kind of vibe towards safety that
he knew he could get in. I would think he
would have cased the place first, though.

Speaker 7 (18:17):
Yeah, And I was gonna say, even like, the very
nature of this crime feels personal, right, Like, it feels targeted,
And they don't think that this guy was just looking
for any house to walk into. That night, like he
was looking for that house, yeah, or maybe more specifically
someone in that house.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (18:34):
The fact that he left two of them alive in
the house makes you think it was about one or
more of the four who were attacked exactly.

Speaker 6 (18:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (18:42):
But and by the way, at this point, those two survivors,
they still don't know what's fully going on, right, or
even the extent of it. Like, all they know is
what they told nine point one. And this is kind
of the wild part to me. So about an hour
after police initially showed up, the University of Idaho blasts
what they call a vandal alert out to the student's
cell phones. Think of it like a safety announcement. It

(19:03):
says that Moscow ped is investigating a homicide on King
Road near the campus. Everyone should stay away from the
area and shelter in place. And then another vand alert
comes through. This one says that police are investigating the
deaths of four people. And that is how Maddie, Xanna,
Ethan and Kayley's friends, who are sitting outside the house

(19:24):
still waiting for any news about what's happening inside, that
is how they learn that their friends were killed.

Speaker 8 (19:30):
God, imagine going from thinking your friends passed out to
realizing that four of your friends have been murdered and
finding out from a text message blast from in your school.

Speaker 7 (19:42):
I can't I don't know how they react in that
moment or what the scene outside of the house looks
like that afternoon, as that news not just rippled through
the crowd, but like came crashing down all their homes,
like it had to have been chaotic, which might be
why police start making some moves quickly, like they need
to regain control of the situation. Bethany and Dylan and

(20:04):
some of the other students go to the police station
to get formal statements taken, and police officially release the
names of the students who were killed twenty one year
old Kaylee Gonzalez, twenty one year old Matty Mogen, twenty
year old Xana Kernodle, and twenty year old Ethan Chapin.
But try as they might, control was a hard thing

(20:24):
to have. Day one, reporters began flooding to the area
while many of the students head out because they're understandably scared,
like the university eventually tell students they can attend class remotely,
and the reporting that is coming out at this point,
doesn't have a ton of new information, like no one
knew much in those early days, like it had to

(20:45):
have been terrifying, but that void of information just drove
wild speculation. I mean, people online are full on blaming
Dylan and Bethany for their murders like at this point already.
And police do try to like grab onto the reins
again by holding a press conference. They say that they
believe this was an isolated, targeted attack on the students,

(21:08):
but then they also acknowledge that they don't have a
suspect and they can't say that there's no threat to
the community. And they just asked the community to remain vigilant.

Speaker 8 (21:18):
Which with that I'd be leaving the school too.

Speaker 7 (21:21):
So many people did, which like, yes, I'm out, I'm
pulling my kids out, damn sure.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
Yeah, safety first.

Speaker 7 (21:28):
But this only made things harder for police because these
are also the people that police need to be questioning,
and now they're no longer in like one concentrated place.

Speaker 8 (21:36):
Right They're going everywhere. And this is also probably one
of the biggest, if not the biggest case that's ever
hit this department.

Speaker 7 (21:44):
Oh and they know it too, like they're not playing
the ego game here. They're bringing in help pretty quickly
from like a local county sheriff's office, from the FBI,
and in doing so, they are starting to piece together
what everyone in the King roadhouse was doing on the
night of the murders, right like and conquer. But God
bless Kaylee's sister, she was not about to just like

(22:05):
leave it to police to figure out. She was apparently
getting zero details from police, just that her sister was
gone the end. So she's like fet she rolled up
her sleeves and went to work herself. She told CBS
News that she got into her sister's call log and
started calling everyone in there, and she found out that
her sister went to this local bar called the Corner Club.

(22:26):
Then she got a ride to this food truck, and
her sister talked to a driver who gave them that
ride there, and he told her that the food truck
this place known as the Grub Truck, had a camera.
And so she's actually the one who got that video footage.
I feel like we all saw this video firstage early on.
I didn't realize she got that she but she saw
it first. She sees her sister and Maddie together on

(22:49):
the camera and she sees them, you know, get their
food or whatever, then get into this car together but alone,
just the two of them, and police confirm that the
driver took them home. He dropped them off at the
house at around one fifty six am.

Speaker 8 (23:02):
God bless sisters.

Speaker 7 (23:03):
Man, listen, if this isn't reason enough for everyone to
get there, if I go missing folders in order, I
don't know what is like, make it easy on your sister,
your mother, your father, your friends, like they're gonna need
to get your callogues and text in a time of emergency.
So back to the timeline. According to the Idaho four Book,
Dylan tells police that she heard Kaylee and Maddie chatting
in the living room and then she heard them walk

(23:25):
up to the third floor before she fell asleep. She
didn't hear Ethan and Xana get home though at one
forty five, but based on what Bethany told police, they
know that's when they got back from hanging out at
Ethan's frat house on campus. So we've got everyone known
to be back at the house by two am, but
they're not all sleeping just yet. There is still activity
on Kaylee and Maddy's cell phones, though it does start

(23:49):
to die down as the hours tick by. By four am,
it seems like all the housemates are in their room
and Xana receives a door dash order around this time
two four o'clock in the morning. Her phone shows that
she may have been scrolling on TikTok for like about
twelve more minutes after the door dash delivery, and according
to the police affidavit in this case, not long after that,

(24:12):
Dylan comes face to face with the killer.

Speaker 8 (24:14):
It makes me think that he started at the top
floor right, killed Maddie and Kayley, then came down killed
Xena and Ethan. After I know you said Dylan thought
it was Maddie who said someone's here, and maybe it was,
but I also wonder, like what if it could have
been been Xana, like saying that to Ethan or Ethan's Zanna. Listen.

Speaker 7 (24:36):
I could spend twenty minutes spiraling about this, but like,
I'm gonna keep it short and sweet to what we
do know is fact in this moment. For the longest time,
no one knew what order it happened in, but just
a couple of weeks ago in court, prosecutors say that
the way you kind of laid it out is exactly
what they think happened. That basically, the killer came into
the home, went straight upstairs, first killed Maddie and Kaylee.

(24:58):
Then as he was come downstairs, he encountered Xanna, maybe
getting her food, maybe eating it somewhere else. I mean,
I know there was a jack in the box bag
with her name on it seen in photos in the kitchen,
but it was also a really messy kitchen. I can't
say for sure that that bag was from that night,
but it's possible. I mean, there are still so many
details we don't have. But he encounters her somewhere though

(25:20):
we know she is at least in her doorway by
the time he kills her and then Ethan.

Speaker 8 (25:25):
But then why leave Dylan untouched? I mean, we know
she had this encounter with him too.

Speaker 7 (25:32):
Why right, Like that is our big question. Was it
the way that they responded different? Like did they respond
differently when they encountered him and it got different reactions
from him? Was it something else? Now, despite police over
and over again saying that they do not think Dylan
or Bethany were involved, I told you people online were brutal.

(25:53):
They didn't understand how Dylan could see someone in the
house in this mask and not say anything. I really
didn't understand how the pair could like wake up the
next morning and then be on like social media and
calling people who weren't the police. And I don't think
they liked the way that Dylan's statements or descriptions of
the suspect developed over time. Like earliest statement she gives,

(26:16):
she describes this guy as not insanely tall, which is
like very vague, yeah, and then later she gives an
actual range. It was like five ten to six feet.
And then it's not till the third sit down that
she describes what is now infamously synonymous.

Speaker 6 (26:30):
With this case, the bushy eyebrows.

Speaker 7 (26:33):
But experts have said that Bethanie and Dylan were likely
experiencing a trauma response. And by the way, we're old,
like twenty something year old, do a lot of their
communications with friends on social media, so it is very
possible that's how they were reaching out to their friends
in that morning, trying to get people over or to
find out things like as they were having this trauma response, or.

Speaker 8 (26:56):
Even like one of the avenues I know for me,
like I have conversations with you on social media and
on text and in person. Yeah, there's a million different
ways to communicate. And if you're trying to get a
hold of people, why not try every avenue?

Speaker 7 (27:08):
Right, And as far as like things changing, like listen,
I think she was still processing it all over time,
like sure when like when she came in one time,
she even says that she remembers that this guy was
carrying a vacuum type object in his hand.

Speaker 8 (27:23):
Which like, what would that have been?

Speaker 7 (27:26):
I don't know, We're not sure, Like Dylan Tell's detective,
she really didn't know how much of what she was
seeing was reality, what was a dream?

Speaker 8 (27:35):
And how much her mind is trying to fill in
the gap, fill in the blanks. We talk about that
all the time.

Speaker 7 (27:41):
According to the Idaho Four Books, she even tells cops
that she initially thought that the guy was like a
firefighter when you talk about filling in gaps, right.

Speaker 8 (27:47):
Which obviously you're like, well in all black with a
mask on.

Speaker 7 (27:50):
It doesn't make sense, But I told you, like, what's
what's every story you can tell yourself except for the
worst one trauma response, Like the brain is wild when
it comes to trauma, But the Internet does not care.

Speaker 6 (28:03):
And it does not stop.

Speaker 7 (28:05):
They keep coming up with wild theories about not even
just Dylan or Bethany, like the whole friend group, especially
those closest to the victims, including the ones who came
over in the morning to check out the house, Emily
and Hunter. And then people were also suspicious of Maddie's
boyfriend Jake, and then Kaylee's ex boyfriend Jack. Everyone's getting

(28:27):
attacked on social media. People were claiming that they must
have been involved, and I think it was people just
trying to piece together what could have happened with like
almost zero information, or just like you get like this
anty bitty piece of the puzzle with zero content.

Speaker 8 (28:43):
It's kind of another situation of just filling in the blanks, right.

Speaker 7 (28:46):
And because like one of the things we knew early
on or early ish, was that Kaylee called her ex
boyfriend Jack a few times on the night of the murders,
and so some people online thought that was odd, and
I think that's why he comes up so much. But
it seems like Kaylee was just like probably just drunk
dialing him with Maddie next to her. And when we
see all the phone records, like when those come out
in December, it just like again, this is where like

(29:09):
all the speculation comes from, because it shows that Dylan
was also like deleting pictures on her phone and editing
videos from five am to six thirty am, and at
this time she's already in Bethany's room. Now she stops
using her phone until like eight h five am and
when she opens Instagram for a bit, but she's also
checking Ethan and Xana's snapchat locations. But to me, that
makes sense if she's wondering if they're home, what the

(29:32):
full picture is, what it means or doesn't mean. We
probably would have gotten in a trial and may get
when the gag order is lifted. But for now, spoiler alert,
we're about to get to the point where police know
who did it and it's not any of these kids.

(29:52):
Police determine that none of them have anything to do
with this crime. But even though again, even though we
have a person, even the police have said that, I
don't even know if that has stopped Dylan and Bethany
from getting hate mail and death threats.

Speaker 8 (30:07):
Imagine having your friends murdered in the house that you
were in with them, and then being accused of doing
it yourself while you're trying to grieve and deal with survivor.
I just being that young and trying to get on
with your like, get on with your life to a
certain extent while I'm not seeing all that trauma.

Speaker 7 (30:26):
Yeah, I don't know what life after that looks like,
and it is worth mentioning. I mean, our team tried
to reach out to Dylan and Bethany, but we didn't
hear back.

Speaker 6 (30:34):
And by the way, like I think.

Speaker 7 (30:35):
The friends got the hardest part of this all, but
there were tons of people who were just getting lit
up online by others who had no business playing detective, and.

Speaker 6 (30:45):
It made life very hard for people.

Speaker 7 (30:48):
Like there was this guy who was seen in that
video footage from the food truck talking to Maddie and Kaylee.
This guy's wearing like a hood whatever. It's like cold
November weather. But everyone decides that hoodie guy is guilty
and did this, except he didn't. Police determined he was
someone that they knew who they were able to clear
up involvement.

Speaker 8 (31:05):
Wasn't there even like a professor at the university who
got accused of being involved early on, Like I just
remember something about how upside down this accusation turned their
life with like zero to back it up.

Speaker 7 (31:18):
Professor Rebecca Scofield, who teaches at the University of Idaho.
So this one was like, I remember this vividly. There
was this TikToker and self proclaimed psychic Ashley Gillard, who
accused this professor of having a secret romantic relationship with
one of the victims. I don't know where that came from,
but Gillard was basically saying that the professor ordered the murders,

(31:41):
and I mean, there was absolutely no evidence to back
this up. And Schofield actually ended up filing a defamation
lawsuit against that TikToker, and it was a saga in
court with Gillard trying to defend her claims by noting
that she got other crime scene details right. But the
court ruled early on that Gillard did in fact defame Schofield.

(32:01):
Not surprising, and they're actually this is still ongoing. They're
waiting on a trial to see how much she's going
to have to pay her. But again, I think that's
like one of the most extreme ones. But there were
endless other stories that people were coming up with. I mean,
there's rumors that drugs were involved. There were also rumblings
of Kaylee having a stalker. But the Moscow PD looks
into all of it and nothing comes of any of

(32:24):
those rumors. But still police follow each one of these,
even the far fetched ones. But when nothing pans out,
they start scouring the area near King Road for surveillance footage.

Speaker 8 (32:36):
Have they already sent the knife sheath and stuff off
for forensic testing by this point?

Speaker 7 (32:40):
Oh yeah, all of this is happening really fast, Like
they're not just going to like hold off and wait
for that to come back though. I mean, they know
they're working against a clock when it comes to an
active investigation, and they want to get everything they can
as fast as they can, and again not above asking
for help. So they actually lean on Moscow residents and
local businesses to look at their own video footage and

(33:01):
bring them anything that they think is sus And they
find footage that shows a white Hyundai Lantra near the
King roadhouse a little before three thirty am on the
night of the murders, and then they keep seeing it
until like four twenty and there's this weird pattern of
activity like the driver just keeps passing the house over

(33:25):
and over again.

Speaker 6 (33:26):
I mean, it's chilling when you know what happened there.

Speaker 7 (33:28):
And by the way, the house is on a dead
end street, so anyone passing it this many times is
doing it intentionally. What's even more chilling is at exactly
four or four am, this car is seen stopping and
turning around, and it looks like this person tries to
park on the street behind the house in an area

(33:49):
that can't be seen on surveillance, so we don't know
what happens because a little bit of time goes by.
And then at four twenty am, this car is seen
one final time speeding away from the house.

Speaker 8 (34:01):
And what time did the DoorDash food get dropped off
to Xana? Was it right in that same window?

Speaker 6 (34:07):
Four am? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (34:08):
And at some point they actually did find that DoorDash
driver and she says that she parked right next to
this white car, maybe even saw the killer according to
ABC News, but exactly what she said, if she said
more than that, hasn't been fully released. I think they were,
at least up till this point, trying to keep her
story locked up for a potential trial.

Speaker 6 (34:28):
But I wonder if more it's gonna come.

Speaker 7 (34:30):
Out, because the timy is wild to me, and I mean,
to be clear, she's been totally clear. She just dropped
off the food and left.

Speaker 8 (34:37):
But right, but was he already in the house? Was
he still in his car exactly?

Speaker 7 (34:43):
Like was it just lucky timing that the DoorDash driver
didn't see or hear more or spook him or.

Speaker 8 (34:51):
Did he know it was coming? Like did he have
to wait for it?

Speaker 7 (34:54):
Like there's all the questions, yeah, yeah, Like how regularly
was DoorDash ordered at four am on a Saturday night
out right? Like I know my door dash account see's
a lot of action usually had certain times like maybe
this guy like he knew to wait.

Speaker 8 (35:09):
Or maybe he was just passing the house all those
times until he saw the lights go out or something too,
he's waiting for something.

Speaker 7 (35:17):
Now, police don't have good enough video footage to see
this guy or even see the plates on the car,
and they couldn't make contact with that DoorDash driver for
a while to even get a description or anything from her.
So they did the best they could with what they
had in those immediate first couple of days. So on
November twenty fifth, this is twelve days after the murder,

(35:39):
Moscow police ask all law enforcement to be on the
lookout for this car, which they only know to be
a twenty eleven to twenty thirteen white Hyundai Alantra, and
while they wait for responses, they start running down leads
that could maybe connect someone to the murder weapon, completely
unaware them that within four days, Washington State University Police

(36:04):
in Pullman, Washington, come across a white Hyundai a Laantra
that kind of it's the description they got on that bolo,
so they ran the plates.

Speaker 6 (36:15):
But for whatever reason, maybe because.

Speaker 7 (36:18):
This car they're running the plates on is two years
newer than what they were looking for, this one's at
twenty fifteen. They don't pass that tip on to Moscow police.
They just make a note of it in their own
records that says they ran this. It was registered to
someone who lives in a student apartment at the school,
someone named Brian Coburger, and that student apartment that.

Speaker 6 (36:41):
He lives in.

Speaker 7 (36:42):
It's only a nineteen minute drive to one one two
two King Road.

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Speaker 6 (37:41):
Painfully unaware of the development.

Speaker 7 (37:43):
Made over in Washington, police are coming at the investigation
from every other angle they can think of. That sheath
that they found had a serial number on it, so
they start serving search warrants to Amazon and eBay, trying
to track down the buyer. And that's when they get
a good news, bad news break In the case, good news,

(38:04):
maybe you won't need to rely on this car or
the eBay search warn or whatever to lead to the
killer lab. Testing is done and there is an unknown
male profile DNA on the knife sheath.

Speaker 6 (38:16):
But oh wait, bad news.

Speaker 7 (38:19):
Actually maybe you need to do that stuff because we
put that into CODIS and there isn't a match.

Speaker 8 (38:24):
Okay, but good news.

Speaker 7 (38:25):
IgG exists totally, and by the way, they also like
cross reference with like the people in this case, not
theirs either, so they do they jump to IgG Investigative
Genetic Genealogy. Now, for those of you who aren't like
totally read up on this, the DNA profile that you
pull for CODIS is different than.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
What you need for IgG.

Speaker 7 (38:45):
So even though this is an exciting viable option that
most investigations didn't even have just a couple of years
before this, it's also going to take a minute because
they have to start the testing process all over again,
starting from trying to pull a viable SNIP profile, floating
that to public databases like jed match, and then working
a family tree backwards from Lord only knows what.

Speaker 6 (39:07):
Distant relative right.

Speaker 7 (39:09):
So it's not for another month on December nineteenth, that
Moscow police hear Brian Coberger's name for the very first time,
and when they start looking into this guy, I can
only imagine how elated they are. When the lead investigator
on this case, Detective Corporal Brett Payne, sees Coburger's driver's

(39:29):
license photo and determines he looks a lot like Dylan's description,
even has those bushy eyebrows she mentioned, And it just
keeps getting better when they see what car he drives,
a white twenty fifteen Hyundai a Lantra, and it must
just feel like icing on the cake when they search
surveillance footage around Coburger's apartment in Pullman on the night

(39:52):
of the murderers, and lo and behold, it shows him
leaving in said white car at two forty four am,
heading south on State Road two seventy toward Moscow. This
is it, Like, this is their guy. There is just
one problem. Their guy booked it out of town six

(40:12):
days before they realized who he was. They find out
that on December thirteenth, Coburger and his dad took a
cross country drive from Washington State to al Brightsville, Pennsylvania,
where his parents lived.

Speaker 8 (40:26):
So his dad flew out there to make the drive. Yeah,
and was his planned? Like, I'm curious what his dad
was thinking when they made this trip, because it is
a it's a commitment of a trip.

Speaker 7 (40:37):
It's weird, right, Like, Yeah, port documents say that the
reason he's making this trip is he's headed home for
winter break, so I don't know. Maybe he told his
dad that he wanted his car for bregg Dad wanted
to make sure that he made the trip safely.

Speaker 6 (40:49):
They wanted bonding time.

Speaker 7 (40:50):
I don't know, but even a cop that pulled them
over along the way thought it was weird. They got
pulled over twice actually in Indiana of all places, Like
it's a little weird that I feel whus your pride.
But they're just like pulled over.

Speaker 6 (41:02):
And like routine stops.

Speaker 7 (41:03):
And in one of them there's bodycam footage and you
can hear the trooper ask Coburger and his dad like
where you go in and you can't really make out
what they tell the trooper and we know where they're going, right,
I assume they tell them Pennsylvania, And the trooper jokingly asked, like,
are you guys scared of airplanes or like right, like
it is a long trick, yeah, but the stuff doesn't
result to anything.

Speaker 6 (41:21):
They're just let go with no issues.

Speaker 7 (41:24):
There are theories online though from internet sluice after the fact,
wondering if maybe he was using this time to dump evidence.
There is no evidence of this, and it might be
as simple as the dude was just going about life
as normal, and to him, it doesn't matter that he
just slaughtered four kids and wrecked four families, even more

(41:45):
friends and loved ones. It was Christmas break and he
planned to drive home. I also wonder if he was
wanting to get his car out of the area. But
before police just show up at his door. In Pennsylvania,
they want their ducks in a row. A bunch of
things happen in quick succession, starting with learning everything they
can about this guy.

Speaker 6 (42:06):
What they learn is.

Speaker 7 (42:07):
That Brian Coburger was in Washington State University's PhD program,
And for those crime junkies who are coming in fresh
to this, welcome to one of the most messed.

Speaker 6 (42:19):
Up parts about this case.

Speaker 7 (42:20):
He was getting his PhD in criminology and he'd even
earned a master's degree in criminal justice from Dissales University
in Pennsylvania earlier that year, where he studied under serial
killer expert doctor Catherine Ramslin, who wrote the biography of
Dennis Raider, better known as the BTK Kayler. Yeah, even

(42:43):
applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in
twenty twenty two. But this is where things start to
get eerie. So they find out that as part of
a research project he did at the sales. He set
up this online survey and Brian Coberger was lit as
the student investigator. And listen, I'm going to post this

(43:03):
whole thing because it is fascinating and I read every
single line. But I know that we're on the clock
here and you guys have already given me like a
ton of time, so I'm going to give you the highlights. Basically,
this thing is set up as a crime research study.
Like here's some of what it says. Please note that
the following survey asks you to detail your most recent

(43:24):
criminal offense, whether you were caught or not. In the
event that you were not charged, convicted, or incarcerated for
the offense, you may still participate in this research. Welcome
to the research study. We are interested in understanding how
emotions and psychological traits influenced the decision making involved in
committing a crime. After completing a series of background questions,

(43:47):
you will be presented with open ended questions relevant to
the most recent crime you were involved in and asked
to detail your thoughts, emotions, and actions from the beginning
to the end of the crime commission process. So then
it goes on and it gives instructions about filling it out,
how long it should take, and then it goes into
the questions, some of which are, how did you travel

(44:09):
to and enter the location that the crime occurred? After arriving,
what steps did you take prior to locating the victim
or target i e.

Speaker 6 (44:17):
Person or object? Please detail your thoughts and feelings, why
did you choose.

Speaker 7 (44:23):
That victim or target over others? And before leaving? Is
there anything else you did? And by the way, this
whole thing gets posted months before the murders and listen.
His professor at the time, who only knew him through
an online class, said that it it being the survey,
it falls square into the type of research that they

(44:45):
would do in the school's master programs, so she didn't
think anything.

Speaker 6 (44:50):
Was weird about it. But she did note that he
didn't actually use any of the data from the questionnaire,
so like no one answer, was it really data gathering
for personal use? Will we ever know?

Speaker 8 (45:05):
I mean, I'm sure police know. They had to have
collected all his devices and talked to the school, and.

Speaker 7 (45:12):
Oh, I'm sure because I know they went through a
lot of his digital stuff, starting I know, with phone
records and when we talk about those. So Coburger's phone
records matched the surveillance footage outside of his home in Pullman.
This shows he leaves around the same time. This one
tracks it at two forty seven am the night of
the murders. But then his phone suddenly goes off the grid,

(45:33):
like he turned it off or put it in airplane mode.

Speaker 8 (45:36):
Sounds like the criminology student didn't want anyone tracking his movements.

Speaker 7 (45:40):
Yeah, and so his phone stays dark all the way
up until four forty eight am when it comes back
online and things putting him on State Highway ninety five
south of Moscow. Now his phone is traveling south and
he takes this like long way back to Pullman, and
by five point thirty eight his phone is home.

Speaker 8 (46:01):
And you said, from his place to the King's roadhouse
is like fifteen to twenty minutes.

Speaker 7 (46:06):
Twenty minutes tops, like when you're taking highways with cameras
twenty minutes. But if you say when the back roads
that are darker they don't have cameras, let's a little
bit yep. Something else they see on his phone records
gives me full body chills. Five hours after the murders,
Coburger's phone leaves his home again and travels back to Moscow,

(46:31):
and not just back to the town in general. His
phone pings the cell towers covering the King roadhouse between
nine to twelve am and nine to twenty one am.

Speaker 8 (46:43):
I never knew that.

Speaker 6 (46:45):
So I didn't, like until I got deep in this.

Speaker 8 (46:47):
So he returned to the scene of the crime.

Speaker 6 (46:51):
It's possible, m hm.

Speaker 8 (46:52):
And like, I'm just like thinking back, all of their
friends are out in front of that house at that time.

Speaker 6 (46:57):
No, they're not.

Speaker 7 (46:58):
They don't come out until later. There's still a Beth
and still in the room. I know, and listen, I
have a zillion thoughts about this, Like at some point
he had to have realized that he was missing the
knife sheath like with a serial number on it that
he bought with his own name. So would he have
gone back to try and see if he could get that,

(47:20):
But maybe there was Like again, they're not outside yet,
there's no activity around the house necessarily at that moment,
but he has to imagine that, like it's nine o'clock
in the morning, like things are happening, people are out,
like yeah, and so maybe he didn't have the opportunity
or maybe he was just going back hoping to catch
a glimpse of a crime scene.

Speaker 8 (47:40):
Which but like you said, it wasn't a crime crime
scene to anyone else yet I know. And how long
did his phone put him there?

Speaker 7 (47:48):
It was just those like nine minutes, so I don't
know again, what was he trying to get in. I
don't feel like someone who would commit a crime like this,
like is above, just sadistically watching to the sidelines, like
wanting to see the chaos you created. But you also
can't just like hang around wait for it to happen.
So nine minutes. Whatever he's doing, he gives it nine minutes.

(48:10):
Then he drives back to Pullman to his place and
takes a selfie with like a thumbs up in his
bathroom mirror. Now it's unclear if he was like in
his apartment the entire time after that or what. But
later that afternoon, at twelve forty six pm, his phone
shows up around like a fifty minute drive away from
his place, near a coffee stand in Clarkston. Then he

(48:32):
goes to a grocery store nearby. Though police know that
this area is by two large bodies of water, Clearwater
River and the Snake River, So again like, are we
throwing things away?

Speaker 6 (48:44):
We still can't find the murder weapon.

Speaker 7 (48:47):
Around five point thirty pm, he is again back on
those unlit back roads in Washington that can lead to Moscow.
And then again his phone goests for about three hours.
And what he's doing in that time, I don't know.
I don't know if we'll ever know. It was the
same thing he was trying to do earlier in the day.

(49:07):
But my gut tells me that these moves were carefully
planned because police can see in the phone data that
Coburger's cell phone wasn't just near King Road on the
morning after the murders.

Speaker 6 (49:20):
His phone pinged on the.

Speaker 7 (49:22):
Cell towers covering that area approximately twenty three times in
the months bleeding up to November thirteenth, starting all the
way back in July, and it was always between the
hours of ten pm and four am.

Speaker 8 (49:37):
So he kind of was casing the place.

Speaker 7 (49:41):
Yet, this is what I'm saying, this home was his target.
But still, why, why this specific home and what set
this into motion? Then clearly this was a plot months
in the making, right, Like his phone starts pinging there
in July, and when the they see his online shopping records.

(50:01):
They know that he bought that knife on Amazon eight
months before the murders, and then, by the way, he
searched for one just like it days after the murder,
so he's probably trying to like replace the one he
got rid of. Yeah, and again, I know, we don't
know if this like online school survey that he didn't
use the data of, has anything to do with anything,
but it feels like everything starts like a few months

(50:22):
before this, right, Like that's when that gets posted to.

Speaker 6 (50:25):
So police feel like they are on the edge of
an arrest.

Speaker 7 (50:28):
Now all roads lead to Brian Coburger, So that's when
they start surveilling his parents home in Pennsylvania. He's still
there on winter break. According to KSL dot com. They
see Coburger clean his car from top to bottom. They
apparently see him wearing surgical gloves at some point, like
multiple times.

Speaker 8 (50:46):
Which like odd little off.

Speaker 7 (50:48):
Yeah, So when the family puts their trash on the curb,
law enforcement swoops in to grab it and send it
to the Idaho State Lab for testing, and the very
next day, so, by the way, DNA testing can happen fast,
now we know the very next day DNA from a
Q tip in that trash definitively gets linked to the

(51:09):
dad of whoever's DNA was on a knife sheath. So
in December thirtieth, at around twelve thirty am, snipers surround
the Coburger family home in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania's seart team
breaks down the door and takes Coberger into custody on
suspicion of four counts of first degree murder and one
count of burglary.

Speaker 8 (51:30):
Why the burglary charge. I thought nothing was taken.

Speaker 6 (51:34):
Nothing was.

Speaker 7 (51:34):
That's just standard in Idaho. If you enter a home
to commit a theft or any kind of felony, you
get a burglary charge, even if nothing was taken or
you didn't complete whatever the felony was, got it. So
once they have him in custody, their work is far
from over. They got to collect his DNA for a
direct comparison, like, because you can't convict him on dad's
connecting match, which they do and no surprise here it's his.

(51:58):
Now they search his car, which they collec as well
for evidence, but it's super clean.

Speaker 8 (52:03):
Yeah, they watched him scrub it from top to bottom.

Speaker 7 (52:06):
I want to I literally wanted to pull my hair
out when I heard that part forever ago. But listen,
I think they were playing the long game here. I
guess they didn't want to like blow their case by
stopping him from cleaning his car, like they had plenty
of other evidence against him if they played their cards right.

Speaker 6 (52:20):
So car, no go.

Speaker 7 (52:22):
But they also search his parents home. They find a knife.
It doesn't end up being the knife, so no real
help there. They also collect black gloves, a black face mask,
a black hat, block, forty caliber magazines, and like a
lot of criminology books.

Speaker 8 (52:37):
Was this same type of mask that Dylan described, and
like the gloves were the same, like the one they
found outside of the house.

Speaker 6 (52:44):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (52:45):
What I know is that police do find out that
he purchased a ball of clava months before the mrs.
Again months, It's like all happening at the same time,
and that that they have purchased records of it's the
same kind of black mask that covers your whole face,
and that one matched Dylan's description, so we know he
had one, or at least purchased one. I don't know
if that's when they found And as far as the

(53:06):
gloves go, and this is actually an interesting monkey wrench.
I need listeners to tell me what they think this means, respectfully,
like theories only no accusations please. So I don't know
if it was the same type of glove. It's not
listed in any reports. But what is listed is that
the glove at king Road that got tested for DNA

(53:28):
alongside the knife sheath, along with the spot of blood
on the handrail.

Speaker 6 (53:32):
Yeah, the blood's flood.

Speaker 7 (53:34):
On the handrail and the DNA and the glove those
came back as not Brian Coburger.

Speaker 8 (53:40):
Oh okay, then whose was it?

Speaker 7 (53:43):
I don't know, Like apparently whatever that DNA they got
from those wasn't eligible for CODIS, which could.

Speaker 6 (53:48):
Have been for a number of reasons.

Speaker 7 (53:50):
Like we know there's a bunch of specific rules about
the profile and how it has.

Speaker 8 (53:53):
To like meet certain qualifications specifications.

Speaker 7 (53:56):
I also know, like not only does the profile have
to be good enough, but like you have to able
to like say that this was related.

Speaker 6 (54:01):
To the crime.

Speaker 7 (54:03):
And maybe they like don't know that for sure, Like
but the house feels like probably, but.

Speaker 8 (54:07):
Maybe it doesn't ties like the I love like outside.

Speaker 7 (54:10):
So I don't know why it wasn't included in Codis,
but court records show, I mean, I know indestcators already
had coworker's name and DNA by like the point that
they learned.

Speaker 6 (54:19):
About this other stuff.

Speaker 7 (54:21):
So Detective Pain obviously has been asked about this, and
like court records showed the answer he gave as as
to why not Codis and like to me, I don't
really fully understand it. He said that his quote understanding
was that entering a new DNA profile into Cotis would
get rid of the one that was already in there
from the sheath, and they decided to address the other

(54:44):
DNA down the road only if they needed to. So, okay,
which like doesn't I think you can enter too? But like, yeah,
it seems like we should. It seems like we should
be able to enter more than one, like if if
there were like not in this crime. But like I'm
trying to I'm thinking about the old crimes that there
was like more than one culpra.

Speaker 8 (55:00):
Or more than one piece of evidence.

Speaker 6 (55:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (55:03):
Okay, all of that aside these other two items with
DNA profiles on them, the glove, the spot on the handrail,
those are the same profile on both.

Speaker 7 (55:16):
No, so no, that would I think you'd be even
more suspicious. These are two separate unidentified male profiles. Oh
Dylan identified to this day. So sorry, we got a
little bit sidetracked of like, yeah, all of that, but
we're back to the search.

Speaker 6 (55:29):
Warn't.

Speaker 7 (55:29):
So they also search his apartment. They searched an office
he had at Washington State. They're looking at all his devices,
cell phone, computer, hard drive. They take a vacuum container
into evidence.

Speaker 8 (55:41):
Wait, so did Dylan really see him holding a vacuum.

Speaker 6 (55:45):
I don't think so.

Speaker 7 (55:46):
Police at that point think that Dylan probably was just
trying to, like, like we said earlier, make sense of
what was I don't think it was a legit vacuum
that she saw, But I'm just sure they're taking it
wanting to analyze what's inside of the vacuum, since this
is an actual vacuum container and this guy's obviously like
intensely cleaning things well.

Speaker 8 (56:02):
And to like check the box. She said, vacuum. We
have a vacuum.

Speaker 7 (56:05):
Yeah, Also, are you like sweeping out things and there's
hair or fibers or whatever. They take another black glove.
They take some receipts, parts of an uncased pillow that
has stains that police describe as reddish brown and possible
animal hair, among other things. I mean, they are going
through all of it, and they send all of it
off to the lab and with Coburger behind bars. On

(56:27):
December thirtieth, the Pennsylvania State Police and Moscow Pete announce
his arrest to the public, and later that day his
mugshot is all over the internet.

Speaker 8 (56:38):
Yeah. So this is one of those cases that I
had been loosely following but wasn't tracking, like super closely.
I got behind one day and it was like it
got away.

Speaker 6 (56:47):
From me, I know.

Speaker 8 (56:48):
But I remember being pretty floored that this arrest happened so.

Speaker 7 (56:53):
Quickly, well, especially when like early on like it did
seem so random.

Speaker 8 (56:56):
Yeah, it came out like no one had any information
and then all of a sudden.

Speaker 6 (57:00):
We hadn't.

Speaker 7 (57:01):
I I've seen it go so bad so many times.
I think I was a little shocked, but I think
everyone was. They were shocked, but they were elated, like, great,
we happy.

Speaker 6 (57:12):
We found him, but who is he?

Speaker 7 (57:14):
And I mean Kaylee's dad, Steve Gonzalvez, told Good Morning
America that, I mean when he saw it, he felt
like this cloud was lifted.

Speaker 6 (57:22):
Off of him.

Speaker 7 (57:22):
And his family, Like, I mean, it has to feel
like such a way, like Okay, we're one step closer,
but I mean, we know that an arrest is only
the beginning, and we know the way that the time
leading up to and at trial can become a media circuits.

Speaker 8 (57:37):
Yees, been there, done that. Her name was Karen Marie exactly.

Speaker 9 (57:41):
Listen.

Speaker 7 (57:41):
I don't know if most of the families knew what
they'd be in for, Like, and I'm not talking about
these four, like any family that goes through this, I
don't know if you know what you're in for unless
you've already lived through it. But it doesn't matter, at
least for the Gonzalvez family. They want their day in
court because they want to know why this happened. So
Coberger has a hearing in Pennsylvania on January third. He

(58:02):
agrees to be extradited to Idaho, which happens the next day,
and then he's quickly assigned a court appointed public defender
Kutney County Chief public Defender and Taylor And there's I
feel like I'm.

Speaker 6 (58:15):
Full of side stories today.

Speaker 7 (58:16):
It's like usually not my jam, but like this is
the case, there's this whole other side story that I'll
summarize quickly. Basically, it comes up that the public Defender's
office represented Xana's mom at some point or like a
couple different points, Kara Northington. But Ann Taylor argued in
court that there was no conflict of interest. And because well,
she's saying that she didn't actually represent Kara herself. Her

(58:39):
name is just on all of the paperwork in the
office because she's the chief attorney and I'm not going
to get into all of like Kara's legal stuff because
she's not the one on trial here. But this matters
because Taylor had been assigned but withdrew from Kara's most
recent case the same day. Coburger appeared in court for
the first time in Idaho January. Fifth Old News Nation

(59:00):
later that month that she felt heartbroken because she trusted Taylor.
Like I mean, like she's now she's not going to
defend you. She's gonna go defend the guy who's accused
of murdering your dog right right now. The thing I'll
say is like, since she is the chief public defender
and this is a death penalty case or was going
to be a death penalty.

Speaker 8 (59:19):
Case, she's like top of the list.

Speaker 7 (59:21):
Yeah, she might have been one of the only ones
who can take on something this big. So anyways, soon
after Coburger had gotten arrested, they actually brought Dylan back
in for questioning, and she tells police that she found
Coburger's Mugshohn online after she heard about the arrest.

Speaker 6 (59:35):
But when they ask her.

Speaker 7 (59:36):
If she recognizes him as the guy she's saw in
the house, she says she doesn't.

Speaker 8 (59:40):
Know, and she doesn't know who he is outside of this. No,
like any connection found to any of the victims or survivors.

Speaker 7 (59:49):
Well, no, it doesn't seem like any of them knew him.
And honestly, had it not been for the sheth this
is what I'm saying, Like when I saw the arrest,
and when you realize what like how it happened had
it not been for the she I don't know if
they would have connected him to anything inside that house.
I mean, his DNA isn't matched to any of like
the hair that they found, no fiber samples collected from
the murder scene, and nothing in his car or house

(01:00:11):
could be tied to the victims either. But he did,
he made that mistake. They've got his DNA placing him there.
They've got the cell phone pings now that seem to
indicate he was canvassing the scene leading up to the murders,
and that's what matters to police. So on May sixteenth,
he gets officially indicted. On May twenty second, we're now
in twenty twenty three, he declines to even give a

(01:00:33):
police so the judge has to enter one for him
not guilty on all counts, and then a trial date
gets set, and then push and then push some more.
But it looked like it was finally locked. In August eighteenth,
twenty twenty five, was going to be the start of
opening statements. I mean, we even started reporting on this
story in anticipation of a trial start date. We were

(01:00:55):
even going to stream it on the Crime Jackie Jury
YouTube page to keep close tabs on how it was
in folding. And then just weeks away from the trial start,
prosecutors dropped a bomb. And I'm not kidding you when
I tell you the collective gasp in the office like, yeah,
we did not see it coming. I mean, listen, I

(01:01:16):
was a little surprised early on that we didn't start here,
start at a plea deal.

Speaker 8 (01:01:20):
But like, now, this close to the trial too.

Speaker 10 (01:01:24):
Based on the state's proffer and importantly, based upon defendant's
explicit admission to committing these crimes. The court finds there
is a factual basis therefore, with respect to count one
burglary felony.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
How do you plead, mister Colberger guilty or not guilty.

Speaker 10 (01:01:43):
Guilty as to Count two? Murder in the first degree
as it relates to the murder of Madison Mogan. How
do you plead guilty or not guilty guilty as to
count three as it relates to murder in the first
degree for the murder of Kaylee Gonsalves, How do you
plead guilty or not guilty guilty as to Count four?

(01:02:03):
The first degree murder of Xana Cernodle, Pardon me a
human being? How do you plead guilty or not guilty
guilty as to Count five? The first degree murder of
Ethan Chapin human being? How do you plead guilty or
not guilty guilty?

Speaker 9 (01:02:19):
Right?

Speaker 10 (01:02:20):
Court will find that the defendant understands the nature of
the charges and each offense, and the possible consequences to
him of his guilty PLEA court finds that there is
a factual basis for the plea, and that finds the
defendant believes the plea to be in his best interest.
I finally flee. The plea was given freely, voluntarily and
was intelligently made. I accept the plea. I directly it

(01:02:41):
be entered. I'll continue the matter for sentencing.

Speaker 7 (01:02:44):
In this case, when Goldberger changed his plea and admitted
to killing Maddie, Xana, Ethan and Kaylee, he was doing
it in exchange for one thing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
so sign up at Kildeer Village dot com and see
terms and conditions. The Private Sale is now on with
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Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
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Speaker 5 (01:03:27):
There was one hell of a performance, but with football.

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I like Key Powers.

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If you are a puzzle.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
A brand new original series, every choice, every mistake carry
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You were born for this moment.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
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Speaker 7 (01:03:50):
The deal put forward to Brian Colberger was that if
he would plead guilty to all four counts of murder,
prosecutors would take the.

Speaker 6 (01:03:57):
Death penalty off the table.

Speaker 7 (01:03:59):
And I was a little shocked to learn that the
families of the victims didn't know about this plea deal
until like days before it was set to happen, and
some of them were understandably livid. When he was asked
about the deal. Kaylee's dad, Steve told NBC Today that
Idaho has failed his whole family.

Speaker 8 (01:04:18):
I know they don't have to, but I just't understand
why they wouldn't go to the families first to make
sure they were okay with it.

Speaker 7 (01:04:26):
I know well, and I I thought they would. I
have this rule, which by the way, I do not
think applies here. I'm not a prosecutor in charge of
deciding whether or not someone has their day in court.
But like in my business, I say, like, don't ask
for someone's opinion unless you plan on really taking it
or really giving it like a heavy weight and consideration,
like right, if you already have your mind made up.

(01:04:46):
Don't make a show of including people in the.

Speaker 8 (01:04:48):
Process, just for the courtesy of like saying, you asked.
If you're gonna do what you're gonna do, just do it.

Speaker 7 (01:04:52):
So if they already had their minds made up, maybe
they weren't going to ask. But it just as well
could be that they had enough contact with the families
to know where each one of them stood, and they
could have known that they were going to get different
answers from them. Like the families were not all aligned,
so I don't think there was going to be one
decision that pleased everyone. Like Ethan's family had no plans

(01:05:15):
to attend the trial in the first place because they
didn't want to re traumatize themselves, And they released a
statement after the news of Coberger's plea deal saying that
they support it. For them, it seems like it's a
moment of closure. And I imagine had they known a
plea deal was an option that wasn't taken and then
this case was going to be made a spectacle of

(01:05:35):
in their minds unnecessarily, they probably would have been upset
with that outcome.

Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
Maybe I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:05:40):
I just know that this isn't the first time that
the families have disagreed on how authorities handled one or
more parts of the investigation, like for example, there was
like there are certain blips in this case. I just
remember so vividly. One of them is when the King
Roade house at the university was destroyed, so the university
actually owned the house the murders, the school had it

(01:06:01):
demolished again. Kaylee's dad, Steve, was very vocal about his
disagreement with the decision because he thought that police should
have made sure that house was preserved until a trial,
but Ethan's family supported the demolition. In the Amazon docuseries,
Ethan's brother Hunter, who by the way, Ethan, he was
one of a set of triplets who were all at
that university. But his brother Hunter didn't live too far

(01:06:25):
from the King roadhouse. He could see the house from
his bedroom window and it was the first thing he
saw when he woke up, and he just didn't want
to look at it anymore.

Speaker 8 (01:06:35):
Yeah, I don't think anyone would want that daily reminder.
And like in general, as far as the trial goes,
people handle grief differently. I get just warning the person
who did it to accept responsibility and did not drag
it out, because at the end of the day, nothing
can bring your kid back, and it just has to
hurt all the time for sure.

Speaker 7 (01:06:54):
And I mean people will say like, oh, well, they
weren't planning on going to the trial anyways, but like,
think about it, you think that's going to stop them
from hearing about every last detail. Like, ask someone in
your life who's not a crime junkie if they know
about this case. They know about this case. It is everywhere.
There would be no escaping it. But for those family
members who did want the trial, what they wanted was

(01:07:17):
the answer to why, And now they don't get that because,
along with removing the death penalty, his plea deal didn't
require him to give any details of why he did this,
and so the motive in these murders remains a big
mystery throughout this entire case. However, according to the Idaho

(01:07:41):
four book, some family and friends of the victims do
have a theory. They believe that this was targeted and
they believe that the target was Maddie.

Speaker 8 (01:07:53):
But why, I know, police have never come out and
said this.

Speaker 7 (01:07:58):
When here's the thing, So there is an any real
evidence that's been shared with the public that proves Coburger
targeted Maddie. But according to the book, Coburger definitely knew
who she was. Apparently he had liked some of her
Instagram photos, even liked some of Kaylee's Instagram photos that
had Maddie in them.

Speaker 8 (01:08:19):
But did he just find her online or how would
he have known her in the first place?

Speaker 6 (01:08:24):
Even I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:08:25):
Some people who knew the victims have suggested that maybe
he dined at the restaurant that she and Xana worked
at in Moscow, this place called Mad Greek, and maybe
he became fixated on her.

Speaker 8 (01:08:37):
Like to kill her.

Speaker 7 (01:08:39):
Well, the answer is, like, I feel like to understand
how we got, like, you gotta know more about who
he is to try and like wrap your head around that,
because I don't think.

Speaker 6 (01:08:50):
It necessarily started that way. So people who.

Speaker 7 (01:08:53):
Knew him claim that he struggled with substance use disorder
throughout his early years, and by the time he got
to Washington's State University for his PhD, it seems like
he was somewhat of a loaner who had a very
clear disdain for women. He was a ta working for
a criminology class leading up to the murders, and his
classmates and the students that he taught describe his behavior

(01:09:15):
toward women and comments that he made in class. They
described them all as like misogynistic and antagonistic, and he
even implied to another student that women should be housemakers
and have no business getting master's degrees. And apparently he'd
been given multiple warnings about his behavior. But after months

(01:09:36):
of this, the school did get fed up, and just
shortly after the murders, actually, but before he was caught,
he got fired.

Speaker 6 (01:09:44):
From that TA position. It got that bad.

Speaker 8 (01:09:46):
It kind of sounds like a textbook description of like
in cell culture.

Speaker 6 (01:09:50):
It kind of is.

Speaker 7 (01:09:51):
And admittedly that term has come up a ton in
this case, and I had heard that term a ton
in recent years. I think it gets thrown around a lot.
But I actually read the definition of it for the
first time while doing this, and from you know, from Wikipedia,
I didn't go like deep deep, but like the term
is associated with an online subculture of mostly male and
heterosexual people who define themselves as unable to find a

(01:10:14):
romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, and then they
often blame or objectify and denigrate women and girls as
a result. So Patterson and Ward's book, as well as
the documentary we mentioned and lots of experts in this
case say that Cobroker not just that we're like talking
about insul in general, but he was specifically modeling himself

(01:10:38):
after a guy named Elliott Roger who I wasn't super
familiar with. Elliot was a twenty two year old mass
murderer who went on a stabbing and shooting spree in Ilavista, California,
targeting primarily women outside of a sorority and the surrounding area.
He killed six people injured fourteen others before takes his

(01:11:00):
own life, and right before the attacks, he had posted
some YouTube videos and this one hundred and thirty seven
page manifesto titled My Twisted World. And in all of
this he complained about how he was still a virgin
and he hated women for rejecting him.

Speaker 6 (01:11:16):
He wrote out a detailed.

Speaker 7 (01:11:17):
Plan that he spent years coming up with, calling the
attacks the day of retribution. According to the Idaho four book,
Coburger even took a class taught by doctor Ramslan at
De Sales that focused on spree murderers like Elliott Roger,
and the Rogers YouTube video was part of the syllabus.
Of course, this could all just be people trying to

(01:11:39):
make sense of a crime that maybe doesn't make a
lot of sense.

Speaker 6 (01:11:43):
But I haven't even gotten to the Papa Roger of
it all.

Speaker 8 (01:11:46):
I totally forgot about the Papa Roger thing.

Speaker 6 (01:11:51):
It's this is like another weird moment.

Speaker 7 (01:11:53):
So in the days after the murders, there was a
Facebook group started up called University of Idaho Case Discussion
Facebook group page, and the goal was to spread information
that could help the investigation and like that stuff's pretty
typical when you have these major cases. But one person
active on the page and posting under the name.

Speaker 6 (01:12:15):
Papa Roger caught a lot of people's why.

Speaker 8 (01:12:18):
Papa Roger, like an ode to Elliott Roger potentially.

Speaker 7 (01:12:22):
Now whoever this was started commenting some really weird stuff
in the group, like information the public did not know yet,
and I actually brought.

Speaker 6 (01:12:32):
Some of it for you to read.

Speaker 8 (01:12:34):
Of the evidence released, the murder weapon has been consistent
as a large, fixed blade knife. This leads me to
believe they found the sheath.

Speaker 7 (01:12:44):
So like, not a big deal to us right now,
but in that moment, this person should not have known
that because when Papa Roger posted that, it wasn't public
knowledge that a sheath had been left behind, and I
don't think a sheath is like the logical thought most
people would come to, like most people would I feel
like talk about knife and be like, oh, like a stab,

(01:13:05):
wounds or whatever, because like the autopsy, I don't know,
but it was strange. And then he asked other odd
things in the Facebook group that the book mentions, like
how did the killer hold the knife prior to entering
the scene, In your opinion, sounds a lot like a survey.
And he also wrote that the killer isn't in the
group's immediate circle. And the guy reportedly argued incessantly with

(01:13:27):
other commenters, and at some point police started monitoring this group,
like it made it to their radar as well, just
because of this Papa Roger guy, And eventually Papa Roger
gets banned from the group for name calling. Now, I
think it's also interesting that we know police took a
book from Coburger's house that they say had information on

(01:13:51):
page one hundred and eighteen of that book, like that
was underlined. Now we're like piecing together things here because
police have never said on that book was but there's
a lot of speculation online that it was Elliott Rodgers' manifesto,
because page one hundred and eighteen of that talks about
how he selected the date for his massacre that he

(01:14:14):
carried out.

Speaker 8 (01:14:15):
Do we know if there's any significance to November thirteenth.

Speaker 7 (01:14:19):
No, so there's nothing been reported on about that, or
if they tied A to B. It's just again a
weird thing that keeps coming up.

Speaker 10 (01:14:27):
Now.

Speaker 7 (01:14:27):
I would imagine that if all of this stuff is
backed up by police reports and data found on his
devices or in his home or office or whatever, we
might get more one day. But for now, all we
can do is speculate. I mean, there's been a gag
order in this case since very early on, and I'm
not sure when that's going to be lifted.

Speaker 8 (01:14:47):
Are permanent gag orders the thing?

Speaker 7 (01:14:50):
I mean, they are pretty rare in criminal trials unless
it's like a matter of Usually, when they can do
it is like national security or something like that.

Speaker 8 (01:14:58):
So, if it was Maddie he was targeting, I still
don't get the reason behind why some roommates were also
targeted and others weren't.

Speaker 10 (01:15:08):
Well.

Speaker 7 (01:15:08):
I mean, if his focus was on Maddie and Kaylee
was in the bed with her, maybe I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:15:13):
He could have gotten surprised by that. Maybe not. I
don't know. One thing.

Speaker 7 (01:15:16):
This is like not backed up by anyone. Dylan talks
about like, oh I heard noises. I thought she was
playing with her dog. I also kind of wonder if he,
like how much did he scope the house? Did he
go into Kaylee's room first and like see the dog,
and then like, oh, I gotta go find her? Right again,
I'm just like making stuff up at this point. I
have no idea. But if the Elliott Roger thing is
the real deal, then maybe he meant to kill everyone

(01:15:36):
in the house. It's like a bigger show of his anger.
But then also I go back to why I leave
Dylan right now. I don't know if you've remember. This
is like so long ago, but back in the day
I talked to Zip about this when it first happened. Zip,
I know for my new crime junkies, Patrick's or Polly.
He worked for the Pennsylvania State Police and when he
retired in twenty fifteen, he was the Unit supervisor of

(01:15:58):
the Pennsylvania State Police Criminal and Best Mistigation Assessment Unit. Mouthful,
but he does a lot of crime assessment trainings now
We've had him on.

Speaker 6 (01:16:06):
For a few of our shows.

Speaker 7 (01:16:07):
We've talked about different cases, and early on I ran
into him at I actually think it was like the
Deck Live show when I was on tour for Deck
Investigates and this had just happens, like people were just
talking about this. That would have been February of twenty
twenty three, and even back then without like we didn't
know much at that point. He said that this was targeted.
He said it was about one of the girls and

(01:16:29):
that he thought whoever it was, like Coburger.

Speaker 6 (01:16:32):
Had been rejected by her.

Speaker 7 (01:16:34):
And when he talks when he does his training, he
says there are four profile types of offenders, and when
he was like looking at this, he's like, I think
Coburger is the offender type, which is categorized as an
anger retaliatory type, Like it's just that anger that drives
them and they can't stop until the anger is gone.
But once that anger is gone, it's like they turn off,

(01:16:55):
like they don't have to kill anymore. So I asked him,
I'm like, so, why does he lea to other people
or at least one other person that he knows of
in the house, the person who sees him, and.

Speaker 6 (01:17:06):
Zip's like, I mean, he didn't have to. Like he's done.

Speaker 7 (01:17:09):
Anger has been released, his motivation for killing is gone
basically now. The way in which he speculated it happened
was a little different because he thought that maybe he
was like killing people in the house until he got
to the person he was looking for. So if we're
gonna say that's Maddie likes everyone who's in his way

(01:17:29):
until he could get that anger out. But we know
now that police don't suspect that's how it happened. They
don't suspect that she was the last one who died.
So I don't know. I just thought it was interesting
because it kind of fits like what he's saying kind
of fits with what seems to be the going theory,
at least, like we said with like among family and friends.

(01:17:49):
Coburger is set to be sentenced next week on July
twenty third. That's also when the families are going to
have a chance to read their victim impact statements. This
will be their chance to be heard. So our team
is actually going to keep following this story. We're going
to have that hearing streamed on the Crime Junkie Jury
YouTube channel as well. So if you want to follow
along with us, make sure you go there, and we

(01:18:12):
are going to try and bring you more updates as
they come, probably mostly on social so make sure to
follow Crime Junkie podcast on Instagram. But I mean, if
we get something big, we'll put it here in the feed.

Speaker 5 (01:18:22):
We when we.

Speaker 7 (01:18:23):
Started this, we reached out to almost every person involved
or connected to this case, but nobody wanted to talk
before because everyone thought they were gearing up for a trial,
or least that's what I think. But maybe after the
sentencing people will be more open because I do have
a feeling that people within the departments who spent their
days and weeks and months and years building this case

(01:18:47):
and trying to bring justice, I think they want to
be able to talk and some may have done so
off the record already because there was I don't know
if you caught it, there was a dateline special in
May that caused this huge frenzy because they released a
bunch of details that they clearly got from someone who
was close to the case.

Speaker 6 (01:19:05):
And remember there was a gag order, so.

Speaker 7 (01:19:06):
The judge on the case was furious, like they somehow
got their hands on Coburger's Internet.

Speaker 6 (01:19:13):
History, and that was disturbing.

Speaker 7 (01:19:15):
I mean, the guy outright searched sociopathic traits in college
student and that was in September before the murders, and
then in the weeks before and after, he was searching
terms like passed out, drugged, sleeping, and forced. Daylight also
reported that Coburger had dozens of photos of girls and women,
many who were in bikinis, and they weren't just like

(01:19:38):
random people. Authorities confirmed that they were students from the
University of Idaho and Washington State University, some of whom
apparently knew the victims. In another Internet search in October,
he wrote, can psychopaths behave pro socially? So these are
all things that the prosecution would have had before trial.

(01:20:00):
So while we won't ever know exactly what they planned
to argue, I think it gives us a good idea
of where they were going. And you know, one of
the things I think about, too, is all of the
victims were in like sororities or fraternities.

Speaker 6 (01:20:14):
And when you go back to that Elliott Roger.

Speaker 8 (01:20:18):
He attacked a sorority and like the surrounding areas. So
did we ever get an idea of what the defense
strategy was going to be or do you think they
were hoping that Brian would accept a plea. It just
took a while to convince him.

Speaker 7 (01:20:32):
I watched some of the pre trial hearings where we
got like a glimpse at their plan.

Speaker 6 (01:20:38):
It was like they needed to take this plea.

Speaker 7 (01:20:40):
So it seems like they were going to say that
Brian Coburger was out stargazing the night of the murders.

Speaker 8 (01:20:48):
That literally explains nothing.

Speaker 6 (01:20:53):
Why your phone is off me?

Speaker 8 (01:20:54):
Like, not even that, but a stretch certainly doesn't explain
the sheath of your knife. Yeah, being there, your DNA,
yeah being there.

Speaker 9 (01:21:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:21:05):
The prosecution had a strong case against him, and I
assume they saw the writing on the wall. And isn't
it wild how when death is on the table, murderers
suddenly gets so scared, like it's unbelievable to me. And
I know that is what mattered to him, because the
defense had even tried several emotions to strike the death

(01:21:25):
penalty before his plea deal, with the latest reason being
that Coburger is a person with autism. Now it's not
clear when he was diagnosed, but they were trying to
argue that his diagnosis exposes him to the risk that
he would have been wrongfully convicted and then put to death,
meaning that his limited like facial expressions and him being stoic,
his stare which had already been dubbed sinister. They're saying

(01:21:48):
that like, all of those are attributes they say he has,
and that could have affected the jury's perception of his
guilt and that is why they wanted the death penalty out.
That got denied too. He even tried to argue the
IgG stuff. They were like the way you identified him,
like the way the FBI seized the trash outside of
his parents' place was a violation of his Fourth Amendment

(01:22:11):
rights because police didn't get a search warrant before doing
any of that. But the court denied that too and
said that he had no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Speaker 8 (01:22:22):
Yeah, I knew that. I've watched a TV show.

Speaker 7 (01:22:26):
I know. And then the defense also tried to present
an alternate suspect defense, but that got denied.

Speaker 8 (01:22:33):
To wait, who would they even bring forward?

Speaker 7 (01:22:36):
They said that there were four other people who could
have done this. I don't know who, because again that
got denied, and then the.

Speaker 6 (01:22:44):
Motion got sealed.

Speaker 7 (01:22:45):
We just know that these other people apparently knew the
victims or interacted with the victims before the murders. One
other like hail Mary. Thing they tried to do, which
I don't even really understand, is they tried to bam
the words bushy eyebrows.

Speaker 6 (01:22:58):
From being used at trial. Again.

Speaker 7 (01:23:00):
They argued that police didn't say anything to a judge
about the unidentified samples of DNA found at the scene
when they requested Coburger's arrest weren't in December of twenty
twenty two, And basically they say that detectives left it
out when the judge was deciding if there was enough
probable cause, and they thought authorities were trying to mislead
the judge, so they wanted to throw out the whole

(01:23:22):
indictment altogether, and that didn't work. The authors of the
Idaho four book say Brian Coberger nearly carried out the
perfect crime had he not left the ninth sheath with
his DNA on it. Thankfully for the families, he did.
And I think that is who we want to remember
in all of this, the victims and their families, some

(01:23:45):
who wanted their day in court, and we'll never get
it now. Kaylee and Maddie were both college seniors, best
friends since sixth grade, and Kaylee was just about to
head off to live in Austin, Texas and start a
new job. She was only there that night visiting Maddie
to celebrate some of their last college moments together, not
realizing how final those were. Kaylee's sister told NBC's Today

(01:24:09):
Show that she had everything going for her. Xanna was
a junior studying marketing, and her sister described her to
WAPT as lighthearted and someone who always lifted up a room.
She often introduced herself as Xana, like Xanax without the X,
and she was very much in love with freshman Ethan Chapin.

(01:24:31):
Ethan was just starting his college experience, but he and
Xana were already planning a life together. He was inseparable
from his triplet siblings, Maizie and Hunter, and they said
in the Amazon docuseries that he was their natural leader,
and after his murder they had to return to the
University of Idaho without him. His mom, Stacy said that

(01:24:52):
it was only a week before the murders that she
had finally felt like her kids were in a great place,
like it's got to be so hard right to like
s your kids off for the very first time, and
she was just in the place where she's like, I
feel good, they're going to become such bright adults now. Maddie,
she was a senior and a marketing major. She was
an only child and her parents Pride and Joy and

(01:25:14):
her dad Ben Mogan, spoke at a vigil for the
four victims in twenty twenty two and said that everything
Mattie did was such a big deal to him. Her mom, Karen,
has even kept Maddie's room exactly as it was when
she died. She said in the documentary that she has
no plans to ever change it, and her family supports
the plea deal and maybe there will be more answers

(01:25:35):
down the line, but the deal for them is a
step towards hope and healing, something that all the victims'
families and friends deserve. And it's a shame we know
their names this way, but they will be remembered for years,
if not generations to come, and not just for the
way in which they died. They are also being honored
by two foundations. So there was one setup called Ethan's

(01:25:58):
Smile was set up in honor of Ethan and Made
with Kindness was set up in honor of Kaylee Maddie
and Xana. Both organizations provide educational scholarships among other initiatives,
and we made donations to both and we're going to
put a link in the show notes to both of
these if you would like to support as well. But
you know, there was a University of Idaho student who

(01:26:21):
I think has been lost to time, not in this case.
I'm talking decades before. Her name was Kristen David and
in nineteen eighty one she was found dismembered, wrapped in
newspapers and plastic bags in the Snake River. Her case
has always been associated with four other disappearances and deaths

(01:26:41):
in the area that's known as the Lewis Clark Valley. Now,
locals and authorities think there is a serial killer who
was at work back then, and even though they had
a suspect, they just couldn't prove it. So a lot
of those victims have been forgotten, but not on our watch.
The Idaho four case is now solved. So now I

(01:27:03):
need to direct your attention to another case in the
same area, because here's the scary part. That guy, the
one they think might have been a serial killer back
in the eighties. He's still out there and most people
around him are none the wiser because his name isn't
widely known like Brian Coburger's. But all that changes next week,

(01:27:27):
so be sure you do not miss next Monday's episode.
And if you want to listen early and ad free,
you can join the fan Club. New episodes released there
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you there. You can find all this source material for

(01:27:59):
this episode on our website, Crimejunkie podcast dot com.

Speaker 8 (01:28:03):
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

Speaker 7 (01:28:06):
See you next week for that brand new episode. Crime

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