Why Bryan Kohberger Left Roommate Dylan Mortensen Alive _ [Backstory PART 3 OF 3]

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Breaking news just into the newsroom. A new photo of
quadruple murderer Brian Koberger released minutes ago. This photo comes
to us from ABC correspondent Kana Whitworth. She shared on
X Tonight the photo, writing new picture of now convicted
killer Brian Coburger in the moments after his arrest. If

(00:20):
the world had known what we know now, there would
never have been a Brian Koberger plea deal.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
The mystery of the Idaho murders continues. How did remate
Stilan Mortensen and Bethany Funk miraculously survive?

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hello? Empty heartless psychopath Brian Koeberger actually passed Dylan Mortensen
on his way out of the crime scene. It was
at such close quarters that the nineteen year old was
able to see just how tall the twenty eight year
old man was, now that he was athletic but not muscular,
so that he had a big nose, bushy eyebrows, and

(00:58):
that he was carrying something in his hands. He was
also walking and not running. This means he could easily
have deviated or even continued walking towards her. Since the
route to the sliding door was for a short time
in the direction of Dylan's door, Dylan's room, and Dylan herself.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
I got I fell fast, Third, I got.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Hello, and welcome to True Crime Rocket Science. Put up
your hand if you think he simply didn't see her.
In a poll posted recently asking whether Coburger saw Dylan,
I was astonished to see the answers split virtually down
the middle.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Dylan peeked out of her bedroom and observed a male
described as approximately six feet tall, slim build, with a
black ski mask leave the second floor patio area. Prosecutor
Bill Thompson tells the Idaho states Men July thirtieth, from
what Dylan described, I have a hard time imagining that
the killer did not see Dylan.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
I have a hard time imagining that as well. And
so this suggests that around half the folks following this case,
certainly in terms of the poll, have a totally skewed
idea of Coburger and also the events that actually happened.
It is interesting and a tad troubling that after three
years of analyzing this crime, folks are still split down

(02:33):
the middle. And have a look at this comment. I
find it so interesting how people are nearly split down
the middle answering your question, and I think I know
why if Coburger saw Dylan, he would have killed her,
because he's a psychopath. Raise your hand if that's how
you are reasoning. Now, let's have a look at some
of the reasoning that's out there.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
PT.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Thompson sixty nine four says he killed everyone he saw.
I don't think he saw her, but you do know
that when literature records him seeing her, it's in the
police statements. Little Black Kitty Art writes the following, I
don't think most people understand just how difficult it is
to stare a human being, especially one fighting back dozens

(03:15):
of times. A knife attack is nothing like shooting someone.
Death is far from instant, and the panic victim is
responding is fighting back as intensely as they can, fighting
for their lives. In this case, the killer is to
act extremely quickly to prevent others in the house from
being alerted. Remember all of them have their phones close

(03:37):
at hand, but he also has to prevent the victims
from screaming out and alerting the neighborhood. I've been to
the house and is literally surrounded by other houses, and
we know that nearby cameras did pick up the signs
coming from that house. But think about it in the
reality of this case. Cobigger was inside the home for

(03:57):
fifteen minutes. I think how long one minute is to
be in someone else's house when you sort of broken
in two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, This was fifteen minutes,
and so I really do agree with this comment. He
was exhausted, didn't expect he would be stabbing four people

(04:18):
to death within fifteen minutes, and he was trying to
get out of the house. Now, I think a lot
of people want to believe that he was trying to
kill as many people as possible, something like Elliot Roger.
I don't believe that is the case. I believe his
target was specific and more likely one person and have another.
Listened to what the prosecutor, Bill Thompson his thoughts on

(04:41):
why Dylan Mortensen was spared.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
As to why she was left unharmed. Bill says, at
that point, he'd been in the house probably longer than
he planned, and he had killed more people than he
had planned.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Do you remember, in the early days, before we knew
much about the crime, there was this idea that he
was a s serial killer and that he had purposefully
deliberately killed four people, and it was this perfect crime.
Of course, at that point, there wasn't any knowledge that
someone had actually seen him, Dylan, or that he'd left
a knife sheath at the scene of the crime, or

(05:16):
that his DNA was on the knife sheath. At that point,
we also didn't know about his connection or lack of
to the victims. We also didn't know that Kaylee was
in the same bed as Maddie, and she wasn't actually
supposed to be there that night. And so, if you remember,
in the absence of all this context, people were adamant,

(05:37):
they were so sure that we were dealing with a
serial killer, a psychopath. And unfortunately, all of those speculations
did resonate with a lot of people, and still a
lot of those people seem to believe this today. Are
you one of them? Isn't it time to perhaps update
your knowledge of this case, your insight into what really

(05:59):
happened in this case, and how do you do that?
While use your imagination, try and picture what we are
dealing with here. If you imagine the reality of that
that someone is inside someone else's house murdering for fifteen
minutes while someone else's present, that is an eternity, especially

(06:20):
if they are wake and sober. Luckily for him, Dylan
was not only asleep but inebriated at the time of
these attacks. Mortensen told law enforcement officers that she had
been drunk and struggling to determine what was real and
what was a dream. Remember, all of this happened past
four o'clock on a Saturday morning. Another interesting area is

(06:42):
did Bethany wake up and call her or did Dylan
actually wake up first. We actually don't know. Bethany can't remember,
but it sounds like Dylan overheard a lot of noise,
got up repeatedly to figure out in her fuzzy state
what had happened, and it was probably Dylan who called
Bethany rather than the other way around. It's also interesting

(07:03):
that inner statement Bethany says Dylan made eye contact with
a killer, and yet Dylan's statement to officer Brett Payne
actually doesn't say that. So it's not clear what Dylan
actually saw. But I do think it's clear that she
saw Coburger at very close quarters, probably less than two meters,
and I personally think black eyed, bug Eyed Coburger did

(07:27):
see Dylan, so I agree with Bronx Tale's True Crime.
Who left the comment she said they made eye contact,
he did see her. I also think Bethany not remembering
if she called Dylan gives you an idea of how
hard it can be to remember specifics when you are
woken up by something and in a panic, you know,
very late at night. It ought to be easy to

(07:48):
clarify the answer to this who called whom just by
examining the phone records. According to the responding officer, it
was obvious an intense struggle had occurred, and as far
as we know, Coburger inflicted a total of eighty injuries
on just two of the victims. There definitely was a
scuffle upstairs. That is how he lost a knife sheath. So, yes,

(08:11):
he was exhausted. B zed Mama's three one six two rights.
He was exhausted at that point, But I don't believe
he saw her. Had he, I believe she wouldn't be here. Interestingly,
although Coburgger left the area in his vehicle at a
high rate of speed, he didn't leave the residence at
a high rate of speed. He walked out and, according

(08:32):
to the statement, walked past Dylan. Let's go to that
statement right now. Dylan stated she opened her door for
the third time after she heard the crying and saw
a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that
covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her. Dylan
described the figure as five foot ten or taller mail

(08:53):
not very muscular, but athletically built, with bushy eyebrows. The
male walked past Dylan as she stood in a frozen
shock fase. The male walked towards the black sliding glass door. Now,
the reason many believed Dylan wasn't killed is because if
Coburger was a cold blooded, deadly assassin, he would have
easily killed her, but he simply didn't see her. Once again,

(09:16):
this isn't reality. It's someone filling in the blank as
they see it, not as it actually is. I agree
with the prosecutor. Coburger's perfect crime had turned into an
absolute mess. It killed four more people than he expected,
had spent four more time at the crime scene as well,
And when he left, even though he was seen, he
was so scared, so spooked, he just wanted to get

(09:38):
out of there. But I understand that the so scared,
so spooked, he just wanted to get out of their
narrative doesn't vibe with some people because many in the
media have created this false impression of Coburger as a cool, calculated,
cold blooded, psychopathic, cerial killer. So I'm not surprised it
doesn't make sense to many that he could feel scared

(10:01):
or spooked. It's not that psychopaths don't feel anything, they
just don't feel empathy. I don't think sparing a frozen,
quivering Dylan had anything to do with her, had anything
to do with feeling sorry for her, or having even
anything against her. I think it had everything to do
with craven self preservation. Why many people don't like the

(10:23):
scenario is that it firstly humanizes the killer, and of
course he needs to be as scary as possible, as
evil as possible, and as psychopathic as possible. In true crime,
shock value sells, and the more grislier crime and the
more monstrous killer, the better the more popular the story.
On this channel, we care more about reality than making money,

(10:47):
which is one reason why it's taken over three thousand
videos to get some of the same viewership numbers other
far more popular shock value channels get. That's the price,
in a way of being authentic in this space. My
sense is a lot of people use the word psychopath
in almost every murder and for almost every murderer, without

(11:09):
understanding what a psychopath is. Although psychopaths also experience fear,
they experienced it a lot less than most of us do.
If Coburger is a true blue psychopath, he would have
reasoned that, despite the risk, he couldn't let a witness
who actually saw him live, and would have tried to
dispatch Dylan quickly as well. I mean, she was paralyzed.

(11:30):
She probably wasn't going to offer much of a defense.
You would imagine know that the dumbest mistake in a
multiple killing like this, where the killer hoped to get
away with his crimes, was to leave a witness alive,
one that saw him, one that could identify him, one
that could incriminate him in court, one that could convict
him of his crimes. Yet that's precisely what Coburger did do.

(11:54):
He did allow someone who saw him to live. He
ran out of his own crime scene, not because he
was a psychopath, but because he wasn't. People don't like
the idea of a fearful Coburger because it diminishes the
monster and true crime virtually every creator out there is
trying to feed many of you precisely what you want

(12:16):
to hear. Just how evil, scary and awful and subhuman
Coburger is, so that he can be completely to blame
and one hundred percent inhumane and we can be completely
innocent victims. Also, Coburger is less shocking if he's a
little more like us. That scenario is disturbing, and we'd

(12:37):
rather not think about it. In a similar vein those
who believe Dylan is guilty of something, not being honest,
hiding something, perhaps even worse when it provides the same
fuel the most rabid in the true crime community want,
which is that everything is very simple, very black and white.
She's to blame and her responses aren't human either. But

(12:58):
what did she say? What did she How did she respond?
She said, it's beyond anxiety. It's my body reliving everything
over and over again. My nervous system never got the
message that it's over, and it won't let me forget
what he did to them. People call me strong, they
say I'm a survivor, but they don't see what my

(13:19):
new reality looks like. They don't see the panic attacks,
the hypervigilance, the exhaustion. Essentially, what she's saying is people
can't see reality. She's also saying that it's essentially a
failure of the imagination. In other words, it's a failure
of empathy. In a real sense. What we really seeing

(13:40):
isn't that Coburg is a psychopath or that Dylan is
guilty of a crime. It's that a large swathe of
the mob out there are psychopathic in their salivating consumption
of this stuff with absolutely zero regard for the interests
of vulnerable young people, not just those associated with the funnels,
but the widest student communities in Moscow and Pullman. I've

(14:03):
been appalled at how just how disinterested the mainstream media
is in their trauma, kind of their collective trauma, and
in protecting their interests in protecting the greater good in
terms of this vulnerable young student community, you know, as
they pursue the selfish agendas in covering true crime. I've

(14:24):
been doubly appalled at the many looking in on Dylan
gasping and sobbing in court without any empathy whatsoever. What
we are consuming is consuming us. While I'm not going
to take it further than that, In the next episode,
we'll be looking at what psychopathy is and what the
experts say about using labels. May not sound terribly interesting,

(14:47):
but be prepared to have your socks blown off anyway.
Thanks a lot for joining me on this Sunday. I
hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. Stay safe
and keep it real, and I'll see you guys next time.