NEW: Reporter Kevin Fixler on Idaho 4 Case

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
My name is Bill Thomas.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am
now trying to use my experience as the brother of
a murder victim to help other victims of violent crime.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Parkway murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial
Parkway Murders Facebook group together with Kristin Dilly.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
My name is Kristin Dilly.

Speaker 5 (00:27):
I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,
as well as the social media manager and co administrator
for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murder.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.

Speaker 6 (00:46):
We are joined today by Kevin Fixler, professional reporter from
the Idahost Statesman, here to talk to us a little
bit about the Idaho or murder case and the coverage
that his paper has done since the beginning.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
Kevin, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate it. Yeah,
thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 6 (01:04):
Start by talking to us about your professional credentials and
your work at the Idaho Statesmen.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Sure.

Speaker 7 (01:09):
So, I'm one of our three investigative reporters as part
of our accountability team. We have about fifteen to seventeen reporters.
We have a newsroom of about twenty five. My background is,
like many of us, not quite linear. But after undergraduates,
which I studied journalism and American history, I meandered a
bit until I found my way to graduate school at

(01:29):
ses C Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Finished there. I was actually a freelance.

Speaker 7 (01:34):
Sports writer for many years before graduate school, and then
even a year or two after, and then I found
my way to my first newspaper, which was the Summit
Daily News in Frisco, Colorado in the Western Slope for
anybody who is listening and knows that area, but it's
essentially Breckenridge ski town.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
So I worked there for about.

Speaker 7 (01:52):
Two years, and then I moved on to the Santa
Rosa Press Democrat newspaper, where I got more than my
fill of catastrophic wildfire coverage and also survived COVID in California,
so that was an interesting experience.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
And then I made my way to Boise on a whim.

Speaker 7 (02:07):
I was actually going to work on a book and
take a break from journalism, but I couldn't quit it,
or it couldn't quit me. I'm not sure which, but
I and then it to some freelance work, actually on
Capital Punishment here in Idaho, which was my first foray
into that. I started down a path with the Idaho
Statesman and then.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
With the paper for just over four years now.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
So you're a little bit of a journalistic gypsy, as
it were.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
I guess you could say that.

Speaker 7 (02:35):
I know that historically, and things have changed, of course
in the industry, and things certainly have evolved, but I
think it's not uncommon that maybe more radio and TV,
that people move from markets and you start small and
move up if things go accordingly, or become an editor
in a smaller place or what have you. But yeah,
that was my path, which is maybe a little bit

(02:55):
more traditional, but we don't necessarily see that.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
So much anymore. Obviously.

Speaker 6 (02:59):
The biggest story in Idaho since twenty twenty two is
the quadruple murder of Kaylee Maddie's Enna and Ethan by
Brian Coberger talk to us a little bit about what
happens in a newsroom when news that momentous actually comes
in what how does the process start in reporting?

Speaker 7 (03:19):
This is an interesting story. I've told it before, but
I was out of town when this all broke. I'm
originally from Denver, and I got a text message from
my editor and he said, there's been four students were.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
Found dead, which is the word killed.

Speaker 7 (03:33):
We really didn't know and there wasn't a lot of
information early in and the reason why this to the extent,
I was on the cagion and my editor felt like
reaching out. I was the morning reporter for the next
day and I was traveling back and he said, this
just happened. We're just getting word out of Moscow, which
is six hours north of Boise where we're based, so
about three hundred miles. And I've never been to Moscow.

(03:53):
I probably at that time even mispronounced it a Moscow.
I got the word from my editor and I, again,
thank god, drew the short straw to some extent, and
I was the breaking news reporter, just filling in the
next day, and he said, let's hit this as hard
as we can with everything we can and learn all
the details. And so I was flying back thinking about
this and the reason why this is so momentous in
our community, in our state. Is that again, listeners may

(04:15):
have different experiences, particularly those may be in place like
California or New York. A quadruple homicide is entirely unheard
of in Idaho. It's now a state of about two
million people. We're still pretty small. It's just it was
completely unheard of. And that was really the point my
editor wanted to register with me was, I know, you're
not from here, and I was still a year or

(04:36):
not quite two on the job, and he was emphasizing
that this is it's unprecedented basically for our state.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
And we ended up doing that research.

Speaker 7 (04:44):
Laketok County, which is where Moscow is located, hadn't had
a murder in seven years, and so it's just, yeah,
it's just that police department was completely overwhelmed and not
really designed for that. They're used to write and ipe
tickets and you'd probably check in the vehicle registration tags
and next thing you know, they're and on the biggest
what became I think the biggest case in the nation

(05:04):
for an extended period.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
So in terms of getting to it immediately, we had
to learn more.

Speaker 7 (05:10):
We weren't sure there was a lot of rumor about
whether or not this was a drug overdose or something
like that. Those were rumors early in but you just
don't hear about four student's dying. And so we took
the approach was an all hands on deck once we
started to learn more and passing the torch from morning
to evening and then signing for the next day, and
you're scrambling. It's certainly breaking news, and you're competing with

(05:30):
outlets at that time, probably just in the state and
then the region, but it quickly grew as we're spread
across the country about a very mysterious and shocking incidents
in Idaho of all places.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
So you mentioned that you're based on Poise, and that's
three hundred miles away. How does the newspaper even handle
the initial logistics?

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Did you have a staff reporter up that way or
how does it work?

Speaker 7 (05:57):
Yeah, so we are three hundred miles south. Idaho is
a massive state from north to south. It's about eight
hours north to the Canadian border, so even two hours
north of Moscow, and before we were deciding whether or
not to physically send somebody, that's quite a drive, i'll
tell you. And we're making initial phone calls. You're trying
to reach the public information officer for the police department.

(06:20):
We were reaching out to the university. They were deeply involved. Again,
you're scrambling. The mayor of Moscow ended up steppingto the
mic several times early in and just trying to wrap
your head around this. And once again we started to
learn more details. Me having just come off my vacation trip,
I've passed it along and we sent Actually we thought
what was going to be advantageous for us, because I

(06:41):
didn't know the community was We sent a colleague at mine,
Angela Palermo, who was fairly new into our newsroom, not
a new journalist by any means, but new to our newsroom,
and she had graduated from the University of Idaho in Moscow,
so had a great familiarity with the school, the community,
the city, and we felt that gave us our best shot.
And she basically ended up living up there for about

(07:02):
two or three months, and again, as we learned more
and more from the investigative side, where I'd play a
role for our newspaper across a number of subjects, I
went up there about two weeks later and started to
scrounge around and look for different leads and new information
once the facts started to trickle in. So I ended
up over the course of before it moved. The case
was moved to Boise through a change venue that happened

(07:25):
in September last year, but I took six trips up
there and multiple day visits. And I also traveled to
Coberger's hometown in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, So that
was another trip I took. As well, you go where
the news takes you and where do you feel like
you can deploy your resources and be a benefit to
your community and your readership.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
So that's what we did.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Just from the logistics standpoint, it seemed like they were
all of a sudden, there was this line of activity
because this was a major story. What do you do
about like hotels or Airbnb? Would every motel room for
miles roa be sold out with all the media people
and other folks heading into town.

Speaker 7 (08:04):
I think that was a pretty big concern for the
community of Moscow. It's not a huge place. The city's
twenty five thousand people and the county is forty thousand,
and so I do know that some journalists were staying
just over the state line in Pullman, and there's obviously
a direct correlation and relationship between those two cities revolving
around this case, aside from the two sister college communities.

(08:26):
When there was this groundswall of regional and national reporters,
i'll use your word flooding in Yeah, most hotel rooms
were booked up. I traditionally when I travel, I try
to stay in Airbnb, and so I was able to
grab those ahead of court hearings and things like that. Yeah,
I remember it was a little difficult to get a
room in the first few weeks, and I think that's
in part why not only did it make sense, and

(08:47):
I'm not advocating one way or the other, but that
was a concern about whether or not the city of
Moscow could even handle if the trial did happen up there,
and so logistically speaking, it made a lot more sense
for Boise. That's where people fly in to Idaho for
the most part, and for all these witnesses we were
anticipating before a trial that now never happens, families coming
down and all that, and even the size of the courtroom.

(09:09):
It just made a lot of sense that Boise would
have handled that. The capital city rather than this tiny
place most people had never heard of before.

Speaker 6 (09:16):
For anybody who has not worked in journalism, tell us
a little bit about the process of when you actually
get out of the newsroom and go to a scene
to report a story. Where are you going? Were you
going to the King Road residence? Are you going to
the police station, to the university, to the court? Where
are you going? And how much time are you spending
on the ground versus how much time like back in

(09:37):
your airbnb writing up your stories.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Give us a little breakdown about that.

Speaker 7 (09:41):
When I would travel up there, I would split between
either flying directly to the Pullman Moscow Airport, which is
located right there in Pullman, or I flew into Spokane
once and drove in for the purposes of trying to
meet some sources. Also, that's that logistic. And I've also
driven back and forth as well. And it's a harry
road or a one landinga's direction, a lot of areas
with no guardrails in the winter.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
That's not ideal. That's outside of hope for you.

Speaker 7 (10:03):
In some regards, there is no newsroom once you are
out on the ground and three hundred miles north. But
so much is done anymore where we have virtual meetings
and we're on zoom right now.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
That's how a lot gets done.

Speaker 7 (10:15):
In terms of what I was doing on the ground, yes,
I spent more time than I can even think over,
maybe even want to remember, in front of that home
and meeting with there's a couple of neighboring apartment complexes,
just door knocking, that sort of thing. I did spend
time at the police station, meeting with the public information
officers for the police department and actually pure the incident too.

(10:35):
There was a basically a crisis level public information officer
who was shared from Idaho State Police and really had
to help the small department manage the level of media
and public inquiry about this case.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
It was I've used that word term overwhelming, but I'm
certain it was. So.

Speaker 7 (10:52):
Yeah, sometime at the police station, which is not that
far from the crime scene which that home got knocked
down in December of twenty three. But yeah, so time
there and just moving around the community at Moscow as
a smaller downtown area, and I was just talking with
regular folks too, man on the street kind of stuff
where I'd go to the local coffee shop and i'd
overhear somebody talking about it, or to ask the barista

(11:14):
kind of the impact on the community, those sorts of things.
You're moving around about the community, And yeah, I was
writing from the airbnb and filing stories and working through
edits and on the phone with my editors and making
sure we're all buttoned up and getting those stories out
as soon as we could. So that's a, I guess,
the short of it in terms of how we once
were on a scene trying to develop leads and sourcing

(11:35):
and all that, and then you're compiling at all and
shipping it off and getting it online.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
So who's coordinating the assignments is You're obviously an experienced
newspaper reporter. You've done a lot of writing for a
number of different papers around the country. You don't probably
need a lot of direction. It's gotta be a little
bit of a traffic jam. One of the things that
Kristin and I noticed is that in addition to your
which we've read numerous times, we've seen a number of

(12:04):
other reporters who also covered the story, who coordinate the
coverage so that if yours is the day to do
the man on the street interviews or go talk to
the baristas, and somebody else is going to be, let's say,
at Moscow PD, who is coordinating those schedules and handing
out the assignments.

Speaker 7 (12:23):
We work in a pretty modern newsroom, and so it's
more of a two way street. I know people are
probably familiar with movies where you've got some tough as
nails editors saying give me this by five o'clock for
that kind of thing, and that's not really you know
that there are neom that's newsrooms that certainly.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Still work like that, but we have pretty thoughtful editors.
It's a more holistic approach.

Speaker 7 (12:44):
And so while we might get assignments in the traditional sense,
it's often hey, see what you can figure out. We're thinking,
we want to talk to the police. We're looking for
answers to these types of questions. It's more direction like that.
And then I might go stick around and if I
get some great interview with a neighbor who happened to
hear something, which actually is something that happened, I'm going
back to my editors and saying, hey, I spoke to
this neighbor. He says he heard this. He typically sees this.

(13:07):
He was actually up at the time that police believe
this happened. They're like, great, put this together, and do
you think you can have it to us by three whatever?
And we're just trying to I guess triage to some extent.
You obviously have priorities and things like that. But I
can remember when I was up in Moscow and my
colleague Angela was there too. We'd either pair up on something,
or she might go to the police station or some

(13:27):
makeshift press conference and I might be on the other
side of town writing up the story or waiting for
her to phone in some information to me so I
can add it to the piece. It's highly collaborative, it's
very self directed, and it's, like I said, very holistic
in approach on how we do that here at the
Idaho Statesman.

Speaker 6 (13:45):
You know, three years is a long time to be
covering a story, especially a story that is it's very
much at the heart of this community and it is
very emotionally charged. Were there ever times when you had
difficulty kind of shutting off your emotion about it and
just reporting? How personal did this become for you? After

(14:05):
three years of doing this kind of end.

Speaker 7 (14:06):
Up reporting it's challenging work, certainly, I think I'm one
of these people who probably buries myself in work when
there's personal challenges or based around the content or subject matter.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
I don't recall.

Speaker 7 (14:19):
Specifically having any issues getting stories out. I know, what's
this headliner of a storyline for students, stab to death.
I think there's some distance there because you've got to
put your hard head on and go to work.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
To some extent.

Speaker 7 (14:35):
And it's not to say we become desensitized to these things,
but that's the job, and it's not the same as
being a first responder, but I can feel that way sometimes,
and there is trauma that you take in. There's a
lot more I think talk about that sort of thing
in journalism anymore to be aware and even I had
a conversation after the sentencing hearing last week with the
former police chief who came down for that hearing, and

(14:57):
we were talking about we had this moment together.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
It said, you've been on this for almost three years.

Speaker 7 (15:02):
Of course this is going to feel personal, and you're
also going to feel this trauma from these various communities,
whether it was Moscow or Pullman, or like I said,
the Pocono Mountains. When I went out to Coberger's in
the community where I grew up. You could sense it
there too, when it washed over them, and just the
shock that this incident from across the country had shown
up to their doorstep. But I don't recall anything as

(15:22):
far as an inability to put my fingers on the
keys or something like that. I will say that in
more recent weeks, and maybe in the last month, as
it became very real, as we were getting much closer
to the reality of a trial and emotions running high,
whether it was the families of the victims or there
were two roommates who survived this incident who were not
physically attacked. Seeing that up close and personal, including it

(15:43):
the sentencing hearing was just brutal and not something I
was really prepared for. But I'd say, besides that, it
was another day at work. But yeah, that has been
more challenging. And another example I would give you is
that the plea hearing, Ice by chance was seated right
behind Brian Coberger's parents, just crushing to watch them go
through them.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Oh well, could you hear them if they talked back
and forth.

Speaker 7 (16:08):
They were in the first row and kind of seated
directly to his right. Just that court set up is unique.
They may have whispered a few things to each other.
They were in the first row, I think I was
maybe in the second row and over to the left.
I think was how that worked out. I couldn't hear.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Them, but you could see them pretty clearly.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Yes, And my god, what must they be going through?

Speaker 3 (16:28):
Right?

Speaker 7 (16:29):
It was just they didn't have to say a word.
I didn't have to hear anything they said. You could
just see it.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
It was utter devastation in the room from the Coburger family.
That was his mother, father, and sister as well.

Speaker 7 (16:43):
So he has two older sisters. The father did not
attend sentencing. Instead it was the mother again, and then
one of his sisters attended as well. I was not
in the physically in the courtroom for the sentencing hearing,
which was my colleague Alex Brizzy, ar court reporter, because
seceeding was very tight. So she described very similar that
they were just broken up and sobbing at points, a

(17:03):
very charged room and incredibly emotional. And say what you will,
obviously about the defendant who has pleaded guilty to these
horrific murders. He still has family and they showed up
for him. And I don't want to say they faced
the music as well, but I think they in their
support of him just as a person and as a
loved one of theirs, they faced a significant brunt of
those emotions too.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, we talked about this on Mind over Murder last week.
I was shocked at how much online vitriol I saw
aimed at his family, and I said to Kristen, it's
one thing to be angry, furious, even wish death upon
someone like Brian Coberger, who's at this point admitted his

(17:45):
involvement in this horrible quadruple murder. I just don't get
the focus on his family. For example, I don't see
how you can blame his parents, or his sisters, or
anyone from the Coberger cl for what this.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Man has done. They're not responsible for any of this stuff.
Did you get a.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Sense of anger being directed towards the family or did
people mostly leave them alone?

Speaker 7 (18:14):
I think from the outside community, certainly the victims' family
members did not blame the Coburgers, and I don't think
there was correspondence or any level of communication those directions
the Coburgers very initially issued. The family issued a statement
through the public defender in Pennsylvania, and they asked for
privacy in this incredibly difficult time. They shared their deep

(18:37):
concerns and feelings for the victim's families, not knowing if
their son was involved or not. He was obviously arrested
and accused and subsequently charged and has now admitted that
it was him, but at the time they didn't know.
They were just confused. Their home had been raided by
the FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police at one point
thirty in the morning, and unbeknownst to them, they were

(18:57):
brought into the national spotlight over this too, So I
think largely they were left alone. I do know that
there was some paparazzi type media outlets that would end
up in their gated community and snap photos whenever they could,
which that's not the type of journalism, if you can
call that journalism. It's not the type of journalism we're
involved or invested in. We in fact go the other
way and try to be very respectful about these things.

(19:20):
I think again, early in from the public standpoint, there
were a lot of questions about what they may know
or what thoughts they might have had about whether or
not their son or brothers was capable of this. I
think that was more of the question. But yeah, the
vitriol is a good word. I think we see anonymous
accounts on Twitter or acts I guess now, and Facebook
and people having so many questions and their suspicions. They

(19:42):
must have known, right he drove back with his father
across the country in the vehicle that he had driven
to the home, and they must have talked about that
over the four day trip. Or how could they not
know because of his bizarre behavior at home where he's
separating his trash and wearing gloves. They must have known
that he was involved, And I think we've learned quite
the contrary.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
They had no.

Speaker 7 (20:00):
Idea and are emotionally devastated, as I mentioned having seen
them in the courtroom.

Speaker 6 (20:05):
I want to branch off, just real briefly to something
that you just mentioned.

Speaker 4 (20:08):
You were talking a little bit.

Speaker 6 (20:09):
About this concept of the paparazzi, which of course we're
all very familiar with. Also, in the last couple of years,
there have been these sort of new types of journalists
and I'm just going to do air quotes around them
because I'm not sure how to apply that term. But
you've got the rise of true crime influencers who have
tiktoks and YouTube channels and things like that. You also,
of course have podcasters like us, but I don't think

(20:32):
we take up that much space. A lot of these
influencers will sometimes come to crime scenes to report on
these crimes. Were there ever times when you found yourself
or your colleagues competing with them for attention or for space?
Tell us how you feel about this new breed of
true crime journalism that has arisen over the last couple
of years.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
When we use the term influencer, Yeah, I don't know
that they necessarily consider themselves journalists.

Speaker 7 (20:58):
And that's this idea that if everybody's a journalist, nobody's
a journalist.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
I think we used to refer to people like this
as bloggers, but that's.

Speaker 7 (21:06):
All modish maybe now anyway, I'm dating myself a little bit,
but yeah, even to the extent that's the judge down
here in Boise was not going to make decisions about
who was a journalist and who was not, and so
they reserved no seats. There was actually one towards the
end that they committed to a established news outlet out
of North Idaho. They were going to allow one guaranteed

(21:27):
seat and no others. They just treated everybody from the
public as the public, and so it was a scramble
to get in, including from sentencing and the plea hearing.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
So even for long time legitimate news sources like the
Idaho Statesman, there were no reserved seats.

Speaker 7 (21:43):
No, not even for the Associated Press Bureau chief here
in Boise.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
That was just how they chose to go about it.

Speaker 7 (21:49):
And for trial they were planning to do a lottery
systems like Ticketmaster.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
You got to get on it at noon each day
and click the button.

Speaker 7 (21:56):
And hope you get the email to guarantee your seat
for the next day, but never went into effect, and
so it became first come, first served, and it was
I spent part of an overnight ahead of the sense
in hearing because so many true crime folks, just people
who follow this and want to show up as if
it's a sporting event, and from across the country, they
flew in and waited in line overnight, and my colleagues
and I traded shifts so that we could ensure we

(22:17):
were able to secure one seat, and we weren't clear
how many seats there would even be. It is the
largest courtroom at the courthouse down here in Boise, but
we didn't know how many there would even be available
to the public because we weren't sure how many members
of the victim's families were going to be there.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
It was certainly a small number of seats.

Speaker 7 (22:32):
I want to say, maybe it was twenty five or
maybe up to thirty five or how many got in.
And media is here from across the country, and those
people saying, what do you mean we can't get in?
You know, what do you mean even at four m
if we show up, we don't have a not a
guaranteed seat, but the likelihood we would get in, and
so many people got to shut out. Yeah, in terms
of the I don't know the blogger, I'll just call
them it is rising the TikTokers. One actually is being

(22:53):
sued by a University of Idaho professor over the fact
that she claimed that she was involved in the incident,
and that's actually ongoing as a federal case.

Speaker 4 (23:00):
Wow, a defamation case.

Speaker 7 (23:02):
And she was a some sort of fortune teller and
claimed that through her tarot readings she knew that this
woman was responsible. And so there's an ongoing defamation case
here in Idaho over that Yeah, it's I think it
probably is a slow maybe not that slow, but a
winnowing a way of people understanding legitimate sources of information.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
That's how I think rumor was everywhere in this case.

Speaker 7 (23:25):
Part of that was that police kept things close to
the best and they weren't answering a lot of questions,
so then rumors developed.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
But yeah, they began to fill the space.

Speaker 7 (23:33):
Yeah, but this case I think is particularly unique in
that way. We really saw how social media can work
both directions in terms of the spreading of just outright falsehoods,
and a lot of people's names were sullied, and before
they caught Coberger, there were a lot of rumors about
who might be responsible, and all the internet sleuths were
looking at videos and different things like that, who's that

(23:55):
guy in the hoodie? And I don't like the way
that guy looked at them, what's he got going on?
And fall accusations. Ultimately that people's names were floated, And
I think that's what's lost with these types of things
is the vetting. It doesn't mean that these are I
don't carry some sort of identification card or certificate that
I'm an established journalist or something. But there is a practice,
and it is a profession, and there are ethics involved,

(24:18):
and all that goes out the window as far as
I've seen, and with people who claim to either be
journalists or want to be out on the ground and
make sure they're videotaping the police at the scene, and
what are they doing and riling people up about something
that's not reality.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
You're listening to mind over Murder. We'll be right back
after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at
mindover Murder. Was there ever a time during this case
where social media was helpful to you as opposed to
a hindrance.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 7 (24:53):
I was tracking this case very closely, and in fact,
many other people were too. There's a Facebook group that
developed specific to the case, and I would get ideas
from that. People would post something I hadn't considered yet.
So it certainly was a resource in many ways. And
I'm vetting things obviously, but there would be some new
document that somebody stumbled across because there were people committing
their lives to this case in many ways, and so

(25:14):
it's a crowdsource concept that was pretty useful. But I
could see what was out there, or I would even
see competitors' news stories that would get posted and I
would say, oh gosh, I got to jump on that,
or I've got something on that too, or I need
to make a phone call to check that and either
write a story that dispels whatever got published by somewhere
like People magazine, and they had a lot of stories
with rumors really and many things that were proven to

(25:35):
not be true. But in another example, we were the
first news outlet to publish a story about akbar knife
with something specific that police were searching for. Our opinion
editor actually was just tracking Twitter again acts. I guess
it was Twitter then, and somebody had posted in a
comments section on a story that had gone out from
the Idaho States and Twitter handle and it said, hey.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
You guys should check this out.

Speaker 7 (25:59):
I saw police in Moscow visiting these various retail stores.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
I wonder what they're looking for.

Speaker 7 (26:06):
Just with that little piece of information, I relaid that
up to Angela Parlinermo, who was up there are boots
on the ground at that time, and I said, hey,
go check out this hardware store or sporting good store,
whatever it was, and go see what police were asking
them about. And sure enough she went in. She spoke
to the general manager and he explained it. They asked
me about this specific brand of knife. They didn't sell

(26:26):
a k bar combat knife, and we don't sell it,
but I happen to know a lot about them, and
so he told her all about Oh yeah, they had
all these questions for us, and they came back more
than once to ask about and we were the first
to publish a story that identified the police were looking
for this specific type of knife. We later learned it's
because the leather sheath for this fixed played knife was
left at the crime scene and police didn't want to

(26:47):
talk about it then, but it was absolutely factual, and
we were the first publication in the country to have
any of that information out.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
How does law enforcement respond when a major newspaper liked
The Idaho Statesman runs a story like that, which is
maybe you're getting out in front of the story. How
do they respond?

Speaker 7 (27:07):
I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist here accent.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
In fact, Angela, that was the first.

Speaker 7 (27:14):
So when we reported that story, it was right before
the very first press conference that they were going to hold,
and that was three and a half days into this incident,
which the police chief even to this day, will tell
you he regrets that he didn't hold one sooner and
he took a ton of heat over it.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, and he opened that.

Speaker 7 (27:27):
The press conference saying, I probably should have been here
a day ago, but I'm here now. And that was
his answer. But I've talked to him several times. He's
a real good guy. He's That was one of my
first missteps, and I've learned from it, and that was
a mistake. The conspiracy theorist in me believes that they
intentionally shut my colleague out of that press conference initially
really because we had just reported the story and she

(27:48):
would have been the one to ask, Hey, we were
around the corner and the general manager, and it never
got asked because she was told that it was all
full and we could even see on the live stream
that there were open seats.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Wow, So she got the straight arm.

Speaker 4 (28:03):
Yeah again, and it's a conspiracy.

Speaker 7 (28:05):
They did eventually let her in, but we had to
contact the university to say they're not letting us in.

Speaker 4 (28:09):
This is unbelievable.

Speaker 7 (28:10):
And she got in but then didn't get an opportunity
to ask a question.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
But I think we're generally, universally, I don't think.

Speaker 7 (28:17):
Law Enforcement was thrilled that we had that information, and
when we went back to them later on to ask, hey,
you didn't want to respond specifically to the idea that
it was a k bar and that you were sending
your officers to these various businesses locally to see if
they'd sold this particular type of weapon.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
And even then I.

Speaker 7 (28:34):
Was told by the public Information officer, we don't know
that it was specific to that brand, and we were
asking about a group of knives.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
And now we all know that's that was not true.
It was totally untrue.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
The cover which we've seen, the sheath we've seen pictures
of which very clearly for a specific kind of knife,
but they didn't want to admit any of that at
that point.

Speaker 7 (28:56):
No, even that was mid December, I think by the
time I had that conversation, so that I would have
been even a month later, and they didn't want to
acknowledge that they were looking at a specific brand. We
knew it was a I think the corner put out
information it was a large fixed blade knife, but I
don't think they were too committed to the brand at
that time. And then all of that came out when
the probable cause affidata for Cobroger's arrest was released in

(29:18):
early January, and of course we knew we had nailed it.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
Speaking of that document, a number of people, ourselves included,
were aware of the fact that they were using investigative
genetic genealogy, and we knew the people that behind the
scenes that were doing the work. Were you struck by
the fact that the probable cause document did not contain
any reference to the fact that they were using investigative

(29:43):
genetic genealogy.

Speaker 7 (29:45):
I should have been calling you, guys, because it sounds
like you had the sourcing we did.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
We did.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
We did not say anything.

Speaker 6 (29:52):
Yeah, we didn't say anything about it on the POD,
but we had it quite in advance.

Speaker 4 (29:56):
Was this off from the U, Yes, it was.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yes, They've done a lot of work with us and gotcha. Yeah,
so we knew a lot about what was going on
inside certain aspects of the investigation.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
Sure it was not.

Speaker 7 (30:10):
It was beyond rumor that this had happened and they
were using this advanced technique or technology, whatever you want
to consider it. And Slate was actually the first one
to put a story out about this.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
I remember it.

Speaker 7 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, I'm failing to recall a writer's name, but
it's it was a beautiful piece, and it was like dang,
like how did they get this? New York Times wrote
a piece to my my friend Mike Baker, who we
went toe to toe over the course of all this.
He's an amazing reporter, and he had some reference to it,
I think early in as well.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
But we just couldn't get it.

Speaker 7 (30:40):
We couldn't verify it, and sure we could cite news outlets.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Or whatever, but we just we couldn't get it. I
couldn't figure out a way into the FBI.

Speaker 7 (30:47):
I just don't have anonymous FBI sourcing an offer wasn't
talking and their name didn't even float out too early
into it, and then it was still months.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
It was six or seven months, if I'm recalling correctly.

Speaker 7 (30:58):
Before the prosecution during the legal proceedings, acknowledged that this
was the initial way in which law enforcement landed on them,
and this of course set off this huge constitutional question
and coming on this very closely, is this legitimate? And
Edwarder's defense team made a lot of hay out of it,
but it eventually was thrown out as being a constitutional
rights issue.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
Didn't mean they weren't going to try so.

Speaker 7 (31:20):
In terms of not having been in the Problem Cause Affidavid,
it was confusing. I came to learn over the course
of my reporting that they weren't put in everything they
have into avitical content.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
It's not a full laundry list of everything they've worked on.

Speaker 7 (31:35):
They're putting what they need to in order to justify
the arrest that was understood.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
I think not putting it in there is it disingenuous?

Speaker 7 (31:43):
I don't know, but I think once you knew that
it was absent from it, you could read the document
and better understand. But it was a little bit of
a leap logically to understand how they went from hey,
we have this vehicle to suddenly we've got the phone,
to suddenly we've got these other elements and the DNA connection.
But it was like something's missing here, Yeah, they were.
It was once you knew it was absent, you knew

(32:03):
exactly how this all this all came down. But again
it wasn't for seven months later, as the defense sought
all these records through discovery, through the FBI offering and
so forth through the state, we had.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
No confirmation until that finally came out, and then.

Speaker 7 (32:18):
The Problem Cause effidated was maybe a little confusing, but
it didn't rattle me at the time, but certainly it
was like the absence of a key detail is in there,
and it was important that. I think the prosecution acknowledge
eventually that it was the initial way that they had
heard his name, and then they reverse engineered the investigation
to figure out where he was and where his car was,
et cetera.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Even now in the past two weeks, I think the
skipping of certain key steps in the probable cause document
to this day I think creates confusion because there were
all of these logical leaps involved with the We identified
the car, and we saw the white Hyundai, and then

(33:00):
it was the wrong year. They were glossing over really
essential developments that had taken place. In my opinion, and
offrm's never confirmed this, but I probably could get them
to say it now. I think it was DNA first car. Second,
Even to this day, I see reporting that with your

(33:21):
name on it, that it seems to indicate that the
Hyundai Elantra, the white car which showed up in various
videos shot around town.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
That's key.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
I actually think they already knew who he was before.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
They started looking at the car, but I think.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
That there was a lot of confusion, which remains part
of the mix to this day.

Speaker 7 (33:44):
Yeah, the way that worked, Washington State University campus police
went and looked at all the vehicles that were permitted
by the university, and his happened to be one of them,
and so he was thrown onto a list that would
have been reviewed again later.

Speaker 4 (33:58):
So there was one off her who was looking at
this in a computer.

Speaker 7 (34:03):
There was one officer separately and I think unaffiliated with
what that officer had done the first one. The second
one was just moving around campus for student parking permits
and also came across that vehicle. What's interesting is that
Moscow police had initially issued a be on the lookout
at Bolo for a white hon Dai a launtra years
twenty eleven to twenty thirteen Brian Coberger's cars at twenty fifteen,

(34:26):
and Moscow Police never and what they asked for were
any tips, just send them in.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
We want to look at all these vehicles.

Speaker 7 (34:32):
We're going through vehicle registration in three or four different states,
and there were tens of thousands of these vehicles, a
pretty common vehicle, which again from all yeah, from the
aspect of Brian Coberger's mind is one of the chances
they're going to be able to pick this one. I'm
sure that's people think he was such a fool because
he drove his own vehicle, and I hear you, but
it was a pretty common vehicle. So anyway, Coberger does

(34:54):
end up on some sort of list. But the Washington
the Poland Police off chief who now works for Washington
University in the same role, he had mentioned that they
had noticed this vehicle and it didn't get submitted to
Moscow because it was outside of the year range that
they had requested. So even talking with former Moscow Police
Chief James Fry, I said, you never to the public

(35:15):
corrected that date, and the FBI analysts did determine that
the vehicle models were similar between eleven and sixteen.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yeah, it didn't change very much. It's just changed the
little tail lights and stuff like that.

Speaker 7 (35:28):
Yeah, but it was very minor, and so they made
a revision later on internally, but they never actually communicated
that to the public. And so the fact that his
ended up being a twenty fifteen, the defense pointed that out.

Speaker 4 (35:37):
He doesn't even drive the very vehicle.

Speaker 7 (35:39):
That law enforcement initially thought it was, but they had
revised that date range, but they just never told the public.
So I think that's where you get some of the
vehicle misunderstandings.

Speaker 4 (35:48):
As far as what they quote unquote found first, absolutely not.

Speaker 7 (35:51):
It definitely was confirmed later on by the prosecution that
without the use of IgG and the quote unquote tip
that the FBI sent to local and state law enforcement,
they didn't have his name. They weren't looking at him,
and they didn't have that name until December nineteenth. And
this also just very quickly, this created a lot of
conspiracy theories about the FBI tracking him across the country

(36:13):
as he drove from Pulman to people over the mountains
with his dad, and they were saying he got stopped
twice within a ten minute window in Indiana.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
What are the chances?

Speaker 7 (36:20):
I followed that story and tried to dispel that room,
and repeatedly the FBI told me, and they were under
a gaggler. They said, we're going to speak to this
because we need to dispel this room. Or we had
no idea who he was. We absolutely were not tracking him.
Local law enforcement wouldn't let him leave town if they
knew who he was. At that time, I've heard the
investigator say that. And so they weren't not familiar with
him until December nineteenth because of a part that work

(36:41):
done by Authorm and then the FBI on the IgG
and then that's when they started surveilling him not long
after in Pennsylvania. But they had no idea his name
at that time, and so that's a bunch of whoy.
It was a drug interdiction stop back to back, and
they were just checking on who he was because he
had an out of site plate was tape plate, and
that was why it People who believe it.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
I seem really strange at the time, especially the two
traffic steps minutes apart. You started to think to yourself,
could this be deliberate? Are they hassling him or are
they letting him know that he's on their radar?

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Or what might it be? And it really does sound
like it could be a coincidence.

Speaker 7 (37:19):
Yeah, it was, And I think Bill Thompson, the prosecutor,
actually in an interview with The New York Times last week,
he reiterated that it was The phrase he used was
totally coincidental.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Let's talk about the plea deal and the sentencing that
all seemed to us to happen very fast. You, along
with a lot of other people, were preparing for a
trial and then all of a sudden, we get this
plea deal.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Did that come as a surprise one percent?

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (37:47):
I've gotten to know a lot of the sort of
national journalists who have been covering this case as a
result of this, so that's been interesting. They're coming to
my home state and we interact and I've got to
know these people. And Brian Atton, who works for News Nation,
was the first to release the information. He posted on
Twitter that a plea deal had been struck. He had
good sourcing that we didn't and we had to scramble.

(38:08):
And this is a it brings me full circle to
some extent. But I happened to be in Denver trying
to travel for vacation as we were prepping for this
trial and what we expected to be fourteen hour days
for three months. I started getting text messages there's been
a plea deal. There's been a plea deal. I had
actually had a conversation with Brianett and we were texting
just in.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
The days before that, and he said, I'm starting to
get this feeling.

Speaker 7 (38:30):
And he covers these big national crime cases, and he said,
I just have a feel and something's coming.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
And I'm like, you're crazy. Is there no way?

Speaker 7 (38:37):
What plea deal could they possibly strike? Why would he
admit to this stuff. He's been fighting this for two
and a half years. And the death penalty, whatever your
perspective is on at each and every person on that.
So that ended up being the chip that they were
able to spend in order to move the ball forward.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
To mix some analogies. Yeah, we really had no idea
about this.

Speaker 7 (38:55):
And so I'm back in Denver, I'm getting all these
text messages and I immediately called my editor and I said,
I think this has happened. I think we have to
get on this. And there was no confirmation. There's a
gag order in place. It's not like you can call
the prosecutor or the defense and say, hey, what's the deal.
And so my colleague Alex Brizzy was able to get
one of the parents and one of the victims on
the phone, and they actually on the phone were opening

(39:15):
their email and realizing that this had been sent to them.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Oh my, oh okay.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
The prosecution had sent them a letter informing them that
this had been done.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
And they hadn't even looked at that email yet.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
Wow, they had not.

Speaker 7 (39:28):
They had sat at a meeting I think in the
days prior understanding that this was the direction that it
appeared that it would be going.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
How would you feel about that?

Speaker 7 (39:35):
Basically they were pulling the room to some extent, but
he but parent had not yet actually looked at their
email to see this. And then they read it to
my colleague and sent a copy of it to us
so we could verify.

Speaker 4 (39:47):
And that was what we needed in order to move forward.

Speaker 7 (39:50):
And I think we were the fourth to publish a
story about it, but I know we were in the
early group to receive one of these letters to confirm it.
And then the hearing was scheduled just two days later,
and before I it, I was already scheduled to travel back,
but I'm lucky, I had my flight already booked, and
I'm handling breaking news, a scramble to get this huge
piece of information out, and then it was like I'm
back in voicing tomorrow and the hearings on Wednesday, and

(40:12):
it was a whirlwind. And suddenly you're sitting next to
Brian Coberger's parents and watching this whole thing unfold it
was absolutely crazy.

Speaker 6 (40:18):
I know that the big question that was on everybody's
mind prior to the sentencing, is he going to allocute?
I think everybody was hoping for it, and we knew
that ultimately that was not the outcome. Judge Hipler said
something that I thought was really very insightful, and I
liked that he said it. He said that the more
that we asked the why, the more agency that we
give him.

Speaker 4 (40:39):
But I still think that there are plenty of people
who wanted to know.

Speaker 6 (40:42):
Were you hoping that Brian Coburger was going to allocute
on the stand? What would your response have been if
he actually got up there and sang like the proverbial canary.

Speaker 7 (40:52):
Certainly, there are so many underanswered questions in this case,
and the only person who knows that the answer is
just Bran Coberg. And whether or not he will ever
talk or he's a pretty educated person. I've never spoken
to him directly, obviously, but maybe he'll write a book
one day that's definitely part of the theory, or he'll
work with as former professor doctor Katherine Ramsland, a well
known forensic psychologist. Yeah, maybe there's been talking, and she's

(41:16):
even said I want to study him if he would permit,
so maybe we'll see something like that's come to fruition.
My girlfriend is an attorney and knows the legal process
pretty well, and she said there's no way.

Speaker 4 (41:26):
There's just no way he's going to do it.

Speaker 7 (41:28):
I think there were a lot of questions about whether
or not it could be required, and I think Judge
Hiler spoke specifically to that. He did, there's no ability
for me to require this, and even President Trump weighed
in but didn't seem to understand that life in prisons
is not great, so death penalty isn't good either, but
he should be required if he's going to broke her
this deal to have to give this information up. Prosecutor

(41:49):
Bill Thompson felt the same way in defending his decision
that who.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Would even believe this guy?

Speaker 7 (41:53):
At that point, we're all at the end of a
yo yo and Brian Koberger is in control, and I
think they wanted to remove belief that we were all
waiting on pins and needles for him to say something.
So I did not anticipate him saying anything. I think
I respectfully declined was what a way to close your
own chapter? No, I did not anticipate he would say anything.

(42:14):
I was told what could he gain. I know that
he was sentenced to the max and that was always
almost certainly going to be where Judge Hippert went with
his sentence, and he was a little boxed in on
what he could or couldn't do in terms of the
sentencing for first degree murder in the state and based
on the agreed upon elements of the deal. I did
not anticipate he would speak, and it's just not been
his style. He didn't. He stood silent, so to speak.

(42:36):
When when he was asked inter a plea up in
Marcow initially, which was very striking, he didn't even talk.
That the only things I've ever heard Brian Koberger say audibly,
and he would whisper back and forth with his attorneys
from time to time, but absolutely was one word I remember,
and that was when he was asked if he wanted
to waive his speedy trial. He didn't say yes, he
said absolutely, and I thought that was very bizarre. And

(42:57):
then obviously when he answered a firmative about the murders,
and also when he entered his clee if guilty for
each of those, we've not really publicly heard his voice
outside of some of the things from prior recordings, like
in his early days in his attempt to start a
rap career, which.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
I knew.

Speaker 7 (43:14):
People following the case know what I'm referencing, But yeah,
he recorded a rap.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
Song one time when he was a kid or something.
So yeah, we really have not heard much in the.

Speaker 7 (43:21):
Way of his voice, and I did not anticipate it
for the hearing, even though we all wanted it.

Speaker 6 (43:25):
So the other unanswered questions that you had talked about,
in addition to why did he do it, was who
exactly was on his radar? Like which victim was he
out to get? And I note that has not been established.
The Moscow Pities said they have not been able to
find any link between him and the other victims. Was

(43:47):
there any sort of rumor or word on the street
that you heard in all your reporting about how he
might have known them or how he might have met them,
or has that still been a consistently unanswered.

Speaker 7 (43:58):
Questioning if there even is one between Coburger and the
four victims, has never been established. And there was a
press conference and a Q and a session immediately following sentencing,
and one of the lead detectives described exactly that we
all want a motive, we all want an understanding of
how they cross paths and all these things. But it's
important as a police narrative and part of prosecutions and

(44:21):
explaining to juries how this could have happened and why
this person was responsible. He's plaining we all look for
those sorts of things. We just have not been able
to come across it. There's no social media connection, and
all these rumors that came out, none of that's true.
There is a new book from James Patterson and Vicky
Ward that's funny.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
I saw in the bookstore today.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (44:43):
In order to basically shoehorn a theory that's out there
into the book, they did something pretty creative. They spoke
to one of the close friends of some of the
victims and she was actually one of the first people
to arrive at the home on the call of one
of the surviving roommates, and she didn't see the bodies,
but her boyfriend did. And she also spoke that she
gave a victim impact statement on behalf of the other
roommate at the sense of hearing. But in the book

(45:06):
there's a short chapter about how she's had a dream
that Brian Coberger met Madison Mogan the Mad Greek restaurant
where Maddy and Nha, where Maddie and Xana worked, and
lead detective was asked that exact question and he said,
we don't believe that to be true.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
We don't.

Speaker 7 (45:21):
And again, this was like this dream phase that they
include in the book in order to hit that and
be responsible to some extent as journalists, even though I
questioned the use of that. But that's neither here nor there.
Dreams are not facts. Let's just make sure everybody on
the podcast knows that. No, but the investigator did say,
we can't definitively say that he never ateed the Mad
Greek restaurant, which was one of the few places that
had vegan options in Coberger is known as a vegan,

(45:44):
so that but that also makes the presumption that Madison
Mogan was the target. What I have learned, however, is
in speaking with Prosecutor Bill Thompson now at the gaggler
has dropped. I just spoke to him on Monday. It's
Wednesday or Thursday today, losing track. I just spoke with
him and he told me that his per belief. He
also shared this with ABC so I'm not breaking news here.
He said that it is his personal belief that Madison

(46:05):
Mogin or Kaylee Canslves was Coberger's target, and the basis
for that for investigators is that they believe Coberger immediately
went upstairs to the third floor.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
Ye.

Speaker 7 (46:16):
Steve Cansolve is the father of Kaylee Cansolves. He's been
in a lot of news and used his platform. He
has long said that he believed that the girls upstairs
were the target for the same reason that he didn't
need to go upstairs first.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
That was his point, So that would suggest what the
intent was.

Speaker 7 (46:34):
But even today Bill Thompson isn't clear on which young woman.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
And they still don't even know the order of the victims.

Speaker 7 (46:41):
They again, they have some theories, they have pretty good
idea based on timing and so forth, but they don't
even really know the order. Another one of these mysteries
tied to this case that they never be known.

Speaker 6 (46:51):
Well, Kaylee wasn't even supposed to be there that night,
so I'm wondering if it was. I feel like by
process of elimination, it would have to be Maddie.

Speaker 7 (47:00):
And that's again good context clues and christ and you're
obviously following the case.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
Yeah, she already moved out.

Speaker 7 (47:06):
Kaylee and the three young women are from North Idaho,
and so she drove about an hour down for the
last football game, the last home football game the Vandals there.
And she had also bought a range Rover that she
was showing off to ride.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
She was shown a new car.

Speaker 4 (47:20):
Yeah, so she was.

Speaker 7 (47:20):
And it was a big party weekend, and she wanted
to basically say goodbye to her friends because she was
leaving for a job in Austin, Texas was the intent.
And so she was graduating at the semester mark so early.
And yeah, she wasn't even supposed to be there. There's
lots of talk about why the home was targeted. Perhaps
and even investigator said that that post sentencing press conference

(47:42):
that it could have been just a random choice that
night to that extent, that it could have been a
hiding and plain sight concept that a lot of foot
traffic in that area. It's a Greek road runoff, and
the juniors and seniors live in that little neighborhood. And
he may have just a crime of opportunity, or he
may have been stalking the victims or stalking the house.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
We really don't know a lot.

Speaker 7 (48:02):
Of presumptions and phone pings and different things like that,
but in terms of the rationale or the reason, if
we can think of it that way, we really don't know. Kevin.

Speaker 6 (48:10):
One last question, now that the case has been adjudicated,
to talk to us a little bit about how you
feel it has changed the community, if not the whole
entire state. Obviously, this took place in two communities Musco.

Speaker 4 (48:24):
Must Go Musco.

Speaker 6 (48:25):
Yeah, it took place in two communities, must Go in Boise,
and it's obviously had wide ranging media coverage. How do
you feel this case has just affected everybody in and
around Idaho.

Speaker 7 (48:36):
You couldn't really go anywhere without this coming up.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
And maybe that's my unique.

Speaker 7 (48:41):
Experience because I'm so involved in the case, and so
if you meet people casually at a party, everybody wants
to know what you do obviously, And then, oh, do
you track any interesting cases? I said, probably the one
you're really following. Yeah, in terms of impacts, gosh, look,
the President weight in on this. Our governor issued a
statement immediately following everybody has connections to the University of

(49:02):
Idaho in this state, whether it's they attended it themselves,
or family, or there's even that's the only school with
a law school in our state, and they have two
campuses and ones down here in Boise. It stretches the
entirety of the state and they have a lot of
at least Idaho famous alums and things like that. So
everybody was affected by this, and just geographically it struck

(49:23):
the region so hard, and Moscow obviously loaned out the
case if you want to think about it that way
down here at Boise. Even logistically, it was a nightmare
across the state. So it has affected everybody. And again,
you don't intend to become desensitized to these things, but
it hits you right in the face when it's in
front of you in terms of actually starting to think
about trial and attending these hearings that are so emotional,

(49:45):
and people were tuned in across the country and even
across the state. They were interested, they were curious. It's
just such a confusing case with still again so many
unanswered questions, and so people were following it and tracking it,
and they were invested and they wanted to see how
this would play out. They all heard the roommate give
the victim impact statements, and we were all just gutted.

(50:08):
So in terms of I guess how we all move
forward as a state and as those primarily Moscow is
what we think about in the victims' families. Of course,
this is something that's going to be a part of
the community's history, the state's history forever.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
It's not going anywhere.

Speaker 7 (50:24):
We can turn the page toward greater healing because there's
some finality to it, and we know he'll spend the
rest of his life and die in prison.

Speaker 4 (50:32):
But there's no way to ignore that this happened to
this community.

Speaker 7 (50:34):
That those lives were lost, and it affected the university significantly.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
It affected campus life.

Speaker 7 (50:41):
And feelings of safety and the things that we hold
near and dear to the college experience. It affected Pullman,
it affected Albright still, Pennsylvania, affected a lot of people,
and his family included. And I think we're still it's
still so fresh, and I've talked to some of the
key people who were involved in the case. I think
slowly things or I guess we're turning to more of

(51:02):
a normal, but even then, it's still there's impacts long lasting,
and I think we're just coming out of it and
trying to find our way a little bit. I'm grateful
selfishly that I don't have to attend a three month
trial again for fourteen hour days. That would have been
quite an experience and I think grueling in many ways.
Obviously that's not important in the grand scheme of things,
but I think the community is somewhat grateful that we

(51:24):
don't have the gigantic media circus in front of the
courthouse every day and we can all go forward living
our lives best we can after this traumatic incident.

Speaker 6 (51:32):
Kevin, it has been a pleasure talking. Thank you for
taking time out of what I'm sure has been an
exhausting summer to spend time with us.

Speaker 4 (51:40):
We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, thanks again for thinking
of us and for having me.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
It was great.

Speaker 6 (51:45):
That is going to do it for this episode of
Mind Ever Murdered. Thank you so much for listening. We'll
see you next time.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Our theme music is by Kevin McCloud.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
murders on Facebook.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Five six.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder

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